Rejuvenation in Santa Barbara

One of my earliest trips in California, once I moved to Los Angeles, was to Santa Barbara. It was circa 1982, and I drove up with a visiting friend. Or my cousin Angela. Wow, so much time has passed that I am not sure with whom I had my first visit. But this I do remember, if I thought the vista that greeted me upon exiting the 10 freeway to the Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica was spectacular, I felt I needed an even better word to describe the main drag along the ocean in Santa Barbara. It was the first time that I ever  saw mountains in the distance which were actually purple in the sunlight, experiencing personally the line from America the Beautiful, "Purple mountains majesty". 

I have been trying to find some photos from that time, that I know I have, and was largely unsuccessful. I offer one that probably was taken around that time in Santa Monica, rather than Santa Barbara, though I am not 100 percent sure it wasn't Santa Barbara. That was me, the Djinn, in my 20s. Young people, don't blink, because life truly passes that fast. 

Any chance I can I have returned to Santa Barbara for visits. I'd drive up there with friends. We'd dine at one of the many places along Shoreline, or Stearns Wharf, or inland a bit. I very briefly dated a guy who lived in Ventura, and at least once, we spent a day in Santa Barbara, and browsed a bookshop, long gone now. I may not remember the person with whom I made my first Santa Barbara visit, for certain, but I do recall the name of the bookshop, The Earthling. It lasted until the late 1990s, driven out of business by larger brick and mortar giants. For many years, a friend whom I met at my old job at the State Bar, had parents who lived in a marvelous home next to a major hillside in Santa Barbara. When Carol, my friend, visited from the East, I would come up and spend a day or two. When her mother died in 2024, her father having done so a few years earlier, the family, scattered through the nation, sold the home. When I attended her mother's funeral, I stayed in a hotel along the Shoreline and one night, leaving family to grieve, I spent time at a small wine tasting shop, then on the Wharf, and watched the sun go down and the birds frolic, and thanked the stars and God for this taste of Paradise.

This year was a new take on the delight that is visiting Carol in Santa Barbara. She rented a home for a month along Shoreline Drive that looks out at the Pacific and the paths that folks bicycle and walk their dogs and with their kids. I got to be the first visitor, for most of two days and a night. I provide for your viewing pleasure the realtor shots for those who rent and for those who might buy. I never got to the back yard, too entranced with the front!

The drive up there was interesting this time around, a WAZE extravaganza of curving roads, the 126 and the 150, that made the trip three hours rather than the usual one and a half. I didn't check, but maybe there was something going on along the 101 that made the detour necessary. I wasn't in a rush, so I abided by the instructions, and enjoyed some different green vistas, courtesy of the deluge California received months prior to my drive. It was a visual adventure. Once I arrived to the villa, for that really is what it was, Carol and I absented ourselves so that the realtor could do a spontaneous showing for a potential six month renter. That meant lunch at a Santa Barbara Mexican restaurant in a small house like building. I was not driving this time. I had a massive Margarita, and Carol and I caught up, though alas, I am guilty of having done too much talking, being in an expansive, manic phase. 

Then shopping at a local Gelson's, a million times larger than mine in Weho, to get provisions for us and for the guests to come. It was an impulse buyer's dream space. 

Back at the house, we sat outside and watched the people strolling and playing and the dogs cavorting and pooping (happily everyone had the little pick up baggies and used them). Birds flitted, the small hummers and the ones I never recognize. To say "heavenly" would be to wildly understate the feeling. It has been a difficult few months for me, perhaps partially self-inflicted as a result of my tendency to ruminate over every task I attend to in my life--tasks that are not really commensurate with the official status of being "retired".  So this short visit was like winning a sweepstake or a prize on the Price is Right. It was visually and socially and emotionally satisfying. 

My friend Carol calling her soon to be other visitors and her home decorator 
(in Illinois where the temperatures are freezing!)

Dinner was at the newly renovated Harbor Restaurant at the Pier, right on the water. And dessert was on the terrace of Carol's master bedroom, accompanied by candles and a glass of Proseco. It really does not get better than this, and I have cherished every locale (well beyond Santa Barbara, here in Los Angeles, or in the East in good weather, like New York and New England where I could sit with a good friend or two and absorb the camaraderie). 

In the morning, I had two cups of Peets French Roast and that same terrace above, while Carol dressed and we considered where lunch (before I took off back to the inland) would be (Jennine's--what a terrific place!). I said the Rosary of Our Lady of Sorrows, which I do daily, and I admit that the sun and breeze and birds and ocean kept my mood light and thankful for the God who created this majesty. 

I was rejuvenated. Fortified. Thankful. 

Late in the afternoon, I returned to my little terrace, with a corner view toward Sunset Boulevard and the pool below. And of course, the hummingbirds that to me are just another proof of God. I really can't complain. This is good, too. My little patch of paradise. 

Thoughts Regarding Lyndon Larouche by Constantine Gochis

Yep, I am back to rummaging through my father's short (short) stories. It all happened because after a zoom meeting over one of my still lingering projects, I had the sudden urge to reorganize the many drawers in my living room and library, formerly known as the dining room. I moved dad's stories from one in the living room to one in the "library" and pulled one for this blog. The observations hark back to decades ago, ancient history, stuff that the denizens of the Z or whatever generation it is who claim uber knowledge of the universe actually have none at all. 

Here goes:

The table in front of Lucky's Supermarket was full of pamphlets and other literature. I caught the headline of a newspaper called the "Federalist".  It propounded the cacophony of the day to the world:

"Al GORE, PRINCE PHILIP AND THE DARK NEW AGE.  Further down, another revelation: CAUGT IN NEW PLOT! IMPEACH GORE FOR BRIBERY!

A comely young lady stopped me. There were petitions to be signed.

She was young and slim, her hair cut in an attractive boyish style.  Beauty is always a reason to stop and remember more important things.

"I see Lyndon is back," I offered. 

"He was never gone," she countered.  She had the air of an acolyte.

"Where has he been hiding?" I asked.

"He wasn't hiding.  He was in jail."

"For what?" I pursued.

"For tax evasion," she said with a cryptic smile.

This is a grievous sin, I thought. It occurred to me that Al Capone, who is reputed to have murdered more than a hundred men--several with his personal application of a baseball bat--was never chastised for those sins.  He finally came under the inexorable fist of justice when he failed to pay his taxes. Forever are the ironies of the law.

A handwritten logo appended to the front of the table implored:  SAVE US FROM AL GORE!"

"Is Lyndon now a Republican?" I asked.

"No, he is for justice.  He wants to save the country.  He is a saviour.  True, the Republicans want the President impeached for Al to take over. . . ."

I laughed.  If there is any terror to inspire Republicans with ear, it is the spectre of the wooden Al in the Oval Office.

"The Republicans would more readily accept Diane Watson," I suggested.

"Al Gore is in a conspiracy with Newt Gingrich," she retorted.

There has to be a time when pure pity calls for drawing a line. Newt was buried under a 50 million dollar demonization, a propaganda campaign. Saint Francis of Assisi could not have withstood such a campaign. How much more sh--t could be piled on the hapless ex-Speaker of the House?

If there is any possible sharing of a community mattress, it is more likely Gingrich was victim of the devastating Clinton charm, and perhaps a few unsubtle reminders of some peccadilloes that might be in one of those sequestered, legendary FBI files.

If ever there was a Republican appeaser of the master, it was Gingrich. He arrived, like a lion, a veritable Savanarola of revolution, and departed a meek lamb. Perhaps he even got an advance copy of "Hustler" as a cautionary bit of advice.

"Gingrich and Gore!" I said.  "That's the funniest I ever heard!"

"What's funny?" she replied.

"The idea that Al Gore has the capacity to participate in a complex conspiracy for a ventriloquist dummy.

"He's a willing dupe.  There's no limit to which they will go," she insisted.

"Who will go?" I asked.

"Them. They killed Kennedy. And King. And Bobby. They get their money from Armand Hammer's loot, you know, the financier and oil man who was a tool of Stalin, and a favorite of American Intelligentsia."

It occurred to me that she had a strange collction of saints and sinners.  They not only crossed party lines; they crossed international longitudes.  I suppose when a new god is being created, there have to be pantheons and infernos. Good guys and bad ones. There has to be a melange of new enemies, new evil financiers, and the apotheosis of a new leader, a Duce or a Fuhrer.

"Here," she said, handing me a copy of the Federalist. "Read all about us yourself.  A subscription is only twenty dollars."

I accepted the proffer. I am curious.  It is always interesting to read about the creation of another Olympian. 

There is a fascination in the formation of human robots to evangelize with the new apocrypha, new gospels hidden heretofore by the Corporations, the in priesthoods, and kept from 'we the people'.

I love when that phrase is used and the user includes himself in the plural expression of a democratic royal, "We".

She offered me a pen and held a petition for me to sign. I did not want to discourage her manifest honest zeal. 

"Let me read this copy of your newspaper," I offered as an excuse to deflect. "I need a little time."

"Here," she said, handing me a copy of an advisory of a meeting. 

It spoke of a "Shiller Institute".  

'FINANCIAL CRASH HITS MEXICO, BRAZIL, THE USA! TOWN MEETING, SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1:30 P.M."

I noticed that the leaflet mentioned something about a projection room. Was it only a movie? Would Lyndon appear? There are so manystellar leaders who never do appear. For example, one may ask about the guy who founded Scientology, or Jimmy Hoffa.

"I don't know," she said.

I shook her hand. 

The bus was crowded as I wended my way home. A little man was handing out a slip of paper with an important message. "God So Loved the World".

Stamped in fading red print was the name of the sponsors of the printed message, Iglesia De Cristo, the name of the local holy place.

It warned, in part:  "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for the meat which endurate unto everlasting life. . ."

Now there's a message with a little flesh on it.