And now I coming to you live from the Coffee Bean and Tea leaf at 7 in the morning in the morning via City Wi Fi which is unsecured free and. And I still feel that time warp idea that America is still a little backward, I mean the cafe is playing the soundtrack of my old life, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan have all been on in quick succession, oh and here come the Mamas and the
Papas, 'the darkest hour is just before dawn...'. Yesterday, Santa Monica morning started great, fresh coffee and then the farmers market on 3rd Street, for fresh strawberries which tasted nothing like the bland supermarket ones we get in the UK. The we walked up the coast to Venice Beach. This is a picture of that famous area, just up from Santa Monica and goodness what a dump it is now compared to the last time I saw it - then again, maybe its always been this tacky and I just never noticed as I bought my cheap t-shirts (this time I relented). Its been a long time since I have been in California. I started by making The Storykeepers films and ended as 'visiting professor' at the University of Southern California, down in Anaheim, Orange CountySouthern LA and that was a load of fun. What I especially remember (apart from writing my first academic book in the library there) was the Mexican wedding I was invited to. I met Jorge on the bus to the university, where he was studying to be an accountant. He said he was surprised to sit beside me on the way home one night (it was about 9.30pm and I had been in the library all day), because I was the only non-hispanic person on the bus. I hadn't thought about it and actually I thought that was an urban myth. Anyway as coincidence would have it, Jorge and I lived around the same pool (in a small housing complex, where he worked as the caretaker) and so after dropping in for some provisions and beer on the way home (Trapper Joes, I think, do they still have those) we bumped into each other a lot, drank beer, ate tacos and generally hung out. And then one day he said, 'what are you doing on Sunday?' Turns out it was his wedding party around the pool, I didn't even know he was engaged to be married, and that was that, what a riot... and they danced to this tune, below, which was the first time I had heard it. Every time I hear it I think about the hot, dry Californian climate and the sweet smell of jasmine and eucalyptus (which is especially prevalent just as the sun begins to rise). And its now 7.30 because the free Wi Fi took an age to load the pictures but that just allowed me to pencil some new words to the new song I am writing called Finding the American Dream - I have the tune on mandolin and everything sorted so let's see how it goes...
