Psychedelic Sunday

This song is the flavor of the day. "California" by Robert Charlebois from 1966.

California

This tray is awesome. Tell me what I can use it for (besides cup-holding) and maybe I will buy it.

"You can visit Santa in the SUMMERTIME!"

A few weeks ago, I saw my first lit Christmas tree in an Oakland window. Either they were having a late "Christmas in July" party, or there are people in this city who love Christmas more than I do. However, the existence of that September tree reminded me of a major childhood memory. Of a place I never visited.

My parents have always given me everything I wanted, within reason (well, and then some). They are wonderful, generous people. If I had asked them to take us to the Santa's Village theme park in the San Bernardino Mountains between 1983-1998, I know they would have complied. But inexplicably, I don't think I ever wanted to go there while it was still around!

The above advertisement for Santa's Village played during every single cartoon-watching commercial break of my youth. I cannot emphasize enough that I have seen this ad thousands and thousands of times. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that rewatching it this morning felt extremely comforting, like going home.

But with the option of Disneyland less than an hour away from my Ganny's house, I guess I never felt like settling for what seemed to be a low-rent substitute, as much as I loved Christmas and Santa. Also, the San Bernardino mountains seemed really far away at the time. But boy, I wish we had made just one trip. The kitsch factor is through the roof!

According to their great memorial website (which honors "the memories, the parks, and the Santas"), California's Santa's Village actually opened a month before Disneyland in 1959.

In the 90's, California decided they'd had enough of Santa. Santa's Village closed, and one of my favorite landmarks, the giant Santa peeping up along the coastline near Carpinteria which signified that my family was halfway to our LA destinatation, was deemed too tacky and relegated to a sad lot in Oxnard.

Did anyone ever visit Santa's Village? Was it a pleasure to "see Santa in the summertime," or confusing-inducing?

Thanks to a fellow child of the 80's glued to KTLA for many an afternoon, Jason of Southern California News Wire, for his tireless reporting on California's bygone Santas.

I don't think I was born with a sense of kitsch, but then why do I have such good memories of the original Nut Tree?


The Nut Tree was an amazing outpost of glorious American culture in Vacaville, CA, about two hours north of San Francisco. Travelers from the Bay Area would stop there on their way to Sacramento for a bite to eat and to hang out on the grounds before getting back into a cramped car. My family stopped there a few times on our yearly summer camping trips in the 80's. I remember a lot of dried fruit being for sale in the shoppe above.

But the main thing that sticks in my mind about the Nut Tree is that they had my very favorite cookies, these delicious honey-spice flat treats coated with a hard frosting and shaped like animals and cartoon characters. (You can find these at grocery stores sometimes, but they are nameless and impossible to ask for! My mom always gets me one when she sees them. I love her.)

I think we ate in the restaurant at least once. Thank goodness, because alas, all this California-style magic no longer exists. I guess the audience for honey cookies and train rides began to have other interests, as the old grounds of the Nut Tree are now home to a BevMo! and Best Buy, among other lame box stores. I feel lucky to have these colorful memories floating around in my head.

By Special Request...My "Tribute" to MJ

I grew up less than an hour away from Neverland Ranch. Whenever anyone saw a stretch limo in the area, we always assumed, "Oh, Michael Jackson," and craned our necks for a peek of the white glove. One of my friends even saw him once, shopping at the Toys 'r Us in Santa Maria.

What I'm trying to say is that Michael Jackson was always there, on tv, on the radio, and in our general kid consciousness. If you're my age, your best memories of him were of his early 80's persona, when you were still too scared to watch Thriller. I remember hearing "Billie Jean" when I was four or five and getting kind of spooked by it; I think I found the synth riff haunting; it made me feel sad. (I also got spooked by the song "Maneater," and any song with a robot-sounding voice. That's the kind of kid I was.)

I don't feel personally sad about his death, because the version of Michael Jackson my inner child remembers has been gone for years and years. But I feel sad about a lot of other things. How does a person get to that point? To live the way he did meant that he had no real friends, no one to say, "Hey. What are you doing? We're concerned about you," but merely an army of yes men willing to prescribe any drug, to keep weird sexual secrets, and who knows what else. Such an odd, dark path doesn't happen without the consent of many outside parties. Also, there's us, the public who loved to watch as his life became increasingly bizarre. "Did you hear what Michael Jackson just did? What a freak!" People love to watch a downward spiral.

It seems like if you magically got whatever you wanted, that things would turn out pretty good.

But if what you want is your lost childhood, you end up with a monkey, a lonely amusement park, and slumber parties that weren't quite right. It's an incredible story, really, and that's what I can't stop thinking about. Not Michael Jackson the person, because we'll never truly know about that, but the fact that his crazy, sad, fascinating story is over. MJ never stopped trying to find whatever it was he was looking for, we never stopped watching him, and that, my friends, is "human nature."

Goin' Camping

Tomorrow I'm going camping! I've never been the instigator of a camping trip before, just gone along for the ride, so it will be an adventure. So far I have a borrowed tent, sleeping bags, and those wire sticks that hold marshmallows. That ought to do it, right?

Just keeeding! I'm hitting up Big 5 after work tonight to pick up all the essentials. We'll be staying at Castle Crags State Park (which may not exist after Gov. Schwarzenegger is finished with the Cali budget...sheesh!) near Mount Shasta. I really love Northern Northern California, and I'm excited to do some hardcore chilling and possibly some river dippin'. Quick and important questions for y'all, though:

In order of importance...

1. Will a bear be able to smell my beeswax hair product from outside the tent while I am sleeping?

2. Do you have any easy camp recipes you're willing to share?