Mythical California Notes
I had a few brushes with the California myth:
My godmother was a make-up artist and hair stylist in Hollywood back in the late 60's and early 70's. She has always been glamorous herself and when she and my godfather would drive into town it was really something, to me. They would talk about how we should all move to California and for some reason I would get really hung up on Death Valley and ghost towns rather than Disneyland. Later they moved to Fullerton and Annaheim to raise a family before ending up in Corona all boring, save Fullerton (I think its pretty cool as far as Mexican American culture goes). But to this day they still retain a gothic,70's sort of California glamour. It was my godmother who fueled the entire childstar dream with her "connections".
We never moved to California. My mother had spent a substantial amount of time living and traveling all over California in the 60's before ending up in Texas. Her stories of San Francisco never included Haight Ashbury excursions, she saw it but didn't approve. My mother was a complete square who was in California to go to college and experience the American dream she saw in American movies growing up in Mexico. Still, she found time to hang in Tahoe between semesters and saw Venice beach, Malibu, hung at the National Parks and roomed with a Black Panther before graduating from University of the Pacific in Stockton. My mother did find the California she saw in the movies, the utopian land of good taste and culture, classy, sophisticated, fine and well coiffed. She caught that instant in America.
Joan Didion wrote about California the way I pictured it when my mom would talk about her time there. There was pre-Manson and post-Manson (my mother was there until May or so of 1970). Death Valley and ghost towns and Manson all went hand and hand. I had heard the story growing up, I was three and four years old and they were still going on about Manson.
I've not visited California but to this day it holds an eclectic mess of images that were put in my head at very young age (3-7 first years of life, in fact). As I heard the stories the pictures were forming and have remained, giving me the convincing illusion that I was there, post Manson. Didion confirmed it but none of it is real. Very odd and a testament to the effects conversation, television and parent have on child.
Interest Du Jour: Miki Dora, Mike Nader, screenprinting
My godmother was a make-up artist and hair stylist in Hollywood back in the late 60's and early 70's. She has always been glamorous herself and when she and my godfather would drive into town it was really something, to me. They would talk about how we should all move to California and for some reason I would get really hung up on Death Valley and ghost towns rather than Disneyland. Later they moved to Fullerton and Annaheim to raise a family before ending up in Corona all boring, save Fullerton (I think its pretty cool as far as Mexican American culture goes). But to this day they still retain a gothic,70's sort of California glamour. It was my godmother who fueled the entire childstar dream with her "connections".
We never moved to California. My mother had spent a substantial amount of time living and traveling all over California in the 60's before ending up in Texas. Her stories of San Francisco never included Haight Ashbury excursions, she saw it but didn't approve. My mother was a complete square who was in California to go to college and experience the American dream she saw in American movies growing up in Mexico. Still, she found time to hang in Tahoe between semesters and saw Venice beach, Malibu, hung at the National Parks and roomed with a Black Panther before graduating from University of the Pacific in Stockton. My mother did find the California she saw in the movies, the utopian land of good taste and culture, classy, sophisticated, fine and well coiffed. She caught that instant in America.
Joan Didion wrote about California the way I pictured it when my mom would talk about her time there. There was pre-Manson and post-Manson (my mother was there until May or so of 1970). Death Valley and ghost towns and Manson all went hand and hand. I had heard the story growing up, I was three and four years old and they were still going on about Manson.
I've not visited California but to this day it holds an eclectic mess of images that were put in my head at very young age (3-7 first years of life, in fact). As I heard the stories the pictures were forming and have remained, giving me the convincing illusion that I was there, post Manson. Didion confirmed it but none of it is real. Very odd and a testament to the effects conversation, television and parent have on child.
Interest Du Jour: Miki Dora, Mike Nader, screenprinting
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