Los Angeles Interlude

Just as I was about to leave Fran's place in Santa Cruz a short rain produced this rainbow, which I took to be a good omen. I enjoyed the drive and arrived in Hermosa Beach late in the afternoon on Saturday. Janice wasted no time and Sunday afternoon she took me to see the Getty Museum where I photographed all my favorite paintings. I'm going to use them as teaching tools. This is the year I intend to get good at painting. Below are a couple of shots of the museum. Everywhere the eye falls is beauty.





Early in the mornings I'd walk along the tide line at the beach and was appalled at the amount of plastic garbage the tides brought in. Luckily they have big machines which scrape it all up before 8:00 in the morning, but I've read that there are thousands of miles of floating plastic crap like this in the ocean that the fish are eating and dying from. It's very scary. I'm thinking of visiting other beaches on this trip to see if this is found everywhere or just an L.A. thing.



Janice took the first Wednesday off of work and we met her friends Marianne and Lottie to go see Avatar at the IMAX theater in 3D - WOW! What a mind blowing picture, especially in 3D. Every night we've watched a movie and I've now seen more movies in two weeks than in the last five or ten years. That and going out to dinner with Janice's friends has been a lot of fun. Last Sunday I shot my first video for my documentary on work exchanges. I went to Bel Air where I lived for over three years doing a work exchange with Jeff, a real estate investor. It was a great day. Everywhere I went everyone seemed so happy to see me. After I left Bel Air I visited Jeremy, an ex-boyfriend, and when I went into one of the rooms in his house and saw the piece (below) I couldn't believe it. This was something I made about 30 years ago. It wasn't original, in fact, it was a cartoon I saw in the L.A. Weekly at that time and made into soft art. I then went on to the L.A Zen Center where I shot more video because I lived there for 4 months once when I carved a giant statue for them of Kanzeon (Quan Yin). It was so much fun seeing everybody as well as all my old art, which I seem to have left behind wherever I went.



I stayed an extra week because Janice wanted me to run with her in the annual Redondo Beach 5k/10k race on Super Bowl morning. Most people dressed in racing clothes but there was a costume contest too and below are a few of the contestants for best costume. My camera batteries died so I didn't get a picture of my favorite, which was a girl dressed totally in pink clothes, but with a shoe stuck to her pink hat. It was funny - she was gum stuck on a shoe. It was Janice's 7th race and my first. People also ran in the race in their costumes and I had women in high healed boots carrying giant martini glasses, as well as five bananas and two gorillas run past me. I just walked fast, but I finished the 5k, before we walked home. In the end we did over 7k. The bottom shot is one of Janice just before we started the race. Tomorrow morning I leave at dawn for Tucson for my first work exchange at the Terra Sante community. I'm now officially a homeless vagabond.





Just before I left Santa Cruz I went to Whole Foods to see Chef Loweta, a raw foods chef, speak and give a demonstration. I was so impressed with her food that I asked her if she'd like to do a short video un-cooking demo for Youtube. We got together a few days later. It was a big rush because she had to fly to Phoenix, Arizona a few hours after we shot this for a function she was catering. I finally finished editing it while Janice was at work one day and here it is. It was the most delicious chocolate pie I've ever eaten and she shows you how to do it here: