"Dear California, I'm dumping you."

Saw the most apropo opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times on August 16th. I was planning to post something on my blog in this vein but another writer beat me to the punch.

In Candice Reed's column, "Dear California, I'm dumping you.", Reed extols all the wondrous reasons she moved to California - then turns on each and every reason (like that UCLA couple during my visit to Cali in 1994 when Wisconsin beat UCLA in the Rose Bowl - Tom and I still can't figure out what we did to that couple). This paragraph sums up some of the reasons why I am departing this state and the City of Angels:

"I’ve been thinking about this for a very long time, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we should go our separate ways. I thought I loved you and it would last forever, but I was so very wrong…You’ve totally lost perspective, and I’m sinking into depression! We can’t pay our bills, and the phone is ringing off the hook with creditors calling from all over the world. Children across the state are losing healthcare, more than 766,300 Californians lost their jobs in the last year, and we’re at the top of the foreclosure charts. You need to change, and you refuse to admit it. For the first time in our relationship, I’m embarrassed to say that we are together…So that’s it, California, it’s over. You’ve cost me too much. I’m starting over, but I can see happy times ahead. Like we once had…You could be a great state again but I can’t wait in order for you to turn it around."

She pretty much hit the nail on the head. Add to that the runaway production in the entertainment industry, my eye injury (which made me feel like damaged goods and no I do not need a therapist), the onslaught of illegal aliens on every corner, a bankrupt city that seems to find money in its coffers to pay for the King of Pop's $1.4 million memorial service, and the traffic congestion and THAT...is a wrap.

Los Angeles isn't representative of the state of California. I'm a firm believer that if you put LA inside a snow globe and shipped it off on a one-way ticket to Greenland that it would survive just nicely THERE and no one would miss it HERE.

That being said, there's much I will miss. My best friends, Donovan & Maria & their two daughters, Grace and Gwyneth (my god daughter), other friends including Susie & Jay, Maria's parents and siblings - Mike and Bill and their families, Tat, Michael Gregory, Marla, Dave & Linda Parke, Stephen Carver, Rick the photographer, Michael Carrera, Bruce Johnson & Bill Baumann (my ex-bosses), the Nowak clan in Santa Barbara, and others.

Speaking of Santa Barbara - what a gem of a place! How I will miss the convenience of jumping into my car and driving up the 101 for an hour and a half and escaping LA (the Santa Inez wine country will be sorely missed by moi). Being a history buff and actor, it was far-out being in a city where so much history in the entertainment industry took place. To know that Dean Martin always ate at this table or that Brian Wilson lived in that house in Bel Air. I'll miss the intimate venues where you can catch a music act like Berlin, Gordon Lightfoot or The Zombies - and not just IF they roll through your town on a tour they go on once every five years. Or The Smoke House and Formosa Cafe (any eatery for that matter really) where you can run into just about any celebrity on any day of the week. The weather and the beaches - the goes without saying.

I'm fortunate to have been involved with the Carl Wilson (The Beach Boys) Cancer Foundation. Or to have struck up a friendship and mentor-ish relationship with guys like The Waltons creator, Earl Hamner, Jr. or actor Bo Svenson. I think it's cool that I lived in a guesthouse in Bel Air for seven years and lived a very surreal life...experiencing a way of life very few people get to experience. It's unfortunate that the last two years of all that was soured because of the bitch who lives there. (That's one feeling I can't shake - I want that bitch to rot in hell.)

Sorry. Where was I? California. Yeh, I do feel some sense of accomplishment after having lived in your state for 11 1/4 years. Being The Beach Boys groupie that I am, it felt like the right place to be...to experience. I met Brian Wilson and rubbed elbows with Beach Boys' ex-wives, children, ex-/current band members (CW Cancer Foundation) and had the honor of becoming friends with Dennis Wilson's ex-wife, Karen Lamm about a year before she died. I met Ricci Martin, the son of my favorite all-around entertainer, Dean Martin, and feel fortunate to call him "a friend". I got my SAG card (like everyone else in the state), met a few celebs, shared some awesome Brett Favre moments with Donovan & Maria at their home in Tujunga, started a blog in March 2007, started a career as playwright - finishing 4 full-length plays, one play adapted from a movie, a one-act, seven short plays, published twice and traveled to Cedar Rapids, Ireland, Miami and Seattle to watch my work performed by others. I even won the jackpot as a "seal trainer" on To Tell The Truth.

No - I never met Mel. Never got to see The Walton's house on the Warner lot. Never tried surfing (sharks). Never made it north of Monterey. Never got laid in Santa Barbara (well, I didn't). Never saw a performance at the Greek Theatre or been to LACMA or The Getty. Blah, blah, blah. But I did a lot of other shit.

Next week my brother arrives and we'll do some visiting around Cali, then pack up the car (the bulk of my belongings have been shipped home already) and make the long drive back to Wisconsin. So - "all good things...", as the saying goes. And unless you (Cali) fall into the ocean, I will return at least once a year to visit you and my god daughter, my extended family in Santa Barbara and friends. Maybe then I'll be able to do some of the things I never got around to doing when I lived here.

In the words of the great Dennis Wilson, drummer and co-founder of The Beach Boys (like I was gonna end this post with anything but something Beach Boy-related), from his 1977 tune "River Song" :

"...You know it's rough gettin' round this place, So crowded I can hardly breathe, You can only see about a block or two, In LA that's the truth, I'm lookin' for some country life, Some kickin' room, no more city life, I want the river...".

River Song - Dennis Wilson