Los Angeles

Day 2 in LA Cathy gives me a tiki tour of the place. We drive for hours and take in places like Beverly Hills, Belair, Hollywood, we even go through the area where all the homeless gather - i cant remember the name now. We are indirectly on our way to a photo shoot. A friend of Cathy's is doing some work for her book and she kindly offered to take some picks of Cathy's son Winton while they were at it. Winton is getting to the age where some sort of income is necessary to support all the wants. And as he's a pretty good looking boy and it is LA after all, how better to earn some pocket money than modeling. The studio is in an old warehouse and is also someone's home that is rented out for this purpose. Their lounge room is a set, it's a clutter of antiquey nik naks and furniture and the models are dressed in silk and lace and beads, it all looks very old worldly. It's an interesting process to watch. I'm particularly interested watching the artistic director. I think if I'd had my time over again, (this time with some sort of encouragement and guidance) that perhaps I might have liked to have been an artistic director when I grew up. And I can actually see that my daughter Ella would be very good at it. Mental note to plan a day of shooting. Pic below was on one of the walls of the studio.


That night we have 4 tickets to see Prince play at the Forum. Theres a bit of juggling about who's going to go and eventually its Cathy, Georgina, and vivienne's husband Kevin and myself. We get there about 8pm and Cathy has chosen the seats well, we have quite a good view of the cross shaped stage. Mary J Blige is the support act. All my cousins knew her but i wasnt familiar with her. We can see from where we are (with a little help from the huge screens) that she is strutting about on heels that must be about 10cm high. She is not only strutting, she is dancing and jumping and I have no idea how she does it. Then comes Prince, and he also is strutting about in pretty high heels. And he also is pretty agile. He is an excellent performer and he doesn't disappoint. He plays all his top songs, minus the real raunchy ones as he is now apparently a Jehovahs Witness. :(
we sit in the car in the car park for 40 minutes before we can get out. It's a great night.


Day 3 in LA, we actually head out of LA and to Santa Barbara. A friend of cathy's is involved in a street art exhibition at the old Santa barbara mission. We drive up the coast highway, One if I recall, through places like Malibu - I have seen so much of LA in the three days I've been there. The day looked like it was going to be windy but when we arrive at the old mission, it is beautiful. The festival is in it's 25th year, some of the artists have been drawing there since it started. Cathy's friend, also a Tracy, has been drawing there 15 years.




There is also Italian food stalls and we all queued up for our choice and wow, what a feed. Those Italians sure can cook ;)
From there we went on to some of Georginas in-laws. Pat and bonnie McElroy. Pat is a top firefighter and if my googling is correct had the dubious honor of naming the Jesusita Fire that ripped through Santa Barbara in 2009 - I really must make a note of these sorts of things as i go so I don't have to do the google thing to make sure I have my facts right. Whatever, these were very lovely people and once again I found myself sitting around a dinner table with family, eating amazing food.

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