Half Moon Bay Memories & El Granada Observer

KPIX’s “Eye on the Bay” program is doing a series on teeny tiny California towns, and when they got to “E,” the producers found El Granada, the jewel in the crown of the Ocean Shore Railroad’s Coastside. I was interviewed and had a great time, the best time I’ve ever had doing something like this.
This show features the DEF of the alphabet, so you’ll learn about Dublin before getting to El Granada. “F” stands for Felton, a nostalgic summer resort surrounded by giant redwoods.

To see the KPIX show, click here

To visit my pals at Coastsider.com, click here

That’s me–sipping coffee in the magician and his wife’s comfy waterbed….in the Moss Beach house…photo by Sunset magazine to show off the beautiful wood cabinetry and “pull-out” bed tray. Cool. Late 1970s.

one of my pleasant tasks was to hire photographers–One of them was the incomparable San Francisco photographer Ed Kashi. Here is a pix of Andy Warhol that he gave me:

Ed Kashi also photographed an old friend, Olivia Stewart, the personality-plus woman I temporarily replaced at Time when she was pregnant in the mid 1980s.

Photo: at right:

Note: The Place To Be More Than A 100 Years Ago…

Note: In the late 1970s I was honored to be named the Grand Marshall of the 4th of July Parade in Half Moon Bay. Here’s the article:

And here’s me:

When I started blogging for the “Half Moon Bay Memories” & El Granada Observer”, I wanted to put all of the writing and research I had done on the Coastside out there. My work goes back to the 1970s, when I arrived.

I feel really good being able to do this, to share the stories.

Some of my readers were here in the 1970s, and much earlier, and they understand, because they were here, what a unique place the Coastside was then–some may say it was more “bohemian”, others may describe the Coastside as having been “wide open”. The Coastside was certainly an isolated rural landscape filled with fiction book-size characters who just wanted to be themselves–without restraint.

What I’m saying is that the Coastside today, unique in its own way, should not be confused with the writing I do about the 1970s and 80s.

Dear Mr. Video Professor,

I know you’re from the “old schoolâ€? and your tv sales pitch is directed to computer illiterates—but I am sick and tired of you, the lady and the three- year- old daughter who knows more about computers than all of you.

BTW: If the kid exists at all, she’s probably in juvenile hall by now awaiting sentencing.

Isn’t it time for a new commercial with real computer geeks and nerds? I’ll probably learn to hate that one as much but at least it’ll be a change.

Soprano, that is.

Star of the HBO hit, The Sopranos.

For almost two weeks now, Tony has been lying in a hospital bed hooked up to a gaggle of life-saving equipment. With a huge ugly hole in his stomach from the bullet wound inflicted by his senile Uncle Junior.

Tony’s in an induced coma. Last week all I saw from my side of the hi def screen was his big chest rising and falling as some medical machine helps him to breathe. Emotionally drained wife Carmella, and son, Anthony, and daughter, Med, visit; together or separately they sleep in the room with “Tone”– they talk to the unconscious body in the hospital bed and they play his favorite rock ‘n roll tunes.

But Tony’s dreaming. He’s dreaming a weird story about some guy who’s accidentally taken his identiy– when, through a mix-up at a bar, far from home, this guy picked up Tony’s briefcase (identical to his own), the briefcase filled with Tony’s credit cards, driver’s license, etc. How’s he going to get on the plane without showing his driver’s license, he asks Carmella during a frustrating phone call. That’s what he’s dreaming about…

From the beginning, from the very first show, I became a Sopranos fan. And the family became very real to me.

A couple of Soprano seasons ago, Tony was cheating on Carmella with a beautiful, young Russian lover, and his wife found out and her price for peace was a summer vacation in Rome. With her girlfriends. Where was she going to stay? She told us tv viewers that she was going to stay at the elegant Hassler Hotel.

The Hassler is not a made-up hotel for tv–it’s a real hotel, set high on a hill.

A few months later we (Burt & I) were traveling to Europe, to Italy, and where did I want to stay? The Hassler Hotel–that’s where Carmella stayed, I remembered.

And when we arrived at the Hassler and were enjoying a drink in the intimate patio, I summoned the courage to ask our waiter: “Did Carmella Soprano stay here?”

He looked at me cockeyed. I couldn’t believe it. “You know,” I said gently, but with a bit of a push, “The Sopranos, the HBO show…Tony’s wife, Carmella, said she staying here for the summer.”

He had no idea what I was talking about. Not even the great HBO rang a bell.

Later an American friend who lives in Europe emailed me asking about the Sopranos. At that time it wasn’t on tv over there, he said, and he knew it was a hot cable series. When he was in New York he’d seen a few of the early episodes. He was anxious to talk about the characters and the plots. Could I tell him what the current episodes were about?

Which brings me back to Tony lying in a coma in that hospital bed. I hope he’s okay, I hope he’s doing fine. I hope he’s going to live.

Update: Did I hear right? In the last or next-to-the-last episode of the Soprano’s 2006 season, did I hear Carmella say to Tony that she never got to Rome? Never got to Rome that summer several episodes earlier? No wonder nobody knew who Carmella Soprano was when I was staying at the Hassler Hotel. Mystery solved.

Left: My parents, Charles and Catherine, on the Whangpoo River, Shanghai, 1940s.

Lower left: Me, Shanghai, 1980s

Lower Right: My mom, Shanghai, 1940s

At left: Me, Bill Doerner and Reporter Dick Thompson.
Devil's Slide