Signs and Symbols

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Welcome to California

TWO WOBBLY LENGTHS OF REBAR held the message, which was blue and gold like our license plates -- blue and gold like our deserts and ocean. How had anyone decided on this place for a border? The highway stretched out for miles through a sickly yellow desert and glittering pyramids of sand dunes. It was inhospitable, dying, yet when I crossed that line I immediately felt at home.

As soon as I had the chance I detoured on a route slightly south. It surprised me, contrasting so sharply with the desert I had just left, with its wildflowers springing from rocky escarpments, with its curves and valleys and the clarity of its sky, so alive, as if inspired to activity by the death of its neighbor.

The Mexican mountains hovered at my left, brown and bare. Giant watching hulks. Guards.

Tecate 2 Miles

The narrow road led through a pass, and I was faced with another border.

After parking the Ural on the American side, I walked over the line into Mexico and installed myself at a parkside cafe under a row of massive old shade trees.

In the park, well-dressed men and women rushed to and from appointments, mothers watched their children play, and a handful of loiterers gathered around a bench. It looked like a park in France or Italy instead of some "underdeveloped" country, and I realized that I was finally seeing a Mexico that wasn't dependent on the tourist trade from America. These people had their own business, the making of Tecate beer, and they behaved independently.

The people next to me lunched on huge plates of eggs and sausages served with soft white tortillas, talking softly among themselves. A toddler chased her ball, which had rolled under my table. She stared at me, and her mother scolded her and smiled apologetically.

I felt the pleasant sense of being a stranger, of being in a place that didn't need my business. In places like Tijuana I've often felt an underlying resentment, an employer/employee relationship between me and the people I meet, often only a thinly veiled hostility caused by an almost complete dependency upon tourist dollars. In contrast, my waitress here hardly knew how to act with a gringa who didn't know a word of Spanish. When I paid in quarters, she stood there, staring at the smooth silver disks in her palm until someone at a neighboring table reassured her it was enough.

After Tecate I was faced with entering San Diego and the Southern California freeway system I dreaded.

I'd never driven this far south, so the caution sign on the freeway surprised and shocked me.

I was incredulous, and saddened by the selfishness of borders that cause certain people to be left out of certain parts of the world, confined within boundaries not created by Nature.

Between San Diego and Orange County these signs were posted every few miles along the highway, which skirted postcard-perfect beach towns north of San Diego -- the only remaining unspoiled beaches in all of Southern California. Then I entered Orange County and Los Angeles -- nonstop suburban sprawl and commercial centers caught between fresh Pacific fog and city smog.

MY DESIRE TO AVOID FREEWAYS and large cities had been overcome by the presence of Michael in Los Angeles (he was there on business), the attraction of staying in luxurious accommodations for a change (the Sheraton Hotel on Santa Monica Beach), and an invitation to Timothy Leary's seventy-fifth birthday party.

So there I was, in the midst of ten lanes of vehicles all going faster than me, before I turned off the freeway and onto Sunset Boulevard, with its wide, grassy median and manicured shoulders, it's crooked byways rising above UCLA and into Beverly Hills.

For an hour I rode through a seemingly unending stretch of suburbia and city, past mansions and chichi shops, Barbie doll girls and tall dark men in Italian suits, elegant, long cars, valet parking, and waiting limousines.

As I was about to stop to ask for directions, I spotted the Sheraton looming above Santa Monica Beach ahead of me. About four more stop lights and I'd be at a place where I could relax in luxury. I still had an hour before Michael was due.

I put the bike into first, then second, and scanned ahead for the entrance to the hotel. The traffic was moving quickly. I pulled the clutch in to shift into third.

I prayed for the two lights ahead of me to stay green, and for the cars waiting at the intersection not to pull out in front of me.

Second gear doesn't normally seem very fast, but I was looking to make a sharp right turn without stalling, and it was a little faster than I wanted to be going. When I saw the yellow plywood bar across the driveway and a ticket box, I knew I was definitely going too fast. It seemed even faster when I hit the curb to swerve into the exit lane.

The glass doors of the hotel were about a hundred feet in front of me when a car entered the exit lane. Second gear once again seemed much too fast to be moto-crossing over the curbed grassy median, this time to the entrance lane, cutting off a car coming into the hotel. The car politely slowed for me, and I headed for the admirably unperturbed valet parking attendant, who watched me carefully but without expression.

Unruffled, despite the bug-eyed looks I was getting from everyone else, he waved me to a little space nearby. This was going to be it. The place the Ural would sit until I could get to the repairs. I slowed down and braked. The Beast choked, and shuddered to a stop.

I HAVE TO HAND IT TO THE SHERATON. None of the employees even blinked. The clerk at the front desk didn't seem to notice my greasy hands. The bellman helped me find the phone number of some nearby parts stores. The valet parking manager helped me push the Ural onto the curb where I could fix it.

In a matter of minutes I'd identified a shop that could get me a new cable. When Michael arrived, I was covered with grease, removing the cable that was, of course, wedged between the bike and the sidecar. I was also being "helped" by a man who had seen Urals before because he once lived in Siberia. I heard Michael before I saw him. He was laughing.

Michael and I agreed that the repairs could wait and we went up to the room, which was luxurious beyond anything I'd experienced in the last four months. Everything about the place was tasteful and understated, except for the toilet, which, with it's multi-temperature seat and adjustable bidet spray, stopped just short of requiring an instruction manual. The bellman brought our bags, got us ice, paused just long enough to be tipped, and left us blissfully alone.

Michael's hand was warm on my back. A light, cool mist moved across my face, and I felt something drop in my body, some great weight I hadn't known was there.

The air was still with a touch of fog, softening the bright white of the beach and smoothing the ripples on the water, muting the sounds of traffic and voices from the street. We stood on the balcony looking across the expanse of land and sea, above the tedium of traffic and uninvited voices. Michael's hand was warm on my back. A light, cool mist moved across my face, and I felt something drop in my body, some great weight I hadn't known was there.

There is something to be said for predictability. For a few days I knew what I would be doing -- mainly, not riding the motorcycle. Not wondering where I would eat, sleep, or find gas or oil. My adventure, I realized, had turned into my ordinary life. It was time to head home.

OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS I would hang out with Michael, go to Leary's birthday party, and see L.A., Venice, and Santa Monica. Then I would head for home, where I would find an apartment, work on the tech manual I'd left four months ago, write the book and develop the CD-ROM about this trip, see my friends, go on dates... in short, experience the adventure of living a normal life again.

Suddenly this seemed a very attractive notion.

Michael drove us into Beverly Hills, winding along on one of the roads I'd seen earlier branching out from Sunset Boulevard, to Leary's house, which was crowded inside and out with the wide variety of invitees one would expect of a host with such outrageous, diverse interests.

We walked through the house, refused a black balloon filled with nitrous oxide, and helped ourselves to a lavish buffet of skewered chicken, fruit, and crudit&eacutes. Outside we were handed glasses of Champagne and a glittering view from the hilltop.

The last time I'd been to Leary's house, we'd sat outside on the grass of his back yard, which looks over Los Angeles. Now L.A. glittered in the distance. The palm trees that line the yard glowed with red, green, and blue colored lamps tilted up toward their umbrella leaves. Outside in the warm Beverly Hills night, a rock band played. People were dancing off to one side of the yard. On the other side was a bar. Along the back of the house were tables spilling over with food, and in the center of it all stood Leary, looking snappy in a leopard-skin patterned vest, his bright eyes darting among his guests.

Carla with Timothy Leary

TMOTHY LEARY ACHIEVED early recognition as a pioneering professor of psychology at Harvard University. A Sixties psychedelic guru and self-proclaimed "evolutionary scout," he has promoted humanistic values, the expansion of human consciousness, space migration, personal computers, and digital media. Dr. Leary's life has been a series of challenges to the established order, with the oft-repeated sound bytes "Question authority," "Think for yourself," and the Sixties mantra, "Turn on, tune in, drop out," which he recently updated to "Turn on, inter-tune in, and shine out."

Leary's latest campaign is for death with dignity. He is dying of prostate cancer, and is planning to die at home, surrounded by family and close friends. Should he have complications, he considers euthanasia an option. And, scientist to the end, he has arranged for the cryonic preservation of his brain. Since his terminal diagnosis in early 1995, a swirl of projects has filled his days, including Chaos and Cyberculture (Ronin Press), a new compendium of his life and ideas. He has also signed a deal for a major motion picture based on his best-selling autobiography, Flashbacks (J.P. Tarcher).

As he is also involved in a variety of multimedia and Internet projects, the party was full of new-media professionals, as well as Hollywood kids, and some celebrities.

Later, Leary would sit at a table on the grass at the edge of his yard, with Ram Dass standing at his left shoulder, Tony Curtis standing at his right, all three looking down at Leary's blazing birthday cake.

Later, Leary would sit at a table on the grass at the edge of his yard, with L.A. sparkling behind him, Ram Dass standing at his left shoulder, Tony Curtis standing at his right, all three looking down at Leary's blazing birthday cake. As we sang the candles burned, cameras flashed, and camcorders whirred, documenting what would be Timothy Leary's last birthday party.

After cake I looked around. Inside, the party was in full swing: The beautiful people had shown up, mostly twentysomethings from his son Zach's circle, many of them dressed in shiny plastic clothing with complicated haircuts colored as unnaturally as possible. A lively competition was going on around the spectacular blue-felt pool table. Outside, an open-mike poetry session was over and a deejay conducted the dance floor, which was whirling with the very young and very flexible. On the grass and around the tables of food, groups of people stood conversing, some holding glasses of Champagne, many holding black balloons of nitrous from which they'd take an occasional puff, ever so casually, as if they were smoking cigarettes.

Michael and I laughed, entertained by the scene, the diversity of guests, and the three or four camera crews getting it all on film.

THE NEXT DAY I had the clutch cable end soldered back on again at a shop downtown -- it had simply frayed at the grip end, and there was enough slack to save it. Then Michael and I took a walk on Santa Monica beach across the street from the hotel. It was the widest stretch of sand I'd ever seen.

The next few days were a real vacation, and then it was time to go. I was so close to home. I could get there in a day if I wanted.

Almost home: Preparing to leave the lap of luxury.

Index | Dispatch 25-