The Hearst Castle

The movie Big was on TV the next morning at the health resort we were staying at in San Luis Obispo and I watched that with the volume turned all the way up while De Campo took a hot tub in water with a high sulfur content that smelled like a dairy truck full of rotten eggs overturned on the patio. Took a shower during a preternaturally goofy Tom Hanks outburst, he was cackling and carrying on and such; a scene that drove De campo from the serenity of the foul-smelling hot tub into the room yelling at me why had I left the goddam TV on.

Resolved our differences and did a Pilates sesh surrounded by amazing Californian wilderness.

The sun created a sun-dappled effect along the the streets of San Luis Obispo alighting the quaint shopfronts. Ate a giant taco salad for breakfast under an equally giant moosehead, while feng shui sufferers everywhere weeped openly. Raided Leon's Book Shop for a few golden hardbacks on the way to the car. Car was amazingly unticketed despite us overstaying the parking meter by forty minutes. Nice town.

Drove hell for leather into the sun and nearly ran out of gas.

Hearst Castle was way sweet, but my respect for W.R., which couldn't have been lower prior to the excursion, diminished even further due to the grand obsequiousness of the Hearst propaganda machine. The tour guide said Mankiewicz wrote Citizen Kane in a fit of bitterness and rage for being thrown from the premises for being drunk and lacking the ability to hang with the sophisticates. I'm sure he was loaded, but to somehow present Hearst as more dignified and respectable than Mank was laughable and made me want to hurl.
photos by De Campo