Left Coast Cowboys

I was hoping the St. Joseph’s Day festivities at San Juan Capistrano would be more local festival than slickly produced event, and luckily it was. To celebrate the return of the swallows to the Mission, I think the town had corralled every school kid from 5 to 18 to be in the ceremonies. You had First Graders dressed as monks, parades of Kindergardeners in sparrow costumes, and high schoolers doing Mexican hat dances and Spanish fandangos. Then there were the Historical Society people, the town dignitaries and the Mission Docents, most of whom managed to get themselves kitted out as Vaqueros, Spanish grandees and their ladies. I got the impression that anyone who was anyone in San Juan Capistrano was affiliated with those groups. And good for them. They’ve done a great job preserving and promoting the “Jewel of the Missions”.

Too bad they were seriously upstaged by the people who probably have the greatest claim to the Mission: the original local residents, the Acjachemen (pronounced Ah-ha-shay-mon) Indians. 

Full disclosure here: I’m always on the side of the Indians. While I have a thing about visiting the Missions of California, I quickly bypass the dioramas and exhibits talking about how tough the old Padres had it. Instead, my first stop is always the Mission burial ground. Every one of them has a large mound that is the mass grave for the Mission Indians who were coerced, converted and sometimes even enslaved into building the Missions. They died by the thousands of hard work, disease and sometimes heartbreak. The size of the mound usually gives the best indication who really had it tough in those days.

Jacque gets the crowd going with a traditional story.

That’s why I shoved my way through the monks, the sparrows and the grandees and headed directly for Jacque Tahunka-Nunez, who was leading a group of Acjachemen in full Native dress. Jacque’s website lists her as a master storyteller, teacher, singer, director, writer and cultural consultant. Let’s add to that electrifying personality, spiritual guide and inspirational speaker. At one point, Jacque took to the stage to tell traditional stories of Acjachemen life and spirituality. She managed to get several dozen kids from the audience on stage with her and organized them to chant, dance, do sign language and use Native American instruments in a respectful manner. The best part was the wonderful way she told a simple Acjachemen children’s tale but mixed in philosophy, codes of ethics and respect for the earth in such an organic way that the kids probably didn’t even know they were being “taught”. In fact, I can’t think of another storyteller who could pack that much meaning and depth into seemingly simple stories. Well, maybe that guy  in the robe who told parables. Okay, so I’m a big Jacque Nunez fan. (If there are any California teachers out there, book her quick. She travels to schools giving her presentations. And believe me, a half hour of Jacque is almost a semester’s worth of learnin’.)

The Kings and Queens were cute, but totally upstaged by the Indians.

As I wandered around the huge Mission complex, no matter what was playing on the big stage, I kept running across the Acjachemen quietly injecting a note of spirituality and gravitas into the proceedings, something that was missing from the other scheduled events. One of the best moments was when Jacque and her group performed a sage burning and led the entire audience in saluting the East, North, West, South and then the Earth. 

At another time I passed the Acjachemen performing a quiet ceremony in the Kiitcha, the traditional Acjachemen willow and tule dwelling that has been recreated on the grounds. Next they were performing a traditional song in praise of the birds. They showed up at the bell ringing ceremony, in fact one of the bell ringers of several decades is himself an Acjachemen.

But I haven’t mentioned the birds yet, have I? Well, we were warned that the days of swarms of swallows overhead are long gone. As Capistrano has been built up, the fields and flowers that provided insect food are shrinking. In fact, our friend Juan at the gift shop told us of a Freeway overpass we should go to down by the creek where we’d see more swallows. 

The swallows did return. They were a little more colorful than you thought.

So all during the morning, I scanned the skies, the walls and the palm trees for signs of swallows. I could hear them and every now and then I’d see one. But if you didn’t know this whole thing was about the swallows, you could easily forget about them. 

With ONE notable exception. Every time the Acjachemen started chanting, swallows popped out and started flying around. How beautifully appropriate. Just like the Acjachemen were at one time, the swallows are being pushed, if not toward extinction, at least out of their traditional patterns. But don’t count the swallows out yet.

Jacque and her son Jackson perform traditional dances.

Jacque told a wonderful story about the discovery of a sacred Acjachemen relic at the Mission in the Seventies. The tribe was invited to celebrate the discovery. As part of the ceremony, they walked around and around the Mission courtyard chanting:

Atim oh wah

At ah hoh lay

At ta hey ta lay

Which Jacque explained means:

We are the people.

And we are still here.

Yes they are. I say Acjachemen and swallows unite. Keep the cute kids in swallow costumes, but let the Acjachemen run the St. Joseph Day festivities.

Miscellanea

I did see more than the Native Americans. The Padres at Capistrano had a killer garden, one I’m going to copy. Although I still don’t think it will be fox-proof. They also made the first wine in North America at the Mission. You should see their crush pad!

I have hundreds of great pictures from the festivities here, but haven’t had time to label them.

Day Two of our roadtrip was a day of wild extremes, one near disaster, a fast save and a quick sidetrip down a different historical path than the one we’d planned. But that’s the thing about roadtrips. You better plan that something will not go according to plan.

We started the day surrounded with the trappings of wealth. First at the Hotel Bel-Air, then at the Getty, which is nothing if not the greatest modern example of the kind of monument you can build as your legacy if you have billions. But I shouldn’t be harsh with old John Paul Getty. The Getty Museum is truly amazing. It would be worth visiting even if you didn’t go in the door and look at a single work of art. That’s coming from a person who once went through the Louvre, room by room, floor by floor, on a mission to look at every single piece of art in it. It took me eight hours. I didn’t even stop for lunch. I’ve mellowed since then.

I could have spent the entire time in the gardens and grounds. But Mom needed a Van Gogh fix.

Now I have a routine with art museums. I figure out what kind of art or experience I can ONLY have in that particular museum, then look just at a selected few of those works. So I hear the Getty has a great collection of Renaissance and Baroque art. Wouldn’t really know. I didn’t even check in those galleries on my way to see the “Painting After 1800″ galleries. Mom can’t pass up an Impressionist painting. The Getty has lots, so that’s where we spent most of our painting viewing time.

See this fantastic ground cover. Guess what. They're ONIONS. Yup, The Getty is doing some great stuff with drought-tolerant gardens.

What I was really there to see was the Photography Gallery. I’ve been to two museums recently that promised me a treasure trove of prints from early great photographers. Both times, I’ve arrived to find the galleries closed or the bulk of the collection “on tour”. So the Getty was promising me what sounded like the most incredible collection, especially of the early photographers like Fox Talbot, the first photographer to use negatives, and the pioneers such as Atget, Matthew Brady, Ansel Adams, Stieglitz and Steichen. Well, maybe the Getty has these in the collection. Maybe they don’t. The sign said all that whole gallery was “closed for rennovations”. I’m starting to believe that NO museum has a collection of early photography. They just advertise it, then, in a giant shell game, keep making excuses about “tours”, “renovations” and “temporarily closed”. But I’m on to them. Some museum better show me those photographs and fast! I’m ready to blow the whistle.

The Getty is perched on a hill with great views of all of LA. Well, that is, if you could see LA through the smog.

With the photography bait and switch, I was done with the galleries and we spent the rest of our time out in the gardens, which are truly fantastic in an innovative, drought-tolerant, eco sort of way. Many of the gardens have sculptures in them and all of them are beautiful. There is even an incredible cactus garden that, unfortunately, you can only see and not touch. I spent a good hour running down staircases that seemed to lead to it, only to double back on themselves or dead-end like an Escher drawing. Finally, I found a docent who explained to me that the cactus gardens are meant to be viewed from above, “like an installation or a natural sculpture”. Fine. But some of us like to reach out and touch the Chollas.

That was the Good. The Bad, well, I’d warned Mom that after the Hotel Bel-Air, it would be all downmarket. But like Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulsen, I didn’t know how down the market would be.

Right across from the Mission, this place has the BEST Indian jewelry and souvenirs. And Juan behind the counter can tell you all about where Nixon hung out.

I’d booked in for the next two nights at a charming looking little place (at least on the Internet) called the Capistrano Seaside Inn. It was billed as a 1930s beach hideaway frequented by movie stars in the day. Well, the day was a long, long time ago. And I don’t think the rooms have been cleaned since then. That beach view? Well, you can kind of see it. That’s when the trains aren’t rolling by just across the road and blowing their horns so loudly the windows rattle. It didn’t even help to find out the train was The Atcheson, Topeka and the Santa Fe (Judy Garland fans, stand up.) Old movie associations will only take you so far, even with my mother.

The Old Adobe Restaurant has preserved Nixon's favorite table. The fajitas were great. No one could tell me if Nixon ate them with ketchup.

Shaken, we dropped our suitcases and headed back to San Juan Capistrano for dinner and a quick look around. That’s where we ran into Richard Nixon. Sort of. I thought San Clemente was his stomping ground. But all the shopkeepers had Richard Nixon stories. And when we found out his favorite restaurant was just around the corner, we had to book.

Now, I knew that Richard Nixon was a man who put ketchup on his cottage cheese, so I wasn’t expecting fine dining. But the Old Adobe Restaurant was a hoot. Part of it is the old town jail, which I thought must have given Nixon a frisson with his fajitas. They’ve even preserved his favorite table and chairs.

Thought it was funny that these buckaroos were outside the Wells Fargo. They said they were going to rob it. Then admitted they were preparing for the parade tomorrow. When I asked who they were representing, they said "The Drunks of San Juan".

Fortified with a Margarita, a Pacifico and a steak fajita, I tackled the manager of the Capistrano Seaside Inn, got my reservations cancelled and booked into the Best Western down the road. After all, there must be a special place in Hell for people who take their 76 year old mothers to hotels where they might get hepatitis from the towels.

As we finally snuggled into clean sheets in a spotlessly clean room, we congratulated ourselves on how narrowly we’d escaped. Just like Nixon with that handy pardon.

Miscellanea

More pictures of Day Two here. And NO, I didn’t post any pictures of the Hotel From Hell. Just use your imagination. Besides, I didn’t want to stay in the room any longer than I had to.

When you first enter the Getty, you may think, like I did, that you are seeing a bust of Richard Nixon. It’s not. It’s J. Paul Getty. But I’m telling you, Nixon is everywhere down here.

A reporter from the Los Angeles Times contacted me wanting an interview about our “pilgrimage to the Mission.” Seriously, we’re meeting at the Junipero Serra statue. I’ll be the one wearing a red carnation in my lapel.