Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime

I love cemetaries.

If I'm ever feeling blue, or need to reflect I usually will visit a cemetary. Some people visit the park, or the ocean...not me...I like to talk a walk through a cemetary to reflect. I have been to several all over the world, my favorite being Audrey Hepburn's gravsite in Tolochonaz, Switzerland. She was a picture of grace when she was alive and the place where she is buried, is so representative of her life. It is a tiny graveyard, in an even tinier town surrounded by a wheat field right next door to the Audrey Hepburn meuseum. So peaceful.

It's hard to explain exactly why I like them so much, all I can say is I have an incredible sense of reverence and calm when I am there. I look at the names and ponder about what peoples lives must have been like when they were alive. I also think about their loved ones that are still alive and how much they must miss them. I used to have a really hard time dealing with death years back when my grandpa died. In a really weird way cemetaries have helped me deal with life and death much better because I see so much beauty in them.

Westwood Memorial cemetary is where Marilyn Manroe, Mel Torme, Rodney Dangerfield, Walter Mattheu, Burt Lancaster, Frank Zappa, Roy Orbison and the great Dean Martin are buried, among others.





During my recent visit I met a very happy man and his 6 month old child, who claimed that both he and his son were mediums. I have never met anyone like him in my life. He said that he had come to communicate with Marilyn. He had a theory that she had committed suicide and because of that she is stuck in some sort of limbo between earth and her final destination...Whoa...trip out.

Before you all think I've completely lost it, I will move on.

During the late Spring and early Summer, one of my favorite places in Los Angeles, Hollywood Forever cemetary (http://www.hollywoodforever.com/) has what is called Cinespia, a film society created to bring together the community of film enthusiats in Los Angeles, including those outside the normal repertroy. (http://www.cinespia.org/) You can bring picnic baskets, listen to a dj spin music before and after they screen the classics on the back side of the meusoleam. I encourage anyone to check it out, because it is definately a Los Angeles experience unlike any other.