My San Diego: Guest Blogger Bill Ostrie

Bill Ostrie
Artist/ Sculptor/ Musician

My San Diego is...Moonlight Beach crowded with people on a hot summer day, boogieboarding with my wife and 8 year old daughter. Surfing at Grandview,sliding down cool green walls. Carving stone outside, in front ofthe rounded hills and orange trees and palms.

It’s checking out all the nice cars and the sky-high housing prices,and wondering why the schools don’t have buses and why they have to hustle on the side to afford “extras” like a science teacher. It’s laughing about the “keep Leucadia funky” stickers on all the shiny minivans and SUVs in my neighborhood.



It’s the incredible mediterranean climate. It’s the birds of paradise everywhere that I never get tired of. It’s the improbably pretty restaurant hostesses lining the street inthe Gaslamp, starlets beckoning you in for dinner. It’s the shock of seeing the English/Spanish book in the hardwarestore that teaches you the spanish you need to communicate with your gardener and your nanny, as if that's the only reason you might bother to learn another language. It’s the beer and cannabis soaked haze of PB, the glitzy surferthugishness of MB, the skinny, top-heavy women in Del Mar, the rudeness in some areas where the people are doing well but feeling anxious about not living on the beach side of the 5. It’s good mexican food everywhere you go.It’s the Reader, full of great stories, interesting things to do, and an ungodly number of plastic surgery ads telling you that you can never look good enough or young enough.



It’s amazing musicians like Enrique Platas and Neil MacPherson. It’s artists and teachers like A. Wasil, Jacqueline Nicolini, Jeff Watts,and Ron Lemen. It’s missing my friends from capoeira. It’s protesting the war onthe street corner and meeting new people.It’s playing guitar at peoples parties, and running into friends atHenry’s, and catching a few more waves as the sun sets.



Bill OstrieYou can see my artwork at: http://www.ostriesculpture.com/You can hear my flamenco guitar playing at: http://www.myspace.com/billostrie





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