TheBanyanTree: California on 99 Cents A Day

[Monique Young]

Oprah's Gate

 

I really had very little interest in Oprah's gate. It's, well, it's a gate.
It's not anything you wouldn't see at any other Santa Barbara property, and
it's not as if you can see the house from the gate, and it's not as if Oprah
is out there by her gate waving as you pass by. But my friend Nancy is quite
taken with celebrities and takes great pride in living in a place where some
of them congregate, as if this closeness can result in transferable
celebrity. So far it hasn't worked for her, and she's lived in Santa Barbara
all her life, but she still holds on to the illusion. She is a merciless
name dropper.

 

Nancy decided my friend Cece and I must be taken on an adventure around
Santa Barbara. As part of Nancy's fragile grasp on celebrity, she recently
bought a BMW, because it's the car to have. A BMW indicates a higher status
in life, a certain sort of exclusiveness, at least in her belief system. Her
BMW is older, because she has no money. It is in severe need of the
following: a paint job, a new interior, detailing inside and out. It is, in
other words, an embarrassment to BMW's everywhere in its mere slovenliness.
This is a car seriously in need of rehab. But all Nancy knows is that it's a
BMW, and with this BMW she can imagine herself closer to the local
celebrities. It is in this car that we tour Santa Barbara.

There is one thing I must say about Santa Barbara. It does indeed, due to
the proliferation of eucalyptus trees, smell quite good in places. 

We drove all about the town, back and forth and up and down, and we drove
down shady tree lined streets with gated property, some with visible houses,
some with houses so far back no buildings could be seen. We drove past
Oprah's gate, and it was Nancy's defining moment. "That's it!" She shrieked,
"That's Oprah's gate! I think. Oh yes, that was it!" 

 

We feigned appreciation of the gate. It was a gate, after all, and really
not doing anything much to warrant our praise. That didn't matter.  Across
the street was the gate of Robert Zemeckis, which gave me pause to think,
once again, "so what?"

I suppose that if these people were to invite us in for a little look around
the property that might be a different thing, it could be interesting,
architecturally, and that's what I suffer from most, an interest in
buildings. And people. But not in buildings just because they house certain
people, or in certain people because they live behind certain gates. As it
were, seeing their gates is not something I would rank on my list of top ten
fun things I did on my trip.

 

We drove and looked at more gates, some of them Nancy identified for us, and
others she did not know who they belonged to, and at last she worked her way
around to Oprah's back gate. Oh boy. Not only did we get to see Oprah's
front gate, we also got to see Oprah's back gate. Can life get any better
than this? Truly, I feel blessed. My life is now complete. I have seen
Oprah's gates. My mission here on earth is complete.