On Thursday night, Sept. 13, I will be flying to Camarillo, California, where I grew up, to see my folks and sisters, one of whom just gave birth to a son. I'll be gone until Monday night, so if you plan on robbing me, we hide a key under the second plant to the left of the door.
The following are two songs about where I spent the first 17 years of my life, and they are both somewhat about the state mental hospital that used to be in Camarillo. For years, if you ever said you were from Camarillo, it was like saying that you lived in Burundi circa 2001. But the hospital closed and now it's the site of California State University-Channel Islands, although the Channel Islands are several miles off the coast. I guess the acronym CSUCI (pronoinced see-sucky) is better than CSUC (see suck).
It's actually a nice town, though, as long as you can afford to live there. My parents bought their house in 1970 and love Prop. 13. Like much of surburbia, there wasn't much to do, and the huge outlet stories and the two movie theaters opened only after I left for college in Connecticut.
Frank Zappa's "Camarillo Brillo": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nllWDc8_9lw
Hank Jones' "Relaxin' in Camarillo" (written by Carlie Parker, once a patient at the hospital): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Y-y5Zz7m0
