SLO Surreal
That time The Surreal Life came to San Luis Obispo, California.
A rooster weather vane sits atop the old courthouse on Osos Street in San Luis Obispo. The building is no longer the courthouse—the courthouse is now around the corner. But footage of the old courthouse has been used for courthouse scenes in television shows like Modern Family—this is where Mitch goes to try his cases.
The rooster weather vane topped San Luis Obispo’s original courthouse in 1873, then the Art Deco courthouse pictured above, which was constructed in 1940 and which now houses county government offices.
There was a time when I never even noticed the weather vane. Maybe like you, I am often so busy and so focused on what’s right in front of me that I don’t look up and notice the world around me. Sometimes, though, that rooster weather vane sits so pretty against the backdrop of the morning sky that it reminds me.
Sometimes when I walk past the weather vane, I’m reminded of an old television show. Twenty years ago, The Surreal Life filmed a two-episode story arc called “Action News” here in San Luis Obispo, which means the season’s celebrities all came to town: Florence Henderson (The Brady Bunch), Sherman Hemsley (The Jeffersons), C.C. Deville (Poison), Steve Harwell (Smash Mouth), Andrea Lowell (Playboy), Mavin Huffman (WWE wrestler), Alexis Arquette (actor and transgender activist; I remember her most from The Wedding Singer), and Tawny Kitaen. Most people my age will remember Kitaen as the auburn-haired actor who did the splits on the hood of a Jaguar in the iconic MTV music video for Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again.”
The story arc was a kind of “fish out of water” story—big city LA celebrities visiting a small town on the Central Coast. The cast was tasked with producing local news segments for KSBY, our local NBC affiliate, including covering our world-famous Thursday night Farmer’s Market.
The weather vane has been misplaced, stolen, and found again numerous times over the years, and although it’s currently safe and sound atop the old courthouse, when The Surreal Life visited SLO, it had been missing for six months. In the first episode, Tawny Kitaen covered the case of the missing rooster weather vane. I remember thinking, “What weather vane?”
I tuned in all those years ago to see glimpses of our charming little town on television. What I didn’t expect was that some of it would be difficult to sit through.
It’s not always fun to see yourself through someone else’s eyes. I love where I live for many reasons—SLO isn’t called the Happiest City in the USA for nothing. But some of the little things I no longer notice about our little town on a daily basis are immediately apparent to visitors. For example, over the years, I’ve heard several visiting comedians joke about the lack of diversity in our town.
The second episode of The Surreal Life’s visit to San Luis Obispo was hard to watch. The cast wrapped up their visit with dinner at a downtown restaurant called Mission Grill (now Luna Red). I was mortified as I watched a group of college students harass Alexis Arquette and make her the butt of their jokes. At one point, Arquette commented that she couldn’t wait to get out of our town. It cut me to the core that she’d had that experience here. It still does. I’m sure Arquette gave San Luis Obispo a wide berth for the rest of her life. I’m sad she was hurt, and I’m also sad that’s part of the impression the entire world got of San Luis Obispo when the show aired.
Things have changed here in the past twenty years. Fifteen or so years ago, our local Pride celebration was just an afternoon event, with haters on a nearby patio trying to drown out the drag show on the Mission steps. Today, it has grown into a week-long community celebration, including a well-attended drag show and celebrity appearances. I’ve seen Margaret Cho there, Tiffany (“I Think We’re Alone Now”), and Belinda Carlisle (The Bangles). The entire town joins in the party. I took my grandson to Pride to see an Elton John tribute band when he was little. I explained to him that Pride is a celebration about being proud of who you are, just as you are.
Since The Surreal Life came to SLO twenty years ago, we’ve lost Florence Henderson (1934-2016), Sherman Hemsley (1938-2012), Tawny Kitaen (1961-2021), Steve Harwell (1967-2023), and Alexis Arquette (1969-2016).
I’ve watched the world change in the two decades since the SLO Surreal Life episodes aired. I’ve watched with hope as my own little piece of the world has changed, too. Our world is constantly evolving, but I’m reminded every time I watch the news that the work is never finished and that the ground we’ve gained can be lost again, so quickly and inch by inch.
I’m surprised/not surprised by how much Bob Dylan’s words remain as relevant today as they did when this song was released sixty years ago in 1964:
“Come gather ‘round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.—Bob Dylan
Things are better than they were twenty years ago for the LGTBQ+ community, for trans people, for people of color—or so it seems to me, but I guess that’s easy for me to say or believe because I don’t belong to these marginalized communities. I’m a woman, though, and I’m not so sure things are better for women today than they were twenty years ago. The clock seems to be winding backward. Maybe marginalized communities feel the same. Maybe all our rights are under threat. I know this much: we can’t stop swimming, or we’ll sink like a stone.