Malibu Katie

Last weekend, we went to visit our dear friends, Elias and Gail, at their fabulous house in Malibu for lunch and a little beach time.

Elias was a writer on "M*A*S*H," "Frasier," "Mary Tyler Moore" and countless other shows and has the battle scars to prove it. I was lucky to have him as my TV writing professor during my last semester. He, Gail, Chris, and I instantly hit it off, and have been friends ever since.

Kate really liked practicing her ballet moves on their giant deck.

After lunch, Elias drove us down to Westward Beach, giving us a tour of his street (aka "celebrity drive") on the way down. We passed by the houses of Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen, Howie Mandel, and Bob Dylan. We even saw the infamous porta-potty on Dylan's front lawn. The neighbors across the way had placed several huge fans on their deck to blow the stink out to sea.

Westward Beach is where the final scene of "Planet of the Apes" was filmed in which Charlton Heston sees the head of the Statue of Liberty in the water. "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

You can see the famous bluff behind Chris.

Watching the surfers go out.

The tide was too strong for swimming, so Kate splashed around and dunked her feet (fun), and occasionally got sucked into the ocean (not fun).

This was Kate's "seaweed garden."

The lifeguards don't really look like Pamela Anderson or David Hasselhoff.

The waves were big.

The longer we were there, the more Kate started to look like "Gidget."

Oof. Belly full o' baby.

Elias is running for WGA President against the mighty John Wells (creator of "ER") in September, and I hope for the writers' sake, Elias wins. He has always been a writer, first and foremost, and played an integral role in getting us a fair contract from those greedy producers last year. Go Elias!