⊙ RANGE You will find the West Ghost anywhere you go looking to find yourself—from the organic taco stands of Chula Vista to Ken Kesey’s contented cattle ranch in Oregon. In search of cool, the W.G. occasionally drifts as far north as the goose-bumpy nude beaches of Vancouver. From the Rocky Mountain High Sierra clubs to the Hodaddy-clotted breakers off Catalina, in the waterbedrooms and extremely bored rooms, touching, relating, sharing, taking lunches and giving phone, the West Ghost does his thing, always here, always now.

◐ HABITS The West Ghost lures his victims out to the earthquake perilled, partially reclaimed desert, with rumors of gold and legends of promiscuity. Once they are on his surf and turf, he implants in the sun-stroked minds of his prey the notion that a soak in a barrel of sweat with a coven of fellow Californians is a pleasant way to spend a couple of days. He enables one to enjoy listening to an entire game on the car radio while driving to and from the stadium. He inspires palimony disputes after the break-up of group marriages. He implants dozens of absolutely outrageous ideas for High- Concept situation comedies in the Perrier-addled noggins of his protegés. In return for feeding him five pounds of ocean temperature raw sea urchin, he’ll slip you the home phone number of a studio exec at Fox. He gives you a sunburn where the moon don’t shine.

★ HISTORY The West Ghost’s trendy—and ever-changing—appearance materializes out of a dense, deadly, drifting smog, composed of the exhaust of Okies’ model Ts, steam released by the 750-foot papier-mâche volcano in Disneyland, a mist of genelethal insecticides, smoke of a thousand movie moguls’ cigars and the incinerated dreams of ten thousand Midwest bottleblonds, vaporous exudations of beached whales mingled with the reek of hair oil, salad oil, sun-tan oil, snake oil, extremely crude oil, oiled palms, and oil of LA. SPOTTER’S

TIPS The West Ghost is invisible when viewed through sunglasses. Thus, it can be seen only by recent arrivals from the East, which explains the look of terror on their pale faces as they dodge from shadow to shadow down the palm-lined sun-blasted boulevards. The West Ghost is rilly, rilly, like, into his California life-style, y’know?