Above, Esquire News, a newsstand in Pismo Beach, on Saturday, April 17. ("The same people have been running it since probably the Carter administration," a reviewer says on Yelp.) We strolled in during a stop on the drive back down from Santa Cruz on California's historic 101.
In Esquire, I spent less than four dollars on five items that I seriously needed, without question: A pack of gum, a bottle of root beer, a gift card, and two sticks of Red Vines. We strolled the couple blocks that you might call the Pismo Beach downtown and a bit of the pier. We walked into HotShots billiards, which looks like it was once a theater, and had a beer. Hemp Ale for me.
I've said it before, but here goes: The California coastline is a world treasure. You are so fortunate, Californians, to live on it, or near it, or to have been raised in its wake. Those breezes and waves shape Cali coastal culture as it remains today. Don't ever forget it.
... The "Pismo Beach Disaster," by the way, is an "entirely fictitious event."