So I was reading this piece by Joan Walsh (on the Frost bit, of course), and I decided to see if this is Joan Walsh who occasionally appears on hardball and other shows. So, I clicked on the about Joan tab:
I’ve written for everyone from the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post to Vogue and the Nation. I love baseball, Bruce Springsteen, Stephen Colbert and long walks on the beach. I live in San Francisco with my daughter, Nora, the best teenager ever.
Am I the only person who couldn’t care less for long walks on the beach? Sand in my toes, the option of either grit in my shoes or flip-flops or having to carry them, etc. Screw that. I would rather be in the damned water. Am I alone in that I would rather be drinking fruity drinks or nursing the inevitable beach vacation hangover before eating lots of seafood at the raw bar?
In fairness, she may just be joking as that is such a cliche.
whipporwill
With enough fruity drinks , all things are possible.
STEVEinSC
I love long walks on the beach, if they are not too long.
incontrolados
My dear departed Black Lab Buddy agreed with you and pulled me in with him. Unfortunately, he drank the water, too and then threw up all the way home. But hey, it made him happy.
Ugh
It sounds like you need a few fruity drinks right now John.
Manish
Can someone please publicize the fact that the NY Times Wedding Announcements are free.
link
AkaDad
I bet John would cross the sands for some Hola Fruta…
Incertus (Brian)
It’s got to be a joke–have you seen Ocean Beach in San Francisco? Not exactly the most awe-inspiring. Now, if Salon were headquartered in South Beach…
jcricket
Seafood eating surrender monkey!
Having spent literally every summer between when I was born and when I left for college on the east coast beaches (Rehobeth, Ocean City, Bethany), I definitely can’t agree with you John. Perhaps it’s just nostalgia, but I love walking on the beach (maybe not in a speedo anymore).
I once took a course for work, specifically in Southern California, so I could walk on the beach after class.
But now that I’ve grown up, I like the beach with alcohol too. Definitely adds something to the experience. Plus I wear sunscreen. Looking back at those pictures of me tan from head to toe every summer makes me shudder.
John Cole
Small world. We went to Bethany Beach every summer for about ten years. Always loved Phillips Crab house growing up.
Rehobeth Beach used to have the reputation of, umm, not being family friendly when I was a kid.
Jeff Hebert
The only good walk on a beach is the one you take to the bar. And that’s even better if the bar isn’t on a beach, and you drive there instead of walk.
RSA
I lived a block from the beach, in Venice, CA, for a year (working at USC in Marina del Rey). I walked an enormous amount, but almost always on the boardwalk. Whenever I went onto sand, it was straight to the water and then straight back toward the pavement. Guess I’m a city slicker at heart.
Gilmore
I wasn’t sure how it could have taken Mr. Cole so long to notice what’s going on around him…until I read this post. Thanks for the clarification.
jake
Man, why don’t you just start singing “Escape” and have done with it?
Walking along the beach is a highly overrated activity. Sitting on the beach and looking at the ocean? Great. Swimming until a wave slams your head into the sand? Fine. Wishing there were a way to ban certain people from wearing certain bathing suits? Check. But just walking? Yawn. That time could be more profitably spent figuring out a way to annihilate the seagulls.
Depends on how you’re using the word family.
James F. Elliott
BTW, the answer to your initial question is “Yes, that is the same Joan Walsh.”
Krista
I only like walks on the beach if they’re nice sandy beaches. Most of the beaches near where I live are pretty rocky. Although the seals keep me company when I swim, which is kind of cool.
Tax Analyst
I remember Compo Beach in Connecticut from when I was quite young…I loved the smell of the grilled hot dogs they sold at the concession stands back there – and their taste, too. I never found anything like that out here in SoCal. I wouldn’t go in the water out here for a million dollars, it’s just plain nasty, but I live only a few minute drive from the beach and there are times when the sunset is absolutely incredible.
Zuzu
It’s a San Francisco thing. No fruity drinks and definitely no swimming involved. Lots of walking, best if you’re throwing sticks for your yellow lab. If it’s summer, you’re wrapped up in a big ol’ wool sweater.
Yes, a total San Francisco cliche.
VidaLoca
John,
In my experience this “long walks on the beach” thing is kind of a code phrase. Inland, you’ll hear “long walks in the park” or the more generic (and more loaded) “taking long walks together”. It seems to have a high correlation with twin X chromosomes.
As to whether that’s a bug or a feature, well, YMMV.
srv
Yes, you are alone with the raw oysters, and the chicks are on the beach.
She didn’t say awe-inspiring walks, she said long walks. And Ocean Beach is a long-ass beach. As is Pt. Reyes. If she’d wanted awe-inspiring, she could hit any pocket beach or go to Monterrey.
Oh, and all those east-coast beaches have such awesome sunsets. How romantic.
maxbaer (not the original)
I would gladly go on long walks on the beach with Joan Walsh. I’d even drink pina coladas with her.
The Other Steve
Honestly, I really don’t care for beaches… or the ocean… or even lakes for that matter.
I love long walks through the woods. Preferably in fall, after the underbrush has died off so you can see where you are going.
grumpy realist
Speaking of “wonderful sunsets on East Coast beaches”, totally OT, but wasn’t there some Vietnam War movie that totally bugged the sh!t out of anyone who had actually been in Vietnam because whatever city they had picked for filming resulted in the sun apparently setting on the wrong side of Saigon?
Face
Uh…Mr. Cole? Three words for you: Log Cabin Republicans. No offense, but….
grumpy realist
And if you try that “long walks in the woods” around where I grew up in this season, there is the distinct possibility of getting potted by some drunk would-be “Great White Hunter” weekend warrior up from NYC. One reason why we Upstaters detest NYCers with a passion.
Incertus (Brian)
Oh, and all those east-coast beaches have such awesome sunsets. How romantic.
Who needs a sunset at the beach when you’re seeing the sunrise because you’ve been partying all night. Besides, if you want a sunset over the water, you can drive the 4 hours to Tampa and have all you want. Nice thing about living on a peninsula.
Oh yeah–I lived in San Francisco for the better part of two years, loved every second of it, but never saw a sunset in The City. Too much fog in the Sunset district. But it is absolutely gorgeous at Point Reyes.
John Cole
If swilling rum punch and margaritas on vacation makes you gay;
1.) There are a lot of gay people out there
2.) Sign me up.
Tax Analyst
Just tap three times…I’m not sure if that means “Yes” or if you’ll end up in OZ or Kansas or West Virginia, but I’m sure somebody out there will take it to mean whatever they want it to and respond to you.
Sometimes I miss drinking…
What the Hell am I still doing at the office?
Good night.
jnfr
Try Pismo Beach. That one will kick all the romance right out of you.
jcricket
Good thing I walked with a tight stance back then, being an uptight white kid with upper-middle class straight-laced, non-hip-swiveling parents.
Lord how I love the Republicans for making phrases like “wide stance” into jokes. Good stuff.
I spent many years actually scared of the haunted house at the boardwalk in Ocean City. I’m sure I’d think all that stuff is “lame” now, but it must be how people in my parents’ generation felt about Coney Island or the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore/Atlantic City.
Having moved to the west coast (about 11 years ago) one thing I really miss is the all you can eat crab (and the taffy) from the east coast. Newspaper, picnic tables, piles of crab and spices. Nothing better. I will note that you never got full eating crab, just carpal tunnel from cracking them all open.
Ninerdave
Wife and I used to live across the street from Baker Beach (just a bit north from Ocean Beach). For those not in the know, while San Fran is a small city, the weather varies widely between the western side (cold, windy) and eastern side (sunny, warm) (not germane to the story, but there you have it).
On a rare warm sunny day we hiked down to the beach to picnic, I’d totally forgotten that half of Baker Beach is nude…we set our stuff down and took a walk, only to run into a 50ish year old man, white as the background to this page doing naked yoga….
We didn’t eat our picnic.
Cain
While walking down the street, you should try out a potato snack that our friend Larry Craig apparently has created.
http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/senator_craigs_special_tuber/
Best had in a male bathroom.
cain
kvenlander
You need a wetsuit (or two) to swim in San Francisco waters. The water is _cold_.And then the riptides will still drag you out to sea and dump you somewhere half way to the Farallones.
So walking on the beach is a nice option.
Bubblegum Tate
Ditto. Nothing but beach bumming, crabs in Old Bay, and the Bethany Beach Ice Cream Parlor.
I grew up near here. Used to run on Compo Beach in the summer to stay in shape for basketball. Never went swimming there, though. Yuck.
blackfrancis
speaking as a diabetic, long walks on the beach on the edge of the water are really good for my feet. other than that, the only fun long walk I had on the beach was on Oahu, looking for the Lost filming location.
Rome Again
My old stomping grounds!!!! I love Delaware/Maryland’s eastern shore.
Rome Again
Oh yeah, don’t forget Lewes or Dewey Beach either. ;) Good times!!!
demkat620
We hit Bethany Beach every summer. I’m one of those who can take the beach for about three days and then I’ve had it. I get sick of the sand in everything and bored with the pace.
laneman
as Jake noted, Rehobeth Beach is very family friendly for the value of family is teh gay. and in reality, is now another suburb of DC and Wilmington
jake
So we don’t have everything. Depending on how you spent the previous evening, watching the sun rise over the water might be a thrilling, life-affirming activity. Or it might kill you when the sun lances into your bloodshot eyeballs and scorches your brain to ash.
That’s what I really don’t get. People who jog along the beach first thing in the morning. Healthy posing bastards. But that still isn’t as bad as the stick-thin Richard Simmons wannabe doing aerobics for hours at Assateague. Talk about frightening the horses.
DrDave
We go down there on day trips once or twice a summer now because friends have a summer cottage there. It’s definitely more family friendly now but also much more commercial…
Bob In Pacifica
While I usually hike up in the hills (you can some nice views of the coast about a mile and a half away) I like the beaches along Linda Mar and Rockaway in Pacifica. Lots of surfers and the jagged rocks here and there are quite scenic. At the north edge of Pacifica, at Mussel Rock, the coast is especially beautiful along the water’s edge. You occasionally see seals in there. A mile offshore from there was the epicenter for The Great Earthquake. A little farther south from there a whale washed up last week. The scientists were excited but it smelled like a few tons of rotting tuna fish. Down by the pier there’s a lot of people walking, including a berm that separates the beach from the city golf course. People take their dogs for walks along that stretch and while it’s fun to watch the dogs frolicking by the end of the summer the berm is soaked with doggie urine and adorned with uncollected doggie poo. Luckily, we’re into the rainy season. If you’re travelling from north to south you next hit Rockaway, then Linda Mar.
Right at the south of town is the infamous Devil’s Slide. The chert the road is built on is so unstable that the State has finally broken down and is building a tunnel bypass. That stretch of Hwy 1 will be a bike and hiking path in a few years. Then you can hike over Devil’s Slide to the nude beach in Montara.
croatoan
whatever city they had picked for filming resulted in the sun apparently setting on the wrong side of Saigon?
That was The Green Berets. Apparently Vietnam has lots of pine trees.
aCraftyOne
John Cole, you’re in the smallest minority, a statistical anomaly, in liking fruity drinks and NOT liking long walks on the beach. Just as confusing as Evangelicals for Evolution. I would guess that your purchasing trends, including but not limited to fruity drink ingredients, Tommy Bahama shirts and accessories, large inflatable living room chairs with cup holders and Steelers logo, SPF 60 sunscreen, etc. undoubtedly lead the mass marketing industry to incorrectly ASSume that you are just the type to be sucked in by direct mailing literature littered with romantic pictures of beach walking bliss. I’m sorry to report that you have a lifetime of this crap, directly delivered to your door and computer screen, to look forward to. With that said, once upon a time I tasted one of your frozen fruity concoctions and it was good.
tBone
Meanwhile, those of us stuck in Middle America would like to invite all of you coastcrawlers to take your sandy beaches and your glorious vistas and cram them right in your Hola Fruta. We have . . . trees and stuff. We don’t need your stinkin’ beaches.
Tax Analyst
I used to swim at Compo and never noticed it being “yucky”…on the other hand the last time I swam there was probably in the summer or 1958, when I was 8-years-old, so it probably could have had a glob of fetid feces in every wad of seaweed and I wouldn’t have noticed it. Or maybe it really wasn’t all that yucked out in 1958? But I have a rough idea what floats around in the ocean water adjacent to Playa Del Rey and Marina Del Rey and there’s no way I’m letting any of that touch my epidermis.
Tax Analyst
Now, now, tBone…just because all you’ve got there in the Midlands are those stinking, pollution-causing trees, chemically inundated lakes and rivers and flatlands and ditches or whatever the fuck takes up the rest of the space in those God-forsaken stretches of Americana doesn’t mean ya’ haveta be all pissy about our beautiful, crud-encrusted beaches and shit-saturated seasides. If you think you’re missing out on something maybe some Good Samaritan from the SoCal area (that leaves me out) can ship you some gen-u-wine local fish feces or dead whale detritus. Oh, we also have an abundance of Stinking Deserts, too, not to mention all the mountain areas where you can risk your ass and freeze to death while crapping like some beast out in the bushes. Anyway, you have to drink your Hola Frutas in the Recreation Area you have, you know…not the one you’d wish for.
neil
I’m guessing that you are single.
tBone
I’ll pick some up on my next visit. It’s always better when it’s fresh.
Tax Analyst
Well, I gotta agree with you there…after all, when you’re right, you’re right.
Tax Analyst
OH…I forgot – tBone, don’t forget to visit the Hyperion Waste Processing plant in beautiful Playa Del Rey while you’re out here. The wretched stench is absolutely intoxicating.
Jake
Tax Analyst, you’re making me think the beaches on the west coast of America are vastly inferior to those on the east. [gloat]
Peter VE
but wasn’t there some Vietnam War movie that totally bugged the sh!t out of anyone who had actually been in Vietnam because whatever city they had picked for filming resulted in the sun apparently setting on the wrong side of Saigon?
The Green Berets, starring the Duke hisself. There was a nice scene with the sun setting over the ocean while Wayne walks on the beach.
I hate the beach. I can’t stand sand in my flip flops, sand in my eyes, sand in my food, or sand in my underwear. I don’t much like swimming, either. Messing around in boats, OTOH, is proof of the existence of a divinity.
tBone
The beaches on the East Coast do have the Coney Island Whitefish to recommend them.