By Steve Otto
If there was
one reason for me to go on my trip---there was one word—Blacks Beach (Okay,
two). But why? A few years ago I started reading about all the nudity in various
place and various events. I had read about beaches, various motorcycle rallies,
such as Sturges, the Wood Stock reunion concert and Burning Man. What do they
have in common? Nudity![1] At
least that is what I was led to believe and in some cases I was probably miss-lead.
In the 1970s,
in the town of Lawrence, I went nude swimming at Lake Henry and Bromlset
(probably miss-spelled). One year the wife and I went to Spain and while there
we went to a few nudist beaches with our friend Mark. He is gay and he likes
nude beaches as much as I do. There was something really cool about swimming naked
in surf of the Mediterranean Sea. So, there is a theme here.[2]
A few years
ago I went to my brother Chris’s 50th birthday party in St. Louis. A
friend of his explained that he was attending a Naked Bike Ride, an annual event that takes place in many big cities. He was
planning to wear shoes and that was it.
“The police
will be escorting us,” the guy said. Wow! Police helping this event along—Toto were
not in Kansas anymore!
I remember
Christina, former Kirby’s bartender, telling me about a girl she knew, here in
Wichita, trying to organize a nude bike ride in Wichita—Ha!!! She gave up on
the idea real fast.
Now after
many years of living in Wichita Kansas, an anal-retentive piss hole, where
there are probably people who won’t even get naked to take a bath—where there
are probably people who blind fold their bathroom toys, such as rubber ducks,
when they take a bath, I was feeling dragged down by a mass depletion of nudity.
In this town, anytime I talked of nude swimming the woman I was talking to always
said “Oh! I could never do that.” They said it in the same exact way, the same
exact wording, it was like a rehearse response. Most guys said something
similar.
Then my wife
died and suddenly one day it dawned on me—“I really don’t have to be here at
all. I can leave this place and see something different.”
So I looked
up Black’s Beach. It is in San Diego. I could go there. I’m sure I can find
other things to do while there. So, I planned my trip. The one thing I wanted
to see is what I can’t see here (in Wichita). Now I don’t mean to insult my Wichita
friends, but if this article does insult you—GET OVER IT—I simply don’t care.
So I planned
out my trip and away I went. The train ride was kinda interesting. I met this
real young goth girl (maybe 16), who was into Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. We
talked for a while and she liked some really cool music. Of course, she was real
young. I would never try to hit on someone that young. But I enjoyed talking to
her. A weird kind of hippie woman asked me who was pictured on my T-shirt. “Chairman
Gonzalo,’ I said. “He was head of the Shining Path. I like far left figures.”
“I hope you
mean non-violently?!” she replied.
“Yes, I’m
non-violent,” I said. I guess that is mostly true. She also complained about
Ansly’s (the goth woman’s name) music that she liked to listen to and asked her
to turn it off. WEIRD!
Later I
talked to an interesting Hispanic woman who was going to Albuquerque.
So now comes
my first night in San Diego. A few days before my trip I started to line up
motels to stay in. And the BIGGEST mistake of all was planning this trip during
Memorial Day. “This is a holiday,” the motel people all said. I should have canceled
my trip for a week, but I didn’t. The last hotel, the one I stayed in first, got
cost me $360 for that one night. Remember it was high because of the holiday. What
did I get for that price? I got no shampoo, no micro-wave, no coffee maker. All
I got was a $30 room for the huge price. And at some time in the future I plan
to let the president of Motel 6 (AKA Motel Stix) know what they did. Maybe he
won’t like it, or maybe he doesn’t care, but I will find out for sure.
The next day
I got to my next motel. As time went on I kept getting different motels for
each night. I took what I could get. Remember, it was “A HOLIDAY!” -As if I
didn’t know. Well, the price was OK, but I couldn’t check in until 3pm. And
unlike some hotels I went to in the past, they would not let me store my
luggage there.
“It’s a liability
problem,” the desk lady said.
“But I had
to leave the other motel, it was past check out time at 11,” I yelled at here.
“To bad! You
can’t come here until 3.”
She was
actually very young and pretty and a REAL BITCH! They next day we manage to
talk to each other without screaming at each other. I guess we both felt we
didn’t want to fight with each other any more than we had to.
Before 3pm, I
got a cab driver to take me to this place, I think it was in Old Town, that had
restaurants and bars. I went into this place and ordered a very overpriced burrito.
I soon found everything in every restaurant was overpriced. And yes, the drinks
were expensive. In Wichita I can get a drink of absence for $8 and a really
cool foo foo drink from the same bar, called a margarita with mezcal, for $10.
In San Diego’s bars the beer or any other drink is either $10 or close to it. Food
was expensive there also.
So, after I ate,
I went to the bar next door. They sat me at a table outside in the front. The
street was real crowded with people and here I was sitting with my luggage
outside. Some nice young guy told me he heard what happened at the motel and he
thought it was really screwed up. So not everyone I met was an ass hole.
So, I sat in
front of that bar drinking some kind of locally brewed stout. I called a taxi
and I learned, both that day and another, that taxi drivers in San Diego don’t
always stop and check to see if you need a cab. They may not even slow down and
they expect you to flag them down. Yes, I learned it the hard way. On the other
hand, taxis were the one thing that were not more expensive, they may have even
been cheaper than Wichita cabs. And yes! Their buses run past midnight—DUH!
So, I ended
up hauling all that luggage about a mile down the road to that motel. That
include pushing it down a highway ramp. Technically
I was on vacation, but the reality is that I worked harder on this trip than I
ever did at work.
The next day
I moved to a motel and once again I couldn’t leave my luggage until 3. So, I
went across the street to some overpriced deli. But on the good side I was scheduled
for one day at this new motel and then three together after that. The desk lady
said I could stay all four days in the same room. FINALLY!!! A break.
The next
full day I went to the trolly station nearby. Someone warned me that it would
be expensive to take a cab to Black’s Beach. So I tried to get there, first
through trollies and then through buses. I was told to start with bus 88, then go
to 150, then 101. But the bus driver told me I need to go to El Cajon.
'That would
get me close to where I want to go,' he said. So I sat on the trolley for 30
minutes. When I got to El Cajon this woman told me:
“You’re nowhere near the beach," she said. "You went in the wrong direction. You need to get back on the trolley and go back to Fashion valley.”
“Fashion valley,
I just left Fashion valley," I shouted. "That’s where I started.”
“Well, that
is where you need to go.”
So back I
went—30 waisted minutes.
For some
reason I though that Blacks Beach was right below a park called Torrey Pines.
So, I made my wake to that park and asked the bus driver to take me to Black’s
Beach. She acted real huffy and put out, but she took me to a beach—the wrong
one. Still, I was traveling the bus lines and enjoying the scenery. The beach
was OK. I walked out in the surf to enjoy the cold salty water and I returned.
One thing I
learned at the end of the day is that people would not tell me the correct
route to Black’s Beach. When I asked the people at that bus and trolly hub, I
got different answers every time. I hadn’t had that much trouble since I was
trying to get to a concentration camp in Dachau, Germany.
So this really sucked.
That day I was
told by the people working at my motel that the motel next to mine had a diner.
So, I went there to eat and it was good. However, some people in there told me that there
was also a bar in that motel. So, I checked it out and sure enough there was a
bar. And there was this bar tender who called herself Kim or Kimberly. She would
not tell me or anyone else at that bar her last name.
“Black’s
Beach?” She said. “Yes, that is in La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya—not La Ja-low).”
So, I went
to the wrong place. She explained to me that Black’s Beach was hard to get to.
“You have to
go down this cliff,” Kim said. “It is easy to get down, but not back up. Also,
it’s not all that good. It’s mostly a bunch of naked gay guys.”
She also told
me I should avoid El Cajon. “That bus driver was probably joking with you,” Kim
added.
That evening
I rode a bus around town and saw a lot of bars and places downtown. I noticed that
I had really given San Diego a fair chance.
I saw a real
fake looking bar called the Waterfront. Kim later told me it was a very pretentious
and phony bar. It wasn’t even close to any water.
So, the next
day I took a bus downtown. I had asked the lady at the hotel which bus I should
take and she told me bus 120. So, I went downtown. The first place I came was a
coffee shop that had a lot of food, much of it pastries. I ordered this cheesy Danish
thing and a cup of café Americano (a common coffee drink these days). I had seen
the nifty record store (CDs and vinyl) and I wanted to go there. I walked
around a few blocks and suddenly I saw this possibly deserted house, about a block
or more away. It resembled some homes I saw in Mexico City a few years ago. It
may have been empty. I was about to get out my camera phone.
I started to
walk through this parking lot, but I didn’t notice this weird metal thing, some
kind of hook in the parking lot. I tripped. I landed on my knee and hands. I
already have an arm that was messed up because I fell down some steps at work.
I could feel the pain jetting down that arm. It took me a few minutes to get
myself together and get up off the ground. Then I noticed my left knee was
throbbing in pain. It started to swell up and before long my whole leg was
swollen. I did make it to that record store. They had some real interesting
things. They had some old albums, many were Beatle albums, for anywhere from $60
to more than $100. They had some early Beatle’s albums on the Gramophone records
for $100. Those are records that were issued in the United Kingdom (England).
They probably are worth some money. But I didn’t buy them.
By the time
I left the record store my leg was swelling even more and I was in serious
pain. So, I went to the bus stop where I was let off earlier that day. The bus
went few blocks and then stopped.
“This is the
end of the line,” the bus driver said.
“What do you
mean?” I asked.
“The bus is
finished for now. No more stops.”
I got out
and I had trouble finding buses going back the way I came, rather than to downtown.
So, I called a taxi. That’s when I found out I had to run out and get his
attention or he would just drive on.
I finally got
a taxi and I finally got back to my hotel room. So, of course the bartender
next store suggested I come to her bar.
That idea
was a good one. That I night fell asleep early, about 7 pm. But I woke up about
11:30 and I went to the bar next store to my motel.
So, I got
the idea of coming to the bar tomorrow at 7pm.
The next day
I made it to that bar and I had a great time. I met a whole lot of people and they
were pleasant to meat.
But for most,
people in that place, they were a lot similar to people at Kirby’s. The one man
talked about music and we both liked Dr. Hook and the medicine
show. We talked about other music people we liked.
I only had to
go to the hotel across the street. I never needed to drive any vehicle to get
home. I could stay at the bar all night and drink all I wanted and I didn’t have
to worry about getting back. So yes, I stayed there and enjoyed myself.
It is funny
how it is the simple things that bring us pleasure. I enjoyed talking to that
woman bar tender and the other people in the bar, who were mostly men. I talked
to a woman who was in the military and she told me all about the things she did
for a living. It was real interesting to me. I never told her I was or that I
was a propogandist for such persons and organizations as Chairman Gonzalo and
his Communist Party of Peru (often known in the press as Shining Path). So it
was a great night full of fun.
I could have
had this much fun in Wichita, but I wasn’t there. I was here in San Diego. Kim
told me she thought the town was kind of boring. A friend of hers, at the bar, said he
disagreed. He said there had been a concert by the Beach Boys recently and
there had been other music concerts. He also said they have a good zoo.
On Thursday
I felt kind of hung over. I don’t drink like that much anymore. But as noon
came along, I decided to do something. Well, I had not made it to Black’s Beach,
so I called a cab. When I got the cab, the guy said he had been to Black’s
Beach with his wife years ago.
“We went
down there and what?!” he said. “Naked people.”
So finally on
the last day of my trip, I made it to Black’s Beach. As Kim had told me, I had
to walk down a flight of very primitive steps to get to the beach. The steps
were made with boards, bricks, and lots of dirt. There tiny boards acting as
bridges over breaks in the path down the cliff. At times there was just some
paths that went down. I was also beginning to believe Kim when she said that
getting back up was going to be hard.
Once down
there, it was strange to me that most of the people had clothes on, but a few
were nude. There were two nude women playing in the surf. Most of the nude
beaches I’ve went to had mostly nude people at them. I’ve never been to one
where just a few people were nude. It seemed weird to me.
I walked
down a ways along the beach and sat on a rock near the cliffs. And, as I saw
some other guys do, I took all my clothes off. After a short time, I realized I
have a really noticeable beer gut, or whatever they are called. So, I did go
into the surf, one time wearing underpants and another wearing just a T-shirt.
I didn’t mind people seeing my junk, but I didn’t want people noticing my gut.
The
experience there was not as great as I thought it would, but it was OK and
after all, I did finally get to see the beach.
Then came
that horrible trek up all those steps. I had to take lots of breaks and I was huffing
and puffing the whole way up, as other people went both up and down the steps.
A few people encouraged me.
“You’ll it make
up there brother,” some young guy said.
And few guys
told me there were just a few steps more. I had called that cab driver back at
the bottom of the steps as he suggested. He called me when I was almost to the
top.
“I’m almost
there,” I said, huffing and puffing.
As one final
blow to me, I left my glasses at the beach and had to buy a new pair.
I finally
made it to the top. Later I went to the bar next door.
“Well, at
least you made it to that beach,” Kim said. “You would have regretted it if you
didn’t go at all. I did try to talk you out of it.”
She was
right. To go all that way and not to go Black’s Beach should seem like an awful
waist.
The end was
near. Nothing left to look forward to but the train ride home. It was anti-climatic.
The only person I talked to was this guy who smuggled some vodka on the train
and was sharing it with me and some others.
So that was
it. I had wanted to get out of Wichita and I did. I also got out of Maize, but
that happens every day, almost. I got to see a beach that included nudity. Kim
said it wasn’t really a nude beach and she may be right.
I may someday
go other places where nudity is allowed, but not this year fer sure.
I never went
to Sea World. Touristy places have a tendency to make me nauseous. I didn’t
make the Zoo. I’m sure it is a nice Zoo. One of those guys at the bar said
their Zoo is impressive. Since I’m older, I don’t travel for the things I would
have years ago. The only souvenir I brought back was a wine bottle from the train
when I realized I didn’t have a single souvenir. But I’ve been to California before.
I’ve been to the ocean before, including the Pacific Ocean. I’ve even been to
nude beaches before. So most of what I did, I did before. It was fun some of
the time and being on a trip beats sitting around in deep bought of depression,
in my living room. So I got some of the things I wanted out of this trip.
Here is a monument to human stupidity.
This is the Los Angeles River, which used to shift through sand. So, they built
that concrete monstrosity around it. It is an ecological disaster.
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