Canto CDLXXVII: Laguneando

Gentle cabrones:

Laguna Beach has been a blessed and cursed place for my honey and I for 30 years — more the former for her and latter for me.

She lived high up in the hills in the 1990s for half a year at $350 a month. I once dove my Camry down an access road and into the sand to try and impress a girl (it didn’t work). My honey used to enjoy brunches with her stepfather at Las Brisas, the restaurant with OC’s best coastline views and some of its most overpriced Mexican food. When we stopped by the day after our wedding to spend the night at a nearby hotel and she tearfully told any worker who attended us that we had just married, they told us their divorce stories TO A PINCHE T — to this day, the cruelest customer service we’ve ever received, and we’ve been overlooked or outright rejected multiple times because of my huaraches (Canto CCCLXXVII) or our brown skin.

Her beloved high school friend lives in Laguna, just like my OCC friend who I lost contact with until early in my courtship of my honey, when she said she wanted to introduce me to her friends and there he was with his now-wife! Their son is my birthday brother, and her friends and my friends are now friends as well. One of our most existential haters used to live there until they lost their house after cheating on their spouse because that’s the type of loser they are.

Whenever I take my dad to CBX super early, I love to drive up PCH to see the sun hit Crystal Cove early in the morning. It’s also the highway I took up and down during sunset while my honey was passed out besides me the day after our wedding from having a bit too much fun.

Laguna is only about half an hour from where we live. But we hadn’t returned together for a few years until a few Fridays ago, when we went along with NelCYN to…a rave at the basement of the Hotel Laguna.

Um, yeah.

We left NelCYN’s house around 5:30 and took the 5 down to Laguna Canyon Road, long one of my favorite drives until modernity ruined the northern part with Irvine Company monstrosities. The town’s summer traditions, Art-a-Fair and Pageant of the Masters, were packed. Members of Zeta Tau Alpha posed for a group photo on Main Beach alongside the oversized pink letters of their sorority.

“I lived here about 8 billion years ago,” my honey kept telling NelCYN and I as we looked for parking. “Off Bluebird Canyon and Summit. With a friend and her loser boyfriend.”

We were heading toward Hotel Laguna because my honey’s friend was going to spin some electronica with others. But we arrived early. The official photographer had just set up his backdrop. The bartender made us some good cocktails, although I didn’t appreciate the mandatory 20% tip on my bill, as much as they deserved it.

We took our drinks to a small patio with no shade. It was a hot, muggy late afternoon, the kind that used to be rare in Southern California but which have been endemic this summer. A group of women, almost all wearing crystal-bedecked crosses that plunged into their décolletage, mingled as they waited to sit down for a birthday dinner on a tented slab of concrete the Hotel Laguna passes off as its beachside patio.

“Those waves are large,” I said as NelCYN applied sunscreen on her alabaster skin. My honey scoffed.

“They’re not big. You didn’t body surf Trestles.”

Her friend and his friends joined us for a bit.

“I want to jump in the ocean,” my honey suddenly exclaimed.

No. She had no swimsuit, no towel, no plan.

“I want to jump in the ocean.”

No. I had gone off to see if I could steal a towel or find a hotel gift shop. Nothing.

“I’m going in the ocean.”

And off she wandered toward the beach.

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Ever see Barefoot in the Park with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford? 1967 romcom filmed just before they became superstars. Newlyweds where the wife is a free spirit and the husband is an uptight spoilsport.

This is we now.

When my honey and I spent a weekend with her friends at my attorney’s Palm Springs estate for her bachelorette party, she greeted me by hurling us in the pool even though I was fully clothed and had my cell phone on me. When Alta Baja hosted her high school’s 30th reunion, more than a few people marveled that the gal they all remembered as a sweetheart party animal ended up with a nerd like me.

This summer marks 20 years since I pulled off the conclusion of Barefoot in the Park and did an uncharacteristic, booze-fueled spur-of-the-moment gesture that permanently won her heart. The irony of our lives is that while my honey is all joie de vivre off the clock, she’s by-the-books as a businesswoman. Meanwhile, I’m the Columbo of Southern California journalism even as my private life is one of Ignatian discipline.

Opposites not only attract, they love — and squabble.

I went off to chase after my honey as NelCYN stayed back.

You have to towel to dry yourself.

(The sun will do the job)

You can’t go in just wearing underwear.

(Are you seeing all the moms in their thongs?!)

The waves are too strong.

(You were scared of the water when we were in our honeymoon in Maui and we saw the sea turtle)

You…can’t.

She did.

She stripped down to her bra and bike shorts, placed her boots and sundress on the sand, and ran into the surf.

It’s been a hard summer for my honey. We lost Cosmo and friends. Running a business is never easy. More Kaiser visits than usual. Nothing is cheap anymore.

But in the warm waters of Laguna, my honey was reborn.

NelCYN joined me on the beach as we both looked on.

“She’s so happy,” NelCYN said. “She lives in the moment.”

“I don’t!” I cracked.

But that’s okay. Opposites not only attract, they support.

My honey reemerged from the ocean like a Botticelli scene. “I just went in the ocean,” she proclaimed. “I SO needed this. The salt water heals.”

She urged us to jump in. The most NelCYN and I did was roll up our pants and wet our feet.

We walked back to the Hotel Laguna. My honey and NelCYN tried to wash their feet with a faucet specifically designed for that until hotel staff intervened. It would inconvenience the women next to us at the hotel’s excuse of a party venue.

The rave was about to start. Security guards the size of linebackers now roamed the dance floor. We excused ourselves and walked up Coast Highway toward the Royal Hawaiian

We stopped in a clothing boutique owned by a native Mancunian (“It’s hot, isn’t? It used to not be like this? And in England, too. It was like 91 degrees — as hot as it’s ever been. They’re not equipped for it, they have no air conditioners”) so my honey could change into gym shorts. We passed by House Inhabit, the storefront of an alt-loser influencer that stands across the street from the Laguna Art Museum. We got a pupu platter and tiki drinks at the packed Royal Hawaiian, where the great cover band played slow, fuzzed-out versions of “Ain’t no Sunshine,” “Wish You Were Here,” and “Wild Horses,” which I guessed after just two notes.

“I got it!” I told my honey.

“For once.”

“No, I got it forever when I got you.”

Eye roll. Wives!

But the song inspired my honey to ask the somewhat gruff bartender for a lighter. When he declined, she grabbed an electric tea light candle, went up to the smiling band members, and swayed.

“She’s living her best life,” NelCYN said.

“I’m having the best time, honey,” my honey said as we walked out of the Royal Hawaiian and back down Coast Highway to get our car. Downtown Laguna was becoming packed as the sun began to set. A two-person calypso band clanged out “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”

There was one more place to visit.

We drove up and up Laguna’s hills on the search for my honey’s long-ago pad. Millionaires were displacing the bohemians that long claimed the city as their own when she lived there. Now, it’s billionaires displacing millionaires, squeezing their bland McMansions into small lots.

“I can’t fucking believe it,” my honey said. “It’s obscene.”

We finally found her spot, which was no longer what it was. But the last flashes of the sunset as it sank into the Pacific renewed her spirits to the point where she’d post her entire Laguna adventure on IG.

“I used to live here,” my honey said for like the 30th time. We couldn’t linger, though: there was a drag show to catch in SanTana, a drag show where three queens rejected my tips.

Another story, another day in our blessed, beloved lives.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: Terrible photo of LEGENDARY fettucine alfredo at Musso & Frank’s in Hollywood. Had never ordered the dish there before, which is supposedly the original recipe brought back to the U.S. by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford from the Italian originator. Whatever the origins, it’s delicious, creamy and perfect — my cousin Plas loved it along with everything else on his first visit!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “You must be dissatisfied with the way you are now if you ever want to get to where you are not yet. When you are self-satisfied, you get stuck where you are. If you say to yourself, ‘That’s enough; I need not go farther,’ it is then that you die.” — St. Augustine

LISTENING: “Amargo Adiós (Versión Tequila),” Inspector. The mighty Mexican ska outfit remains the only group I’ve ever seen have a concert canceled before they even played because they violated the maximum occupancy of their venue — in their case, at the late, great JC Fandango in Anacrime. Great band, fantastic tenor — and their most famous song sounds that much better backed by mariachi. Why can’t Mexican ska hit the mainstream again? Hence included in Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly Radiola of Randomness YouTube songlist, where I’ve included every song I’ve ever featured in a canto — give it a spin!

READING: “250 for 250”: The best celebration of America’s bicentennial has been through MLB.com, which has decided to do 25 listicles with 10 entries each on some of the most iconic moments in the sport. There’s a slight recency bias BUT this is Major League Baseball after all, where history is ever-present and where corresponding clips are almost ever-present. Good website, overall!

Gustavo Events  

Sept. 12, 10:30 a.m.: I'll be in conversation with literary legends Lorna Dee Cervantes and Herbert Siguenza at the East Los Book Festival at the East LA Civic Center, 4801 E. 3rd Street, East Los Angeles. Lecture, FREE; books, BARATO

Sept. 16, 7:30 p.m.: Now THIS is an event — I will offer introductory remarks and lead a post-screening discussion for Juan Gabriel: Mi Primer Bellas Artes, a concert film about his legendary concert at Mexico’s most important cultural venue. Tickets $18.50 and you can buy here.

Sept. 24, 7 p.m.: I will be in conversation with Macarthur genius comadre Kelly Lytle Hernández at Skylight Books on account of her new book, Racist by Design Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control. 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles. Lecture, FREE; books, BARATO.

???: Note to those OC people interested in the above event with Profe Kelly — we’re going to do it again at my honey’s Alta Baja on a Saturday at 1 p.m. sometime in October or November, so stay tuned to this space!

Gustavo in the News

“LA Squawk Box for Friday, August 21, 2026”: The best daily newsletter of L.A. City Hall news (as opposed to the weekly DESMADRE my Los Angeles Times colleagues do) shouts out a columna of mine.

“#058 - Legalized Baseball, Fake CPR Cards, and Tasty Thai-Soul Food Fusion”: A good Substack about the San Fernando Valley shouts out a columna of mine.

“Remembering a patriarch”: My former OCC student Melissa Montalvo (subject of a future Random Cool People I Know canto!) writes a touching tribute to her grandfather and cites my rancho libertarian philosopy in the Fresno Bee’s essential La Abeja newsletter. (Sadly, unless you subscribe to the newsletter, you can’t easily read its contents — even if you subscribe to the Bee — because McClatchey still hasn’t figured out it needs a permalink…but it did figure out how to publish an ad for a wannabe Ozempic!)

“Well, That “Fight” Did Not Take Long“: AltaPolicyWonk shouts out a columna of mine.

“Most Depressing Election of the Year”: The Wall Street Journal — which never misses a chance to hate on LA but for some reason cites my columnas on the city more often than not — shouts out a columna of mine.

“Letters to the Editor: The Catholic way would be to embrace our neighbors, not punish them”: Los Angeles Times readers feel about a columna of mine.

“Immigration News Today: Trump Pauses Visa Appointments Worldwide”: A columna of mine gets a shout-out.

“Is Big Brother working retail? How the algorithm prices your groceries”: A Los Angeles Times newsletter you should subscribe to plugs a columna of mine.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my "Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“License plates for e-bikes? Orange County is considering it”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary talks about the issue at hand.

"What's New in LA’s Messy Mayor’s Race”: I go on KQED to talk about the subject at hand.

“Dolly Parton stood up for undocumented immigrants when few others would”: My latest L.A. Times columna talks about the legendary singer and her cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee(Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)”. KEY QUOTE: “Honoring the undocumented and decrying their persecutors at the height of her career, against political headwinds and with nothing to gain and everything to lose, was par for her life, and a challenge for all of us to do the same.”

“Racist ‘Magic Deportation Bus’ isn’t the way for Trump to keep Latino voters”: My next latest L.A. Times columna has me sparring with a White House spokesperson over their weak-salsa attempts at anti-immigrant humor. KEY QUOTE: “Only her heart knows whether the line was a callback to the offending social media post or a not-nice suggestion that I self-deport to wherever the hell she thinks I was born (I’m a native Anaheimer, by the way).”

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