I Hate the Redondo Beach Pier

Monday I hung out with Madd. Covid prevented us from hanging out for over a year, so it’s nice to get back to that sort of normalcy. It’s not like we did anything huge, though. We went to furniture stores sitting on chairs and looking at tables and such. I know. Big fun.

When we got hungry, Madd took me to the Redondo Beach Pier. It was a crowded mess that smelled of a combination of deep-fried shellfish and urine, and neither of us wanted to wait for a table. After walking the perimeter we got out of there. It’s been about 15 years since I’ve been, but I never felt so repulsed by the place. I kept thinking back to all of the times I used to go, and it was then that I realized that I actually hate the Redondo Beach Pier. I guess we’re supposed to have fond memories of the place having grown up in the South Bay, especially with the now-shuttered arcade. But no. Even as a child, I thought it was a shithole.

Eating fried cheesecake.

We went a little south to the Riviera to get food, at H.T. Grill. I had their espresso short ribs which was amazing, just the perfect serving size with a deep smoky sweet sauce. In the picture you see me eating their fried cheesecake which is wrapped in phyllo dough and caramel. Also you see an empty glass that once was filled with a Manhattan.

One thing we talked about is where high school kids hang out nowadays. As we were driving around, we drove past my old high school coffeehouse haunt Yesterdays which has been closed for about 20 years. I started to feel bad because kids don’t have the variety of coffeehouses that we did back in the day. Like if you got tired of Yesterdays, you could drive down to the Riviera and go to Coffee Cartel (which is thankfully still there.) If you wanted to hang out with Neo-Nazis on speed, you go to Insomniac which was up closer to PCH. So where do the kids go to now?

Madd was very unconcerned about this. She figured they had their own places to hang out and that our places to them are passé and a bore. She’s right. Lord knows what they do, but I do hope they do lots of bad things that would make their parents freak out. That’s all I care about, really. I get freaked out that kids nowadays are too fucking boring and want to get along with their parents. Gross!

(Is there now any questions as to why I don’t want children?)

But I do know one thing. The kids also think the Redondo Beach Pier is a shithole.