Life in California is full of vexing questions. Is Myspace Tom on Truth Social? Why is Gilroy so darn good at growing garlic? And what exactly is in Governor Newsom’s hair?
Alta Journal has enlisted two experts to answer all of your questions: Stacey Grenrock Woods and Gustavo Arellano, both of whom bring decades of hard-won knowledge and laser-sharp insights into the Golden State.
Have a question of your own? Ask a Californian!
Richard Henry Dana Jr. wrote in Two Years Before the Mast that what’s now Dana Point was “the most romantic spot in California.” I’ve been to Dana Point. It’s not romantic. So what, dear Californians, do you think is the most romantic spot in the Golden State?
—Down on Dana
Gustavo: Like Sly Stone and his family sang so long ago, different strokes by different folks guide the motion of the ocean—or something. Whether you’re in San Ysidro or Yreka, Anacapa Island or the Modoc National Forest, our state’s most romantic spot is always the same: sunset. There’s so much beauty in California, and it’s all relative. Yet no matter what tickles our geographic fancy, Californians with any sense of romance will stop to gaze west for the golden hour. Oh, that shining orb sinking into the Pacific, casting shadows across the Mojave and bringing scary purple beauty to our smoke-choked skies! Put on the Joe Jones surfabilly classic “California Sun” and let romance win—wherever you may be.
Stacey: Dana Point is named for some old lawyer? I always thought it was named for embattled former child star Dana Plato. Anyway, I can see how someone back in the 19th century might’ve deemed it California’s most romantic spot, especially if he didn’t have to traverse Riverside to get there. But the romance quotient of a place is highly subjective; it has as much to do with the feeling of love you get there as the details of the place itself. We mustn’t assume a contemporary visitor to Lawyer Dana Point wouldn’t come to the same conclusion while enjoying, say, the clam chowder bread bowl at Harpoon Henry’s.
California has endless beautiful places for you and your lover, French bulldog, chatbot, cuddle coach, or hypoallergenic body pillow to go hang around and feel amorous in. If you like to splash out, Big Sur’s Post Ranch Inn is widely considered peak California romance. I know several couples who began there, and even more who broke up there. I can’t say firsthand what it’s like: No one’s ever loved or hated me enough to take me. Plus, I tend to shy away from any scenario that I could imagine happening on The Bachelor. If you can scatter rose petals on it, I’m out.
To me, “romantic” just means “a pretty place to eat oysters.” (Don’t even think about stealing that title for your memoir; I’ve already copyrighted it.) If you concur, just drive up the coast and don’t stop until you get to Tomales Bay, a sexy little inlet about 50 miles northwest of San Francisco. There, you will find plenty of spots to eat oysters and rest in between. My Adrienne Barbeau–heads out there might recognize the nearby Point Reyes Lighthouse from John Carpenter’s The Fog. And if that bit of knowledge doesn’t make someone fall in love with you, then you need to seriously reevaluate the kind of company you keep.
Jerry Brown and Linda Ronstadt. Ramona and Alessandro. Gavin Newsom and the First Partner, Jennifer. Who’s your pick for the best California romantic couple of them all?
—Bring Bennifer Back
Gustavo: I was going to say Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, but they split…wait, in 2009? Wasn’t it last year? Man, where the hell have I been? True romance hasn’t been the same since. But if we expand the idea of love to include agape—the Greek concept that Martin Luther King Jr. famously espoused and defined as “a love in which the individual seeks not his own good, but the good of his neighbor”—then no one beats Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Think about it: Two twentysomething radicals meet near the tail end of McCarthyism and commit themselves to a lifetime of platonically working together for the betterment of farmworkers and the working class—and make it happen? Sí se puede relationship goals!
Stacey: Tim and Susie broke up? Well, I guess I can cancel that Smash the Patriarchy dinnerware set I ordered for them.
I don’t know if they were the best, but my favorite Couple of California Past is Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. They were only together from 1967 to 1974, but it was when both they and their hair were at the height of their powers. They lived for part of that time at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where I like to imagine them ringing downstairs for croissants before going off to make Heaven Can Wait.
Another strong contender for Best Couple is Jack and Anjelica (as in Nicholson and Huston, not the characters from Pirates of the Caribbean, you rube). It sounds like a drink you’d get at a party in Stone Canyon—I’ll have a Jack and Anjelica on the rocks—and they were on the rocks for much of their 17 years together, little of which Jack seemed to know about. (In her memoir, Anjelica called him a “world class philanderer,” which is probably too kind.) After a few years, their relationship mostly consisted of going to events together to be photographed, which is about as California as you can get.
But my pick for Golden State Golden Couple is Kurt and Goldie. He was a young star, and she’s an eternal one who has the word gold right in her name. They’ve been together for, like, 80 years and still aren’t married, because, according to Goldie, it would cost too much to get divorced. If that’s not love, what is? In the California yearbook that we don’t have, they’d win Best Couple every year. And Best Hair.
The rest of the country is hating on California like never before. How can they start loving us again?
—Validation Please
Gustavo: It’s not going to happen—and that’s OK. Frankly, the love that the rest of the United States long had for California is what messed it up for the rest of us. Think of the Missouri Pikers who massacred the state’s Indigenous population in the Sierras during the gold rush, the midwesterners who turned vibrant Southern California into a dour, boring place for most of the first half of the 20th century, the Manhattan and Brooklyn hipsters who are still moving to our cities and complain we don’t have good bagels, pizzas, public transit, or bodegas. Leave California to us native-born and to immigrants from across the world, who offer us nothing but love and gratitude and aren’t whining about what California used to be from their new shitty homes outside Austin.
Stacey: Your question should strike terror in the heart of any true Californian. Never in our history has anyone raised the notion that we should (a) care about what the rest of the country thinks or (b) try to earn its love. I don’t know where you’re getting these crazy ideas. Being a Californian means never having to say, “Is that OK with you, Connecticut?”
But of course, now that you’ve told me that (a) the rest of the country once loved us and (b) they don’t anymore, my golden child, the one who needs to win back that love I don’t want, has been roused. I have a cunning plan: Let’s let the rest of the country see us out, having a great time without them, with a new haircut and a revenge bod. When they get bored with themselves (which they will), these fickle states will come crawling back to us, whereupon we will promptly reject them from our suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Order will be restored in the kingdom—not that we’ll notice.
Next question? advice@altaonline.com•
Stacey Grenrock Woods is a regular contributor to Esquire and a former correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She writes and consults on various TV shows, and has a recurring role as Tricia Thoon on Fox’s Arrested Development. Her first book is I, California.
Gustavo Arellano is the author of Orange County: A Personal History and Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. In 2025, Arellano was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He was formerly editor of OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Orange County, California, and penned the award-winning ¡Ask a Mexican!, a nationally syndicated column in which he answered any and all questions about America’s spiciest and largest minority. Arellano is the recipient of awards ranging from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Best Columnist to the Los Angeles Press Club President’s Award to an Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and he was recognized by the California Latino Legislative Caucus with a 2008 Spirit Award for his “exceptional vision, creativity, and work ethic.” Arellano is a lifelong resident of Orange County and is the proud son of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.
