So it's Friday night, and we're all hanging out at Smiley's Saloon, a bar and restaurant and

tiny seven-room hotel in Bolinas, a gorgeous, cozy northern California beachfront town of maybe 1,300 people, some of whom are

openly displeased that we've found this town at all.

On the 90-minute drive north from Oakland, we see very few road signs for Belinas, because

Belinus shuns the spotlight. There's a 2014 New York Times article with the

headline, Bolinus, California, the town that didn't want company. And in the article, somebody says,

quote, they are pretty hostile to outsiders. I've heard of people's tires getting slashed." End quote. That article appears in the

travel section. Nobody slashes our tires. Thankfully, we just get super lost. We keep missing the turns

because, yeah, the turns are suspiciously unmarked. And we finally stop at a gas station 20 minutes in the wrong direction,

and the gas station attendant just laughs and tells us that Belinas residents

probably stole all the road signs themselves,

and then he grudgingly points us in the right direction.

And then we roll triumphantly into town. We are indeed outsiders.

We are interlopers. We are, and this is a nasty, ugly, almost pornographically insulting word,

and I don't like using it, but I got to do it. So, Mom, if you're listening, please cover your ears.

We are hipsters. It is January 2005.

It's an extra chilly Friday night.

We have arrived in Belinas for a folk music festival.

And some of our fellow patrons at Smiley's Saloon are not psyched about it.

Puppies love me so happy to see me.

Every boy and girl should have one to love.

So easy, so easy.

...