Where is the beach?

When people think of Hollywood, they think of famous faces, palm trees, and the beach. Famous faces are easy to find, so are palm trees. The beach, though, is nowhere near Hollywood. You have to head west for a good thirty to forty minutes(depending on traffic/time of day/the alignment of the stars and planets) before you get your beach on. But it's a question I always hear: "Where is the beach?" And I always want to say, "Head west. If you hit water, you have gone too far." It is an easy misconception, though, especially if you an out-of-towner. I mean, look at a map. See LA? It looks pretty damn close to all that blue off to the left, huh? Yeah, well, if you come to LA because you want to see Hollywood and the beach, then where you really want to go is Santa Monica, which is really just more of LA, but closer to water. LA is pretty big, you see, and it is widely believed that LA is actually everything south of San Francisco until you reach Mexico.