Squid here, to assure you there are no witches cavorting along the shores of Monterey, no dark spirits overtaking the Peninsula, no matter what some rando candidate for the U.S. Senate 3,000 miles away is saying. We are not cursed!
Squid’s phone blew up after a segment on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver ran on Sunday night, Aug. 18. Oliver, in his usual hilarious way, was opining on how the GOP can’t shake the “weird” label affixed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, because so many down-ballot Republican candidates are, well, weird.
One of Oliver’s examples of weirdness was Republican Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain who is running against the incumbent Democratic senator, Tim Kaine, in Virginia. He played an interview in which Cao claimed Monterey was overrun with witches.
“There’s a place in Monterey, California called Lovers Point. The original name was Lovers of Christ Point, but now it’s become, they took out the ‘Christ,’ it’s Lovers Point and it's really, Monterey is a very dark place now, with a lot of witchcraft and the Wiccan community has really taken over and we can’t let that happen in Virginia,” Cao said.
Let’s unpack this, shall we? First, the point is in Pacific Grove, not Monterey, and the name was Lovers of Jesus, not Lovers of Christ. It was so named when P.G. was a Methodist summer retreat area and they’d hold services among the coastal beauty. At some point many years ago the name was shortened to just Lovers Point, no apostrophe, thank you very much, and Squid can find no dark or evil motive for the change.
As to the witchcraft claims, Squid turned to Squid’s friend Sam the Sea Witch, who lurks in the waters of Monterey Bay, especially the deep crevices of Monterey Canyon and is perfectly harmless—they mostly like to play funny tricks on other sea creatures and the occasional paddle boarder or kayaker.
Despite being a denizen of the deep, Sam is well-versed in witchy happenings on land, if any, and if there were any witches running amok in Monterey or P.G., Sam would know.
“That Cao guy is way off base,” Sam says. “There used to be a witches Meetup group but they haven’t met in a couple of years.” Sam estimates the number of witches at less than 0.5 of 1 percent of the local population. (A 2021 Pew Research report that estimated that 0.3 percent of U.S. residents identify as Wicca or Pagan.)
So again, Monterey and Pacific Grove are not overrun in darkness and they are not cursed. The only thing cursed is Cao’s campaign, as long as he keeps going around making weird claims.