by Erin C.

What a find!--smack on the main street of a small town like Riverside. This head shop is pretty sweet, with incense, various jewelry, nail polish (some in bottles shaped like skulls), posters, random hippy-esque figurines, Weird NJ magazines, CDs, hemp necklaces, tie-dyed tops, boheme skirts... the list probably goes on. For instance, wind chimes. And hookahs and bowls (don't mention the presumptive companion  or, according to a little note in the glass case, you will be asked to leave immediately) sit haphazardly in their cases. I don't reccommend purchasing one; they only have a single layer of glass. But Laura Meglio, the owner, will pierce your anything for you. Not at a cheap price, but she will. Really, I don't know about the cost; is $60 for a daith piercing reasonable? I thought not. Do you know, it's rather difficult to find those tiny stud earrings for second, third, etc. piercings? (I only have three) I found them here, two for $5. Or was it $3? Something cheap nonetheless, and Laura is fun to talk to. She's a hippy who traveled the Grateful Dead tour in '96, and she will talk your ear off if you get her started. Check out the store's website; it's quite a trip. There are two tanning booths at the back of Beadscape (this place has everything!) and never having been to a tanning anything (palest creature on earth here, thank you very much, Michael Jackson not included) I was wary of pressing a single button when trying on clothes. You see, the tanning booths are dual purpose. That was fun when a zombie of an older lady looked into the booth where I was changing, in search (search implies hard to find, doesn't it seem?) of her companion in the booth exactly next to mine, and continued peering at me as she talked-slash-searched for aforementioned friend. Yikes. Guess she was partially deaf aaand blind. This is the sort of shop you could head to when you're bored mindless in suburbia.  It's also probably a place where you could negotiate prices if you're humble enough. Good find.