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Sundance 2004 With Ben Marcus
Latest Update:
January 14, 2004

Hello,

There was a time when I was infamous for writing Daily Dispatches about my travels with my beloved cat Ike (sniff).

I haven't done it for awhile but will start up again for this trip to Sundance, because it could get interesting, what with Black Ice and movie stars and all that.

Enjoy, or not. This one will be a bit long-winded to catch up on what I am doing and where I am. But the rest will be about the Sundance experience.

Ben

21:27 NIGHT TIMEÊ THE OFFICE AT TOM MOORE'SÊ TUESDAY THE 13TH OF JANUARY

It is 21:27 at night and my back is wrecked and I can barely walk. I surfed Malibu for two hours tonight and two hours yesterday and now I am paying for it. Tomorrow I will get on a plane and fly to Utah and stay in a hotel near the airport in Salt Lake City and drive up to 23,000 feet and hang around Park City until Saturday night, and I can barely walk. Oh fun.

Right now I am in the office on Tom Moore's property on Wildlife Road in Point Dume. I have been staying here for a couple of months now and it's great, although I miss Ike. He is buried on the property, so I will always have an attachment here.

Tom Moore is 70 and works hard, but can be a bit cranky at times. He is working with me on Malibu Fire and I turned his raw materials on the Fredrickson Brothers and the House of David into a screenplay called Nine Sons in a Row that is still at Playtone, I think, and might be going to Warner Brothers soon.

I am wondering when Tom is going to throw me out but for now the situation is great. I have lots of work to do and a nice place to do it. I love Malibu and I want to stay here, although I wish I had a better back.

Tonight I am rewriting Malibu Fire so it starts in Malibu and then goes to Montana. I have started the show in the parking lot at Zuma Beach, because that is where I see the fire-fighters from Station 71 playing volleyball every morning. I start the TV show with them playing volleyball and then responding to a call up on Kanan Dume Road.

I am rewriting Malibu Fire at the suggestion of a woman named Kathy Henderson Martin who I met at Paradise Cove. She is a Casting Director with a long list of credits. She read Malibu Fire but only got 24 pages in before she realized it needed work. She told me to restructure it, start it in Malibu and take out all the celebrity references to John McEnroe, Gary Busey and Laird Hamilton. She said no production company would take it seriously with such pie in the sky casting ideas and she also doesn't think any Malibu resident actor will risk their privacy just to be on a TV show.

It seems to me that all of these reality TV shows risk everyone's privacy, but maybe she is right.

So I am rewriting it.

Last Sunday I drove to Brentwood and left two copies of Malibu Fire and two copies of Nine Sons in a Row at the PO Box for David Chokachi. He was an actor on Baywatch and he is taking both scripts to a friend at Warner Brothers this week.

I'll be curious to hear what the Warner Brothers guy says, if he bothers to read it.

You never know. Tonight I hope to finish rewriting Malibu Fire and I also want to finish a book proposal for Reading Riding Giants. Tomorrow I am flying Jet Blue from Long Beach to Salt Lake City to attend the Sundance Film Festival. Stacy Peralta's documentary on big-wave surfing Riding Giants will be the premiere movie on Thursday the 15th and I am hoping to cover it for SURFER, the Surfer's Journal, Surfers: Germany, Malibu Monthly and the Half Moon Bay Review.

Right now I'm not even sure I will be able to get into that opening night show. I thought I was getting in on Stacy's coattails but that isn't going to happen. Larry Hammerness is going to Sundance with me to shoot photos. Last Friday we shot Stacy's studio in Santa Monica and found out we were on our own.

I contacted a guy at Sundance named Levi Elder (who isn't Mormon) and begged and pleaded to be let in. I sent in my application on Friday and haven't heard from him since.

I want to shadow Stacy around Sundance and see what the audience reaction is to what I already know is a great project. I have seen Riding Giants twice and I can appreciate how much work he has put into it. This is easily the most ambitious, most intelligent and best-crafted big-screen surfing project since The Endless Summer. I'm not surprised Sundance is putting it in the spotlight. Which of the other 100 featured movies are going to have as much drama and grace and beauty and death as Riding Giants has, and it is all real.

We fly out tomorrow night at 19:55 and get to SLC by 23:00. The last time I was in SLC was in May, when I was waiting to pick up New York Person for that doomed trip to Fiji. That seems like a thousand centuries ago. I had Ike with me then.

Shit.

Larry and I are staying in Salt Lake City and will drive up to Park City every day. I have no idea what Park City is like, but I'm pretty sure it will be cold.

The premiere for Riding Giants is Thursday and there will be a party on Saturday night and I don't know what I will do in between. I have reading to do and writing and taped interviews to transcribe and I can burn a lot of time writing these things.

I also will have 10 copies of Nine Sons in a Row and some copies of Malibu Fire so maybe I can schmooze, although I would rather just observe and share my observations with y'all.

Today at Malibu I bumped into that young surfer rat kid who was playing guitar on the stairs last Saturday. I heard him play a few bars of Led Zeppelin's Over the Hills and Far Away and it sounded great. I know a prodigy when I hear one. The kid also surfs hot and is basically the living version of two characters from Malibu Fire: Brock and Clark.

After hearing that Led Zep on Saturday I wanted to find the kid to ask him if he would provide music for the documentary I am working on with Jon Austin. It is called Golden Years and it is about the Malibu Surf Legends Denny is featuring in his t-shirt line. We are stealing all the footage and music and already have used Golden Years by David Bowie, Wipe Out by the Surfaris and Summertimeby Janis Joplin. There is a part that needs an instrumental and this kid could be the kid.

I talked to him in the parking lot and said I would try to make him a little famous and then maybe a lot famous. He was coming in from surfing as I was going out. His name is James MacLennan and he reminds me of me a little when I was that age, and also Michael. He's just a stoked kid who is one of a crew of hot longboarders out at Malibu, which was really fun today: Three foot waves and offshore under perfectly blue skies. I caught some good waves despite my horrid back, and felt like a surfer.

I also got good Malibu on Saturday and yesterday. I actually caught a really good wave off First Point at high tide yesterday It was a three-foot wave that lined up all the way inside and I felt like a surfer for the first time in a while. The 10' 6" felt too long and I did some turns.

Malibu is just a fricking blast of a wave. The crowd at Malibu is generally pretty bad, which is kind of surprising.

All that surfing should make me feel better, but it's making me worse. Oh well.

Today I surfed between two edit sessions on the Malibu documentary. I got coffee at Trancas Starbucks this morning and bought a copy of the LA Times which had the article by Steve Hawk on the missing footage of Greg Noll's wave at Makaha in 1969. I gave that idea to Steve, kind of, but he did a good job. If the companion book to Riding Giants happens, that will be a perfect sidebar.

The photo with the article shows Greg Noll's board stuck in the lip of a big wave at Makaha. I once took that board to Hawaii so Brock Little could ride it at Waimea. That board is 11' 4" and a monster, but it looks like a toothpick in the lip of that wave.

That is a big wave.

On my way up to Trancas I saw the Station 71 guys playing volleyball and when I got back to the office I started rewriting Malibu Fire. I just finished the new intro and now have to shorten the rest of it.

I also went to Denny Moore's office and picked up a check for $500 from Longboard Magazine and a check for $350 from Denny. That is going to have to cover Sundance and it might just barely do it. The flight is $160 and the motel is $98 a night and I don't know how much the rental car will be. I thought I was going just for Wednesday and Thursday nights, but now I will be there until Saturday, to go to the official Riding Giants party.

Not sure which of the Big Shots will be at the party, but I want to record what happens and get photos in case they let me write the book. The book will be about the documentary of course but there will also be a sub-story of Stacy's slings and arrows to make the documentary and getting it into Sundance. I have to get going on that proposal soon and get it printed tomorrow.

What else? A lot else. I shortened the profile on the Malloy Brothers and their Jalama Ranch for Surfers: Germany and sent it last night. This morning Dirk sent an email saying he was happy with it at 4700, and gave my next assignment: Surfing and Art.

I am still reading a biography on Peter Lawford for that article and I am also reading Get Yamamoto, a Satchel Paige biography and a Marilyn Monroe biography.

Busy busy busy. Good thing I don't have a job to get in the way of all this work.

Tomorrow I have to buy a decent pair of pants and get my sunglasses fixed and mail some Marilyn/Peter photos to Drew Kampion and some Strange Bedfellows stickers to the DemocracyMeansYou.com website. I also have to pick up 10 copies of the baseball movie at The Printing Palace and if I get my act together I also will have had some new copies of Malibu Fire printed, along with the book proposal.

I want to try to surf tomorrow if my back will let me and I have to be at Larry's by 15:00. I would love to buy a new computer because I can no longer travel with this laptop. The computer repairmen broke it and couldn't fix it. But I need a new one anyway.

If only someone would pay me.

Today I also got an email from the guy who is taking seriously that idea to do guided movie tours of San Francisco. I am hoping to write and research the tours and have been buying $3 videos at CineFile. He sounds serious and I hope he is. That's it for now. Time to write the revision of Malibu Fire and check my laundry and pack for the big adventure.

It's now 10:05.

Good night.

Now I am having an IM session with Patti McGee, skateboarding's It girl from the 60s. She is likeable and now on the dispatch list.

 

 




Sundance 2004

January 14, 2004

Jellystone Tour

September 7, 2002
September 6, 2002
September 5, 2002
September 1, 2002
August 31, 2002


Bores In Alaska

June 22, 2002
June 21, 2002
June 20, 2002
June 19 pt 2, 2002
June 19, 2002

TRAVELS WITH IKE

September 28, 2001
September 27, 2001
September 26, 2001
September 17, 2001
September 15, 2001
September 13, 2001
September 10, 2001
September 9, 2001
September 8, 2001
September 7, 2001
September 5, 2001
September 3, 2001
September 2, 2001
August 31, 2001
August 30, 2001

August 29, 2001
August 28, 2001

August 25, 2001
August 21, 2001
August 20, 2001
August 18, 2001
August 17, 2001
August 16, 2001
August 15, 2001
August 12, 2001
August 10-11, 2001
August 9, 2001
August 8, 2001
August 7, 2001
August 6, 2001
August 5, 2001
August 4, 2001
August 2, 2001
August 1a, 2001
August 1, 2001
July 31, 2001
July 30, 2001
July 29, 2001
July 28, 2001
July 27, 2001
July 24-27, 2001
July 22, 2001
July 18-20, 2001
July 18, 2001
July 17, 2001
July 16, 2001
July 15, 2001
July 13, 2001
July 12, 2001
July 10, 2001
July 9, 2001
July 8, 2001
July 5, 2001
July 4, 2001
July 3, 2001
July 2, 2001
July 1 a, 2001
July 1, 2001
June 30, 2001

June 28, 2001
June 25-26, 2001
June 24, 2001
June 23, 2001
June 22, 2001
June 21, 2001
June 20, 2001
June 19, 2001
June 18, 2001
June 17-18, 2001
June 16, 2001
June 15, 2001
June 14 , 2001

NORTH COAST
March 14, 2001
March 11, 2001

March 8, 2001
March 4, 2001
March 3, 2001
March 1, 2001
February 20, 2001
February 19, 2001
February 18, 2001
February 17, 2001
February 16, 2001


ALASKA 2000
November 19, 2000
November 18, 2000

November 15, 2000
November 14, 2000
November 14, 2000
November 12-13, 2000
November 11, 2000
November 9, 2000
November 8, 2000
November 4-6, 2000
November 3, 2000
November 1, 2000
October 31, 2000
October 29, 2000
October 27, 2000
October 26, 2000
October 25, 2000
October 22, 2000
October 22, 2000
October 21, 2000
October 19, 2000
October 17, 2000
October 16, 2000
October 16, 2000
October 14, 2000
October 12, 2000
October 11, 2000
October 10, 2000
October 10, 2000
October 9, 2000
October 8, 2000
October 7, 2000
October 6, 2000
October 6, 2000
October 5, 2000
October 4, 2000
October 3, 2000
October 2, 2000
October 1, 2000
September 30, 2000
September 29, 2000
September 28, 2000
September 27, 2000
September 25, 2000
September 24, 2000
September 23, 2000
September 22, 2000
September 21, 2000
September 21, 2000
September 20, 2000
September 19, 2000
September 19, 2000
September 18, 2000
September 17, 2000
September 16, 2000
September 15, 2000
September 15, 2000
September 14, 2000
September 13, 2000
September 12, 2000
September 10, 2000
September 10, 2000
September 8, 2000

September 8, 2000

PHOTOS
October 1, 2000
October 1, 2000
September 27, 2000

 


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