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Latest Update: March 8, 2001 by Ben Marcus

THURSDAY MARCH 8, 2001 9:33 AM, ALEX JOHNSON'S MODEM LINE, SANTA CRUZ, CA

Alex and I just took Logan Johnson to school at the Gateway school in Alex's mondo Ford Expedition. Now Alex Johnson is off to work, selling very expensive real estate in Santa Cruz. Alex is one of my many friends who struggled for years in this town and is now cashing in, big time, on the 21st Century Silicon Rush. He just bought a Ford Expedition land tank, and I must say it's a big, comfortable, powerful vehicle. I'd like to take it to Alaska, with a boat and an ATV behind.

Brooke Johnson is cleaning up all her kids' toys and we're talking about a movie we saw lost night called Lost Souls: Winona Ryder and two of the guys from Thin Red Line: Elias Koteas and Ben Chaplin.

Bad devil movie. It went nowhere and now Brooke is arguing that they should have retired the genre after The Exorcist. I agree.

In other movie news, I got an e-mail today from Steve McEveety, who is Mel Gibson's Executive Producer and the guy working on the Mavericks movie. He is in Georgia working on a movie right now and he says the Mavericks movie is heating back up. He got a new writer to work with Jon Krakauer and fix what was apparently a bad script. He's also been talking to Ken Bradshaw and Jeff Clark.

I sent him a lot of pages about a Mavericks movie a long time ago. I think I know what the story is, but he wants Tom Hanks to play Jeff Clark. In my version, we see Jeff Clark from the 70s to now, and that wouldn't work.

Oh well.

We shall see what happens.

I drove by Mavericks yesterday en route to Santa Cruz from Marin, tracing the patch Virginia Small will take en route to her murder in Strangers on the Internet. Virginia drives a route designed to depress and inspire her to murder a man she has never met. She passes the good and the bad: Daly City and the suburbs and the strip malls being the bad, Woodside and Stanford being the good. This all reminds her why she is about to murder a man she doesn't know: To insure the good life for herself and her children.

Anyway, got into Santa Cruz and picked up some checks my mom had sent. A Japanese magazine is still paying me $297 for a monthly column I no longer write. I finally had the heart to tell them to stop.

Also got my monthly check from Swell, which is now down to one/eighth of the contract I signed when this whole boondoggle started up. I don't care. I'm surprised I'm still being paid at all. These guys have the whole internet to work with. I like to write big, long involved pieces, but Swell is now basically a Sections page. Short pieces about not too much. Not interested. Hi Evan. Love you.

This morning I checked the surf with Alex Johnson at Sewer Peak and remembered that there was a time when I was a surfer, but that was a long time ago, before thrusters, even. We had a blast surfing here in the 70s and 80s, but it's all over now.

I still like looking at the ocean, anyway and I'm still involved with all this on the media side, despite my attempt to become a recluse and a hermit.

Matt Warshaw gave me the name of a woman, Michelle Lindsay, who wanted me to write some surfing scripts for an ESPN awards show. He gave the woman my defunct cell phone number, so I spent a few days running around to pay phones like Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, trying to track her down.

I finally found her through Sarena Fomenko. Michelle Lindsay put me in touch with Ian Votteri at ESPN, and that put me in touch with Megan Michaels. ESPN is doing some kind of music/sport awards show.

Here is our correspondence:

In a message dated 3/7/01 5:09:57 PM Pacific Standard Time, XXXXX writes:

Hi Ben, I got your name from Ian Votteri about a possible writing gig for the ESPN Action Sports and Music Awards...I would love your help in writing our surfing scripts, surfer of the year ect....

GLAD TO DO IT. AS I TOLD IAN, I PRODUCED THE SURFER MAGAZINE SURF VIDEO AWARDS FOR FOUR YEARS.

This would not be a big time committment, and you could work from your computer at home.

SOUNDS GOOD TO ME.

The pay is XXXX and you will get a pair of tickets for the show...

SOUNDS GOOD TO ME.

please email me back at XXXXX@aol.com and tell me if you are interested and if you are going to be in LA at that time...

WHEN IS THE SHOW? APRIL 7? I MIGHT JUST COME DOWN FOR IT.

I NEED MORE INFO ON THE SHOW, THOUGH. HOW MANY SPORTS DOES IT COVER? WHAT ARE THE OTHER CATEGORIES?

I CAN ALSO BE OF HELP GETTING YOU GOOD FOOTAGE. I'VE SEEN A LOT OF IT AND KNOW WHERE IT ALL IS.

I'LL CALL SOON

THANK YOU. SOUNDS LIKE FUN.

BEN MARCUS

My number at work is 213.XXX-XXXX...
Hope to hear back from you soon,
Megan Michaels

Anyway, I told both Ian and Megan that I had worked on the SURFER Magazine Surf Video Awards show for four years and had some idea of what they were going through. I also told them that I understood the surfing world pretty well but everyone hated me but I could probably do a good job, anyway.

I also sent her a list of suggestions for celebrity presenters, people who had surfing connections. Here is that e-mail:

Megan Michaels
ESPN

Megan
ææææææHere are some suggestions for celebrity presenters for the ESPN Sports Music Awards (is that the official title?).

Gary Busey
ææææææPlayed a surfer in Big Wednesday and made fun of surfers in Point Break. You could put together some pretty cool clips.

Keanu Reeves
ææææææHe's on so dreamy, and played a surfer in Point Break.

Patrick Swayze
ææææææPlayed a surfer in Point Break. Also dreamy.

Jerry Seinfeld.
ææææææThere was a funny clip of him surfing in Kauai on real TV. I'd love to hear him go off about surfers.

Tom Hanks
ææææææSurfs Malibu, I've heard. Maybe a Castaway tie in.

Quentin Tarantino
ææææææHates surfers from his days working in the video store in Hermosa Beach, and has said so in print.

Ben

So, that will be fun, working on an Awards Show. I hope they give Surfer of the Year to Laird Hamilton, because from what I have seen on video, he deserves it.

I'm even going to fly down to Los Angeles for the show, and I even have a potential date, who wants to rent a convertible Ferrari. And here I wanted to move north and become a hermit.

I want to go to LA to do some research for the murder mystery. The first character, Virginia, has "an MBA from somewhere, but a PHD in California luxury living." Virginia is obsessed with the California good life, and we learn a lot about it through Virginia's mind. She has more than a few thoughts on comparative wealth and living.

She doesn't like Southern California, and can't believe people will pay $40,000,000 for a two acre lot in Irvine Cove. I saw that advertised in a special advertising section of the New York Times at Matt Warshaw's house. Someone was selling a two-acre lot on the water in Irvine Cove for forty million fucking dollars. To live in Newport????? At the edge of a desert?????!!!! I guess that proves there is a sucker born every minute.

Anyway, spent the last few days skulking around Marin County, sleeping at a youth hostel and boring the people there with talk about my murder mystery. Met a few fellow travelers there and I think I convinced one haughty little English gal to drive all the way to Alaska.

There were some inner city African/Latino/Oriental kids there. One of them found my wallet and returned it, so I gave him five bucks as a karma reward, and showed them all my Alaska photos.

I also got semi-hassled by another Park Police cop up at the Marin Headlands. He questioned my expired tags and I showed him the ticket I had already gotten. "We can impound that vehicle, you know," the fat fuck said. Now I'm convinced those guys are idiots. Bored Park Police hassling dingalings all day.

Anyway, I spent the last three or four days casing Tiburon/Belvedere, driving over and over again the course Virginia Small will run in the first chapter. I wanted to get a feel for the place and I think I got it. There's Gold in them Thar Hills. Never seen so many Mercedes and Jag-u-ars and Jeep Cherokees in my life. I want to sit down today and write that first chapter clean and then find a publisher of "genre murder mysteries" to see if they're interested.

It would be fun to hack it out fast.

Beyond that? Let's see. Haven't heard much from Surfer's Journal about the tow-surfing article, although I'm pretty sure the shit will hit the impeller when it comes out. I still want to write a Santa Cruz article for those guys, but Scott Hulet doesn't want to do two Ben Marcus pieces in a row. Too much of a good thing, perhaps.

I also have been hounding them about doing a tow-in book, but they're pretty busy there.

I also finished that web page on the History of Surfing for the Surfing for Life video. I came up with a pretty good opening line.

"The brutal death of Captain James Cook on February 14, 1779 was a tragic case of mistaken ideity."

Get it? Ideity? Identity? Ha.

But it's true. Cook sailed into Kealakekua Bay at the same time the Hawaiians were having a celebration to Lono. Part of that celebration involved walking around the island with white tapa cloth on cross-braced sticks, so when Cook showed up in his tall ships with the billowing sails, what was a savage to believe? The natives wrapped him in tapa cloth and the chief of Kauai gave him one of his daughters, who he impregnated.

So Cook sailed off on February 4 but was forced to return by bad weather. When he came back, the Lono festival was over and the Hawaiians were over Cook. He ended up being beaten to death and eaten when he tried to kidnap a Hawaiian chief as ransom for one of the ship's boats that was stolen.

So, I started with all that and hinted that everything that happened to the Hawaiians since was Cook's Revenge. Cook "discovered" the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, and by 1819, the son of Kamehameha I willfully ate in the presence of women, and officially signalled that the "kapu" system was pau. So 1400 years of evolved Hawaiian civilization came to a halt, just like that.

Did you know that the Hawaiian population went from between 400,000 to 800,000 to 40,000 in one hundred years? No wonder Johnny Boy doesn't like anyone.

So that History of Surfing thing is being reviewed right now. I had to weave in Fred van Dyke and Peter Cole and Woody Brown and all the other characters from Surfing for Life into the story, but I think I pulled it.

Now I'm in Santa Cruz, waiting for direction from ESPN. The birds are chirping outside and there's a bit of surf. I told my potential date for the ESPN awards that I would try to return to the golden charm of my youth and erase some of the damage of the past 10 years in the next month, so maybe I better try to go surfing and make myself look less like the undead.

I dont think I'm salvageable, but it's worth a try for the LA thing.

So that's about it. As I told Mr. Sacklunch: For someone who has nothing going on, I have a lot going on.

 



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