Latest Update: March 14, 2001 by Ben Marcus

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2001. 5:53 AM. KINKOS ON 41ST AVENUE

I'm up early. The moaning of the Mile Buoy woke me up and I couldn't go back to sleep. I'm in Kinkos communicating with CDG9108 by IM.

Yesterday I did that drive again, but this time I went through Hollister and out Highway 25, by way of Hollister Hills Motorcycle Ranch, a place where I used to ride motorcycles in the 70s. It was interesting to see the place again, like going back to the old neighborhood, many years after.

After that, I just drove and drove and drove and thought and thought and thought and listened to the radio. Again, I was putting myself inside the head of Mason Thorpe. I need to come up with a good reason for why this guy is a killer. I'm thinking that maybe he indulges himself in a practice we all would like to do: Ridding the earth of corrupt people. He kills Monica Clay because she is corrupt, but I wonder who else Mason Thorpe has gotten rid of.

He may have killed a drug dealer once, and it would be interesting to see how Mason Thorpe distances himself from drug dealers. He is not a drug dealer. He is a pot grower and he sees that as a noble profession, one that requires hard work, discipline, brains, muscle and nerve. Most drug dealers are too lazy and stupid to do what Mason Thorpe does, so somewhere in his history he bumped off a drug dealer he thought was corrupt, and needed killing.

He also may have killed some Federales who tried to shake him down in Mexico. Like I said, Mason Thorpe acts on impulses we all have and in his way he is making the world a slightly better place, ridding the world of dangerous, corrupt people.

I'm trying to paint Mason Thorpe as a human animal. He lives very close to the earth: He grows marijuana in the hills, he hunts, he fishes, he surfs. He is a natural man, an animal who is being pressured and forced out by population. Santa Cruz is getting too crowded for him, and he is doing what any animal does when it is forced to protect its territory: He kills. Mason Thorpe can't kill all the Yuppies on the road and the people in the water, but he can single out people who he believes deserve to die, and in that way he takes some of the pressure off himself.

Does any of that make sense? Mason Thorpe is in love with California. He loves Steamer Lane and the Salinas Valley and the Big Sur Mountains and the blue sky and the jets streaking back and forth to Southern California and other points. He loves California but he hates the congestion and traffic and development. Mason Thorpe reads a lot of Steinbeck and Two Years Before the Mast and he idolizes the men who had California to themselves in the 1800s. Mason Thorpe was born too late, and that is one of the things that pressures him to kill people.

So I drove all the way to Coalinga, and into another world. Coalinga is the place on the west edge of the San Joaquin Valley that was destroyed by an earthquake many years back. There really wasn't much to destroy. It is an oil and agriculture town, mostly. A lot of oil wells and Mexicans in weird cars. And yesterday it was already hot. The hills were green but the weather was in the upper 70s and you can only imagine what the place is like in August.

I drove back over the hills back down Highway 101 and into Salinas. I stopped at the Kinkos in Salinas to check e-mail and then stopped for dinner at the Central Texas Barbeque in Castroville. It was good, but I'm paying for it now.

I think I finally finished the essay on the history of surfing for Surfing for Life. He wanted 4000 words. I gave him 6000. Oh well.

Watched The Sopranos with Danny D last night, and slept on East Cliff.

I did get one interesting e-mail yesterday, from the woman who is Matt Warshaw's literary agent. I had sent her pitches for the History of Two Surfing book and the murder mystery. This is what she said, and MY RESPONSES.

Dear Ben

We just got back from four days in Northern California and I found your e-mails waiting here for me.

WELCOME HOME

A question and then a statement.

Is the article really big enough to turn into an entire book? [that's the question part]

I BELIEVE IT IS. THEY'VE BEEN DOING IT FOR 10 YEARS AND THERE IS LOTS TO TALK ABOUT.

The statement is this:

I am trying not to take on any additional clients as my business is changing a lot - we are doing book projects here at home [my husband is a photographer and I am as well. æHe has several books published and we design them and then hope to do a combined photographic project of our own]. æThat being said, there are two other companies I know of that might be interested in your surfing project, and if you get a written proposal together I could represent you with the understanding that if these two companies pass I will gracefully back out -

OKAY. I WILL PUT TOGETHER A PROPOSAL. THANK YOU.

As far as the mystery project, you need to find an agent who absolutely specializes in mysteries. æIt is a small and very specific network of editors that deal with this kind of fiction, and you need someone who knows those folks.

DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO KNOWS THOSE FOLKS?

We got in at 3am so pardon this email if it is either flat or dumb.

NO IT WAS CHARMING AND ERUDITE.

BEN

All best

Wendy

So today I'm going to put together a proposal for the History of Tow Surfing and send it to Wendy. I'm trying to get Pezman to publish it for The Surfer's Journal, because I think everyone would cooperate. But they're pretty busy there, so it might have to go somewhere else.

And I'm also going to try to drum up a literary agent for this murder mystery thing. I've had fun thinking about it and driving all over. It would be really fun to write it.

I'm just now getting into the part of East of Eden that talks about Kathryn Adams, who I believe is going to become a prostitute, and a symbol of evil and corruption. I might weave that into Mason Thorpe's psyche. Maybe he is taking anger out on women that comes from a fictional character in a Steinbeck novel. We'll see.