Issue #5 LOVEFEST

SOULFUL , LOCAL

STRIDER WASILEWSKI life,

love on

the Lovefest issue ISSUE No 5

& landing

big

waves

founder, editor in chief

senior contributing editors

cece S. woods

jackie robbins yvette gilpin

executive editor

STEVE WOODS managing editor dir. of development+ graphics+production

marcia beverly director of administration

addison altendorf director of editorial photography

peter augustin

senior literary editor

john long contributing editors

linda atkinson janet kurbikoff lisa marie elwes emily rae automotive editor

shin takei beauty editor

tara owens conscious living editor

features photographer

tracey bregman

dana fineman

entertainment editor

director of public relations

birungi ives director of brand development

jim hartman

national advertising

Tricia Baak 310.861.2225 tb@baakmedia.com

matt diamond fashion editor

Madison Chertow food editors

Franco simplicio jessica white images editor, moving + ROB TAYLOR men’s fashion editor geffrey s. yabes

still

puppyonthego editor

brodie taylor

regional advertising

sustainable living editor

jim hartman

claudia taylor

jim@90265magazine.com or email:

advertising@90265magazine.com

photo of Madison Chertow by Bryan Carr

wine editor

carol hoyt contributing photographers

emily goodman, emilygoodman.com adam guy, adamthaddeus.com jeff herrera

We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems.

-Arthur O’Shaughnessy, “Ode,” 1874

contributing video editor

david yanez contributing writer cover photo

dana fineman

Daniel Bralver brian tieleman

published by

rock & revolution media

letter from the editor lovefest 2014 Living in Malibu is a daily celebration: a recognition of how fortunate we are to live in such a place of beauty and vibrant creative energy. Just saying we LOVE living here is an understatement.

It is in fact, a LOVEFEST. I can remember as a kid, spending every spare sunny day at Zuma.

As an adult traveling the world, the longing to return never left me, and so I did... close to ten years ago. I couldn't be more appreciative or in love with this amazing place I call home.

Strider Wasilewski was an instantaneous, organic choice for the cover of our LOVEFEST issue. He is a soulful local, ever so humble, who radiates a beautiful loving energy evident in everything he does. Discovering his love and addiction to surfing on the sands of DOGTOWN, he later translated his skill into a stellar professional career that included curating talent for the Quicksilver team. Living the dream in Malibu for some time now, Strider is passionate about many things. He sat down with editor Rob Taylor to tell us his story of life, love of family and landing big waves in our cover feature "Strider's World".

For those of you who haven't already fallen in love with artist Billy Al Bengston, here's another chance with Claudia Taylor's "Blue Chip Off the Old Block". Claudia shares a coffee with Billy (who actually introduced her 27 years ago to the man who would become her husband) and reminisces about his connection to vintage Malibu. The interview is filled with color and Valentines, both literally and figuratively, as he shares his coveted pieces and vivid recollections of a life lived to the edge.

Literary editor John Long delivers an equally colorful story with "My Friend Phil". This story has long been a favorite of mine, and so, I felt it important that the visuals would accentuate the rebellious nature of the piece, while translating the fun and fervor of John’s anicdotal hilariousness. After much deliberation and a trip to the art store, the collage art I concocted will hopefully do justice to this remarkably unique recollection.

The All American burger is looking more alluring than ever! Wine editor Carol Hoyt of Malibu's local Hoyt Vineyards explores the pairing of a variety of gourmet burger options (Lamb, Bison and Vegan), with the most delicious locally born choices of vinot. Some stories are fun to research, and yes, it was a tasty night at Semler Vineyards with great women who celebrate food and make wine.

Most couples scoff at the notion of working with their spouses... however not in the Woods’ household. The benefits of having your husband as an Executive Editor? He will get up at the crack of dawn, not to surf, but to head up to Bony Ridge to take photographs for the "Home" feature. This heartwarming walk down memory lane was written by Steve's close friend and longtime Malibu local Daniel Bralver. Steve "Woodzy", as he is known locally, even makes a cameo in the piece, showing true dedication to the story from start to finish, and bringing the story that much closer to "home".

The local love continues with Tracey Bregman's story about the California Wildlife Center, Charlie Annenberg's Dog Bless You, and the sweetest start to our Lovefest issue, Hayley Gorcey's "Love, Heal, Inspire".

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Cece S. Woods, Editor In Chief

lovefest... Issue N.5 2014

Torre di Moravola. .. the perfect destination to

cleanse your mind, body and soul.

My friend

Phil

“Not

we’re to

that

afraid

die

anything”

strider’s

or

Phil gasped.

world

home

a sense of

belonging Andy Jackson...

“90265

DEAD

Magazine...

SEXY” .

the rise of

terraplane sun

2014

BMW M6 Gran Coupe

BLUE CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

MoonDoggie Remembers

90265magazine.com info@90265magazine.com instagram: @90265mag facebook.com/90265magazine twitter: @90265mag

lovefest 2014

Sunlife Organics Team Member Terry Perry 1/23/2014

LOVE. HEAL. INSPIRE. That really says it all; it’s the driving force behind everything we do.

Yes, we want to make great juices and smoothies, but our sole mission here at SunLife Organics is to love, heal and inspire people. It’s what gets us out of bed in the morning and excited to go to “work”.

SunLife Organics is a community gathering spot, a safe haven, a home away from home for everyone on both sides of the counter.

Our intention is to nourish, heal, and invigorate people with the highest quality whole food ingredients we can find and to infuse those ingredients with our love and passion.

We want to inspire people to reach their greatest potential, to settle for nothing less than the best for their body and mind.

But truthfully, no words can fully capture our intention. You just have to experience it.

By Hayley Gorcey, SunLife Organics Photo by Dana Fineman

Seven fresh, organic drinks a day will reset your body's chemistry, and provide you with the vitamins, minerals and nutrients your body needs to restore, recharge and refresh itself.

Photo by Dana Fineman

THE LAKES AT THOUSAND OAKS 2200 E THOUSAND OAKS BLVD STE. 110 THOUSAND OAKS, CA 91362 805.379.2999

POINT DUME VILLAGE 29169 HEATHERCLIFF RD STE. 110 MALIBU, CA 90265 310.457.6161 photo by Dana Fineman

buwho 2014

art & music helping hearts in hard times Hurley Printing Press Event

The Hurley Printing Press event at Salvation Malibu saw Artists C.R. Stecyk III and Tim Hendricks gracing tees with their original art alongside Hurley team riders Rob Machado and Conner Coffin for a night of art, music and good times.

A portion of the proceeds from the event benefitted the Waves For Water relief effort in the Philippines.

lovefest 2014

“Yesterday

tomorrow might

is

gone,

not

today know is real

happen, you

is what ... the sands of time.�

Strider’s WASILEWSKI World

By Rob Taylor

The doctor is late but the baby won’t wait. Martin Wasilewski known around London, UK as “the Man” looks down at his wife Jain in the throws of late stage labor. High above the Russian River in Northern California in a home built from a converted redwood water tank there is only one option; the father delivers his first son himself. April ‘72 Strider Raspberry Wasilewski joins his older brother Mescalito (named for Castaneda’s muse) in a family of outlaws. His middle namesake was a streetwalker from Oakland who introduced the British born Martin to the lucrative trade of contraband goods, which were in such high demand in the counter culture of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Martin and his wife Jain were so good at the business that young Strider and his brother were sent to school in patent leather shoes and limousines.

As with most outlaws though the high times came to an abrupt end! The Wasilewski family decided to expand their market overseas, back to the British Isles, Martin’s homeland. The local constabulary was none too pleased with the returning expat and his exotic wares and chose to deprive him of his freedom for the next 10 years. This left Jain as a single mother with two boys to raise. No money and no support, she managed to fly them back to California where she moved the group into the Sea Castle Apartments on the beach in Santa Monica. Still in the grip of the dark mistress her husband was so adept at moving, Jain struggled to provide for the boys falling back on the largess of the state. Welfare, food stamps and the odd cleaning job kept the family barely afloat.

Photos by Dana Fineman Northshore Photos by Adam Guy

lovefest 2014

at the age

he knew

his

of 7

,

Surf

ticket

was

out.

Jain was born into an Air Force family, The Irvines’ that lived one county south in Irvine, Ca..

Her father had great plans for her to be America’s first woman astronaut.

His parenting style was a bit harsh though, very much along the lines of the Great Santini. Being a free spirit and an independent woman, Jain fled her childhood home and never looked back. This set of circumstances led her to England where she met Martin and set the ball in motion.

Back at the Sea Castle Apartments, the fatherless Wasilewski brothers used the beach as their front yard. They would prowl the waterline looking for riderless surfboards and boogie boards. Once found they would ride the waves for as long as it took for the rightful owners to reclaim their craft and the search would begin again, day in, day out. This childhood discovery of the sea and the fascination with riding waves forged Strider’s life path. Santa Monica in the late 70’s and early 80’s was a hardscrabble, windswept town at the end of the line. The 10 freeway dumped out onto the beach and there was nowhere farther west to go. The dilapidated amusement pier Pacific Ocean Park was a symbol of the state of the town and the Dogtown boys and the Zephyr skate team dominated the streets and waves. Strider’s first surfboard he could call his own was a 5’2” Jeff Ho pintail single fin with a turquoise pre-dome deck, he was 6 years old. Jay Adams was a neighbor, running mate and a mentor in the early years and gave him a Z-flex foam fin. Both Strider and Jay’s moms were friends and late night partners.

Following the examples of these iconoclastic rippers, Strider immersed himself in surfing and became a fierce competitor. His first contest was in 1979 at the age of 7. He spent hours in the water competing and made the finals or won just about every contest he entered. He won everything there was to win as a grom. Winning the West Coast Championships and The NSSA Nationals in 1984 at the age of 12. Surf was his ticket out.

One dark winter night Jain sat crying in the window 3 stories up asking where Mescalito was? This sent Strider out to the streets in search of his brother. The older boy had found himself in the clutches of the dark mistress and it seemed to be Martin’s karma coming home to roost. Finally in the heart of Venice’s notorious Ghost Town, on San Juan and 6th street Strider found his older brother in a dilapidated house crowded with ghosts and night lurkers. Mescalito had found a new love and no longer had room in his life for family. Upon confronting him, Mescalito admonished his little brother saying “I don’t love mom, I don’t love you, what I love is this pipe.” Shocked, Strider returned home with the news that his mother already instinctively knew. After three more years of these nights with an absent Mescalito, Jain finally sat her son down and said it would be best for him to find somewhere else to live for a while.

Pulling good grades at SaMoHi Strider’s Mom was pushing him to follow her to UCLA. After cleaning up her act Jain had graduated with a PhD. in Psychology and went to work for the State of California Department of Corrections.

She dedicated herself to working with juvenile offenders and eventually ended up as a probation officer at Venice High School. Always one to follow his heart, his choice was to go surf pipeline and told his Mom this was the trip to Hawaii. After graduation a friend invited him to a Chumash sweat lodge at Circle Ranch up Las Flores. The gathering was also attended by Elder Sun Dancers. The ceremony started with 15 people, at the end there were just 5. During the sweat Strider enjoyed an out of body journey where he was above the circle looking down at himself and the others in the lodge. According to the Sun Dancers this was a sure sign that he was on the right path. The path he began as a child on the beach in Santa Monica borrowing rides on boards washing in from the sea.

At 21 years of age this was not his first trip to the north shore. Hard charging goofy foot big hollow left-handers were his muse and pipeline the queen. His first trip to Hawaii was when he was only 13 years old.

“All I ever did was sit back at my apartment in Santa Monica with my friends and watch surf movies of Hawaii. We were broke. We had food stamps, so we had lots and lots of cereal. Milk, cereal; instant meal. My friends and I would sit there, eat cereal and watch movies. I’d say, ‘One day, we’re going to do that.’ We were watching Marvin Foster, Dane Kealoha and the whole crew at Pipeline going nuts. My mom would sit back and laugh at us. She’d say, ‘Yeah, yeah. You’re going to Hawaii to surf Pipeline.’ I was like, ‘Watch, mom.

You’ll see.’ We were only ten years old. I’ll never forget it.”

Art by Keegan Gibbs

The next year, when he was 12 years old, the era’s top fashion photographer Herb Ritts found him hanging out in front of the Horizons West surf shop on Main Street. He was immediately taken and cast as a model in a number of his photo shoots. Next thing Strider knew, he was up in ‘GQ’ and other magazines working with Daryl Hannah, Cindy Crawford, Olivia Newton John, Buzzy Kerbox and other top fashion models. The work paid well and soon he was making up to $1500 a day. All of a sudden, Strider had a nice fat balance in his bank account and it was then that his Mother said, “Here is your bank card”, he was 12 years old.

The first thing on his young mind was to finally head to the North Shore of Oahu with his two best friends Steve Siegrist and Andy Chuda. Strider bought the tickets, got his friends on a plane, and the three landed at HNL and caught a cab straight to Sunset Beach. They paid the driver $100, and he dropped them off right in the dirt and burned out in a puff of smoke. They were just standing there looking at an onshore, Kona winds Sunset with no idea where they were going or where they would stay.

Strider was 13 and the other boys were 15 but having grown up on the mean streets of South Side Santa Monica, they had seen some shit and were used to fending for themselves so they weren’t too scared.

The friends were like, ‘Where are we going to stay?’ and Strider said, “Don’t worry about it. I got it all hooked up through Town and Country.” The reality was he didn’t have anything hooked up. So they dragged their board bags across the bridge to Kami’s Market, which was where the famous postboard was, with all of the places to stay. They started writing down numbers when all of a sudden Davey Miller walks out.

Strider recounts the meeting; “I was like, ‘Davey. How’s it going?’ He was like, ‘What’s up, bro? Do I know you?’ I was like, ‘No, but I know you.’ He was this big California pro surfer at the time. I was like, ‘Dude, we need a place to stay.’ He said, ‘You got any money?’ I pulled out a wad of cash. He said, ‘All right. Put your shit in the car.’ Then he pointed to this beat-up station wagon. We got in the station wagon and started driving down the highway. He was like, ‘How old are you? Your mom just let you come over here?’ I said, ‘She thinks we’re staying with the Town and Country guys, so I have to call her once I find a place to stay.’ He said, ‘You’re pretty grown up for being 13 years old.’ I was like, ‘We grew up in Santa Monica. We’ve seen a lot.’ He was tripping on us. We finally got to the house. I had no idea where we were. I’d never been on the North Shore. He walked me through the house to the balcony. He points toward the water and says, ‘That’s Pipe. That’s Backdoor. That’s Off The Wall.

That’s all you’re going to need to know for the next 15 years.’ I was like, ‘What? That’s it?’ It was this little tiny stretch of beach. We were standing on the wall on the balcony at the actual ‘Off The Wall’ house. It was my first time to the North Shore and I was standing in the house that they named the spot after. I couldn’t believe it. It was one of those moments you take to your grave. It was unbelievable! It was the best trip ever. I was chilling on the North Shore with a surfer that I idolized. I had my two homies with me. It was great.”

Following that first adventure to the greatest 7 miles in surfing, Strider knew what his life path was with pure conviction. Like he told his mother in their kitchen he was going to be a successful surfer in Hawaii.

Strider reflects on his choices; “Life has so many roads. There are so many things that I could have done in life. I worked in restaurants all summer long to make money to surf. I worked my ass off every summer to get to Hawaii in the winter. I stayed wherever I could, in garages, on the side of houses under tarps, I did whatever I could to surf there. Hawaii was the one outlet where I could go and prove myself and become a part of the surfing community. It was the one place to get on to the map for someone who doesn’t surf the contests, but can surf Pipeline, Sunset, Off the Wall and Backdoor.”

“I didn’t get paid to surf until I was 21. Kids that are 21 now are getting paid $300,000 to $1 million a year. I was getting paid $6 an hour to carry wood and do manual labor. In the back of my mind, I always knew why I was doing it.

It was all about getting to the beach to go surfing. It turned out to be the right way to go for me. It doesn’t work for everybody. Only around five percent of the entire surfing community gets to be a pro surfer. For me, it worked out. I worked hard at it.”

Looking for sponsorship that would allow him to focus on his surfing Strider and close friend, Ricky Massie took a trip down south to the offices of Quiksilver in Newport Beach. He met with Danny Kwock, another hardscrabble grom who had gotten lucky and had been swept into the Quiksilver organization after Bob McKnight and Bruce Raymond spotted him ripping 56th street jetty. Always quick with a “no”, Danny on meeting him exclaimed, “The last thing I need is another blond California kid on my team trying to surf pipe.”

With some cajoling from Robbie Todd they sent him on his way with $500 and a plane ticket. On that trip he ended up getting on the cover of Surfer Magazine which led to him signing on with the Quiksilver team as an athlete and then eventually as the Surf Program Manager, it was a relationship which would last for the next 20 years.

Always intelligent and motivated Strider wanted more than just free gear and a small stipend.

Disillusioned by the nature of the surf industry he began to contribute to Quik’s marketing strategy and sales efforts by suggesting they start running ads in mainstream magazines like Rolling Stone, RayGun and Spin. He discovered and signed Dane Reynolds, and mentored Clay Marzo along with making Clay’s signature movie ‘Just Add Water’. He also began organizing dream trips to Mexico, the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean for months on end. The photos and articles that landed in the mags from these trips were the thing of legend. Turning his back on competition Strider was able to help invent the “lifestyle surfer” category of sponsored athletes. The photos and the stories were the prize, not first place in a contest and a trophy. At the end of his run with Quiksilver, Strider stepped down to help his mother’s final battle with cancer.

That year he and his brother were able to spend the final year of Jain’s life at her side caring for her

and sharing time together until her passing.

His older brother Mescalito has been clean for 16 years and works as a counselor for troubled addicts and is a charismatic speaker at meetings around the country. Strider has two new endeavors on the horizon. One is launching a new brand of sunscreen called “Shade” which he helped formulate here in Malibu. And the second is a job as a broadcaster for the newly launched ASP World Championship Tour of Surfing. Ironically the ASP’s new offices are located on Bay and Main Streets just blocks from his childhood home and directly across the street from Star Liquors where his mother would send him to buy Chardonnay and tampons with their food stamp book.

All of this or none of this has landed Strider in an amazing community on the beach side of PCH called Point Dume here in Malibu!

With so much more to tell and not enough pages to actually finish it all, Strider asks to talk about his family. He’s been married to the love of life Lily Harfouche for the past 13 years and the two of them are raising up young sons Coast and Country. They attend Point Dume Elementary and CCW, a far cry from Madison Elementary back in the day. Lily is a real estate broker at Coldwell Banker in Malibu and ranks in the top 1 percent worldwide. “Watching and helping these boys grow up into this crazy world is amazing.

Having a person like Lily to share all this with is unexplainable, i can’t imagine the rest!”

For Strider the most important things in his life now are simple, Family, Friends and Surfing.

And, of course, maintaining a balance between family life in Malibu, the call of the road and the adrenaline he gets from surfing giant barrels at Pipe and Chopes. At 41, possessing an amazing family which he loves more than anything, the ocean still calls his soul. When asked about the looming dangers of surfing waves like these Strider says, “Life is too short not to live life to the fullest. You can’t get too comfortable or your soul will end up dying!

I have never felt so alive as the time right before you are possibly about to die…”

lovefest 2014

lovefest 2014

Following that

first

adventure

greatest 7 miles in surfing, Strider knew what his to the

life path

with

pure

was,

conviction.

Photo: Tim McKenna

MY FRIEND PHIL

By John Long A dozen years after his solo ascent of Gurishankar, the adventure community was divided into two camps: those who had been with “Phil,” and those who had not. Then one spring, at the peak of the rainy season, Phil and his two kayaking partners paddled into an unknown river in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, and were never seen again. That left the rest of us staring at nowhere, unable to reckon the distance the river had carried Phil away from us. It didn’t seem sad, but impossible because Phil lived with the volume so cranked you’d swear to God he could never be silenced. But he always felt impossible, and so did his family.

Phil’s father, call him Herbert, was a kook gentleman anthropologist who had fooled away nearly twenty years annoying natives and “studying” antique cultures in the Peruvian rain forest. His mother – “Katherine” will do - was a gilded virago with a tongue like a carving knife, the kind of old-money matron who didn’t go out in the sun without an umbrella. Her husband had been so long out of circulation that when he finally returned to Malibu, he was no more fit for any legitimate work than he was for the Presidency of the United States.

Katherine’s agreement with family patriarchs was that so long as she kept her husband tucked away in “The Bu,” where he couldn’t embarrass anyone, their annual allowance of the family fortune was secure.

The family spent most summers at a beach house up in Trancas, where Phil and I had both been in my uncle’s Junior Lifeguard program and had fallen into trouble together. When Herbert invited me to join them for a week at their casita near La Paz, Baja California, my dad was all for it. I was sixteen and had never left California and Dad, who’d bummed all around Asia after his hitch in the Korean War, thought it time I saw some of the world. Phil had a wild streak, and his folks were from Mars, but if everything went wrong Dad figured I could hoof it back to the States.

The casita belonged to Herbert’s brother, who had spent a bundle trimming it out, and used it once every couple of years or not at all. A couple hundred yards below the paved road leading to La Paz, and close by the sea, lay a hardpacked dirt road crowded with dog carts, kids on rusty bicycles, women with black rebozos pulled over their shoulders and peons with great loads of firewood on their bare shoulders trudging toward the charcoal factory in town. Just off this dirt road, set back from a copse of bamboo, was the Davenport casita - a diamond in the rough if ever I saw one.

Set up on creaky wooden pylons, the three-bedroom house cantilevered over gulf waters famous for sport fishing.

Artwork by Cece S. Woods

Jesus, Phil.

That

fin’s

as

big as a STOP sign

The exterior was plain, but the inside was fitted out for Mexican gentry, with portraits of Cantinflas and Pedro Infante and a few San Sebastian bullfighters on the reed walls, silver-trimmed wicker furniture, combed steer hides on the wooden floor, and a collection of pricey glassware and faux Olmec artifacts displayed in cabinets against the den walls. A chrome plated horseshoe hung over the kitchen door for suerte, or luck.

Katherine hated the place from the moment we arrived. Ruffians prowled the dirt road just beyond the front door, the electricity was off and on, mostly off, the humidity was terminal, and the flooring was so warped you could see the ocean through the gaps. On the second night, when Phil and I were swinging face down in hammocks and trying to spit through rifts in the floor, the woman screamed. A cucaracha the size of a taquito had scampered across her bedspread, and several fiddler crabs had wheedled into the bedroom as well. She wouldn’t stay in that house one second longer. Harold loaded up the rental Jeep and took his wife to a hotel in town. We could come if we wanted to.

We didn’t. Pop would swing by in the morning to take us out for breakfast. The Jeep wheeled off, and we were alone.

Philip rifled the liquor cabinet and came away with a black earthenware jug with a wax-sealed cork. “The genuine shit,” said Phil, drawing out the cork with his buck teeth and draining off an amber inch of tequila. He shuddered and handed me the bottle. We moved to the back of the house where a plank staircase descended between two pylons from the den straight into the sea. At the bottom step, tied off to one of the pylons, bobbed a frail-looking dinghy. We sat on the last step with our legs in saltwater and gazed out over the moon-rinsed gulf, talking about climbing in Malibu Creek back home, surfing the point, and maybe doing some bull riding here in La Paz, if we could find a bull. The tequila burned all the way down to our toes.

The bottle was only a fourth gone when we spotted the cutlass carving through the water, flashing like mother-of-pearl as it swiveled into the moonlight.

“Shark,” Philip whispered.

I bounded up a couple of stairs to a pylon as Philip jumped into the dinghy, snatched an oar, and started bashing the water. “Frenzied movements attract them,” Philip cried, beating away. “I read it in Argosy.”

“Attracts them?”

I yelled, clinging to the pylon.

“Jesus, Phil. That fin’s big as a STOP sign. You sure you wanna be fuckin’ with it?” Phil thrashed the water even harder. I moved to the top step as the fin swept close by the dinghy, circled under the house, and plowed back into the deep. Philip jumped from the dinghy, splashed up the stairs and into the house, then returned with the remains of our chicken dinner, chumming the water with bones and necks and gizzards. Several times the gleaming fin cruised past but never as close as the first time. “Blood,” Philip said. “We need blood.” And he chucked the jug into the sea.

It was nearly dawn before I could drift off in my hammock, picturing that fin circling under the bedroom floor. When I woke the next morning I found Philip in the kitchen, studying the chrome horseshoe hanging above the door. Pop Davenport had already come and gone, and Philip showed me a wad of pesos to prove it. His mom had a fever and his father didn’t want to leave her alone in the hotel. We would have to fetch our own breakfast.

Philip reached up above the doorjamb and yanked the horseshoe free from its nails. “We’re going fishing, Jim.” We jogged up to the main road, climbed up onto an autobus, and were soon scudding around central La Paz, grabbing a shrimp cocktail in one stall and ogling the Señoritas in others. In a back alley we found an old man, hunched over a foot-powered grinder, who milled one end of the silver horseshoe into a pick.

I watched the fury of peso notes changing hands, Philip rattling off Spanish like a native. Smoking lungbusting Delicados, we hustled on through the fish market, ankle deep in mullet offal. At another stall a fleshy woman, her cavernous cleavage dusted with talc, cut ten feet of chain off a gigantic, rusty spool.

“For leader,” Philip explained, grabbing my arm and racing off. From another lady in a booth hung with crocheted murals of Jesus Christ, Philip bought 200 yards of 500-kilotest polypropylene rope. Meanwhile, her husband welded the chain leader onto the sharpened horseshoe, sparks from the acetylene torch raining over Jesus like shooting stars.

“Now for the bait.”

We took a cab to the slaughterhouse on the edge of town. Outside the reeking, sheet-metal structure, we waved through a curtain of flies and Phil stopped an Indian girl, about our age. Her hair was pulled back in thick black braids to bare a face striking as a new moon.

She was selling fried pork rinds and sweetbread, and when Philip asked her a probing question, she killed him with her eyes. Philip kept talking, cajoling her, and I couldn’t understand a word of their machine-gun Spanish. Then the girl’s glare melted into a snigger. When Phil’s hand went out with a ten-peso note, she reached for it quick as a frog’s tongue. But not quick enough.

Phil grinned and held the bill out of reach. She glanced around at empty streets, then hiked up her blouse and for about one thousandth of a second my eyes feasted on two perfect brown globes crowned with two perky, pinto-bean-like nipples.

Then her shirt was back down and the bill was gone from Philip’s hand and we pushed into the slaughterhouse.

The

tequila

burned

all the way down to

our

toes.

\

“I’d marry her in a second,” Phil said, “if I was old enough.”

An autobus took us back to the casita laden with a giant bull’s heart wrapped in brown paper and twine and a bucket of red slop so heavy it put my hand to sleep. On the stairs behind the house Phil baited the sharpened horseshoe with the ruby bull’s heart, duct taped a soccer ball to the chain leader just below where he’d tied on the polypropylene rope, then neatly coiled the rope on the stairs and lashed the free end round one of the creaky pylons. Then he hefted the bucket of entrails into the dinghy.

“You can either watch the line here in the bow, or row. You pick.”

“I thought we were going to just chuck the thing in from here.”

“Shark won’t go for it. You saw how he shied away last night. And anyway, I bought all this rope.”

Two hundred yards of cheap plastic line seemed a poor reason to row into sharkinfested waters in a leaky dinghy full of blood and guts, but Phil was already in the boat yelling, “Come on, John. It’s a twominute job.”

I took the oars and rowed straight out into the gulf and I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. The dinghy was overloaded and tippy, and little geysers spewed up through cracks in the hull. I watched the house slowly recede as the line slithered out from its coil. The water was already ankle deep.

Maybe fifty yards out, Phil tossed the bucket of gore overboard and a red ring bled out around us.

“That sucker’s any closer than Acapulco, he’ll smell this,” he said, “Believe it.

“I do.”

Phil hurled the big heart overboard with a plunk, the weight yanking out the chain leader, which chattered over the low gunwale of the dinghy. The soccer ball shot out and sank. Phil panned the flat blue plane for a moment. Then the ball popped up near us, the waters churned, and he screamed, “Pull, man, pull!”

I heaved at the oars, my heart thundering and my lungs gasping down mouthfuls, the dinghy fairly hydroplaning, Phil bailing with the bucket and screaming, “Put your back into it Jim, or we’re goners!” I pulled harder and faster, trying to retrace the line floating on the water, marking the way back home. The flimsy oars seemed to bend in half as Phil screamed to go faster and faster till my oars were driving like bee’s wings. Twenty yards from the house

“Not

we’re to

that

afraid

die

anything”

Phil gasped.

or

we were both screaming, breathless, and terrified, the dinghy shin deep and sinking by the second. A final heave and I powered right onto the stairs; the dinghy buckled and split in half, dumping us into carnivorous waters.

We splashed for the stairs, then stampeded over each other and through the house and out the front door, puking saltwater and howling, finally collapsing in front of a man selling shaved ice from a pushcart.

Phil lay in the dirt, breathing hard and feigning palsy, his face screwed up and his eyes rolled back in his head. I kept laughing till my stomach felt like it turned inside out.

“Not that we’re afraid to die or anything,” Phil gasped. The man with the pushcart couldn’t have looked more startled if he’d seen a burro prance by on its hind legs.

We stole back into the house, tiptoeing through the hall, the narrow den, past the wall of glassware and doodads, pausing at the open door and the stairs below and staring out over the gulf at the line sleeping on the surface and the soccer ball bobbing fifty yards away. There wasn’t so much as a crawfish on the line, Never had been.

“Chickenshit shark,” Phil mumbled.

For several hours we sat hip to hip on the stairs, staring out at the bobbing ball so hard that the flat horizon and the heat of high noon put us in a trance. Then everything was quiet.

“Wonder where the gulls went?” I asked.

The rope jumped out of the water, the staircase groaned and splinters flew off the pylon as the line lashed itself taut as a bow string.

“He’s hooked!” cried Phil.

We leaped up and grabbed the rope as the pylon bowed against the stairs. Rusty nails sprang up from fractured planks and sand crabs scurried out from dark places. Far out on the water we saw the fin, a roil of water and a jagged snap.

A scythe-shaped tail curled on itself and the rope went slack against the pylon.

A gathering surge was tearing straight toward us, looking like a submarine surfacing as the line doubled back on itself. Close to us, the fin swerved suddenly and headed out to open sea.

We couldn’t appreciate the monster’s speed till we noticed the loose line, straightening as fast as if hitched to a cigarette boat.

“Grab the rope, or the house is going with him,” Phil yelled, lunging for the line.

There was no checking the creature, but I grabbed the rope because Phil told me to. The shark hit the slack line, which wrenched me off the stairs and hurled me straight into the sea.

I crabbed from the water and up the stairs and didn’t stop running till the den and I stood there, bloody hands and wheezing, dripping saltwater onto a Malagan rug. I was nearly dry before I staggered back to the stairs.

The line was slack, then taut. Then slack again.

We pulled. Phil cursed wonderfully. The rope smoked through my raw hands. I wanted to cry.

We pulled some more, and Phil continued raging at the universe, stringing together the most colossal, most unheard, most blasphemous conceptions, peppering in the odd Spanish word for flavor. I stood there pulling in complete reverence. It was genius.

After an hour we’d gained a little. With the rope doubled round a pylon, there was enough friction that we could lock the beast off, even gain some rope when the tension eased for a second. After two hours we’d reeled the creature a quarter of the way in. Several times it broke the surface, obsidian eyes glinting in the sun. The more line we gained, the fiercer the combat. The monster would relax for a moment and we’d win a yard, then the line would twang tight, the pylon would creak and the stairs would twist and shudder under our feet. The line under my hands was pink and the saltwater punished the grooves seared into my palms.

“We need help,” Phil said, “Lock that puto off for a minute.”

I braced against the pylon and held fast as the house behind me filled with dark-haired boys, street urchins, and even the man with the pushcart, snagged from the dirt road just outside.

When the line went momentarily slack, Philip unwound it from the pylon and ran the rope in a straight line from the water up the stairs and through the den, down the hall, and right out the front door. The crowd turned its back on the casita, each man and boy clasping the rope over the shoulder, Philip yelling, “Hale, hale that penche motherfucker, hombres!” The tug-of-war was on, the boys howling shark! (Tiburon) over and over like a chant at a soccer match.

Philip joined me on the stairs, hauling hand over hand. Out in the gulf, a swell raced toward us as the shark, big as a four man bobsled, thrashed against the straining rope.

“Let off,” I yelled, releasing the line and backpedaling away, “Tell them to let of.” But it was no good. A gathering crowd was already twenty feet past the front door, feet churning the dirt. Phil and I jumped to a pylon when, with one titanic lurch, they hauled the opalescent monster to light. It flopped bodylong onto the stairs, the silver horseshoe hooked deep through its saw tooth lower jaw, the line taut as a guy wire. The beast did a move from the deep, lurched a yard straight up off the stairs and, now airborne, was yanked right past us.

Its bear-trap maw snapped and a sandpaper flank rasped my arm as it jackknifed overthe stairs through the open back door and into the den, that haven of leisure and filigreed cabinets, of rum toddies and drowsy afternoons. Another move from ten fathoms and it clipped the legs out from under the rosewood and ivory table.

“Let off, for Christ’s sake,” I screamed from the stairs. “Let it go.”

But every able man along that dirt road had latched onto that rope, and all twenty-five of them were hauling for pride and country: cabbies, rummies, a man in a white linen shirt, a priest in huaraches, several surfers who had pulled their car over and now three National Guardsmen yelling commands and tapping slackers with batons. But 900 pounds of shark wasn’t going easily.

A smashing tail, and the cabinets were gone, the Toltec artifacts were so many shards, the Spanish glassware, sand. Colossal teeth shredded wood, ripped the hides off wicker chairs. A flip and a twirl and he unraveled the Spanish rug. The heaving crowd dragged the monster farther through the narrow den. Purple blood splattered over bright white walls. A deep-water kip, an airborne nose butt, and a wall caved in. Salt-rotted wood fractured and floor slats snapped to attention as the ceiling dropped a yard and parted to show the splintered smile of blue Mexican sky.

“Gran puta de la crap!” Phil screamed.

And the brown mob pulled. The great monster died ten times, then lurched back to life, marking its passage through the open house by knocking sheetrock off the hallway walls, murdering grandfather clock, blasting the front door off its hinges.

At last the creature lay outside, its hornblende eyes locked on infinity, its jagged mouth open. One of the National Guardsmen probed the cavity with his baton, and in a final show of sea force, the huge mouth snapped shut and we all ran over each other trying to get clear. Then we all stood and gazed at the monster as kids prodded it with long sticks and several policemen posed for pictures taken with an old film camera one of the surfers had.

Word of the conquest spread down the dirt road and a little while later a flatbed truck from the fish market sputtered up. It took ten of us to logroll the beast onto the lift and then into the bed of the truck. Then the great shark was a only relic of memory. The crowd slowly wandered off, thumping each other’s backs, and we were once again alone.

I was grated raw, rope-burned, wind burned, splintered, bloodied, and spent, my trunks and shirt in tatters, one tennis shoe gone, my hands two oozing, pulpy knobs. Philip was virtually unmarked. His shirt was still tucked in. But the casita was done.

We tried a hundred different lies on each other but couldn’t concoct an excuse as big as that shark.

Finally, Philip went to the hotel in town to try to explain; and in an example of his transcendental luck, he found his parents preparing to leave on the next plane for the States. His mother thought another night in Mexico might kill her. Without reservations, they were able to secure only two seats on the 4:50 Air Mexicana flight to Los Angeles; but Harold had booked us on the 6:30 flight that same night. They would wait for us at the airport in LA, and we’d all go to Disneyland.

Philip raced back to the casita and, after wandering through the ruins, said, “We’ve got to torch it.”

“Torch it?” I asked.

“Yeah, burn it down.”

I pictured myself in a Mexican jail. Forever.

“How we gonna ever explain this?” Philip said, glancing at the ocean through a ten-foot hole in the floor, then up through the rent in the roof. Then he laughed and said, “Chinga a your mother pinche chaka mierda hijo de la big ass puta. This joint’s dusted.”

“How do we explain the fire?” I asked.

“We don’t,” Philip smiled. “That’s the beauty of it if it burns down after we’re gone. And it will.”

Philip shagged into town and returned with a gallon of kerosene and two candles. We threw our suitcases into the cab waiting on the dirt road, then Philip soaked the den floor with kerosene, planted two candles in the middle of the buckled floor, lit them, walked out the open door and into the cab, and we were off.

As we ground up off the tarmac, we spotted a plume of black smoke out east, rising off the fringe of the ocean. Philip leaned back in his seat and said, “Wonder how much that sucker weighed?”

When Harold Davenport returned to Mexico several years later, he found two shrimp boats tied up to the blackened pylons where his vacation home had once stood. Nobody seemed to know how the fire had started. Or even when.

The casita was simply .

Just like Phil.

gone

Torch it?

“Yeah, burn “ “

it

” I asked.

down.

”

BLUE CHIP OFF THE OLD

BLOCK

MoonDoggie Remembers

By Claudia Taylor Billy Al Bengston was in his 20’s in the 1950’s - a young artist seeking the refuge of the perfect wave in Malibu. Yes, he was a looker, but a talented, thinking man’s beefcake. Smart as a whip.

He surfed with Tubesteak and Dora. He was the inspiration for the character “MoonDoggie” in Gidget.

But he drew a line in the sand at Surfrider. The line said: To cross this, you must be authentic, inspired, inventive, capable, creative - in short what it means to be an artist. He crossed it.

His life has been as colorful as his works of art, shifting gears like his accelerating motorbike.

Friends and cohorts include a who’s who of famous and illustrious artists, celebrities, tastemakers and art-world influencers.

His artwork through the years has developed like a nuanced musical score- from his paintings of iconic symbols like Chevrons, the Iris; Geometrics, Moons, Airplanes and Valentines- using materials that range from metals to fine watercolors- and in his spare time, creating fabrics, rugs, furniture and architecture. He had his first ‘retrospective’ at LACMA when he was 34. His latest show was a few months ago at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Nearing 80, he is sharp, quick witted and always on the move. Like a shark, awake while sleeping, constantly reinventing his living /studio space, he is always creating, and always has been.

We had a chance to ask him a few questions before he left his studio in Venice for his bi-coastal home in Oahu, with Wendy Al - the love of his life.

Opening Portrait Photo by Wendy Al; All other photos by Hannah Ray Taylor

WHY HAWAII? The water. Honolulu is convenient. It has movies, museums and I belong to the Outrigger Canoe Club (snack shop, lockers, Hau Terrace). The beautiful thing about Honolulu that you don’t have in Venice is a 24 hr Wal-Mart (lol). It has everything you can possibly need. A pharmacy, a serviceable market, and art supplies -- it‘s probably 80,000 square feet. It’s actually the best place to buy art materials, really! I said, ‘Holy shit this is amazing!’ I use whatever works.

Stickums, acrylics, and framing materials. I used to be very aloof about all of this stuff before I needed to be practical. Lowes is open 24 hours too- you can get anything you need before anyone wakes up. describe MORNINGS IN Honolulu I’m up before everyone else. I make myself active. I try to do things that don’t make noise, which isn’t very easy. I love seeing the sun come up no matter where I am -- and the moon too, though that can be dodgy when it comes up at noon.

And I love seeing the moon go down. I track everything with my eyes.

I usually swim at the OCC with Wendy between 7:30 and 8:00am, but I return before she completes her hour and a half-swim. I wait and read the paper, it’s a laid back thing. In summer, we always go to Waimea Bay. So beautiful.

Do you jump off the rock?

There are certain things you give up when you get older.

TELL us ABOUT MALIBU IN THE 50’s?

I surfed with Tubesteak, slept in the hut at Malibu (‘55), subsisting on found sandwiches and coke bottles. The hut was made out of junk, furnished with stolen furniture that kids would take from their parent’s houses in the Colony, along with cardboard and palm fronds.

The Adamson’s would get pissed at us.

No toilets, no water. In’55, PCH was a 2-lane highway. I had a blue ‘37 Pontiac with what used to be a red leather interior but no roof. When I didn’t want to sleep on the beach I would pull the car onto the curb and sleep underneath it. Good protection. Malibu is the best! Best summer waves in the world during June and July.

Billy Al on Surfing: I surfed too long. I quit when I was 60.

I looked like a fucking dork, the worst kind of kook. I don’t think anybody surfs very well anymore because there are too many people in the water. At Kealalanina-iki 1994 16 x 12" Acrylic on board 7:00 in the morning the water was packed with 30 people. You can be a great turner, or you can create anxiety for yourself and everybody else. It doesn’t do it for me any more. That started in 1960. That’s what an old fart thinks.I stopped surfing when it became a ”sport” rather than a lifestyle. When I realized you had to do things to please judges. Coming out of swimming, diving, and gymnastics, I’d had enough of subjective opinions about things. I‘m here to have fun, not to be judged. My peers can judge me and if you get laughs, that’s your judgment right there. Or everybody lets you take off, there’s your judgment.

THE END OF SURFING? I blame the downfall of surfing culture in western civilization on three things (in no particular order): 1. The leash 2. The wetsuit 3. The light boards. It’s too democratic now, you’ve just gotta have money. We never had boards under 30 lbs. until 1960. Short balsa boards floated like long boards.

WHO WERE THE BEST SURFERS? 1. Matt Kivlin. He mentored Micky Dora.

2. Phil Edwards. In ‘53-54, he was only 16, by the time he was 19 he had the best style and grace. Those guys could surf 10-12 waves and never lose their cool or their board, and they never pulled out too soon!

LEAST FAVORITE? Dewey Weber, nuff said.

Your BEST MOVE? Standing Island Pullout. (He gives an example.) I could do that, no matter where, that was my move. I didn’t learn to swim till 40 years old.

WHAT BOARDS DID YOU RIDE? 1 Kookbox, 1 90lb. HotCurl, 1 Oceanpark Drygoons Official Log, 5 or 6 Yaters, and 1 Fletcher WHAT BOARD SHORTS DID YOU WEAR? Anything from a thrift store.

WHY MOTORCYCLES? No matter how fast you go on a surfboard it’s still slow. If you raced motorcycles, which I did, you go from 0 to 60 in about 2 seconds with 12 people in close company. Then you know what fast is. I raced flat track at Ascot for 5 years. I rode BSA bikes with no brakes. I started that when I was too old and I quit in ‘77. I was over 40.

We also used to ride off road in Baja but it got to be a pain in the ass to get in and out of Mexico. Same as in the surfing downfall for motorcycles, it was the electric starter.

I used to get paid to start motorcycles for people. People who would buy Harleys, etc., would get to places and then couldn’t get them started again. Breakdowns were the biggest problem, you had to know how to fix anything wherever you were with whatever you had.

DID YOU GET HURT RACING? You’re supposed to get hurt. Part of the job.

Pilikia

1983

18 x 22"

Acrylic on canvas

DID YOU KNOW GIDGET? Yeah. When ‘Gidget’ was being made, I was cast as a stunt double and I said to myself, ‘I’m supposed to be a fucking artist, what are you dicking around with this for?’ That’s when I went to Europe.

EARLY VENICE I moved to Venice in ’58 with Kenny Price. I rented a 7500 sq. ft. building for $75. It was rustic. If it had a toilet, that was a plus!

Girls wouldn’t come to Venice. There were two choices if you wanted to live in California for cheap -- Pasadena or Venice. As a surfer, Venice seemed like the better deal.

ABBOTT KINNEY CHANGED MUCH? It ain’t West Washington Blvd. any more.

Billy Al shared an epic friendship with Kenny Price – they were both fathers of the California Art movement and stalwarts of the Venice art scene. His close friends include John Altoon, Bob Irwin, Craig Kaufman, H.C. Westerman, Don Bachardy, Christopher Isherwood, Terri Garr, Toni Basil and Ann Marshall. His daughter’s unique name, “Tica”, comes from a creative combination of the initials of his besties: Teri, Toni, Chris Isherwood and Ann. Tica is 23 now, a budding artist, and, of course, a creative, beautiful and capable young woman. Billy’s running mates include Robert Graham, Peter Alexander, Ed Ruscha, Chuck Arnoldi, Dennis Hopper, Larry Bell, Ed Moses and Ron Cooper a group of pro motorcycle racers and Grubby.

The list is as long as his life and vibrant as his belly laugh.

lovefest 2014

HOWS YOUR LOVE LIFE NOW? Wendy is everything to me. I don’t do anything without her. I can’t believe how lucky I am.

I absolutely would see no reason to continue without her. I think love is the only thing that distinguishes us as humans.

July Watercolor 1994

19 x 15"

Watercolor on paper

TELL US ABOUT THE VALENTINES I did the first one in 1959. I was staying in a tiny apartment with a single bed and at the time art was all action painting and extremely boring still lifes. You know me well enough to know that I wasn’t planning on being a regular

fellow. I always picked the worst thing you can you do in terms of what ‘they’ say the right things to do are. Well, the worst thing you could do then painting pictures was to make the center of your composition the center. They had all these theories for composition. Well, I said, ‘that’s fucked,’ so I did the first one. I bought a small canvas, two tubes of Windsor Newton and I said Valentines Day is coming up. I, now famously, wore out 6 number 2 brushes on the project. That’s how it started. I did couple of watercolor Valentines too. The show opened at FERUS on Valentines Day 1960.

WERE YOU IN LOVE AT THE TIME? Not even close. You’ve got to realize that I grew up in a time when boys did things for girls. They took them places, they paid for things, they drove nice cars, they were polite, they knocked on the door, and they were cleaned up. I didn’t have the facilities to do any of that.

I just painted pictures, went surfing, that was it...seriously.

THE OLD DAYS I lived with Walter Hopps, the ex director of the Pasadena Art Museum who also started the iconic and infamous Ferus Gallery. Walter was a preeminent art scholar, a unique and brilliant individual, but hard to pin down.

THE FERUS GALLERY DAYS Ferus at its best was literally a gang. Keinholz and I were very close, and when Keinholz dropped out, I wasn’t long to follow. Altoon, without a doubt, was what it was to be an artist. I’ve never met anyone close.

H.C. Westerman was the same. Altoon looked like the surfers of today would like to look. He was amazing, a personality like no one you’ve ever met in your life, practically everybody’s best friend. Craig Kaufman was an original. In ‘57, he was the greatest artist -- no doubt that painting there (he gestures to his wall where the painting is hanging) is the one that changed the art world. And Kenny Price, another artist you can’t go without mentioning.

CALIFORNIA ART? I have to keep reminding people that California was not New York. California was Zen, we came out of the tea bowl. Because if you think about this (holds his hands like holding a raku bowl). You start something that has a sculptural shape, a painted or artistic presence that you can hold in your hand, that has many artistic functions, you can look at for hours, you can touch it.

People would live their whole life and travel with only one bowl. The tea ceremony was the process of looking, feeling this, the surface. You can’t imagine it, till you get it. It’s sensual. That’s where my work took off. It was as close to a sensual touch that you could get. It was meant to mesmerize you with sensuality and hold you captive. It wasn’t meant for investment. It was sexy. Our modus at that time was not to be rich and famous, it was to be exceptional. We never expected anything like that.

We were expected to do good work and stand up to each other’s criticism. If you couldn’t, you were fucked, you were out of the club -- it was a bitch. We were all so close knit.

WHY SYMBOLS? Chevrons, Moonscapes, Irises, Airplanes, Antheriums, Manchester Terriers? Better than a crappy signature.

WHY WATERCOLORS? I’m good, or the best, with the medium. But water colors fade, are fragile and need to be framed.

DO YOU DREAM IN COLOR? I don’t know or care.

WHERE DO YOUR IDEAS COME FROM? Gotta go with from nature.

AS THE SUSTAINABLE EDITOR, I JUST HAVE TO ASK, WHATS THE MOST TOXIC MATERIAL YOU’VE WORKED WITH? Probably a cross up: Nitro cellulose, lacquer, polyester resin, it’s all toxic EVER GET SICK FROM MAKING ART? Very much so. A lot.

Waniki-iki

1994

16 x 12"

Acrylic on board

WHO WAS YOUR MENTOR? Peter Volklus was the guru in 1955. OTIS turned into was the LA ART CENTER then. I was a student at Arts & Crafts in Oakland, and studied with Heath and came down to visit Pete Volkus..he was so impossibly great. I asked him, ‘Can I get into your school?’ “Sure.” When I went to school, I didn’t care about grades -- I just wanted to learn. Pete told me I had to take another art class if I wanted to stay, but I walked out of that because the teacher was a moron. I caught him in his own stupidity 3 or 4 times. I said, ‘Don’t talk to me anymore, just leave me alone.’ I needed to learn, not graduate, so he took me to the director who wanted to kick me out. Pete fought for me to stay the semester. But after that, I’d had enough, I quit ceramics.

lovefest 2014

WHY CONSTANT REINVENTION? Necessary.

Billy has employed Luis Perez for 35 years plus, and they change the studio environment constantly. The spaces are a wild balance of form and color, with priceless pieces of his friends artwork, and of course, his own.

LAST WORDS?

I have to say I have no complaints.

lovefest 2014

Valentine Beauty

February, the month of love, romance and compassion!

By: Tara Owens Beauty editor It’s time to set a mood for that special someone in our lives! Whether it is a heavenly scented candle, a perfume that stimulates an emotion or memory, or a little added pheromone, (which derives from the Greek word ‘pherein’ which means to transport and the word ‘hormon’ which means to stimulate). It’s that time of year to shake things up a little, have fun, and most of all, show gratitude!

Here are five products that will help make that happen!

SteamCream

Diptyque Tubereuse Candle

This tuberose candle has a cult following.

It is both sensuous and heady. Derived from the Mexican bulbous herb, it is sure to set the mood for romance.

Beautyhabit.com

A multipurpose cream uniquely formulated using pure, unrefined steam.

This Valentine’s Day, fill the world with love and romance, if he says ”Oui” (yes in French)…I will kiss him.

Beautyhabit.com

Memoire Liquide Amour Liquide

This romantic blend is sure to entice your loved one to get a little closer.

It’s a soul soothing and breathtaking blend with notes of pure Madagascar vanilla, tonka bean and incense.

Memoireliquideperfume.com

Kissaholic Aphrodisiac Breath Mist

Heat up your kissing chemistry with this ultimate love potion.

It is infused with Booty Parlour’s proprietary exotic aphrodisiac blend.

Bootyparlour.com

Sacred lip shine Purity made simple.

Add a touch of shine to your lips with this sensuous and nourishing formula.

Rmsbeauty.com

Love Red Hat: Lovely Bird (available at Madison Malibu) Gold Necklace: Luna Chi; Shell Ring: Sunahara Hair and Makeup: Sarah Maxwell for Mac Cosmetics Photo by David Keffer

how you look...

Enjoy luxurious spa treatments by top professionals in an atmosphere of sophistication.

Let the staff pamper you as your senses are invigorated with Signature Treatments that boast genuine medical value in an air of elegance.

We are dedicated to providing advanced treatments in state of the art facilities.

Call today and experience Malibu’s CURE for yourself.

310.456.1458 22741 Pacific Coast Hwy, Suite 200, Malibu, CA 90265

SATURDAY in the

SUN

Perfectly in tune with Malibu's bohemian mood, spend your Saturday in thesun in these key

pieces

Kimono similar , Blu Moon available at shopplanetblue.com, Planet Blue Malibu Top, similar, Vagabond Beaded Tee, Spell Designs, spelldesigns.com Shorts similar, Indah, available at shopplanetblue.com, Planet Blue Malibu Boots, similar, Vince Camuto, vincecamuto.com Sunglasses similar, House Of Harlow "Chelsea", houseofharlow1960.com

Kimono similar, Blu Moon available at shopplanetblue.com, Planet Blue Malibu Lace Bra similar, Eberjey available at Shopplanetblue.com, Planet Blue Malibu

90265+fashion Kimono similar, Blu Moon available at shopplanetblue.com, Planet Blue Malibu Crochet Bikini, similar available at mybikinibrazil.com

Photography by:David Hauserman davidhauserman.com http://instagram.com/davidhauserman Designer:Arnhem Bickley arnhem.co Model:Charlee at EMG models Styling by:Aasha Tozer theendcollective.com Makeup by: Nicola Emanuel nicolaemauel.com Brands:Arnhem, Valley Eyewear, Hope and May, The End Collective

29169 Heathercliff Rd. Suite 220 Malibu, California 90265

310.457.5262 Stylist: Dennis Chetzan 310.806.3300 Photo by Mikel Roberts

Paradise found Bold red accents leave lasting impact and show a slightly sensuous side to this haute bohemian beach house overlooking Paradise Cove.

Dave Le Sueur - Contractor John Koury - Fluid Designs - Architect.

Rebecca Bonney - Landscaping Large Red Painting "Rose In The Red Swarm" by Trang T. Le Marcel Dzama (his work is in the whitney, lots of album covers etc...)

Sage Vaughn - "Watch Owl" and Butterflies Compoundproject.com C. Jere - mirror Roli - Danish artist Red Poster that has numbers 1013 is how they used to advertise when the circus was coming to town.

Recently relocating from NYC to start uber ad agency 180LA (think Pepsi, Sony Adidas), William and Kendra Gelner sought solitude in Malibu's Paradise Cove to raise their young family.

The couple found a prime location overlooking the Pacific Ocean to create a chic beach, full-time retreat with a loft like vibe accented with contemporary art.

Red accents in key art pieces, an organic wood table and Suzani textiles in the living room lend a sensuous vibe to the haute bohemian, contemporary beach style almost exclusively sourced by the Gellners locally from the Malibu Design Center.

Ghost 14 Sofas, Ghost 06 Ottomans, Root Coffee Table, Viscose Rug

Yoshi Kitchen by Arrital Sorrento Teak Barstools

Malibu Suar Dining Table Ghost 23 Dining Chairs

Sorrento Teak Bench Malibu Teak Side Table Outdoor Furniture Capri Cube Teak Sofa, Capri Cube Teak Chairs

Torre di Moravola. .. the

perfect

destination to

cleanse your mind, body and soul.

TorreAndi Moravola Exquisite Hidden Retreat in Umbria

By Shin Takei High above Montone in Perugia, on top of a hill, sits Torre di Moravola, a 12th Century medieval watchtower restored and renovated into a sophisticated hidden retreat overlooking the Carpini Valley in Umbria, Italy. Outbuildings, gardens, terraces and a 25 meter infinity pool are aligned on an axis with the tower to maximize the dramatic 360 degree view over secluded valleys, unchanged for centuries, giving the sensation of being totally removed from the modern world. Abandoned for more than fifty years, the Tower was discovered circa 2001 in ruins. There was no water or power in the tower.

high mountainside, so Moravola sits

on a when the valley below sizzles in the summer heat, there is always a refreshing cool breeze.

The architect and current owner Christopher Chong began as a technician under Kenzo Tange, then under scholarship went to work with Adolfo Natalini in Florence, before joining the Bartlet School of Architecture in London. After graduating, he worked with Armstrong Chipperfield Associates, Sir James Stirling on the Temasek project and Lord Norman Foster on the Chek Lap Kok airport in Hong Kong. The main challenge was to lighten up the dark building into a series of light filled flowing spaces suitable for a contemporary retreat while maintaining the character and history of the structure. Chong designed the new layout incorporating the existing axis of the ruins in relation to the mountains and added outbuildings, gardens and a solar heated infinity swimming pool. Christopher and his wife Seonaid Mackenzie, also a designer, did a lot of the actual construction themselves with the help of local residents who were eager to resurrect the tower. The painstaking amount of love that went into the labor shows throughout, it is a remarkable architectural masterpiece.

The main challenge was to maintain the original character and history of the structure while attempting to transform a deep and dark rambling building into a series of light filled, flowing spaces suitable for a contemporary retreat. Natural light was brought into the heart of the building through top lit passages. To bring in the necessary utilities such as power and water just to start construction was a challenge. They even hired the services of the local witch “la Strega” who was a beautiful 16 year old girl with the gift of divining water. She led them to the position to drill at the location where two veins of water crossed in the rocks below. Water was found at a depth of 90m.

The heating system design was optimized for use with solar panels. Their energy is used to provide hot water for the under floor heating system. Provision has also been made for photovoltaic panels in the future.

Torre di Moravola opened in April 2008. There are seven suites whereby five are designed as “tower suites” arranged in an open plan design over two levels. On the ground level there are sunken stone baths, showers and toilets and direct private access to the exterior terraces. The upper level affords complete privacy and breathtaking views over the surrounding valleys. The Main Tower Suite is a large dramatic space reached by a private glass staircase at the highest point of the tower.

The thickness of the ancient stone walls and the passive cooling generated by the stack effect in the tower’s two atria keep the interiors cool. Moravola sits high on a mountainside, so when the valley below sizzles in the summer heat, there is always a refreshing cool breeze. The stone floors are heated by under-floor solar generated energy in the cooler months. From outside to inside, the emphasis is on the natural world reflected in the water, stone, wood, and choice of linens and fabrics.

There are many activities available to guests who want to explore the environs. Moravola is located in a nature reserve renowned for its variety of wildlife. Exotic Hoopoe birds, Bee-eaters and Honey buzzards are often seen, while hares, deer and wild boars roam in the forests with trekking paths which lead around the surrounding hills and valleys past neighboring watch towers.

Guests can take a two hour walk through woods towards the village of Montone where they can have lunch or dinner and be driven back. They can arrange wild asparagus hunts in the spring and mushroom, porcini and truffle foraging with experienced locals.

The olive harvesting begins in October when guests are invited to experience the cold pressing for the bright green oil.

Guests can also participate in harvesting red grapes and see how the locals press their own, then later in the year, salt and hang their own prosciutto and salamis. There are cycling trails; bicycles can be rented or horse riding can be enjoyed. The major cities of Perugia and Arezzo are nearby, as are the many medieval hill towns and villages including Gubbio and Assisi, Anghiari, Sansepolcro and Montefalco. This is the land of Piero della Francesca and Perugino, Opera Orvieto and Umbria Jazz, the Montone Film Festival plus numerous local costumed, seasonal fiestas. And don’t forget, you’re in Italy, you can always find an abundance of unusual trattorias and restaurants.

If you arrive by helicopter, there is a landing area at the base of the tower. For the adventurous, you can follow a trail of fortified towers from a microlite flight over feudal valleys.

While at Moravola, have a body wrap of Umbrian Clay then a heavenly herbal massage. Go shopping for hand-woven linen from Tela Umbra and Busatti in Citta di Castello and hand painted ceramics from Deruta. And don’t forget to visit Lungarotti Vineyards for their rich Sagrantino wines of Montefalco (featured in Issue 3).

So, if the congestion on the Pacific Coast Highway is getting to you, or everything and everyone around you are starting to get on your nerves, it’s time to get away. Nowhere else can you get away from it all as completely as you can at Torre di Moravola... the perfect destination to cleanse your mind, body and soul.

Christopher and Seonaid, with their caring staff, will treat you like you’re family and do everything in their power to make you as comfortable as possible.

Yes, the hand woven linen is in your room! The resident chef prepares the finest Cucina Italia from local sourced organic farms and gardens and is a treat in itself. It’s as if you are staying at a bed and breakfast. You can take your extended family or close friends for a very private getaway.

For more information, visit moravola.com Photos courtesy of Torre di Moravola

lovefest 2014

Nowhere else can you get away from it all as

completely...

Tides Reach ResoRT

fiji

TidesReachResoRT.com

Photos by Dana Fineman

mother says

casa escobar

lovefest 2014

daughter says

By Jessica White & Charlotte White WHERE: Casa Escobar (located at the old Malibu Inn which closed Sept. 2013) The Mexican eatery returns to Malibu at an iconic location on PCH. It is located across the street from the Malibu Pier. Live music started here in February. The interior has been completely re-done; it hosts a bar as well as a large open dining area with cozy booths and views of the Pier and ocean - perfect for families.

We went for an early dinner on a Friday night. We were pleasantly surprised by the layout as well as the decor. They serve vegan options - Vegan Portobello Mushroom Tacos as well as traditional dishes Taquitos, Chile Rellenos and Burritos. They offer an array of original Margarita choices (the Prickly Pear Margarita is divine) to accompany the mouth-watering food. Most items are between $8 and $15.

This was not a fast dining experience; we spent 2 hours enjoying everything from the Ceviche to the Chocolate Crème Brûlée.

MOTHER SAYS: The Ceviche – Mahi Mahi with lime, tomatoes, cilantro and onions, topped with avocado and micro greens was absolutely perfect. I ate it with the warm crunchy chips and a bit of their guacamole that I could not stop eating.

I finally moved on to the Chicken Taquitos - the shredded chicken was moist and the flaky shell was warm. I so enjoyed the simplicity of this dish, you must order this appetizer.

We couldn’t resist the Chocolate Crème Brûlée - we basically licked the plate it was so good.

The perfect end to a perfect Mexican Meal.

This is such a great family restaurant.

DAUGHTER SAYS: As I walked inside the restaurant, I couldn’t believe it, it was so beautiful. I loved our big yummy booth with big colorful pillows looking out at the ocean. This place is fancy.

First they brought out chips with three different Salsas. It was so much fun sampling the Salsa.

The first one - greenish - was too hot, the second one - brownish - was too cold, and the third one reddish - was just right.

I loved the Guacamole, it was sweet, and the Ceviche was delicious - sweet and sour with lime.

I had to make my mother move the chips away from me; I could not stop dipping them in the Salsa, Ceviche and Guacamole. I needed to save room.

Next I sampled the Chicken Taquitos, which were very cute and organized, they were not delicious they were marvelous.

Then I had the Carne Asada Soft Tacos - the steak was insane. We kept trying to stop eating but couldn’t - one more bite of this or one more bite of that - it was all too good.

I guess you should know, Mexican food is my favorite. I can’t wait to go again. This is my favorite restaurant in the history of restaurants!

MoDaFoodies are a Mother & Daughter who love food and want to share their great little restaurant finds with you. They try to seek out the places you can go as a family - places that are rich with healthy food, and relaxed enough for your children to enjoy.

Margarita Escobar

Jessikita Karmarita 1 1/2 Karma Tequila 2 oz fresh lime 1/2 Karma Agave syrup Handful of cucumbers 3 jalape単o slices A pinch of cilantro leaves Shaken and served in a hand blown margarita glass.

burger and cab night

Bison...vegan Black Bean...Moroccan Spiced Lamb

Written by Carol Hoyt It is a beautiful Malibu morning and we are bundled up in our sweaters complaining about the cold 50-degree weather while the rest of the country is literally freezing. As I sit and sip a cappuccino at the Malibu Beach Inn with Cece Woods, the dynamo Editor In Chief of 90265 Malibu Life and Style Magazine, we discuss the merits of which wines pair best with these three burgers.

It is at this time that she offers me the opportunity to become wine columnist for this magazine. I figure Wife, Mother, Winemaker and Farmer, what is one more hat to throw into the ring? I know my family already thinks I am crazy!

I am truly very excited. I am excited because I want to share all the things going on in the ever-growing wine community of Malibu.

I want to explore with you, the tasting rooms, wine trails, the people behind the wines and vines in what is soon to become the “ Malibu Coast” AVA. And that is just the beginning. As a winemaker and wine lover, I will be as objective as possible as I work to feature all that Malibu has to offer.

So here I am, on my first “official assignment” -- I am to find local wine to pair with each of these three, very unique burgers: a Bison Burger, Black Bean Vegan Burger and Moroccan Spiced Lamb Burger.

When trying to decide which wines to pair with the Bison and Lamb Burgers, I knew the right person to call would be Lisa Semler of Malibu Family wines. They have two labels, Semler and Saddlerock, but even more to the point, who better to ask than someone who has Bison and Sheep in her backyard?

Nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains, the Semler Family have been pioneers in the Malibu Wine industry. They have the Saddlerock AVA, with 1000 acres and over 70 acres planted. Lisa takes her morning hikes throughout the property to check in on their vines and enjoy nature. She is also an artist and always takes a moment in her walks to photograph the splendor around her.

The Semler appreciation for fine art is continued throughout the Estate, with gorgeous sculpture and fine art. Other parts of the property have Bison, Sheep, Zebra, and even Camels.

If you ever get the opportunity take a wine Safari with Malibu Wine Safari, don’t miss out.

The property is spectacular.

Across the way is their tasting room. With a casual ranch vibe, it is not only a great place to taste wine, but to picnic.

We begin with the Moroccan Spiced

Lamb Burger

Lisa recommends her 2009 Semler Syrah.

This burger is extremely flavorful. Its subtle herbs pair nicely with this spicy Syrah and its dark cherry qualities. A smooth and very balanced wine, one can truly taste the uniqueness of the Malibu terrior come through this Syrah with its 100% estate grown fruit.

next, we have the

vegan black bean burger

When reviewing the Vegan Black Bean burger,I thought of going with a White.

I like our Hoyt Family Pinot Grigio. A Pinot Grigio with flair, it has a bit of Viognier and a touch of oak. Not your grandmothers Pinot Grigio, it can hold up to the weight of the black beans yet allow the touches of spice from the cumin and hot sauce to shine.

last,but not least, the bison burger For the Bison burger, the 2008 Semler Cabernet is a perfect fit.

It has a slight cherry and cedar nose, but it is the blackberry Jam and dark fruit qualities on the palate together with the Pt. Reyes blue cheese stuffed burger with caramelized onions that make for a mouth watering delicious combination.

Lisa

morning

SEMLER

takes her

hikes throughout

the property to on their

check in

vines

and

enjoy

nature.

Photos by Dana Fineman and Semler Vineyards

Every Thursday night, you can sink your teeth into a mouthwatering one-of-akind, gourmet burger, artfully prepared by Carbon Beach Club’s Chef de Cuisine Victor Morales, and paired with a sumptuous select Cabernet.

Carbon Beach Club is located in the Malibu Beach Inn and is open to the public for breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.

Photo by Dana Fineman

signature Paso THE Sunset RESTAURANT Prime Burger The Sunset's signature Paso Prime Burger is 100% grass-fed Angus Beef, garnished with locally grown lettuce, organic tomatoes, caramelized onions and roasted garlic aioli on a toasted Challah bun.

This burger is available at lunch and dinner.

We also offer two mini burger sliders for $5.00 during Happy Hour made with the same quality meat.

These burgers pair exceptionally well with the 2011 Hess, single vineyard "Allomi" Cabernet Sauvignon. This Napa Valley wine compliments our burger with its firm tannins and fruit forward flavors.

I happen to be a butcher's son who also made wine ever since I can remember. It was a given at our family table, first in Italy where I was born and then here in California where I moved with my family at the age of 14, that we would have good meat and good wine to accompany the daily feasts that my Italian mother would prepare every single day.

We source our meats and farm grown vegetables carefully for our guests by sampling a wide variety of purveyor's offerings to bring the best on our plates.

-Franco Simplicio

Photos by Dana Fineman

Photos by Dana Fineman

The Sunset restaurant & Beach bar

6800 Westward Beach Rd., Malibu, CA 90265 310-589-1007 thesunsetrestaurant.com

2014 BMW M6 A Super Sports Sedan Gran Coupe

By: Shin Takei, Automotive Editor BMW has always been known to produce the “Ultimate Driving Machine” as per their familiar ad slogan. To keep that motto alive, the engineers at BMW have offered us cars with great performance. These cars are not sports cars, but sports sedans, meaning it has back seats and even four doors for a family. Starting from a separate racing department in the 1960’s the M division went on to showcase specially tuned BMWs starting with the late seventies M535i. The most popular and famous is the M3 series now known as M4. These cars have enhanced performance to make each model sportier than the already sporty normal offerings.

The 2014 BMW M6 Gran Coupe is an incredible sports sedan that can only truly be appreciated by driving it. Of the three M6 models being offered, the Gran Coupe is the best all-around model that can satisfy most owners who are not specifically after a two-door coupe or a convertible. The Gran Coupe is a four-door fastback with a low roofline that blends well with the overall shape. The M Spec brings along a carbon fiber roof that enhances the sporty look. Two headlights and a lower center opening with side grills flank the familiar twin grills up front. In 2001, the unsuspecting public was shocked to see the design direction taken by Chris Bangle and his designers on the E-65 7 series sedans at a time when the competition was offering conservative looking designs. This, however ushered in an era of all manufacturers chasing the flame-surface design, as it was commonly called. But amazingly today, when most manufacturers offer cars with busy surfaces, the M6 Gran Coupe looks surprisingly and pleasantly conservative. The M6 Gran Coupe is not a flamboyant looking car, but rather a good-looking, well-proportioned sports sedan. The rear end design is especially nice and clean, with the taillights nicely integrated into the upper body, and the quad exhausts showing those behind what’s up ahead.

lovefest 2014

Open the door and a lit M6 Sill Plate greets the eye. The ingress and egress is tight due to the low roof coupe style and one must watch the pillars so you don’t bump your head. The 20 position M Sport seats and adjustable steering wheel can achieve a comfortable driving position but the small rear window obstructs rear view.

The interior is richly appointed in leather, Alcantara® with carbon fiber panels, and the layout of the switches and instruments are as good as BMW has been known for. The Executive Package adds heated and ventilated active seats with massager, rear power sunshades and heads-up display in full color that displays, among other things, speed limit info.

The Driver Assistance Package Plus adds lane departure warning system, active blind spot detection, surround view parking camera system, parking assistant, BMW night vision with pedestrian recognition and a lane departure warning system. At the center of the dashboard and at the top of the center console is a 10.2“ display that is the infotainment center. The iDrive has progressed well, but the input is still entered by the knurled rotary knob. We wish BMW would adopt a touch screen system, which is not only easier to navigate, but faster. The optional Bang and Olufsen High End Surround Sound System is awesome as it can be.

The M6 Gran Coupe is powered by a 4.4 Liter twin-turbo V8 with 552HP and 502 LB.FT torque from 1,500 to 5,750 rpm mated to a 7 speed dual clutch automatic transmission (yes you can still specify a manual 6-speed). 0-60mph arrives in 4.1 seconds. EPA Fuel economy is 16mpg combined, 14-mpg city and 20-mpg hwy. The top speed is electronically limited to 155 mph. There is no “P” setting for the tranny but rather ‘automatic engage’ when left in gear, something that took a while to get used to. The exhaust note isn’t too loud but just the right tone and is a fine balance even in full Sport+mode. Our car was installed with the $9,250 M Spec light weight carbon ceramic brake option that features huge 16.1” front and 15.6” rear brake rotors and 6 piston calipers that can stop the Gran Coupe in a hurry. Nice looking 20” wheels shod with 265/35 front and 295/30 rear Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires fill the wheel wells.

The steering on the M6 Gran Coupe is a hydraulic setup and is not the electronic unit found on the normal models. You can control the sensitivity and compared to the electric steering, it provided a feeling more like BMWs of the past. Additionally the optional Integral Active Steering which turns the rear wheels 3 degrees in the back opposite the front wheels under 37mph and in the same direction when driving over 37mph helps maneuver the car in tight confines or spirited cornering.

In the M6 Gran Coupe the iDrive System allows the driver to independently adjust everything from engine power, shift speeds, steering feel

and damper firmness. The driver can also save his preferred combination of settings in the pair of M Buttons located on the left spoke of the steering wheel. For instance you can program the M1 button to Sport+Mode with maximum settings for everything and the M2 button for Eco Pro Mode. Surprisingly, we found this to be very convenient and useful as we toggled back and forth just for the fun of it. In addition to the aforementioned modes, there is the Comfort+Mode. But if you like spirited driving, the Sport+Mode with Dynamic Stability Control allows for a controlled drift around corners.

To sum up what we experienced from the 2014 BMW M6 Gran Coupe in a word: Superb. The M6 Gran Coupe is a well-balanced super sports sedan that is luxurious and comfortable while cruising in the city that with a flick of a switch can turn into a sports car when you want it to.

If you want more performance, you can opt for the Competition Package for 25 more horsepower, serious suspension tweaks and 20� wheels but we think this is overkill, as most owners won’t take the car on a track all the time.

90265 Malibu Life & Style Summary: 2014 BMW M6 Gran Coupe Overall: 10. A well-balanced sports sedan that is a gentleman in Eco Pro mode but becomes an animal in the Sport+Mode. Yes, bring it on!

Driving Impression: 10. An excellent all-around sports sedan.

Comfort: 8. Despite its sporting character, the seats are comfortable and have enough bolsters to hold you in relaxed cruising or spirited driving.

Handling: 10. In Sport+Mode and the ability to dial in everything the way you want it set up, offers beautiful controlled handling that has no drama entering or exiting corners.

Infotainment System: 8. The optional Bang and Olufsen High End Surround Sound System can compete with the best of them, but the much improved iDrive still stubbornly adheres to manual input with the rotary switch.

Luggage Capacity: 10. The split fold down rear seats make the already big trunk huge.

Malibu Bling Factor: 9.5. The sleek four-door coupe body and M badging does turn heads.

For more Information, visit: bmwusa.com

Terraplane

Sun

Written by Matt Diamond Live photos by Matt Diamond and Brendon Oneal

As we dance through the night under a star filled sky we hear a coyote howl in the distance. We feel a shiver run down our spine. The soul is awakened to the chant of the native voice reminding us of songs from distant centuries, from Native Americans of the West, to more currently, the blues greats of the South.

This is the Rise Of Terraplane Sun. Based out of The Westside of Los Angeles, in the artisan city known as Venice, a hipster, artsy beach town just on the edge of the worlds mightiest entertainment machine, comes a unique and fresh sound.

This is a sound related to some of the most influential music styles of the past.

A sound that brings us back to the days when music was not only created for pleasure but to awaken the soul. A sound that enhances the human spirit, of why we are here and what moves us to create and celebrate our existence through the art of sound.

Terraplane Sun is the hottest act to come out of Venice since The Doors. Front Man Ben Rothbard’s voice takes us to a timeless place of blues induced mysticism and transcendence. With an infusion of a free spirited 60’s sound and pop sensible riffs from lead guitarist and Malibu native Johnny Zambetti, the band entices their audience with catchy melodic hooks and lyrics with songs like ‘Ya Never Know’ and ‘Get Me Golden’ - two of the strongest singles on their new EP Friends.

One key element for this band is their versatility. Each band member plays multiple instruments, and possess the ability to nail down intricate four part harmonies. This musical quality will enable the band to continue to aspire to greatness. They are backed by a soulful rhythm section comparable to the days of Memphis Stax when every band had a Hammond B3 organ, plus backup singers, multiple rhythm guitarists and a horn section.

They say a band is only as strong as their rhythm section yet Terraplane Sun is able to hold down a rhythm complexity that would normally be attributed to more musicians than the three responsible. Gabe Feenberg, also known as the secret weapon, makes for many musical layers while playing keys, horns, slide guitar, percussion and back up vocal harmonies. Cecil Campanaro is the epitome of laid back cool on bass and Lyle Riddle aka “The Kid” kills on drums.

With the recent signing to music moguls Ted Field and Rob Kahane’s new label Trauma 2 and their recent recording for their new EP Friends, the stars are aligning for this Indie band from the Westside. Terraplane Sun is gaining fans across the country with their latest run of shows with some of the industries biggest acts including Imagine Dragons and Phoenix while continuing to sell out local venues and make their mark as a Los Angeles home town favorite.

A huge part of a band’s success in today’s music industry are music placements in TV and film. The band has been doing just that, landing music placements in the latest Citi Bank’s, Citi Card Commercial and TV and film features such as 21 Jump Street, Parenthood, Teen Wolf, Suits, The Big C, The League, Relapse, The Real World, Blue Mountain State and Franklin and Bash as well as in rotation on Alternative Nation with Sirius XM. With all this activity in motion, 2014 is looking extremely bright for Terraplane Sun as they embark on bigger tours, festivals, more TV and film placements, appearances and of course the almighty radio, a platform that’s capable of launching bands into the stratosphere. These guys have the songs and now its time for the songs to find their way to every ear that is appreciative of great music.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for The Rise Of Terraplane Sun...

lovefest 2014

lovefest 2014

SLEEPING MONK Louis Lenard

Written by Louis Lenard Photos by Jason Reposar, Randall Eng and Dana Fineman.

Like many native Malibu kids, I grew up a board rider. My first skateboard was a Gordon & Smith with the fluorescent green Kryptonics wheels, snowboard, a wooden Burton Performer and for the ocean, a bright red, triple-winged, rounded pin Gerry Lopez Lightning Bolt single fin.

Throughout high school, I would often skate Dogtown with Natas Kaupas and surfed local and regional surf comps as a sponsored amateur with Strider Wasilewski, Jamie Brisick, Steve Lippman, Evan Caples, Bobby Keith and others in the NSSA and WSA’s district 4.

With moderate success and a looking at a possible surfing future, everything changed when I heard “Master of Puppets” by Metallica. Something struck a chord, so to speak. I was 20 the first time I picked up a guitar and once I learned how to play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, I figured I was ready to become a “Rock Star.”

Self taught each step of the way, my 13-year stint as a musician allowed me the excessive lifestyle often accompanied by being in a signed, recording and touring rock band, just prior to the digital downloading age.

While my band holds the unofficial World Record for the highest stagedive, (68 ft.) and sold over 250,000 records worldwide, it was the playing for crowds in excess of 30,000 with Eminem, Linkin Park, Stone Temple Pilots, System of a Down, 311, Incubus, Run DMC and others that were some of my most unforgettable music career experiences.

Excess got the best of me however. In my early 30’s I found myself physically depleted and spiritually bankrupt. The isolation and darkness of my drug addiction took precedence as I watched the relationships I cherished most crumble before me. This was clearly no way to live a meaningful life or to set an example for my then, 4 year old daughter.

But I couldn’t stop.

In 2003, when the pain reached an unfathomable depth, it was time to surrender. I got clean and sober and have been ever since.

Like most in recovery, I found a way to channel my addictive personality into something positive and useful – a healthy lifestyle program with regular exercise, a clean diet including superfoods, herbs, rest, a meditation practice and a concerted effort to repair the wreckage of my past.

While working for and studying under some of the world’s most famous herbalists of the last 50 years, my new-found passion led me down the path of the ancient tradition of Chinese Superior Herbalism - a system herbology that’s more than 3000 years old and still thriving today due to its history of efficacy and safety.

Of particular interest to me were the SuperTonic herbs. These are the absolute highest class of herbs. Like Superfoods, these herbs are extremely dense with nutrients and are transformative to health and healing of both the body and spirit.

And so it became, after years of research and experimentation, I created a formula to help bring balance to my depleted and exhausted state.

Eight years later, after positive feedback from those who tried it, I decided it was time to share it with the world.

This was to become Sleeping Monk’s first product, the Immortal formula. A high potency herbal extract that is a well-rounded Longevity formula, Immortal focuses on nourishing the kidneys, detoxing the liver, restoring adrenal function, balancing the immune system and calming the spirit.

Immortal works from the inside-out to help us achieve glowing skin, healthy reproductive function, strong bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments, a sense of ease and a broader perspective.

Currently, my main focus is to share Immortal, Well Rested, (a deep sleep formula) as well as my company’s other products which are in development with the world to help people live the healthiest life they can imagine and be one with their passion.

Conscious+Living

A DIFFERENT KIND loving what you do every day!

OF LOVE

By Tracey Bregman, Conscious Living Editor I know it’s February and we are all thinking about Love...but I would like to look at a different kind of love. One I don’t think Hallmark has a card for. The love of what you do... I mean, for a living. Is it possible for us to choose a profession and have that same drive and ‘love’ for it every day?

I can confidently say, yes.

Let me give you an example.

One day recently, I was helping my friend, Vanessa care for a one-day-old peachick (baby peacock.)

Vanessa and I both thought that maybe the little bird had broken his legs.

Though neither of us are qualified to treat this condition, I knew exactly what to do. I called my amazing vet, Dr. Lisa Newell, from Malibu Coast Animal hospital. Dr. Lisa is not only my vet but also my friend, whom I respect highly. She cares so deeply for all her patients and works very long hours. She has a true love and zest for what she does, which is evident from the moment you meet her.

I asked Dr. Lisa what to do and she immediately suggested I take the little chick to the California Wildlife Center, an institute of which she has been a founding board member for the last twelve years. She excitely agreed to me there and show me around.

We arrived to find the Center staff caring for four (adorable) baby elephant seals that had just been rescued. They were the cutest things I’d ever seen, filled with so much personality. One after the other, they began staring at me directly in the eyes and then, to my amazement, doing what looked very much like advanced yoga moves.

Dr. Lisa then showed me to the bird area as she explained that, during the spring and summer when trees are trimmed, the center is filled with baby birds that have fallen out of their nests or have been injured in some way.

I watched as she showed me how she fed the little birds, usually crows and ravens, who looked at her lovingly, as if she were their mother. We then went to the ICU, where there were baby owls, hawks, squirrels and all kinds of wildlife in incubators.

Dr. Lisa then introduced me to Dr. Duane Tom, the Director of Animal Care at CWC, who has been part of the center since 2006. Dr. Tom was born and raised in Hawaii, and is a graduate of The Ohio State Uni. I walked into his trailer which had been transformed into a state of the art operating room as he was carefully resetting a crow’s wing. He allowed me to join the several students of veterinary medicine in the closeknit gallery, and we all stood and watched him perform the delicate operation. I was so impressed with his patience and calm manner.

When he was finished working on the baby crow, Dr. Tom turned his expert attention to the task of assisting my little, injured peachick.

Upon examination, the Dr. felt that little-chick’s legs were not broken during or after birth but rather that it was a developmental deformity -- one that couldn’t be fixed. Still, he felt that if we could somehow build something that could help him walk, we could save him.

If not, there would be nothing else he could do. And so, he began a painstaking process of building little splints so he could walk and have a chance to grow and prosper. Dr. Tom took such incredible care of my baby bird, I was truly amazed.

As a little girl, I had dreams of becoming a veterinary surgeon, so being with Dr. Tom, was like a glimpse down a different path, watching what my life could have been. It was quite an experience.

What I love about the California Wildlife Center is, that the doctors dedicate themselves to helping sick, injured and/or rescued wildlife with the goal of returning the animals back into the wild once they have been rehabilitated. Twice a year, the center opens their door to give public tours of their heartwarming and rustic facility (their next open house is April 27, 2014.)

Photos by Dana Fineman

A message from the California Wildlife Center:

“If you are going to prune your trees, do it before the end of February so as not to interfere with nesting birds or squirrels.”

I encourage you to take your friends and family and see for yourselves the LOVE that goes into this healing and helping mission of love for our wildlife during their next open house.

The center stays open by means of fund raising and donations alone.

It takes $2,200 a day to cover all expenses when they are at capacity.

Contact the California Wildlife Center’s volunteer program if you are interested in showing some LOVE this February,to some really remarkable people who LOVE what they do.

To see a video of the baby elephant seals release back into the wild, visit our website, or go to: http://www.cawildlife.org/mediacenter-landing-menu/videos-mnu/89video-cat/232-elephant-seal-release

Benefiting Wildlife and the Environment Our Mission: California Wildlife Center (CWC) takes responsibility for the protection of all native wildlife through rehabilitation, education and conservation.

Our Work Our core work is the rescue and rehabilitation of sick, injured and orphaned nativewildlife, supported by state-of-the-art animal care and rehabilitation facilities, a cadre of professionally-trained staff, dedicated volunteers and an engaged community.

take a walk on the

wild side

California Wildlife Center PO Box 2022 Malibu, CA 90265 818.222.2658 cawildlife.org Animal Emergency 310.458.WILD (9453)

to report a sick, injured or orphaned animal

Photo by Carol Sue Stoddard This Ad was donated by 90265 Malibu Life & Style Magazine to benefit the California Wildlife Center. Donate today!

lovefest 2014

gifts that keep on giving

GOOD WORKS

DOG BLESS YOU, Charlie Annenberg

By Brodie

My new friend Charlie has a big heart.

I noticed it immediately when I met him. I Charlie started 5 years ago. Dog Bless You them deal with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress view, Charlie Annenberg is a sensitive big

wanted to find out about DOG BLESS YOU, an organization places trained service dogs with war veterans to help Disorder) and other problems. From a dog’s point of dude.

He has a super comfy office on Ocean Avenue, just a few tennis ball throws from the old Sand and Sea Club on PCH which is now a glorious beach club for the public -- The Annenberg Beach House. Unfortunately, no dogs allowed there cuz it’s a human only public beach, but that’s not his decision.

Charlie’s office is filled with a lot of cool dog and human friends. He comes from a big family.

His family likes to make important changes in Los Angeles and the world. They build things, and save things, and educate people. Check out AnnenbergFoundation.org.

Charlie learned his lessons well. He does his job, which is to give back to people that are less fortunate than him. Charlie is leaving his own mark on the world.

DOG BLESS YOU is a division of something much bigger called Explore.org that is Charlie’s other pet project. When we arrived, Charlie was at his desk, looking at one of the many Explore.org live webcams (this one showed newly whelped puppies destined to become service dogs.)

DOG BLESS YOU has made a lot of friends on the Facebook thing -- like more than 500,000. That’s a whole pack of friends! In Charlie’s own words, “DOG BLESS YOU is a simple phrase for people who believe that dogs are the guardians of the human spirit. It comes from that beautiful bond.”

Charlie’s dog Lucky literally led him into connecting service dogs with veteran soldiers. Lucky is a super smart Golden Retriever -- he is a real service dog. He does avalanche rescue work, and visits old people with Alzheimer’s to make them feel calm, plus all kinds of other things that help humans.

Charlie told me how it all got started: “Lucky and I traveled everywhere, like out of the story ‘Travels with Charlie’, visiting every facet of America. Lucky has been in the coal mines of West Virginia, the deep south including Mississippi, inner Detroit, down in the hurricane Katrina carnage, the Pineridge Indian reservation, even Juarez Mexico.

He also visited a lot of US Military personnel helping people with PTSD. He’s been on death row in San Quentin -- he’s pretty much done it all.

No matter where we went, he knew how to heal, to break the bonds and barriers that we have with each other, especially in crisis situations. From avalanche search and rescue to just sitting with wounded warriors.

We were in the Massey coal mine after it exploded, there was massive death and destruction. Lucky would come around and put his paw on someone and just open their heart. This dog was really gifted.

I was in Sun Valley Idaho (pre 9/11) when you could travel and get on a plane without an ID. I was looking at a magazine, very similar to the one you’re writing for, Brodie -- local, really beautiful, well done -- and there was an article about a guy who was working rehabilitating soldiers through nature and skiing- called Sun Valley Adaptive Sports. I thought that was really cool. And one day I’m in the line at the lifts and I asked , “Does anyone know about this

lovefest 2014

guy and where I he was right in around and said I’d really love mission.

can find him?” It turns out front of me. The guy turned “that’s me!” I told him to help you with your

He told me a number of soldiers were in town, and I told him I wanted to meet them.

We exchanged cards so we could connect. But the next day, I went skiing, wiped out, and lost my wallet. I felt bad because that night I was supposed to meet these soldiers, but I didn’t know how to reach the guy.

That night, I was taking a walk (it was pitch black) and suddenly,Lucky is missing, he’s nowhere! I’m freaking cuz its freezing. I had no idea where Lucky had gone.

Then, I get a cell phone call, “Do you have a Golden Retriever? He’s across town at this address.” I walked a long way to a Best Western hotel where I saw some people gathered. They asked, “Are you looking for the Golden Retriever?” I walked in and Lucky was sitting in the middle of the room, with the guy I had met, and of course, all the soldiers were petting him.

If it wasn’t for that blessed night, there wouldn’t be a Dog Bless You. It was meant to be.

Two years later I was doing an EXPLORE.org project in Sun Valley on the power of nature and fly-fishing as healing for PTSD. Lucky was there with me, and we reconnected with the soldiers. They call us ‘the Dude, the Big Lebowski, and his sidekick Lucky.’

To this day, DOG BLESS YOU has sponsored and paired 200 service dogs with service men and women across America. We have also donated funds to the Guide Dogs of America and the Natural Disaster Search and Rescue Foundation. We also gave eight dogs that served as search and rescue dogs at the Fukishima plant nuclear disaster.”

Follow Dog Bless You on FaceBook, and explore EXPLORE.org. Follow Brodie on instagram @Puppyonthego

Photos by Kovar.net and Claudia Taylor

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lovefest 2014

a sense of place a

home sense of belonging

By Danny Bralver Photos by Steve Woods

In the beginning of the old notebook that I am writing in, I discover a piece that I had written and forgotten about - a description of a day at a remote beach in Central California. A passage from it struck me as if I was reading it for the first time: “It seems that some places are truly healing, not necessarily the juju of the place or mystical spirits, though they may well be.

Truly beautiful, strong, clean, pure and empty places remind us of that part of ourselves that is original. We were once this and somewhere we still are. There is no escaping the complexity of human existence and its inherent flaws, yet we can have reminders of our origins if we seek them out.�

So what I am getting at here is a sense of place, of belonging in a place, and herein is where it began for this soul.

lovefest 2014

Just out of my teens, I was living in the old stone house on Cold Canyon Road in Monte Nido. I cannot count the times that I had seen the jagged teeth of Bony Ridge from various vantages and been completely captivated. There developed this need within me to understand the ridge relative to everything around it.

I packed a tiny sack of nuts and dried fruit, crammed my sleeping bag into the smallest day pack that I could find; put on long pants, boots and a hooded sweatshirt, and set out from Newbury Park to the summit and then the coast. I had no idea whatsoever of my route and there were not yet state, national, or other governmental stewardships of the region.

The image of Bony Mountain from where I set out in the mid afternoon is that of a truly sacred mountain. I made my way across the potreros from where we now call Satwiwa, crossed the headwaters of Sycamore Canyon Creek, and slowly and with some difficult route finding, made my way to the summit of the ridge.

In the years following, before the area became part of Point Mugu State Park or Santa Monica Mountains National Park, the whole ridge, the creek flowing down into Potrero Valley, and the slope falling coastward were under the control of the Boy Scout Camp at Circle X Ranch. Their hired hand, an imported Texas ranger was a thin tough fellow, a deputized throw back to the 1800’s with a cowboy hat and boots who wasn’t about to let anyone not authorized venture into his domain. But venture, my friends and I did.

He would see our old truck parked somewhere along Cotharin Road and knew we were here on the mountain, and he would do everything that he could to thwart us; flatten tires or shoot his rifle over our heads that would sometimes precede a verbal warning of trespassing on his mountainous spread.

Our policy was simple: go in early, return late and avoid the angry eagle eyes of one serious bad to

home

the bone Texan. Once he almost caught my friend Steve and his dog. The ranger had cornered Steve and his dog Seth in a rocky canyon. After a long pursuit through the thick brush with his loaded rifle that he had already fired in his direction he was standing a close distance to them listening for a clue of there position. Hiding under a Sumac, Steve clamped one hand around Seth’s snout to quiet his panting, and the other held his tail still to keep it from wagging against the dry chaparral, and he lay perfectly still for hours till the hunter gave up on his hunted prize.

The Texan drawl of threats and curses echoed through the rock formations but he never ever caught us. That whole range was ours; those wondrous rocks, the creek and its shady glades, the caves and corners all. We rarely saw anyone and other than mountain lions no one saw us.

At sunset, all the glowing peaks of the Santa Monica’s tapered east with Mount Baldy standing alone in the distance. The string of the Channel Islands fell to the west; to the north were the transverse ranges, Topa Topa and Reyes Peak Ridge. The vast Pacific lay to the south, with the little hat of Santa Barbara Island dimly visible in the twilight.

The feeling at that moment was that I was, for the first time, truly in my place. Not that the place was my own, but that it was me, this great expansion of myself to include all within that great circle of my view.

I knew that within that circle would always be my home, and it has...and it will.

The following morning I went straight down the south face of the mountain into the Serrano Valley, and from there down into Sycamore Canyon to the Coast.

A new and real aspect in my personal rite of manhood was established on that journey. ever be complete?

Will it

lovefest 2014

Truly clean,

beautiful,

strong, and empty remind us of that part of ourselves that is and We were once somewhere we still

pure

places original. this are.

Country in Marianne Williamson

Crisis

and the United States Department of Peace Interview by Jackie Robbins I was thinking about something I heard recently. The “Baby Boomers”, those of us born between 1946 and 1964 are not only the largest population of seniors in history, we comprise 25% of the American population. I suspect that this means we have a rather large voice, if we care to use it. We’ve been a powerful group after all, we participated in the Civil Rights Movement and we stopped the War in Vietnam, and we elected the last two presidents, twice each. We’re living longer, we’ve got a lot of votes left in us and there is still a lot to do.

I also watched a recent Hollywood film, “Confucius”, and thought a lot about something he is known to have said. Confucius (551479BC) was a teacher, editor, politician and philosopher; he emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. He said, “The official wears his robes of office but his inner character and spirit reflect his true mettle”.

So I was definitely in the appropriate mind-set to meet Marianne Williamson a couple of week ago and ask her a few questions as a means of introducing her to you, our 90265 audience. For those who already know who she is, you’ll understand why it was such a great honor for me to meet face-to-face with this extraordinary woman of substance.

Marianne Williamson wants to bring a new conversation to Washington D.C. and the government of the United States. She wants to practice her “Course in Miracles” and just see if she can transform fear into love by fulfilling her vision to establish the United States Department of Peace. Far-fetched? Maybe not…

Who is Marianne Williamson?

I am a Woman, a Mother and an Author. I’m someone who has been very active as a writer, as a lecturer and as a social activist for 30 years. I have worked up close and personal with many people in crisis during that time.

For instance, I founded an organization in Los Angeles called “Project Angel Food” and what I have learned, not only from working with others but also in my own life, is that if you are in a serious crisis you can’t get out of the crisis simply by tweaking a few external things. When serious crises come around, the only way to transform that into opportunity is if you are willing to engage in a serious inquiry, about who you are, what you are doing with your life, whether or not you are who you say you are, whether you have shadows of your own and character defects to look at, where you need to make some serious changes, atone for errors and make amends for serious mistakes. If you do that work, transformation does happen and new beginnings do occur. But if you do not do that work, change will not happen and whatever problems the crisis comes bearing will continue to plague you, and even get worse.

As I look at the United States today I see a Country in Crisis and all that a Country is, is a collection of individuals. So the same rules that apply to transforming a life in a very real way apply to transforming a Country. But the United States is not engaged in a serious inquiry about who we are as a Nation, whether or not we stand on the Democratic Principles that we purport to stand on, whether or not we have some shadows of our own to look at, some atonement, even some amends to be made, most particularly the intention to do some things differently.

Politics, which to me should be the natural container for the most serious National Conversation, has become instead the purveyor of the most superficial conversation possible. One in which whatever reckless and irresponsible, undemocratic or unsustainable behavior that might be occurring, we’ll just sweep that under the rug, after all there is so much money to be made doing things the way we’ve been doing them.

I felt for a long time that people who are engaged in a deeper conversation about life are the last people who should be sitting out the great political and social questions of our day. Because these questions affect us all, they affect our children and they affect the future of this Country and in some cases they affect life on Earth. Many people, including myself, have wanted at times to disengage from the political conversation because it so lacks a sense of higher awareness and consciousness but I have come to believe that we can’t really complain about that, can we, if we ourselves are not contributing to the discourse.

How do you believe that you will achieve your goals when others have tried to intiiate new policy and have been blocked by the current status quo in government?

I hope what I will be bringing is a deeper conversation, a conversation that deposits something more expanded than merely self-interest.

I’m not naive about what any one congressperson can do and neither, do I think, are the voters in District 33. I wouldn’t be going to Washington with a magic wand, that’s not how our government works, nor is that how it should work. But I would go to Washington with a passionate commitment to talk about things that I feel need to be talked about but which too often are not. From our need to take a serious stand against the corrupting influence of money on our political system, to a conversation about child poverty and the fact that in the United States today we have the 2nd highest child poverty rate in the advanced world, 2nd only to Romania. A conversation about the corruption of our food supply, most particularly GMO’s, and a conversation around the fact that the United States has at 2.4 million prisoners, the highest mass incarceration rate in the world, leaving an African American man with a one in three lifetime probability of incarceration. The undue influence of money on our politics is the cancer underlying other cancers. It is the issue underlying other issues.

There will always be a cap on what we can do to save our environment. There will always be a cap on what we can do to save our food supply from ruin and corruption. There will always be a cap on what we can do to guarantee our own basic rights as American Citizens as long as moneyed forces are allowed a political influence so completely disproportionate to that, which is wielded by the average citizen. This encroachment on the basic democratic tenant of the United States, articulated by Lincoln as a social contract giving us a government, Of the People, by the People and For the People is so advanced that we have already countenanced the transition of our government into a government of a few of the people, by a few of the people, for a few of the people. An important message here is that this is not even good for the few of the people! I realize that the majority of citizens in district 33 are of a few of the people!

But I am not here to participate in the corrupt dysfunctional model of politics in which a politician is going to say to you, “This is what I can do for you”. I’m interested in a transformational paradigm, which say’s “Let us do something significant, meaningful and powerful together”.

What is the connection regarding bringing women more into the forefront of the policcal conversation AND the potential course changes that could occur?

When our Country was founded our founders considered Caucasian men to be the appropriate purveyors of democratic power and the narrative of our history has broadened that to include people of color, women, and so forth. To me, the group whose interests remain at what could often be called “second class citizenship” are the

children of the United States. When you have money determining political leverage in an inappropriate way, such as we have now, then those who do not work and therefore have no financial leverage and lack political influence, namely are our children.

We are one of 3 advanced nations in the world who do not have paid maternity leave and things are so much worse than that.

We don’t have air quality safety standards in America’s public schools, and we know already that 40% of our teachers and students are adversely affected in their respiratory systems. A lack of universal pre-school put millions of children every year on a 50% probability track to incarceration by the second grade. And of course we know many millions of American young people get out of college burdened by the untenable weight of college loans. What they didn’t know when this country was founded, what they didn’t know 100 years ago, and what to a great extend they weren’t aware of 60 years ago is how important the first 8 years of life are. So even though children do not represent a financial interest they are citizens of the United States and as a woman and a Mother I feel what I think all women and all Mothers feel, which is a passionate desire to take a stand for the welfare of our children. You know, in every advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives there is a common anthropological characteristic, and that is the fierce behavior of the adult female when she senses there is a threat to her cubs, the momma bear, the tiger, the lion and so forth.

Even among the hyenas, which is a female dominant species interestingly enough, the adult female encircles the cubs while they are feeding and will not let the adult males get anywhere near the food until the babies have been fed. Surely the women of America could do better than the hyenas.

We have one in 5 American children who are food insecure. The reason they don’t call that hunger is because many of these obese children are actually malnourished, here in the United States.

Back in the 1970’s we had hunger handled. So when you look at all of these problems, whether it has to do with child poverty, hunger, the fact that we are not dealing adequately with climate change, the fact that we are not developing renewables on the level that we should be, the fact that we are still tolerating the domestic use of nuclear energy even though radio-active material is spewing from Fukushima as we speak, the fact that domestic drones are on the way to our neighborhoods sometime in the next couple of years, these problems will continue to fester and continue to expand until We The People of the United States introduce a meaningful counterforce to this trend. I have come to the conclusion in my own life that looking to the political status quo to fix these problems is absurd given how many of them the political status quo has created.

I have always felt in my career for 30 years, “I’m not saying anything that everybody I know isn’t saying, I’m just saying it into a microphone”.

Everyone I know is saying, “Can you believe this?”

But we are in this stuck place because we’ve grown up believing, “We don’t have to worry, it won’t get that bad, after all such-and-such will be unconstitutional or so-and-so is in office.” Now we are realizing that both political parties are so beholden, one worse than the other, but this lesser of two evils conversation has run it’s course. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

Both parties are so beholden to these forces, which make these situations inevitable that if there is going to be an intervention, if there is going to be a real pattern interruption it’s going to emerge from the people of the United States.

That’s why I’m running as an Independent and that’s why I’m running in a district where I know there are a lot of awake people. But this whole conversation of being awake and conscious… ultimately you cannot be selectively awake and still call yourself awake. You can’t be selectively conscious and still call yourself conscious. We’re so conscious about food, we’re so conscious about relationships, we’re so conscious about nutrition, we’re so conscious about our bodies, yet we haven’t even wanted to look deeply into politics because it’s so unconscious, yet at the same time if we don’t put the conscious conversation out there who will? You and I are sitting in this magnificent garden in this magnificent haven of dedication to raw foods and so forth but the people who own this garden are aware that we have some serious problems, that we as individuals have no control or influence over… such as electro-magnetic energy and radioactive waste from Fukushima. So it is very heartening to me how many people I am meeting out in this district who recognize that we have to move these conversations into a more collective expression with real political heft, that is the issue, the issue of bringing this into electoral politics.

It’s already a mainstream impulse within the culture, but at a certain point if we do not bring the conversation that surrounds these issues into the electoral process we are not getting to what is now the core of the problem.

Why engage a formidable and seemingly popular encumbant who now holds the seat you are running for?

The 33rd district is my intellectual home. I feel heard here. I feel I hear people here at a deep level. I feel I could genuinely represent not only the interests of the people of this district but the viewpoint and that is what’s missing in Washington.

Congressman Waxman has held the seat for 38 years and for the first 20 years or so and for a little more than half of that time he did quite a few things that I admire. I don’t feel in my heart that I’m running against Mr. Waxman. I feel in my heart that I’m running against the way things are currently done in Washington, and he just happens to be there. We need an entirely new conversation and no one as entrenched in the old conversation as is Mr. Waxman could deliver us to that. There are ways and issues that I agree with Mr. Waxman particularly about the environment.

But there are also areas where I would have voted very differently. Mr. Waxman voted for the use of military force in Iraq and I would not have.

He voted once for the Patriot Act, I would not have. He voted twice for the National Defense Authorization Act, I would not have. He voted to extend tax cuts to billionaires, I would not have.

He supports the domestic use of nuclear energy, and I do not. I feel particularly strongly about that given that we as Californians are deeply aware of our vulnerability to our earthquake fault lines and even tsunami. What about the issue of radioactive energy spewing from Fukushima?

Fukushima’s Reactors were built by General Electric, by the way, which is the same company that builds ours, that is something our government chooses not to discuss. But I believe the people of District 33 knows better than to think there is no problem here.

In watching your videos and taped conversations about your future leadership ambitions you use many words that may not be familiar to those people that have become used to the usual political rhetoric that we hear so much today, please give us some comment on this short list of words, and tell us what they mean within the context of the new political conversation that you wish to initiate and ignite…

Spirituality To me spirituality simply means the path of the heart, the path of love. Spirituality is simply the quest for more loving thought and more loving decision-making. I see everything in light of a spiritual perspective. Therefore how can we ignore that 17,000 children starve on this planet everyday? How can we ignore the unnecessary suffering of so many people in this Country, due to no fault of their own, who are denied what I believe should be the minimum amount of access to educational and economic opportunity.

In other words to me the path of the heart should influence how we think about everything, including politics. To me economic justice is a moral issue. To me pre-emptive War is a moral issue. To me our high incarceration rate is a moral issue.

Transformative / Transformational There is a conversation in political circles these days about a shift from what is called transactional to transformational politics. Transactional politics reflects an all too common way of dealing with each other. What can I get from you? I’ll give you this if you give me that. At the deepest level this represents a corruption because everything is transactional and nothing is collaborative. Transformational politics is where we all, as citizens, come together and say “How can we collaborate to make this Country and this World a more beautiful place?”

Divine Intelligence / Native Intelligence I think those are words that are interchangeable. I believe, and I believe that our Founders believed that there is wisdom within all of us. Democracy stands on the notion that it would not matter who your parents were, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, it doesn’t matter what your educational status is, each of us has within us the voice of wisdom and conscious, when we live in such a way to cultivate that voice. The reason our Founders wanted us to have free public education and a free press, was because they felt that both were necessary for the average citizen to have in order to be a safe container for the power given to us, the power to govern a great nation. I believe that if we look to conscious, not merely to self-interest, but to consciousness and to wisdom and to some level of mindful reflection, then

none of us has a monopoly on truth. We will still be in conversation and community with each other to come up with answers that are worthy of our role as stewards of Democracy.

Compassion as a Political Force I read a book recently about the abolitionist movement. It was interesting to me how many years, how many lives, how many individual stories accumulated over years and years before the eruption into physical form of what we would call the Abolitionist Movement.

The Abolitionists did not have money and they did not have technological or governmental institutional power. But what they had was compassion for human beings. That ultimately outweighed in power the economic and even military status of a system lacking in compassion.

Blessed Unrest Blessed unrest is a phrase coined by author Paul Hawken. He is referring to a feeling there, that so many of us have, that something is deeply wrong and we must respond.

Allopathic Policy I think there is a process occurring in politics that is analogous to the transition from allopathic to integrative medicine. If all you are doing is sending someone to Washington to vote for a particular external action or non-action that ultimately treats nothing more than the effects of a problem than you are staying within an allopathic model of politics.

But I don’t think that democracy is only broken in Washington, it’s broken in our heads and hearts. So the awakening must occur in more than our politicians, the awakening must occur with us. We must have a holistic and integrated politics now just as we have transitioned to an integrative and holistic medical model. I’ve said to many people during this campaign, “Oh you think I’m talking to you a lot now, just wait if I win”, because that’s when we are really going to have to get together and pool our thoughts and talk about a whole new conversation of private/public partnership and integrated ideas and solutions. If you have this conversation among people who understand causal elements and understand a whole picture view of the world and in that conversation with them is their representative in Washington who also represents political force, I think that would be a beautiful thing. I believe that if we make that happen here it will help inspire that same kind of movement other places in the Country.

Legalized Corruption Legalized corruption is what we have now in the United States, especially since Citizens United, where what our Supreme Court has ruled, in what Ibelieve and what many people believe, is one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in our history; that moneyed forces whether corporate, individual, union or whatever can give unlimited amounts of money, and on an anonymous basis I might add, to the issues campaigns during elections seasons. Then basically your government is up for sale. It’s legalized bribery.

Righteousness Righteousness means right use of the mind. I believe that when we are using the mind the way the mind was created, love is more important than money. Let me add, capitalism has been good to me, I write books, I’ve written best sellers, I’ve been very blessed by capitalism. I don’t believe capitalism is inherently evil. I celebrate wealth creation as much as anyone does, but I believe that American capitalism and the American government have swerved from their ethical center, and in too many cases we have developed in this country a predatory form of capitalism. I don’t have any problem with getting rich in America, that’s a beautiful thing. But I have a very big problem with how many people are becoming poor through no fault of their own. What we have done to the middle class in this country, saying “where have these people gone, where did all those people go”, in too many cases…into poverty! I believe, and we’ll see, if my theory is correct, that many people in America (including in this district) who have benefited from the high side of capitalism, are people who because they are not only dealing in survival, have the time, the bandwidth and the conscious to take up this conversation.

I read a book called “The Gardens of Democracy”, in which the authors pointed out that just as blood needs to circulate in the body in order for the body to be healthy, a certain amount of access and opportunity, political, educational , and economic has to circulate in the society for the society to be healthy. This isn’t about wealth distribution at all but it is about opportunity circulating…not about wealth circulating but opportunity circulating. To me the American Dream means that we, to the best of our ability, guarantee a society in which anyone, IF THEY WORK HARD ENOUGH, has a shot.

Humanitarian Currently our civilization is ordered according to economic values. I believe our American civilization should be organized according to humanitarian values. Money is important but it should not be the bottom line.

Success verses Significance I think the transition from success to significance is a conversation that already saturates the air in many places, including this area. What money can buy is an important topic but so is what money cannot buy. There are deep issues in life, issues that do determine whether or not our lives are significant, that have nothing to do with material success as our society defines it.

Visionary Leadership I remember years ago, I’m not sure but I think it was Werner Erhard who said it, that you can live your life one of two ways, you can live your life out of circumstances or you can life your life out of a vision. Too much in our lives, particularly with our politics, is reaction to circumstances rather than a reflection of a true vision. The vision of American Democracy is extremely significant, it is significant not only to us, it is significant to the entire world. It has been a significant unfoldment in history, not just politically but even spiritually. Because it posits the ultimate good of allowing the individual to self-actualize, of a system which allows the opportunity of self-actualization. That’s really what you are talking about here, serfdom does not do that, slavery does not do that, tyranny does not do that. Only freedom and only democracy are positive on the notion that anyone should have the opportunity to self-actualize…not the GUARANTEE, BUT THE OPPORTUNITY. Each of us are responsible for our own actualization but who among us would deny how much easier it is when no one is telling you what to do. Each of us has a story but collectively we have a story as well.

The American story is profound and it’s important. Each generation, to me, is the keeper of that story.

Each generation is the steward of our democratic vision and it’s like any chain, if it breaks anywhere it breaks period. I feel that we are not taking our role as stewards of democracy seriously enough at this time. We have a government that has made democracy subservient to capitalism when capitalism should be subservient to democracy. Capitalism should serve our democratic vision. It should help us uphold our democratic vision and when it works well, it does do that.

American democracy is like a golden thread in the tapestry of human civilization. When America does not live up to our own first principals we become a tear in the fabric of American civilization. If anyone thinking about this thinks that we can leave it to the political status quo to deal with the implications of all this, I have a great “somewhere” to sell them.

Use your

voice

Vote

Of the People, By the

People,

For the People

Opening photo courtesy of Marianne Williamson for Congress; Story photos by Jeff Herrera and Dana Fineman

making+of+the+lovefest+issue A glorious Malibu Sunset at the Sunset Restaurant.

Photographer Dana Fineman getting down and dirty on our cover shoot.

Taking a trip down memory lane with Strider.

Tracey’s little wounded feathered friend... on its way to the California Wildlife Center for some loving care!

We take our art and our town seriously.

"Split Kook" by Malibu artist Keegan Gibbs.

Collage art in progress for My Friend Phil...

First it was in front of the Say #yes to mex! hot, thenSunset it Casa Escobar reopens was not, Sunset then Restaurant... at the old Malibu Inn! it was hot, .ahhh... now it is Ann Dean and her daughter not! Editor #represent @90265mag in chief Cece Woods sporting her new TAVIK beanie - swag from AGENDA

Shooting burgers and cab at Semler Vineyards.

On our AGENDA...my kind of trade show!

The spread at our cover shoot - the editor in chief wears all hats including cook!

Healthy fare for the crew!