Malibuites? Can’t Find Them

Your Nov. 20, 1986, article, “Malibu and the Meanies,” made this 16-year Malibu resident feel so guilty and outraged because you are suffering so--you know, not being tall, blond and empty-eyed and not living in Malibu--that I wanted to drive my 21-year-old car out of my mobile-home carport and drive to those beach dwellers’ residences and kick their Porsche Targas and Lamborghinis, then yell out if they knew that Al Martinez was do-do-ing all over them?

I tried, Mr. Martinez. I was determined. Driving Pacific Coast Highway, I heard the quadraphonic sound you mentioned in your article, but it wasn’t coming from quadraphonic high-speed cars--it was from the ambulance, sheriff’s and fire truck sirens. What a racket those sirens made . . . didn’t they realize they were disturbing the residents . . . not to mention the “outsiders” driving and looking at our ocean? And God help us, some were using our ocean! And you know what Mr. Martinez (you’ll enjoy this--you have such a wicked sense of humor), they had to bring in a helicopter to transport the accident victims--an outsider who was drunk and who drove across the lanes and into another outsider on a motorcycle. Pacific Coast Highway was so congested with outsiders that medical personnel couldn’t get through and the helicopter took so long in getting there . . . the motorcycle driver died en route to the hospital. But don’t worry, Mr. Martinez, when the developers put their uglies on the hillsides and Pacific Coast Highway traffic becomes more congested, you will be able to look down upon Malibu from your home and chuckle till your sides hurt.

Still determined to right the wrong done to you, I drove on. There was so much traffic and driving at a snail’s pace, I was able to view the radiant beauty of Malibu. You know, Mother Nature is awesome--she has green stuff growing through the burned ground and shrubs and trees are growing again. And all those people that lost their mobile homes in the fires and it’s such a hoot that some of them didn’t have fire insurance . . . something about insurance rates for this area being too high for them to afford. Then traffic came to a standstill again! Am I ever going to be able to deliver your message? Another landslide? Of course, it had rained. I bet you’ll love it when the sewer lines are in and we have slides or earthquakes and those sewer lines break and it will take some time to fix . . . wow, what a stench and how funky!

Again I was on my way and, finally, after an hour and a half of driving five miles I pulled up in front of the beach-dwellers’ homes. What a bummer! There wasn’t anyone home . . . they were probably at work so they could afford the price of living in Paradise! Damn. Fearlessly, I used the public beach access to make sure they weren’t out on the beach frolicking and drinking Dom Perignon. I looked around the beach and spotted a group of people walking toward me. Ah, finally Malibu beach dwellers. It must be Malibuites--I mean, look at that mess this group left on the beach area they occupied--empty beer bottles, food wrappers, fried chicken buckets. Their maids must come out and clean up the beach after them, right? You can imagine my embarrassment after delivering your message to the group and found they were “outsiders”!

I tried so hard to help deliver your message, Al, and to help Los Angeles County regulate the people of Malibu and they weren’t even around to listen. What selfish nerds they are, out and about fighting for a safer Pacific Coast Highway for their safety and the many outsiders who visit, holding benefits to raise funds so outsiders and locals can have an emergency room, and what audacity to be so concerned about the fragile, ever-moving environment . . . so what’s a boulder or two crashing into your living room or mud oozing through the house . . . what the hell, they’re rich enough to hire people to clean it up. Wouldn’t it be a gas if your hillside home slid down the hill onto the beach . . . then you could bleach your hair blonde . . . insert empty-eyed blue contacts . . . grab a surfboard and enjoy what the Malibu primitives work so hard to maintain for everyone to enjoy.

JOAN RICKABAUGH

Malibu