SUMMER STYLING : Where Do Teens Find Each Other When School’s Out? Despite the Choices, It All Comes Back to the Beach

Trouble in paradise?

The sun’s out, the waves are breaking and, thanks to a cleansing breeze, you can see all the way to Catalina--all the ingredients of a mythically beautiful Southern California summer day.

But here on the foot of the Seal Beach Pier, the natives are restless. An innocent question--just where do teens go to hang out these days?--has touched a nerve.

“When you come here at night, they hassle you because you’re young,” said Rich Walker, an 18-year-old from Los Alamitos. “They tell you to leave, but there’s no place to go.”

When someone mentions Illusions, an all-ages dance club in Costa Mesa, he just laughs.

“I need a place, like, within walking distance,” says Walker, who makes his daily trek to Seal Beach by bike.

Yes, even in Orange County, blessed with all the beaches and malls a kid could ask for, the age-old art of hanging out remains a sometimes difficult pursuit. More than 20 years after Eddie Cochran sang about the Summertime Blues, there still ain’t no cure.

Teens are finding places to find each other though, and coping with one more endless summer in Southern California. The places they hang out, of course, are as varied as the teens themselves, as revealed during several days driving the county.

From the malls to the bowling alleys to underground dance parties, from coffeehouses to skateboard shops, teens blanket the county. Sooner or later, though, most migrate to the beach, where Southern California summers really happen.

Some observations from the front lines:

* All-age dance clubs are on the rise, although the scene remains volatile. Club Post-nuclear in Laguna Canyon closed recently. And in just the last week, Soul Kitchen in Santa Ana was forced to close (temporarily, the owners hope) and Old World in Huntington Beach dropped its Thursday night all-age dance.

Old World maintains its Wednesday party, however. Illusions in Costa Mesa is open Thursday through Sunday, while Soul Kitchen had been operating Friday and Saturday. Both clubs opened less than a year ago. Club Sneakers, a recent addition, sets up shop in the San Clemente Ramada Inn each Friday. Handout flyers and occasional radio promotions are the main lines of communication on the teen dance circuit.

In Huntington Beach, a recent Thursday at Old World gave a glimpse of the all-age dance scene. Alcohol-free, with loud music that tends to the techno-end of the hip-hop and house music styles, it is rife with rituals that can be mystifying to the outsider (especially a somewhat-past-his-teens outsider).

As the evening warms up, circles of teens form on the dance floor, standing and watching with arms folded as dancers take turns showing off their newest dance riffs, with plenty of spinning moves (called free-styling, akin to break dancing).

Meanwhile, at a table outside, Lori (Happiness) Vu is patiently trying to explain what a party crew is. Everyone at the dance belongs to one, says the 17-year-old from Westminster. Her 11-girl crew is called LDS, she says, but it has nothing to do with the Mormon church: It stands for Ladies Destroying Society.

Despite the name, it’s a reasonably friendly bunch, she says. Party crews have been associated with violence at illegal “underground” parties, but Vu disputes the image: “We keep peace with everyone as much as we can.”

She and others at the dance make the rounds of Orange County clubs and parties and even venture into Los Angeles.

“We go all over,” she said. “I wish there were more. I wish (the parties) were closer, because then we wouldn’t have to drive so much.”

Brian Brown, 19, of Orange, was at Old World for the first time but was seeing lots of familiar faces in the crowd of several hundred. “It’s the same crowd. Everyone knows where everyone else is going,” he reports. “From the looks of it, it’s all right. The more ladies, the better.”

The dances have been free of violence or other incidents, said Bern J. Bischof, general manager of Old World. “The kids have no (other) place to go. Here, the kids just dance all night. That’s why I have no tables and chairs.”

(The next night, at the Friday night banda dance, the scene was incredibly different: Although teens were abundant, the mostly Hispanic crowd cut across a wide age range, from young children to adults. Banda is also featured Sundays at Old World).

* Coffeehouses, of the nouveau Bohemian variety, continue to draw older teens and twentysomethings rushing to embrace the vices (caffeine, nicotine and bad poetry) that their parents have managed to shake.

Java Jungle, within a short stroll of the Huntington Beach Pier, draws a younger crowd than most. It sports a single pool table and a relative paucity of the usual beatnik trappings. Coffee joints are spread all over the county, but Costa Mesa seems to be caffeine central, with such earnest independents as Rock ‘n’ Java and the Blue Marble leading the pack. Many feature entertainment of the poetry/folk/jazz/comedy stripe.

* Bowling’s back, as many centers cater to a younger crowd with rock ‘n’ bowl nights and other gimmicks. Some centers stay open to 3 a.m. on weekend nights, blasting rock or dance music so loud you can’t hear a pin drop.

Though many of the teens do bowl, some drop by just to hang out. Pat Adam, a 16-year-old from Los Alamitos, said that after his days on the beach, he regularly heads to the Rossmoor Bowl. He becomes almost offended, however, when asked if he bowls: “It’s just a place we go to hang out with our friends.”

* Malls--from Santa Ana’s MainPlace to Little Saigon’s Asian Village--remain prime teen stomping grounds, and it’s really not so hard to figure out why. In the Southern California sprawl, they serve as the de facto downtowns, climate-controlled and self-contained, with everything from restaurants to arcades and movie theaters--and, of course, places to shop, a sport unto itself in this heartland of consumer culture.

Parents often feel safer with their kids in the mall than on the street. And kids are less likely to be hassled by authority figures when they’re spending money.

*

There are countless other places teens can be found. They go to movies; they go to Angels games; they go to church. They skateboard at Murdy Park in Huntington Beach and at J. A. Cobs in Lake Forest, they ride BMX bikes at the Orange YMCA; they practice their swings at the batting cages at Family Fun Center in Anaheim. They go to Speedway at the Orange County Fairgrounds. They watch TV or hang with their friends at home.

But for many the beach is a daily pilgrimage and a way of life. When hunting teens, it’s best to head to the water first, where they congregate in packs to surf, ride body boards, lie on the sand or go through their elaborate mating rituals.

At Huntington Beach, Jason Adams is questioning his decision to hit the water after meeting a girl who caught his eye. By the time he got out of the water, she was talking to two other guys.

“I got her number, but I should have hung out with her,” says Adams, 16, of Los Alamitos, as he points her out across the sand.

On the Seal Beach Pier, a 19-year-old man who cheerfully brags about his current homelessness and cadges quarters from passersby has his arm around a 15-year-old girl. How long have they known each other? “Oh, a couple of hours,” she says.

Combing the local beaches can reveal distinct differences in attitude. At Balboa, on this morning at least, out-of-towners predominate. Scott Sok, 19, and sister Morokot, 17, regularly make their escape to the beach at Balboa from the Inland Empire town of Rialto.

The drive is 1 1/2 hours. “That’s coming. Going back it’s at least two hours,” Morokot said.

Scott Nelson, 15, has come down from the the high desert town of Pinyon Hills to show two Norwegian exchange students the beach, but he’s unhappy about the weather, one of those gray mornings that made July a dreary reprise of June, and the waves, which are breaking right on the beach.

“Bad waves,” says Nelson, body board under his arm. “They haven’t been big enough; they haven’t been in the right place. We want to get to Huntington Beach.”

One bunch that doesn’t mind the overcast skies is a teen singing group, about 45 strong, from the Community Church of Joy in Phoenix. The cool temperatures are just fine, thanks.

“It’s great compared to what we’re used to,” says Michael Carlisle, 17, who with a group of his compatriots is sculpting a giant toilet in the sand. “We were doing the plumbing just a minute ago.”

Meanwhile, several hundred young people in red bathing suits are filing onto the Balboa Pier and jumping, one by one, about 25 feet into the surf. They are members of the Newport Beach Junior Lifeguards in an eight-week program that teaches life-saving skills to youngsters age 9 to 15.

This was the third pier jump of the summer for most of them. “After you do it once, you’ll want to do it again and again,” says Elise Redoutey, 15, of Newport Beach. “It’s, like, two seconds of total terror.”

Huntington Beach, near the pier, is an immensely popular beach for the locals, both surfing and non-surfing. At night, the bonfires light up along stretches of the beach, although the curfew was reduced this summer to 10 p.m. Main Street near the beach, with its surf shops, restaurants and movie theater, remains clogged with teens and young adults until the early morning.

Not everyone is as taken with Huntington, however. A group of Seal Beach regulars prefers the laid-back atmosphere at their beach over what they see as Huntington’s “snobby” attitude.

“No way. Huntington sucks. We all hate Huntington,” says Jessica O’Brien, relaxing with friends, much as she does every day, in the shadow of the Seal Beach Pier. “This is the beach. It’s chill here.”

The Seal Beach group comes from all over, the 17-year-old Lakewood resident says, but when they meet they find a common ground.

“Here, the vibe is really positive,” she explains. “When we get here, we’re like all together.”