More Than Glitz to Life on the Edge

Come, come, Ms. Robin Abcarian. Do you really believe those movie-created images of Malibu you describe in your column (“Malibu: A Way of Life for Those in Denial,” March 15)?

Do you really believe Malibu is populated only by the “very rich” and “working folk” who live in “shanties” for the sole “privilege” of gazing at the ocean?

As a resident of Malibu for 19 years, I am typical of the majority of Malibuites who live not in glitzy mansions or beachfront apartments, but on country roads that twist through neighborhoods like Malibu Park or back into the canyons.

Most of us are middle-class. Many of us built our own homes. A large number of us prefer to own horses and dogs, rather than BMWs and Mercedeses. Practically all of us are refugees from inland.

And, while we may be threatened by brush fires and mudslides, they are rare (if annual) events and not nearly as life-threatening as the insidious daily threats of living inland: breathing polluted air and residing on traffic-choked streets in congested neighborhoods where crime is a continual worry and outdoors is a small yard contained by a six-foot-high fence.

FRANCES GRIMES

Malibu

As for Robin Abcarian’s digs, when I go to Venice I carefully look for a parking place where my chance of getting mugged is reduced. There are not too many of these as parking in Venice is almost nonexistent. If you can wend your way through the winos, weirdos and young kids looking at your wallet, you might make it to the beach where you will encounter Styrofoam cups and wine bottles marking the surf line.

No, I prefer Malibu. This year especially will be glorious. The wildflowers are exploding. Go to Point Dume and look at the coreopsis. Check out Escondido Falls. Look at the fields of yellow mustard on a warm sunny day and feel close to God. Listen to the coyotes and owls at night and see the bunnies jumping on the road in the early morning. What amazes me about this place is that it really exists so close to L.A.

LAWRENCE I. IVEY

Malibu

Why should Robin or the rest of us care if Malibu’s shore shanties command manor-house prices from folk ruled by the need to mention seeing Keanu at the Chevron station or bumping into Barbra at the check-out stand?

But it’s past time for the rest of us to raise hell for being taxed to fund serial relief programs for sappy star-gazers and their objects of worship who choose to own real estate in a perennial disaster area, one unique on the planet in that--true to the entertainment world’s tradition of extravagance--it boasts multiple and recurrent forms of cataclysm: fire and flood and quake.

If individuals who could retire Mexico’s national debt prefer Malibu-living to bungee-jumping, so be it. But folks in Anaheim and Oregon and New Hampshire shouldn’t be paying for apocalyptic thrill-seeking by Maliboors too dumb to know better or too rich to care.

JOHN J. MATHEWS

Bend, Oregon

My family lived in a stilted house in the late ‘50s along the Coast Highway at Big Rock Beach. They endured rock slides, fires, rough seas that washed waves under the house, you name it and you get it in Malibu. The roar of highway traffic outside the front door, almost no parking on warm summer days.

Was it all worth it? Only when Mother Nature said so.

I love it here in Yucca Valley. When I want to enjoy the Pacific, I’ll fly over to Hawaii.

FREDERICK R. HAUSWALD

Yucca Valley