Malibu Racketeering

Rocket scientists at work in Malibu.  Mickey Muñoz Collection

Miki Dora came to Malibu after I had been surfing there a while. He was a pretty good scammer, so he fit right in with the Hollywood Malibu crowd. Dora was such a better surfer than 99 percent of the surfers at Malibu because at the time he showed up, there was a big influx of people from the San Fernando Valley who came over and tried to learn to surf. There was a big difference between the really good surfers and the not-so-good surfers. And Dora had style. He just had this flair about him.

Miki and I got into rocketeering – making model rockets. We had to go to Tijuana to get some of the ingredients that we couldn’t get north of the border. Miki made this rocket out of a 6-foot long piece of metal tubing, and he shaped a nose cone for it. It was just after the Russians had done their first space trip, so he shaped this sputnik to go on the tip of the rocket. It had the fins and the whole thing.

We went to Malibu to launch it. It was wintertime, there wasn’t any surf, and no one was on the beach. We built a launch tower for the rocket and dug a bunker in the sand to hide behind. We wore lab coats that we had found, and carefully measured out all the ingredients that Dora had brought along inside a briefcase. We mixed up this pretty dangerous stuff and tamped it down inside the rocket. The guy we picked to light the fuse had broken his leg and was on crutches. We had photographers, and by the time we were ready to light the rocket, more people had accumulated. We sent this guy out on his crutches in the sand to light the fuse, and then he hobbled back and dove into the bunker.

The rocket didn’t go up; it went out – in lots of pieces. It broke windows on the pier, and it rattled a cop car with a policeman asleep inside, parked south of the pier. He woke up and came poking around. Meanwhile of course, we had cleaned up as much of the evidence as we could.

Down the beach came the cop with a little kid in tow. In the cop’s hand was this twisted, smoldering piece of metal. We were down behind the bunker talking story when he came up, and the kid pointed at us as the culprits. In a stern voice the cop asked, ‘All right, who are the rocketeers?”

Dora replied, “Racketeers? Racketeers? There are no racketeers here.” Then Dora went through a whole song and dance with the cop.

Finally, the cop just smiled and said, “No more rockets.”

Me, Miki Dora, and Mike Doyle performing the unusual “trandum.” Malibu.  John Severson

Another early Malibu story involved me, Bobby Patterson, and a friend of ours, Charlie Riemers. They were both older than me and had their driver’s licenses. Charlie was kind of a cheapskate, and we would have to pony up for gas every time he drove, which is probably how it should have been.

One night we were in Malibu, sleeping on the beach. We had a campfire going and were drinking a bottle of wine; we got pretty out there, and Charlie passed out. Bobby, seizing the opportunity, said, “You know, let’s get Charlie. Let’s burn his board.”

I objected, “I don’t know. Jeez, that’s not too good an idea.”

“No, no, come on, let’s burn his board. You know, that asshole, remember …” and he rambled off on a drunken rant. Bobby grabbed what he thought was Charlie’s board and threw it on the fire. The balsa board started to burn, and the fiberglass made an awful stink. Charlie was passed out under his sleeping bag, and the board was smoldering on the fire. Luckily, the board put the fire out. I don’t remember whether Bobby or I pulled the board out of the fire and threw sand on it. Soon everybody was passed out.

The next morning the surf was really good, so we got ready to surf a dawn patrol. Bobby looked for his board and started to panic. “Where’s my board? Where’s my board?”

Charlie was already paddling out. While Bobby was still looking for his board, I grabbed my board and snuck out behind him to the surf. We left Bobby on the beach. He had thrown his own board into the fire.