By Michael Ray

Revisiting Seaward Road

 It is funny what you remember about growing up.   For me, it was all about Seaward Road, which is in Corona Highlands in southern Corona del Mar.   Specifically, it was the flat part about two-thirds of the way to the top.  My family had a house there. The house was split-level, with the grownups upstairs and the kids down.  It was the first house ever built by Alex MacGillivray and it showed, like when it rained hard, it flooded downstairs.  We did not care.  The downstairs was ours and the neighborhood kids congregated there.

Most of the kids were about my age.  We played football and baseball in the street.   Since Seaward Road was not a throughway, it did not get much traffic and our games seldom were interrupted.  We especially played football.  The quarterbacks were my brother Walkie and his buddy, Greg, the builder’s son. They were three years older, which in those years, was infinite. Walkie could throw the football further, but Greg had sneakier plays.  It was: “run to the car parked 10 yards out on the right side, cut left and I’ll hit you.”   The parked cars were part of the game.

Baseball was a bit more problematic because we kept hitting the balls out of “bounds”, meaning out of the street.  Sometimes a homerun ball would break a window and we all would scatter. The window most often shattered was owned by poor old Mrs. Brown. She and her husband had no kids, and they tried, they really tried, to be nice to us, but after about the fourth time her window shattered, we could hear her crying really loud. But what could we do? It was not our fault her picture window faced directly out onto our field of dreams.

When we boys got a little older, we started noticing girls, most particularly Greg’s older sister, Gay-Anne, who was a stunner.  Later on, she would be a beauty contest winner, and we liked it a lot when she walked down the street, which might be empty when she started, but full by the time she got a half a block.  “Hi boys!” she would purr with the knowing innocence of young beauty, and we would be dumb-struck, tongue-tied. She actually acknowledged our existence!!

Bicycles were a big deal. After the flat part of Seaward, there was a big hill. To get to the top, you weaved back and forth while climbing; getting off and walking was not an option. It would mean you were a little boy.    At the top, we would let go and plunge back down as fast as we could go, until leveling off at the flat part and slowing down. You could keep going if you wanted, all the way to the bottom at PCH, but we did not do it often as our parents already were on the verge of finding out and no one wanted that.  And no one ever got hurt, but that good grace was dumb luck.

Now with Google Earth, I can bird’s eye pinpoint my old house and the street and all that. It has not changed much I am thankful to say, but I still do not want to knock on the door where I grew-up.   I am afraid I will find it somehow not enough. It never is.

P.S.  This column is dedicated to Laguna resident Greg MacGillivray (son of Alex), who suggested the column’s subject and recently founded the One World One Ocean Foundation.

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

The Ranters

By Michael Ray.

When I first thought about this column, I wanted it to be a rant about my seemingly endless Facebook friends who have gone off their rockers in rants of their own or send me endless email rants.  And all with the particularly vicious purity of true believers.

But I cannot work myself up.  Instead, I think about my old childhood friend, Greg, who incessantly rants on Facebook and the net. He just makes me weary and regretful.

Greg grew up with me in old CdM, went to CdM High, then hung around the old neighborhood before diverging into his own long and unique trajectory. He’s been married, I think, some seven times, at least once to the same woman.  He never bothered with college. It was too tiresome and he was too busy rejecting the post-World-War II value system.  Back then, that particular deliberate lack of educated “brain-washing” became a badge of honor.

Instead, he retreated into drugs, mostly smoking dope, and making things with his hands.   That was really popular then.   It got you into something “real,” something The Man could not corrupt.  Further, he was good at it, especially woodworking.   He could make chairs, tables, chests of drawers and all kinds of great stuff of high quality and actually sell them for a profit.

For him, like so many of my old CdM friends, the OC became too expensive and too complicated and too much.   So he, like they, moved, not really by choice, but because it was cheaper elsewhere.   Greg ended up in rural Oregon, cracker territory.    He moved around more than a little and once was arrested for growing marijuana within a state wilderness park that abutted where he lived. He got probation, lucky him, mainly because he had children and was their only support.

Now he sits in front of the screens where he receives and sends reams of hate literature, videos, petitions and the like. They all are of the same bent: vicious anti-establishment rants, mostly directed at Obama, but also at the educated elite, whoever they are.

By contrast, my old boss at Citibank in New York City, Carlos, who was the super-educated epitome of the multi-lingual international banker, tends to send rants penned by others or bitter cartoons. Their essence is the same as Greg’s.   Carlos is retired now and sees no shame in receiving his pension checks (very generous, thank you, he was in senior management) and health benefits from an institution nationalized because it was too big to fail. That his bank, once considered the best of the best, failed because it went on a de-regulated rage to ruin to him is of no consequence. His ignorance, unlike Greg’s, is willful. He is capable of understanding financial complexity, but wills it away with tired slogans. So I find him, and I am sorry to say this because for so long he was something of a hero, intellectually contemptible.

With Greg, it is just sad. He sits in his depleted, little town, and views the world through the lens of hate journalism. And with nothing else to do, he haunts the net. I am thinking of introducing them one to another. It would be an experiment.  Would they, with so much ranting in common, find themselves friends?

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

By Michael Ray.

The Next Generation’s Woodstock

Two of my three kids attended the Coachella Music Festival this year, and the third would have too, but she was in college in London.   In one earlier year, she got away with pretending to need to be in So Cal during the time of the festival, and then—oops—as long as she just happened to be here then, well, why not attend?

Daughter #2 Gabby flew down from her college in Portland, kissed me quickly, and then departed for our Palm Springs redoubt on Thursday night.  The next evening, younger brother Harrison joined her.  He drove out with friends as soon as school was out on Friday afternoon. That it was horrible traffic and would take them forever was of no consequence.   And, oh by the way, I was specifically invited not to attend, not even stay at the house where, I was told later, somewhere between 15 and 20 kids were sleeping.  Oh Lordy.

One time I did attend the festival and found it good, clean fun.   Alcohol and drugs were strictly monitored, the grounds were super clean, there were plenty of bathrooms and the multiple venues had clear sound.

Not so the first Festival I almost attended.  It was called Woodstock and I was attending Harvard summer school that year and a bunch of kids went from Boston.  I knew rain was forecast and I wanted to know where we would sleep, not that any of us cared much.   No one knew anything except it was a “happening.”    I say, “almost attended” because I was predisposed against big concerts.   The rock stars were always so far away you needed binoculars to see them and the sound quality sucked. Better to listen to their records in the privacy of one’s own altered state.  And my returning friends told me it was a horror story of mud, over-dosed LSD freaks who overwhelmed the make-shift tent medical center and—big problem here—no functioning toilets, which led to…..You figure it out.

That same summer, the famous Democratic National Convention of Chicago took place, the one where protestors were gassed by out-of-control Chicago cops.   I did not attend that one either. Earlier that year, both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, and politics was sour for me.  Besides, I was too busy trying to score some coed action in Harvard Square.  At least my priorities were straight. My friends who went reported much the same thing as Woodstock, except there was no rain. However, the lack of that particular hardship was offset by police beatings. Never liked that one either.

None of us knew Woodstock and the Chicago convention would go down as Woodstock generation folklore. I could have gone to both and think those experiences would have made good stories, except no one who actually went had any fun or even particularly good stories.  It was just mud, chaos, and sleep deprivation.

So I guess my kids attending a harmless festival in Coachella seemed tame to me.  And fun for them.  Better than that, a week later Harrison showed me a YouTube video of a performance he saw live: it was by a group called (and the following spelling is correct) “tUnE-yArDs” performing a song called “Bizness.” It blew me away. It was magnificent. I immediately added it to my ITunes library and play it incessantly.

But was I jealous of Harrison’s live experience?  Hmmm, let me answer that question with the story about how Gabby got back to Portland. She attended the festival until its bitter end late Sunday night (really, very early Monday morning), and finally departed the ground’s tortuous exit about 3 a.m. Thence, she and her buddies drove straight to LAX to catch the 6:30 a.m. flight back to Portland, where they had classes later that morning.

Yup, there are some advantages to adulthood.

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

By Michael Ray.

Homeostasis  “…is the property of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition…”

 The planet Earth is a classic homeostatic system. It tends toward stability, which in scientific terms is called “stasis.”  It also is a host, which by definition means it tolerates, is a home to parasites, like a dog with fleas.  The two work together. Homeostatic systems react to outside input, including parasites, and change themselves so as to maintain stasis.  Parasites sometimes help Earth to maintain stasis. Sometimes they do not.

If a parasite does not, if it becomes a threat to the host, then most hosts change themselves to eliminate the threat.

No one knows why the dinosaurs went extinct so quickly, except that it was caused by climate change. Some say it was climate change caused by a huge meteor. Other possible culprits include volcanoes and even climate-induced disease. And one captivating theory involves the dinosaurs’ diet tipping Earth into climate change. But two things are certain: it was climatic change that destroyed their habitats and that destruction killed them off.

A short while back I scored good money on a business deal and celebrated by chartering a yacht in the Caribbean in early May. It came with an eccentric captain, Ken, and his gorgeous wife/chef, Bruna. With me was my girlfriend, Kim Bowen. It was just the four of us and I wanted to wander about the British Virgin Islands, snorkel and scuba dive.   I had heard about the natural wonders of the seascape, the incredible variety of fish and the beautiful coral reefs. I wanted to explore them.

I was in for a rude surprise. Except for tarpon, which are boney and inedible, the big fish are all gone. Overfishing has killed them off. The coral was the color of death: dirty white, almost all of it dead, also caused by human activity. The entire Virgin Island seas are the same: the ocean is becoming devoid of living things.

We were there at the beginning of the rainy season, which also is mosquito season. That was okay with me. My DNA had evolved into non-mosquito attractive status. Not so Kim. She was eaten alive. Her DNA had not evolved.

I do not mean to state that my DNA was superior to hers.   It merely resulted in a host that is unattractive to one set of parasites.

The Earth now is experiencing global warming caused by human activity.   That is scientific fact and if you do not believe it, you should congratulate a host of big corporations who spew filth into the atmosphere as a by-product of making billions. They pay big money to debunk climate science and lull you with their propaganda. That they also make you a gullible fool is secondary.

Global warming is Earth’s version of homeostasis: a threat induces change. Human extinction could be a by-product.

Let me state that again: 0ur host, the Earth, tends toward stasis and shrugs off parasites that become too bothersome.

These are facts, ladies and gentlemen. Deal with them. Or don’t.  Mama Earth simply does not care.  She will be around no matter what.  You are questionable.

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

The thing about conservative Republicans is they are great haters.  They are great at standing up to the foe, declaring war, wagging it with savagery and then stomping all over their slain opponent.

Democrats parse it to death. Is he really such a bad guy? Doesn’t some of what he says make sense? Is it decent to go after him so hard? What kind of people are we?

The Republicans rain missiles. No apologies.

The Democrats blow kisses. But first, we make apologies to those we might offend.

So when the Supreme Court last week upheld Obamacare, I wanted to crow with delighted conquest. In my excitement, I surveyed newspapers, TV and the web in attempts to find an outpouring of liberal triumphalism.  Yes, I wanted to shout, yes! Yes!

I found plenty of conservative outrage.  Glenn Beck and Rush Limbuagh went nuts. Justice John Roberts, the swing vote, was pilloried. The Supreme Court was trashed. One typical blog:  “The socialist anarchist Marxists won!  The Fix was in! Will you join me in crying out to the Lord for our nation?”

For liberals, it was the same old tired response: subdued flag-waving measured against a restrained, even pessimistic assessment of how it will effect the November elections. Obama barely did a victory lap. He did his usual No-Drama-Obama disappearing act. And many millions of Democrats just sighed: why after raising so many hopes, is Obama such a passive figure? Why doesn’t he take it to them? Why no appetite for the jugular?

Except…except in all this visage of the quivering Obama, there is one bit of cognitive dissonance. He kills people.

I do not mean Obama personally kills people. He orders it done.  He personally supervises the Kill List. We think Bin Laden was the first, but there were earlier ones—strike that, earlier people.  They were killed because they were targeted. The president does not even apologize. He will kill more.

Sometimes Obama uses people to kill people. Generally, though, he uses airplane drones. They are “piloted” mostly by 19-year old boys at a military base outside Las Vegas. Their controls mimic video games. The boys have had 1000s of hours on GameBoys and then intensive military training for the real thing. They know what they are doing with their fingers.

That they sometimes make mistakes and kill innocents—children, women, and passers-by—is only collateral damage. There is a war and who knows where a terrorist or would-be terrorist might hide.

All this is hard for my liberal friends to swallow. Innocent civilians are “collateral damage?”

In the meantime and on the home front, Obama has not prevaricated. What he started on first was not the economy like I personally wanted.   He started on universal healthcare, like he said he would, and just like good old Ted Kennedy, by then dead, had wanted. The economy was plummeting and other than accepting/extending the Wall Street rescue package started by Bush, the new President Obama did little.

Instead, Obama pushed universal healthcare. But he let Congress lead. He let his legislation get cut to pieces.  He was told his proposals contained death squads and he did not respond, must less attack.   He never publically denounced the many lies or did much of anything. He went underground at the White House.

Then he won. Twice. Once with the legislation. Once with the Supreme Court.  On the biggest game changer in two generations.

So if he’s such a wimp, how did he do it? Twice. Have Americans, particularly the chattering class, been blind? Who worked whom?

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

By Michael Ray.

Encountering Nature’s Force

My kids and I are off on a weeklong rafting trip through the Grand Canyon on the mighty Colorado River.  I have done it a half dozen times and love it. I take the “luxury” experience (yeah, right) on a big, sturdy raft that holds up to 15 people and has two guides known as “swampers.”

The swampers cook, clean up, set up the portable toilets (yes, thank you Lord), and run the raft, which has a small outboard motor at the stern.   The motor is used primarily to direct the raft through rapids. Of the top five navigable rapids in North America, three are on the trip.  The biggest is Lava Falls and…. oh wow!!

The raft embarks from Lee’s Ferry. Paddling isn’t necessary; you drift with the river. The swampers use the motor when needed.  As the Colorado flows downhill, the raft quickly descends to a mile below the rim.  The farther the descent, the farther behind is civilization, literally.  The solo link is a radio that can reach line-of-sight airplanes flying directly overhead.

During one of my trips, on the third day a man broke his leg. Since the injury was not life threatening, the park service would not send a helicopter, which is very dangerous due to whipsawing crosswinds.   The swampers put him in a temporary cast and gave him aspirin.  He had to gut it out for the rest of the week.

Another year, I joined up with three other men and organized two rafts with almost 30 guys. One of the friends, a former Wall Street colleague, invited a bunch of them.  It was a mistake. In the modern world, they were masters-of-the-universe.  In the canyon, they were useless. The Wall Streeters were in lousy shape, bailed on the many wondrous side-canyon hikes, did not help around the camp and expected four-star treatment from the swampers.

The other group, mostly from California, enthusiastically embraced the hikes, screamed through the rapids and generally acted like weekend Rambo’s.

By Day Three, the group had divided into two: the sissy raft and the Rambo raft.  As one of the organizers, I divided my time between the two. When one of the East Coast contingent had an especially obnoxious temper tantrum, I moved permanently to the Rambo raft.

Heights make me uneasy. On the hikes, there are plenty of precipices.   There also are plenty of waterfalls where you can jump from great heights into ponds.  I will not go near any of them, ever. I will watch my son and his friends jump and applaud like a good father, but from a distance.

On another trip, I took my oldest daughter, then 13.  We went through one mild rapid with her sitting astride the left outside pontoon. I sat behind her on a perch.  Suddenly, the raft was caught in a whirlpool and started spinning. The loaded raft weighed three tons.  It was going to spin-crash into a rock canyon wall with all three tons accelerating into the spin.

My daughter’s leg was dangling exactly where the left outside pontoon would hit.

“Put your left leg into the boat now!” I yelled. She did, rather nonchalantly, and promptly forgot all about it.  The man sitting in front of her did not forget. His leg would have been crushed too and he could see it coming but was frozen. When I yelled at my daughter, he unfroze and pulled his left leg in also. Later that night, he came over to my campsite with a tumbler of whiskey to say thanks.

That is why you come to love the river and the canyon. Its current carries you backwards in time, into the face and force of nature.  For better or worse.

Here is the postscript: cousin Max survived quite the adventure overboard.

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

By Michael Ray.

My girlfriend Kim Bowen was born in London and went to St. Martins College of Art and Design, the Harvard of England’s artistic community.   From there, she became a writer/critic for London’s fashion press and a regular at The Blitz, which was like NYC’s Club 54 where the young and cool thought they were reinventing society. It did not last long there either, but it was a heady ride.  Thence there was a stint as fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar Australia, then an on-off-on again permanent move to Los Angeles, where she became a “costume designer.”

A “costume designer” can be a lot of things, but for Kim it means “dressing” people: designing what they wear, having it made and fitting them for TV commercials, music videos and sometimes movies.  It sounds glamorous but is not.   It means catering to a lot of big egos and showing up for shoots at dawn in places no one wants to visit.

It also means she knows a lot of fashion, movie and music types who live all over the world.   To them, Laguna Beach is a distant dream that exists only in the TV series “The OC.”   It is not real.

Kim moved to Laguna about 15 months ago because after visiting.  She deemed it paradise and because it was best for her two small kids.   So she commutes to L.A. for work and tempts her far-flung friends to visit.

The friends come only with great reluctance. They harbor the usual stereotypes about what lies behind the Orange Curtain.  Many think California itself is The Wasteland.

But most are so delightfully eccentric they are worth the hassle.   One British friend, Nicky Butler, markets costume jewelry on HSN-TV.   He designs and manufactures it in India, where he spends three months a year.   He divides the rest of the year in his other homes in L.A., Miami, and London.  For him to make it to Laguna took three tries.   He can navigate around the world, but the drive from L.A. was too much; GPS just added to the clutter in his brain.

When he finally did arrive, he expressed the normal amazement at Laguna’s beauty.   Then he asked the question all Kim’s out-of-town friends ask: doesn’t she feel out of touch? Doesn’t she need the Big City for the energy and creative spark? Was she planning early retirement?  They cannot fathom it.

There is another story, though.  After just one day and night in Laguna, Nicky liked it so much he now wants to have a home here too.  He would join our growing British enclave.  It seems Laguna serves as an outpost for expat Brit artistic types, the ones who work in film, fashion and the creative world.   Most come for a long weekend at the Montage, Surf n Sand or the Ritz Carlton, love it and end up moving here.

Kim meets them in stores, where she recognizes their accents and strikes up conversations.  Through them, she meets other Brits.  She is meeting a lot. I know this because (stereotype alert) they all drink tea and Kim constantly has late afternoon cups with her newfound friends.   Their usual conversation is the sorry state of British politics or the absurdity of the royal family, especially Princess Kate who is too perfect to be real.   Note this does not stop them from staying up all night to watch British royal events, like the Queen’s recent Golden Jubilee, which they say they disdain. They’ll take offense if you do the same. It is their Queen, not yours.

The town, though, is ours.

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

By Michael Ray.

Seven of us dined recently at Hotel Laguna on the outside terrace, overlooking the waves. The two women in our group, aged 24, wanted it that way.  They are from Afghanistan and had never seen the ocean. A surfer required a definition. Their clothing enveloped them and partially hid their faces.

They had been in the United States for only a few days and were students in a program at a local law school, which I was asked not to further identify. Both already had completed law school in Afghanistan.

They had come here to study U.S. law.  In their tribal culture, that alone could make them vilified.

In our party was Army Reserve attorney Col. Tom Umberg, former deputy director of the Drug Enforcement Administration and recently returned from a long tour of duty in Afghanistan. There he had been tasked to create a system of Western laws for rooting out and prosecuting corruption. He said it would take generations.

Afghanistan, like much of the Islamic world, is tribal. Male elders, mostly illiterate, run everything.  They do so ostensibly in the name of the Koran, which they are unable to read. They can act with impunity because they are elders and men and their word is law.

One of the women has her law degree in Sharia Law, wholly based upon the Koran. It took her four years of study. She wants to become a Sharia judge.

She says, “Despite some progresses in terms of women’s rights in Afghanistan, the existence of harmful traditional practices against women is one of the main human rights challenges as is violation of women’s rights based on Islamic Sharia, national and international law.”

In her quest, she wants to utilize Sharia Law because she says it affords women rights to education; protections from random beatings, as well as from being bought, sold or bartered in tribal disputes; holding outside jobs; practicing birth control if there are physical risks or hardships; divorcing under certain conditions; and bringing redress against men in court.

This would-be judge said all of the above is according to teachings under Sharia Law. Colonel Umberg confirmed as much.

Before she left Afghanistan, she challenged illiterate tribal elders in courts of Sharia Law and used the direct words of the Koran to dispute their allegations.  She will do the same when she returns. In this, she is a radical Islamic feminist. She wants to bring rights to women. She knows Sharia Law is hardly perfect in terms of Western standards. As it is applied, it subjugates women in multiple ways, but it is a giant step in a tribal world.

Our conversation went on for some time before I asked the obvious question. What will happen when America leaves?

There was no direct answer except for the hope that some outside force will keep out Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who sit unmolested across the border in Pakistan waiting for the U.S. to leave. The women hope the United Nations will arrive. They hope young Afghan men will come to power who are educated and want something approaching equal rights.

I asked if they would be targets if the Taliban return. They looked furtive.  Yes. Yes, they would be targets.  Many bad things could happen to them. Many. They would be asked to quit. Their families and their clans could be threatened. They might even be killed as an example to women with similar ambitions. [And when I told them I wanted to write a column about them, they asked to not be individually identified.]

Before the night ended, they went down to the water and submerged their feet: women trying to take on centuries of subjugation briefly transformed into girls experiencing their first splash in the waves.

Meanwhile, here in America a presidential election washes over us in a sea of cash and men of certain reputations claim outrageous “truths” just as bare as elders in a tribal society. It is embarrassing.

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

By Michael Ray.

I urge Laguna Beach citizens to vote “yes” on Measure CC because our very quality of life is the issue.  It is about creating open space within Laguna Beach forever.

Some background.  In 1990, our city cut a deal with the Irvine Company to buy some 2,000 acres comprising the open space in Laguna Canyon.   The price was $78 million.  To raise the money, activists lead by Paul Freeman passed a city initiative to assess each homeowner approximately $20 per month for 20 years. The amount was nothing.  The initiative passed overwhelmingly.

Today, the assessments have expired and the land is ours forever. You see it as you drive up Laguna Canyon Road; you see the parking areas and trail heads.  You see hikers and bikers by the thousands enjoying the benefits on any given day.  Chances are you have hiked or biked the land and that you love it.

Let me repeat: the assessments have expired. No more money is being paid by anyone. And the land is ours forever.

Today, there is another open space initiative, Measure CC, that would raise $20 million over 20 years to buy some 400 acres within Laguna itself.  The land to be bought is a patchwork and only landowners who want to sell would.  This land would stitch together other open space preserves and make Laguna Beach even better. More trails. More wonder.

The cost? About $10 per month per homeowner, not even the price of a theater ticket, not even beer money. It is nothing.

Yet the fools who opposed the 1990 Initiative oppose this one too and are spreading lies about it. They say there is some secret committee commandeering the process. They say the purchases will benefit only a few rich people, or that random, useless lots will be purchased.  They say the city’s debt will be increased and its credit rating will be ruined.   They say all kinds of things to turn you off. And everything they say is a blatant lie.

The man who led the first initiative, Paul Freeman, a former mayor of Laguna Beach, is leading this initiative too. The people and organizations that have endorsed it comprise a blue ribbon panel of locals.

They know some things are worth paying for. In this densely

packed city of ours, open space forever is one of them.

Vote yes on Measure CC. You and your children will be the beneficiaries.   And so will your great-great-great-great grandchildren.  Like Laguna Canyon, the assessments will have long expired, but the land will be theirs and ours. Forever.

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits. In full disclosure, he also contributed $1,000 to the Committee for Measure CC.

By Michael Ray.

Jason, my teenage friend, I know you are dead and cannot read this letter, but I had to write it anyway.

You just wanted to go drinking with your friends. Then you foolishly got behind the wheel and got yourself killed, and killed two innocents in the process. I am dreadfully sorry.  But it did not have to happen.

The adults in Laguna Beach just can’t put themselves in your shoes. They approved a law making parents outlaws for letting you drink in their homes. They think they are being vigilant and tough. They think outlawing drinking in your parents’ homes will stop you from drinking.

Some of Laguna’s council members know you would drink anyway but they caved in because it was easier than telling advocates the hard truth.   Some might even concede that teens act stupidly; they experiment, risk their bodies, drink alcohol, smoke marijuana, try cigarettes, jump off high cliffs and skateboard down steep streets at high speeds. They think they are invulnerable. They think nothing can kill them.

It used to be parents guided their teenagers through this hormone-driven craziness, not delegate it to a law known as the social host ordinance. But Laguna capitulated. It was much easier to substitute governmental supervision for good parenting. It was much easier to placate the advocates. Council members are elected.  They have positions to protect. Caving in was politically smart.

Jason, you knew it was easy to find an obscure place to drink.  It could be a beach or a park, but a darkened street was the easiest.   All you needed was a van with a couple of your buddies, a little weed and a six-pack.

You used to party at your parent’s place where they took away everyone’s car keys and made them stay the night. But at least you and your friends were safe. After that new law got passed, your parents freaked out and told you drinking at home was prohibited. You had no clue how paranoid they were of getting busted, going to so-called “classes” on “responsible” behavior, or of being classified as criminals.

You were also clueless that in the cities which had passed these social host ordinance laws, there was absolutely no statistical evidence whatsoever to show they curtailed teen drunkenness.  Nor could you have known that of all of the studies listed on the city of Laguna’s pro-law web site, not one—not one—was based on statistical evidence. It was all hearsay, which proves absolutely nothing. It did not matter.  The Prohibition Puritans had too much fire in their bellies.

You probably didn’t know Laguna already hit one of the state’s high marks for DUI arrests. How could it not? Tourists power the local economy and there are 80 percent odds anyone leaving a downtown restaurant after 10 p.m. will fail a Breathalyzer. For the cops, it is a shooting gallery.

It also means the City Council tolerates downtown drunks on account of the local economy, yet they object to you drinking in your own home.  If this is not hypocrisy, what is?

But hell, the hypocrisy won.  The new law got passed. Your parents freaked and you could not drink at home, so you drank elsewhere.  And drove. And killed yourself and two others because of it. You are dead.

Sorry, my young friend, it is just local politics at work.

P.S.  Jason does not exist, but he will.

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

Editor’s Note: A final vote on the proposed social host ordinance by the City Council is scheduled for Dec. 4. Two newly elected members will cast votes.

By Michael Ray.

When I was a kid, my family lived in old Corona del Mar and opened presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning.  It was a tradition from Kansas, where my folks came of age in the Great Depression.  We never got elaborate presents. They were small and inexpensive.  Anything else would have been deemed ostentatious.

Our best presents came from grandmother, who lived with my cousins back in Marion, Kan., in the same home where my father grew up.  She mailed them. I only met her once, when she was old and infirm. It was right after the Christmas when I was 12.  Mom and Dad put me and my three siblings onto a train to Kansas without them. We were alone.

If you were from Kansas, you were stoic.  You did not complain.  If a Depression came, you dealt with it. The same with personal feelings.  My parents did not show much.

Right after he graduated from college, my father married my mother and the next day took the freight trains west.   There was no money and riding the freights was how you traveled. He was a hobo. The jobs were in California. For five years, he traveled back and forth.

During his travels, Dad twice saw men killed by the trains.  One stumbled while sprinting for a freight and was cut in half by the wheels.  Another was laying next to Dad on the top of a refrigerator car riding through winter weather in the Rockies. It was freezing and the train was rounding a long bend on a bridge and the man lost his grip. Dad remembered the man’s screams as he slid off the roof and into the chasm.

Dad wanted us to experience, I think, the long sweep of the frontier he had traveled, to hear the clickity-clack, to travel like he traveled, albeit in a passenger train. It took two days.  It was monotonous and tiring. We hardly slept because we were jammed into small, hard seats.

After boarding in L.A., we traveled east through San Bernardino and the Coachella Valley and we saw the mighty snow-covered Rockies and the vast, flat western plains.

Uncle Rusty met us in Wichita, the nearest stop to Marion.  It was a two-hour drive.  It was night. Uncle Rusty drove fast and skidded a few times under bridges where the ice had refrozen. It did not faze him. He knew about the ice.

We got to Marion late, but everyone was awake. Aunt Mary and her three kids, who were our ages. Grandmother had waited up too. I thought she was ancient, but she had the most melodious, wonderful voice, like the words were a song.

The town had a population of 2,000, the same as a 100 years prior. Near the family house was the town’s only hill.  It was 15-feet high and where we went sledding.  We had never played in the snow and stayed for hours.

All the cars were American and battered.  The main street was two blocks long.  It was mostly half-empty storefronts 50 years old.

On New Year’s morning, the “men” went coyote hunting.   It was another tradition.  The day before, Uncle Rusty gave me a small shotgun and showed me how to shoot.  It was easy.  You pointed.  You pulled the trigger.  The trick was to hug the rifle butt tight against your shoulder so the kick would not bruise it.

The next morning found us in a truck with the local men, all with thick jackets and either regular or dark glasses.  That was so stray shotgun pellets could not hurt you.

We went hunting a section, which is a giant square a mile on each side.

The men were dropped off on the perimeter and slowly walked to the middle.  The idea was to flush the coyotes.  There was a $200 bounty for each one.  The locals hated the coyotes. They killed their livestock and pets and ate everything not properly secured.

Sure enough, as the men slowly converged, coyotes were flushed and ran in circles as the men shot at them.  I did not feel sorry for the coyotes.  I was in Kansas and hunting was part of it.

A few days later, we were back home to Newport where people were at the beach and the cars were new and the CdM strip was vibrant.

It took me half a lifetime to realize it was the best Christmas present I ever got. By then, both Mom and Dad had died.

Michael Ray grew up in CdM and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

By Michael Ray.

It is a brand new year, but before we plunge into it, let me share some thoughts for the past year, 2012, may it pass blissfully into our shared consciousness.

1. The political pundits told us the presidential election would be too-close-to call.   The polls had them neck-n-neck, then on Election Day, it was over by 7:30 p.m. in a near landslide.  Karl Rove wandered Fox News headquarters looking for his lost secrets.

2. A week after the election, I was invited to a post-election “debriefing” in Los Angeles.  Our guest speaker was the lead Obama pollster, Phil Benenson, who was appropriately prideful and full of laughter.   He told us the campaign could not believe its good luck every time a “birther,” especially Donald Trump, went on a rant.  Each one meant greater voter turnout for Obama.

3. The Electoral College has 538 voting members, or electors, who are the only people whose votes matter. I was appointed to be one.  They met on Monday, Dec. 17 to cast their ballots.   The California meeting took place in the State Assembly chamber in Sacramento.   The process was boring.   We sat in Assembly seats and signed a bunch of forms.   But I felt really, truly patriotic.  This is how America works.

4. In Laguna, the restaurant French 75 closed.  So did The Cottage. I always loved both. Umami Burgers in north Laguna opened. It is over-priced and hideous.

5. The social host ordinance passed in Laguna and we officially became a Nanny City.  Our civic forefathers, artists and free thinkers all, turned over in their graves.

6. Emerald Bay wanted the city to place a stoplight at its entrance.   Emerald Bay legally is not part of Laguna Beach.  It is part of Orange County and its residents cannot vote in Laguna Beach elections. The stoplight issue was hard fought but lost.   People who cannot vote do not have power.

7. The open space initiative in Laguna lost, proving once again that a well-funded negative campaign almost always wins.

8. The day after the horror in Connecticut, with 20 children gunned down, a man wandered to Fashion Island and fired 54 shoots into the air.  He does this, he said, when he gets angry.  He is a licensed security guard, albeit not at Fashion Island.

9. The local real estate market finally gathered some steam.   Well-priced homes sell quickly.  Commercial vacancies no longer last forever.  The smell of real recovery, if not prosperity, is in the air.

10.  The no-fishing conservancy zone went into effect at the beginning of the year.  It bans all fishing along the Laguna coastal zone.   It means that within about three years, once again you can see mature fish by the thousands when snorkeling or scuba diving off Laguna.  It also means that fishing boats, with their very precise GPS systems, will be able to float just off the zone and once again reap big catches. It is a win-win.

11.  A diving trip to the British Virgin Islands in May, anticipating seeing all the beautiful fish in their local splendor, was shocking. The fish were gone. They had been fished out. It was a desert.

12. Local artist Jorg Dubin was named artist of the year in our Patriot’s Day Parade. Of course, he did something radical: he re-enacted the car tableau prior to President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, complete with two Jackies. He said two seemed better than one.

13.  The warm water this summer seemed to last even longer than last year.   It was a delight, but scary too.   Global warming?   Here?  I chose not to think about it.

By Michael Ray.

My friend, Laguna’s blithe spirit January Olds, created her own skincare line January Labs.  She rolled out the line about 18 months ago and now has gained national distribution.  Last summer she gave me several bottles of her product and insisted I prominently display them in my bathroom for immediate use.

There they stayed for months, unused. Men do not “do” skincare creams.   They are greasy and mess up your shirts.

Then came winter and the dry coldness set in. Driving down Laguna Canyon Road at night set off a buzzer in my car and an accompanying light indicating the ground temperature was so low the road could be icy. This season seems particularly cold and dry.  My skin started cracking.

It hurt. My skin wrinkled up and ached. To stop the pain, I was willing to experiment with January’s moisturizer. At the time it was a big step, actually using icky female cream for myself.

The emulsion worked. The cold dryness continued, but by slathering myself with cream my flesh stopped hurting. Dare I say it, my skin even felt soft and supple.

Then I noticed a phenomenon. One evening after a workout and a shower, I was towel drying myself while listening to music.  I was humming and having a good time.   By chance I glanced at the bottle of moisturizer.   That is when it happened.  My skin began itching like crazy. In a flash, I went from smiling and humming to severe scratching.

Then I saw my hand reaching for the moisturizer with the fine little January Labs label.  I saw myself picking it up, unscrewing the top, dipping for a dab, applying it.  I felt my skin saying, “ahhhhh.” My skin was talking to me.  I am not making this up.   Everything was in slow motion and automatic, like I was watching a movie.

My skin was having a Pavlovian reaction similar to a dog trained to bark after seeing a bone. It was at a molecular level. It was synapses in my brain reacting to a visual clue and sending electrical signals to my skin.  Sensors in my skin were sending back signals to my brain screaming, “it hurts; put on cream!” It was me, without thinking, immediately reaching for the balm and obeying the pulses.

This got me to thinking. Skin is the largest organ in our body, but it is only an organ. Do all organs act similarly? Are all of them subject to Pavlovian reactions? Are human beings simply a whole bunch of trained reactions?

Do we have free will?

Oh boy, it was getting away from me. I told myself it was merely cold, dry weather and dry skin and a nice moisturizer that works.  I told myself that.

Not that I questioned any of that nonsense about free will or lack thereof.   Not me.  I know who is in charge.

Michael Ray grew up in Corona del Mar and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

By Michael Ray.

The assistant director, Howell, was herding us into place.   It was not easy because 80 percent f the cast and crew were Spanish-speaking.  Howell did not speak Spanish, so as he yelled, a translator followed with his own Spanish yell, like an echo.

We were in Uruguay, which is sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil and is 22 hours and six time zones from LAX.  I had thoroughly drugged myself to sleep on the various planes, but was so jet-lagged only the adrenal rush of being in an actual Hollywood production kept me awake.

The commercials (they shot several) are for Bacardi Rum and I was in one.  It was a favor to my girlfriend, Laguna’s own Kim Bowen, who dresses people for TV commercials, music videos, and so on.  The director, Jake Scott, is her old friend and the favor was to give me a bit part.

The commercials involved more than a 120 people in costume, which  Kim sourced in Los Angeles and shipped to Uruguay in 15 very large containers. It was more complicated than it sounds. Kim had five assistants.

The commercials are set in the Spanish American War in Cuba (think Teddy Roosevelt’s Roughriders), and tell the Bacardi family story. The head of the clan, Emilio Bacardi, was heroic.  He collaborated with and helped finance Cuban revolutionaries against their Spanish overlords, a war America joined late in the game. Emilio was repeatedly imprisoned for his efforts.  And yes, there is a passionate love story.

I was supposed to play an American general and even have photos of myself in a general’s outfit. Then Jake needed a “surgeon” and Kim turned me into one. My job was to “work on” a wounded army man while a young hero on horseback galloped past us.  The scene was shot so many times I lost count.  The man playing the young hero really did grow up on a horse farm near Houston and was a great rider.   Good thing.  The horse, all 1,200 pounds of it, charged within inches of us.

The “wounded” guy in real life is the editor of the commercials. This was another favor by Jake. If the editor wants to cut me out of the final version, he has to cut himself.

All of the people playing soldiers, revolutionaries, peasants or townspeople were from Uruguay.  There were over 100 of them and they had a ball.

There were five principal actors. They were professionals, mostly from Los Angeles or New York, but the femme fatale was of Cuban extraction from Miami and even all the gay guys ogled her. She has startling black eyes and a va-va-voom figure.  Think Sofia Vergara.

Since Kim dressed her, I got to hang around in the trailer were it was happening.  The men making the commercial streamed through the trailer to check out her “costume.”  There were a lot of them. They kept badgering Kim to change the blouse, to make it even lower-cut and sexier.  Kim did not listen.  She did not like the peasant-type version that had been selected in Los Angeles, so she made her own.  The task took Kim and one of her assistants six hours. She ignored all the men streaming through; she knew what she wanted and she knew Jake would agree.

I did not say much, but I took so many photos and vids with my cell phone Kim finally told me to stop. She thought I was being a pest. I already knew that, but didn’t care.  After Cuban girl’s work was done, she asked me to forward her as many photos and vids of her as I had.

On the last day after all the shooting was finished and the costumes returned, the Cuban girl demonstrated why Hollywood is different. She strolled through the little village in her own outfit of such see-through brevity waves of comment cascaded ahead of her. She wanted to make sure no one would forget her. No one has.

Now, if only my visage gets three seconds of actual screen time, I will lord it over my kids for the next decade. Kim, of course, finds it all a bit amusing.  Been there.  Done that.  Have a nice day, Laguna.

Michael Ray grew up in Corona del Mar and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and  is involved in many non-profits.

By Michael Ray.

As I perambulate about the community, I often am asked what I do, as in, who are you? My kids are not certain, since I do not seem to have a normal job with normal hours like other fathers. Yeah, I go to meetings and talk on the cell and text and email. I’m on boards. I write enough to sometimes say I’m a writer. I travel a lot and I’m a waterman. And my extended and rambunctious family supports each other in our involvement in myriad community activities. I publish my own economic blog, which started out as words on paper that was mailed.   And so on.

But what I really am is an economic determinist, like Karl Marx, the inventor of Communism, whose real contribution to economic philosophy is not Communism (which is a failure), but rather the idea that the economic structure of a society precedes its social structure.

In this, he was profound.

Prior to that, the economics department of any university resided within the philosophy department, as though economics was simply another philosophical whimsy and not worthy of its own separate and equal study.

Still reading? Good, because now comes the part where I tell you if you are an economic determinist you must also be a cynic. Its premise is to recognize that almost all social and societal behavior is predicated upon personal gain. There are no exceptions. It is Darwinian. It is predictable.

That is where religion comes in, and government, and police departments and armies, and…oh my, cultural values. They place governors on expected selfish behavior.  They trump it.

There is only one exception: the personal excesses of those who do the governing. Those privileged few exempt themselves.

Which brings me to our big banks.  There are a half dozen deemed Too Big To Fail.   You know the names.  Back in the day, I worked for one, Citibank, in its world headquarters in NYC.   It was on Park Avenue.  I lived two subway stops away.   We thought we were the best and we were arrogant.

Our chairman, Walter Wriston, was a legend. Repeated presidential administrations offered him positions like Secretary of Treasurer, and his repeated reply was, why would he give up real power for something transitory in government?

He knew he was the wave of the future.  Citibank was changing what a bank was.  But it threatened other big banks.   Either change too or become extinct.

Flash forward to the near de-regulation of the banking industry by 2004. It occurred through both Democratic and Republican administrations.   Both were bought.

You already know the results. It was the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression, except for those banks deemed Too Big To Fail.  The United States government saved them by turning them into de facto agencies of the U.S. Government.  This is called nationalization, also socialism.

Now it has taken a truly sinister turn.  Too Big To Fail has become Too Big To Jail.  Read the direct quote below from Attorney General Eric Holder at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing:

“I am concerned, that the size of some of these (banking) institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute — if we do bring a criminal charge — it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”

Yeah, I am an economic determinist.   Rules governing aberrant behavior do not apply to those who make the rules. They will always rip you off.

Even President Obama, who Wall Street loved to hate in the last election, has been rolled.   His administration has confirmed if you are big enough, there are no consequences.  None.  If you break the bank, the government will rescue you.  If you break the law, the government will not prosecute.  You are immune.

But hey, remember I am an economic determinist.  I also am a landlord and let me tell you, giant banks pay us the most rent and we covet their occupancy at our various spaces.  It is the same as renting to the United States government.   They pay the highest rates and are socialistic and nothing can ruin them, ever.

I am not even guilty of hypocrisy.  Only of cynicism.

Michael Ray grew up in Corona del Mar and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and  is involved in many non-profits.

The last one, my youngest, Harrison, graduated from Sage Hill High School.

My first was Margarita Aguilar, whose whole family had come to live with mine (all nine of us in 2,300 square feet and not enough beds).  It was she and brother and parents; and me and my wife and two daughters and son.  I sent Margarita to Sage in 2000, the year it opened.  It had only two classes: 100 freshmen and 32 sophomores. Margarita was a sophomore.  Each year afterward, the school added another lower class until it was full.    Margarita’s class was the first to graduate and because her last name began with an “A”, Margarita Keila Aguilar was our very first graduate.

I use the word “our” because I am one of the founders of Sage Hill. After Margarita graduated, she was followed by my oldest daughter Elizabeth, now 24; then Gabrielle, now 20; then Harrison, now 18; and now it is over.  It is over.

I would use the word grieve except that is not what I really feel.   I really feel that the world flows over, under and around you and unless you look up—and watch, I mean watch—you will miss it stone cold. I watched.  At least I hope I did.

I watched my kids and I watched Sage Hill.   On graduation day, I got there early and walked around and saw the preparations, which weren’t much.  Sage does not go in for huge displays, but the ceremony was in the enchanting inner quad. In the next hour, it became so full of glowing youthful potential I could burst.

Afterwards, I waited and watched the crowd mill. I know many of Harrison’s friends. They hang at my house in Laguna. Seeing them in full graduation regalia was strangely disconcerting.  They were trying on new personas.   They were in transcending acts.

I asked several how they felt. They said “strange.” I then usually replied, “You know, after this day, you will be part of this campus only as a graduate, not as a part of its functioning being.”  Those were not my exact words, but that was my exact meaning.   Harrison’s friends did not want to hear that. They did not want it stated.

And they looked embarrassed. They usually were so cool. You could never get in, but right then they were naked.

The campus has aged nicely.  The architecture, which I originally thought boring, has softened and popped with the maturing of the plants and trees.  More wings and buildings have been built and more will be, but not much more.  It can get only so large.

In the late 1990s, I was in a living room when there were only eight of us and the school was an idea.  Since then, I’ve hung in for the whole ride. It has not always been pleasant.  I remember getting founding Chair Jamie Caillouette’s phone call at 3:30 a.m., then my local time on a business trip to Japan, about a financing crises involving the original construction.  I was the founding treasurer.

Margarita today is married to a wonderful Moroccan man with big ambitions and she is trying to get into law school.  My oldest daughter Elizabeth graduates from a university in London this summer.  What she will do next is anyone’s guess.  She wants to stay in that part of the world but the unemployment there is horrible.  Daughter Number Two, Gabby, will be a junior at Lewis & Clarke next fall. This summer she is interning with my real estate company and I really hope she likes it.

Harrison, Sage Class of 2013, seems to ride above it all, like on a crest of a wave. He is enigmatic–both coiled and laid-back–and always one emotion distant.  Next year he goes to UC Santa Cruz.

One sidebar comment: Margarita, Liz and Gab realize Harrison plays it for all its worth and punish him accordingly, as only older sisters can.

I drift along beside them.  Mostly I watch. My only wish is to see more.  Much more.  And to be in the thick of it.

Michael Ray grew up in Corona del Mar and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and  is involved in many non-profits.

The post Musings on the Coast: The Graduation appeared first on Laguna Beach Independent Newspaper, The "Indy" - Laguna Beach News.

By Michael Ray.

America is a place of turmoil.  While I was growing up in Newport Beach, there were TV stories of fire hoses spraying black people and race riots in Los Angeles. Then there was war in a place called Vietnam and my parents worried I would be called up and killed.

None of it was real until my friend Bob Gendron was killed.  In high school, he had a blazing fastball and was scouted by the pros, but he enlisted instead and his helicopter was shot down.

Along the way, we’ve seen assassinations and attempted assassinations. The names are a blizzard. The presidents and would-be presidents spun through like a slot machine. The political machines came and went. King makers, self-proclaimed and smug with their arched expressions, said it all: only the spin mattered.

TV found “reality” except we all knew it was another sham with fabricated drama, but it saved us from real life, which was a bummer featuring a Supreme Court stealing a presidential election.  Alongside it grew cable TV and hundreds of choices and the scattering of any so-called center.

Then the horror of 9/11 and the rush to another war, equally stupid and costly but this time outsourced along with the rest of the American employment dream. But hey, like Vietnam, the political establishment rolled over.

Then came the No Drama President who would bring us all together but once in office, he stood over in a corner waiting for us to come to him as though it was our duty. Jesus.

I should be sick of it all. I should be sick of red states and blue states and a United States that is so thoroughly dysfunctional high-tech companies — our growth engine — hire offshore because too many politicians are afraid of anti-immigration fools who preach racist cant.

So let me say one thing about being “neutral.” It sucks. Being “neutral” is for people who want to “fit in.”  It is for Newport Beach wannabes who think they are slick. Hey dude, to get along, go along.

On this Fourth of July, I will be celebrating yet again our country’s founding. It was hardly clean. It was chaos in slow motion. There were too many variables and if you had a family to feed, what then?   Consequently, it unfurled in a cauldron of uncertainty, want, draft dodgers and opportunists.

The turning point, the real beginning, came with the Second Continental Congress.  It started meeting in May 1775. The Colonialists wanted to discuss their options. It did not end until more than a year later with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. During the first sessions, only the radicals wanted war. They were shouted down. Most members wanted to find a way to re-embrace King George.

Finally though, it was emboldened by one man, George Washington. He had invented his own general’s uniform and had the majestic grandeur—indeed hubris—to wear it during sessions. There he strutted and announced in manner, words and absolute presence: I am not neutral.

Michael Ray grew up in Corona del Mar and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

The post Musings on the Coast: Neutrality In America appeared first on Laguna Beach Independent Newspaper, The "Indy" - Laguna Beach News.

By Michael Ray.

I keep having a dream I am on a body board and surfing the airwaves high above Laguna.

I’ve been a surfer all my life and understand ocean waves.  The best are thin, steep ones that break in a collapsing line you skim across at great speed.   The worst are thick crunchers that burst out and down.   The bursts are predictable; there only is so much a wave can do.  But once the wave hits the water’s surface, the predictability vanishes.  The energy punches down, hits its own wall of resistance and ruptures up and out.  This is when it is chaotic.  This is when surfers lose control and are tossed violently. This is what they fear.

The air I surf is the same.  I am at Irvine Cove with an onshore breeze that hits the cliffs and thrusts upward.  I am at the top of the crest looking down. I see people far below on the beach. I cannot see the airwave but I can feel it.   The fluid dynamics of air and water are the same. Even without seeing the airwave, I can sense it. I know it.  It is mine.

I am surfing south and accelerate by skidding sideways down the wall of air, like you do on a wave.   The trick is to slide down far enough to obtain the speed but not so far you flatten out and stall into the swell, lose control, get sucked up and thrown out.  I can feel how far down I’ve slid, trim up and gather into the air’s curl.  I gather velocity and jam past Emerald Bay, Crescent, Divers’, Main Beach, Brooks, Three Arch. At Dana Point, I rise to the crest, whirl midair and reverse direction.

This time it is pure speed.  My teeth are bared.  I am screaming.  Then I hit midtown and follow the coastal hills up Broadway to the Festival and the Irvine Bowl. It is summer and early evening and thousands mill below. I hang there, zig-zaging, peering below. Those down there are mere humans.  I whip north again.

This time, it is another world.  The cliffs are high and steep, not like Laguna’s mild softness, and the colors are so vibrant I can see the airwaves.   They are dangerous now, but I do not care.  My speed blurs. I am alive and alone and in my element and on the edge.

Michael Ray grew up in Corona del Mar and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

The post Musings on the Coast: The Midnight Surfer appeared first on Laguna Beach Independent Newspaper, The "Indy" - Laguna Beach News.

By: Michael Ray

By Michael Ray.

Since nearly everyone I know is weighing in on the proposed new village entrance, so will I. But first a note on my qualifications: I am a property developer.  I know how to build parking structures and I know about soil problems.  My opinion about such matters is educated.

I am told the new village entrance is really a new parking structure to be built on an existing parking lot and that it will include a small park.

I am told the improvements will cost about $50 million and the net increase in parking spots will be about 200 spaces (more than what exist today).  This means each additional parking place will cost $250,000.  This amount is insanely high.

As for concerns about soil and groundwater issues, they are real. The site is a classic cut-and-fill situation.  t was created well over four generations ago, meaning it was haphazard. Laguna Canyon was a river-stream 20,000 years before Laguna Canyon Road existed and that river-stream still exists.  Now, it is underground and very expensive columns must be built to support the parking structure as they must reach bedrock far below.  The chance of running into unforeseen problems is very high because one literally does not know what will be found once digging begins.

Thirdly, the complaints about the proposed park are, in my opinion, real.  It is small, poorly situated and inconvenient for locals.  At best, it would be a marginal improvement to the city.

However, the people who want a grand village entrance also have a valid point of view.  The current Laguna Canyon entrance is abysmal and not worthy of Laguna Beach standards (actually, there is no real entrance).  Further, the city does need more parking.  The downtown streets are jammed.

Let me make a suggestion:  run a design competition. Let the world of land planners and architects know about it. Tell them about the underground river and the bad soil conditions.  Tell them about the need for more parking, and that there are many alternatives to provide it. Tell them their ideas must also contain itemized cost projections.    But most important, tell them their design must create a sense of “arrival” into Laguna.

The competition should occur in three phases.  The first would be to broadcast the competition to architects of the world and have them make tentative design proposals. The second would be a selection of the five best ideas; the city then would pay each finalist a sum, say $100,000 each, to detail their ideas and apply real-world costing information (it is very expensive to provide this detail, which is why the finalists should be paid).  Third, select a winner and build it.  This is standard design-competition fare; its methodology is neither new nor controversial (although the results might be).

If this methodology is chosen, it will excite the entire architectural world.  Laguna Beach is a special place.  World-class architects will want their names associated with this special place.  Local architects could team-up with them or submit their own ideas.  Methods for creating  more parking would be generated that are practical and efficient. For example, in Tokyo, where I have spent a lot of time, parking is extraordinarily precious and the Tokyo has its own issues with bad soil and water conditions.  That city has solutions that could be applied to Laguna and which are beautiful.

Finally, some sort of “entry statement” could be created that will knock our socks off.

Currently, there are warring factions within our fair city that are unbecoming and unnecessary. The factions are fighting over one  proposal that, to my eyes, is way too costly, unpractical, and worst, boring.

Why not stand back, open up the process to world-class competition and built something spectacular instead? By doing it, we lose nothing and could gain everything every faction wants.

In the meantime, tone down the rhetoric.  We’re all friends here.

Michael Ray grew up in Corona del Mar and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.

The post Musing on the Coast: Why Not an Entry With Pizzaz? appeared first on Laguna Beach Independent Newspaper, The "Indy" - Laguna Beach News.

By Michael Ray.

This summer I really got into kayaking.  Scratch that, I always have loved kayaking, but this summer I got into it as a balm.  I had had many tense days, marked by tense situations, and I would jam home from work, run to the beach, pull out the kayak and pump into the horizon.

This got me to thinking about kayaking and here are my thoughts:

Kayaking has the same physiological effect as jogging. You can go easy or hard, but if you go hard for 25 minutes, you get the same endorphin high you get from hard jogging. It literally is a calming drug, but self-produced by your own body.  During kayaking, I’ve learned to go hard until I hit it, then I turn back toward the shore and stop. I look. I smile. I am of Laguna. How bad can it be?

When looking at Laguna from about a mile out but low in the water, you see a series of communities set against the hills.  Canyons bisect the communities. Today I counted 12 communities.  I know most of them.

Behind and surrounding the local communities are green belts. The communities are small in comparison.   We have had City Councils for generations that have protected those green belts.   Thank you.

And thank you too to The Irvine Company, which used to own the massive nature preserve separating Laguna from Newport Coast (including Crystal Cove). The company could have pressed to obtain entitlements for thousands more housing units on that land, but instead compromised with a variety of state and local agencies.   The compromise created the preserve.

When paddling yesterday, the waves were particularly steep with short intervals.  Heading into them my kayak would thrust up the waves’ front sides and then slap down on the backs in exhilarating bursts.  That is typical when headed north, meaning usually into the direction of the wind and swells.  But when you turn around and run with the wind and swells, things seems to slow down even though you go faster.  This is because the sensation of speed is related to the wind: headed into it is noisy and seems fast.  But heading with it, the noise drops yet your speed increases.  Also, the kayak surfs with the waves in rolling undulations. It is almost sexual.

Thank you, too, Paul Freeman. In a deal separate from the one mentioned above, you negotiated the purchase of Laguna Canyon’s open space preserve from The Irvine Company.  Then you ran the campaign to raise the money for the purchase. It was a political thing that required a two-thirds majority of the voters.  You got over 80% and we got the open space. Thank you again.

I did not see any dolphins today while kayaking, even though I paddled all the way to Emerald Bay’s north point, then out to sea a good two miles. I did not care.   When returning, the setting sun was behind my back and the rays bounced off thousands of hillside windows.

I do not have other comments to make.  I am beyond politics right now, or personal worries, or imagined closed doors. I am at peace. This is a hard place for me to be as my natural position is at combat, or prepared for combat. Laguna does that to you.

These are my kayaking observations.  They are not earth shaking nor even remotely profound.  They are simple.  Or maybe not.  Maybe we are in the place everyone on Planet Earth seeks: sanctuary.

Michael Ray grew up in Corona del Mar and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a

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