Malibu Seen: Swimming fools and solar farms
By Benjamin Marcus · Sun Aug 23 2026
A mishmosh of show business and Malibu business, This mishmosh of Malibu happenings past, present and a possible future starts with the end bit of Part Two of the review of SURFILMUSIC (Feat. Jack Johnson) that got left on the cutting room floor.
From show business to Malibu business: Around Malibu, opinions are like Teslas — everybody’s got one. The rest of this is ruminations on the good, the bad, and the ugly of beach erosion, groins, jetties, speed cameras, and what to do with all those empty acres.
Dad rock and Don Ho
Critically, the reception to “Brushfire Fairytales” broke cleanly along a fault line: Rolling Stone called Jack Johnson's sun-kissed melodies and unfailingly positive vibrations “pretty much impossible to hate,” while The Washington Post placed his sound at the “mythical intersection of dad rock, Don Ho, and the acoustic solo discs Eddie Vedder will one day make when he’s angst-ed out and retired to Maui” — a backhanded compliment that captured the album’s love-it-or-shrug-at-it reputation.
Kokua means 'help' and 'aid' and 'cooperation'
In 2003, Jack and Kim founded the Kōkua Hawaiʻi Foundation, funded largely by the “Kokua Festival,” a benefit concert at Waikiki Shell Jack has headlined periodically since 2004, bringing out guests like Eddie Vedder, Dave Matthews, Willie Nelson, and Jackson Browne. In 2008 they added the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation, and Jack has directed 100% of his touring profits into it ever since, plus one-off gifts like $50,000 apiece to Hurricane Sandy and Japan tsunami relief. By the mid-2010s the two foundations combined had raised roughly $25 million.
Aloha means 'hello,' 'goodbye,' and 'love'
The documentary ends with an aloha tribute to Tamayo Perry, a fellow of infinite jest and talented Pipe surfer and waterman who was attacked and killed by a tiger shark off east Oahu in 2024.
Oscar worthy?
I enjoyed “SURFILMUSIC” the way I enjoyed the Charlie Sheen documentary — crafted with love and brains. Since then I’ve been pestering Emmett to make it an Oscar contender. “I’ve won a Grammy for Best Music Film, for directing ‘Big Easy Express’ in 2013 — I am on it with the awards stuff,” he said.
Asked what it cost to produce, Emmett laughed it off: “We spent so little to make it because the director was so cheap! (I’m not cheap). This started off as me doing interviews for the re-release of ‘Thicker Than Water’ and ‘September Sessions,’" he said. "We did it with no expectations, so we kept things very lean, and we didn’t have to license much footage. For sure it was worth it, just for Jack’s career — it was worth it. Business is way up. Touring is so strong this summer.”
Meet me at the Greek
Touring is strong indeed for 2026: Forty-three shows that began June 19 in Gilford, New Hampshire, running to shows in Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and Brazil in October. The special screening we saw at the Golden State Theater in Monterey on July 25 showed the movie, plus a Q&A and music, but I think most of the shows will be music only.
The “SURFILMUSIC” tour is coming to the Greek Theater in Berkeley at the end of September into October. My friend David listens to “Home” all the time and wants to go with his wife, Victoria. Years ago we saw Chris Isaak at the Greek and it was rocking good times, so I’m going to try to talk our way backstage or something.
(Every Saturday there is an oo-ku-lay-lay circle on the sand in front of the Crow’s Nest in Santa Cruz. I think it would be way cool if Jack rocked up with his axe and asked if he could sit in with 30 other players. I’m pestering Emmett about that, too.)
And then the Northern Hemisphere tour will end Oct. 10 and 11 at the Hollywood Bowl. I once saw James Brown from backstage at the Hollywood Bowl, sitting beside Jim Fuller, the guitarist for the Surfaris who wrote “Wipeout.” I accused him of ripping off the “Batman” theme, since “Wipeout” goes da na na nana nana nana da nana nana nana nana, while “Batman” goes da na nana nana nana da na nana nana nana. But the guitarist fouled it off and said “Wipeout” came first — so the Caped Crusader ripped off The Surfaris.
Anyway, that was a fun night down in Monterey and it would be a whole lot cooler if "SURFILMUSIC" got an Oscar nod for Best Rockumentary — if you will.
Jack Johnson’s website: jackjohnsonmusic.com/
And now to Malibu business.
Sedimental journey: Groins to stop beach erosion
Broad Beach is not as broad as it used to be, and that’s a worry. The Geologic Hazard Abatement District (GHAD) of Broad Beach has spent $20 million and 20 years on a plan to dump sand — and hasn’t dumped a grain of it yet. This summer’s nonstop Southern Hemisphere swells washed away enough of Westward Beach Road to close it, cutting off county revenue in prime time and inconveniencing all those film shoots. And east of Duke’s and down to The Big Mansion Everyone Thinks is the Getty Center But is a Just a Big Mansion (TBMETITGCBIJABM), burnout-lot homebuilders already dealing with wave uprush studies and permit costs are watching the ocean nibble PCH like rodents eating the wiring of their gazillion-dollar Koenigsbergs, threatening to turn PCH into a yearly, expensive repair job like Big Sur Road.
Is there a solution? Yes — one that’s tried and true from Santa Monica to Lake Erie to Brazil to Australia: groins.
Groins, for lack of a better word — like jetties — are good. Groins work. According to UC Santa Cruz professor Gary Griggs, jetties always come in pairs and usually guard harbor entrances, like Marina del Rey and Newport Harbor. Groins are singular but can be laid out in multiples, called “groin fields.”
Groins jut from the beach out to sea, trapping sand, building barriers, protecting homes — and, as a bonus, often creating surf spots. At Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz — where I used to sell hot dogs and recently where that 16-year-old lifeguard rescued that 10-year-old kid — the ocean came right up to the cliffs until the early 1960s, when they built the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor.
The Big Jetty on the west side backed up a permanent sand barrier that is 600 feet wide in the east and down to 300 feet wide at the San Lorenzo Rivermouth point. And those jetties also created a great surf spot that was the funnest mayhem in the 1970s, until the Army Corps figured out how to dredge it properly, no thank you for that service.
Groin fields forever
This will draw howls from the Friends of the Anemone, the Coastal Commission, Surfrider, Heal the Bay, the Sierra Club and a dozen other environmental groups — but a groin field could be the real answer for Broad Beach, Westward Beach Road, and that whole 4.8-mile stretch of unprotected coast from Duke’s to Santa Monica.
Broad Beach is the cautionary tale that makes the case. Nearly 20 years and $21 million to $25 million in legal and engineering fees later, with total estimated costs approaching $100 million, the GHAD hasn’t placed a single grain of sand — and its own modeling reportedly predicts what any Spicoli could tell you: 85% of any sand dumped would wash away. Trucked and dumped sand means an expensive, litigation-prone supply chain repeated forever.
A groin field is a one-time structural build that traps sand the beach is already moving naturally.
I’ve long thought a groin on the west side of Trancas Creek could hold sand along Broad Beach and hopefully not strip Zuma. Griggs, who consulted on two Broad Beach studies, agrees: “A groin field is as good as any approach for Broad Beach … it could work here as well as it did at Santa Monica, Ventura, or Newport. Sand moves west to east and was historically trapped by Point Dume, a natural groin.”
A real groin field is a legal, environmental, and financial lift, he said, but the mechanics check out. I wondered if it would be possible to place something less permanent to see if a groin held sand west and didn’t strip Zuma Beach to the east. Griggs pointed to geotextile tubes already used on the North Carolina coast. Less expensive to place, but they have to be replaced every five years.
Cool, put in those temp groins, see what effect they have and if they’re bogus, remove them.
If they work, lay down a permanent rock groin.
Sand? How about some or all of the 780,000 cubic yards trapped behind Rindge Dam. Truck it to Broad Beach — although the homeowners there are picky about sand quality. What do they want, the talcum powder of Carmel Beach?
None of this is new. Groins once existed at Las Tunas, built in 1929 out of steel sheet piling. There was a nice safe beach in that groin field, until they corroded into a hazard and were removed. Griggs, who worked there years ago when remnants still existed, calls it a poor choice of materials. The lesson isn’t that groins don’t work. It’s that they need to be properly constructed and placed.
Wave uprush, AOWS, seawalls
The point where Dukes sits is also a natural groin that trapped the sand protecting homes on Carbon Beach and La Costa.In theory, a groin field from Dukes east could turn that all into sandy beaches like at La Costa and Carbon, which could protect PCH from erosion and maybe make life easier and cheaper for stressed-out homeowners rebuilding homes along there. Less problems with seawalls and wave uprush and Advanced Onsite Wastewater Systems.
And maybe create a dozen jetty breaks? It would be a whole lot cooler if it did. Take some of the stress off Surfrider.
Groins work. Groins are good. A hundred years ago, Mrs. Rindge would have summoned her dynamiters, hired a barge, and used the Malibu Pier and crane to haul in raw rock, place it, and just get ‘er done.
But that was then, and this is now, when you have to file an EIR just to burp in Malibu. I mean, look how long it’s taken just to get the speed cameras placed.
Speed cameras
It’s taken three years, but Malibu’s PCH speed cameras are finally happening. Completion ETA: September 2026. Cameras will look both ways at Tuna Canyon Road, Carbon Beach Terrace, Latigo Canyon Road, Morningview Drive, and Decker Canyon Road, funded by a $3 million Measure M advance to be reimbursed through the Speed Enforcement Camera Program.
Ten cameras total along the 21-mile PCH corridor, at places where 81% of the city’s collisions occur, targeting drivers 10 or more mph over the limit, fines starting at $50.
Having ridden a bike around Malibu and working at the newsstand, I’d bet two cameras at the Dragstrip Also Known As PCH (DAKAPCH) and Webb Way would write enough tickets to balance the budget — the state budget. A camera slowing traffic at Surfrider Beach would be good value, so surfers stop playing Frogger with their lives just to reach the beach.
I once witnessed a movie star’s kid lose control of his car, jump the curb, and nearly kill a surfer girl who’d just pulled her wetsuit off over her head and jumped out the way.
Raising money isn’t the goal — slowing drivers down is. But the revenue numbers elsewhere are eye-opening: Kingston, New York, school-zone cameras wrote 14,682 tickets in under two months, blowing past a $200,000 annual projection almost immediately. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has pulled in “tens of millions” cumulatively off one I-380 corridor since 2019. Chicago’s cameras in the 19th Ward alone generated $6.3 million in two years.
“Righteous bucks,” as Spicoli would say. It’ll be interesting to see the citations, speeds, and revenue Malibu’s cameras rack up — I’ve asked whether the tallies could be posted publicly, in something close to real time. We shall see.
Community Lands, pools, and tech libraries
Malibu owns five vacant Community Lands parcels — 61 acres total: Trancas (29.67), Heathercliff (19), the Chili Cook-Off/Ioki lot (9.29), the Triangle lot (1.11), and La Paz (2.3). Council has already steered Heathercliff and Ioki toward sports fields and a multigenerational community center — pool, gym, senior center, library expansion — and La Paz toward a possible performing arts center.
Before I got kicked off Nextdoor (right after Reddit, right after one of my Facebook accounts), I was arguing that a municipal pool at Heathercliff is exactly what this town needs — a centrally-located social center, even better with safe bike and walking paths feeding into it from Point Dume.
Malibu is a fundamentally aquatic city; that pool would serve everyone from infants to octogenarians: lap swimmers, SCUBA classes, water polo, platform divers, and senior exercise.
In the 1950s, waterwoman Mary Ann Hawkins spent years at the Hilton Hawaiian Village teaching infants to swim, on the theory that a kid who falls in unsupervised should know how to survive it. Hard to measure how much grief that’s headed off since.
Tech Library/makerspaces
Here’s another idea for the library fund, which has grown to roughly $25 million.
Malibu already has a library full of old-school printed books. In a world where nearly everything now lives in the cloud, maybe a Tech Library: 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, recording studios, VR headsets.
Libraries nationwide have been building “makerspaces” like this for over a decade, and a genuinely serious, comprehensive one typically runs $10,000 to $100,000 in equipment alone. Malibu’s $25 million fund wouldn’t just cover one — it could build several, staff them for years, and still have money left over.
And considering a significant number of the top TechExecs in the world live within a couple miles of Heathercliff, they might be glad to chip in hardware and software.
Create some kid- and bike- and horse-safe paths all through Point Dume to access the Heathercliff land. Bazinga!
Solar farms and Tesla Units (TU)
Trancas and the Triangle lot remain undecided. Here’s an idea, with a caveat: Despite descending from two optical physicists who worked on World War II codebreaking and the Manhattan Project, I don’t understand electricity at all.
Watt knows I’ve tried.
Still, whatever raw acreage isn’t already spoken for, turn it into a solar farm. There will be a million objections — aesthetic, environmental, political — but consider the math in units Malibu understands: a Tesla Unit (TU), one full charge from empty, roughly 60–75 kWh. One acre of Malibu-grade solar generates roughly 5,500 TU a year — enough to fully recharge a Tesla every 70 minutes, nonstop, all year, or cover a full year of driving for about 100 Tesla owners.
Trancas alone, even with a modest buildout, could generate well over 150,000 TU a year.
There’s also a 5-plus acre parcel outside the official Community Lands roster — reportedly Pepperdine-owned — tucked between the Chili Cook-Off lot and Cross Creek Ranch, behind the Labor Exchange and the library. That parcel alone could generate 1.9 million to 2 million kWh a year: enough to power the library six to 11 times over.
Pump the brakes, though: installing and hooking up one acre of solar runs $300,000 to $500,000, so that one parcel would cost $1.6 million to $2.6 million to actually build. Maybe a solar-powered Tesla charging station at Trancas is the more realistic first step.
Groins, jetties, swimming pools, tech libraries, and solar farms. Let’s make Malibu a 21st-century city.
It’s like Boog said in "Diner": “If you ain’t got good dreams, you’ve got nightmares.”