Conversations with Benjamin Marcus

Today we’d like to introduce you to Benjamin Marcus

Hi Benjamin, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up surfing in Santa Cruz in the 70s and 80s.

In 1989 I went to Texas to write a movie about high school football.

While there I wrote a short story about surfing in Spain called “You Wouldn’t Read About It.”

I submitted that to SURFER Magazine and they printed it and hired me as an editor.

I was at SURFER Magazine from 1989 to 1999 through what I call The Roaring 90s.

The surf industry was earning gazillions of dollars and anything was possible.

At SURFER I brainstormed, wrote, edited and proofed 120 issues of SURFER Magazine.

I’m proudest of the first article on Mavericks and also inventing the SURFER Magazine Surf Video Awards.

After 10 years I left SURFER and became a freelance writer, wandering a bit and ending up in Malibu.

I have been in Malibu off and on since 2003 and have been involved in a couple dozen book projects.

One book was translated into German and another into Dutch. I wrote a history of skateboarding that the publisher translated into French without telling me.

While living on a boat in Hawaii around 2017 I got an email from the Sportel Awards in France telling me they were going to fly me to Monaco and put me up at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel because my book Skateboard: De La Rue a La Rampe had been nominated for Sports Book of the Year.

I said “Cool I’ll go to Monaco but I never wrote a book called Skateboard: De la Rue a La Rampe. My French isn’t that good.”

But then I Googled it and saw the book did exist. I didn’t go to Monaco. It was too far. I sent my photographer Lucia Griggi who was in Hossegor. She went with her dad. We didn’t win. A shame I could have used the 3,000 Euros

I don’t like saying this because I sound like every other wannabe writer in Los Angeles but I had a screenplay stolen that got made into a $30,000,000 movie starring GB – but it bombed. I tried to sue but five different lawyers told me: “You got ripped off. You won’t win.”

I didn’t federally copyright it. That was one mistake I made. Another mistake was trusting someone in Hollywood.

I now am the Entertainment Editor for Malibu Times and have a weekly column where they let me do whatever I want.

I have interviewed La Salsa Man, a statue of The Saint Formerly Known as Father Serra, a very punctual white shark I call Miss July and most recently, a black bear that wandered from Claremont to Chatsworth to Malibu.

I also interview living humans.

I hang out at Zinque all day and work part time at Malibu Newsstand which is a shockingly interesting job.

Johnny Rotten called me a “hooligan” and a “nob” and I’ve chatted with FD, EH, AM, PH, RM, JK – Spielberg’s cinematographer – and a lot of interesting people – homeless to haute couture.

Simon Cowell is a nice person. Don’t let him fool you.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I was lucky to get hired at SURFER in 1989 when I was 29. I struggled with it a bit as it’s a fairly public job and open to criticism. I also didn’t like living in Orange County.

And the surfing world and media changed a lot in 10 years.

Since becoming a freelance writer I have had ups and downs. A lot of it just having to do with money because it doesn’t pay well, so I live in a toolshed in Malibu.

But it’s a pretty cool toolshed, and as long as I have work to do, all is well.

Getting the screenplay stolen wasn’t a lot of fun. Remember to federally copyright everything you do.

So yes: Ups and downs but all in all pretty interesting.

This is the inventory of all the places I’ve been: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Canada (BC, Yukon, Alberta), Connecticut, Delaware, Fiji, France, Hawaii (Maui, Kauai, Oahu), Idaho, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mexico, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, New Zealand, Norway, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Panama, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Texas, Tonga, United Kingdom (England, Ireland, Wales), Utah, Washington, Wyoming.

I still want to go to Germany and Tahiti but having seen all that I’m pretty content to be stuck in Malibu.

I get to write, a lot, and people like it and that’s nice.

It’s good to be good at something.

That’s what Seinfeld has been talking about lately: Mastery.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am good at making history entertaining and interesting.

I have a writing voice shaped by the New Yorker and SURFER Magazine that is somewhere between Spicoli and Churchill.

It’s an inherited trait. My great great grandfather Mathias Schafer was best friends with Karl Marx at Kaiser Wilhelm Gymnasium in Trier, Germany in 1835.

Mathias had stacks of personal correspondence with Marx, but at some point he didn’t dig Marx’ jive and he burned all the letters.

Ooops. One letter from Marx just sold for $678,000 in China. Matthias had stacks, bro.

Mathias emigrated to Wisconsin and had 10 children. One of them – Joseph Schafer – taught history at University of Oregon and wrote foundation histories of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. There is a building there named for him: Schafer Hall.

He went back to Wisconsin and was Director at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

That’s the brain they gave me. The History brain.

I’m good at being funny, too.

I’m easy to read, but intelligent – I hope.

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I dont know, I haven’t achieved it yet.

No Seinfeld got it right when he talked about “Mastery.”

Being good at something and using whatever talents creation gave you.

Money is nice but I’m surrounded by gazillionaires and all of them work, every day.

Being productive, intelligent, masterful.

And doing good deeds.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.benmarcusrules.com
• Instagram: ikethecat or surfvideoawards
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ben.marcus.3950/
• Twitter: @thebenmalibu
• Youtube: @benjaminmarcus17

Image Credits
All photos courtesy Ben Marcus