by mobilemojoman
• Topanga Beach Experience: 1960s – 70s
• by Paul Lovas (as told to Pablo Capra)
• Publisher – Brass Tacks Press
• Copyright 2011
• 43 pages
RATING – 7.5/10
SUMMARY – Topanga Beach Experience is a
chapbook recounting Paul Lovas‘ experiences there during the 1960s and 1970s.
The book is short, but has some great anecdotes about bohemian life in Topanga
before gentrification. At the end, the reader is left to ponder what we can
learn about life from Lovas’ stories.
REVIEW – In the short book Topanga
Beach Experience, Paul Lovas recounts his experiences living on Topanga Beach
during the 1960s and 70s. He has a great collection of stories about how he and
his friends “lived for the moment.”
The Topanga Destroyer
Lovas’ place in the world came about by
happenstance. Back in the 1960s, he had a high school friend whose parents had
a beach house on Topanga Beach. Lovas and the friend began surfing Topanga and
Lovas then moved to Topanga, where he has lived since the sixties.
Eventually, Lovas acquired a reputation
as an excellent surfer and friends dubbed him “The Topanga Destroyer.” Much of
Topanga Beach Experience centers on the ways that surfing shaped Lovas’ life.
Vignettes
43 short chapters comprise the book,
which loosely arranges the vignettes in chronological order. The chapters start
with Lovas’ high school experiences and run to the 2000s. However, almost all
of the book centers on the 1960s and 1970s.
For the most part, Topanga Beach
Experience is lighthearted. Lovas recounts how he spent his early years surfing
and partying with the creative people who drifted through Topanga. (In one
memorable scene, Lovas and actor Jan-Michael Vincent barely escape getting
arrested for drugs. In another, Lovas and a friend “take over” a beach house
that Bob “Bear” Hite of Canned Heat had recently rented and trashed).
However, the book has a more-sobering,
serious side. Lovas also discusses:
• the Vietnam draft,
• the time a good friend of his was stabbed in the heart.
(He lived).
• And the destruction of Topanga’s beach community by
(first) floods and (then) the State of California.
Whatever the topic and tone, the book
is consistently interesting.
Areas for Improvement
Prospective buyers should know that
Topanga Beach Experience is not a “true book” – it’s a chapbook and the
printing reflects that. It’s something of a cross between a pamphlet and a
book. There are 18 pages of interesting pictures, though they are grainy,
black-and-white. (There are 43 pages of text, as the “photo pages” are not
numbered). Moreover, the pages’ size varied a little, which gives the book an
“untidy” appearance.
One thing that I would have liked to
have read is a bit more reflection at the end of the book. Lovas sums up simply
by stating that “success is just a smile on your face.” It’s not a bad way to
end, but Lovas has lived an unconventional lifestyle in a place that has been a
center of many of the social changes in the U.S. since the 1960s. Paul’s
reflections on “what it all means” would have been welcome.
Summary
Topanga Beach Experience is a fun,
lighthearted look at a world that – for the most part – no longer exists. It’s
also cheap – with shipping, my copy set me back $7.50. I recommend it to anyone
interested in the 1960s, bohemians, surfing, or southern California.
