Ben Marcus proprietor of Surfer Dog, circa 1978. Photo: Mom.

BEN’S BIOGRAPHY OF BEN

A natural-born writer, it took Ben Marcus a couple of decades to figure out why he thinks the way he does, why he is a solid B+ player of Jeopardy!, why he remembers everything he’s ever read and why writing comes fairly easy to him - especially history.

It’s ancestral. Ben is a “semisemite:” He is Romanian Transylvanian Gypsy Jewish on his father’s side. So is Perry Farrell, according to Perry Farrell on Jonesy’s Jukebox so that’s where the music comes from.

Ben with pops and Grandma Sarah. Courtesy: Cherie

Ben’s grandma Sarah played theater organs during the silent era, which was a pretty good gig during the Roaring Twenties and the Depression.

Ben played violin as a kid and tried to play drums as a teenager but he learned from his brothers that you’ve either got it or you don’t - and Ben didn’t, although writing might be a derivation of the music brain.

These three played at Moss Beach Distillery for many many years.

Ben’s father Marc played clarinet, saxophone and piano. His trio Naturally Fermented played weekends at the Moss Beach Distillery for many years - a couple miles away from Mavericks.

His brother Dan played trombone with Ray Charles for many years: “Until I got tired of playing Georgia.”

Ben’s brother Mike was a monster bass player during the Jaco/Stanley Clarke/Sting/Tower of Power era. Michael had serious chops and was essentially stolen from Half Moon Bay by the Berkeley High Jazz Band - who regularly won the high school jazz competition and were the house band at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

A buncha high school kids shouldn’t have been able to swing like that, but they were polished and pro and backed a lot of jazz greats.

Marcus Power Trio: Michael, pops, Dan. Photo courtesy Cherie.

That’s the artistic Marcus/Josephson Romanian/Transylvanian gypsy Jew side.

Ben always thought the writing thing came from the Jewish side but that’s wrong. Ben’s his mother Sue is a Tuttle/Schafer - German/Welsh and the Schafer side is where Ben got his weird, fact-filled, encyclopedic, Jeopardy!-shit-kicking brain.

The Tuttle side is where he got his weird, crossword-puzzle-creating brain.

Nope that’s not Prince. Karl Marx was a sharp-looking dude when he was younger. So was Ben, for that matter.

Ben’s great great grandfather Mathias Schafer was best bros with Karl Marx at Kaiser Wilhelm Gymnasium in Trier, Germany circa 1835. They exchanged correspondence for years and Mathias had stacks of letters that now sell for as much as $678,000 each in the modern world.

Like a lot of folks in the 19th Century, Matthias didn’t dig the jive Marx was laying down and at some point mid-Century he burned all Marx’ letters. All of them. Stacks. Million$$$. Oops.

Joseph Schafer. In 2010, the Wisconsin Historical Society contacted Ben - as a former editor of SURFER Magazine - to write a blurb about a book by one of their members about surfing in Sheboygan. Ben said he’d be glad to do it, but asked if they knew who Joseph Schafer was. They said, “Sure, we walk by his portrait every day!” Ben said, “That’s my grandfather.” They weren’t expecting that.

Mathias emigrated to Wisconsin and had a lot of children, one of whom was Joseph Schafer, who became a noted historian who wrote a lot of books about the history of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest and agriculture in America. Joseph Schafer taught history at University of Oregon for a couple of decades. There’s a building named for him at U of Oregon: Schafer Hall.

Joseph went back to Wisconsin and was director of the Wisconsin Historical Society for many years.

“That’s the brain they gave me!” Ben says in Spicoli-speak. The writing and history brain. Sit with him and watch Jeopardy! some day.

That’s the Schafer side. The Tuttle side were pretty brainy. Ben’s great uncle Fordyce was VP of Kodak in the 1930s and 1940s and was head of Optical Physics for the National Defense Research Committee - the agency that developed the atomic bomb and other ultraviolent implements of mass destruction.

It appears Fordyce Tuttle played a significant role in the evolution of modern photography, with patents for the telescoping tripod leg, transparency mounting, the slide projector and also movie cameras.

So the next time your camera falls over in the sand, you may curse Ben’s ancestors.

Great Uncle Fordyce top left representin’ Kodak R&D with a crew of Navy brass. According to a biography for the Evansville, Wisconsin Historic Society: “*For his work during the war he received three government awards, including the Presidential Certificate of Merit.*
In 1943 he was made Kodak’s superintendent of special products in camera works. In 1945, he was named general superintendent of the Navy Ordinance Division and general superintendent of development and engineering for Camera Works.

In addition to his work with the National Defense Research Committee, Fordyce Tuttle also served in the U. S. Naval Bureau of Ordinance during World War II.

For his work as Chairman of the National Security Industrial Associations’ anti-submarine warfare advisory committee, he was awarded the highest civilian medal the Navy offers. The Navy gave him a Citation of Merit in 1960. In 1962, he was given the Distinguished Public Service Award for his work in anti-submarine warfare technology.”

**Did Grandpa Clifton film this Trinity Test explosion using a high-speed camera? Maybe. In 1969 in Pittsfield, Mass he told us the first test scared the shit out of him.**
**It’s one thing to understand this power on paper - another thing to see the fireball and the mushroom cloud. Grandpa Clifton extrapolated and it didn’t add up to anything good.**

Ben’s grandfather Clifton also worked for Kodak and was part of the Manhattan Project - possibly working high-speed cameras at Trinity and other tests. Clifton was also a code-breaker who was part of the team to crack the Japanese Naval Purple Code during World War II. That lead to victory at the Battle of Midway, then Victory in the Pacific and then Victory over Japan.

A custom crossword for a well-known actress. Her parents did the London Times crossword every day and they loved this. Sent Ben a thank you note. This hung in the actress’ dressing room for *Hot in Cleveland* for the duration of that show.

Ben never understood why he was good at making crossword puzzles about people, places and things, and then he read a book on code breakers and learned that during World War II, the London Times and New York Times would hold crossword puzzle contests. The winners were contacted by the intelligence services to become code breakers. So the code-breaking brain is the crossword brain - so there you go. Another mystery solved. Ben has made custom crosswords for a Google exec, surfing champions, a couple of actresses and even some non-famous peoples.

4/300+ PATENTS OF FORDYCE AND CLIFTON TUTTLE.

Telescoping tripod leg - 1937

Processing of Photographic Film - 1957

Underwater Recon System - 1970

Transparency mounting - 1936

**Ben and Barbara Holser in Santa Cruz circa 1974.**

With all that potentially great DNA bubbling in Ben’s Gulliver, Ben’s parents divorced and he moved to Santa Cruz with his mother in 1972 and proceeded to utilize bugger all of that potential. Instead, he became a surfer. In Santa Cruz. In the 1970s. A blast. Ben considers himself lucky to have been a surfer in Santa Cruz in the 1970s - walking from Seventh Avenue to Cowells every day with his Haut long board, crossing the train bridge the vampires dropped from in The Lost Boys - looking down on a San Lorenzo River that was chockablock with steelhead.(The longer version of The Lost Boys story he wrote for Fly Fish Journal can be seen on this website.)

Styling on Hobie Super Surfer clay wheels. Photo: Mom.

In the early 1970s, the Boardwalk was a wonderland of Hells Angels and Black Panthers - Soul Train on one side, The Wild One on the other.

Mysterious and frightening to a 12 year old, super bad in retrospect.

All this to a soundtrack of Neil Young, Steely Dan, Elton John, David Bowie, Phoebe Snow, Dan Hicks, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Led Zeppelin, Minnie Ripperton, Al Green, Ohio Players and Super Bad, Soulsational Sounds of the 70s. Joe Simon!

**The second SURFER Dog - rascals on the roof. I’m amazed and grateful that propane tank never fell off or exploded.**

From the 70s into the 80s Ben ran a hot dog business on Seabright Beach, called Surfer Dog. Some still remember it. For one cool summer, Neil Young lived in a house on the cliff just above Surfer Dog, and he would play his guitar in the afternoon.

Santa Cruz in the 70s was smoking a big reefer of $15 an ounce loco weed down in the Yacht Harbor with Eric Weber and Tor Johnson, then staggering up to the Santa Cruz Yacht Club where Neil Young was playing with Ducks - and screaming "Play Homegrown, dude!"

Part of Ben's problem is he grew up in Santa Cruz in the 1970s - nothing since has compared for sheer coolness. And just feeling good.

A long time ago, in a decade far far away, Ben helped legend surfer/skater Kevin Reed with a history paper for high school. Kevin repaid the favor by taking a photo of Ben skateboarding at Liptons in west Santa Cruz. That photo made it to the back of *Anybody’s Skateboard Book* - the first book of the urethane revolution.

Ben barely graduated from Harbor High in 1978, then kind of went to college at UC Santa Cruz and Berkeley. He was at Berkeley for the infamous John Elway lateral play in 1982. In retrospect he should have stuck with computer science and got filthy rich changing the world and lived in Atherton with a beach house in Santa Cruz - but he didn’t want all that code cluttering up his Gulliver.

Still doesn’t. At the time, he just wanted to surf.

Be careful what you wish for.

In 1980 Ben went to Hawaii + Fiji + Australia + New Zealand: drank kava with a cannibal in Nadarivatu, Fiji. In Australia got lost in the Queensland outback trying to hitchhike to Carnarvon Gorge National Park, fished the Thredbo River where it flowed into Lake Jindabyne. In New Zealand he got good waves at Shipwreck Bay and Raglan and saw sharks in both places. Ben worked on a sheep station near Taihape and drank mass quantities of DB.

He surfed and traveled through the 1980s and continued to kind of go to school - but he found it hard to concentrate with the world bubbling outside.

Inspired by all the ragging on American “gridiron” football from the raggedy Australians Ben met and traveled and raged with in Europe and Australia, he went to Texas in 1989 to write a screenplay about a young Australian rugby player who spends his last year of high school on a Brahma stud in Texas. He went to Texas to write it and ended up getting hired at SURFER Magazine. Weird.

Then in 1989 while in Texas trying to write a movie about high school football, Ben wrote a story about surfing in Mundaka, Spain called You Wouldn't Read About It.

**Surfer paid $450 for this 3,000+ word story, then hired Ben as an editor. It's still a buzz to get paid for writing. Even if it's eventually.**

He submitted the story to SURFER Magazine. They ran the story, paid him $450, and then hired Ben as an editor.

At the time, Santa Cruz and southern California seemed like universes away from each other. Ben drove a VW Rabbit to San Clemente, to start working at SURFER Magazine with the intention of "putting Santa Cruz and northern California on the surfing map."

Beyond his wildest dreams, Ben had a hand in that in 1990 when he wrote the first article on Mavericks called Cold Sweat - title by Steve Hawk, art design by David Carson.

It was because of his parents' divorce and Surfer Dog the Mavericks media thing happened.

In the 1970s, Ben's father Marc lived at the end of Airport Road in El Granada - about a mile from Mavericks and Ben used to see the place break while riding his motorcycle north of Pillar Point: "Like a T Rex bellowing at the bottom of a big valley."

**Santa Cruz State Lifeguard Jay Butki wearing an authentic Surfer Dog “Dog Ball” baseball hat.**

In the early 1980s, Surfer Dog sponsored a baseball team and one of the lifeguards who played on the team was Tom Powers - one of the two guys Jeff Clark took to Mavericks in 1990 and gave them a glimpse of the New Golgotha off Pillar Point.

Four of the Castle Beach lifeguards who played on Team Surfer Dog won commendations for rescuing at bodyboarder who was in deep kimchi off Black’s Point in the 1970s.

When Powers showed Ben a scratchy VHS of that spot off Pillar Point at a trade show, it was Ben's job to call Jeff Clark about the spot.

Ben established his “Pumpkin Cred” with Clark. Turns out he had played trombone in the Half Moon Bay High band with Ben’s brother Dan under Mr. Macsems. Once Clark kinda trusted him, Ben said it was up to Clark whether to keep it quiet or open Pandora's Media Box.

Clark said, "Mavericks will take care of itself," and that, for the most part, has come true.

Perfect title by Steve Hawk, tasty, mood-appropriate layout by Dave Carson, words by Ben. A big deal at the time, boy howdy. — *Perfect* title by Steve Hawk, *tasty,* mood-appropriate layout by Dave Carson, words by Ben. A big deal at the time, boy howdy.

Mavericks changed everything in the world of big-wave surfing. Ben worked at SURFER for 10 years - brainstorming, writing and editing 120 issues of the magazine.

He is proudest of the Cold Sweat story and also for dreaming up the SURFER Magazine Surf Video Awards in 1996. The first one was a loud, sweaty rowdy night. Ben hosted it and when he cracked a joke or there was a funny clip, Ben could feel the concussion of a room full of people howling with laughter. A buzz.

Halfway through the show, Brock Little came back bubbling: “It’s over the top! You’re killing it!” That was rewarding.

Ben produced the show from 1996 - 1999 and they were still going until 2020, when SURFER Magazine (RIP) went the way of the dodo and Blockbuster.

The SURFER Magazine Surf Video Awards probably inspired the K2/Billabong/WSL XXL Big Wave Awards, although Bill Sharp will foul that off.

**Ben’s office at SURFER Magazine when he first started there - when records were still vinyl, Kodak still sold K64 film and computers were Apple 2s.**
**The photo partially hidden by the record player is Ben on drugs shaking hands with Governor Jerry Brown at Big Basin State Park circa 1976. The 70s were fun. Photo: Michael Goldman.**

During the SURFER Magazine years, Ben tried to emulate his pop’s beard.

Ben went to Hawaii with that thing and when Brock Little saw it, he said “Oh I thought you were Ken Bradshaw until I saw your arms!!”

Shoots.

When Ben started at SURFER he was a young guy who was traveling the world and wanted to write. He came in under the Pezman/Warshaw/Holmes/Divine/Girard regime, and that was a good regime which transitioned into the Hawk/ Casimingle/Carson/Divine regime, which also was cool.

But after 10 years of working in an office in Orange Fricking County Ben realized he had become a guy working in an office every day in Orange Fricking County.

He had a beautiful house and a beautiful wife and he asked himself: "Well, how did I get here?"

Ben was bored and restless and pined for the greenery and steelhead of NorCal - which had indeed become more than a little famous - and the uncertain mysteries of the road.

Ben said au revoir by punching an ad salesman who would soon become publisher.

The house on Calle Monserrat in San Clemente. Two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. White leather furniture inspired by the home of Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction. 65" big-screen TV on which I watched the North Hollywood bank robbery go … — The house on Calle Monserrat in San Clemente. Two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. White leather furniture inspired by the home of Marcellus Wallace in *Pulp Fiction*. 65" big-screen TV on which I watched the North Hollywood bank robbery go down live. A very nice house, especially when you're looking at it 20 years later,on the verge of homelessness. Photo: Ben Marcus.

Ben would like to apologize for profoundly inconveniencing, disrupting, hurting his wife Joanne Ottone by making her sell the fancy house they lived in and forced a move to Tiburon, which is a nice place.

After SURFER and a divorce (Joanne is AOK, she has a nice husband and a lovely boy named Jack and lives in the suburbs of Walnut Creek), Ben took up the life of a lost, depressed, wandering, vagabond writer, living out of his van and traveling to Alaska twice - once with a Norwegian Forest Cat named Ike, a gift from Greg Noll - all through Montana and the west and eventually ending up in Malibu in 2003.

One of the stories Ben is proud of is Undaunted Hospitality about The Sacajawea Hotel in Three Forks, Montana, for Big Sky Journal. Apparently everyone in Montana has read it.

On the road to Alaska, sitting on a surfboard and next to a 12-gauge shotgun with rifled slugs. This is Ike, the Norwegian Forest Cat: Adventurer, mouser, tree-climber, spelunker, raconteur, ready for anything and down for whatever. A gift from Greg… — On the road to Alaska, sitting on a surfboard and next to a 12-gauge shotgun with rifled slugs. This is Ike, the Norwegian Forest Cat: Adventurer, mouser, tree-climber, spelunker, raconteur, ready for anything and down for whatever. A gift from Greg and Laura Noll and really, quite an extraordinary cat. A little bit Sylvester, a little bit Pepe le Peu. Charming rascal and a survivor. Way more than nine lives. Photo: Ben Marcus.

Ben went to Malibu to write a book about surf wax for Jefferson "Zuma Jay" Wagner and ended up living in Malibu on and off for the next 20 years, surviving three giant brushfires, writing a couple dozen books and producing a highly-regarded series on Malibu history for Malibu Magazine called Chumash to Hard Cash. He also wrote Arcadia's Images of America: Malibu - a book that is like a magic wand in Malibu, and has allowed Ben to go to dinner with billionaires and Oscar winners.

A very popular book around Malibu. A lot of high fives from billionaires and Oscar winners and civilians, too. Ben signed one for Katharine Ross, Melissa Rivers, Leonard Maltin and Anthony Kiedis' mom. Perfect cover choice by the publisher, and an e… — A very popular book around Malibu. A lot of high fives from billionaires and Oscar winners and civilians, too. Ben signed one for Katharine Ross, Melissa Rivers, Leonard Maltin, Ed Harris & Amy Madigan and Anthony Keidis' mom.
**Perfect cover choice by the publisher, and an epic array of archival Malibu photos from Marc Wanamaker at Bison Archives**.

Ben wanted to follow in the footsteps of John Milius and Chris Carter and write for Hollywood. While in Malibu he wrote several TV pilots and screenplays - one of which actually got produced, although the producers forgot to credit or compensate Ben. Long story. The movie lost tens of millions of dollars, so no attorney would take the case = nothing to gain.

Again, Ben thought it wise to leave Malibu after getting in a fight with the worst local at First Point.

Ben is not a violent man, he just doesn't like snotty surfer dickheads who inspire him to start throwing haymakers.

After leaving Malibu that time, Ben wandered from Santa Cruz to Seattle to Waikiki - the miracle of Internet communications allowing Ben to work from the road - a lifestyle he enjoys, as this is an interesting world we live in.

Ben is not entirely comfortable in this world or in his own skin, but he still is fascinated by it - the world, not his skin - is motivated almost entirely by intellectual curiosity and wants to see and understand it all.

This website was put together while Ben was living on a boat in Kewalo Basin in February of 2016. He's thinking of bolting, but doesn't know where to go.

While living in Hawaii, Ben has been asked to leave by both the Harbor Pub and Snappers. He has gotten by, kind of, by ghost-writing a book for surfboard shaper Marc Andreini, editing Standup Paddle Magazine and Samata Magazine, writing for Popzette.com, editing work for The Atlas Society and writing freelance stories for magazines from Japan to France.

The French version of The Skateboard. Tres cool cover. Wish they had redesigned the whole thing. Wish it had won the 3000 Euros. — The French version of *The Skateboard*. *Tres cool* cover. Wish they had redesigned the whole thing. Wish it had won the 3000 Euros.

While in Hawaii in 2016, Ben was emailed by the Sportel Awards in France, telling him his book Skateboard - de la Rue a la Rampe had been nominated for Book of the Year - and they were going to fly Ben to Monaco and put him up in the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel. (A scam? Nope. For reals.)

That was fine with Ben, except he had never written a French skateboard book. Turns out the American publisher of Skateboard: The Good, the Rad and the Gnarly had translated his book into French - and neglected to tell Ben - who did not fly from Hawaii to Monaco, but sent photographer Lucia Griggi instead. That's how weird it is to be writing books these days.

Ben spent a great deal of time in Hawaii, sitting at L and L Hawaiian in Ala Moana Beach Park working on Women Who Surf - profiles of 17 women surfers. That book was published in the middle of May 2017, and there was much rejoicing.

The charming and glamorous Mercedes Maidana and the strikingly tall and way pregnant Wrenna Delgado stand with their fresh copies of Women Who Surf at Three Tables, North Shore, Oahu. Photo: Ben Marcus — The charming and glamorous Mercedes Maidana and the strikingly tall and *way* pregnant Wrenna Delgado stand with their fresh copies of *Women Who Surf* at Three Tables, North Shore, Oahu. Photo: Ben Marcus

In Hawaii Ben also guided a book for shaper Marc Andreini and advised on a scrapbook for Buzzy Kerbox - both of which turned out pretty cool.

Buzzy doing the Robert Palmer thing with three friends, somewhere out in the desert. If it all seems glamorous.... well, it was. Photo courtesy Buzzy Kerbox.

Ben would like to thank the charming and talented Vanessa Siravo for motivating him to fix this website and display his wares. This biography was updated on May 21, 2017, while poaching WiFi at Foodland Farms in the Ala Moana Shopping Center, listening to 1973 Hits on Pandora and getting all wistful. When Ben figures out how to properly resize photos, this will look better. Thanks for reading.

Update 2018: As of September 2018, Ben is back in Santa Cruz, enjoying the fall weather, hoping to see someone he recognizes and working on a variety of projects for The Atlas Society, MERGE4, EnVont, The Local Malibu and a book project with Vicky Durand, whose mother Betty was a pioneering Makaha surfer in the 1950s.

He’s also been busy writing snotty rebuttals to short-sellers trying to take down Elon Musk, and surfers who sneer at the Kelly Slater Wave Co facility in Lemoore, California.

2023 Update: Ben tweaked this bio on 3-6-2023 while sitting at Broad Street Oyster and waiting to go to work. (Five guys on choppers just pulled up which makes Ben pine for the days he was learning to surf, walking by the Santa Cruz Boardwalk looking tremulously at the Hells Angels hanging out at Big Al’s Pizza. He suggested they try Highway 25 - the Airline Highway)

Ben is now a poor struggling writer squeaking by in Malibu relying on the kindness of patient people. But he’s not the first: F Scott Fitzgerald was also a struggling writer in the 1930s living in Malibu. There’s a book and a movie about that period: Beloved Infidel. Malibu in the 1930s was uncomfortable for F. Scott Fitzgerald too because everyone thought he was dead.

Ben squeaks by helping people like Rabbi Shifren and Dave Olan edit and produce their books. He has written a pilot and Show Bible for a TV show called Malibu Fire - about a small fire station in Malibu and all the weird situations they deal with by land, sea and air.

He plays the Lottery irrationally religiously and wants to buy a Ford F150 Lightning because he believes electric vehicles are the future.

Ben wastes a lot of time arguing with short-sighted nattering nabobs of negativism online quite often - like all the time. And hopes this doesn’t come back to bite him.

He is also working on an ambitious book on Malibu History called Chumash to Hard Cash, a possible masterpiece that has been delayed by Covid and other things.

Ben with his first surfboard - a Haut - and his younger brother Michael. Seabright area of Santa Cruz, circa 1972. Photo: Mom.

Ben Marcus

Born in San Francisco on August 28, 1960 to Marc and Sue Marcus. Two brothers, Daniel and Michael. Married twice - to Joanne Ottone and Ania Divina - currently single.

Prefers Ford to Chevys, Led Zeppelin, The Police, the 1970s in general, Pizza My Heart, Paula's Cafe in Santa Cruz, the San Francisco baseball Giants, the San Francisco 49ers, New York steaks, pretty girls, decent people, honesty, integrity, proper spelling and punctuation, travel, fishing, standup paddling.

Democrat but understands Democractic Socialism isn't evil because he has been to Norway and seen it work.

Ben has also traveled to 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.

Clients

Surfer Magazine, Surfer's Journal, M Nii, Wave House, Wave Loch, Watershot Photography, Lucia Griggi, M Nii clothing, Gotcha, Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center, Falcon Guides, Voyageur Press, Schiffer Books, Paramount Pictures, Malibu Magazine, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Fly Fish Journal, Nalu Japan, Surf Session France, Surfers Germany, Alma Surf Brazil.