Ben Marcus Rules

“It’s the same old story, yeah. Everywhere I go, I feel slandered. Libeled. I hear words I never heard in the Bible. And I'm one step ahead of the shoeshine Two steps away from the county line Just trying to keep my customers satisfied. Satisfied.”

• Keep the Customer Satisfied (1970) - Simon and Garfunkel

Is Malibu Blue? The sun is up, the sky is blue, the ocean beautifully reflects that blue sky, so the ocean is blue. But politically, what color is Malibu? One would think that a small, prosperous surfer/beach town on the feral edge of a Blue county in a Blue state, populated by accomplished showbiz creative types and musicians would color itself Blue, liberal, democrat, even dabble in socialism.
Malibu is Rob Reiner, Beyonce/Jay-Z, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks and not Roseanne Barr, Ted Nugent, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jon Voight or James Woods.

Malibu residents Kelsey Grammer and Caitlyn Jenner identify as Conservative. Kid Rock lived in Malibu from 2006 to 2017 then took a $9,700,000 loss on his Point Dume compound and moved back to Michigan, where Rock is now almost as Red as Ted Nugent.

But Malibu is rich, and that creates a situation. According to census.gov, Malibu’s Median Household Income is $186,095 and the Per Capita Income is $120,975, in a county where the Per Capita Income was $74,172 in 2022 and the 2022 California state Per Capita Income was $77,230. According to Realtor.com, the Median Listing Home Price in Malibu is $6,900,000 (!), in a county where that number is $1,200,000 and $980,000 for all of California.

(And to save you from diverting your attention from this story to look it up, the Top 10 Per Capita Income by country according to VisualCapitalist.com are: Luxembourg $128,820, Ireland (!) $106,998, Switzerland $94,835, Qatar $89,417, Norway $88,749, Singapore $84,501, United States $78,422, Iceland $77,961, Australia $68,024 and Denmark $66,394.)

So yes, Malibu is definitely Green, but does it lean toward Blue or Red? Wealth has its privileges and allowances, but also its dilemnas, conundrums, choices.

The problem of being wealthy and liberal was explained to me years ago by a local man - now departed - who we’ll identify as O (RIP 1932 - 2016). This is a Moses-looking man who in the 1970s had the foresight to make what is considered one of the 10 Smartest Business Deals in American Sports History.

You can find it in detail on Wikipedia, but to make a long story short: In 1976, when the American Basketball Association rolled into the National Basketball Association, only four of the seven ABA teams would make the cut, so the three owners losing their teams had to be compensated. 

According to Wikipedia: “Of the seven teams that finished the final ABA season, the NBA would only accept 4 in the merger. The Virginia Squires folded shortly after the season. The Colonels negotiated a $3.3 million (equivalent to $17 million in 2022) buyout from the remaining ABA teams. However, the Spirits held out for more and in June 1976, the owners of the four merging ABA teams, the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets and the San Antonio Spurs, agreed to pay the St. Louis owners $2.2 million (equivalent to $11.3 million in 2022) in cash up front and an additional 1/7 share of each of the four remaining teams' television broadcast revenue "for as long as the NBA or its successors continues in its existence" in return for the Spirits folding.”

In other words: In perpetuity. In another word: Kaching!

The deal netted $30,000,000 for O and his brother and their attorney from 1976 to 2014. The owners of those former ABA teams grew weary of writing those multi-million checks every year and they yearned to break an unbreakable deal. Finally in 2014 there was a deal for $500,000,000 to buy those “television broadcast revenue” rights which had morphed into netting O and Co more than $17,000,000 a year for doing bupkiss but patting themselves on the back for being so clever - having such vision.

So what? So O’s deal made $800,000,000 over 38 years for doing bupkis but pick up checks and deposit them. A conversation with O at the Malibu Starbucks near Ralph’s netted a hint at the conundrums faced by the rich and famous and anonymously wealthy of Malibu: “I’m rich,” O said, with no kvelling or arrogance, just stating fact. “But I’m so liberal, I think Clinton is conservative. My problem is, every time we get a Republican president, I get richer!”

White people problems. Malibu problems. 21st Century 1%er problems.

So is Malibu Red? Or Blue?

Purple?

There was a test of that during the last week of January, 2024.

F bombs flying in the winter wind. Vulgarities printed on buttons and clothes. Passersby shouting out “MAGA!” or “Nazis!” And two guys grifting easy dough.

For three days on the other side of that late-January rain, two enTrumpeneurial chaps set up a card table and tents and flew pro-Trump/anti-Biden banners - pro as in profane - and were selling pro-Red and anti-Blue hats, stickers and shirts right there in the open, on the corner of Webb Way and PCH, on the corner near the sign for Malibu Colony Plaza.

The banners, oddly, were printed on Blue but made some people see Red: 

FUCK BIDEN AND FUCK YOU FOR VOTING FOR HIM

TRUMP 2024

LET’S GO BRANDON

TRUMP 2024 AND FUCK YOUR FEELINGS

Charming! These sentiments are something you might see flapping from a caravan of trucks from elsewhere parading along PCH on a weekend - briefly shooting through town before heading back to elsewhere - but definitely not something you see every day in the Malibu: One doesnt see street vendors in general and certainly not street vendors selling Red merch in a wealthy city that many feel is as politically Blue as the Pacific Ocean reflecting that blue sky on a perfect January afternoon.

(In case you were searching for more mind-twisting stats, California voted 11,110,250 (63.48%) for Biden, and 6,006,429 (34.32%) for Trump. Los Angeles County voted 3,028,885 (71.04%) for Biden to 1,145,530 (26.87%) for Trump.

In Malibu, for the 2020 election, of the 8609 registered voters, there were 7063 votes cast for a respectable 82.04% turnout. Of those, 4585 votes went to Joseph Biden, while Trump got 2206.

So based on the 2020 presidential election, Malibu is MalibuBlue.

So it was more than a little out of whack to see two guys - one of them double redoubling the horror by wearing a 49er cap!!!!! - sitting, standing, talking in and around a pop-up tent and tables selling pro-Trump/red, anti-Biden/blue merch.

During the summer of 2023, my friends David and Victoria rode their tandem bike from Berkeley, California to New York City, right up the middle. They said that from the Central Valley to the Appalachians and beyond, America is Trump Country. They were not hassled or harassed for being from California, but they were surprised to see countless firework-like stands selling Trump merch all across this great land. A lot of them.

With that in mind, a nosy kitty cat was inspired to mosey over and get the scoop on Who, What, How Much, Why and other questions about the wisdom of setting up a Trump merch stand in MaliBlue.

On Thursday and Friday, January 25 and 26, your correspondent spent some time with the two dudes he dubbed “The MerchEnaries.” Wanting to ingratiate and earn their trust, Your Humble Narrator borrowed a quick $40 from a Blue friend who wishes to remain anonymous.

An easy way in was two buttons for $5. Buttons are fun, so that bought six buttons with charming messages:

“TRAITOR JOES: Army Surplus” with an image of a younger-looking Biden flanked by two helicopters. Probably a reference to Biden’s Choice - in the opinion of this correspondent - his wise, decisive withdrawal from the 20-year, $2,000,000,000,000 waste of time, money and lives in Afghanistan.

Biden was criticized by nattering nabobs of negativism for leaving all that military equipment behind, by people who didn’t factor in what it would have cost in time, money and lives to exfil 20 years and thousands of tons of military gear along insecure roads with the Taliban, ISIS and everybody’s grandmother firing weapons at all the convoys and cargo planes. Biden pulled the plug on the whole bloody, godawful mess, but what some see as thrifty, others see as traitorous.

And the rest…

DEFUND THE FBI

FBOMB ME LIKE THE IRS

JOE AND THE HOE GOTTA GO

GAS PRICES HIGHER THAN HUNTER BIDEN
And of course a button with the now-famous mug shot of Trump, sneering defiantly at the camera.

Quality sentiments on quality merch - hopefully Made in America. Six buttons for $15 and they were selling t-shirts for $25 with a Buy Two Get One Free banner also flapping in the wind under the table.

The t-shirts were also sentimental and also oddly printed on Blue cloth:

FUCK BIDEN AND FUCK YOU FOR VOTING FOR HIM

AMERICA’S MOST WANTED

TRAITOR JOE

TRUMPER in the Las Vegas Raiders logo.

Didn’t get a price on the hats, but one - this one all red - was charming:

MAKE THAT MOTHERFUCKER PRESIDENT AGAIN!!!!

Yep, all that on the corner of PCH and Webb Way, in plain view of Rob and everyone.

The nosy kitty cat had questions: “Why here? Why Malibu? Why not somewhere in Orange County?”

The vendor who goes by the name of Tim said: “This is a test.”

Which made sense, because if you can make sales of Trump merch on a busy street corner on a winter afternoon in Malibu, you can make sales anywhere.

Tim freely explained their sidewalk side hustle: “Right now what we’re doing is testing the market to see if it’s not too early to come out.  Super Tuesday is March 5 so that’s right around the corner. 

“Right now we’re just popping in different places. Because right now people, they have no clue. They think ‘Well Trump’s not going to be able to be president because he’s got all these court cases and lawsuits…’ but it doesn’t matter.  There’s only two things you need to be president: Over the age of 35 and a natural-born citizen. After that you can be a convicted felon. You can be in prison. So you know a lot of people don’t understand that and people aren’t ready.”

Tim and his partner have invested many years and sweat equity crisscrossing the country, going to Trump rallies, Women’s Marches, Tulsi Gabbard rallies, sporting events, selling merchandise at dozens of pop-up stands. Some manned by these guys, others by employees: “I used to do all the rallies,” Tim said. “I’ve been to 120 Trump rallies.

“At the rallies there’s 20 or 30 other people selling the same shit. But if I’m on a corner… I’m it, you know?  So when I started doing these things on the side of the road, they were much more profitable.”

When it was suggested California has much redder counties, cities and markets than Malibu, Tim agreed:  “We had a bunch of stands in Orange County and they did very well, but really anywhere does good. As long as you have the traffic going by. It doesn't really matter how liberal it is where you’re at because if people see you - you know.”

Currently their best seller is the Traitor Joes t-shirt, but before that it was the “FUCK BIDEN AND FUCK YOU FOR VOTING FOR HIM” t-shirt.

Tim has a wife and family in Charlotte, North Carolina. He went west to a Women’s March in San Francisco in 2020 and that put the hook in him: “I had Women’s March stuff but I brought Trump merch with me and set up a little stand in Temecula. Every day for the first 10 days I did over $3500 bucks. I called my wife, I called my kids. Next thing I knew I had five stands. Later I hired a few more people and I had 10 stands. For the last four months of the election cycle, I had 40 stands and did over $4 million in gross sales. This time we’re going to have 140 stands and we’re going to do the whole state.”

Asked who “we” are, Tim pointed to a guy walking back from Subway, wearing a 49ers football cap - bless his heart. His partner, Dave: “You know why he’s wearing a Niner’s cap?” Tim asked. “Because they’re going to win the Super Bowl! As a matter of fact when we’re done here, we’re going to Vegas to do the Trump rally, and then we’re going to have about 10 49ers stands up in the Bay Area: Hats, shirts, flags. But see we already had all these permits in all these places that are already permitted so we can jump right in and go to work.

“Right now we got about 120 permits all over the state. We’ve been out measuring sidewalks - you know you gotta have a 48 inch clearance in front. We comply with the state law but a lot of these little cities think they can just write into their code shit that just goes completely against the state law. We’re not falling for that. The reason they made that law basically was for immigrants that sell flowers and fruit or whatever, but it opened it up for us, too. And we’re probably the first to actually apply for the permit here and then they tried to make it…”

When it was suggested that Malibu doesn’t make it easy to do anything, ever - that one needs an Environmental Impact Report just to pass gas within city limits - Tim agreed: “California has what they call the Safe Sidewalk Vending Act, which they passed in 2019. Where you’re allowed to vend on the sidewalk, but different cities can put different things into their code. This city is being totally unreasonable. They’re not complying with the state law at all. They tried to issue us a permit but they said: ‘No tables. No tents.’ What the hell, they want us to just throw the shit on the sidewalk? So we just said ‘You know what? Until you decide to comply with the state law, we’re not going to comply with your code.’ So we’re out here.”

Defiant! Rules-be-damned! Opportunistic! Espiritu Trumper!

Tim continued: “First of all they denied our permit like three or four times. And we said ‘Listen we’re going to be there anyway.’ And then they decided to issue the permit with all those restrictions. We dealt with the Director of Public Works, I think. My partner could tell you more than I could. He deals with all that part of it.  I deal with hiring all the people to work the stands.”

As we’re talking a car stopped at the light fixing to turn left on PCH honks their horn and gives a thumbs up and yells “MAGA!”

Tim yelled to the car: “‘Yeah, baby! We’re going to the Trump Rally in Vegas!’” 

He continued: “We hire a lot of veterans. Retired vets. They got nothing better to do all day and they like that little extra income. And they like to be out there talking with people who have the same mindset as they do.”

Surprisingly, of all the states they have visited, Tim and Dave say that California is the best state for sidewalk vending, because of SB946 (2019). But Tim has a Caveat Vendor: “It’s these swankier areas that gives us trouble. We had fun in Beverly Hills. We just set up right there on Row-day-oh Drive in front of the Gucci store and they pulled some shenanigans.”

Dave continues as he chews on a Subway sandwich: “They arrested me. Not with handcuffs. They had me do a thumbprint and sign a summons. Then I go to court and they drop everything. So it’s all a game. But we’re going to set back up there.”

At this point, a car veering right off PCH onto Webb Way honks its horn disapprovingly and the passenger leans out the window and yells “FBOMBing NAZIS!!!”

Tim fouls it off: “Thank you!”

Dave retorts: “YAHTZEE!!”

Regardless of their politics, these guys are funny, and having fun. And making bank. They remind a left-leaning Boomer of that song by Simon and Garfunkel: “It’s the same old story, yeah. Everywhere I go, I feel slandered. Libeled. I hear words I never heard in the Bible. And I'm one step ahead of the shoeshine Two steps away from the county line Just trying to keep my customers satisfied. Satisfied.”

Dave is the Legal Eagle of the team, and explains his dealings with the City of Malibu:  “I told them what my vending equipment was going to be - it was a table and a tent. But they whited all that out and I said ‘Hey you can’t do that. It’s a felony in California to alter a public document.’ They whited out what I applied for and they wrote over it about selling Trump merchandise.  And I argued, ‘You can’t alter an official document.’”

At this point, a stray puff of wind sweeps over the stand, picks up the tent a bit and flaps the FBOMB banners with great violence and furious anger. Almost like the spirit of Trump was present. The gypsy vendors are warned about the unpredictable nature of Malibu’s winds - off the ocean or out of the canyons - and they might want to batten down their hatches a bit more.

They pack up for the day, quickly and efficiently, off to wherever to do the tallies.

The MerchAnaries are back the next day, a Friday, under that same flawless January weather, blue banners flapping under all that blue sky, nothing but blue sky. 

(The Gross Neighborhood Product of Malibu Road is in the hundreds of billions, when you add up the famous like Kanye and Sandler and the rich like the Gores, Cargills, etc. Part of the reason Kanye will spend eight figures on a 3600 square foot house on the beach side of Malibu Road is the sublime winter weather in Malibu. It’s perfect, day after day. The warm sun arcs low from Carson to the Channel Islands, mixing warmth into the chill. And those winter evenings and sunsets at low tide along the beach are so money.)

LA County Sheriff's pass by that corner many times a day. Prowling in the SUVS and some of them lurk on motorcycles at the Chevron station and pop speeders like shooting barracuda in a barrel. 

Have the Deputies hassled these sidewalk vendors? Dave says: “No. Not yet.  They might, but even if they do they’re not going to do anything. We’re not moving, because it’s all decriminalized. All they can do is write me an administrative citation. That’s it.”

They can’t force you to pack up and git? “No, there’s nothing in their law that says they can confiscate. Some places like San Francisco have it in their ordinance that after four violations they can impound your stuff and confiscate it as evidence or whatever. But they don’t have that written here….”

And sure enough, that Friday afternoon, two Deputies drive up with an Asian man holding a citation pad, with what appears to be a bodyguard by his side. There is polite conversation between Tim and Dave, the two Deputies and the Citation Man and his offsider. 

Is this gonna get ugly? It doesn’t. There is polite conversation and several cars drive by, honking horns, approvingly. The Deputies talk about the Big Rock car chase incident from a few days before, and then they all depart.

Dave holds up the citation, and says: “See!?”

The details of the citation are: 

Date of Violation: 1/26/2024

Time of violation: 14:00 PM.

Location of violation: Malibu Colony Plaza/ PCH & Webb Way.

Name: Tim/Dave Brown

Business name: Refuse to provide (ID)

You are required to perform the following corrective actions within_____:  Remove all the tables and merchandise from the sidewalk. No sidewalk vending until you have a permit from the city.

Code section: 5.060.020

Description of violation: Sidewalk vending w/o permit.

Second violation: $200

Name of Citing Officer: K Truong?

I hereby acknowledge receipt of this citation: Refuse to sign.

You would think that level of disregard for law and order would merit the Deputies giving Tim and Dave the heave ho, or arresting them and throwing them in jail.

But it doesn’t. The citation is writ, and the Deputies git.

Tim and Dave seem nonplussed by the police activity as they most likely have seen it before. Many times before.

(Not to forget this is the afternoon when Trump was hit with an $83,300,000 civil judgment for slandering E Jean Carroll after he lost a $5,000,000 civil lawsuit for sexual assault. But no one stops the Trump Train.)

And then, as if acted on by an angry God, a burst of ill wind blows out of nowhere, picks up the tent poles with the banners and strews it all into the street, onto a red (!) car turning right from Webb Way into Malibu Colony Plaza.

Tim utters FBOMBs and hastens to pull his gear out of the street and anchor it better - probably worried about merch damage and/or liabilities. 

The car doesn’t stop, but Dave comes running over and they batten the hatches and make everything ship shape and Bristol Fashion, but the message is clear: The Deputies and the Gods are out to get them, so it’s time to git.

Ample sign for Tim and Dave to pack it up and they do, soon after, with the words of Simon and Garfunkel following them:

Deputy Sheriff said to me

Tell me what you come here for, boy

You better get your bags and flee

You're in trouble boy

And now you're heading into more

Next stop? That long, boring desert drive, and a Trump rally in Las Vegas. Then Super Bowl merch and Super Tuesday and beyond that? The Sex Pistols said it best: It’s all cash from chaos:

People said we couldn't play

They called us foul-mouthed yobs

But the only notes that really count

Are the ones that come in wads

They all drowned when the air turned blue

'cause we didn't give a toss

Filthy lucre, ain't nothing new

But we all get cash from the chaos

The time is right to do it now

The greatest rock'n'roll swindle

The time is right to do it now