As I consider the styles of Malibu from clothing fashion to architectural design to fine automobiles, I see everything from wetsuits on the red carpet to Nick Nolte wearing a bathrobe and pajamas in the supermarket. Once upon a time when Madonna lived in Malibu with Sean Penn, she would wear her underwear on the outside of her clothes. Lady Gaga, often spotted on the beach in Malibu, wore a raw slab of beef on stage. A genuine Flintstones’ architectural home sits in the Malibu mountains near a $6-million two-story home with a stainless-steel Ferris wheel as the main living room attached to a spaceship-like structure that one may expect to see on another planet.
The current architectural rage is a 20,000-square-foot concrete structure that took 50 cement trucks to build with 40 bathrooms for a family of four replete with tennis courts, swimming pools and a Jacuzzi on the roof and a full-blown movie theater underground. I remember seeing Jerry Weintraub’s “Blue Heaven” smart home Crestron system where you could pull up a floor plan of any room in the house and remotely control everything, from lights, temperature and surround sound music to the channel on your TV. This “style,” of course, is not exclusive to Malibu but appears to be an unstoppable trend.
While considering the various styles of all things Malibu, I also see many choices in the style of “toys” and entertainment—electric Lambos, Mercedes motor homes, Volkswagen limousines, BMW golfcarts and a $500,000 canary diamond ring flaunted by a woman in the post office. Depending on your taste for entertainment style, you can find both these forms simultaneously. While taking an evening stroll down the beach, you’ll see people watching CNN or a horror movie in their beach mansion bedroom on your right, while to the left and above, the full moon is out, stars shine and sandpipers chirp divinely as they dance along the shoreline. It’s funny how our mind’s idea of “entertainment” is in reality the mind itself vying for the spotlight of our attention by taking our focus outside, away from our authentic selves, which ironically can be the most exhilarating entertainment.
I remember walking with a friend into a swanky clothing store in Malibu and bursting out laughing when I saw a pair of sneakers for $900 and cotton short sleeve t-shirts for $300. Maybe I should take a cue and sell Mr. Malibu driftwood for $25K? Anywho, it is all either meaningless or justified depending on how one perceives it, and it’s all relative. If we are focusing on prices after all to decide if we want to play the Malibu style game, it helps to consider how the value of money even began.
The first historically documented form of money was in Sierra Leone, Africa, where a large boulder could buy a wife. Today, money can be nothing more than digits in a flash drive. During the Dutch tulip bulb craze in the 1600s, you could secure a loan for a home with the right tulip bulbs. Today, wild claims of a digital piece of art (known as an NFT) titled the “First 5000 Days” sold for a purported $69.3 million. The only way an NFT can be shared with friends is by texting or emailing a picture of it, as it has no physical reality—from boulders to invisible intangible digits of imagination—all imaginary values that we collectively assign.
Come to think of it, if my own thoughts are a “style,” I may figure out how to sell “Mr. Malibu Thoughts” happening in real time! Researchers at the University of Texas claim to have built a “decoder” algorithm that can reconstruct what somebody is thinking just by monitoring their brain activity using an ordinary fMRI scanner, The Scientist reports. Should one be worried about A.I. taking over the world, this ought to fuel the fire! You can almost see the next thinking style: Think thoughts that can’t be detected.
Back to Earth and life in Malibu, “style” is not all that ethereal by any means. I would like to share a free form montage that expresses what I see as examples of Malibu style:
Flashy sparkle waves and electric blue cobalt skies are patterns for shirts, dresses, blouses and sweaters. Style itself can be redefined by the perfectly chaotic sand ripples and pervasive golden sunshine shimmering on glassy waters as the stage for the electrifying tango of whales, pelicans and dolphins. Stunning styles strike admirers of serene sunsets with elegant puffy clouds and wisps of bright pink and fire red ease concerned minds as we’re reminded of a power that created this entire light show. A party with stylish enjoyers of the moment wear emerald velvet evening gowns and royal red velvet dinner jackets and logo-less loafers while sipping champagne-like organics on the deck overlooking the crashing waves below. Casual elegance draws in a feeling of relaxing laughter and whimsical doodles in the sand as groups of camaraderie saunter down the warm breezy beach with dolphins leaping for joy in full ariel flight and rocketing through the crystal green waves like playful extraterrestrials who have come to teach us how we too can dance. A vivacious magnetic woman in soft white cashmere pants with sparkly gold stars like Tinkerbell’s wand with a royal blue silk long sleeve elegant top is seen skipping along the low tide in the evening golden glow. The sound of the waves rolling in a hypnotic rhythm caress the ears to our soul like a gentle angel would inspire us to feel. The sound of seagulls’ singing in a peaceful flight and silky breezes wrap around us like a divine comforter of mystic magic bring tranquil hints of enthralling emotional elegance steeped in simplicity and beaming with infinitely expanding designs of the ultimate Malibu artist.
Mr. Malibu’s high-profile events and celebrity interviews reach over 22 million on television, 500,000 via social media and nearly 4 million on YouTube. Visit MrMalibu.net to learn more. Look for more Mr. Malibu chapters in next month’s issue.
