Mugging it Up!

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Soon after the island-themed Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic’s restaurants started serving tropical island cocktails in the early 1950s, the tiki mug came on the scene.

Fun to drink out of and to take home as souvenirs, the ceramic mugs with the smiling tiki god faces became a permanent part of our culture.

Exotic and irreverent, the mugs tell of far-away lands and adventure.

They invite us to indulge in a drink and give in to escapist fantasies far from the maddening crowd.

Filled with Polynesian drinks from rum punch and Singapore slings to mai tais and zombies, the tiki mugs take us away to the South Seas.

More than just kitsch, tiki mugs are recognized as an art form now and are even displayed in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Like the American spirit itself, the tiki mug represents a feeling of optimism and a sense of endless possibilities freed from everyday conventions.

SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel love the playful tiki mugs and the gods themselves, beckoning us to merriment and mischief.

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

SurfWriter Girls

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Natural Beauty of Channel Islands

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Springtime is a great time to visit California’s Channel Islands. There are eight islands off the coast from Santa Barbara to San Diego that are wonderful to see. Called “California’s Galapagos Islands” because of their ecological diversity, they have over 2,000 animal and plant species, 145 that are unique. With cute, tiny island foxes and screechy Scrub-Jays, many are rare or endangered.

Since 1980 the Northern five islands have been designated as Channel Islands National Park. These include San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa, and Santa Barbara Island.

San Miguel. One-day trips, multi-day boat trips and overnight camping are all possible. The farthest West of the eight islands, it takes a 4-hour, 70-mile boat ride to reach it. The trip is worth it! Point Bennett, at the tip of the island, is a breeding ground for some 30,000 seals. You can also see numerous species of seabirds, dolphins, porpoises and whales, and island foxes that are smaller than a typical house cat.

Santa Rosa, the second largest of the islands, with two mountains and rolling hills, has 500 plant species, including pre-Ice age Torrey Pines that are only found in one other place in the world – San Diego. You can camp on the island and go on hikes surrounded by unique native bunchgrass and island bush monkeyflowers. There are over 100 bird species, mammals and amphibians and colonies of seabirds, seals and sea lions.

Santa Cruz is only an hour away and perfect for one-day trips or overnights, with the best weather and the most recreation activities. There are minimal services, though. There is a variety of seabirds to see, especially around Scorpion Rock.  Birdwatchers generally go to see the island Scrub-Jay, which is only found on Santa Cruz. The island also has some of the world’s largest sea caves that kayakers can explore.

Anacapa, also an hour away, is good for one-day or overnight camping trips. Its name comes from the Chumash Native Indian word Anypakh, which means mirage. Ancient shell sites show where the Chumash people lived thousands of years ago. The island’s a breeding ground for thousands of birds and California sea lions and harbor seals. A kelp forest and tide pools make it popular for kayaking, snorkeling, and diving. But, with little shade and no drinkable water, you need to bring your own provisions.

Santa Barbara, the smallest island, has impressive cliffs and one of the world’s largest colonies of rare Scripps’s Murrelets seabirds. There is an elephant seals rookery, blooming yellow flowers, and magnificent coastal views. The Horned Lark, Orange-crowned Warbler, and House Finch birds are only found on the island. One day trips and overnight camping are available, but Island Packers offers trips only from April through October.

The National Park islands are kept mostly in their natural states to preserve their ecosystems. So, it’s important to plan your visit – supplies, transportation, and lodging – because amenities vary and can be minimal. Companies providing access and tours include Island Packers, Channel Islands Expeditions, and Channel Islands Adventure Company.

Farther South are San Nicolas and San Clemente Islands (which are both used by the U.S. Navy and don’t allow visitors) and the most well-known of the islands Santa Catalina – of song and celebrity fame.

Santa Catalina Island is known for its two resort towns Avalon and Two Harbors, accessible by Catalina Express and Catalina Flyer boat service. You can also reach it by private boat, plane, or helicopter. Its charming coastal towns are perfect for relaxing getaways and the Art Deco casino in Avalon Harbor is a true showstopper, visible for miles. Nearby there’s wildlife, scuba diving, and Mt. Orizaba, the island’s highest peak.

Chewing gum magnate William Wrigley, Jr. (here on Catalina with his wife Ada) bought the island in 1919 and the Wrigley family still owns and preserves it. Home to nine endemic plant species and a thriving population of island foxes, it also has a herd of buffaloes descended from buffaloes left by a movie crew in the 1920s.

SurfWriter Girl Sunny knows Santa Catalina Island well because she’s visited it many times. She even had a job with the Santa Catalina Island Company selling tickets for island attractions on the Catalina Express boats. “The bus trips around the island and the glass bottom boat rides were really popular,” says Sunny.

Whichever islands you visit, your trip is sure to be a magical experience and a step back in time.

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

SurfWriter Girls

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Greek Philosopher’s Way to Make Decisions

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

People, through the ages, as represented in Robert Frost’s famous poem The Road Not Taken, have struggled with making decisions.

When you have a difficult decision to make or are trying to make sense of something, one of the best ways to figure things out is to use the Socratic Method – ask questions.

Named after the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates (469 – 399 B.C.), who used this technique in teaching his students, the method asks ever more pointed and challenging questions to get to the root of the matter and come up with ideas.

Much like a news reporter’s Who? What? Where? When? Why? questions to get at the heart of a story, Socratic questions help you to unearth the facts you’re looking for and to reflect on the issues that are important to you.

Rather than jumping to conclusions, ask such questions as: What am I trying to accomplish? When can I get started? Where can I do it? Who can help me? Why is this important? You can ask questions of yourself or get someone to join you in a back-and-forth dialog where you challenge each other to dig deeper into the questioning process.

SurfWriter Girls friend Linda Van Den Brink, a financial advisor (her clients call her “Ms. Life”), told us that using the Socratic Method helps her to see the different aspects of a situation and make thoughtful decisions that lead to purposeful action.

Van Den Brink also finds that the teachings of Raymond Charles Barker (1912 – 1988), a leader of the New Thought spiritual movement, are a good complement to the Socratic Method because they help to tap the creative, inspirational part of the mind. In making decisions, she says, “I am conscious that my body is vitalized by the living currents of life and my mind sets the course.”

Barker wrote in his book The Power of Decision that there is an Infinite Mind that continuously creates, “expecting us to stay curious and express its limitless potential through our own growth and expansion.” So, in addition to questioning the options we already know, Barker emphasizes tapping this expanded consciousness to explore new, outside-the-box ones.

Socrates and Barker both believed that to make good decisions we must be open to change and build trust in ourselves and our own judgment, rather than blindly accepting the status quo or popular opinion.

By combining the rational, continually questioning approach of Socrates and the intuitive, creative approach of Barker, you can utilize the best of both to successfully make decisions.

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

SurfWriter Girls

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Flying Even Higher!

When SurfWriter Girls first wrote about LA Video Drone it was just a fledgling, testing its wings to explore all the things it could do. Now one decade later, YoYo and Heather (McAndress) Bianchi have exceeded all expectations. Expanding their business and tying the knot to make it a family affair.

Drones are in the spotlight these days, doing things no one imagined. The Bianchis were there from the start, growing their business with each new technology and opportunity. SurfWriter Girls invite you to look at this story from November 2015 that shares how it all began.

Flying High and Making a Difference

A Surfrider Sponsor Story

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Up in the sky! It’s a bird…it’s a plane. No, it’s LA Video Drone.

Next time you’re in Huntington Beach, look up! There’s a chance that Surfrider Foundation sponsor LA Video Drone is on the scene. The innovative aerial drone company is often out at the beach capturing “eye in the sky” camera footage of beach activities and events.

The Los Angeles-based company is a pioneer in aerial drone photography, using the latest ultra HD 4K cameras.

Less expensive and more effective than helicopter photography, the radio-operated drones can get right in on the action, providing new perspectives and sweeping panoramas.

Covering everything from business and charity events to golf tournaments and auto races, LA Video Drone can provide whatever you need – from high resolution photos to web-ready videos; raw footage to edited formats with music and special effects. Heather McAndress, Vice President and Creative Director, explains that they can tailor their services to each client’s situation.

And now they have an even newer drone in the lineup  – the DJI Inspire 1 Pro with a Zen Muse X5 lens. “This camera is unreal – truly a game changer for the drone industry, ” says McAndress.

Film production companies are especially jazzed about what video drones can do since the nimble, flying cameras can replace costly camera setups requiring helicopters, scaffolds and towers.

Drones can be used by police and fire departments and search and rescue teams.

McAndress told SurfWriter Girls the company wants to use its resources to contribute to the community. “When we started LA Video Drone, one of our main goals was to get involved with social awareness. Right away we connected with Surfrider’s Huntington/Seal Beach Chapter because of their inspiring energy and dedication to environmental consciousness. Now we take part in their beach cleanups and events by providing both aerial and ground video coverage to help their cause.”

Chapter Chair Tony Soriano welcomes their participation, saying, “Our partner LA Video Drone gives an added dimension to our visual awareness and they continue to grow with us.”

LA Video Drone photography took viewers right on board the kayaks with Surfrider volunteers cleaning up Huntington Harbor.

Drone technology that once seemed fantastical is unfolding before our eyes. As they say in science fiction stories, “The future is now.”  And, LA Video Drone is right at the vanguard, leading the charge.

Heather and YoYo – Congratulations on 10 Amazing Years!

The sky’s the limit!

Follow @LAVideoDrone on Instagram.

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

SurfWriter Girls

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Pictures of Golden State Sold Oranges and Dreams

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Art isn’t just something you see in a book or a museum. It’s a part of our everyday lives and can emerge out of the humblest circumstances when you least expect it…even in an orange grove.

Orange crate art – the colorful scenes of idyllic orange groves, panoramic fields and mountains, and the people picking the fruit – was created to sell California oranges across the nation in the 1880s when the expanding transcontinental railroad routes began connecting the West and East.

What started as a simple marketing tool to identify one grower’s oranges from the rest, not only built the produce industry, but attracted people from every corner of the U.S. to the Golden State to experience the California Dream.

The bright paper packing labels, glued onto orange crates that were shipped to buyers, weren’t thought of as art or anything to be saved. They were just a profitable way to draw attention to each farm’s produce.

What helped to make the vivid labels possible was the development of the lithographic printing process and specialty inks – often with secret formulas guarded by the designers.

SurfWriter Girl Patti is especially fond of orange crate art because it reminds her of special days at her grandmother’s house in Santa Ana when she and her sister Eileen would run into the orange grove behind the house, zig zagging around the smudge pots, to pick oranges from the trees.

“Grandma gave us each a large, brown grocery bag and we would fill it to the top with fresh-picked oranges,” says Patti. “We’d always take home bags full of oranges and grandma would make us orange juice, squeezed by hand in an orange juice squeezer.”

“There were so many orange trees out back that growers from local co-ops would come each year to pick them, paying grandma for each box,” Patti recalls. “You can still see the original Sunkist Orange County Fruit Exchange building on nearby Glassell Street in Orange.”

By the late 1950s orange crates were replaced with less-expensive cardboard boxes and the artistic labels were discontinued, a victim of cost-saving and modernization. For the most part, people forgot about the labels and their romanticized odes to the California dream.

But a few collectors recognized the labels’ artistic value and preserved the fragile paper advertisements for future generations to enjoy. And later, in the 1960s and 1970s, some treasure troves of forgotten orange crate labels were discovered in printers’ shops and stashed away in packing warehouses.

By then, these vibrant vestiges of another time were ready to stand on their own merit – not just as functional shipping labels, but as 12″ x 25″ artists’ canvases that glorified the Golden state…capturing its story one slice in time.

Oranges, lemons, limes.

Memories of special times

when each California crate

showcased the golden state.

To see this original California art form for yourself, visit the Picturing Paradise orange crate art exhibit at the Hilbert Museum in Orange, CA. It runs until April 19, 2025.

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

SurfWriter Girls

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Aussie Dancer/Choreographer was 110-Years Young

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

They say, “age is just a number.” For Australian dancer/choreographer Eileen Kramer (November 8, 1914 – November 15, 2024) age was just “a dance number” – a dazzling 110 years.

With the New Year upon us SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti would like to honor this amazing talent, who seized each new day. Providing enjoyment for others through her dance, she watched her own life evolve through each movement. “There is a continuous shifting, like a cloud that keeps changing shape. I can dance in the mirror for hours.”

Born in Mossman Bay, Australia, Kramer joined the acclaimed Bodenwieser Ballet company in 1940 and danced her way throughout Australia and around the world in an incredible 84-year career.

Touring with the ballet company – which combined classical ballet with the emerging modern dance form – until 1953, she performed in France after WWII and traveled throughout Europe, Africa, India and other locales.

Kramer later worked as an artist’s model for French cubist painter Andre Lhote and had a long-running professional and personal collaboration with filmmaker Baruch Shadmi that lasted until his death in 1987 when she resumed her dance and choreography career.

In 2008, Kramer, who was living in the United States at the time, published her autobiography, Walkabout Dancer.

Then in 2014 she returned to Australia. And to celebrate her 100th birthday, staged, choreographed and performed an original ballet, The Early Ones. She also began collaborating with award-winning dance filmmaker Sue Healey and appearing in other filmmakers’ dance films and video productions.

The winner of many awards and prizes, Kramer was featured in films and books and lauded for her contributions to dance, film and the arts. She even did a TED Talk.

A self-described “child of the bush and the harbour,” she embraced the world, meeting people from all walks of life, including jazz great Louis Armstrong, who had a few dance moves of his own – teaching Kramer the twist in the1960s.

Kramer saw over a century’s worth of history unfold and was right in the middle of it, interpreting social and world events in artistic terms and communicating through dance.

For Eileen Kramer, dancing was an extension of herself, as much a part of her daily activities as eating and breathing. The title of her recent memoir tells it all: Life Keeps Me Dancing.

And it kept her enjoying each day…and using her talents to bring enjoyment to others.

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

SurfWriter Girls

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.