Glad the career and the house and the calling people “douche” on the Internet are working out for you. Always nice to hear Boomer tales of youthful idealism smothered by beige and bourgeoisie excess. A radical Marxist in your youth and a careerist Malibu homeowner as an adult!!! Congrats! You had your cake and ate it too. Just like everyone else in your generation of tourists. And no, you don’t sound bitter at all.

Don’t get me wrong. I admire your vitriol. A little advice though, if you’re going to be an effective Internet troll you need to get with the times. “Turd-infested dump” in Santa Monica? Really? Come on. Everyone knows when you want to insult a young “creative” you call them hipster trash and make fun of them for living in Silver Lake or Echo Park. And turd-infested…what does that mean? Are you suggesting I sling my own feces around my apartment? Or perhaps random people break into my place and defecate on the floor while I’m away? Anyway, poverty is considered authentic in hipster culture, so that’s actually not an insult. If you were to imply I was poverty tourist on the other hand, that hits home. Tell me I’m white and educated and that the second I get sick of playing poor my parents will rent me a place on the beach in Venice. In 20 years time I’ll have a place in Malibu and be just as much of a NIMBY prick as everyone else. Not true, of course, but the mere suggestion is gloved slap to the face.

My generation isn’t envious of the hippies. We’re disgusted by how badly you sold out. The way to piss us off is to tell us we’re as beige and materialistic as your generation turned out.

Anyway, some fun reading material for you: http://www.tiny.cc/letmalibuburn

Otherwise it means “loser douche” with no appreciable career in journalism because the Internet killed off any way of actually getting paid for one’s miserable leftist scribblings. Ha-ha. You are bummed out, Matthew-boy, because you did not get to be a hippie in the late 1960’s like I did, joining SDS, living in authentic communes, backpacking through Europe before it was trendy and fighting the war in Vietnam. The only difference is I got to grow up, buy a home in Malibu and have a real career and you are living in some shithole apartment in – tell me, where is it ? – Hollywood or some turd-infested dump in Santa Monica. Hey, I’d be a bitter guy, too. Only I’m not.

If public safety is that much of a concern, you must agree with Mike Davis that Malibu shouldn’t exist at all. Perhaps the state should seize the land from private concerns in Ramirez Canyon, and designate the site off-limits to everyone? After all, downed powerlines are one of, if not the primary, cause of wildfires in Southern California. If dumb campers can’t be there, neither should anyone else.

Mr. Douche runs essentially a race mob for hire along the lines of Jessie Jackson’s PUSH organization and he has dragged various black/brown/disabled/discriminated-against group de jour prop speakers like the Native American in the video you posted, to tell Malibu folks that race alone informs our speaking out against the establishment of additional overnight camping in our deadly narrow box canyons. These canyons generally have a single way in and out and in a Santa Ana firestorm are death traps. Imagine, if you can, the traffic jam as the horde of frightened campers – some special needs and others physically disabled – homeowners and horse trailers trying to escape a wildfire in, say, Ramirez Canyon, come face to face with a string of fire engines and crews coming the opposite way. The firefighters are taking up the entire width of the same road. This is a recipe for disaster and this scenario is exactly what Mr douche is trying to force on Malibu residents.

The entire scenario is generated by Mr. Douche’s patron “Fat Boy” Joe Edmiston who heads the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy: an effective leader who cuts a comical public figure as he affects Smokey the Bear uniforms several sizes too small to contain his corpulent self. Apparently his sole reason for existence is to add to the fire danger here in Malibu. Regarding his overall plan to “improve” public access, most folks here think 98% of the elements are just fine. It is the establishment of overnight camping in these fire-prone areas that I and my friends consider irresponsible and dangerous. And, by the way, the County and State Fire officials have agreed in writing to the coastal Commission that to put additional campers in these canyons is a bad idea. A critical point in your education on this issue is that the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy while doing admirable work in joining together disparate parklands for wildlife and humans to enjoy, historically they are chronically understaffed so supervision is sorely lacking and will be insufficient to effectively monitor campers’ behavior in these remote, fire-prone canyons. To wrap it for you, the opposition to additional camping is based on public safety not race. As I mentioned in my earliest response to your article, limitations on the public’s access to overnight camping in these fragile ares also restricts the access of Malibu locals to the same facilities. So, I am not impressed by some bullshit politically-correct racist nonsense from either Mr. Douche, Fat Boy Joe or yourself. Thank you.