VLVL(11) College of the Surf

[Toby G Levy]

Chapter 11 continues the flashback that will explain to Prairie the
depths of her mother's part in the destruction of  the counterculture
of the 1960s.

The previous chapter ended with dark foreshadowing of hard times at
College of the Surf "down in Trasero County."

Pynchon opens Chapter 11 with a description of Trasero County, an
imaginary place wedged between Orange County and San Diego County on the
southern California coast.. Trasero is the Spanish word for rump or
butt.  Just outside a military installation a college was built, with
buildings named after famous surfers such as Dewey Weber and Greg Noll.
The college was constructing on the grounds a one hundred foot tall
monument to Richard Nixon, native of nearby San Clemente.

The college was envisioned as place where the wealthy could send their
offspring to train for white collar jobs in the system.  But seemingly
instantaneously the kids began smoking pot and the authorities started
busting heads in an effort to wipe it out.

Just before the fracas, Pynchon mentions that the students were sitting
in the sunshine listening to Mike Curb Congregation records on the
radio.

here's an extract fro a bio of Mike Curb from iceberg.com:

"In 1969, at the tender age of 25, Curb was appointed president of MGM
Records. His tenure began with the firing of the entire A&R department,
their engineers, staff producers and promotions department, as well as
much of the publicity, accounting and distribution staff. The
conservative Curb made headlines in 1970 by announcing that he was
evicting any artists who used drugs from the MGM roster. When Eric
Burdon of the Animals admitted being a user and asked to be released
from his contract, the request was denied. However, this high-handed
approach failed to raise the ailing company. A champion of soft-rock
with the Mike Curb Congregation, he achieved a US Top 40 hit in 1971
with "Burning Bridges", the theme tune to the film Kelly's Heroes. The
song was a wagging finger directed at hippies. Curb continued to write
and record with his group and sold songs to other artists while involved
with MGM. He released several albums with the Congregation on MGM until
he retired from the company in September 1973.

"Curb's next move was to build a political base, and his aggressiveness
in the arena paid off in 1978, when the Republican was elected
lieutenant governor. Upon leaving that position in the 80s, Curb
re-entered the music business with his own company, Curb Records,
releasing both new artists and licensing recordings from other labels
for reissue. Curb Records have now developed a formidable roster of
quality new country artists and are one of the leading labels in the
USA, for that genre."



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