“Ed, the Bagel … it’s Branflakes. Name me without delay. I’ve acquired a venture I need to do with you. I’ve all of the funding in place, distribution. Come up right here, and let’s discuss getting began.”
After which, as if I didn’t know who it was, he added, “It’s Marlon.”
Is that this actually taking place? I had been pals with Marlon Brando for years, typically going as much as go to him on my bike. A steep journey from the Valley ground as much as Mulholland Drive that I hoped would impress him, and it normally did.
I used to be welcome there typically, as I found out a key need of Marlon’s early on. Or, ought to I say, a key restriction.
He didn’t need to discuss present enterprise.
He would rapidly change the topic should you introduced up performing, writing, directing, dance, puppetry, Claymation, or educated seals.
He did need to discuss plumbing, electrical, drywall, straw bale housing, wind, or photo voltaic.
But right here he was on a recording that I had listened to twice, telling me that he had a “venture that he needed to do with me.” One for which he “already had the funding and distribution.”
I left the bike within the storage that day, as I needed to stand up there and seal the deal earlier than he modified his thoughts and requested Sean Penn to play the half.
I used to be up at his gate in minutes from my dwelling in Studio Metropolis. And I knew the routine. However even when I had forgotten it, there was 12-inch lettering on the storage to remind me:
STAY IN YOUR CAR & HONK YOUR HORN.
Absent the bicycle, I lastly had a horn to honk, however I didn’t. For I understood the aim of such signage. It was a wise warning for individuals who is perhaps afraid of his two huge canines, who have been now approaching. Canine that have been giant sufficient to compete in dressage.
Your greatest guess with canines like that’s to rapidly make your self seem supplicant and bow down as one would possibly do when greeting royalty, even providing your neck as an indication of excellent religion.
Most likely not one of the best transfer out on the Serengeti if a pack of untamed canines is approaching, however it labored with Marlon’s canines.
The canines appeared pleased to see me and gladly confirmed me the way in which. And I used to be all the time cautious strolling by the pool with these huge hounds. An excessive amount of roughhousing on the incorrect second, and also you’d go proper within the pool. And at this level on this pool’s lengthy historical past, it extra resembled an algae pit.
Ah, if these gunite partitions may discuss …
Marlon was practically dancing as he entered from his workplace, and he wasted no time.
“That was fast. The place’s your helmet?”
He feigned a coronary heart assault earlier than shouting to the opposite room: “Get me Patt Morrison on the Instances. Main exposé, tomorrow’s paper. Begley Bogus about Bike Using.”
Then he turned again to me. “I’ll break you, then you definitely’ll don’t have any alternative however to do that venture with me.”
I let him have his enjoyable, because it had the specified impact. We have been each laughing, which we regularly did. After we each calmed down, he took a sip of tea and commenced: “Have you learnt what number of volts an electrical eel places out?”
Hmm, wasn’t the place I assumed we have been headed with right this moment’s session, however I may normally provide him with a solution for such esoterica.
“Two or 300 volts. However not a whole lot of present. A fraction of an amp.”
Marlon smiled. “See, because of this you’re helpful. A superb guess, and also you’re incorrect, however not too incorrect. 5 hundred volts at about one full amp.”
“So, 5 hundred watts,” I provided, placing Pete Gibbons’s class and Ohm’s legislation to good use once more.
“I’m getting thirty or forty of them. They need to be arriving subsequent week. Possibly you and Joe can go get them, from— ” He stopped midsentence. “What’s the title of that city down the coast?”
I used to be getting a bit misplaced. I knew who Joe was, Joe Brutsman, my expensive pal and producer, however I puzzled, and rapidly requested: “Wait, what are we getting thirty or forty of from down the coast?”
“Eels,” he snapped. “Come on, the city down the coast … diving!”
“While you say down the coast,” I requested fastidiously, “do you imply south of Santa Monica?”
He was rising impatient over what must be a simple Google Maps search … oh, wait, it didn’t exist then. I strained to recollect coastal cities. “Manhattan Seaside, Lengthy Seaside … ”
“Why are you continue to in L.A. County? I mentioned south,” he groaned.
“So like Huntington Seaside, Seal Seaside … ”
“Now you’re in Orange County … additional south,” he insisted.
Marlon grew up in Nebraska. I grew up right here. I may do that.
“Del Mar, La Jolla … ”
“La Jolla! That’s it! The Scripps Institute in La Jolla. They’re going to mortgage me twenty or thirty eels, and we are able to get began.” He leaned again in his chair and studied me. “Have you learnt what a plecostomus is?”
My pal Neil Rhodes had an aquarium, so I did know what a plecostomus was.
“It’s a suckermouth catfish. They maintain the aquarium clear, by consuming all of the … ”
I motioned out to his swimming pool.
“Algae,” he interjected.
“Okay,” I mentioned, making an attempt to recap for my very own readability. “You’ve acquired twenty or thirty eels. The plecostomi live off the algae.”
Marlon was mendacity in look ahead to me. “And should you get sufficient of these they usually begin to reproduce, it’ll quickly be, as P.T. Barnum suggests … ” He gestured that I may have the consideration.
“A sucker born each minute,” I mentioned with nice glee.
Now that we had shared not one however two massive laughs collectively, I felt that this is perhaps time to get again to his cellphone name. “So whenever you left me a message … ”
He acted like he hadn’t heard me as he spoke of a better function. “We’re speaking about limitless energy to each dwelling in America, clear and renewable, and it really works rain or shine … ”
However as he droned on, I lastly heard these key phrases I had so misunderstood: “ … venture with you … funding in place … distribution … ” and I spotted my dream of performing with Marlon must wait whereas we saved the world with … “electrical eels?”
It was time to morph my disappointment into wholesome skepticism. “How do your twenty or thirty electrical eels translate into usable energy?” I queried.
“You mentioned your self … 5 hundred watts per eel!” he jogged my memory.
I used to be not about to give up simply. “That’s 5 hundred watts measured proper on the tail for a fraction of a second. How do you plan— ”
He breathed a deep and weary sigh. “Right here we go!”
I used to be undeterred. “How do you plan to harness mentioned energy? Harness being an acceptable time period on this setting. Is every eel going to put on a bit harness, like a cartoon sea horse, wires twisted within the first 5 minutes?”
He lived for this type of back-and-forth. “Would you please cease. There’s no wires going to the eel! You set an anode and a cathode within the water … ” He demonstrated with two spoons and his natural tea, then added: “Cease being such a baby.”
“Okay, let’s have a look at it from a baby’s perspective. You’re not going to have sufficient present to mild up a baby’s lightbulb venture at a science truthful, even if in case you have 100 eels,” I scoffed.
“You’re all the time so damaging,” he mentioned after a second.
Oops. I had lastly gone too far and offended him.
“Like an anode?” I provided, making an attempt to lighten the temper, as we each wanted to show down the warmth. It labored. Not less than we have been each smiling once more.
To that finish, I agreed to contact my expensive pals Bob and Invoice Meistrell, similar twins who had labored on “Sea Hunt” with Lloyd Bridges and have been knowledgeable in all issues aquatic.
The reality is, Marlon was truly the holder of many patents and was by no means quick on daring new concepts. He was fairly skillful on the congas, and he held a patent for one-touch tuning on the drum head. Like a timpani drum, however for the conga.
And he had a number of concepts and several other patents on energy-related issues.
At some point, months after the electrical eel brainstorm, he requested if I nonetheless had my wind turbine within the California desert, half of a bigger wind farm.
“Yeah. I’ve had it since 1985. I’m nonetheless getting checks each quarter,” I boasted.
“Mm-hm,” he mentioned, after which added after inspecting his nails briefly: “How would you want to extend the effectivity of mentioned wind turbine by … a hundred percent?” He let that sink in as he studied me.
“That’s fairly a bump,” I responded. “How do you intend to try this?”
“Gimme a bit of paper,” he mentioned, pointing. I handed him a sheet from a small stack on the espresso desk.
He drew a fast sketch of my wind turbine, now dwarfed by what may solely described as an enormous kitchen funnel, or a metallic cornucopia, or wait … was it an ear trumpet?
“I’m sorry, what’s the size right here, in relation to my wind turbine? Is that funnel factor within the foreground?” I requested.
“No, it’s to scale,” he countered. “What’s the issue?”
I immediately felt like Anjelica Huston in “Spinal Faucet” as she factors out the confusion over the Stonehenge measurements.
“Are you able to seize that ruler?” I requested within the nicest voice I may handle. He reached behind him and offered me one.
“That’s what I used to be afraid of,” I continued as I measured. “In your drawing, you may have my tower top drawn to be a full … two inches, and your system is 4 inches. Since my tower is in actual fact 75 ft tall … that may put your system, and I’m sorry to take all of the enjoyable out of funnel, however it places your top at 150 ft.”
He tried to interject. I went on. “Made out of what, by the way in which?”
“Area-age polymers,” he provided.
“A fortune,” I defined, “it doesn’t matter what the supplies. And the Audubon Society’s going to close you down as you suck up each chook within the Pacific Flyway and feed them by way of your Cuisinart.”
He tried to cease me. “Why is— ”
I went on. “I saved one of the best for final. Regardless of these different issues, my turbine, and the concrete pad it sits on, is simply designed for a sure vary of wind. They shut them down when the wind will get too robust. This factor,” I mentioned, returning his drawing, “would flip it to shrapnel.”
He appreciated it whenever you challenged him, however I used to be afraid I had gone too far once more.
After learning me, as one would an historical rune, he lastly requested, “Why is it all the time no with you?”
However every thing was not all the time no with me. There was an invention of his that made up for all of the eels and funnels.
Deep ocean water cooling.
It’s extensively identified that Marlon had an island property in Tahiti that he bought whereas filming “Mutiny on the Bounty.”
Marlon and his pal Dr. Craven solved an issue that has plagued many island resorts for a while. Electrical energy is usually tremendous costly there. Most of it’s generated by diesel gas that’s introduced in on diesel ships over lengthy distances … you get the thought.
Abruptly a kilowatt-hour can wind up north of fifty cents. For these of you who don’t have a look at your electrical invoice … that’s lots.
However there’s an enormous alternative for saving substantial sums of cash, since two-thirds of mentioned resort electrical invoice is used to chill the company and the staff, and to refrigerate the meals that’s served to all.
What should you carry out all three duties with the water that’s proper there at your shore?
Enter deep ocean water cooling. A pipe is run right down to a reasonably modest depth of 500 ft. The temperature at that depth is round 40 levels Fahrenheit. Which is cool sufficient to do a lot of the work in cooling mentioned individuals and poi.
The water is returned to the identical depth from which it was taken, and just a few levels hotter, so it’s not scalding any ocean creatures.
And it solely makes use of a modest quantity of electrical energy, as a result of it’s utilizing the siphon impact. Or extra like a funicular. The burden of the water being pulled up is offset by the load of the water descending.
This promising know-how is in use right this moment.
And I’m endlessly honored and grateful that he and his household requested me to be on the board of the Tetiaroa Society, a nonprofit devoted to defending the atmosphere at Marlon’s island of the identical title, and world wide.
To that finish, the Brando resort was constructed to the best environmental normal potential and, as of this writing, is internet hosting a world sustainability convention within the hope of discovering new and creative methods to deal with among the most urgent environmental issues that we face right this moment.
Excerpted from “To the Temple of Tranquility … And Step on It!: A Memoir,” by Ed Begley Jr. Copyright © 2023. Obtainable from Hachette Books, an imprint of Hachette E-book Group, Inc.
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