Tom Fudge: Ever since the days of Henry David Thoreau, Americans have admired the misfit, the mystic, the unconventional person who drops out of society and does his own thing. But what if that person, while dropping out, takes the whole family with him? That's the provocative question posed in a new documentary about a local family lead by a strong-willed patriarch named Dorian Paskowitz.
Dorian, who's now in his eighties, grew up in San Diego and got a medical degree from Stanford. He was one of the nation's early surfers. He moved to Hawaii to practice medicine. He went through two divorces before marrying his wife, Juliette and deciding to leave conventional society. He and Juliette had nine children and they all lived their lives squeezed tightly into a camping vehicle. They spent most of their time at the beach. They surfed. They created a surf school at San Onofre. The kids never went to school and they lived on very little money.
The way this affected the children and what's become of the Paskowitz clan is explored in the film Surfwise , directed by Doug Pray. The movie is currently playing at Landmark's Ken Cinema .
Guest
- Doug Pray is the director of the new documentary Surfwise .
