Always Leave ‘Em Hoping

In this era of Earth Day, the Big Green initiative, conscious comedy, Redwood Summer, dream space and the spotted owl, it surprises me not at all that a couple of smart guys from L.A. are trying to establish an ecological nightclub.

They’ve already got the interest, now all they need is money, a building, sound equipment, film equipment, a stage and talent. No sweat.

Their names are Mark Schuette and John Karlsen, dudes you’ve never heard of before, who work at other jobs but have this great idea about how to save the Earth and have fun too.

There’s nothing better than effortless knowledge. To boogie and banter at the same time is about as sweet as life gets in the City of Angles.

What the two want to do, see, is open a place called Club Earth, a kind of coffeehouse for eco-freaks, where you can hang out and listen to jokes or music and watch films about ecology.

Environmentalists, for instance, love nature films, so they’ll have a lot of those National Geographic-type movies of lions fornicating on the Masai Mara, and folk tunes about love among the sperm whales.

I was in Africa once watching lions get it on in the Ngorongoro Crater, and some of the ecologists with us were so pleased, they applauded. Others cried and one prayed, she was so moved.

I whistled and shouted “Encore!� but the male lion just lay on his back with his feet in the air when he was done, looking dead. I do the same thing myself.

I had lunch with Schuette and Karlsen one day at a restaurant on the Westside called (what else?) the Good Earth.

Schuette, 38, works for an outdoor store and Karlsen, 29, is an environmental water specialist, whatever that is.

They came up with the idea for an ecological nightclub about a year ago as a way of helping the environment, making money and meeting new people.

There’ll be a charge to get in, of which 10% will go to environmental projects. It could be more, I suppose, but no sense getting crazy about the thing.

Schuette sees the possibility of franchising the idea, or, as he puts it, “looping the world with a necklace of eco-clubs.� Nice.

They admit this isn’t exactly new. There are similar clubs either in existence or starting up in New York City, Berkeley, Seattle and Temple, Tex., but at least it’s new to L.A.

What makes the potential here so terrific, Schuette says, is that Los Angeles is the leader in both entertainment and environmental deterioration . . . singing and dancing, as it were, on the brink of the abyss.

The boys have sent out about 500 letters to celebrities and environmental organizations, asking for help. They’ve gotten a pretty good response, but no Big Names.

Steve Allen was one of the celebs targeted, but he sent his letter on to me, knowing I eat ideas like that. I suppose that pretty much indicates his degree of interest.

I mentioned Club Earth to a friend visiting from Eureka who laughed like hell at the very idea of a bunch of us Hollywood perverts sittin’ around watching documentaries about lions doin’ it.

“Jane Fonda gonna be there?� he asked, laughing even harder. He sees Jane Fonda the way Catholics see the devil, as a kind of generic evil.

An ex-lumberjack, Max has been right in the middle of the Redwood Summer demonstrations in Humboldt County . . . on the other side, of course.

He’s the kind of guy with a bumper sticker on his pickup that says, “Save a Logger, Eat an Owl� who makes jokes about owl kebabs and owl foo young.

Max was a brawler in the old days and used to clean out the Lumberjack Saloon up in Orick without spilling a drop of bourbon. Now he’s involved in politics, which is why I’m not using his name.

Nothing like politics to damp the fires of honest opinion.

Max thinks Club Earth will deteriorate into a place where eco-nuts take the roles of endangered animals, crawling around and growling, flapping their wings or slithering on their bellies like crazy people.

“I saw one woman outa Arcata try to imitate a Devil’s Hole pupfish,� Max said, shaking his head with incredulity. “She even looked like one.�

After all of that, I’ve got to say that I like the idea of a Club Earth. The masses aren’t too quick when it comes to abstractions, and need to be able to hum along with an idea before they can absorb it.

Saving the world from rotting away is something worth humming about. If Club Earth helps, I hope Schuette and Karlsen can get it going.

You can always learn from another living creature, even if it’s only a lion looking for love in the Ngorongoro Crater.