Dr. Ben LaBrot and Crew Plan to Set Sail and Save Lives

The Blue Norther, a 42-foot sloop scheduled to set sail in January, is seaworthy, but needs an additional $50,000 in interior improvements and wiring to make the upcoming two-year voyage around the world.
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The Blue Norther, a 42-foot sloop scheduled to set sail in January, is seaworthy, but needs an additional $50,000 in interior improvements and wiring to make the upcoming two-year voyage around the world.

Benjamin LaBrot is planning to save the world. Okay, maybe not the whole world. But as many people in need as he can reach in 51 countries while sailing around the globe.
It sounds simple at first. Two doctors (Dr. LaBrot, 32, will be joined by Dr. David Barton, 28) and crew on a 60-ft. motor sailor, cruising from port to port, loaded with medical supplies and setting up makeshift clinics to offer free care to the local population. An inspired grassroots solution to a great need.
Then the complexity starts to sink in. A 60-sailboat jammed with two months’ supplies (enough to last to the next reliable point of shipment) will likely feel tiny after weeks at sea with seven on board. The two-year route extends across the Pacific, past Australia, across the Indian Ocean, along the African coast and then the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean, past North Africa and around South and Central America. What about storms? Pirates? Language barriers? Malaria? Local militias? The mission begins to seem more than daunting. But spend an hour talking with LaBrot and you begin to believe that his whole life has led to this. He seems uniquely qualified and is nearly evangelical in his commitment.
‘For as long as I can remember, I always knew what I wanted to do, says LaBrot, who grew up in Pacific Palisades. ‘In second grade, I wanted to be a marine biologist and a doctor.’
His first 18 months of life were spent at the Surfrider, an old hotel on the beach in Venice, while his father, George, was in residence at Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital. George started throwing LaBrot in the water at three months old. His mother, Paula, let him go out on local fishing boats before he was 10.
LaBrot was also immersed in the world of medicine early on. At six, he would go on rounds with his dad, usually entertaining himself at the nurse’s station. He recalls how he once wandered off to ‘treat’ a coma patient with his Fisher Price stethoscope.
After graduating from Chaminade College Prep, LaBrot pursued a degree in marine biology (and history) at UC Santa Barbara, also taking pre-med classes. He taught for two years to pay down student loans, then enrolled at to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
‘[As an intern], I had 60 patients on my list every day,’ says LaBrot, who views Ireland’s government health service as ‘overburdened with bureaucracy and underfunded with resources. The average wait for a hip replacement would be two years, at which point you probably need the other hip done.’
But it taught him a different way of doctoring than is typical in the U.S.
‘I was told that 80 percent of my diagnoses needed to be done from the patient history and physical exam,’ LaBrot says. That focus on doing a lot with very little, together with his travels through Europe, convinced him that good medical care is simply a matter of efficiencies in delivery.
‘I believe that the resources for adequate health care do exist. My experiences . . . have convinced me that it’s merely a problem of distribution,’ he says. Hence, the trip around the world in a sailboat, which LaBrot says will be a ‘microcosm of [good] medical care.’
The mission of LaBrot, Barton and their crew, dubbed ‘Floating Doctors,’ is ‘to raise international awareness of current issues in world health care.’ In addition to offering care, they will survey health care delivery in the countries they visit.
Technology plays a big part in their plan. The crew includes a pair of filmmakers who will record the journey and produce a feature-length documentary on the state of global health care. The crew also plans to post interactive content at www.floatingdoctors.com throughout the voyage.
‘We’re going to create an on-line subscriber network, so that doctors and clinicians in the developing world can request consults from participating doctors in the developed world,’ LaBrot says.
What about LaBrot’s connectivity back at home? It helps that he’s taking his fianc’, Louise O’Loughlin, as part of the crew. She’ll offer nutritional advice to patients, help manage the health survey, accounting and other operational demands, and act as first assistant camera.
The lead filmmakers, Ishan Shapiro and Marija Coneva of Notthisbody Productions, are also engaged, which LaBrot cites as a space saver. He doesn’t seem concerned about the potential soap-opera elements of two couples and three single men onboard a sailboat for two years.
‘We’ll probably spend about 85 percent of our time at port and only 15 percent underway,’ LaBrot says, noting that they’ll be so busy compiling data, posting Web content, arranging future stops and fishing for dinner that there won’t be much time for drama.
Saving space is even more important now that the group’s plan has been revised. They have been fundraising while seeking approval as a 501 (c) (3) charity, working under the administrative umbrella of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, which already has nonprofit status. Not yet funded to buy a 60-foot boat, they found a 42-foot Peterson sloop at a lien auction and decided the price was too good to pass up.
The smaller boat will need another vessel to accompany it on the trip around the globe. But the crew, eager to deliver on commitments to supporters, will first set off on a nine-month trip this January. Visiting the 25 most remote islands in the Pacific as well as Central American coastal communities, they hope to treat 10,000 patients and distribute 20 tons of medical supplies.
‘Almost all of our support has come [in small gifts] from people who don’t have money to throw around,’ says LaBrot. Calmont Elementary School in Calabasas raised $425 in a bake sale. ‘I feel so responsible to those people.’
Floating Doctors expects to operate with a budget of $25,000 for the nine months, relying on an efficient cruising ethos to keep costs low.
‘Most of our protein is going to come from the fish we catch,’ says LaBrot, by way of example.
If food is easy to come by, detailed planning has been required for other elements. Direct Relief International, USA has donated $60,000 of medical supplies. Shipments of medicines relevant to diseases in specific countries needed to be coordinated around ports with reliable mail service.
Assembling the crew also raised logistical challenges. Shapiro is finishing an internship with director Wes Anderson in Paris. Barton, an Irishman who interned with LaBrot and is also an experienced sailor, is working at the Lahey Clinic in Boston. Daniel Murray, currently teaching at the Art Institute of Los Angeles culinary school, will be on-board chef and help with patient nutrition.
The captain’s job will be a rotation that includes Scott Walther, a PaliHi graduate. The first captain will be Ryan McCormick, an instructor who will certify all of the non-medical crew as EMTs.
LaBrot is undaunted by the challenges.
‘I’ve never had a problem bringing big bags of medical equipment and supplies through customs, through military checkpoints. Sometimes I’ve had to do a little ‘pro bono’ work on the spot,’ LaBrot says with a smile. ‘My experience is that if you bring the right attitude, there’s almost no barrier in the developing world that can’t be solved.’
He attributes his intense optimism to his mother, a drama teacher for years, who now teaches film studies at Chaminade.
He also hopes his father, who still practices in Santa Monica, will meet up with the crew en route. ‘He’s a brilliant diagnostician,’ LaBrot says.
Confidence and family support aside, Floating Doctors still needs to raise at least $90,000 for boat repairs and improvements and food and supplies before setting sail. But LaBrot hesitates about funding for only a moment before dreaming up something even bigger.
‘The ideal would be a 90-foot sailboat [with] 10-to-15 rotating physicians and two operating suites. That’s a vessel that could stay on site for several months . . . . Visiting clinicians could donate their services for weeks at a time,’ LaBrot imagines, delighted by the possibilities.

Two Rock Bands Support New CDs with Upcoming Gigs

7th Sun: Steven Quadros, drums; Adam Kury, bass; J. T. Curtis, lead and rhythm guitars; and Michael Russeck, keyboard player. Not pictured: Jason Land, guitar.
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7th Sun: Steven Quadros, drums; Adam Kury, bass; J. T. Curtis, lead and rhythm guitars; and Michael Russeck, keyboard player. Not pictured: Jason Land, guitar.

Looking back, 2008 may go down as a weird, Hell-freezing-over kind of year in music.
Squeaky-clean Disney tweens Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers joined Lil Wayne and Metallica as big unit-movers in an industry no longer moving CDs by the hundreds of thousands. Tower Records and Virgin Megastore no longer exist on Sunset Boulevard, and it appears that the highly anticipated, 17-years-in-the-making Guns ‘n’ Roses album “Chinese Democracy,” after many false starts and promises, will finally drop in November.
Into this bizarre sonic landscape come two fresh, aesthetically opposite rock bands with Pacific Palisades ties: Intronaut and 7th Sun. Both groups debuted new albums in early September and have upcoming concerts scheduled.

INTRONAUT
Perhaps they’re a reflection of the times. Progressive metal band Intronaut released “Prehistoricisms” (Century Media), a dark and brooding opus that does not seem too concerned about commercial airplay. Long-playing tracks with spiraling arpeggios, multiple parts and loping rhythms play to the headbanging choir.
In 2007, local David Timnick, from Palisades High School’s class of 2000, joined Intronaut (already established since 2005), replacing original guitarist Leon del Muerte.
Musically, “Prehistoricisms,” produced by Josh Newell, is an amalgam of various musical alloys. Songs “Primordial Soup” and “The Literal Black Cloud” echo the original ‘80s-model Metallica with its twisting tempos and high-note guitar licks, while the instrumental backbone of “Sundial” packs greasier, grittier Slayer-style riffage. The title track (and lead single) “Prehistoricisms” evokes Nine Inch Nails.
Vocally, lead singer Sacha Dunable’s croaking shout may remind some of the death metal group Diecide or Drowning Pool’s late front man Dave Williams.
Hot off a 40-city tour, which included a stop at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood, Intronaut will open for Corrupted and Asunder on Friday, November 7, 8 p.m., at Safari Sam’s, 5214 W. Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. Tickets: $12 advance/$15 door. Contact (323) 666-7267; www.safari-sams.com. Visit blogronaut.blogspot.com and www.myspace.com/intronaut.

7TH SUN
In difficult times, people often turn to sunnier bands for escape. But 7th Sun’s chief singer/song-writer, J.T. Curtis, questions how musically upbeat his blues-wallowing band really is.
“In blues songs,” reasons Curtis, “the lyrics are about having the blues, but the music is about getting over the blues.”
7th Sun shows its classic rock, blues and jam-band roots in “From The Beginning,” the first album by the new incarnation of Curtis’s PaliHi-formed group. The CD eases in with an instrumental jam (“Company in B Minor”), rocks the title track, kicks into some Led Zeppelin-type drums (“Hard and Slow”), reprises said title track towards the album’s end, and closes with “Get Together,” a call-to-arms to the common man from all walks of life.
Curtis, the band’s lead vocalist and guitarist, just turned 23 last week. He attended Santa Monica College for about a year before enrolling in USC’s Thornton School of Music. The new incarnation of 7th Sun includes bassist Adam Kury (who also plays with Seattle grunge veteran Candlebox), keyboardist Mike Russeck, and drummer Stephen Quadros.
Curtis counts such baby-boomer favorites as the Allman Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and B.B. King among his influences (In fact, 7th Sun evolved from a Cream cover band).
Save for the track “New Generation,” “a lot of songs on the album were songs written while I was in PaliHi,” says Curtis, who co-wrote such tunes as “My Time” and “Hard and Slow” with PaliHi pal Colin Cronin. Cronin is no longer in the band, but Curtis has Cronin’s blessing to continue performing and recording their songs.
“[The song] ’From The Beginning’ is one we used to play quite frequently,” Curtis says. “We played a couple Battle of the Bands, benefit shows, PaliPalooza. We also played at the Whiskey, the Troubadour and Malibu Inn.”
“’New Generation’ was a sort of description of what’s going on in the world,” Curtis continues. “I take on these personas – a guy going out to war, a kid walking down the street, an overview of that world and the idea that this culture can overcome the obstacles in society by coming together and trying to figure out what it can do.”
It might come as no surprise that Curtis embarked on a musical career, as his mother, Palisadian Becky Curtis, is also a career rocker. A local resident for 16 years, Becky has worked with Graham Nash and Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, and she used to front the rock band Becky and the Blu Tones.
“She used to sing with Otis Blackwell, who wrote for Elvis Presley, while she was pregnant with me,” Curtis says.
7th Sun began recording their new album in the summer of 2007, completing it this summer. “From The Beginning” was partially recorded at Curtis’s Highlands home. Of all of the tunes, he enjoys “Big Man” the most.
“We played it a lot live,” he says, “and by the time we recorded it, it was really incendiary.”
Curtis now looks forward to tomorrow night’s record release party/concert in West Los Angeles, where an array of special guests will take to the stage. Carlos Cavazo from the ‘80s metal group Quiet Riot will sit in with 7th Sun, while saxophonist Jimmy Z (Rod Stewart, Tom Petty, Dr. Dre) will play with opening act Becky Curtis Band.
An old soul, J. T. Curtis has his issues with today’s music industry.
“There’s not a lot of room for creativity, for one thing,” Curtis says. “I’m a fan of classic rock and new things. I get turned off by the same production quality, same sound over and over again.”
Another thing that dismays Curtis are critics who lump bands in categories.
“We tried to figure out, ‘Are we a jam band? A blues band? An alternative band?’” Curtis recalls. “Then we realized, ‘You know what, let’s just make something up.’ I said, ‘How about supernova rock?’ and that sounded perfect. So we call ourselves a supernova rock band and we let everyone else figure out what that means.”
7th Sun will perform at its record release party on October 17, 8:15 p.m., at the Palmer Room, 3387 Motor Ave. Special guests: Becky Curtis Band and Susannah Crowley. Admission: $10. Visit 7thSunBand.com and www.myspace.com/7thsun.

Local Painter’s Studio Sells Work While Helping Others Locate the Artist Within

Artist Marcela Ewertz at her Sunset Boulevard studio.
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Artist Marcela Ewertz at her Sunset Boulevard studio.
Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer

Walk too fast and you might miss it: a nondescript first-floor storefront bordering the parking lot of the Washington Mutual building on Sunset.
But step into the Marcela Ewertz Fine Art studio/gallery and you’re quickly transported into a whole other realm, where the eponymous artist’s contemporary abstract work surrounds you, engages you, challenges you.
“Creation goes beyond the physical senses,” says the artist Marcela Ewertz, who lives in Pacific Palisades. “I always loved color and I found that by painting, it was a very good way to materialize my thoughts. I needed to become a whole person, mentally and physically. And painting is my conduit.”
The articulate Chilean-born Ewertz, 56, has no problem expressing herself, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, about 100,000 paragraphs on the walls of her commercial art studio compete for your attention. Married to Manuel Lanz, former vice president of operations for Univisa, she opened her business just last month.
“I wasn’t sure I could produce outside of my home,” she says, “but I needed a space outside of my house. This is the perfect place. Good light, a good feeling.”
Since moving into the space, she’s already created two large 36” x 48” abstracts.
“It’s always more of an expressionist way of painting than realistic,” she says of her style.
On her walls, you’ll find “Rude Awakening,” which she’ll only identify as inspired by a “very personal event.” “The Dancer” is a more figurative piece, but her paintings do not ever get as literal as her painting titles. A diptych she dubs “The Patriot,” about soldiers dying for the American flag, features neither soldier nor flag in any literal fashion, but evokes said subject via tone, color and glimpses of rendered imagery across a dissecting grid motif.
“Rupestre” proves to be a more decorative canvas, while “Impromptu” and “El Trovador” are companion pieces she produced while living in Denver, where her work hangs at the University Hospital.
Ewertz even interjects some humor into a piece such as “Chameleons,’ commissioned by Epoca, a Mexican political magazine. The painting likens politicians to the camouflage-capable reptiles.
Her medium of choice? Ewertz eschews the traditional oil-based paints for acrylic, which she finds “very eco-friendly, very clean and very versatile. You can use it as oil or as watercolor. They are very long-lasting.”
She is loath to discuss which artists have influenced her because she believes that her artistic path is too personal and individual, but she admires Van Gogh, Gauguin, Chagall and Rufino Tamayo.
Born in the littoral town of Viña del Mar, Ewertz hails from a mixed-heritage background of Chilean settlers––German on her father’s side, Danish and English on her Peruvian mother’s.
Ewertz, who married at 17 and has two grown children, Christian, 31, and Desiree, 23, has spent most of her adult life living in Los Angeles. But she and her husband have been prone to peregrination in the last two decades. They picked up their children and moved out of town in 1994, when Lanz retired.
“At that point,” Ewertz recalls, “we maintained a residence in Beaver Creek, Colorado, where we spent much time. At the same time, we traveled consistently. In some places, Mexico City, Ixtapa, and Costa Rica, we had residences. We lived in Denver for the past five years, until now that we decided to come back to Los Angeles, the place that my family and I have always felt like home.
“I’ve always been fascinated by beauty,” Ewertz continues, describing how she began painting some 18 years ago. “Art is getting in touch with your own creativity. There came a point where I had to get in touch with that core in myself.”
Upon their return from Colorado in 2007, Lanz and Ewertz lived in Bel-Air before settling down in the Highlands Summit this past July. Ewertz is glad to be back.
“L.A. is the place that feels closest to the way I feel in Chile,” she says of our effortlessly multicultural metropolis. More specifically, the Palisades offers her that peaceful small-town existence in the heart of the restless cosmopolis.
With the economy tanking, the fine-arts market is smarting. And Ewertz is well aware that gallery clusters, such as the Bergamot Station complex or the Culver City scene, capitalize on art walks in a way that individual studios such as hers cannot. However, Ewertz copes with these hard times by not only producing personal work but creating canvases geared toward more decorative ends that would look good in a bank, real estate or dental office. Diversifying her art portfolio, to mix a metaphor.
Beyond her gallery of original paintings and limited-edition prints for sale, Marcela Ewertz Fine Art offers an array of services, such as art consultation for residential and commercial environments, “to advise one on their needs based on budget requirements, art preferences and floor plans, as well as advice on framing and conservation of art pieces,” the owner says.
The opening words on Ewertz’s Web site sums up the idea behind her Intuitive Painting Program: “When one relaxes and becomes an instrument to express the sound from beyond, the voice that flows through it is creativity.”
To accomplish this objective, a pupil at Ewertz’s studio begins with a program plan, developing a project and identifying the techniques and materials to be employed.
Once that is decided, Ewertz guides her students through the “concentration” phase, comprising different steps directed at cultivating one’s awareness of the energy involved in the creative potential within. Ewertz recognizes that “energy” is “an abused word” (especially in California!) but the focusing of energy is key to extracting and exacting one’s creative juices, and Ewertz steers her students through an array of energizing exercises. As the flux of restless ideas that pound the brain with worries and experiences calms down, the mind is able to expand to receive inspiration.
Following such exercises, Ewertz offers visualization techniques “introducing concepts of sound, color, and symbolism.” Hands-on work and post-work discussion follows.
“This is a tool to tap into that creativity and use in other areas of your life,” Ewertz says.
The studio is located at 15200 Sunset Blvd., Ste. 111 (near Monument). Contact: (310) 459-4790 or email marcela@marcelaewertz.com. Visit www.marcelaewertz.com.

Jim Stevens of Chamber Music Palisades, composer Alan Chapman and coordinator Dorothy Weiler of Coldwell Banker look forward to the debut of “Peter And Mr. Wolf” on Saturday, October 25 at the Branch Library.
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Jim Stevens of Chamber Music Palisades, composer Alan Chapman and coordinator Dorothy Weiler of Coldwell Banker look forward to the debut of “Peter And Mr. Wolf” on Saturday, October 25 at the Branch Library.
Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer

Chamber Music Palisades will offers a sneak preview of its 12th season with the world premiere of “Peter And Mr. Wolf” by Alan Chapman, on Saturday, October 25 at 2 p.m. at the Palisades Branch Library, 861 Alma Real.
Aimed for family entertainment, the free concert will once again welcome Mr. Wolf, who will mingle with children during the refreshment period. The program, underwritten by the Coldwell Banker office in Pacific Palisades, presents Chapman’s imaginative twist to the Prokofiev classic as it tells the tale of an 8th grader named Peter and his science teacher, Mr. Wolf.
Composer Chapman, a KUSC morning program host and long-time host of Chamber Music Palisades’ concerts will narrate. Written to appeal to audiences of all ages, the music for the 20-minute piece “ranges from the lyrical to the wacky,” according to the composer.
“Peter And Mr. Wolf” will be presented again at the season opening of Chamber Music Palisades on Tuesday, October 28, 8 p.m. at St. Matthew’s 1031 Bienveneda Ave.
In addition to Chapman’s tongue-in-cheek work for quintet, Rossini’s Quartet for Flute, Clarinet, Bassoon and Horn; Muczynski’s Fragments for Flute, Clarinet and Bassoon; Gernot Wolfgang’s Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano; and Danzi’s Sonata in E Flat Major for Horn and Piano will all be performed.
Chamber Music Palisades was founded in 1997 by Pacific Palisades residents and co-artistic directors Susan Greenberg and Delores Stevens. It currently features Greenberg on flute; Helen Goode, clarinet; Carolyn Beck, bassoon; Richard Todd, horn; and Stevens on piano.
Before wolf and boy, Chapman tackled moose and squirrel. Among Chapman’s past compositions is the short opera “Les Moose: The Operatic Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,” commissioned by L.A. Opera’s education division in 1997. Chapman is the on-air host for KUSC weekday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon and also hosts “Modern Times” on Saturdays from 10 p.m. to midnight. He holds a doctorate in music theory from Yale University, where he founded and composed for the Viennese All-Stars orchestra.
Tickets for Tuesday night’s program are $25; students with ID are free. For tickets and information, call 310-459-2070 or visit www.cmpalisades.org.

Sara Jasper and Joel Epstein
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Sara Jasper and Joel Epstein

Sara Jasper, daughter of Shirley and Neil Jasper of Pacific Palisades, married Josh Epstein, son of Dr. Joel and Geena Epstein of Chicago, on February 17.
The wedding took place at the Casa del Mar Hotel in Santa Monica, where the happy couple exchanged vows and celebrated in the company of family and friends.
Jasper grew up in the Palisades and attended Marquez Elementary, Harvard-Westlake School, Stanford University and UCLA Law School. She is currently entering her fourth year of practice as a general commercial litigator at Bingham McCutchen LLP in Santa Monica.
Epstein grew up near Seattle, graduated from the University of Washington, and is completing a Ph.D in pharmaceutical economics at USC. He works as an economist in the Medical Outcomes Research and Economics group at Baxter Bioscience in Westlake Village.
The newlyweds honeymooned in New Zealand and Australia. They currently reside in Santa Monica, where they enjoy cooking, running, and relaxing with friends and family.