Jose Tapia, 24

“My favorite beach movie of all time is Point Break, with Keanu Reaves and Patrick Swayze. That’s a great movie, man! It’s absolutely ridiculous, and I love it. Obviously, as far as film goes, I like style over substance.”

“I have a saying: If you don’t like the beach, I have a problem trusting you.”

How’s life underground?
It’s nice and cold in here! It kind of numbs your body. It’s hard to breathe. It might not be good for you, but what in this world is?

Ever been buried before?
Yeah, many times before. Me and my friends come out here almost every day. Us beach bums, we always dig holes. There’s something tranquil about it. I just keep digging until something comes up.

Like treasure?
Or inspiration. Like, “Oh, I’m going to do this!” Sometimes, we’ll dig deep, deep holes, dude—so deep we can all fit in there. Then, we put an umbrella on top and bake—you know, smoke bud. And no one notices, dude, that we’re just baking inside this giant sand hole.

Ever unearth something material?
I found a book once by Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality. Some of the pages were ripped off and someone wrote notes in it—they kind of helped me out, actually. It’s about Castaneda leaving behind American civilization to spend three years with a sorcerer in Mexico. He started doing unconventional methods of healing, different stuff with sorcery, like hallucinogens.

Did it inspire you to do anything?
Maybe. Stuff I’d rather not talk about. But, yeah, it wasn’t just like finding a James Patterson book in the sand.

When you’re not digging holes, what do you do?
I work at Funky Buddha Lounge and Butterfly Social Club. I manage promotions and work the door. I help run a Wednesday-night film event at Butterfly. I’m a big fan of film, and we started showing movies on our two projectors and serving free pizza. Last week was themed “Beach Party.” We showed Psycho Beach Party, Splash, Lord of the Flies.

Lord of the Flies—unconventional selection. Which Flies character would you be?
The pig’s head on a stick. [Laughs] Yeah, dude, that’s how I feel right now.