Inside your dreams.
Indelible.
And we need them to exist.
Just as they need us to exist.
And that is why Surfer has taken the task of writing profiles of our famous surfers so seriously over the past 50 years; Why, in my 25 year tenure, I have insisted on not just calling on these surfers, but living with them, eating with them, traveling with them, surfing with and knowing them...and the countries, families, hopes, ambitions, nightmares and dreams they come from.
I do this so we may all know them.
And in doing so, know ourselves.
Between the lines #1 BETHANY HAMILTON 2004
One month after the violent, bloody loss of her left arm, Bethany Hamilton and I were standing at Pine
Trees on Kauai checking the surf. She stood there in her pretty flowered bikini, no more than a couple
band-aids over the stump. A little local kid was staring at her band aids,
her loss, confused. It was making me a little uncomfortable. Bethany didn’t seem to notice. “Hey…where’s your arm?” the little kid finally asked. Bethany looked at him and replied easily “A tiger shark bit it off a month ago”. A few moments passed. Then the kid shrugged and the both of them looked back out over the surf. The kid then said, “So where we gonna paddle out?” Bethany raised her right arm and pointed to what looked like a small workable left. “Right there” She said.
I couldn’t help it. I had tears in my eyes at the monumental courage of this 13 year old girl.
The art of the profile is the ability to not just hear what the subject is saying, but to listen to what they are not saying. To not just scratch the surface, but to actually get to know these heroes of ours is essential to understanding the very mysticism that each of us assigns to our own inner surfing identity. These heroes hold keys. Keys that open passages to the performances of our daily lives. Like it or not, these famous surfers influence the way we dress, the way we think, the way we see ourselves, the way we see others, what we ride, what we value, what we believe, what we do, the way we surf, the way we speak, the very way we live and love.
And man, if that’s not just about one of the most important truths for any surfer to accept, I don’t know what is.
This has always been the essence of the Surfer Profile.
Seeking the hero’s humanness.
Reveal theirs and we reveal our own.
Between the lines#2: CHEYNE HORAN 1988
I stood there on the sidewalk of the main street of Byron Bay, Australia staring at a stranger reflected in the picture window of a grocery store.
The stranger was me.
I had just spent a week up-country on Cheyne Horan’s alternative lifestyle commune. Vegetarian Dogs, yoga, star-fins, cries of passion in the night down the hall and constant “Herbal Enchantment”. The stranger in the reflection of the picture window was unshaved for days. Bloodshot. Hair matted. Shirtless. Leaves and grass melted into the wax of his board. Plastic bag of garden carrots under his arm.
God only knows where he got the ratty hippie bag slung over his shoulder…or what was in it.
And all I could do was just stand there looking at myself in that picture window, wondering when I had stopped wearing shoes.
Immersion is the method to true profiling. Not undercover, but exposed. An experience . A happening. A different outlook on…well, everything.
Leaving a taste of our own history, be it sour or sweet.
Between the lines#3 THE FREE RIDE BOYS 2008
In my past I had written of each of them.
And now I could witness their pageantry.
A halo of muscular power emanated from the table where they sat together at the 2008 Surfer Poll awards. Shaun Tomson, Rabbit Bartholomew, Ian Cairns, Peter Townend. Older, grayer, bowed by time, but with shoulders still as strong as oxen, they sat awaiting their award for their documentary “Bustin’ down the door”. I caught Rabbit’s eyes; he winked and mimed tipping an imaginary hat. An old custom of ours since we first worked together back in 86’. I tipped mine back. Then I looked at Shaun. He smiled that ear to ear grin, all teeth, and started softly laughing; we’ve always got a kick out of each other over the years. Reminding ourselves how lucky and outrageous we were to be surfers. Big Ian, eyes a little rheumy and haunted, but still impressive with that unshakable confidence, gave me a simple nod like a king recognizing a favorite knight. And Peter, forever pan, gave me both thumbs. He was stoked to be here, so stoked to be a piece of our history. As their tribute introduction began, each of them straightened a little, getting ready for the applause they had heard so many times before, eyes calm but riveted on the stage. A stage they had taken so many times before. Just before they stood, Rabbit reached over and patted Shaun on the back. I was close enough to just catch what he said. “We did it mate”. Then the place erupted with that applause and the spotlight found the four of them once again and they all stood to make their way to the podium.
These men were proud.
And so, may the saints preserve us all, were we.
Without the SURFER profile these people would never have been kings.
So many of our lives being defined by the era when our Kings and Queens of choice held reign.
We would have never known the madness of Cheyne Horan, the private, troubled world of Tom Curren, the savant child inside Marc Occhilupo, the masculine inner power of Keala Kennelly, a woman alone. The extraordinary will of Layne Beachley and the discovery of her real name, Tanya Maris. We would never have known the suicide hauntings of Oscar Wright, or the heartache of the beautiful Beau Young. The story I wrote about Beau’s troubled relationship with his famous father Nat that caused such national Aussie outrage that the Sydney Herald splashed across its headlines: “Seppo journo bashes Nat!”
Yet amongst all this there was one that got away. The one I never wrote about.
I was in so deep; I couldn’t see a reason out. And so the readers never knew. But there was a reason why I did not write this particular Surfer profile and in the spirit of my responsibility to the magazine, I will share a passage from my notes with you now.
Between the lines #4: DAVE KALAMA 2004
NOTE: Dave Kalama and his children are so pure, so connected to the Hawaiian islands and their ocean life that for the first time in my life, I feel like an intruder. Dave has perfected a synthesis between his pure Polynesian roots and his part in Surfing’s NASA program with the rest of the Maui tow-in astronauts. Dave Kalama is an Olympian. In comparison to him, the pro tour surfers look like the Special Olympics.
NOTE: Last night after dinner at Dave’s island bungalow, his kids were tussling and playing and shrieking in the living room as Dave and I sat down to record some words. Dave smiled, got up, popped a video in the TV, came back and sat down ready to talk. There was suddenly absolute silence in the living room. Curious, I walked over to check it out. His kids were looking at the screen of the TV, rapt. The little boy was standing, his head cocked curiously to the right. On screen was this ethereal footage of dolphins at play in the sea. Perfect aquatic forms flowing in concert with the ocean. The tape had been a gift from a friend of Dave’s. His latest footage shot from all manner of extraordinary angles. The kid’s swayed to the movements of the waves and the animals before them, as natural as heartbeats. I was stunned. Dave just smiled at me.
“They see things most people don’t” he said.
I didn’t know if he was talking about his kids or the dolphins.
NOTE: Eleven hours later and here I am on a plane taking off for a new assignment. I am climbing out of Maui, flying directly over a surf spot called Speckles, private training ground for the tow-in elite. I look out the window and can see looping circles of wake as the tow-in crew whip themselves into wave after wave. I know Dave is down there. Living simply. Perfectly. Synchronized between heaven and Earth.
Then clouds obscure my view.
NOTE: Sitting back in my seat I realize that I am not going to write a profile on Dave Kalama. For the first time in my life I do not want to do a damn thing that might cause so much as a ripple in such a glassy spiritual pond. I do not regret it.
No one needs to know Dave Kalama’s secrets. There aren’t any.
He sits upon Mt. Olympus.
No one needs to hear that from me.
Dave Kalama makes you hear yourself.
As much as the Surfer Profile has been about preserving history, so has it been about showcasing the future. And no profiles of mine have served better than my 25 year running commentary on my friend Kelly Slater, our longest reigning king. Kelly has been the future since I first wrote about him in Surfer when he was 15. Now, at 37, he is finally of the age to question the very future whose course he has almost single handedly set.
And, as is the way of our world, the Surfer Profile was there once again:
Between the lines#5 KELLY SLATER 2009
Those moss green eyes were looking into mine again and I must say it was damned good to see how bright they still burned after all these years.
I had never seen Kelly Slater so fit. He looked in better shape than the eighteen year olds in the room.
He and I sat together and were chatting in the soft heat of another Bali night. We were at Rizal Tanjung’s balcony restaurant waiting for the lights to go down. Seemed the whole world was there. All the heroes. The Rip Curl contest had ended earlier that day and we had all gathered for a homegrown first look at Taylor Steele’s new movie “Stranger than Fiction”. Kelly had his pretty girlfriend in hand and he softly stroked her forearm, gingerly sipping his red wine as we caught up on life’s great events. The party swirled around us like a maelstrom but I could tell Kelly was in a thoughtful mood. I’d seen him like this before. He had something to say, but wasn’t quite sure when to say it.
When the light s came down and the movie started, Kelly leaned forward in the darkness, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped and he began to watch intently. His face at my shoulder, he began asking me all sorts of questions about the surfing that was taking place up on the screen. I whispered my answers. He was very quiet about it, didn’t want to broadcast anything. He would comment simply from time to time as the best surfing the planet had to offer sailed across the screen above the packed, boozy bar .
Kelly: No power, Not enough rocker, Can’t read waves, Needs a better shaper, doesn’t know where the power is, no bottom turn, too much time in the air, should look down the line more, too much time in beach breaks. Board’s too small. Hawaii will kill him. Doesn’t understand accelerating in the tube…
There was no ego in what Kelly was saying. No bitterness or sour grapes. Just experienced, honest, pinpoint observation. He was also dead on.
Eventually the lights came up and the party began to howl. Dean Morrison and the Aussies already had the proverbial lampshades on their heads. But Kelly remained quiet amidst the madness. Most could feel it and were giving him plenty of room. He hesitated a moment, looked around the room and then leveled his eyes on me and then finally said what was on his mind:
Kelly: “Whose gonna take my place? He said, genuinely concerned, “I can’t do this forever. Competitively…who is gonna take my place?”
We looked around together.
Bruce Irons had just won the contest, but we all knew he was going to quit the tour any second now.
Brother Andy was over in the corner surrounded by fans, looking fragile, trying real hard not to drink or accept any of the proffered drugs, looking like there was nothing to worry about… except for everything in the whole goddamned world.
The rest of the young guns in the room were incoherent, intoxicated with the free booze and the free weights of their own too-early, un-earned fame and riches.
I looked back at Kelly and he just smiled that one lonely smile of his. Then he squeezed my shoulder and stood and made his way out of the place with his girlfriend and a quiet dignity.
I watched him go.
And I was damned if I knew the answer to his question.
Surfing is on all of our minds.
In all of our hearts.
And though our heroes fight it out in the arena, it is the Surfer Profile that leads the way.
Making sure our sport’s pantheon of greats live forever in these pages.
And so they should.
They are who you are.
And if you are passionate enough and you read closely enough…
You will live forever in these pages too.
