Being a renaissance man ain't just about pick-ups and organic leaves. Sometimes y'gotta know how to swing a punch…
There are three brothers, as you might already know, in the Malloy house. Chris, Keith and Dan. Chris is the eldest, having just straddled the horse (warning: many masculine metaphors to follow) of middle age. Chris is a former pro surfer, a serious climber of mountains and makes fine documentaries and television commercials.
Let’s go deeper. He likes to chew tobacco (“It’s the dumbest habit in the world”), had a childhood fantasy to become a saddle bronc rider until he saw a guy get gored in the groin and then bleed out (so dead!), wants to make a film about the late Hawaiian big-wave surfer Todd Chesser (“But Hollywood always fucks up surfing even if surfers are involved. If I fucked up Todd’s story he’d come back from hell and haunt me for the rest of my life. He’d come back and piss on me while I slept”), is saddened by the ultra-crowding of surfing although he’s aware of the hypocrisy of complaining about crowds when your game is making surf films, once rolled a truck four times on the North Shore (“My back has never been the same since”) and together with his brothers spent an entire summer, as kids, camping on the beach in a teepee (“Dad or my mom would come by in the evenings when he got off from his construction job and bring us food and firewood”).
Have we established Chris’ woody credentials yet? Now let’s talk bar fights!
Wait, before bar fights, let’s talk hate!
Yeah, for sure, but it just takes so much goddamn energy to hate people that I just sort of tried to give it up. Dan got into a fight at the beach a few years back and right as he knocked the guy on his ass the guy’s mate came from behind and king hit Dan. The guy he knocked on the ground got back up and they double-teamed him pretty bad. For a week after that I was at that beach looking for those guys. I really wanted to kill them. I was miserable with hate that week. Then, one morning I woke up and just said, man, you gotta snap out of this! But, I wont lie, I hope those two stay on the meth and that they end up giving blowjobs to score their next fix.
In an interview, you once said, “We get wasted and we get in bar fights and we do stupid things.” Do you, or did you, really get into bar fights?
Yeah, we had fun in a scrap here and there. And, yeah, I remember that interview. The guy was trying to build us up to be something we weren’t. So I just told him that fact so that he’d shut up. Over the years, we had good manners on the road and while we lived in Hawaii. It just seemed silly to get stupid when you’re in these amazing places surfing good waves. But, yeah, at home, over the years, we won a few and we lost a few. It’s hard to grow up in a giant Irish family and not have that side to you. There’s a little gem of Danny boy on the internet. Look up “surf rage” on youtube.
What is the general provocation for a fight?
It’s always different and usually not worth it the next day.
Do you have tactics?
Our only tactic was to end up on top. It worked a few times.
Have you ever thought, hoo!,
I’ve bitten off more than I can chew here?
Oh yeah. I was in a restaurant in Waikiki with this girl I really liked. A Canadian hockey team walked in and one of them just started feeling her up. Right there in front of me! I was out-numbered but it drove me crazy. I jumped on the guy and got him good, three or four times with a beer mug. The rest of the team beat the shit out of me. I woke up in a cop car. The next week I was in G-land and my ribs were so sore I could barely surf. Perfect Speedies and “m in the channel wincing. Another lesson learned.