Contest heats are “Thirty minutes of stupid!”

By Chas Smith

10 years ago

Hector Santamaria is Puerto Rico's finest export. Better than Erik Estrada. Better than Jennifer Lopez.

Hector Santamaria walks into a room and BAM! It comes alive. Colors change from drab fluorescent-lit drab to sparkly rainbow, royal purple, diggity-diamond and, best of all, platinum. Platinumch. “I see it, all arrrrrround,” he says. And then his eyes, his mad, squinty eyes widen. “Whaaaat? You don’t see the colors? You don’t feel them?” he says. And his voice, his Puerto Rican-tinged voice raises to higher and higher octaves of disbelief.

On paper he is merely a surfer. A sponsored Puerto Rican surfer from Jobos Beach. “I’m from Jobos but you can put Slowbos. That is what I call it. Hahahaha.” I ask him if the locals will care and he says, “I don’t care. It’s all about having fun. It’s not what people think. I don’t care what people think. I don’t care. I don’t care nothing. Hahahaha.” And the wildest thing is, he really does not care which takes him the rarest bird. A giant breath of fresh air. We all, everyone of us, walk down the street caring what people think. Professional surfers care more than others. Professional surfers sit for interviews and hem and haw but not Hector Santamaria. He sings.

And maybe he also sticks front flips on a surfboard. His surfing is a thing of wonder, combining all the progressive airs with all the steezy styley style. And he is most definitely filled with chi power. Chi, or qi, is best described as “life force.” It is the active principle forming any living thing. And Hector Santamaria is filled with it. “Oh that is the thing I loved about surfing first, just the chi for sure. Just like the energy I got when I stand up for the first time it’s like, ‘Ooooooh what is that, what is happening, ayeyeyeye!’ I just felt the love and I’m like, ‘I’m doing this forever.’”

But where, exactly, did Hector Santamaria learn about chi? “I read books. The Power of Now. I reeeeaaaad ch chc ch ch chchchc C.S. Lewis. He’s siiiiick. He has chi. Mega chi. And so I just love the chi of surfing. The first time I went everything just turned into particles and then my mom started taking me surfing all the time and I thought, ‘Oh yeah! This is the best, heh? I’m not going to school. Hahahahahaha!”

But what, exactly, has the most chi in surfing? “I would say airs.” Over barrels? “Yesch. Everybody says barrels and barrels are chi, fully, but when you do an air and you gotta move your body, like, three times. I even like those layback turns that Dane does when he goes shshshshshshshshshhwhwhwshs.”

But where, exactly, has the most chi? “Florida has no chi. Cali has good chi. Puerto Rico has good chi. You know where’s good chi? Fiji. They have chi but it’s kinda slow. It’s not like I thought. But Cali has the most chi for sure. I feel Cali is wicked ‘cause a lotta people live here so everything is moving….. I like Newport. I love San Clemente too. I like Surfside.”

A giant breath of fresh air. Hector Santamaria doesn’t compete. “No. I don’t like too. First of all, you need time to do what you love. You don’t want thirty minutes of stupid. Like, you cannot do a double rotation in a contest because you don’t have the…..the……the chi is not there.” He just lives. He lives bigger and wilder and more colorful and without any sort of restraint. A giant breath of fresh air.

I heard a story from Surfing Magazine’s famous Brendan Buckley. He said he paddled out one completely crowded perfect Trestles day and as he paddled he heard a loud siren coming from the lineup. As he got closer he heard people yelling at the siren, “HEY! SHUT THE FUCK UP!” but the siren didn’t shut up. And then he saw Hector Santamaria sitting on the peak, waving his arms in circles, head to the sky, screaming out a siren sound. What does he think when people yell him to shut the fuck up? “I don’t care. I don’t care. I’m just giving it my best. I’m not trying to kill anyone. When they yell, ‘HEY! SCHUT UP!’ I yell back, “You don’t pay my bills!’ Hhahahahhahaha! And then I say, ‘Chi power. Chi power. No chi suckers!’” The rarest bird. In a world where surf has turned drab fluorescent-lit drab, Hector Santamaria is our color. He is the prayer for us sinners.

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The Gallery'll make a man cry; Naked'll put you right there in WWII.

Six books every surfer should read

By Chas Smith

10 years ago

Precisely because they have nothing to do with surfing…

…but are great pieces of literature. Foundational pieces.

1. Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh

… is the most awesome piece of racism that you’ll ever read. I love it so much. Racism is, anyhow, a social construct that is almost always funny. Even when people really mean it, it’s funny. I know, I know, it’s easy for me to say since I’m white. But Waugh elevates the idea of national building in Africa to such ridiculous heights. It’s the sort of old-timey aristocratic remove that today’s social liberal would cry about. Waugh doesn’t take himself seriously either. The well-bred Englishman star of the show is absurd. Awesome. I can’t talk about it anymore. You should go and buy a copy right now.

2. The Gallery by John Horne Burns

…make-a-me cry. It’s not a linear tale, rather a series of vignettes told in World War II Naples, Italy. I remember going to Naples and thinking the pizza tasted delis and the men dressed like greasy wops. Burns’ impressions are much more devastating. It didn’t make me cry because it was said (you’re a jerk for thinking me a pussy!) rather the bugs of brilliance are overwhelming. I can’t do it justice. Here’s a piece. “Every five minutes she looked out the window into the swirling foggy streets to see if there were any New Zealanders coming. She remembered what Il Duce had said the Kiwis would do to the women of Italy. She had Giulia fetch the carving knife from the cupboard. She promised that this knife would finish in Giulia’s heart if ever a New Zealand tread were heard on the stairs. Then Mamma would turn the knife, smoking from her daughter’s blood, on herself: for who knew that even a matron of her age would be safe from ravishing New Zealand soldiery?” OH MAN! So good, and as a bonus, highlights the perversity of New Zealanders.

3. The Plague by Albert Camus

…is considered an existential classic. A few years ago I loved existentialism because I liked how the word looks.

E X I S T E N T I A L I S M

It sounds good when you say it and it can be attributed to almost anything. “Hmmm, that experience I heard you talking about is soooo existential.” Then I read Sartre and barfed all over his ugly face and thought maybe existentialism wasn’t so pretty. Camus was handsome to the point of ironically beautiful. The very picture of French Algerian masculinity. He had tuberculosis but smoked like a chimney and the cigarette was always at a jaunty angle. I love the absurd. And I love Camus and I love The Plague. We have no control, baby. None at all. I think that makes many people sad. It makes me happy.

4. Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis

…is breathless. I’ll only vouch for the first half, which kicks dick. Bret Easton E’s popular culture references, shot at machine-gun speed, will blow up your mind. The way he lists celebrity names in long sentences is genius. I don’t know how he does it. He just lists celebrity names and creates a huge meaning from the list. It’s just too good. Also, the main character, Victor, is the most vacuous creation ever. Love it. You’re on your own at the point Victor is involved in a lengthy homosexual ménage. It sorta goes downhill at that point. But the first half? Fag-u-lous!

5. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

…is long, rambling and shot through with radiance. Set in the South Pacific during WWII. Bummer. It seems as if I have a WWII fetish. It’s going to lead to sexual role-play if I’m not careful.

6. The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton

GK is one of the most fabulous men to ever live. He was big and fat and wore a cape. He loved paradox. This is a good story and two interesting historical figures counted it among their favourites: Michael Collins, famous Irish Republican white terrorist took from the book, if you don’t seem to be hiding, no one will hunt you out. And Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who sold tons of secrets to the USSR used to give the book to his friends. Good enough for me.

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Dion Agius

“The Most Insane, Courageous Performance I’ve Ever Seen!”

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

Dion Agius remembers Damien Hobgood's surfing at a rough Indonesian reef. "He was an animal!"

Some time ago, while filming for Strange Rumblings, Dion Agius and other Globe surfers including Creed McTaggart, sought out the circles of Greenbush in Sumatra, Indonesia.

Greenbush is one of those waves where tuberiding to the death is preferable to opening the cat-flap or proning straight. For surfers such as Craig Anderson and, in our case, Damien Hobgood, it is where their courage and their skills are most visible.

I’d heard about Damien Hobgood’s solo session at 12-foot at Greenbush from Dion Agius and Creed McTaggart. As I swooped on their drinks cabinet they mimicked what they believed had transpired. Giant drops beyond the vertical axis! Circles that were so big that even if a camera had been there it wouldn’t have been able to translate its enormity to pixels.

Damien, see, was in Bali and had heard the wave was going to be good and, short of partners, flew, drove and hopped a boat until he was sitting in the channel of an Indonesia version of Teahupoo, ready to surf solo. And solo he did.

The following day, when the swell had dropped but was still a respectable, even horrifying, eight foot, Dion and Creed and the rest of the Globe gang arrived. And Damien, hardened from the previous day, owned it.

Now let’s talk with Dion!

BeachGrit: Describe to me how Damien behaved in these waves?

Dion: Damo acted like an animal out there, like a man possessed. It was the most insane performance of talent and courage I’ve ever seen. He did not give one fuck and was getting bounced of the reef and bleeding everywhere and just kept charging.

What about when he surfaced with his back covered in glitches. He laughed it off, yeah?

Yep, he had been bounced on the inside. Tore up his whole back, copped the next death set on the head on the inside section and swam down to the bottom and bear-hugged a giant coral head while an eight foot dry set bore down on his head. And he gritted his teeth and said underwater “not today.” That’s what he told us when he paddled back out bleeding. “Not today!” Jesus. I wanted to go home crying. I was so scared at that point.

Can you describe, in detail, one outrageous wave he rode?

He got one that came in looking like Black Death. The whole channel went black, it was the biggest wave of the day by far and he saw it and just started paddling for the horizon. A the very last second he swung as fast as you’ve ever seen and put his head down. I think his face may have even been in the water and he was grunting an paddling so hard paddling like 20 miles an hour. Once his board caught up with the tremendous forward thrusts his arms were producing, he took off behind the peak and lost contact for a second before regaining at the bottom and accidetanlly went into a soul arch with an eight-foot guillotine lip heading at his face. He ducked about two-inches and it slid right by his ear before he stood completely straight and proceeded to man-handle the beast all the way down the line and then got spat out right in front of my face. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. He was giggling.

What sorts of things do you remember him saying to you?

I think he said, “that was fun.” I couldn’t speak for about 20 minutes.

What can we learn from a man like Damo?

How to be a man. And an awesome loving, caring gentle man that is also as tough, and strong and crazy as the manliest of men.

Do you wish you were more like Damo?

I wish I was Damo.

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''You're just looking at each other with your mouths open and you're shaking your head and nothing comes out, you don't know what to say. I'd lost my voice by the end of the day," says Taj of a wave that has only appeared, in this sort of form, twice, and only for a few hours each time, in the past 20 years. | Photo: Jamie Scott

Is this the best wave in the world?

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

Long, draining, warm-water, sand-bottom point. In Western Australia. Make you wanna chase?

What do you want in a “world’s best wave”? A few jocks will chase the Teahupoo dream; others are Hawaii; a few thrill to the cold-water ledges.

Me? And you? I’m thinking warm-water sand-bottom points with a cap on the wave size at, say, six foot. Like this remarkable confluence of sand and swell three hours drive south of Perth in Western Australia, and relatively close to the primary residence of the tour’s Taj Burrow.

”You’re just looking at each other with your mouths open and you’re shaking your head and nothing comes out, you don’t know what to say. I’d lost my voice by the end of the day,” says Taj of a wave that has only appeared, in this sort of form, twice, and only for a few hours each time, in the past 20 years.

Cyclone Bianca (2011) and Cyclone Iggy (2012) are two meteorological events that surfers who were there, on this day, and on the previous one the year before, will remember for the rest of their lives.

Cyclones, y’see, don’t do a hell of a lot for waves around these parts, usually. Mostly they’re too far up north, Exmouth and beyond. But Bianca and Iggy flew south and spun their north-swell dreams into a part of the state more famous for its lefts (Let’s leave North Point outta the picture for a minute).

And what happens is the prevailing southerlies push sand up into the beachbreaks, every day, every year. But without a north swell to light ’em up, they’re always closeouts.

“We couldn’t believe it happened two years in a row,” says Jamie Scott, who shot this photo. “That never happens. Two in a row! We were losing it.” The “we” refers to Taj, Jay Davies and another local surfer Dino Adrian.

Jamie is 44 years old and takes surf photos for a living. He also prints these shots, makes frames and then “sits it out at the markets every Saturday and Sunday in summer.”

“As far as beachies go, these were the best waves we’ve ever had down here,” says Jamie. “North Point gets fucked up as you know, but these were long, draining, heavy beachies with shape. And it was pumping, as in the waves didn’t stop. Usually our swells are long-period here but because the cyclone was so close there was a real short period and the waves were closer together, pumping through.”

Which means, “good lineup shots,” says Jamie.

How long can you mind-surf this photo for?

(To buy this image or to flip through Jamie’s catalogue click here. You want his social? Click here for Facebook. And click here for his Instagram.

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Man finds epiphany buried in Cyrus Sutton and Ryan Burch's movie Stoked and Broke.

Found: The Meaning of Life at Surf Movie Premiere!

By Ali Klinkenberg

10 years ago

Wait, you had an epiphany at a double bill with Cyrus Sutton and Dingo?

Four years ago I attended the premiere of Dean Morrison’s movie A Dingo’s Tale at the Ritz theatre in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. I went with a pal and without agenda, just to see some surf on the silver screen, but the events that unfolded had a pungent effect on my palate.

The night was put on by action sports distribution firm VAS Entertainment, and the support act was a little movie called Stoked and Broke by a man unknown to me at the time called Cyrus Sutton. The two movies being pared together was coincidence, but in doing so VAS entertainment unbecomingly put together a dissonant account of surf culture, one that is evident today.

Being fashionably late my friend and I were forced into sitting upstairs in the gallery. Dingo sat among his Sydney conglomerate the Bra Boys, in a mob that took up the first five rows. Next to my friend and I was a known local surf dog with a piece of dental floss hanging from his sun tipped curls, and behind us a tardy and boozy Paul Fisher, who took great pleasure in squawking like a amphetamine riddled McCaw whenever he saw fit, usually with the phrase, “Yeah the Ding!”

Cyrus’ movie chronicled his and Ryan Burch’s man-powered surf trip through San Diego County dragging a cart each containing boards and supplies and relying on the generosity of others for food, money, and shelter.

Contrived sure, but the sentiment was real. The humour and kinship that Cyrus managed to convey powered the boys through the county in a captivating fashion. Not to mention the surfing of one Ryan Burch! Burch carries his sleigh containing all manner of weird and wonder filled crafts from beach to beach and draws highly creative lines in all manner of Cali glass.

The image of the boys sitting on skateboards towing their trolleys past one of Southern California’s many golf courses, while a sparkling SUV is itching to get past them is golden. It reeks of the surfer larrikin. (Not to be confused with the Gold Coast larrikin depicted in A Dingo’s Tale.)

Nah, the same strand of tomfoolery that saw Miki Dora and the boys don the Schutzstaffel uniforms that their Pa’s had brought back from the war and ride flexi’s through the storm water drains that run underneath Windansea in the sixties. Doing surf culture proud.

At the conclusion Cyrus had to stand at the foot of the blank screen and answer robotic questions on his work of great passion

“Where did you get the idea…”

All the while the Boys Bra were five feet away, peering under their flat-brimmed hats and straight into Cy’s soul! I died with him.

A Dingo’s Tale started to rapturous applause and lots of “Yeah the Ding’s.” It was barrels, sand placement, abusive parents, saviour Rabbit, and Dingo’s hi-fi game was near flawless.

Yet I couldn’t rid my mind of the epiphany that Stoked and Broke had triggered in my partially explored brain. These were young surfers actually thinking about stuff! Questioning life, surfing, capitalism, suburbia, whether you really need a four-wheel drive. But doing it in a thought-provoking and humorous way, with an eye on the past and an eye on the future. The irony of doing a feral hobo surf mission in gentrified Southern California was clearly not lost on Cyrus Sutton.

The most poignant moment in Stoked and Broke comes in an interview with surfer, filmmaker, and writer Richard Kenvin, when talking about a young surfer who lives with his single mother:

“There’s nothing better that you can get outta life than having a family unit, y’know. A loving family of your own, which I don’t have… and some sort of security in the world. That’s of a much higher value than anything that you’re going to get out of surfing. And if you can get surfing to fit in there somehow, then, y’know, you’re on top of the game.”

My mind slithered back to the now, where a close-up of distressed looking Dean Morrison appeared on the screen.

“Then I got dropped by my sponsor, my dog died, and my wife left me….”

This moment, clearly intended by the director Matt Gye to be the heart-string tugging climax to the movie, steeled the Ritz’s audience in uncomfortable silence. Just as the awkwardness was almost too much to bear, relief came from a high-pitched nasal snigger from one Paul Fisher. We exhaled, ashamed and embarrassed.

Shuffling out of the theatre my pal, a man of few words, offered his thoughts on the night

“That was good, ay.”

I kept him company in his unintentional flippancy.

“Yeah pretty good.”

But in my mind, thoughts tornadod. There’s more to life than surf? Irresponsibility puts you in a prison? Can this be true? But most potently, “If you can fit surfing in somewhere then you’re on top of the game.”

To view life through surfing, what a dreamy medium!

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