Matt Warshaw on the legacy of the retired-too-soon Santa Babs goofyfooter…
Yesterday afternoon, the surf historian Matt Warshaw made a post on his website about the long-retired Bobby Martinez.
It began with: “Immensely talented pro surfer from Santa Barbara, California; world-ranked #5 in 2006; the first Mexican-American to qualify for the pro tour; known as much for his colorful anti-surf industry rants as for his powerful, stylish turns.”
And, included, “Martinez seemed to take pro surfing’s often-shallow inner workings as a personal affront, to a degree that soon began to affect his competitive drive. He held onto a top 10 position, but 2009, the career complaints that he’d so far kept mostly among friends—about judging, contest formatting, venues—began showing up in public forums.”
Were you sad when Bobby jumped off the tour in 2011 just after being DQ’d from the Quiksilver Pro in New York? Oh, I was.
Not long afterwards I flew to Santa Babs from Australia just to record his thoughts for a magazine profile.
Warshaw’s post about Bobby re-fired my thoughts about Bob, still just 33 years old, four years younger than Taj and a decade behind Kelly. And yet retired for four years already. Ain’t that crazy?
Being a professional contest surfer, in that regard, makes so much more sense to me than just being a photo pro, or whatever they’re called these days. Maybe if you’re 21or 22. But as an adult? I don’t know. Craig Andersen, and Dane, and that whole aging Modern Collective crew — there’s gotta be some heavy-duty existential dread floating some of those guys’ heads.
Anyway, I wanted to ask Warshaw, what did Bobby Martinez leave behind? Anything? This interview took place between Sydney, Australia, and Seattle, Washington.
BeachGrit: I read with immense interest your post about Bobby Martinez. Seven NSAA titles, wins two events in his rookie year and finishes fifth. Quits tour at 28 because “every surfer was complaining and no one was happy… endless amount of shit… it fucken got to me.” As a historian, tell me how Bobby is remembered… or is he remembered…
Warshaw: When did Bobby pack it in, four years ago?
BeachGrit: 2011, yeah…
Warshaw: Sadly, to me anyway, I think he’s more remembered these days for being . . . take your pick, a giant crybaby, or the New Millennium Dora.
BeachGrit: Sadly? Why?
Warshaw: Sadly, because when I was making those two little vid clips for his page, I remembered what an amazingly good surfer he was. Or is, I mean! Better now then he ever was on tour! Smaller boards, a bit more flesh on his bones, and look at him go!
BeachGrit: You’ve written that you never really liked Bobby’s “surf-rebel rants.” I was thrilled every time he took the microphone. Why didn’t they excite you?
Warshaw: No, they did. They excited me in that he wasn’t boring. Chas just wrote a little love note about Joe Turpel’s handling of Mick’s shark episode, but for my money the standout world tour announcer response of all time was Todd Kline’s post-heat webcast interview with Bobby in NYC. The shock and joy dancing across Kline’s face! Surfing, for a few great moments, was vicious and funny and slightly out of control, and I still get a buzz watching it on YouTube.
BeachGrit: Oh, you do jumble things. You like ‘em or not?
Warshaw: What I liked about the New York blowup was just how slashing and sudden it was. But really . . . what’s behind it? What was Bobby so angry about? Not just in New York, but those two or three years before, and even after he quit. Why so mad? You’re a Top 10 professional surfer, making, I don’t know, a half-million a year? Living a block off the beach in Santa Barbara?
BeachGrit: Did I tell you of the time I wrote a cartoon (with the artist Ben Brown) about Bobby and, as a fan, I made what I thought was a lovely pictorial of his life, but he was… furious. And, I believe, ready to use fists. This wasn’t an initial worry ‘cause he little, five five max in his little Ed Hardy slip-ons, but then I later saw what a boxer he is. Ooowee, I sure was lucky he didn’t make me pay. Do you love this sort of passion?
Warshaw: No. I mean, yeah I love passion, but what you’re saying here, it just sounds to me like Bobby doesn’t have a sense of humor.
BeachGrit: Of a scale of one to ten, how dumb was Bobby’s decision to quit the tour?
Warshaw: For a lot of people, Bobby obviously included, being on tour is an awful way to live. If you love being home, if being around friends and family is important—all true for Bobby—then flogging around the world nine months out of the year or whatever, while at the same time turning your favorite thing into a cutthroat job, it’s like you’re fucking your life up four or five different ways. So good for him for stepping off. Same with Dane. Mick and Kelly and those guys can do it. Others can’t. So yeah, Bobby’s decision to leave was completely sound. But trying to play it off like it the ASP tripped him up somehow? That’s where my eyes start rolling.
BeachGrit: When I flew over to Santa Babs to write a story about Bob not long after he quit, it seemed like he’d hit hard times. He was thinking of getting into a little concreting like his Dad.
Warshaw: I read that story just last weekend. The part that really got to me, it was so honest and kind of raw, was when Bobby told you that surfing for him had become aimless. He needed to have a goal, he needed to have something to chase. It got to me for two reasons. Bobby obviously hadn’t yet got to a point with his surfing to where he couldn’t just do it for the sake of doing it, which is sad. But even sadder is, you DO need to have something to work on, a goal to aim at. Bobby, you, me, everybody. Being a professional contest surfer, in that regard, makes so much more sense to me than just being a photo pro, or whatever they’re called these days. Maybe if you’re 21or 22. But as an adult? I don’t know. Craig Andersen, and Dane, and that whole aging Modern Collective crew — there’s gotta be some heavy-duty existential dread floating some of those guys’ heads.
BeachGrit: When do you think a surfer should retire? Bobby told me, “I looked at guys who were there longer than me and go, how the fuck are they doing this? How are they still there?” Is it an age thing or when your rating hits a downward trajectory or do you wait until you fail to qualify?
Warshaw: None of those guys on tour today, and nobody going back to, I don’t know, Tom Carroll pounding out fender dents in a garage—none of them have any idea what it’s like to not be a surf star or a star in the making. Making a big change in your life is so hard. And so scary. A career change is terrifying. On the other hand, not making that kind of change is slow death. And that’s where Bobby was at there at the end, in New York. Maybe it wasn’t conscious thought, but he was smart enough or brave enough or both to cross the bridge. And blow it up behind him.
BeachGrit: When was the last time you saw Bob surf and tell me your impressions.
Warshaw: Mini Blanchard did a clip on Bobby for Channel Islands, it came out maybe six months ago. Shot mostly in Ventura, last winter. Bobby’s riding these little quads, like 5’6”, and all the joy is back, all the power, all the flow. His last couple years on tour, and for a long time after, he was so obviously just surfing by the numbers. But that the Channel Islands vid — Bobby is a man reborn.
“New Millennium Dora..” As in the Explorer?
Well… When you think about Glen Hall surfing and Bob not being in the top five, things just looks unfair.
Yes he’s a great surfer who chose to step out of the limelight… So why should anyone give a Fuck? That way he is getting what he wants.
Of the article? I don’t think so, but care to explain? Generalising Bobby’s experiences to every other “photo pro” is misguided to me. It sucks for Bobby that he lost direction after he quit. It’s hard finding motivation in life sometimes, but Matt’s argument, that motivation “makes more sense” coming from comps as surfer gets older… well that frankly sucks to me and would destroy what I like about surfing.
I only ever got one decent conversation in with Tom Curren, but it was a good one. 1996. It was early evening, maybe he had a little beer buzz on. “Competition is really the pure form of pro surfing,” he said, “because its not trying to be anything more than it is. Contests are really the most honest way to make a living in surfing. The whole point is who’s going to win the contest. Once you bring money into it, that’s the way it ought to be.” I didn’t agree with him at the time, but I think Tom was getting at the same point Bobby was in his talk with Derek a couple years ago. That without comps, you’re kinda drifting. I could not agree more that surfing just barely works as a competitive outlet; that for 99.99% of us it’s just heaven-sent recreation. But to be a non-competing pro? You’re in marketing, basically. And more to Bobby’s point, it doesn’t really answer to our need to achieve, produce, advance. Surfing better? Great, absolutely. But to surf better as a career, without even the aim of comp wins? Maybe if you’re very young. But probably not going to be fullfilling into your late 20s. That’s my take anyway.
“Contests are really the most honest way to make a living in surfing. The whole point is who’s going to win the contest”.
That is, if they weren’t ‘directed’ in such a way as they are. These are no pure competitions.
Very good point! Fundamentally, and on a personal level, I want to agree with you (and with Tom); competitive surfing should be the most honest and pure, and therefor most personally satisfying way to make money as a surfer. But to me, it’s just not. Being on the WSL is still marketing, just for a different sponsor. The WSL is a business too, at the end of the day. If Mod Col crew are the world champs of marketing in the “photo pro” lifestye; then Glen Hall, Mick, Gabby, and ADS are the champs of marketing the WSL brand. There’s politics, bias and bullshit in both. Best example: why doesn’t Shane Dorian do the BWT? Is he not going to be fulfilled if he doesn’t start competing again? All I’m saying is that I don’t believe that either the WSL or Kai Neville’s films are the major thing driving the advancement of surfing. Progression comes from something much deeper than a competition or a video part. While you need one or both to make money in surfing, no pro surfer NEEDS either to have a “goal to aim at” in surfing.
Well it’s hard to progress when you have to spend 8 hours a day digging ditches.
Why should Dane Reynolds or any decently paid “photo pro” be feeling any “existential dread”, at any any age? Surfing, in it’s most broad sense, isn’t about winning or losing. It’s not a zero sum game like a man on man heat is. Surfing is not ONLY a sport or competition, it’s something else, something more organic. Something where innovation and progress are often more celebrated and recognised than wins or loses. Whether it’s Dane, Dorian, Rasta, Nathan Fletcher, Mason Ho, Noa Dean, or even fucking Dion, “photo pros” have no more reason to question their “aims” & “goals” than contest pros like ADS do.
Quick caveat to that… if by “photo pro” you really meant “surf model”, I’d understand your point. Anastasia Ashley and Alana Blanchard may certainly have an existential crisis as the good looks and Insta fame begin to fade with, as Ando might too. But Dane, a model he is not. I’m almost sure that he is at peace with his decisions and his “adult” life does not need to be defined by contest results.
Where’s this piece you did with Bob when he retired Dell?
…here, my friend… http://stabmag.com/bobbys-c…
Respectfully Matt I think you’ve headed way off on the wrong track taking aim at Bobby’s anger and claiming it has no basis in fact. Thats just totally irrelevant. An athlete who doesn’t have that massive chip on their shoulder, or who can manufacture the internal narrative to create one isn’t worth a pinch of dried up dog caca.
Slater has it still, now even worse. His aim is not to beat an opponent once, but to so severely humiliate them that they are effectively neutralised, for ever.
AI had it, and for that glorious era used it to repeatedly grind Slater’s face in the dust.
Whats the greatest sports photo of all time? Ali standing over Liston fists clenched, in the moment post-knockout – the phantom punch- standing over the monster who couldn’t be beat.
You want to take aim at a paid sportsmen for anger because they’ve got a charmed life? Then you get a legion of paid mediocre blanc-mange backmarkers or coasters like Taj.
My favourite Bobby moment was after a heat with Taj in pumping 4-6ft Winkipop….I think 2011. Bobby clearly beat him and was awarded the victory……but he was still furious, gobbing on that Taj was over-scored etc etc.
Also, disagree somewhat on the smaller boards…I think they’re too straight in the rail through the tail outline and he surfed better on the curvier longer boards.
Respectfully Steve, you’ve missed the point. Bobby’s great flameout in NY was aimed at — the mid-way cutoff point? Big deal. His other famous bugaboo, from a year or so earlier, was that Slater was too taken with being famous while appearing not to care about being famous. I love and respect the Hyndian “bastard desire” as much as you. But it needs to be directed to work, and Bobby couldn’t do it. Recognized the fact, conciously or not, and checked out.
Matt, you’re shifting the goalposts.
Having an undirected anger which serves no purpose is a different thing to saying the guy had no right to feel angry because he was riding a golden gravy train and came from santa Barbara.
Where did that anger really come from? We never really figured it out did we. The shopping list of grievances against the ASP always seemed like a cover for something deeper.
Dell, you got a clue
Few years ago when Bells ran at Johanna and Slater won with a pretty wobbly alley oop Medina was doing all kinds of airs up the beach at a rip bowl left and everyone was going gaga. Biggest and cleanest air of the day was punted by Bob Martinez. I suggested to him something about pleasing the judges as a veteran with all the new blood around and he almost decked me ……visibly stiffened : “dude, I ain’t no veteran”
agree on the boards. I watched that footage and was left uninspired.
Watched Bobby surf by himself in kinda blown out, 8-10 foot OBSF last winter. Just his big black truck in the lot. Nobody around. Meaty, shitty, coupla corners. No real reason to paddle out. No idea why he was in SF. Surfed like he was the best in the world.
I saw him up and down the coast on perhaps that same trip, two consecutive weekends in two spots several hours on each side of SF. Unreal.