Rocky Romano on the motivation behind his
controversial film, Learning to Breathe…
Rocky Romano is the man behind the big-wave centric
production company, The Go Big Project. Romano’s first film
project began in 2010, following Anthony Ruffo as he struggled with
drug addiction, dealing, and the resulting legal consequences.
Previously only available on iTunes or Amazon, the film was
recently released for free, for 72 hours, on BeachGrit. and has sparked a
heated conversation about an often avoided subject matter in the
surf world. I spent an hour with Rocky to hear more about
Ruffo, the film’s backstory, and the cast of characters he’ll share
next. Listen here or read below.
BeachGrit: As a first time filmmaker, what about Anthony
Ruffo inspired you to commit two-plus years of your life to this
story?
Romano: I was in Santa Cruz and saw in the newspaper that Ruffo was
being busted for the third time. His background as a surfer and an
iconic figure in the community who was now struggling so publicly
made it a compelling story. But I was also trepidatious because the
subject matter is so illicit and ugly. Then I realized, to be the
storyteller that I wanted to be, I was going to have to tell the
hard stories, not just the beautiful stories. So I reached out to
Anthony and suggested that it might be a good idea to share his
struggle. Ultimately, after thinking about it, he agreed that he
wanted to share his story.
I lived in rehab during parts of the process, and stayed in
people’s spare bedrooms. I slept in an abandoned office on my dog’s
bed while evading the Feds who were trying to seize my hard drives.
They knew about the interviews that I’d been conducting and
suspected that they might find evidence that would help implicate
people for crimes committed. I didn’t have enough money to make
copies of the hard drive nor persevere that kind of setback.
Thankfully I was tipped off and I was able to hide out until it
blew over.
What was the process of filming?
I began the filming process while Anthony was still struggling with
addiction and was awaiting trial. It was intimidating to make
introductions into the West Side surfing community, but Ruffo is so
charismatic and made me comfortable in such an intimate and
personal setting. I filmed him for 2 years, through rehab, through
the trials, through jail and everything. I abandoned all other
obligations. I paid for the entire project with no sponsor support.
I had surf industry sponsors early on, but they all bailed as soon
as they saw how raw some of the story really was.
I lived in rehab during parts of the process, and stayed in
people’s spare bedrooms. I slept in an abandoned office on my dog’s
bed while evading the Feds who were trying to seize my hard drives.
They knew about the interviews that I’d been conducting and
suspected that they might find evidence that would help implicate
people for crimes committed. I didn’t have enough money to make
copies of the hard drive nor persevere that kind of setback.
Thankfully I was tipped off and I was able to hide out until it
blew over. At the end of those 2 years, I had 68 interviews
all together. Multiple with Ruffo, of course, one being 4 hours
straight. There was 1,000 hours of footage, a lot of which never
left the cutting room floor. Interviews with Peter Townend and
Michael Ho, among others never made it into the film.
Being a transplant snowboarder from the mountains, it’s
interesting that Ruffo and the Santa Cruz surf community would
allow you such access into their world.
I think the timing was key. A lot of people were ready to tell
their stories to try to make a difference. Santa Cruz has changed a
lot in the last couple decades and I think that the movie became
vehicle for people to say some things that they’d been wanting to
say for a long time.

What has the response been from those involved in the
film? Pete Mel, for example, has since become the Big Wave World
Tour commissioner. I wonder if his employers have an opinion about
his admissions in the film.
I can’t speak for Pete, nor anyone else, but I would think that
everyone would be proud of Pete and his honesty. In a world where
things are so often swept under the rug, his example of honestly,
perseverance and accomplishment are an incredible example.
The film was well received on the festival circuit and won a bunch
of awards, but distributors have shied away because of the subject
matter. We’ve always just wanted the film to be seen. I lost money
of the film, but the goal was always to just get the message out.
That’s why we offered the film for free for 72 hours. If the
comment section on BeachGrit represent’s public opinion, I’d say
that opinions about the film ranged from every possible angle. And
more importantly, it sparked a conversation and that was the
purpose of the film from the beginning.
I wanted to tell the story because I come from the action sports
community and I wanted us to discuss our own problem, rather than
having an outside entity expose it. But I also wanted to give an
accurate depiction of drug use and the dangers, not like the old
“This is your brain on drugs” campaign that just becomes a
parody.
You don’t plan to make a profit on Learning to
Breathe. How does one make a living as a filmmaker in the surf
realm nowadays?
I can only tell you my path. I never made “surf porn”, which seems
to be a more common path into the industry. My motivation has
always been to tell stories. Ruffo fascinated me as a character
with a very rich story. I’m particularly compelled by big wave
surfing and the characters who devote their lives to riding giants
boards in giant surf. I never viewed filmmaking as way to earn
money, but thankfully, by following my passion we’ve been
commissioned to produce content. Ultimately, we saw television as
the opportunity to earn a living and share these stories with a
broader audience. So I moved to LA and we focused on positioning
our content towards that goal. We started with our Mavericks’
Moments series where we follow various big wave
surfers as they struggle to balance their personal life with their
passion for chasing massive swells. We used that model to create
three different thirteen-episode series that we pitched at
sold to various networks. Then, thankfully, we’ve also been
contracted to produce 50 hours of UHD (Ultra High Definition,
4,000k+ resolution) action sports television in 2016. It’s really
exciting and will allow us to fully explore storytelling and
filmmaking.
The Ruffo story is compelling, but are there any other
characters who’s stories you’d like to tease before we see all
these shows that you’re producing?
Jeff Denholm is one of the best stories. He’s an East coast surfer
who got into Hemingway. He looked around and realized he wasn’t
surrounding by men, so he went off and became a commercial
fisherman. He was in the Bering Sea when he fell into the gearbox
on the ship and had his arm ripped off. He survived a 17 hour
evacuation to a hospital where they saved his life. Then he went
back to the East Coast and developed a prosthetic arm with a
flipper which he then used it to paddle into Mavericks. Just an
absolutely amazing story. He travels with Kohl Christenson and some
other guys who you’d know.
There are so many working class hero, blue collar stories in big
wave surfing. Up in Oregon, near Nelscott Reef, Eric Akiskalian
works as a car salesman and rides those massive, frigid waves in
relative anonymity. And then we have guys like Garrett McNamara at
Nazare during that December swell where he was charging waves and
rescuing guys; full superhero feats and such a sensational
personality and family. Will Skudin and Treveor Sven Carlson are
two stories of perseverance as they struggle to find a spot on the
Big Wave World Tour, both featured in our big wave show. Coco
Nogales down in Mexico. So many men and women. So many stories. I
could go on and on. We tell all those stories in our “Mavericks’
Moment” series.
Get Learning to Breathe here. And follow Rocky Romano’s
work here.

(As an interesting addendum, please find below a story Chas Smith
wrote about Anthony Ruffo in 2007 whereupon Ruffo is likened to
Buddha.)
THE ICE STORM.
YOU HEARD OF METHAMPHETAMINE? LIKE, ICE? DEVIL DUST? THE HI-FI
SHIZZLE THAT’S RIPPING APART MINDS FROM LA TO COOLANGATTA? PRO
SURFER ANTHONY RUFFO KNOWS ABOUT IT – HE WAS DEALING CRANK UNTIL
THE COPS TOOK HIM DOWN. TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE PHENOMENON THAT
IS ICE , I WENT TO SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, TO HEAR ANTHONY’S
INSPIRING STORY …
Methamphetamine is the most awesome drug that I’ve ever,
ever heard of. Ever. You can make it in your fucking
bathtub. All you need is some Sudafed, Drano and a ”can-do” ‘tude.
It opens the doors of perception for weeks, not hours, and is,
like, a third of the price of cocaine. It’s the people’s drug. The
working man’s high. I’m soooo so sick of all these bourgeois
shithead doctors/policemen/politicians/mums who are trying to
“purge” it from our streets. Fuck them. They don’t know how to
party like enlightened sages. Truckers, prisoners, Hell’s Angels
and a growing number surfers do know how, darling. Party like a
plugged-in Kate Moss circa last year. From California to Hawaii to
Australia to Indonesia, everybody’s drooling for a giant swell of
Devil Dust. Call it what you want: glass, amp, crank, speed, white
cross… it’s all ice. Ice, baby.The surfer/speed connection ain’t as
new as it seems. In 1989, San Diego was considered the Crystal
Capital of North America. Yet, it’s always been stigmatised. The
drug-enjoying surf community will think nothing of marijuanee,
special k or coke, but don’t bring no methamphetamine around. No,
no, no. It’s yucky. It’s low-brow.
Like I said, though, underground use is growing! It’s considered
an “epidemic” on the North Shore, a “very serious problem” on the
Goldie and a “cancer” in Bali. Fuckin’ good news for a fuckin’
great drug! Seriously, at the present growth rate, each and every
one of us going to be addicted to the shit pretty soon. It looks
like it follows good waves around, so unless your homebreak is
Penrith, west Sydney, you are going to be snorting pre-surf lines
of crystal off your cracked dashboard. Nobody stops “epidemic
serious problem cancers.” The thing to do is roll with it, baby.
Ice, Ice baby.
There’s only one element we need (besides baggies of evil
yellow), and that’s a leader. Someone who has walked the path of
the white dragon. Someone who can show us all how to live in our
tweaky new world. Someone who has been to methamphetamine nirvana
and returned to earth; an awakened one. A Blanco Buddha.
Stop right there, because before shab-soaked Pipe, Kirra and
Uluwatu there was Steamer Lane. There was Anthony Ruffo.
Anthony Ruffo is a Santa Cruz surf icon, tow pioneer, Teahupoo
charger, enlightened meth buddha and convicted felon. He was busted
on July 28, 2005 for “possession and sales” of methamphetamine.
Fuck, yeah! Sounds good… sounds like he was walking the walk! What
the world knows about the show is courtesy of the boring ol’ media.
Newspapers, magazines and television stations across the country
jumped all over his story like hipsters into skinny jeans.
Santa Cruz CA: Professional surfer Anthony Ruffo was beat like a
drum last night. Narcotics officers invaded his house and found him
shoving blue funk into the veins of a 12-year-old girl. He was
subsequently arrested and will spend his life behind bars sharing a
cell with Charles Manson. Burn in fucking hell, Mr. Ruffo. Back to
you in the studio! Ruffo was treated badly. Very, very badly. His
good name was dragged through Northern Californian dirt by
respected, highly-valued, chaste news outlets and… GIVE ME A
FUCKING BREAK. Like, newsmen don’t all snort coke together at the
end of a tough day? All of them, in their ugly ties and foam
covered microphones, lining up around a giant glass coffee table
piled high with yayo taking turns licking and snorting and babbling
incoherently about Bill Clinton’s sweet titties. Fucking
please.
Oh, and the surf community jumped right in, too.
Ruffo is a disgrace to everything we stand for. We hate his
poohead guts. He’s a jerk. He did very naughty drugs and now our
squeaky clean alternative sport won’t be as beloved in the Midwest.
Boooo on A. Ruffo. Booo all over him. (Toke toke. Snort snort).
Assholes.
He was tried and convicted a junkie pervert in the court of
public opinion. Luckily, he had a better lawyer for the court of
law (a waaaay better lawyer, but we’ll get to that). After doing
his “time”, Ruffo gave a couple interviews to the magazines that
smeared him, apologising for his wayward life and said he was a
changed man. “I got in a little to deep; I’m glad that everything
is behind me…blah, blah, blah… .I’m a bad guy…blah blah blah.”
What tkind of shitty, ham-fisted drivel do you expect when
douchebag editors are asking, how’s it going staying clean?
Dumb. Boring. Unoriginal. Not helpful.
With his legal situation in check Anthony’s determined to make
only good come from the bad. ARGH! Fuck that motherfucking shit!
Ruffo is like a saffron robe-wearing Tony Montana, sitting
cross-legged underneath the lighthouse at Steamer Lane. I decided
to go on a pilgrimage to fucking Santa Cruz to talk with
Bohdisattva Anthony Ruffo myself. I will find him sitting under
that lighthouse and bring his experience of enlightenment back to
the surfing masses so that we, too, can walk his path.
When I got to the Lane, Ruffo wasn’t meditating meth nirvana. He
was ripping a five-foot swell. This whole place is his domain,
anyhow: from the lighthouse out to middle peak. He is the top dog,
height of the foodchain. Westside shot-caller par excellence.
Awakened one. In a vicious lineup, no one dropped in on him for two
hours. Three helpful guys standing on the bluff pointed out which
neoprene water dot was Ruffo. I told ‘em I was going to have a chat
with him. They said he was the best left-handed surfer at the Lane
and told me to have fun with the cons. (If there were cons around
it was going to be sick! At that point, I knew no more then you do
now. Anthony Ruffo had been busted for meth-am-phet-a-mine and had
reached enlightenment. I really hoped there would be cons
around.)
Ruffo soon exited the freezingness and fielded congratulatory
“Way to go, bro” from his comrades. They love him here, or at least
the guys who matter. I marched up and told him my name was Charlie
and I was there to interview him. “Coooooool, bro.”
His voice was soft, sunny warm and full of secret knowledge. He
introduced me to all his buddies and called me “Scottie.” It’s
cool, dude. All Santa Cruz surfers have nicknames: Condor, Skindog,
Ratboy, Barney. I guess mine was now Scottie. Charlie “Scottie”
Smith. Fuckin’ badass. His bros were Darryl “Flea” Virotsko,
Anthony “Taz” Tashnik and Nathan “Cromagnatard” Fletcher. Flea
suggested that everyone join him at his house, hopped into his 1972
pimped-out purple Impala, picked up two stray girls and sped out of
the lot. I followed in my recently wrecked, bottom-ofthe- line
Saturn sedan. Fucking badass, Scottie.
The moment I walked in to Flea’s house I knew that Ruffo held
the keys to enlightenmeth. The house was a total fucking disaster.
Mungey clothing strewn empty shot glass all over a blackleather
couch underneath a glass bong no fish in an algaefied fishtank
giant cardboard cheque decorated wall disaster. Ruffo tailed me in,
pushed some shit off the couch and crossed his legs. “So bro, what
do you want to know?” “Please, please… tell me how to get to Yellow
Barn Nirvana. I’m not like those others, those hypocrites. Show me
the way. Tell me what I need to know.”
He began to share his noble eightfold path.
FIRST: RIGHT VIEW
It all started when Ruffo was a grom, a little fella. At the
time, the older Santa Cruz surfers were making a living off
surfing, but they weren’t sponsored (in the traditional sense).
They were selling Thai weed and coke in order to support their surf
habit. Self-sponsored, making good money, surfing everyday, and not
having to answer to some dickhead “team manager.” Every so often,
they’d throw lil’ Ruffo bags of weed to roll.
Here, kid. Get to work. Wide-eyed future Meth Buddha soaking it
all in.
These self-sponsored older surfers had chicks and waves. Ruff
was like, “Fuck, all I want to do is surf everyday.” As he got
older, he started to rip, which meant olde fashioned regular surf
co. sponsorship… but the image of those guys, those early guys, was
always in the back of his head. So, pretty soon he started growing
weed in his backyard to pay off the surf trips he accumulated on
his credit card. That was his thing, his boogie.
He got into sweet sha-bang in either 2000 or 2001 because his
dogs died, and…“Meth? It’s a good high, man…very unlike coke.”
Coke is a 15-minute up and down then you want more, more, more.
Leave the coke to WCT judges.
“The high off coke is crampy, you know? It’s so fucking… I don’t
know… the high when you do a line of meth… you’re way more clear.
It’s not an up and down thing. Snorting a line, it hurts, but your
high is 10-to-12 hours.” He could see where it wasn’t good for
everyone, but for Ruffo – the shit was the shit.
SECOND: RIGHT-INTENTION
So, he was hanging around with these different people (aka
former convicted felons), doing his shizznittlebang, but wasn’t
making a lot of money. He just barely scraped by with sponsorship
and side jobs.
Then, it hit him. Hit him like a giant sacred fig falling from a
Bodhi branch. He perceived a void, an emptiness, and thought,
“Fuck, there are people who want this shit and, I know, A plus B… I
can put them together and I can make some money.”
Enlightened fucking epiphany, baby. Sir Isaac Newton sitting
under the apple tree; Pythagoras discovering that the world is
round; Buddha’s awakening – epiphany.
Ruffo didn’t start selling to be cool. He was already cool. He
simply saw that he could make good money and, again, surf all the
time. A self-sponsored pro. Just like his forefathers.
Meth wasn’t big in Santa Cruz at that time. The white wave
hadn’t washed through. Of course, everybody had heard of it from
places like biker bars, and fucked-up backwoods towns, but nobody
was really using it. Plus, it was looked down upon. Stigmatised.
Everyone using coke would say that they were worried about the guys
doing twack. Yet, they would preach this shit while high as fuck on
cocaine.
Ruffo was like, “I’ll listen to you, bro, if you’re telling me
this at three in the afternoon instead of three in the morning.
Look at you right now. You’re a mess. You’re doin’ an eight ball,
and I did one line of fuckin’ the shit and you’ve done – how many
lines now? Six or seven already? I mean, I’m worried about you,
bro.”
Weird social clashes. Ruffo had to keep his shit low key. Under
the ray-dar.
THIRD: RIGHT SPEECH
Along with methamphetamine sales came some new friends. Now
Ruffo had two whole separate sets of pals. His surfing bros helped
him patrol the Westside line-ups, tow into macking Mavericks, and
party like a rock star.
His convict buds helped him move the quartz to all those
enlightenmentstarved souls… and also party like a rock star. The
cons are actually called Norteños (or Nuestra Familia), and are a
prison gang that started in 1960’s California. American jails have
always been a slice of shower rape hell, but you know what they
say, When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Northern California Mexicans had it doubly tough because their
Southern California counterparts thought they were farmer
douchebags, and would beat the shit out of them. Thus they got
doubly going and started to kick ass. Drugs, guns, drugs, death,
drugs. It’s their ruthless cut-your-fucking-headoff-
while-you-sleep commitment that has made them one of today’s most
powerful gangs, in and out of prison. They are armed to the gills,
wear red, claim the number 14 and rule large swatches of the
American drug trade. Ruffo was cool with them because he was a
trustworthy dharma cat, which is rare in the game. He had hundreds
of thousands of dollars coming in and going out. Tempting to dip
into the coffers… unless you’re awakened. He also had other gangs
coming after him, trying to co-opt his network. No worries, mate.
The family provtected him. Nortenos run all out mafia style.
Shot-callers, hitmen, muscle, omerta. The full 14 yards.
Usually things went alright for Ruff-O’s awakened business
venture, but there were times he had to call on the gangster
“know-how.” If guys were being pricks and not paying, then they
would get “dealt with”. That’s the way the boogie went. Fist-flying
extravaganzas of pain resulting in immediate restitution. Sometimes
these “scuffles” would happen at his house, and he witnessed how
powerful those Norteños were. Blood-stained carpets. Samsara,
baby.
The ever-important cycle of suffering dished out on those who
needed some correction. “Now go, my child, and next time DO NOT
FUCK WITH BOHDISATTVA RUFFO!”
FOURTH: RIGHT ACTION
He never made the shit (mashing up the Sudafed with the Drano,
etc. etc.). That is for mountain hicks, and Ruffo ain’t no mountain
hick. He was a distributor, a first-class salesman.
“The shit” was all coming out of Mexico. First it would come out
as crank, the raw, orange-y junk. Then, “certain people” would turn
it into “shards.” Shards, for the uneducated, is what you have when
the orange-y junk is purged. They clean it which makes it more
powerful, potent. Pretty soon, it was just coming in as shards
(crystal), because they were purifying it in Mexico. The dudes who
were bringing it up lived in Nor Cal, but had their ties down
south, so they’d just go over the border, get their boogie and
bring it back. Smuggle it in. Ruffo simply received the quantity
and got rid of it. Easy as 1,2,3. He had guys working under him who
were engineering most of the person-to-person sales. Ruffo, the
ever-powerful businessman and networker, was great at his job. He
reached Fizz Wizz Nirvana. Fully awakened. Now he was the Master,
tweaking under the Bodhi tree.