The noted writer Matt Warshaw on the dazzling legacy of Brock Little.
There’s a lot of folks coming to terms with Hawaiian Brock Little’s illness. One of ’em is the surf historian, and one of the more underrated writers in the game, San Francisco’s Matt Warshaw.
Matt is a former editor of Surfer and creator of the Encyclopedia of Surfing. Occasionally, we get together for lightweight back and forths at BeachGrit, on the relevance of Miki Dora, on surf commentators, on wavepools, whatever requires an experienced eye.
Today, Brock Little…
BeachGrit: I’m pretty numb to people I don’t know getting cancer, dying etc, but for some reason hearing that it was Brock, the ultimate big-wave stud, shook me. Why do you think that is?
Matt Warshaw: The Instagram photo, maybe? I found out he was sick three or four weeks ago, but when I saw the picture yesterday it just buckled me. The shock of the photo, then Brock saying “I have cancer, it sucks,” which is such a total Brock thing to say. So the two things together, the awful photo and the totally normal voice . . .
When he rode for Gotcha in the ‘80s, he’s drive up at my house in San Clemente and pull two huge cardboard boxes of free gear from the back seat, dump it all in a huge pile and just crack up, all these free clothes when he just cruised around all day in trunks and no shirt. Michael Tomson was a fuckin god back then, terrifying and all-powerful, and Brock would come back from a meeting with Michael and do this wicked imitation of him and all his kowtowing minions, and it was just blasphemy.
Yeah, agreed. But it’s more than that…
He was indestructible for all those years.
More than that.
He laughs at everything. How serious all the big-wave guys are. The idea of getting a paycheck for surfing. All the bullshit surf industry politics. He laughs at it and loves it at the same time, which is the perfect attitude. Brock loves being part of it all, lives for gossip, puts himself in the middle of everything. Then he’ll step outside of it and make fun of it all. When he rode for Gotcha in the ‘80s, he’s drive up at my house in San Clemente and pull two huge cardboard boxes of free gear from the back seat, dump it all in a huge pile and just crack up, all these free clothes when he just cruised around all day in trunks and no shirt. Michael Tomson was a fucking god back then, terrifying and all-powerful, and Brock would come back from a meeting with Michael and do this wicked imitation of him and all his kowtowing minions, and it was just blasphemy. And hilarious. But anyway, for some reason, apart from him being a friend, the idea of a guy with that perfect of an attitude getting cut down by cancer just seems especially cruel and wrong.
Years back, I was doing these ads for Surfing Life where I’d get famous surfers to talk about why they read the mag. You know, I read ASL because… Brock said, “because it doesn’t take surfing seriously.” Ever since, I felt he rode a similar wavelength and I’ve based my career on that quote…
The idea of a guy with that perfect of an attitude getting cut down by cancer just seems especially cruel and wrong.
Dell, did you figure out what it was that shook you up so much about Brock?
There does seem to be a knife-blow delivered to the soul that speaks to common mortality, delivered with the cold and unfeeling hand of the professional assassin. Life’s a bitch, then you die.
Brock did seem to transcend surf stardom, not by ascending above it but by always seeming to be just below it, with the common man. You couldn’t imagine Julian Wilson pounding nails but Brock always seemed like he just walked off the job site, cracking a last joke on the way out before ditching the tool bag and getting down to business, which in this case was riding the biggest waves in the world.
To paraphrase Gay Talese from his profile on Frank Sinatra: Brock makes them think that if Brock can do it, it can be done; not that they could do it, but it is still nice for other men to know that it can be done.
You could tell and it is nice to know from Warshaw that the impression is backed up by the reality that he was taking the piss out of Professional surfing; and that is a sign of a very fine intelligence because it is something laughable, risible even; that young men (mostly men) can be paid large sums for nothing more than riding waves. Perhaps most risible is that those same young men (and some women) exist at the indulgence, on the spare change of the common man, the nail pounding guy, the nurse, the schoolteacher, the businessman, butcher, baker, candlestickmaker they paddled up the inside of and dropped in. Like all parasites they can be scornful of their hosts.
Brock seems to have understood this.
The other thing: in the photo he’s flexing. Laughing slyly again at the disease robbing him of everything, youth, muscle, bone, life. Sticking his middle finger up at it, the fight against Cancer, spinning underneath it and going. It’s both the saddest and most heroic image in surfing.
Totally nailed it. Brock always acted like he was “lucky” to have had his amazing life. A lot of other (humorless) surf stars exude the sense they “deserve” theirs. People die and often the sympathy needle barely nudges. Others like Brock hammer home. This was an unworthy end for an extraordinary guy.
so shit,but so good to see and hear about brock again….even in this shit hole cancer scenario
Speaking of surf writers, Little himself is probably the best of the big wave scribes… His articles for Surfer, Surfing, SJ were solid, well-written, casual, humorous, and gave an insider’s perspective. 25 years later I can still recall some of the lines… “arguing about who was hotter, Vinnie’s chick or Cindy Crawford.” etc.
It’s the end bit…..about wanting to get married, and start a family that really burns.
I always imagined Warshaw as a character on Portlandia, a Fred Armison. He’s a dead ringer!