Have you ever met your hero? How did he or she react?
A man speaking his mind directly and clearly is a wonderful trait, no? The world is chock-full of mealy mouthed, unpleasant sorts and in this stew of hunched spine lizards the truth talker shines. He rocks, he rolls, he slides, he glides and no one and nothing can stand in his way.
Like Joel Tudor!
Just recently he stood up against the tyranny of Corona beer sponsoring the World Surf League’s J-Bay Open. Though it later surfaced that Corona competitor Pacifico beer sponsored Joel Tudor’s own contest, the Duct Tape Invitational two short years ago, we should all be allowed to change our opinions and continue to speak directly and clearly, no?
But do you very much love the Duct Tape Invitational? Its DIY approach to surfing and surf contests? Vans, the primary sponsor as opposed to Pacifico, the presenting sponsor, made a documentary on the event four years ago called the Ductumentary.
It features Joel (of course), along with soul stand-outs Al Knost, Ryan Burch, etc. You know Ryan Burch best of all maybe for his progressive designs and gorgeous surfing.
A dear BeachGrit reader, anyhow, watched recently and pointed out Ryan Burch’s first interaction with the great Joel Tudor that is buried deep in the folds of the Ductumentary (around the 33 minute mark). And let’s allow Mr. Burch to describe it in his own words.
The first time I met Joel… well it’s not the first time but… the first time he ever acknowledged me was this day I was at Cardiff and he paddled by me and I kind of got a little bit nervous, I’m a little bit starstruck by him, and he paddled up to me and he said, “Man, if you weren’t a good surfer I’d kick you in the fucking knees right now.” Or something like that. It was pretty radical and I was like oooooh but I was kind of stoked on the compliment. Like, oh fuck, he said I was a good surfer. That’s cool.
And wonderful! Direct!
But real quick, is kicking in the fucking knees a jiu jitsu move? I would imagine it is very effective. What do you think Mr. Burch did to elicit such a compliment from Mr. Tudor? Also, have you ever bumped in to your hero? How did he or she react?
Watch the whole Ductumentary here!
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your on fire of late chas
For real! Driving up PCH one day it surprised the hell out of me.
Yeah that was some freaky shit. Who’s got the dvds? Haha
It sucks when such a talented surfer who’s also a keeper of something I hold dear (longboarding) is also a giant fucking ignorant douche.
I was exposed the the Black Flys videos before I hit puberty. The things that sticks with me to this day is the guy hammering a nail through his nut-sack. It was disturbingly awesome!
Slater burned me at Pipe when I was 16…it was one of the raddest things to ever happen to me! I was raving about it when I came back to high school. Of course many people doubted my story but it didn’t vex me; I shared a wave with Kelly Slater!!
Joel is going to roundhouse kick you in the head Chas! I’m worried about you!
Surprisingly, Black Flys still exists! Appropriately, I think they share their location with a vape shop.
I once randomly ended up staying next door to the GOAT on a last minute family vacation, that incidentally was to see him in a contest before he retired. Rumors at the time were that was to be his last year. That was several years ago.
Every year us kellys last year
First and only time I met Occy was when he was having a piss behind my car at Johanna. Before I realised he had his cock out, I said “G’day Occ.” He replied, “I’m just trying to have a little piss.” Just a little one.
Came home from the bar one night and Occy was in my kitchen drinking beer with some people. As the party grew the beer in the fridge ran out and Occy grabbed a root beer and drank it for a few minutes before looking at it in disgust and saying “hold on, that’s not beer!”Still gives me a chuckle cause thats the only thing I remember him saying. I was having some of those beers as well.
Please tell us more.
Forget looking for heros, but if you want an example of a great man, look at MR. Humble. Helpful. Willing to share his wisdom and knowledge to make surfing a better experience for everyone. I’ve been lucky enough to meet him and he gave me 30 minutes of his time. Just chatted like two surfers. It was amazing for me and just another chat with an enthusiastic surfer for him. He’s not weird or aloof or hard to talk to or trying to be cool. There is an aura about him too. I mean he’s fucking MR. But it’s never gone to his head. A humble champion. So is Simon Anderson. Tudor is none of these things. And he has no idea he’s a fuckhead.
Met Simon Anderson once , shouted him a beer as is custom for inventing the thruster. He even indulged my woeful surfboard talk .Absolute top bloke. MR seems quite the gentleman too .
Totally agree Charles – I met them both in club contests back in the Jurassic period when they were top of the heap, even then they were just top blokes! No one ever mentions this much, but I’m still amazed that after all this time there’s only one person who has more world titles than MR! I think Mick said once that if he ever got a 4th title he would retire, he wouldn’t want to take that off him.
Good post. Just remember I am not Charles, I am his smiling coach.
Sorry coach I’ll take that on board!
Simon? Agreed 100% on MR, he’ll talk to you for hours even if you’re “nobody”… Simon won’t even reply g’day if he thinks you don’t count.
I can’t get enough Joel, and Laird. These two guys are fascinating.
Fascinating like a train wreck
Met plenty of my heroes, in music and sport more so than surfing, and for the most part, they are remarkable for their ordinariness. That to me was the intriguing thing, how did you, with no greater physical virtues, become a master of the bass guitar, tennis racquet or football boot? The ones who acted like fucking primadonnas moved out of the hero range tout suite. (Pardon my French).
Surfing seems to be a place where ability covers up the lack of my human traits for the most part. When I was growing up on the Goldy, there were so many blokes who followed the good surfer, jagged a board sponsorship, got into the orbit of older washed up clowns and dragged down to their levels. Saw one bloke I idolised, a few years older than me at the time at 15, turn up as I came in from 4′, 400m waves, saying he missed it because he was blowing cones.
Think of your local hot rats. Are they the kind of people you would want to be around were they not good surfers?
I don’t want to be around them anyway. They keep getting all the set waves.
Ha! That’s the golden objective. To find the spot where the waves are good enough and you can get them without having to fight off those who have the ‘right’ to them.
Might be one of the most insightful quotes i have read at BG “Surfing seems to be a place where ability covers up the lack of my human traits for the most part.” You may want to change your name to Gandi’s Postie..
Gandi’s fuckin postie’s no better than the rest of our posties
Joel is the perfect circle. High level surfing ability within a ‘niche’ of our chosen thing. (Leading to unshakeable belief in said powers which transfers to belief in opinions). Back up ability in martial art. (Leading to even less blowback on thought/fart bubbles). Can’t believe anyone else thinks his opinion is wrong because return to Part A.
This is a perfect comment.
I really appreciate the effort you are putting in to get Joel to bite. I never knew how much hard work goes into creating a blood fued.
Arnold Palmer is a worthy hero. Joel Tudor? Never met him, also never heard anything good about him. Never met Arnold either, however, I’ve never heard anything bad about him. I’ll keep my hero for now.
So when you look at footage of Arnold Palmer hitting a golf ball it stokes you out and makes you eager to get on the golf course?
Why Ryan Burch associates with some of these so called heros is beyond me. He seems talented with goals, unlike a few of the metal neck crew. Who knows, he might not hang with the likes of Ford (my dad’s Matt Archbold) on the regs. Just what I have seen in a few clips/movies those dudes are a bunch of clowns. As for Joeljitsu, I have never thought he was a nice guy. He can take his duct fart invitational, lube it, and squeeze it up his tight ass.
Seems like a well informed opinion, sir. Thanks for taking the time.
You can hardly recognize Archy’s favorite Ford whip these days, especially with all the new Chevrolet badges adorning it.
No man should have a pro surfer as his hero.
Amen!
I once met Dane in france surfing a shitty beachbreak that magically got good as he arrived. I wanted to show off as he paddled out, except I nose dived and went over the falls on a double up..