Surf historian Matt Warshaw lights up on the AI documentary…
Next Wednesday, the AI documentary Kissed by God makes its world premiere in Los Angeles. Honolulu gets a premiere on May 6. New York follows four days later. Tickets are being distributed through a sign-up process, some are giveaways. Click here to get in the mix.
Now I ain’t one for exaggeration, I don’t think, and therefore tend to err on the sceptical side of the ledger. But Kissed by God? Anyone even vaguely related to the game of surfing won’t want to miss it and I urge you to find a screening at the first possible instance.
I had a dying heroin addict husband,” says Lyndie Irons. You want to miss that sorta candour?
Much earlier today, the surf historian Matt Warshaw and I viewed our respective screeners and came at it, swords, opinions drawn.
BeachGrit: Kissed by God is a… masterly… wrenching back of the narrative of Andy Irons’ life (and death). All the pious finger-pointers are silenced by the diagnoses of bi-polar disease, a doc from Harvard adding credence even though he’d never met the star of the movie. And, of course, once a mental illness is identified no further criticism is allowed. But, tell me, do you think, egg before the chicken or the chicken before the egg? To wit, drugs before disease or disease before drugs? Or disease as a convenient spin? I know you’re not a doctor, neither am I, but as I said the other day, you can’t fly as high as Andy did and not land with a thud.
Warshaw: Kissed by God is much much better than I thought it would be. On the other hand, it’s an Irons-family-approved project, so my expectations were low. In fact I turned it off after the opening bit, with all the stock slow-mo underwater shots, and Andy’s “kissed by god” monolouge in the voice over. I remember the Billabong promo when Andy’s “kissed by god” speech came out, I think it was right before it died . . . it was strange when I first saw it, and watching it again today, for me anyway, was just really disturbing. He’s got the drug sweats, he’s slurring, and you can tell he’s trying hard to, I don’t know, be better, to be well. But he’s kidding himself in that speech. Partly, anyway. And he’s kidding the rest of us too. The bit about getting your first hit of surfing and then spending your life chasing that feeling, he’s just done a switcheroo there, with “surfing” as a metaphor for drugs. That’s how I hear it. So yeah, I got off to a bad start with Kissed by God.
The bit about getting your first hit of surfing and then spending your life chasing that feeling, he’s just done a switcheroo there, with “surfing” as a metaphor for drugs. That’s how I hear it. So yeah, I got off to a bad start with Kissed by God.
BeachGrit: What compelled you to keep watching?
Warshaw: Bruce comes onscreen, and thirty seconds later I’m all in. Bruce hedged a bet or two as well, but mostly he was incredibly honest and of course incredibly charismatic. He’s the heart and soul of the movie. And I’ll bet anything it was Bruce who pushed to make the movie as honest as it is. It’s not Brad Melelkain-level honest, and everybody involved with Kissed By God still owes Brad an apology. But my sense is that Bruce himself very much needed to unburdon himself, to get some more truth out there, and that he set the tone for all the other people talking onscreen.
BeachGrit; The static interview style of these sorts of documentaries usually bores me to tears. But, here, because it’s not a sing-song Andy-was-the-greatest-surfer-ever-hagiography, there’s an honesty I’ve never heard from the usual roll call of stars. Kelly saying Andy called him an old bald kook, adding, “Well, if this old bald kook beats you you’re going to be crushed.” Bruce is Bruce, not a damn word censored (“We were drug addicted monsters!”), Joel, Sunny, Lyndie, Mick. It’s almost as if they’re channelling AI. ‘Cause, not sure if you ever interviewed him, but if you asked a question he wasn’t going to festoon it with meaningless bunting. What are your favourite moments in the film?
Warshaw: Probably, as you say, the moments where Andy himself is onscreen talking without a filter. The bit where they show the blank rehab intake form, with the all the drug history questions, and Andy’s hand-written answers show up onscreen one by one.
“Do you consider yourself an addict?”
Long pause.
“Yes.”
That was so powerful. What else? Fifteen years later, or whatever it is, Andy’s surfing holds up amazingly well. That was great to see. I’m not sure if “favorite” is the right word, but I was suprised to find out how fucked-up Andy was that first year on tour. The bipolar diagnosis and the heavy drug use. On the other hand, knowing that the Irons family knew that Andy was bipolar from that far back is…sad. More than sad. Bipolar people don’t get better without meds. Go off the meds and you’re a timebomb. Research bipolar disorder and that’s right there at the top of the page. When the movie rolls into 2010 I was just mad at everybody, anybody, who thought Andy should be back on tour. Friends, family, sponsors. The guy is bipolar AND an addict. You can argue that in the end it’s Andy’s decision, but I wanted to at least see somebody from his inner circle say “We blew it, he never should have been out there.” In other words, the movie goes further than I expected, but maybe it’s still too soon to for the full accounting.
What surprised you about Kissing God? I’ll tell you what surprised me, how losing at J-Bay in 2005 on what he thought was a bum call put him on the road to ruin. Which means the ASP judges killed AI. Am I drawing too long a bow here?
I think you are, Derek. That section of the film was overcooked. They all get fucked by the judges. Kelly, Mick, Curren, Bugs, everybody. If J-Bay broke Andy, it’s cause he was ready to be broken.
When the movie rolls into 2010 I was just mad at everybody, anybody, who thought Andy should be back on tour. Friends, family, sponsors. The guy is bipolar AND an addict. You can argue that in the end it’s Andy’s decision, but I wanted to at least see somebody from his inner circle say “We blew it, he never should have been out there.”
Oh, another surprise. I’d forgotten that in 2004 they won every contest between ‘em. That’s a rivalry. Compare AI and Kelly to Gabriel and John John.
There’s no surfing rivalry to touch what Andy and Kelly had. Not before, not since. Whoever the contenders are, Gabe and Julian, Dora and Fain, take your pick, they’re all clustered together 25 miles behind Andy and Kelly.
Can you imagine if Andy had died in Padang in 1999? Or if he didn’t get picked up by Billabong, found a way to channel his genius, and become the juggernaut he was? Kelly may not have come back on the tour, there would’ve been no pool, probably no WSL, maybe no John John. His effect on professional surfing is profound. Yes? Or you want to argue agains that posit?
No. I don’t have the imagination for the what-ifs. Can you imagine if the sperm to the left had busted Danielle’s egg instead of Andy? Etc etc.
I’m going to say that Kissed by God is the among the top three surfing documentaries ever made, alongside Bustin’ Down the Door and Sea of Darkness, in no order etc. Where are you going to put it?
Surfwise is the Andy-Kelly of surf documentaries. Nothing else is close. Surfwise is the only doc from our side of town that can step in the ring with Man on Wire or Hoop Dreams or The Thin Blue Line. Of course, I’m partial to old guys. Andy Irons is compelling, but Dorian Paskowitz in Surfwise took me for a real ride.
Loved the interview. Appreciate both expert opinions and Warshaw’s insight on the tour history back then. Then again, Derek’s far-fetched imagination has its charm as well. And yes, the surf industry as well as the surf film industry is definitely growing and stepping it up.
Surfwise has the best quote ever:
“I met a Jewish girl named Ellen, and we got together and she taught me to eat pussy. And that changed my life a great deal.”
Doc Paskowitz
Scream in Blue, a documentary about Cheyne Horan from the 80’s still holds as one of the most honest (and melancholic) i’ve can remember.
Still rubs me wrong that they weren’t honest in the beginning, and now they have to cook up a mental illness plot line.
Stranger than what Andy is saying in the ‘I surf because’ clip are the lyrics to that song they use
For docs with compassion I prefer one that follows the struggles and plight of an inner city family in America. It really defines our culture and gives those that don’t live here an understanding of our interpersonal relationships and how we work and live together in this land of opportunity. This particular clip shows how we’re not so different from our European friends.
https://youtu.be/u0Cbvo7oC50
Sweet interview. Respect the warshaw
No matter what, every~one of you who surf, readin’ here, will be dead at some point,
some sooner than others. Another party~boy is dead? So let’s make a movie about it..
Think they’ll make 1 about Willy Morris, nah, too straight of a dude, I’d bet.
Enjoy the rest of your lives, how~ever ya wanna live it…
Peace,
RW
When does the Bruce Irons documentary drop? I bet his would be equally as interesting.
Haha, great point. Him, and Simon Rex look like absolute drug addled piles of shit propped up by Weed Maps funding. Industry reaction? More banner ads and sponsored video content. Looks like this documentary is really opening peoples eyes.
think about how old Simon Rex is though, he was like right after Martha Quinn on MTV
I think that script is still writing itself. It may be getting less interesting than more, but it is still a screenplay in the making.
Melekian’s piece is the last great piece of surf journalism. It ends there (but Longtom’s latest on the Margie’s fiasco is pretty good).
Amazing isn’t it. The only guy to have the balls to write what really happened and gets shitted on from great height. And unlike most “Surf journalists” the guy actually has a degree in journalism. Quite different from “can surf good, is connected to the industry”. Ask how many other surf journalists ever worked for a non surf genre. Phil Jarrett at that other bastion of journalism that is playboy?
There was a time long ago that tracks might have been the surfing equivalent of rolling stone, maybe early surfer mag too. Now? Tabloid trash and a few paragraphs about a sponsored photo shoot to random exotic location. Tsj the only exception.
If your entire magazine caters to teenage kids and you’re in thrall of the advertisers (as Chas found out) you’re not a journalist, you’re just a fan boy with better access than the rest of us.
Where were the surf journalists before Andy died? Where were they in the 80s when everyone was on the gear? The best surfer ever could do was allude to occy “gone running through the cane fields” What about the imprisonment of robbie page that only got reported 6 months later??
Imagine if the cycling press was also full of sycophants who’d won the Golden ticket. No one would ever know about Lance Armstrong.
Surfwise is a great doc.
Where can I watch/download sea of darkness?
There are copies floating around but people who are holding tend to hoard them like smug PTA moms with a bottle of chardonnay in their purse. She wants you to know she has it, but she won’t give you any.
There’s no sea of darkness copies to download from the interwebs. It looks pretty good. So good in fact it’s been pulled so a “clean” version that doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings is currently being edited. But that might be boring.
Ha. That’s a great question! Losing to junkie AI was losing to pure talent. You can be sure that burned.
If Andy had died in Padang there would be no John John??? Come on Dereck, that’s pushing the butterfly effect a bit far…
if I had of wiped properly I would never have got that arse chaff and had to go into the chemist to get some cream, I would never had met my wife. I curse the day I chose cheap toilet paper
I very well might be the only one who thinks this, but why doesn’t the WSL have a drug testing policy? Are we silly enough to believe that some of these guys aren’t using, especially a PED? I hold a master mariner cred with sailing endorsement, and believe you me we get tested. Its mandatory to hold an APCA memebership which entitles one to report for a random when we get the call. You have 48 hours to appear once you sign for the certified letter. It’s like this in most jobs I know, blue collar ones at least. The same could be said for all pro sports I follow. Baseball, football, Olympics, etc. Seems reasonable and fair to me.
They do, lol. Ask Neco Padaratz.
Pardon my skeptical mind, but surely someone has failed that would have made a mark. This is news to me, but I surely don’t dive too deep into this game.
Kelly = Lance
See the link here for the WSL Drug Policy on thier Rules and Regulations page. http://www.worldsurfleague….
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
The section below is straight from the Policy (these are great when you read them through the rose colored lens of 70’s, 80’s, 90’s (and beyond) Surf Drug culture.
“THE POLICY IS DESIGNED TO :
-Protect the Surfers’ fundamental right to participate in doping free sport and thus promote health, fairness, and equality for Surfers worldwide;
– Maintain public faith in the integrity of competition at WSL events;
– Ensure harmonized, coordinated and effective anti-doping programs at an international and national level with regard to detection, deterrence, and prevention of doping; and
– Ensure that all Persons associated with WSL and the sport of surfing are not involved in any way with Prohibited Substances, Prohibited Methods, or other form of doping.”
I wonder how many WCT surfers have filed for the WSL “Therapeutic Use
Exemption” (“TUE”). This is the I have to have it – get out of jail free card it seems.
You all still have that PUBLIC FAITH out there?
What I’m saying, and I had no idea they had a policy, is no scandal, no news, on a failed test? Give me a break. What do they pass to become a CT guy and that’s It? I would wager at the very least pot would show up in 50%.
You would be wrong Captain Clark. Illicit drug use has been in long term decline on tour for ages. The kind of shit that went on in the 1970s and 80s and the first bit of the 1990s would not cut it these days even a little bit. A few people still carry on from time to time but they have grown massively more secretive about it; the circles of secrecy have grown much smaller and tighter though they are no easier to penetrate, indeed it’s way harder now because the fear of discovery is a lot higher (social media, etc). As far as I know in the past decade there’s only been one surfer caught out on THC via a drug test by the ISA and ASP/WSL combined.
I’m just guessing and clearly have no clue, but with an event sponsored by weed I’m just supposing. Can you see how I would say that? It’s so prevalent in other sports, the forefront, testing that is. With it out of the light it leaves alot for the general public to reach out and assume. I’m glad they have a policy, makes for a clean winner. That I’m definitely behind. People can say what they want, but drugs are the devil.
Yeah I guess from my POV, I’ve reported on this particular subject at length over and over for years now, ever since the ASP first began to get semi serious about WADA drug testing back in 2011 following AI’s death. There’s been a fair bit of reporting on it other than mine as well. So I am always a bit like “huh?” when people say they don’t know about drug testing policy in competitive surfing. It really is a Thing, although it’s not constantly on the radar, I think because PE drugs don’t do the same shit for pro surfers as they do for pro cyclists, for instance. Re drugs, I am not sure drugs are anything, but man, using drugs can hurt people that’s for sure.
There is no doubt. I for one hate drugs and what they have done to loved ones and people close to me. I need to brush up on the subject, my interest is peaked. Have a good one Nick!
Warshaw! I like your taste. But, “Searching for Sugarman” needs to be on the list. Warshaw!
Sugarman, and OJ: Made in America, which is maybe best of all.
Damn, I’d forgotten about the OJ doc. If that isn’t the best documentary ever made I’ll be shocked.
the part near the end where OJ went gangsta
Reality prank show OJ too
Icarus is good one from the recent crop of excellent documentaries. The guy who made that film lucked out in the sense he started out just documenting through his own example how easily one can fool the international doping agencies, and then halfway through that process Russia got banned from the Olympics, shit goes sideways, and the film turns into a story about how one gets on the Kremlin’s hit list and how to deal with it. The guy has balls – I would have dropped the camera and hid in my parents’ basement for the next ten years.
Crumb though might be my all time favorite, so incredibly interesting how thin the line is between art and mental illness.
Crumb himself on the art side, and his brother on the mental illness side, with about a half-inch between them. Am I remembering correctly?
Yeah Matt that’s exactly it, both artists and both mental, and just a paper thin difference between which side wins out
““I had a dying heroin addict husband,” says Lyndie Irons. You want to miss that sorta candour?”
Yes.
I mean, maybe those people under 30 years old still don’t have any example of such a “candour”, but for the rest, I thought that enough was enough.
Hearing people telling how they watch their family and/or friends dying of heroin abuse is not a novelty, right? Neither in surfing nor elsewhere. I feel for the junkie, it’s always sad, whatever the reason why the guy is a junkie, but being a junkie is not enough to make your life special or interesting.
I have not the “fan” feeling, for Irons or anybody else, maybe that’s why I can’t share your passion for such a movie. What’s so special about it?
i think it was the 3 world titles and being the only guy handing Kelly Ls that was “special or interesting”
There were this docu, “a fly in the champagne”, which pretty much dealt with this part of the story.
I just quoted the author above:
“I had a dying heroin addict husband,” says Lyndie Irons. You want to miss that sorta candour?”
This has nothing to do with 3 world titles or Kelly Slater.
Does it feature any commentary from Joe Turpel alongside ’89 World Champ Martin Potter?
Wow, this new Bunker Spreckles movie sounds rad.
What Warsaw does not understand is that surfing is like a drug, Its not a metaphor. The brain chemicals that some people seem to get out of it are like nothing else. Many people including myself have thrown away everything for it and will chase that feeling till they die. Warsaw may not get that same feeling out of it and that is why he lives in Seattle and doesn’t understand.
I think Matt knows all too well, and has had the fibre to engage his energies elsewhere.
He has actually taken the harder path.
who is to say which is hardest. who feels it, knows it
Yes dear.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Where is this ‘inland’ you speak of?
Seattle. I surfed twice this week.
not really inland, is it. but if you really did drive that far to surf than good for you. follow your passion
I did! My passion is making my family secure and raising my kid in a sane place surrounded by good people.
I surf because it’s fracking fun and healthy, because I’m generally competent at it, and because I like most of the people in the water, up here at least (they’re all decent enough dudes to tolerate me :). But as a full blown adult, if I was totally into surfing like those sad-faced upper-middle-age saps pushing mops at ski lodges are into skiing (because, bro, skiing’s the ONLY thing, bro), I’d feel like a failure, both self-centered and like ultimately I set a low bar for myself. Much less better than people who don’t see surfing as a priesthood. That’s just me though, pretty great that mostly just surf makes a life for so many people, it’s a nice head space probably.
Warshaw, I surmise, decided family comes before everything else and moved to a boom town to best support that high calling. Personally I find that admirable (though I’d be happy to drive him to the beach if he ever gets the itch …)
ha ha I used to torment myself thinking I should be more than a surfer or whatever. But what I have found is that surfing has sorta grown up at about the same pace as I have. Surfing is a part of my sense of community and I surf a lot with my childhood surfing friends, and also with kids whose parents weren’t even alive when I started surfing. I like stepping beyond its boundaries but I also feel grounded within it, I connect with people through it, I remind myself of waves I’ve ridden by riding new waves. I am a bit surprised by this, like I said I was once slightly afraid that surfing would lock me into a sort of eternal adolescence, and that I would have to give it up when I turned some age or other, but no, it’s helping me deal with the years as they pass. Same with my brother, who could have been AI before AI, instead he finds himself negotiating his life as a surfer with some care as he feels the old obsession turn into something else. It’s not a metaphor for ageing, it IS ageing. I truly wish Andy could have got past his 30s and begun to move toward that. I think inside himself he was better equipped for it than is his great older rival.
Yeah Nick you (and Chas, and Matt Warshaw, your brother, etc) made surfing a full-blown life – I totally respect that – different I think than coming at it as a perpetual adolescent arrested in an immature phase of rip, party, bang, fly, repeat. You guys are all way more than “surfers or whatever.” I think you are very right too about how getting past your 30’s brings perspective. On my 40th birthday I felt like a wet wool blanket that I never knew was there lifted off me; shame not to live long enough to see the world through broad mature eyes.
I would feel a failure if I was a sad surf bum also. Fortune has provided me with a very full and varied life, living all over the world and I have had many adventures and i survived a 13 year relationship. I live in beautiful Hawaii and see rainbows daily from the amazing view in my kitchen.
Surfing is the only thing that makes me feel like my self.
Not everyone is like you. Not everyone is fulfilled by being a family man.
I would be sad and feel a failure if I lived a life of mediocrity and judged others from my delusional ivory tower. Live your life anyway you want,
Wait Bob, so you have a full, fulfilling life outside of chasing surfing like the proverbial dragon? What then is wrong with Warshaw having the same? I read you all wrong I think. Figured you for 58 sleeping on the beach in Sumatra or something talking down to everyone who’d “sold out the dream.” Sorry brah, cyber shaka, carry on!
If you’re driving to Nicaragua . . .
It feels that far, but the 5/4 and crabby fisherfolk say otherwise. But really, we are nearly neighbors and I hit it regularly when the wind is good, don’t be shy
We all like sex, but can’t all become well-paid porn stars (but more power to you if you are.)
The effects only, some of them could be. You sounds like your passion for surfing is huge, it could destroy you, but it is a metaphor. Exxageration kills, abuse kills, so any passion going too far can kill. Taking drugs is not a passion, it’s an illness.
Im not sure that i am scared to die following my passion. We create our own meaning and purpose in life.
Taking drugs is an unhealthy way of distracting ourselves from being abandoned in a existence without apparent meaning.
Go back to the inertia and take your wavestorm with you!
Of all the people to go after..
it’s like religion and god too! Oh lordy, I pray to you baby Huey. Joker.
Any comment about surfing that begins “what Warshaw doesn’t understand…” is doomed and ludicrous from the outset.
Will the surf industry ever be a big enough industry so as surf journalists are able to tell us what’s happening?
Less about the companies, at least now, more about throwing men under a bus for drug use etc. He who is without sin etc.
Try that on for size if you’re an AFL reporter. When the industry depends on the media and the media depends on the industry, as does the WSL/ASP, it’s a conspiracy of silence. RIP AI.
Some truth..
beachgrit wrote
ask one of the dozen “surf journalists” left that don’t have to drive for Uber to live the surf journalism dream. as long as sponsorship relies on an aspirational culture, these companies will continue to view athletes for what they are, investments.