"For two or three years Surfer was the best mag in
history," says surf historian.
Yesterday, you mighta heard, American Media, owner of
The National Enquirer, bought out the company
that owns that grand ol lady of the game, Surfer
magazine.
And, even though American Media told
Forbes that no one was going to get iced in the
takeover, there was, very quickly, the scent of
burning flesh. Soon, a few skeletal dogs will work the pedals and
levers, hoping for a few off-cuts from the butchers.
The surf historian Matt Warshaw, whom you should reward every month with
three dollars for his archival work, and for which those three
shekels will entitle you to unlimited access, worked
at Surfer in the eighties.
He knows its foibles, he knows its importance.
Let’s rap.
BeachGrit: A little history, just ’cause you do it so
well. When did Surfer peak and when it
decline?
Warshaw: Surfer went from good to great the day Drew
Kampion pulled up in his VW microbus, walked through the front door
and started tossing baggies of weed into every office. Late 1968, I
think. Before the day was over, John Severson grew a huge Sgt.
Pepper mustache, boy-toy Art Brewer took over from Ron Stoner, and
for two or three years Surfer was the best mag in
history—Rolling Stone meets Communication Arts
meets Harvard Lampoon. That’s an exaggeration, but still.
It declined, rose again, declined again, rose again, maybe three
times altogether. It was very good in the 1990s, when Steve Hawk
was there.
I’m gonna say, I’m surprised Surfer hung on for
as long as it did. Who buys print ads anymore except French fashion
houses and their vanity spends? And it was the advertiser model
that Surfer was built on, yeah? Make ten mill in ads,
virtually give the mag away etc?
I think so. I don’t know. I left at the end of 1990. I was a
pretty shit editor in a lot of ways. I was good at working with
other writers, mostly Derek Hynd and Matt George. We absolutely
believed we were the Bloomsbury of surf, and at the time
we were. But I paid zero attention to the business side, marketing,
advertising, none of it. And I was allowed that luxury because
Steve Pezman and Paul Holmes, who was editor before me, did all
that necessary and important work so that I could sweat out a third
draft of Derek’s latest Top 44 article. Pezman was a dream boss,
the best.
Surfer, best-case scenario, is in for a very rough year
or two, then American Media puts it up for sale and it gets bought
as a vanity project, the way Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post.
Surfer will at that point be reborn in whatever form the rich
benefactor dictates.
Not that she’s officially dead. But the future ain’t
bright. Do you agree?
I have zero intel, and my business acumen is no better now than
it was 30 years ago. But I’m guessing that Surfer,
best-case scenario, is in for a very rough year or two, then
American Media puts it up for sale and it gets bought as a vanity
project, the way Jeff Bezos bought the Washington
Post. Surfer will at that point be reborn in
whatever form the rich benefactor dictates. Who knows. Maybe a
quarterly Surfer’s Journal kind of thing. Except there’s
already a Surfer’s Journal, so what’s the point.
Tell me a little about your tenure there?
I was at Surfer from ’85 to ’90. Not a good time in terms of how
the magazine looked, but the writing was often very good. I set up
my powder blue Selectric II on my
first day, and six years walked out with a Mac Classic that I’d bought just a few
months earlier. We fucking hated Surfing mag, and they
hated us, which was fun. Chas would have loved it.
You gotta know the answer to this, how many significant
print mags are there left? Surfing, gone, What
Youth, gone, Stab, gone, Waves, gone.
Tracks, SW, I guess Surfer’s still here
officially. Will The Surfer’s Journal be the last man
standing?
Surfer’s Journal will be the last man standing, yes.
Steve and Debbee Pezman came up with that incredible revenue model:
high-quality mag, minimum ads, steep per-issue cost. And they never
wanted to go huge. I don’t know if the Journal is immune to what’s
happening everywhere else in print. Probably not. But yes, they
will outlast everybody in surf.
I cherish the days I worked at Surfer. Almost nothing
of what we did actually holds up, but at the time it was
progressive and fun and it meant the world to me. I feel the same
way in 2019 about digital, or at least the stuff that I’m involved
with. The format changes. The topics change. What’s counts is
working with the right people, on something you really care
about…
Do you weep at the death of print or do you feel, like
me, that it’s a transition phase, a new way of digesting media
that’s actually better – the news is current and the feedback from
readers is immediate?
My wife and I still have hundreds of books in our house, on big
shelves in living and dining rooms. Neither one of us has looked at
a book in years. I read on my phone, Jodi has a Kindle. My
attention span is shot. We still get the Sunday print edition of
the New York Times, but I end up reading articles on my phone
anyway, just out of habit. No, I don’t weep at the death of print.
I was glad to toss all my LPs and CDs, and I’ll be happy when I
convince Jodi to pack up all books for Goodwill. I cherish the days
I worked at Surfer. Almost nothing of what we did actually
holds up, but at the time it was progressive and fun and it meant
the world to me. I feel the same way in 2019 about digital, or at
least the stuff that I’m involved with. The format changes. The
topics change. What’s counts is working with the right people, on
something you really care about. Surf media is always 95% crap and
5% great. How lucky I am to have been on the right side of the
equation all these years.
