American woman!
I spent a good chunk of the last two years working shoulder to shoulder with the talented editor Jesse Schluntz on a documentary about Lisa Andersen. Here’s a li’l synopsis…
Lisa Andersen is one of surfing’s few transcendent stars. She is grace and beauty coupled with tenacity and fearlessness. She is as punk as she is elegant.
Her accomplishments are undeniable. Four time world champ, first woman on the cover of Surfer, six time Surfer of the Year, face of the brand Roxy. Outside Magazine wrote, “She was the first woman to cross over into surfing celebrityhood.”
Born in New York, her father moved the family to Florida when she was thirteen. It was there she discovered surfing, though it was not what her parents wanted her to do. They felt the beach was dangerous, home to drug addicts and bums. Lisa did nothing to ease their concerns and eventually wound up in juvenile hall, staring at five years of house arrest and no surf.
Her father smashed her surfboard, for good measure, and Lisa hatched an escape plan. She decided to run away to Huntington Beach, leaving only a note behind that read, “Going to California to become world surfing champion.”
She lived on the beach and in her car before being taken in by an abusive local surfboard shaper. She was, in fact, often abused in relationships, running away time and again when things got too bad. Or when she felt trapped. Or when the system threw up barriers.
In the water, she was something else entirely, raging and fighting and surfing like a gorgeous disaster but could never quite put it all together, competitively, until career suicide presented itself in the form of an unexpected pregnancy. Over objections and common sense, she decided to have the child and in so doing magically broke through and achieved her dream of becoming a champ.
Trouble follows Lisa on her all too human journey. Surf is a beautiful backdrop but the real story is the epic poem of her life. It is the struggles, abuse, pain and joy. It is the story of a modern, self-made American woman.
It is a story of today.
The film is finally available on iTunes. Would you like to pre-order? You can, right here!
This movie was shit. Does nothing for women’s surfing and made her look like a peace of work! Didn’t even show off her amazing ability…
Well, there’s a reading list comprising less-than-zero. Take a bow, remove your cap from your freakishly small head and show the World what you are made of, Ben Marcus, in all the glorious illustriousness you hoped to gain in stalking surf fodder and the clever pleasure you’ve found in your right pocket when you scratch deep, then pince the Prince. Because that’s all you’ll ever know…sorry to break it to you.
Chances of me paying a dime to watch this: ZERO
I was able to “poach” it last night due to my The Surfer’s Journal subscription… sorry to take the free route Chas… but another job well done for sure… the scene that stuck with me the most was her tears seemingly most visible at the discussion over her dad destroying her board… more tears at that point, then at any other part of the film where various tough topics were discussed… but great work overall… if you’re a parent, perhaps you get this film even more… and the least I can do at this point is say, this is certainly worth a purchase along with books about the industry and their extra-curricular activity…
Off ya fuckin’ rocker and a threat to our sons, stalker. Ever read Has Been Magazine? Heard you got a by-line 12 years ago or some such. Must suck to be a pariah, Troll.
Daddy, why can’t I see mommy?
Well son, mommy is…. sick.
She has the flu?
No, it’s a special kind of sick.
I don’t understand daddy.
Well son, your mommy believes she is… Australian.
Daddy, what’s Australian?
Well it’s people from a country far away. On the other side of the world.
Daddy is that why mommy uses bad words like “cunt?”
Yes, son, that is why. Mommy shouldn’t talk like that. She was raised better and knows better. It’s a special kind of sick.
Daddy, are you saying mommy’s a poser?
Yes, son. A lost soul.
I’m sad, daddy but I love you.
Good on ‘ya, son.
You think way too much about people who give zero shits about you. Are you done yet, Mr Ben Marcus, or should I amplify the level of shame for you?
You can amplify all you want.
No one is listening to you.
I shouldn’t be picking on you because you most likely are unwell, but I’m tired of listening to stupid, unpleasant sideline-sitting snipers – and dealing with half-crazed women of a certain age – so I answer back.
It’s not gentlemanly, but sometimes you just get tired of what’s wrong and right.
Block me if you don’t want to hear it, poser.
Or are you just surprised to read what your inner voices are screaming at you, loud and clear?
Quit thinking so much about my son, Mr. Ben Marcus. You are freaking me out. He is armed to the teeth in the case you needed further disuassion.
Who said that was about you, or your son?
I was just cracking an anonymous joke.
I’m sure your son is fine, wherever he is.
Dissuasion, but don’t worry, I can’t spell double consonant words either.
Neither could Adolph Hitler, strangely.
I was married to an ATP tennis pro and lived on the Spelugues, dumb cunt.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
…never see ya fucking surf…just shitloads of blah blah blah…it must attract our sons to you. Or not. 🤗
Yep. 100% true. Nearly killed me. Call it fucking with the wrong person. All the guilty Jawanese were relegated from the island, and the Locals handled it. Can you ever imagine what it would take that someone does something like that for you, Ben Marcus? I can’t.
Um…I lived in Monte Carlo for years and there is no “Monaco Bay Hotel.” Can you send us a notification when you’ve finished with your delirum tremors? Ta.
Three fucking years as a kook and a lifetime writing shit about it? Now, that IS a brand new, shiny kinda stupid! Bravo!!!
It’s what people who don’t live on mommy and daddy’s trustfund dime at age 70 do, in any case.
You have to actually surf to qualify that insult. Sitting on the sidelines, watching for 40+ years does not fucking count, Lurve.
Unfortunately, none of them want to know about you, Mr Ben Marcus.
You are a brand new, shiny, new kind of stupid, Ben Marcus who Prefers Our Sons.
We’re you two married at some stage?
Fuck no! I have this penchant for accomplished men.
**crickets chirping** back in 1992…
Look whom I’ve butt-hurt…first you were in Burbank, now you’re stalking me from NorCal…and who the fuck is that in FL? 😀 https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
So you’re doing a good job mowing the lawn and cleaning the pool?
Editing a newsletter for an Ayn Rand philosophical society.
I don’t agree with it, but everything is interesting.
And writing a book. A good one, this time. Malibu is nice.
To wit: Not wasting my life being a drip.
Righto. Apparently so…
I’ve been watching the Best of Ari Gold from Entourage.
He doesn’t suffer dumb, no-account, wannabe broads either, so he’s inspiring me a little.
It’s ungentlemanly, but who cares?
Act like a vulgar idiot, get treated like a vulgar idiot.
**crickets chirping***
Uh huh. You’re so out of it that you don’t know that Layne, Lisa and I are the same age. We all surfed amateurs together. Still never seen your person surf…so what were you on about, again, Ben Marcus, creepy non-surfing, trolley fuckwit Commenter? Q: Who sends a photo like this? A: Ben Marcus, who would have liked to be Derek Hynd but couldn’t, and Derek Hynd. Creepy fucks you are.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Derek was odd but I wouldn’t say creepy.
He didn’t seem all that interested in women, in a kind of T.E. Lawrence sort of way.
Although he did have a son so there must have been some interaction.
Derek probably was popular with girls when he was younger and then maybe lost interest? I’ve seen that happen.
Girls are fun. Women are just a pain, sometimes.
Derek was and is very bright and still a shockingly good surfer.
And it should be “trolly” not “trolley,” I think, if “trolly” is even a word.
“Trolley” is short for “trolley car” a passenger vehicle powered by electricity obtained from an overhead cable by means of a trolley wheel.
You’ve got nothing but time on your hands where you are, couldn’t you at least use a spellchecker?
Geez.
All that money. All that education. And for what?
It’s trollishly, you under-bridge-sleeping freak who thinks he knows it all, but has no grasp on how to play with language to make it live…which is what makes you a suck-ass writer no one wants to hear from…😂
https://en.m.wiktionary.org…
Yes, trollishly, not trolley.
You said “trolley.”
That’s a kind of electric car.
You never got out of the amateurs in writing, either.
” a suck-ass writer no one wants to hear from…” is you talking to you.
130 issues of Surfer Magazine + 26 books + one stolen screenplay = retired.
Everyone is a surf writer now. It doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Let the hipster doofuses and the wannabes write about surfing.
The Golden Era has passed.
Derek was a trendsetter in the Golden Era, and I got to transcribe the scribble in his faxes.
Fucking lucky, blessed you. I’m certain that demanded enormous skill.
That was just one part of the job. The other parts required skill and talent and wit and whatnot
…that which flows abundantly from your source, apparently. You have convinced no one but yourself.
You can only use it when I let it fly, that cumputer.