Well-deserved!
I can’t tell you how many times I watched Bruce Brown’s The Endless Summer as an Oregonian boy but it was certainly enough to singe my frontal cortex. Oh I loved everything about that film from Mike and Robert’s black suit/sunglass combination to the exotic lands they traveled to the dad humor jokes to the driving mission. The primary urge to get out there and discover.
And so it was with un-ironic, non-sarcastic pleasure that I read, this morning, about a giant bronze statue erected in Dana Point of the young visionary pointing his camera out to sea.
Borrowing from the Laylan Connelly, the Orange County Register’s resident surf journalist and iconic herself:
They were dubbed ‘the Dana Point Mafia.”
Hobie Alter shaped his iconic surfboards, ridden by style master and friend Phil Edwards. John Severson created Surfer Magazine, running ads and features on surf world happenings. Bruce Brown documented and shared with the world surf adventures that transported people to the waves.
“That’s why Dana Point is the most historic surf town in California, by far,” said Dick Metz, a friend who was also part of the tight-knit group that transformed the surf scene in the ’60s. “We really did kind of control the industry, in a small way. That’s why we had the name Dana Point Mafia.”
Stories flowed at a gathering at the Watermen’s Plaza on Thursday, Sept. 19, where a bronze statue with filmmaker Brown’s likeness has joined surf and sailing icon Alter, the first to be put up just south of the bridge over Pacific Coast Highway, and Phil Edwards, an iconic surfer who made waves decades ago as the best surfer of his time.
Ahhh Dana Point and you know how much I hate nostalgia but don’t those Dana Point Mafia days seem like such halcyon hours? Progressive surfboards being carved, tested and tried. A magazine conjured from thin air, the “Big Bang” moment for surf journalists around the world. Bruce Brown documenting it all with verve and style. Short shorts, robust tans and a blue sky filled with dreams.
Well, I’m sticking to my guns. Nostalgia is a mental disease and today’s Santa Monica Mafia is just as wonderful. Instagram celebrities being invited to inland wave tubs, contests being staged in the heat of a dying planet, Joe Turpel documenting it all with a stream of never-ceasing upbeat positivity.
When crime families fight it’s always more fun, or have you not seen Godfather II? The only question I have is what can our mafia name be? The Grumporra? The Core-a Nostra?
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It looks like what the WSL thinks surfing is
Party wave in https://uploads.disquscdn.c… Spain
I ike to wear a full niqab on flights to demonstrate my solidarity with transgender Muslim women and also so none sits next to me or talks to me.
Like wearing a canadien patch on your backpack so no one asks you about trump. Brilliant move bexy
There was a woman here who wore a niqab into parliament.
She was not Muslim, just wanted a reaction, boy, she got one, got absolutely slammed and called every name you can think of.
For what?
It’s same as if I wore a Russian winter hat right?
What on earth is that
That’s Courtney at the surf ranch.
The Cardiff Kook (not the sculptures real title) has become (an unfortunate) legend and as noted below, the target of well deserved ridicule and constant decoration by the masses. It now has it’s own website of kookiness http://thecardiffkook.org/
Met three luminaries of the same era only Capo legends in the jungle and they took a shine to the Hippy. Invited to dinner at their table, i realized a dozen or so devotees jealous of my inclusion including the inn keep…. was even given his tbone steak (which became a point of contention between us for two decades)….?
The shit started to fly and i left that night realizing that surfers of that era were eerily similar to mine. I had forgotten the difference in our ages by my first beer as their stories and mine could have been switched if not for our eras equipment.
I called it Surfers Journal Live. And without Pez’s filter. Or fuck Hulett’s.
The Capo mafia wasnt impressed by the DP mafia, will say that.
People should always wear suits to fly.
Bingo. Decorum on flights has hit new lows, slobs for the most part.
Will be him and Ashton holding hands a la Orlando, while standing on a coffee table.
Watermans Plaza ?? Man that’s so corny. When is the statue of Hynson going up? He was the true talent in Endless Summer not like the rest of the Squares. Brown made millions off that movie and kept it for himself while selling the “Surfing Lifestyle “ to all the inland Kooks. Anything to make a buck …..
Must have been big waves he was filming. Camera’s pointed to about 50′ above sea level.
He lit the spark for me for what is, well, my life. My favorite moment was when i got to meet him when he won a lifetime achievement award, and i got some other minor trophy, at a film fest and when i went up to him to thank him, he wonderfully and crankily summarily dismissed me as another bit of surf jotsom and flotsam he inspired and didn’t want to hear my fealty as he made a bee-iine for the open bar. It was perfect.
Whatever the name let’s all agree on a moratorium on using Legend in the title. These old boys are legends but Yadin Nichols 7 year old isn’t and for F’s sake nobody at the WSL qualifies either.. Also- the statue turned out good.
Good comment legend!
Ha!
I hope they got it made by the same guy who did Cristiano “golden balls” Ronaldos statue. the artist spent a lot of time detailing his crotch and appears to have knocked out his face on a Friday afternoon.
https://hornet.com/stories/…
That’s good stuff right there.
God we are a fascinating species.
Big ups, Selector.
Yackloosa?
SignAloha Cartel? (stacking shakas, not throwing shakas)
NotZZZ’s?
In the Santa Monica Blahfia, who is Fredo?
Sold!