Listen: Bobby Martinez loves Waco pool and its “nasty-ass water”, says he won’t be surfing the Palm Springs tank (“I need to kiss your ass to surf some sh*tty chest-high wave?”) and tells Chas Smith “I would’ve f*cking lit your ass up!”

Beautiful Bobby…

Bobby Martinez is a thirty-eight-year-old former professional surfer from Santa Barbara’s westside in California.

In his rookie year, Bobby drew an axe from the waistband of his knee-length elasticated shorts and won Tahiti and Mundaka.

Fifth in the world. Rookie of the year, obvs.

Bobby was six when he got into surfing, and he got real good, real fast. He was riding Al Merrick handshapes by the time he was twelve (Bobby’s Abuelo met drug-smuggler Al in prison in 1969 and they became golf buddies) and he won a still yet-to-be-bettered seven NSAA titles.

In 2011, as we all know, Bobby committed career suicide live and quit the tour for good, aged twenty-eight.

Matt Warshaw, the great surf historian, described him as either “a giant crybaby, or the New Millennium Dora.”

If you’ve ever spun in Bobby’s orbit, you’ll know how much he likes to talk shit.

And pro surfing never meant that much to him, anyway.

Channel Islands’ Devon Howard tells me that every time they post a little Martinez footage, it gets twice the engagement of Dane Reynolds and co.

In this interview, Bobby talks about his old pal Paul Fisher, now a world-famous DJ (“When I heard it, oh my god, this is Fisher’s fucking music? What the fuck is this shit?), how much he loves surfing Waco, river surfing in Wyoming, his transition from boxing to jiujitsu to wrestling, how he would’ve made Chas flop around like a butchered dog after saying bad things about his house in a story and why, even after all these years, surfing still makes his soul sing.

(Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, TuneIn + Alexa, iHeartRadio, Overcast, Pocket Cast, Castro, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Podchaser, Deezer and Listen Notes.)