"I got a borrowed car, no money, no assets but I own a couple of great guitars. I've never been happier."
Today’s guest on Dirty Water, Maurice Cole, is described in the encyclopedia of surfing as “chubby”, “bearish” and “with a hair-trigger temper”.
Cole, sixty-seven, was there at the birth of the surf industry in Torquay in 1969, first sewing wetsuits for Rip Curl, then as a sponsored shredder for offshoot boardshort company Quiskilver.
In 1976, and shortly before a two-year stint in jail, he was Australia’s most highly paid surfboard shaper.
Through the seventies and into the eighties, with black hair long-bobbed and flying, he was one of the world’s best surfers.
Long before it became a byword for beach break barrels he moved to Hossegor, France, and it was here he met an American ex-pat, a soon-to-be-world champ called Tom Curren. Their friendship peaked with Curren’s 1990 World Title on Cole’s boards and the reverse vee design of 1991.
He pioneered tow-in board design and surfing wild offshore reefs with Noah Johnson and Ross Clarke-Jones and, for a time there, with his happy koala bear logo, was the most in demand shaper in the world, Kelly Slater a vocal fan.
In 2003, Cole became a part of the mega-surfboard company BASE, which would collapse eight years later, millions of dollars in debt, and leaving our guest, in his own words, “disillusioned, bitter and twisted and in a very dark place.”
Perhaps his most marked characteristic is his extraordinary ability to go right to the heart of a problem and reduce difficulties to their right proportion.
Note to listeners: the interview ends suddenly due to audio blow-out.
i just bought a second hand 7.2 MC gun off a bloke in TOrquay, its a lovely stick about 15 years old in immaculate condition, any way , i just picked the board up
and pulled out onto the highway and who was behind me in his car, MC. I chuckled and thought what a coincidence
Movement of Jah people.
Great interview. Looking forward to the board design doc. The ending was the most abrupt thing ever though, David Chase would have been proud.
Let me guess: the gringos bought the properties AFTER they had saved enough money in the US, right?
First podcast i’ve listened to from start to finish. Maurice is always interesting and to his credit he does have the surfing and shaping chops to back up himself up.
Now maybe he’d tell us to fuck off because it’s none of our business but you know the real interesting thing, and the thing that separates him from Al Merrick and Rusty (for example) is the controversial backstory. For me, that’s the really interesting thing. Think Papillion, Mr Nice, Escape, even Shantaram (which is mainly bullshit and made up).
The actual true “long read” not the brief precis (“got done for a bit of dope”); that would be really interesting if Maurice ever wants to talk about it. That’s the story that could make it to Hollywood. IMHO, and no disrespect intended.
LWSS ..haha , nah won’t tell ya to fuck off , exactly the opposite………you will find out who I took the fall for and went to jail for…..this will shock a lot of people !
Also the back story was and is a story of living on the edge , nearly a death wish or as we call it now adrenalin junkie…..but really was about pioneering and creating , new surf breaks, new boards , new drugs , new women , new ideals …..I think the difference between Al And Rusty and I , was I surfed at a pretty high level and personally tested all boards from Bells, to the wild west coast/hawaii/France etc……there were some epic failures which was life threatening , but great stories now…..also linking up with the great surfers of the time , such as Wayne/Tom/RCJ/Margo/Noah/BL/Taj/Trent…long list always kept everything fresh……..
So it’s really the stuff that hasn’t been told mixed with a journey of starting surfing in freezing Warrnambool in footy shorts and jumper to now….from Mals to now and everything in between….coming soon!!
@Mongrelfossil:disqus regarding 5 minute segments for each design component. I don’t think you need to limit/restrict these to certain time parameters. Given that you are cataloguing your design ‘philosophy’ it would be great to spill it all and then perhaps edit down if required.
Also, has anyone done better rail surfing on your boards than Margo at Bells/Winki? Was he on a Reverese Vee?
yes he was on an RV…..but what is being tested now is way beyond just the RV…….as I said , most exciting period for 30 years…..
Poor???
I’ve got this board and a slab of Richmond 2019 Premierships to leave to my kids.
I’ve got 2017, 2019 and 2020 richmond slabs but they are coming with me to the afterlife!
Good listen, but why does it just end part-way through a conversation??
Nice 👍 thanks for reminding me i need to order something floaty from MC. I’m comin for ya Brute
sounding Biblical there Jack……the love of money , or the God you worship as it will deliver all the toys you need to entertain yourself , and show everyone how great you are.
I love saying ,” if I was judged by my bank account , I am the biggest loser in the World !”
Well you can go further and further down the bugs bunny hole and say it ain’t love of money, it’s just all fucking ego, ego, ego. Look at my car, look at my house, look at my clothes, look at my second house yada fucking yada. People are driven by ego and money delivers the goods to feed the ego.
If you don’t have the ego you don’t love the money.
Ego. Aka the False-self.
The dickhead self
nice chat, mates
Scraping.
Will give it a listen later, but on a more philosophical note, perhaps adjacent to this poddy, is the notion of poverty and happiness yada yada. Every person I’ve ever heard say they’ve never been happier without money is a person without kids or family. They’re divorced, or been taken to the cleaners, or never married etc etc.
As a dad with two young groms not even in primary school yet, I can’t think of anything fucking worse than having no money. Would make me fucking cry to shop at the oppy for my kids and scratch some measly bucks together to stay afloat while all my kids’ friends flaunted their new shit around them.
100%. Easy to be a “free spirit” and all when the taxpayer bankrolls your free ride (before anyone says that “he’s not getting government benefits” or whatever, the taxpayer is paying for everything else – Medicare, roads, etc, etc).
The true heroes are the couples where the wife is a cleaner and the father a labourer, both get up at 5am every morning six days a week, have no holidays or beers on the weekends so that their kids can go to a better school.
The surfing community worships losers like AI, who had it all and blew it. We’ve got it all wrong.
Happiness living in my car at 67 and being happy? Sorry, but he’s still in a very dark place and needs help.
I can’t comment on Maurice specifically coz I haven’t listened to the poddy and don’t know his exact circumstances but, generally yeah, people claiming a moneyless life is the best life have no responsibilities or they’ve chucked those responsibilities out the window or they’re ignoring those responsibilities. Generally speaking, I say again, for the easily outraged among us.
Money is evil yada yada no fucking doubt about that, but I’d prefer my kids to live in comfort and learn the hard rules of life from me rather than forcing them to live the hard rules of life coz I’m a fuck up with nothing to offer.
I’ve lived in plenty of poor countries and travelled to a fucktonne more and sure, you can trot out the line about kids with barely a rubber thong between ’em having bigger smiles than western kids bla bla bla. But the cost of living is fuck all there and they don’t have the same pressures as parents in western countries. Apples and oranges. Not better, not worse. Just different and incomparable.
I’m not commenting on Maurice either. I don’t know his circumstances but invariably they are those as you and I described.
I disagree about the last point. Bigger smiles my arse. They may be happy as kids but when they start having to do backbreaking work for a pittance for the rest of their lives, believe me, that smile is gone.
Money is no evil. There are exceptions but almost always money is the reward for the value you add to society. I grew up beside a slum and many of my friends lived in slums. It is far from a good life. No Americans try to cross the border to Mexico for a better life.
Yeah agree with all of it. My last point was getting on the front foot before those types of comparisons. From my own experiences of places I’ve lived, there’s a reason Samoans, Tongans and Fijians migrate to NZ and Oz. As your last point also says.
Money in and of itself ain’t evil. It’s a bit of paper with a number and some famous person’s picture on it. It’s what it makes people do that’s evil. Guns aren’t bad, people with guns are bad yada yada. Money ain’t bad….you get the gist
Nope. We just cross the border for the waves, tacos, etc. However, I’ve certainly noticed that the ones fortunate enough to pick up surfboards down there seem quite content. As they should.
Umm, never thought much of AI or any pro surfer–M.C. didn’t seem like he had a drug problem, just some bad business decisions– big difference.
If you don’t have a good accountant or someone who knows what’s going on financially, it can happen pretty easily I think. One or two bad business decisions–poof.
try 200 , LOL!
haha…..haven’t had a medi-care card for 2 years , never been on the dole , I pay my taxes , have no dependents now as Kids have grown up , and ex is totally independent…….
I worked my guts out for 30 years supporting family and making sure that they could go out into the world with life skills and not have to rely on Mum and Dad…….
I don’t have a car to live in , but am doing just fine where I live…..
So I have a certain freedom with no overheads…..no attachments except for family…no financial worries….
Yeah, gotta say, poverty doesn’t agree with me although the discipline of having to conserve money can be satisfying, making own javas, cooking, no more visits to prozzies etc.
Bless your cotton socks Derek, no matter how cum stained they may be.
The seed is precious and never squandered.
This sounds like the first half of your own personal George Best quote.
It’s the gifts you gotta buy the prozzies to make ’em feel special that can really take a toll on the dollar bills.
Hard sacrifices, Derek.
Grow your own weed and mushies. Cook your own speed. The little things add up!
To hell with poverty
https://youtu.be/I_QJwR6D9d4
Fuck, GOF are criminally underrated.
Completely!
Seems unfair that Derek is the only one who gets to pose for the screen shot.
My cruelty knows no bounds, Cedar.
… suspect you’re on more than whoop?
Maurice as the story developed.