With surprise cameo from the CIA!
If you’re new to surfing, you might think it a fad in much the same manner as frisbees and “jogging” in the nineteen-seventies, a silly short-lived diversion from the misery and suffering of life, adored by celebrities and advertising.
Therefore the notion that surfing and the culture surrounding it used to be…wild… in its purest sense, might be difficult to get your head around.
A new book by the surf explorer and filmmaker Jack McCoy and fellow traveller Mike Ritter (who co-authored Thai Stick with BeachGrit favourite Petey Maguire), “Grajagan –Surfing in the Tiger’s Lair: 1972-1984”, takes the reader back into the magical world of secret waves, the smuggling of drugs to generate the money to chase these waves, and the spectre of death and madness that seemed to lurk around every corner.
More than that, it frames East Java in a historical context, briefly touches on nearby Bali’s insane bloodletting of 1965 and 1965 when 100,000 souls were murdered for suspected ties to the Commies, those first surfs at Uluwatu and paints a vivid picture of that most mythical of surf explorers and scammers Mike Boyum.
The main star, howevs, is Grajagan and all the construction of the world’s first surf camp.
A brief-ish excerpt.
Before Bob left the Madrigal to camp ashore he had asked Abdul to fill a 35mm film canister with cocaine. Abdul had just returned from South America with a supply of the powder. Inside the same film can Bob stuffed a row of windowpane LSD. Salt water must have leaked into the can, because when Bob opened the can the cocaine had turned into a paste.
The windowpane was coated with the stuff. Thinking nothing of the consequences, Bob wiped the strip of acid with his finger and smeared the paste on his gums. He soon became lost in a psychedelic journey revved up with cocaine and he retreated to his platform to be alone. Later that night a loud whirring sound alerted Bob’s stoned senses. Looking up he saw flashing bright lights directly overhead. A beam of light shone directly onto Chris and Barry sleeping on the jungle floor. Bob was sure he was seeing a flying saucer. He thought the beam of light was going to transport Chris and Barry into an alien spaceship. After a long breath-held moment, the flashing ceased and the whirring apparition disappeared.
The next morning Bob asked Chris and Barry if they had seen the UFO. “Nah,” said Barry, “it was a helicopter. Probably CIA.”
As unlikely as both Bob’s and Barry’s assumptions seem today, Barry might have been closer to the truth. During the 1960s Indonesia was a hotbed of cold-war activity. With support from Russia and China, the country almost became a communist state until the Indonesian army took control in 1965. The CIA backed the army. Perhaps a paranoid intelligence officer worried the surfers were insurgents attempting to establish a foothold on the desolate peninsula. Actually, they were.
It’s impossible to recommend this book more highly.
Australians can pre-order the regular volume, which costs $54.50 here, Americanos pay thirty-five bucks (click here), or if you wanna get real tricky pay $A150 for the collector’s edition, signed by the authors, limited run of 300, and with a leather cover, gilded edges and a ribbon marker.
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southern growers floodin’ cali..locals are still re-staking our claims…sensitive harvest area score; one fish taco coming up!
https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx….
pray for surf…
The reason we know so much about Mike Boyum is because he was such a bad smuggler – incompetent.
The people who were good at it, we know nothing.
They have been surfing and living very nice lives, in some cases for decades; in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Peru, Uruguay, Bali and other locations, off the money they made in the drug business,
2nd hand news…wishbone ash/
I have been saying that for years but no one wants to go to print on it.
there are so many legal problems in telling the truth which would have repercussions on people/business’s today……so there is a very strong possibility someone might do a novel/film loosely based on the truth to protect the guilty and their families……if there is no mention of the Brotherhood and the people involved…..just another money making scam in printing barely 1/2 truths!!
True. I can remember one time going to Hawaii and waking up as I was staying with Peter Davi and JBG and walking into the kitchen and seeing Marvin, Junior and JBG carving up kilos of green stuff and thought oh well Im passing on breakfast today LOL
I went to Bali in 73 with Nat and wayne……came across a whole bunch of guys hiding there to avoid U S authorities….they were called the Brotherhood I later found out….
Mike Boyum was one of the light weights……
Love ya story of Hawaii…Pete/Marvin/Junior RIP…Marvin was a very dear friend
I don’t know who you are but I dare say we have crossed paths someplace
Maurice Cole
“” The brotherhood of eternal love” made quite impact on Australian shapers / surfing on the East and West Coast , worth having a chat with those famous US west coast surfers innovators shapers that appeared in OZ in the early 70s from arround Laguna beach, not to mention shapers that used indian and rainbow images on their lables / logos , must have been great to shape a few boards in the 1970s for 150 bucks then never have to work ever again ……???
Not to mention buy up heaps of coastal land in OZ and pretend to be proffesional artists or musicians , if you know how and where to look its such a easy trail to follow , just like a endless summer.
here’s one for you …..so who had the Australian franchise from the brotherhood ?
Sometimes it hard to see the forest for the trees……LOL!
Especially in the morning 🌄
Really not that hard just follow the Hynson crumbs , not to mention who originally cross pollinated the first strain of maui wowie and the orginal groups that first took to the slopes in Oregon in 72 full stop enough said.
The bush is dark but hears.
Its Indo, anything can be done for the right amount of $$$. At one point someone tried to put a camp at Panaitan, also a National Park.
In my era, we alternated between Vaughans and Estwings but I liked the way the Estwings felt but maybe that is why my wrist ligaments always hurt now.
Yea as I sit here in my late fifties and am reminded by my back 24/7 about swinging a Estwing to pay my way through college…should have spent more time as a drug mule
My thoughts exactly!
Gritjagan, aka G-Beach
Went there many years ago when Boyum was alive and he sailed into the Bay with Thai hookers and kilos of stuff. Lets just say as a 18 yr old it was a memorable trip.
Is Mike Ritter by any chance related to Scott Ritter? That surname sure is involved in the telling of truth.
month’s delayed…rotted out?
Old rapists back for another handful.
Them were the days ! [kneeslap]
Just fuck off.
Peter wrote Mike’s story.
Mike’s.
??? What’s this mean–this is before my era, so want to learn more.
It means, a lot of surfers (Hakman and Reno too), were into drugs back in the day, and a few, actually quite a few, thought they had found a way to finance a lifestyle of not working and surfing by smuggling and selling drugs, hard drugs also. Hollowing
out surfboards and stuffing them with drugs in exotic locals and shipping them back home, etc.
PS
These guys almost make Dora and his credit card scam look like a saint in comparison.
PSS
I don’t think you’ll read about this on the WSl website. They have an image to maintain.
I think he is saying Thai Stick is really about Boyum. I’ve brought this up multiple times but watch Sea of Darkness. Every time the story line seems odd or off a bit assume that, before Martin edited out the incriminating parts, there used to be something in there about smuggling black through the archipelago. Ties heavily into the surf industry development once you realize who is in that movie.
Thai stick is about a group of people.
They started with hash in Afghanistan and India in the 60’s and moved on to South East Asia in the early seventies. Boyum was just one player
Its was just a guess as I haven’t read the book and don’t always fully understand what Hippy is saying. That said, Boyum wasn’t doing this shit solo.
Agree. When I last saw Boyum a few of the heavies were involved in the movement of the stuff from what I saw.
got thai?
well go on name the group!
This is a subject you be quite about, Maurice
🐀. No names
FFS , you mention a “group” ….then tell us where they moved to , and that Boyum was just a player …..can’t you say Brotherhood……..???
I was referring to the actual people not the group name and this is obviously not the place to talk about it.
So we can’t say Brotherhood of eternal light in public,LOL !!
or start mentioning names of the surfers who were involved….
Lets just say when I met him at Gland as a 18 yr old they got in a table to play ping pong. The white lines of the table were not paint and I’ve never seen so many kilos in my life. The first day I meet him I was surfing the ledge and he said come over to the boat to take something in for the guys on land. Who was I to say no as a grom. As I climb up he is doing a line off a thai hookers breast and ask if I want to finish the other breast. I’m like its ok mate. Shocked is the understatement. On that trip I meet some of the heaviest guys that were great surfers and was able to stay with them all over the world. I never dropped in once and learnt how to paddle in at the boat channel with a package strapped to my back that could have bought a house.
So many nice shocks in the teens,
https://external-content.du…
Dude! Your trip should be the book/film! Have you considered a screenplay?
It certainly is a classic story. Once you have travelled to a few places you just seem to come across funny situations. Memories that the next generation will never experience.
And who is definitely not in “Sea of Darkness”. A well-known surfer of the day supposedly sent a legal letter to the original producers that neither his name nor his likeness was to appear in the film in any context. No interview, no still images, no clips, nothing.
It doesn’t.
And who would that be? Many people are not in the film.
Probably the most high-profile surfer of the era – watch the film carefully. He is not in it, at all.
Gerry!
Correct – wanted nothing to do with the film, apparently
🐀
https://media3.giphy.com/me…
who’s jim devine?
and elmore leonard?
They are car salesman at the new Hyundai lot in Oxnard.
non-contributors, ‘cept in small circles/
dunno, I don’t like Hyundai’s much.
I want a Rivian, but they’ve all be recalled.
Forget that, I like my old car…. weed stashed here and there, money hidden, sand on the floors and wax melted seats. Feels like home.
we’re hustlers…keepin it close to the coastline!
bingo
Did not see the movie. Avoided it. Dogtown made me pass on reflection histories.
There are solid humans that don’t like the way Peter navigates socially.
Surely the collector’s edition comes with a secreted bag
At that price it’d want to come with a souvenir exact replica of the aforementioned film canister!
Hopefully wrapped in a ziploc bag so the good remain dry
Hopefully not a film can.
The books dimensions are 24.5mm thick by whatever. Gunna be sweet fuck all to read about.