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Saint Sid Abbruzzi. One of a kind. Photo: Water Brother
Saint Sid Abbruzzi. One of a kind. Photo: Water Brother

Surf fans weep on street corners as trailer for patron saint Sid Abbruzzi’s film “Water Brother” drops

The Package has arrived.

Sid Abbruzzi is surfing’s patron saint. The spot has been held, for the last thirty years or such, by Saint Christopher, who has long been venerated by “athletes, mariners, ferrymen, and travelers.” The amalgamation, I guess, extending to surfers but sharing a saint is not the same as having a saint and ours is now Sid.

The Water Brother should need no introduction. The fact that he might, simply testimony to his holiness. But we will get in to that later. For now, you should examine your heart. If you do not know of Sid Abbruzzi, you should deeply question your own attachment to this surfing life. If you do know of Sid Abbruzzi, well, I don’t have much to add here except for the time I met him at Surf Expo in Florida.

It was the year that the former surf personality Ashton Goggans decided the look du jour was tightly rolled yellow beanie and delicately oiled beard, in Florida, but never mind that. Sid had stopped by the Florida Surf Film Festival booth with a crew of Rhode Island heavies, all tattooed and tough. I immediately recognized him as something entirely unique. He said, “Hey, come back to our hotel room with us.”

Intimidated, but with no other option, I accepted.

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Now, I had no idea what this hotel room would hold but showing weakness in the face of true ideological belief is tantamount to complete human failure. Sid had an aura. A look. A piercing seriousness and commitment that is altogether rare in our western world. I’d seen it in the eyes of Hezbollah commanders and Yemeni freedom fighters.

I saw it here.

Turns out, I was right but in ways I’d never expected.

I’ll get to that later too. For now, though, a film has been made about Saint Sid’s life. It’s not out yet but I’ve seen it. Twice. So enraptured by the first go through that I replayed, from the beginning, for the wife, immediately after.

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She wept too.

The official trailer dropped seconds ago. The film, itself, out mid July.

Water Brother: The Sid Abbruzzi Story (2024) | Official Trailer

Gird your loins.

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72 Comments
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Shredy Kruger

The Tears duth Floweth, and my loins are girded…

Mike

Well these comments devolved pretty quickly into a bunch of navel gazing drivel. Go see the Doc, Sid has been a righteous soul for decades, better than having to watch another story about Kelly in Vogue.

Ando

No culture does aggrandisement like the U.S.

It’s literally unbelievable.

Otto

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent was already done by Nicolas Cage.

c4

My sister got kicked out of high school for selling weed as a junior. Got her GED, went to the College of Marin for two years and then transferred to Berkeley and graduated without much dept.

I just think about the housing prices now and it’s gonna be tough for kids now without a degree.

I hoping the best for your kids.

disqus_00d1gIXedO

that’s GRIT!

Nikola

Sid is a cool dude.

c4

Hope you and the other teachers are telling your students about the U.C TAG system. It’s an incredible way to get out of a bad life.

c4

Jake was an encyclopedia of skate knowledge

Surf Coach/Great Human

Yeah 100%. The fuckin Phelper knew just about every goddamn thing that ever happened on a skateboard, he truly LOVED skating. Crazy old bastard was still bombing hills in SF all the way to the end.

c4

Yea that footage of him pulling the gauze out of the hole in his elbow and putting new gauze in is crazy.

Hippy

Ox and Carp have always struggled to co exist.

Cept for lovable Hippy’s of course

Hippy

Why did you remove the post MC??

Barrelled

Either got Neg’d or deleted his account.

Hippy

The dude is a teacher in the hood, I employ these kids after they stop going to school. Not easy. He has to see things optimistically or he can’t do his job. I just fire em.

Barrelled

More power to him for that, it’s not an easy or appreciated position. But this isn’t a classroom of under-privileged 14-18 yr olds that hang onto every word.

Hippy

Scary thing Barrelled, his HS looks like a college campus and it was too filled so they bult another HS within a mile of his because the population is growing so rapidly. I work near the new HS.

Any social problems now will be much larger soon.

Barrelled

Del Sol was built for the Riverpark development. Oxnard, Pacifa, El Rio and CI are within a mile or so as the crow flies. That’s 5 high schools in a couple sq mile area. Add in Santa Clara and Hueneme, it’s a ton of schools for that place. Some good, some not. It’s growing.

Hippy

Chase is at Pacifica. Don’t know what the new one is called.

Amusing that 5 huge HS’s feed one small community college……

Barrelled

Del Sol is the new one. Pacifica is the least disadvantaged of them all in many ways. Hats off to any and all teachers. I’d get fired in a week.

Otto

That last sentence was sinister, and very funny.

Barrelled

I ain’t from 93013/4

Hippy

You have a unique take on surf travel history and I read it with fresh eyes. The world was a small community at one point before social media influencing and most people you would meet followed a code that was familiar world wide.

All that is gone now. I know you know.

Barrelled

I didn’t ask you any questions fuckstick, nor have I ever claimed to have not surfed in a decade. Luckily you changed your name so OUHSD doesn’t fire you for posting during class and making comments that wouldn’t go over too well with the district and not knowing how to correctly use grammar (run-on sentence is a tribute to you). But you go ahead and keep thinking everyone gives 2 shits about what you think with the 10 posts on every fucking article.

HaoleBoy

If he would surf with a a real chain and padlock around his neck I would watch this tear jerker.

Otto

Are you claiming Chumash ancestry referencing Anacapa these days?

lately you’ve been adding “sy” to names, so I gots(y) to ask, have you also been speaking this way when amongst your friends?
I sure hope so cause that would be rad.

Barrelled

Likely doesn’t know its Bexy not Hotsy. Just another in the long list of name changers on here. I’m guessing he might be among the commenters who have more than 1 account that way he can call Chas boss and DSS tio from multiple accounts.
Pretty ironic having the spanish thrown in there for a guy whose name is Michael Chase but seemed to enjoy the fact that the head of Fiji tourism has the non-Fijian name of Brent Hill.

Surf Coach/Great Human

It’s not a proper indie skate/surf film unless Sal Don’t Call Me Sal Selema is in it chopping it up.

c4

Nor Cal has Jake Phelps, So Cal has Sal Masekela. Fuck you hippy lol

Hippy

You really wanna bone to grind on, Treasure Mike is Rhode Island, Sid is his court jester

I think Sal looked good in his girlfriends outfits

c4

Too deep in the East Coast weeds for me. I know nothing about that part of the country besides old surf mags.

Hippy

Treasure was a boatman at Tav

I owe him a 10’ set wave at Restaurants. Several actually. He was not a fan of the Sid. It would be a good story for here, but it don’t involve real estate, Kelly and or Sascha

c4

Gotta be some way to make it acceptable. Maybe he sold a house once or walked past a tranny in Thailand. Never been to Tavi but my friend said it’s like if OB was a point break.

Hippy

Maybe I’ll type, but you’re never around anymore anyway.

Remember flying back thinking, I may never go left again.

Well, then Macaronis happened. Then Indie’s. Ok, I wasn’t done.

But that late morning will never rest in my mind. Owwweeee as our principle Drek would say.

c4

That would be sick. I still read this crap especially the contest stuff, just haven’t been commenting much.

Hippy

It was fun typing. Not sure it’s appreciated, but a life lived following the wind leads to places you can’t itinerary.

Barrelled

Ditto

Hippy

Check your email.

Reece spoon

Wat contest stuff ? U mean this is a surf vlog ?

c4

I’m not really sure what this place is. Chas makes posts with celebrity names in it to maintain clicks and the comment section is kind of a virtual beach parking lot where people can talk shit I guess.

Every once in a while there’s a contest write up.

Silverback skunkape

Treasure Mike is from the Cape

Silverback skunkape

Jake Phelps is from Cambridge Mass

c4

True but I remember him working at Concrete Jungle Skate shop in the early eighties before he worked at Thrasher, so as far as I’m concerned that’s long enough to be considered an important part on the SF skate scene.

Chas Smith

Filmmakers make mistakes sometimes that don’t damage the whole.

Surf Coach/Great Human

Sal Don’t Call me Sal Selema spinning the yarn is just a small blemish in what I’m sure is an otherwise wonderful picture!

tim_nelsen

what’s it take to be a co-producer?

tim_nelsen

re: the cj hob’bs film…on replay. want it? or pump>

Abscessed Llama

” Sid Abbruzzi is the east coast surfing’s patron saint.” Oz got Nat, HI got Duke, West Coast got Dora, and the East Coast? We got Sid and we ain’t fucking sharing..

paul taublieb

Lovely piece, can’t wait to see the film.

Chief Hot stuff

Its cool, hes got a great sense of humor, unlike your guys melted cheese for brains, retard.

Rocks local

Where’s Otto???

“Nevertheless, some courts have misunderstood the methodology of our recent Second Amendment cases. These precedents were not meant to suggest a law trapped in amber. As we explained in Heller, for example, the reach of the Second Amendment is not limited only to those arms that were in existence at the founding. 554 U. S., at 582. Rather, it “extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not [yet] in existence.” Ibid. By that same logic, the Second Amendment permits more than just those regulations identical to ones that could be found in 1791. Holding otherwise would be as mistaken as applying the protections of the right only to muskets and sabers.”

Otto

Not sure what your point is.
You’ve read Heller, yes?

Rocks local

Just curious about your reaction – scaling back with more retreating to come or bump in the road bc dirtbag wife beaters.

Otto

How would the left react to raids on felons, who should not have guns, when good information indicates they do?
There’s no retreat when the Supreme Court had never treated it in such a manner as to lead to a retreat.

Chief Hot stuff

Another blowin smoke up his ass seppo wankfest

Rocks local

and seppo wankfests are a problem because …????

Chief Hot stuff

Carpal tunnel syndrome

tim_nelsen

not supported by the big brass…such as we were….mariachis and tequila and poor excuses…how’s the quacamole here?

tim_nelsen

darwin says procreate…redtube, blondes. or legislate…

tim_nelsen

affordable boat slips before the fisherman turned on the labor workers declared: “Give me liberty or give me blow!”

Chief Hot stuff

And the freedom to blow!!

tim_nelsen

depends, diapers or flag wavin?

tim_nelsen

apparently no new prospects ‘cept names & exchanges occurred…we’re still sellin potatoes&tomatoes&vodka///cheap!

Noncompetitor

I don’t understand Sal’s original credibility

Stick man

He knows Ke11y.

Surf Coach/Great Human

It’s confounding. The fuckers like a surf/skate scene socialite. Nobody really knows what the fuck it is that he does or how he got in, but he’s always around.

Ramathorn

Fmx too. Think he finger banged Pastrana

munnstrosity

“Sal” doesn’t “do” anything. He’s just there for the PC woke agenda since the 90’s. Fucking cringe. Can’t really blame him though. It’s a cushy gig.

Rocks local

in a world of shitty milquetoast trailers, that little clip was a scorcher. Can’t wait to see it


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