"That was the first barrel I got in a year!"
Six months ago, the Kauai-born surfer Bruce Irons, the best surfer in the world in 2005 if you asked anybody who was there, made a rare public appearance from a psychedelic assisted rehab joint in Cancun, Mexico, called Beond where he delivered a profoundly sad confessional.
“My name is Bruce Irons. I’m a 44 year old professional surfer. My brother was world champion He’s the baddest motherfucker that ever lived and I’m doing this for him and all my other fallen brothers and fucking friends who died,” said Bruce in part.
He was a little heavier and jowlier, his hair longer and darker than when he owned surf media in the early 2000’s, but that deep-seated cool, his mama Danielle once described Bruce as a stealth bomber, was firmly in place.
I remember picking Bruce up from the airport in Tenerife many years ago, a few months before his big bro died as it happened, and being terrifically impressed by the thickness of his arms and the way his hair remained upright despite no apparent powders, wax or gel.
Later that night he described the fight he had with his brother after his Eddie win in 2004.
“That was a typical fucking fight. Him saying some stupid things he shouldn’t be saying to certain people and I was not happy with it. This was in the daytime. And, I was screaming shit at him. Everything you could think of to get him to come out of the house to fucking attack me. And, I said the perfect things and he came flying out and fucking tried to karate kick me. He kinda got me and then we started swinging… some guys grabbing me… and then he got me a couple of times and gave me a black eye and a bloody lip. I think I barely got him. But, fuck, that was a good reason I won the Eddie because I had so much rage in-fucking-side of me. And, I don’t want to use the word hate, but I was very, very upset with him. He was in the heat before me and it was the pulse of the contest and he was… it was 25 feet… and he was getting big waves, probably the biggest waves of his life and I was just… screaming… paddling out, looking at the sky yelling… YOU CANNOT!… because he has won everything. I was, like, he’s not going to win THE FUCKING EDDIE AIKAU! I fucking wanted it really badly. Winning the Eddie Aikau, that contest, I think it picks a person. There’s so much energy in that thing. The winner is already set in stone. It might’ve been for someone else that year, but I wanted it so bad I took that energy, I got those waves, the biggest waves of my life, and, you know… I won. And, a big part of it was how I was feeling. The depth of feeling inside me. Everything was in fucking fifth gear.”
Classic Bruce, although anything Bruce does falls under the banner classic.
Or wild.
In this video from Jewish-Hawaiian vlogger Koa Rothman Bruce makes a surprise and much appreciated cameo, enjoying step-offs at an Indonesian slab. He only gets a handful of waves but the pleasure of seeing the familiar curved back and White Dudes for Kamala bent front wrist is indescribable.
“That was the first barrel I got in a year!” says Bruce, who collects his fill at the four minute and thirty seconds mark of the video, adding. “It’s just the beginning.”
