Malibu icon who inspired Big Wednesday’s nihilistic surf star Matt Johnson left destitute after LA fires

"He read the waves better, never made a mistake, and only fell off deliberately at the end of a ride . . . or if he was drunk."

As arsonists drift gaily across the ridges and canyons of Los Angeles, blowtorches warm in hands, and the city burns, burns, burns, the heart has been torn out of the Malibu surfing community.

Randy “Craw” Miod, who was known “The Malibu Man of Mystery” was found dead in his home, The Crab Shack, holding his kitten while trying to split the flames.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by MISTER 1987 (@mister.1987.og)

George Trafton, whom Petey Maguire referenced in his Palisades story last week, was almost burned to death and is at UCLA getting skin grafts on 80% of his body.

The artist Jim Ganzer, whose cult brand Jimmy’Z was a helluva thing in the eighties before it was butchered post sale, lost his famous shack in the canyon above Malibu.

And beautiful noserider Lance Carson, the inspiration for Big Wednesday’s nihilistic protagonist Matt Johnson, also lost his home.

Matt Johnson mirrored Carson’s self-destructive and nihilistic real-life character, an alcoholic who sure did like to party and throw hands.

Lance Carson, said Big Wednesday director and screenwriter (along with Dennis Aaberg) John Milius, was the best surfer at Malibu in the late fifties.

“He read the waves better, never made a mistake, and only fell off deliberately at the end of a ride . . . or if he was drunk.”

Bruce Brown narrated a seemingly endless ride of Carson’s in the Endless Summer with, “he’s so relaxed up there you get the feeling he could have a ham sandwich while he’s waiting around.

Right now, howevs, left without a home.