Long read: The complicated legacy of Hawaiian surf god Larry Bertlemann, dead at 71
No single person left a blast-zone on surfing as big as the one Larry did in the 1970s.
No single person left a blast-zone on surfing as big as the one Larry did in the 1970s.
"The only way to get good at surfing is to live on the beach and start when you're 12 or younger."
"He married, moved often, quit surfing, buried two stillborn children, divorced, drank, drugged, recovered, relapsed."
Sly Stone was transcendently hip and cool—in a way not wholly unlike surfing in its peak moments.
"Jack McCoy was a leaner meaner version of Tom Selleck, with an amazing voice, and unlimited confidence and ambition."
"Clyde was the one who best channeled and reflected the light, the upside, of the Aikau family."
"The suffering leads nowhere, circles in on itself, feeds on itself. Drouyn’s transition only worsens his mental health, and anyone still watching at this point is just rubbernecking."
"I can't think of anyone, at her level, who was less interested in surfing as a path to money or fame."
What's in it for surfing? WSL gets a cut. Slater, too. The pros have a new CT contest – except nobody wanted it
Rick Rasmussen, Bunker Spreckels, Miki Dora etc.
"Allow the surfers to touch each other. Encourage it. Let my opponent look at me and say 'Let’s fight it out to the end.'"
"In print form, Stab was without precedent, an essential protein or two away from being a new surf-media lifeform."
By shaping and promoting the Eddie Aikau myth, others—Quiksilver, mostly—stood to profit greatly…
"Trestles three years in a row? That's basically an insult, a fuck-you to the pros, to the fans, to the game."
Or not the wrong reasons, exactly, but for reasons that were long ago bent to fit a certain narrative about Dane.
"I have had my car windows waxed for being a non-local, I've been blasted as a surfing feminist. But any Jew Boy stuff? Fifty-plus years in surfing and nothing. I mean, zero."