A tender cinematic portrait of the great Australian
surfer-shaper…
I doubt it’s an exaggeration to say that the Victorian
surfboard shaper Maurice Cole is one of surfing’s last
living links to its dirty, pre-woke WSL culture.
Maurice was a black kid adopted
by white parents and who was twelve years old before
Australia acknowledged
its indigenous people were human and could be counted in the
country’s census and allowed to vote.
Surfing, which Moz became very good at, two Victorian titles,
sixth at the worlds, was his escape, a relationship he articulates
in this tender film by Peter Baker, brother of noted surf writer
Tim Baker.
“I was always timid. I always felt a bit different. I never felt
comfortable until I started surfing,” says Moz.
Peter made this film in 2017, winning Best Short at the London
Surf Film Festival, but has only just made it available for public
release.
Moz, whom you may know as Brutus in various comment forums, also
talks about prison and the resulting PTSD and depression.
“I asked my wife and my family not to visit me. I was in a hard
place. It was for survival that I cut myself off from the world. I
came out vulnerable, but very angry, very aggressive. I’d back it
up big-time. When I came out of jail I was pretty crazy. I was
always carrying this dark side with me.”
The last time I spent significant time with Moz on the phone I
asked him what had happened to all the money he’d earned.
I reminded him of his lucrative shaping deals in Japan and
Europe, of his palace in Margaret River with the nightclub, the
fleet of jet skis and so on.
“I have nothing (but) I’ve got a pretty good surfboard
collection,” he laughed. “My wife’s over me. I made so much, lost
so much. That’s why I’m here in France. I pick up five grand here,
ten grand there, pay a few debts. I have a twelve-year-old car
worth five hundred bucks. I think I’ve got my integrity. Can you
tell that to my wife? That it means something? She’s over the drama
of making surfboards. She wants to live a simple, peaceful life.
She’s been with me since I was eighteen, poor thing. She’s just
burnt out. I was telling Ross and he said, ‘You can’t fucking
retire. You’ve got too much fucking shit to do!’”
Legend.