Milestones in Surf History Part Twenty Two (#140 - #146)

Milestones in Surf History Part Twenty Two (#140 - #146)

by Sam Bleakley

#140 : 1979 Apocalypse Now : John Milius’s Hollywood recognition came in the script for Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ (1979). It was based on Joseph Conrad’s novella ‘Heart of Darkness’ (1902), that tells the story of a journey by a sailor, Marlow, upriver into the Congo interior, to track down a megalomaniac ivory trader, Kurtz, who had ‘gone native’ and adopted the role of a savage god. The story works on many levels – an observation on the ills of colonialism (the Congolese were disgracefully exploited by King Leopold of Belgium, for rubber and ivory); on greed and self-importance; and on madness induced by an inner and outer journey to a heart of evil. Transposed to Vietnam, Willard (Martin Sheen) tortuously follows the tracks of the mad Green Beret, Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who had drawn around himself a rogue army. Milius was a rabid surfer and a bear of a man who had the same attitude to dominating Malibu as Mickey Dora. Written into Coppola’s film by Milius is a scene where surfer Colonel Kilgore’s (Robert Duval) chopper unit takes on a raw recruit who happens to be a famous surfer back home in California (Lance Johnson). ‘Lance’ is based on Malibu surfer Lance Carson, also the model for ‘Big Wednesday’s’ (1978) Matt Johnson. Kilgore and Willard are discussing the best way to get Willard’s patrol boat onto the Nung River. One of the 9th Cavalry soldiers, ‘Mike from San Diego’, a surfer, tells Kilgore (wearing a Yater t-shirt and the proud owner of a Yater Spoon): “Hey Colonel, I think one of those sailors is Lance Johnson, the surfer.” “Are you sure?” says Kilgore, completely forgetting his wounded soldier. “It's an honour to meet you Lance. I've admired your noseriding for years. I like your cutback, too. I think you have the best cutback there is.” Mike knows that there’s a fantastic pointbreak (Charlie’s Point) at a potential drop off point for the boat. But the village is in a Viet Cong stronghold. Kilgore intends to go surfing while the village is bombed. Kilgore sniffs the air: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” and, when Lance shows natural trepidation at going surfing in the middle of a war zone, Kilgore fixes his eye: “You either surf, or you fight.” Lance thinks he will get killed out there, but Kilgore quells his fears, because “Charlie don’t surf.” Charlie (the Vietcong) could not touch the white Californian sports hero. Conrad’s story exposes colonial racism as ‘the heart of darkness.’ In a final twist of fate, the freshly unloaded bombshells cause a vortex to blow the wind onshore, destroying the clean surf.

#141 : 1970s Heart of the Sea Rell Kapolioka'ehukai Sunn : While Makaha faded somewhat from the surf public in the 1970s, a colorful local surf culture continued to flourish, in large part thanks to longtime Makaha patriarch Richard ‘Buffalo’ Keaulana, along with the incredible Queen of Makaha Rell Kapolioka'ehukai Sunn. Rell's middle name, Kapolioka'ehukai, is Hawaiian for ‘heart of the sea’, a perfect match for someone who became the quintessential water-woman, excelling in surfing, bodysurfing, spearfishing and open-water outrigger canoeing in equal measure. In the early 70's Rell was instrumental in establishing women’s professional surfing and the world tour, in which she twice finished third. In the mid ‘70s Rell became Hawaii's first female lifeguard and earned a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Hawaii. But despite her achievements, Rell was humble, unselfish and carried a great spirit of enthusiasm and energy throughout everything she did. "The aloha spirit is real simple,” said Rell. “You give and you give and you give…and you give from here (the heart), until you have nothing else to give." Consequently Rell devoted herself to the youth of Hawaii, forming the annual Menehune Surf Contest in 1977 held exclusively for kids at her beloved Makaha. Many who rose to fame remember getting their love of competitive surfing at this event. In 1983 Rell was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was just 32, given months to live. Yet Rell chose to live life to its fullest, positively impacting everyone she met, despite a 15-year rollercoaster that would involve chemotherapy, radiation, bone-marrow transplants and a mastectomy. Long spells passed with Rell in seemingly perfect health, as she surfed daily, cycled, and traveled, notably on a surf exploration trip to China in 1986. She had a black belt in judo, and alongside lifeguarding worked as a model, a radio DJ, computer operator and physical therapist. Rell passed away on January 2nd, 1998, aged 47. Thousands gathered for her beachside memorial when her ashes were scattered into the Makaha surf. It was Rell's greatest fear that she would be remembered not as a woman of the sea, but as a victim of cancer. Rell remains the embodiment of Hawaiian grace and soul. Slender and stylish she rode with smooth, cool and composed turns and footwork, always treating the ride as a whole, in fluid motion from take off to kick out. Photo : Jeff Divine.

#142 : 1979 Mark ‘MR’ Richards Twin Fin Superhero : Bob Simmons made twin-fins in the late '40s, while in 1967, San Diego brothers Nick and Bear Mirandon (Surfboards La Jolla) developed a split-tailed, two-finned Twin-Pin model. This lead to the Steve Lis ‘fish’, loved by kneeboarders. At the 1972 World Champs in San Diego, Jim Blear and David Nuuhiwa finished first and second riding fish boards. A thick, squat, square-backed version of the twin-fin, developed by Californian Mike Eaton and refined by Australian Geoff McCoy, came and went in the early '70s. Raised in the waves of Newcastle by his father Ray Richards, Mark ‘MR’ Richards had been shaping his own boards since age 15. MR’s international breakthrough came at 18 in 1975 when he won both the Smirnoff Pro-Am at Waimea Bay and the World Cup at Sunset Beach. Even pre twin fin the tall and ranging MR was the perfect fit for Bill Delaney’s classic ‘Free Ride’ (1977) with a yellow-and-red board and bright shorts, riding with knees closed, long arms splayed, hands flexed up at the wrist throughout precise and seriously radical manoeuvres. In 1976 when Reno Abellira came to Australia with a wide, blunt-nosed 5'3" board with two fins, MR was immediately inspired to make a longer and more streamlined version of the twin-fin to improve his small wave act, explaining that the boards were "fast and maneuverable," and that he "felt like he could do anything on them." In 1977 MR had a two-month-long shaping seminar with Hawaiian guru Dick Brewer, and soon developed his own 6’2’’ x 20.5’’ x 2.75’’ twin fin model, featuring a pair of six-inch-high fins set along the rails, and importantly angled at the nose (not parallel to the rails), about 11 inches from the tail. He immediately described this as "the ultimate small-wave board." MR won four consecutive World Titles between 1979 and 1982 (but still used the single fin in big wave Hawaii). Dane Kealoha and Martin Potter were outstanding on their twins, but MR's main rival, finishing runner-up to the world tour in 1979, 1981 and 1982 was Australian single fin rider Cheyne Horan, arguably the best surfer to never win a world title. Twin fin fever found a whole new freedom for a kind of disco surfing, dancing in all directions on small to medium sized waves. But twins tended to slide out if you pushed a turn too hard, and (for the masses) were eclipsed by the tri-fin. But no one rode them like MR. He was quite simply electrifying in the line up, confident throughout every slice, glide and hook, but cool, humble and easygoing on land, thus the perfect role model for a new neon lit generation of professional surfing athletes. Photo : Art Brewer.

#143 : 1980 East Coast Stylemasters Linda Davoli and Rick Rasmussen : New York goofyfooter Rick Rasmussen was a hard charging, fast living stylemaster who won the US Champs in 1974, the first East Coast male to win the title. The first East Coast female to take the title was Linda Davoli back in 1973. Over the coming years Rasmussen became known for his fearless tuberiding at Pipeline, Uluwatu and Grajagan. Gerry Lopez praised his skills and Rasmussen was the first to tackle Grajagan through the brutally shallow and hollow low tide, emerging from deep barrels while most riders waited for more water to fill over the reef for a safer session. In 1980 Rasmussen was filmed in full force at Grajagan for an episode of US TV's ‘American Sportsman’ with New Jersey’s Linda Davoli. Regularfooter Davoli (pictured here by Dan Merkel at Off The Wall) had moved to Hawaii in 1975, where she became a class act in thunderous waves. She was the first female to charge the left-reef at Grajagan, ranked number three in world at the time, and by 1981 described by ‘Surfer’ magazine as "the finest women's surfer in the world." Rasmussen meanwhile was arrested after selling $500,000 worth of heroin to a New York undercover agent (he had already been charged with possession of cocaine in Bali, and spent three months in an Indonesian prison). Months later, following another New York drug deal, he was shot and killed in Harlem, aged just 27. It seemed for some surfers that the lure of exotic travel could be funded by drug running. Mike Boyum was one of the most important figures in the early period of Indonesian surf exploration, but also the mastermind behind much of the drug smuggling that went on in the surfing community in the late ‘70s. Forced to flee Indonesia, he later did time along with Peter McCabe in New Caledonia over a cocaine bust, before disappearing into the Philippines forever. Another surfer lost to drugs was the outlandishly decadent Bunker Spreckels (Pipeline pioneer, inventor of the down-rail, stepson of actor Clark Gable), who came into the multimillion-dollar Spreckels Sugar inheritance, and in the early '70s was said to own more surfboards than anyone in the world. Spreckels died of a drug overdose in 1976, aged 27, in a Paris hotel room. The bittersweet brilliance of surfing continues into the 1980s...

#144 : 1981 Simon Anderson’s Thruster : While MR was dominating on the twin fin, Australian Simon Anderson, a lanky power surfer who mixed driving turns with languid grace, was frustrated with the spin-outs and was seeking more grip on the wave-face for forward drive, not sideways slide. He'd been shaping since 1972 and noticed in October 1980 that Narrabeen surfer/shaper Frank Williams had placed a small half-moon fin near the tail of his twin-fin as a stabilizer. Inspired, Anderson immediately made himself a square-tailed board (the outline influenced by Geoff McCoy’s Lazer-Zap model) with three like-sized fins, all smaller than those used on a twin-fin. Back in 1970 Dick Brewer and Reno Abellira designed a three finned board. Then in 1972 Malcolm and Duncan Campbell had introduced the the bonzer (Australian slang for 'bitchin'') with a pair of toed-in, keel-like side fins, located in front of a standard centre fin, and two parallel concaves through the bottom tail end of the board. Ian Cairns, Jeff Hakman, Terry Richardson and Russ Short loved them, but the design slipped through the cracks and didn’t catch on until the retro revival of the 2000s. Anderson called his new design the Thruster, the third fin adding thrust to the board's turning capabilities. "I wanted to make my equipment really good so when I went out there I'd surf really well, and if I surfed really good, when I came in I'd be really happy. Then I'd go down the pub and celebrate with a few really good mates. That was kind of the cycle, and it was a good cycle and it lasted for years," said Anderson, who never patented the tri-fin design. In a stunning competition run he won in huge surf at the 1981 Bells Beach Easter Pro. Then he backed it up with another win at the Surfabout in Sydney, and concluded the year with a heroic victory at the Pipeline Masters in Hawaii. An updated five-fin version of the bonzer was developed by the Campbell brothers in 1982 and surfers could now choose from a limitless array of fin set ups, including four fin quads, twins and classic singles. But the thruster became the standard – possibly the most influential design feature in the evolution of the surfboard, reshaping surfing styles of the future. Anderson is pictured here by Jeff Divine at Sunset.

#145 : 1981 The Longboard Renaissance : In 1981 Dewey Weber (known as ‘the little man on wheels’ in the 1950s for his fast footwork) launched a longboard invitational. It was a no prize money gathering at Manhattan Beach Pier, re-uniting big names of the 1960s such as David Nuuhiwa, Robert August, Donald Takayama and Corky Carroll. This was the first bit of surfing nostalgia for a while. “Bitchin’ blast from the past!” wrote Paul Holmes in ‘Surfer’ magazine. For the first time surfing had a middle aged and middle class market. And in small waves, which dominate most surf breaks around the world for most of the year, longer boards were an asset, and a pleasure to ride. Australian Bob McTavish, at the helm of the first shortboards, had started turning back to longboards in 1977. “It’s much more fun than it looks,” he wrote, “and it looks like fun.” Hawaiian Ben Aipa and Californian Herbie Fletcher had also been early proponents of the longer board revival. In the UK former British shortboard Champion Roger Mansfield had rediscovered a less competitive attitude that embodied surfing with style (inspired by a young Brighton surfer and early longboarder called Mike Smith who had just returned from Australian with a modern generation longboard), and started running a longboard carnival in 1984. For many talented surfers like Roger and Mike, riding waves became more about using the wave than dominating it: composed surfing, mixing timely, sometimes aggressive, shortboard manoeuvres with graceful lines and the timeless act of noseriding. San Diego switchfooter Dale Dobson took the win at the 1981 Dewey Weber Invitational with noserides, turns and the new wave 360 degree helicopter performed while hanging-five, and spinning the board around in a full circle. There were red hot new generation longboarders hitting the scene such as China Uemara, Israel and Jonathon Paskowitz and boardmakers Takayama, Mike Eaton and Phil Becker became longboard shaping specialists. When the ASP launched a longboard world tour, Australian Nat Young (1966 World Champ) became the first pro era longboard champion. Pictured here in 1965 by Leroy Grannis is a great blast from the past as Malibu titans Johnny Fain and Mickey Dora trade blows at the Malibu Longboard Invitational.  

#146 : 1981/82 Fast Times at Ridgemont High : Simon and Schuster published the hilarious and brilliant ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ by Cameron Crowe in 1981. Then the Southern California high school (Clairemont High in San Diego) story became a huge hit the following year when it was released as a film directed by Amy Heckerling. Surfer stereotype (or archetype) Jeff Spicoli is the star, with Hawaiian shirts and Vans slip-ons. “Most every morning,” Crowe wrote, “Spicoli awoke before dawn, smoked three bowls of marijuana from a small steel bong, put on his wetsuit, and surfed before school.” Spicoli famously orders a pizza delivery during history class. The teacher replies: “Am I hallucinating here? Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?” Spicoli says, “Learning about Cuba, and having some food.” 21-year-old actor Sean Penn (himself a Malibu raised surfer) played Spicoli to perfection. “Why don't you get a job Spicoli? “What for?” “You need money.” Spicoli concludes, “All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine.” Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Anthony Edwards, Eric Stoltz, Forest Whitaker, Ray Walston and Nicolas Cage also stared in the film. The soundtrack was a best-seller, featuring Jackson Browne, Don Henley, the Go-Gos, Jimmy Buffett, Stevie Nicks, Graham Nash and Donna Summer. For a generation of Americans the film was unforgettable. Matt Warshaw notes that appearing on ‘Jimmy Kimmel live’ in 2015, President Obama was asked if he'd seen Fast Times. The President, who went to high school in Hawaii, replied, "I lived it, man. I didn't just see it," and added that the film was "a classic." Spicoli ultimately learns to understand Anglo-American history with a peculiar twist: “What Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England place 'cause it was bogus; so if we don't get some cool rules ourselves - pronto - we'll just be bogus too! Get it?”