"Bazooka: Tom Morey Fires Back into the Past, Forward into the Future," written by Morey, ran in the January 1992 issue of The Surfer's Journal. This version has been shortened and edited. Morey was 56 at the time of writing.


For starters, I don’t even know what surfing is. Like, where does snagging a free ride leave off and “working” (jerking the board all over the place to impress friends, overweight judges and girls who might be watching from the beach) begin? My idea of a true surfer is a guy with practically no muscles: A pure loafer who, with the least possible stuff, using the fewest possible motions, times it all perfectly, and lives a super-exciting life, just barely squeaking through it all, unscathed. This greatest surfer would be living the fullest life in all respects—income, the good things of life, raising kids, contributing to society—and not necessarily be particularly recognized for his or her skill . . . though it would not hurt.


I ask my kids about what they expect from surfing's future. “Big glassy indoor waves,” answers Matt, my 12-year-old. “Night surfing with a lot of added phosphorescence so the water really shows each wave,” says Sky, 16. Well, hey, that sounds like fun! Then two days later, I open the new issue of SURFER, and there on page 31 is an article on a guy named Lochtefeld who has made new wave machine that produces a tubing comber already big enough to stand inside! All I can figure is I better get on with the writing lest I be left in the dust by reality!


Surf contests have gone from just plain laughable to big-money and laughable. I just spent a week in Biarritz watching 50,000 people watch the world's finest surfers rip and tear two-foot beachbreak. It was a circus. And it was boring. Least interesting of all was watching jerky little all-the-same-style turns and counter-turns and someone somewhere in a booth was actually judging for quality. I'd rather watch milkweed grow.

We need less emphasis, not more, on “being good.” All these contests have gotten too many people thinking that this is somehow a big part of surfing, reducing the whole thing to a series of difficult maneuvers. Over-surfing now reigns supreme, and is posing as “goodness”—you know, as in good, better, and on up to best in the world. It’s a kind of sickness, and it's reached epidemic proportions, and with any luck this way of thinking will eventually die its own death from internal suffocation.


I am going to market slick-coated, internally re-enforced, springy soft-foam-type boards, targeting surfers who are primarily interested in surfing the wave rather than the board. And some few (willing to break ranks with their peers) who are interested in exploring stand-up riding without skegs. Personally, I would also like to have full-size remote-control board, complete with a lifelike dummy on top. I would love to sit on the beach and send out my mechanical alter ego to mix it up with the real you.


I recently autographed 100 Morey Boogie posters a day for five days. On each poster I wrote, “SURF LIFE! Every sweet second!” Writing this phrase 500 times changed my life. So now I am taking my own advice seriously. I plan to continue to enjoy every minute of my own surfing with no thought of whether I am doing it best, better, or even good with respect to anything or anybody except me and the particular wave with which I am involved. I’m going to attempt to get into clean salt water as much as possible, exercising and enjoying myself, while still making a living.


How much mind-lock still binds you? Are you a shortboarder who sees the awkward, ritualistic thrashing of the “pros” as superior stuff? Are you among the very best stand up boogie riders but do not enter shortboard surfing contests because you are afraid to lose? Are you a skimboarder who doesn’t recognize that his tool also works great as a surf-craft? Did you ever consider paddling into a wave on it, or launching off the deck of a longboard and using your skimmer as a second stage? Are you a "traditionalist" who thinks it’s not cool to try out new stuff like aerials? Do you think that “longboarding” means riding a 9' 10"? Skip Frye doesn’t. Skip often out-rides everyone on his 12' cruiser.

Do you still think of what we do as sport—the sport of surfing, formerly the sport of Hawaiian kings? Or do you realize that what you are doing is much, much more? Do you recognize that just going out there and riding a few waves now and then is vitally important to the well-being of the planet because of how the activity transforms you personally, and the sort of example you become as a result? We are a huge, new, unstoppable culture numbering worldwide in the scores of millions—collectively bigger than several major global religions. We have a different attitude and we don’t really give a shit about any country, any international borders, any political system, as long as it is at least tolerable. As members of those nations and political systems, we too are each headed for trouble. This is surfing as well. You're in a race with the collapsing curl. You slide and glide while society threatens and insists on how you gotta pay and have regular job ’cause “there is no free lunch.” But every bird in the sky is telling you, “Nah, look, take your cue from us and just surf a lot. And catch and eat your own fish.”

Because remember, life is ALL a free lunch. You didn’t make your body or mind, they were given to you. You are a semiconductor being, turning through the Earth’s permanent magnetic field at an average of 800 miles per hour, and electricity flows from and through you causing all these thoughts and all this stuff that is just taking place in and around you. You’re no more responsible and accountable for any of this—and no more important—than a seal stealing salmon from a drift net. The only things which make you responsible and accountable (and a certain amount is necessary, don’t get me wrong) is what you hear and then believe to be true.


Modern surfing began in the '40s with Rabbit Kekai noseriding on a hot curl board—a short redwood with a steep V-bottomed tail. As far as I’m concerned, Rabbit is the Godfather of us all. About a month ago I spent a week surfing every day with this guy—Hawaii’s most famous beach boy. Interested in everything and interesting in every way, the guy was, and is, the all-time live-wire and hot surfing example. At 71 years of age! No shit. And I’m not patronizing, you can ask the other guys who were there; Bruce Brown, Dora, Munoz, Bing, Yater, etc. Was this guy something or what? Again, not “hot for a 71-year-old fogey,” but just plain HOT! I learned a big lesson from Rabbit when he told me: “Tom, I don’t have any particular religious philosophy or like dat; I just get in the ocean a lot!”

So I figure I'm going to combine what I’ve found so far that works, add whatever good new stuff that turns up, wrap it all up in the Rabbit formula, and hey! I’m gonna live a long life and have a bitchin’ time!


Surfing is just starting to spread. Where there are now 

thousand guys on little boards, hopping and flailing, soon there will be 

thousand. Their surfing will be even jerkier. Todays one-million guys and gals on boogie boards will become 50 million.

Boogies in rivers and on lakes will be commonplace.

There will be 100 wave parks in the United States.

Skimboarders will finally realize that they can also surf the crap out of their boards, either using swim fins or standing up from the get-go. (Heck, a number of years ago on a bet, Buttons Kaluhiokalani surfed a garbage can lid at Makapu’u.)

The kite will become a recognized alternative to the sail, and a controllable-performance kite will be combined with a longboard in the surf. This is something that is already easy to mess around with, so it should come soon.

The US economy will go belly up. The concept of nations will be recognized as obsolete. Meanwhile, a few people will start to catch on to actually surfing just for the fun of it, and traveling all over the world to so do. Not for reputation or gain; just for fun. And these few precious souls will help revolutionize the thinking of man.

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