Joe Pyne, "America's First Shock Jock," interviewed surf filmmaker and Surfing Illustrated publisher Walt Phillips in 1965, at KTLA-TV, and a transcript of their conversation ran in the August issue of Surfing Illustrated. This version has been slightly edited and shortened.

Some people call surfing a madness, some call it a sport, others claim it's a way of committing suicide, and still others a reason for young people to get together for the purpose of promiscuity, drinking and smoking marijuana. Well, one thing is certain! Surfing is practiced and enjoyed by millions. Our guest is Walt Phillips, surfer, TV personality and editor of the magazine Surfing Illustrated. What happened to your head, Walt?

Well, Sunday I was entered in a contest up in Santa Cruz and on the way out for the final heat, I was hit with one of the boards. I went ahead and finished the heat, and afterward had some stitches put in my head.

Any time you get hit by a wave, and it knocks you off the board.

I grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and of course we did a lot of surfing, but we were rank amateurs compared to the way you people do it today. You do it very much like they do it in Hawaii, by standing up on the board. But we did the best we could with the very thin boards, if you remember the type. We would just lie on them and wait for a wave and catch it—paddle a little bit to get going and scoot right in.

But the kind I see now are made of styrofoam or something. They seem to be quite thick.

Boards now have foam inside. They are hand-shaped, usually, and after that are covered with fiberglass cloth and polyester resin.

What does the typical board weigh, such as the kind you use?

Usually between thirty-three and forty-two pounds, depending on the width and length.

I had no idea they were that heavy! I guess if you get hit with one it really means something.

Somebody said you have a plate in your head.

Yes, on the right side of my head. It's from a surfing accident in Hawaii in 1960.

Were you engaged in competition at that time?

No, I was just out surfing and another surfer ran into me. I didn't know I was hit. Then someone ran into my body, pulled me up, took me in, and took me to the hospital. I was in a coma for four weeks.

But that didn't stop you? You wanted to keep on with this madness?

I don't really feel it's madness. It's like skiing or anything else. It's a sport that you enjoy. Some people are hurt, yes, but the percentage that do, I feel, is less than in most other sports.

What about the tremendous problems you've given the police? I don't mean you, personally, I mean the sport of surfing. They now have many beaches around the country with special police patrols to combat some of the things that go on.

I really feel that surfers are sometimes blamed unfairly. This subject has been discussed many times in my magazine. As for surfers doing these bad things, I feel it's often the people that are drawn to the beaches and automatically classed as surfers who are doing the harm. The real surfers aren't always to blame. They're out there surfing.

Is it true that some people buy a surfboard as a status symbol, stick it in the back of their car and never go near the water?

At one time, a couple of years ago, this was true, but lately this type of person is finding out that it's actually more fun to go out and ride the board than just carry it around in the back of the car.

But what is it about surfing, which seems to be a sport that would keep you quite clean, that draws so many dirty characters?

I don't think that it draws so many dirty characters. I think that it's just like the service—ten percent of guys are going to get into trouble; are a little bit wild. The real surfers are more conscious of trying to keep their sport clean and trying to keep it going. The United States Surfing Association is fighting this troublesome element all the time. Don Murray, the USSA executive secretary, is really fighting hard to keep the sport clean, and so are all the magazines, along with the rest of the industry.

A lot of people make it out to be much more than it is. It appeared in one of the television series as a big deal. But there are thirteen-year-old surfers out there who'll ride through the pilings of the pier forty or fifty times a day. Shooting the pier is really no big thing.

Are you aware of the fact that there was a complaint made about surfers, in the past year, that they were embedding razor blades in their surfboards and using them to injure people on the beach?

I wouldn't want to ruin my surfboard by putting razor blades in it. I can't really picture that as being true of surfers.

Are you aware of so-called surfers standing around just waiting for somebody to come along with whom to make trouble? They start fights and they also have in their possession marijuana and, those too young to have it, beer.

I am aware that this does happen among young people, not just surfers. I think that every sport, every aspect of our young civilization has some of this. I don't think that it's more prevalent in surfing than in any other sport although I'd be less than truthful if I said it never happened among surfers.

Why is it that most of the people who ride surfboards seem to have platinum blond hair like you?

You know, everyone asks me if I bleach my hair. I don't! I think many people have hair that bleaches out in the sun. Mine does. It's normally a little bit darker than it is right now because when I'm out in the sun it keeps getting lighter and lighter.

Is this something that happens to everybody, or do a lot of them bleach their hair?

Oh, I would imagine that some people do. They look at Dewey Weber and Bruce Brown, who have blond hair, so they want blond hair, too. Years ago bleaching was fairly common but I don't think you see it today as much as you used to.

Let's move on to another area of surfing that has always had me puzzled. The people who surf, they go out, they get on a wave, and they come in, they go out, they come in; and I would imagine that there might be forty or fifty different kinds of waves, but after that you've seen them all. You seem like an intelligent fellow. How do you keep your mind occupied with going in and out, in and out, year after year? What's different about it?

It's sort of difficult to put into words because, although I'm getting older, I'm still a "gremmie." I just—I love surfing.

Still a "gremmie?" What do you mean by "gremmie?"

A lot of people say a "gremmie" is someone bad or someone who is a troublemaker. At one time the definition given in a magazine was that a "gremmie" was a bad type who's always in a jam. But to me, a "gremmie" is someone who is young or feels young. He enjoys surfing. And to me, I'm a "gremmie" because I like to go surfing. I just love it.

I was wondering how long or what the typical age of a surfer was when he decides to give it up.

Well, George Downing is one of the great surfers of the world, and he's about thirty-four or thirty- five.

Oh no, there are men sixty and sixty-five— doctors, lawyers. And how old is James Arness? He surfs. He's a very avid surfer and goes out every weekend with his children.

He must need two boards for the size of him.

He has a giant Bing board, about eleven feet six inches long, and it's thick.

He looks like he must weigh something like 260 pounds. Is this something that women do at all? I never hear much about women surfing.

More and more women are coming into it. I think at one time it was sort of unfeminine—you know, to me it seemed sort of hard for a girl to look feminine out on a board. They are in a kind of ungainly position.

Yes, but I think that more and more they're getting stronger towards surfing. I would imagine about thirty percent of the girls around the beach nowadays are surfers.

So then you started a magazine started called Surfing Illustrated? Does this go all over the country?

Yes, sir! It's distributed all over the world.

Then you've really made a whole career out of this thing, between competing yourself and putting out this magazine, and you do some television too. Do you have a series?

Yes, sir. I have a television show on Channel 5, called Walt Phillips' Surfing World, Friday nights here in Los Angeles. I don't know when it goes on in other cities.

It's syndicated all over the United States?

Then a lot of people listening right now, of course, will recognize who you are. Would you say that California is the surfing capital of the world, or is it still Hawaii?

That's sort of a difficult question. I think California, as far as the number of surfers and where the manufacturing goes on, is the surf capital of the world. But the best waves are still in the Hawaiian Islands.

Well, listen, this has been a fascinating subject. It's kind of one I stand around and look at with awe and admiration. I suppose because it's something that I don't do. I especially admire you who have the polar-bear ability to go in the cold water even with these little rubber suits. How do you stand it?

I think that the people who want to surf don't notice the cold. You go in the water and you say, "Boy, it's cold!'' And then you complain about it while, but you're still out there and you wouldn't be, you know, unless you really wanted to be. The cold really isn't that big a factor.

Incidentally, what about those raids on surf parties at night?

Well, I don't know much about raids on surfing parties.

I can't remember having a beach party since I was in the Islands.

What happens when they have these raids? Does it look bad for your whole industry, or what?

Well, yes, we're against it if they're doing something wrong, and . . . .

They wouldn't make the raid unless there was something wrong, yes, but anybody can go out and have a beach party. El Segundo, California, has all those fire pits. People come from everywhere and they're not surfers. A lot of them are older people and they have drinking parties, and I think that a lot of it is blamed on surfing that isn't a surfing problem.

Our guest has been Walt Phillips and you'll see him on TV. This is Joe Pyne. Thank you for listening and straight ahead.

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