SUNDAY JOINT, 10-14-2018: DUKE KAHANAMOKU, TOM AND PAT CURREN, BRYCE ELLIS

Hey All,

In my excitement over the big “Sunday Joint” newsletter rename, I forgot to mention the best part of last week’s EOS offerings, which was “Duke’s Ulcers,” a really fine long-form article by Steve Hawk. Give yourself 15 or 20 minutes and prepare for a bittersweet experience, emphasis on the bitter.

“Tom Curren’s Mile of Style” is the latest History of Surfing chapter, and you might ease into it with this video, in which Tom and Robin Trower together create something that isn’t quite of this world. Or is that just my ’70s bias showing? I’d be interested to hear from any younger (under 40, say) EOS viewers, to see if the rush I get from this clip is just a function of age and memory, or if Tom’s flowing line really does alchemize almost magically with Trower’s heavy-THC guitar playing.

Keeping it in the family, I moved onto this Pat Curren clip. There’s nothing much to see with Pat’s surfing, to be honest. After two or three Waimea bombs, and we’re losing interest. Fortunately, the camera loves Pat in a way that it loves few others in the sport, and he was good enough to occasionally play along with the filmmakers. Great sense of humor to go along with those big sad Buster Keaton eyes. Tom’s the same. I have a thing for beautiful damaged surfers, and the Currens to me have always felt like a two-for-one deal.

Speaking of damaged—remember Bryce Ellis? Hot Aussie pro regularfooter who decided not to paddle out at Waimea during the 1986 Billabong Pro. His reputation never recovered. I wrote about it here, and Bryce’s ex-girlfriend wrote about it here. To cheer us all back up, let’s end with a video of Bryce showing off his world tour Top-Ten form.

Thanks for reading everybody, and see you next week!

Matt

[Tom Curren photo by Gordhino]