Hey All, First, a bit of housecleaning. Thanks to Spencer Croul and Kevin Kinnear for reminding me that Joe Quigg shaped the game-changing Darrylin Board, not Tommy Zahn, as I reported last week. Zahn himself was a fine shaper, and Darrylin was his steady, which makes me wonder why he jobbed the project out to […]

Hey All, Sam George once said that Robert Redford became Hollywood’s hottest new star in the mid-’60s because he looked like Tommy Zahn. Zahn, of course, was the bushy-blond postwar Malibu surfer who, along with Joe Quigg and Matt Kivlin, reinvented performance surfing—the Free Ride generation of the Truman era, if you will; with dizzyingly […]

Hey All, Five years ago, Steve Hawk wrote an amazing story on Duke Kahanamoku, titled “Duke’s Ulcers.” Here is my favorite part: [Greg Noll] was sitting beside Duke at some event that had been arranged in the aging Hawaiian’s honor. The organizers had promised Kahanamoku that he wouldn’t have to make a speech—a prospect that always […]

Hey All, Last’s week’s riff on Bob Purvey and his big beautiful Ugly stick, with all those sweet candy-colored “Follow Me” visuals, sent me back to this 2014 post in which I blew your minds with the never-before-told origin story of Nazaré as a surfing break. “Next stop, Nazaré!” the voice-over says, and there we are in Portugal, […]

Legendary East Coast photographer Dick Meseroll gets his Encyclopedia of Surfing page, and the Breuer bros reflect on East Coast Pride, suggest that the East Coast Rules, and talk through a surf battle royale of East vs West. The Sunday Joint Podcast is an Encyclopedia of Surfing-adjacent show, produced by Surf Splendor. Stream or download […]

Matt Warshaw joins the Breuer brothers to discuss the up and down, highs and lows of child phenoms of surfing—those who burned bright and either flamed out, moved on, or became Kelly Slater. The Sunday Joint Podcast is an Encyclopedia of Surfing-adjacent show, produced by Surf Splendor. Stream or download on your favorite pod platforms, […]

The Breuer Brothers reverently pay their respects to 1990 Women’s ASP World Champion and all-around superior human being Pam Burridge, then finish things off with a rousing game of Stump My Bro. The Sunday Joint Podcast is an Encyclopedia of Surfing-adjacent show, produced by Surf  Splendor. Stream or download on your favorite pod platforms, including […]

Jamie and Tyler are joined by Matt to talk about the life and times of blond mustachioed surf-hunk Mike Purpus. We see past the puka shell necklace, floppy-brimmed leather hat, and nudie Playgirl spread to examine how Purpus rode his way to the top in California and helped create a template for non-traditional pro surfers. […]

Say hello to the hip-thrusting, body-torquing Sultan of Speed, Mr. Terry Fitzgerald. This episode of the Sunday Joint Podcast covers Fitz from head to toe; from Morning of the Earth to those incredible Hot Buttered boards of his to his mile-long rides at Jeffreys Bay. The Sunday Joint Podcast is an Encyclopedia of Surfing-adjacent show, […]

Gerry Lopez cast such a long shadow at Pipeline in the 1970s that it was often hard to see anybody else. On this episode of the Sunday Joint, the Breuer Bros talk about Pipe’s Forgotten Masters, including Mike Armstrong and Larry Blair. Big tubes, heavy wipeouts, and a rousing game of Stump my Bro—all coming […]

“In this crowded world the surfer can still seek and find the perfect day, the perfect wave, and be alone with his thoughts.” John Severson, from the debut issue of SURFER Magazine, 1960. On this episode of the Sunday Joint Podcast, we talk about the recent demise, after 60 up and down and frequently glorious […]

Jack London was the biggest swinging dick writer in America in the early 1900’s, thanks to Call of the Wild and White Fang and other adventure books. He was a he-man who loved to box and get his hands dirty. In 1906, London designed and built a boat he called the Snark, which he promptly […]

“If You Don’t Surf, Don’t Start. If You Do Surf, Never Stop.” A bold 1988 magazine ad by Gotcha surfwear helped define surfing’s aggro attitude during the Reagan years. Gotcha was the creation of Pipeline-charging, Free Ride-starring, cocaine-loving innovator Michael Tomson. The Breuer brothers unpack the radical life and times of this surfing original. All […]

On the premiere episode of the Sunday Joint Podcast with Tyler and Jamie Breuer, the boys dismantle, rearrange, and neatly place back on the shelf the 13 Biggest Moments in Surf of the 21st century. Then it’s on to the surf-themed St. Christopher medallion, which causes Tyler to question his fashion choices as a grommet, […]

Hey All, I am impressed and baffled by people like Mick Dooley, Aussie “functional school” virtuoso and ’64 Bells Beach winner, who don’t begin surfing until young adulthood. As a kid, Dooley was a boarding school detainee and high-achieving tennis player (nearly 80 today, Mick will smile and self-efface, then destroy you in doubles), and claims […]

Hey All, Astride my high horse and wearing my finest gold-threaded sash of pedantry, I suggest perforce that the word “legend” is not only much overused among our people, but used incorrectly, or at least lazily, as well. I have been called a “legend” for example. Repeatedly, on Instagram. “Legend” followed by praise hands, just […]

Hey All, Ben Aipa, boardmaker and power surfer for the ages, died last week from a long list of ailments including diabetes, heart issues, and dementia. He was 78. Derek Rielly and I emailed back and forth about Ben yesterday, and the first thing I wrote was: “Ben didn’t start surfing until he was 21 […]

Hey All, The Kevin Brennan Joint two weeks ago connects us almost magnetically to Cronulla’s Bobby Brown, as they are the Lennon and McCartney of Aussie surfing tragedy. That gorgeous 1967 aquamarine Brennan-Brown-Tallows sequence in Hot Generation is a high point for both surfers—as well as the beginning of the end. Brennan found drugs and never recovered. Brown […]

Hey All, I’m very much looking forward to the new women’s pro surfing doc Girls Can’t Surf, which drops in March and, judging by this excellent trailer, will not pull any punches. (“They were all such dumb-ass chauvinistic pigs,” Wendy Botha says, after a couple of pork-scented quotes from Gary Elkerton and Damien Hardman.) That said, I’m […]

Hey All, Kevin Brennan is the jagged diamond that at some point drops into every historian’s lotion-soft hands as he or she tills the fields of mid-1960s surfing. But unless you’re a pension-age Bondi local familiar with the Hep Pit and can tell Bluey Mayes from Red Ted, you likely know just three things about […]

Hey All, This flaccid right deltoid of mine won’t be feeling the sweet vaccine poke until April or May, so I’m looking for anything to lighten the mood—and this new clip of Mason Ho and Kelly Slater dancing all over Velzyland was my joyful early-Christmas present. Where to start? V-land itself, of course, is a […]

Hey All, Surfing went full Bill Cartwright last week. Mavericks on Tuesday was whatever you want to call it, I’ll accept anything from 25- to 75-feet, and fissioning onto that motherless bone orchard of a reef like Bikini Atoll on loop—and that was the least dramatic event of the week. That same day, Josh Moniz kept pace […]

Hey All, “Surfing’s Mount Rushmore” blipped on social media two weeks ago, with all the usual suspects nominated and debated. I swung in late with a vote for Gidget, but made a big show over complaining about the lack of criteria. “Surfing’s Mount Rushmore” is too vague. Duke Kahanamoku is a given, but the other three […]

Hey All, Greetings from our isolated Thanksgiving condo-weekend in tiny Glacier, Washington (pop. 211), hiking distance to Canada and 10 or so crow-flying miles to Mt. Baker. Hardcore Pacific Northwest ski country. I’ve been thinking back to when rich Uncle Irv flew me and my brother to Mammoth for the first time. I was 11, Chris was 9, and […]

Hey All, Looking at the week ahead, I am grateful for Tom Carroll’s continued smiling and ever-viral presence in the world of surf, and happy to note that this year his birthday (59) falls on Thanksgiving. Which means nothing to Tom, of course, because Aussies don’t celebrate Thanksgiving and because on Thursday he and brother […]