EOS Features

"THE BAY: WAIMEA BAY IS STILL DEFINING THE SURFER'S CONCEPTS OF MASS, VOLUME, POWER AND SANITY," BY ALLSTON JAMES (1990)

"The Bay," by Allston James, ran in the September 1990 issue of SURFER Magazine. This version has been slightly edited and reformatted. * * * DEEP ROOTS Waimea Bay has always been a place that defined limits, both oceanic and human. Name a surfer anywhere who hasn’t wondered if he would ever have the desire and skill to ride Waimea. It’s a potentially disturbing question that resides in every su...

TOM WOLFE "PUMP HOUSE GANG" BONUS MATERIAL

Tom Wolfe wrote his surfing-themed "Pump House Gang" essay in 1966. The same title was used for Wolfe's 1968 book, made up of 15 stories that had been published over the previous two years, either in the London Weekend Telegraph or the Sunday magazine section of the New York World Journal Tribune. An excerpt from Wolfe's Introduction to the Pump House Gang is presented here. * * * I wrote all bu...

"MAC MEDA DESTRUCTION CO. A JOKE? AUTHORITIES DON'T FIND TEEN GROUP FUNNY"

The San Diego Evening Tribune ran this article on June 21, 1965. Later that year, writer Tom Wolfe arrived in La Jolla to research his "Pump House Gang" essay (read here), based in part on local surfers associated with the Mac Meda Destruction Company, described by Wolfe as an "underground society." It wasn't underground so much as it was amorphous—Mac Meda organization didn't extend much beyond m...

“THE PUMP HOUSE GANG,” BY TOM WOLFE (1966)

Virginia-born Tom Wolfe invented the stylized exclamation-point-filled New Journalism with a 1963 Esquire feature titled “There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.” For decades, Wolfe was one of America’s most popular and acclaimed authors in both fiction and nonfiction, and his bestselling books include The Right Stuff (1979), The Bonfire of the Vanities (19...

"THE ULTIMATE THRILL," MARK FOO PROFILE BY MATT WARSHAW (1987)

"Mark Foo: The Ultimate Thrill," by Matt Warshaw, ran in the February 1987 issue of SURFER Magazine. This version has been slightly edited. * * * It’s a natural inclination for people to categorize, assign labels, simplify. So Mark Foo is now known primarily as a Waimea man. He has a slight problem with this because for every time he rides his 9'1" at the Bay, he rides his 6'2" a hundred-and-one...

"NAS ONDAS DO SURF" (IN THE OCEAN WAVES) 1978: FIRST FULL-LENGTH SURF MOVIE FROM BRAZIL

Nas Ondas Do Surf, Brazil's first full-length surf movie, came out in 1978. It is not a lost treasure, exactly. It breaks no ground, brings no green-and-yellow brazuca flair to the genre. Nas Ondas is as unimaginative as 95% of what was coming out of American and Australia, in other words. Then again, Brazil in the 1970s, under a military dictatorship that was weakening but far from dead, wasn't w...

"A MATURE MAN WILL NEVER REMAIN A HOT-DOGGER," AND OTHER READINGS FROM THE BOOK OF SAM

Sam Reid was a New Jersey-born surfing pioneer who rode Malibu with Tom Blake in the 1920s, was befriended by the Kahanamoku brothers, and was the ranking lifeguard in Santa Cruz for decades. He is also recalled as surfing's first outspoken "it was better back then" curmudgeon, a role he seems to have picked up in the 1950s and carried with him until his death, at age 73, in 1978. Reid was a fair...

SAM REID: THE ORIGINAL GRUMPY OLD SURFER

New Jersey's Sam Reid learned to surf in 1912, at age seven, after watching Duke Kahanamoku give a wave-riding demonstration in Atlantic City. Reid later moved to California, then Hawaii, surfing and socializing with Tom Blake and the Kahanamoku brothers. Blake and Reid are credited as the first surfers to ride Malibu, in 1927. Reid probably wasn't the first surfer to become disillusioned with ho...

“GOODBYE SUNSHINE SUPERMAN,” JOCK SUTHERLAND PROFILE, BY MATT WARSHAW (1994)

“Goodbye Sunshine Superman” ran in the Winter 1994 issue of Surfer’s Journal. This version has been slightly shortened and edited. * * * There is great appeal, maybe even cosmic justice, in the idea that Jock Sutherland, master of critical positioning, rode deeper and cleaner than anybody during Our Holy Year of Gigantic Surf, 1969. Sutherland stamped his name on ’69 as hard as any surfer ever ...

“BEN” – BEN AIPA PROFILE BY BILL HAMILTON AND GERRY LOPEZ (1972)

“Ben,” a two-part profile written by Bill Hamilton and Gerry Lopez, ran in the September 1972 issue of SURFER. This version has been slightly edited and shortened. * * * He’s a big, heavy-set guy, weighing somewhere between 225 and 250 pounds. Amazingly enough, this isn't a detriment to his surfing, which is remarkably smooth and agile. Ben is an extremely versatile surfer, adapting well to any...