All quotes below are from “Malibu: of Characters and Waves,” which ran unattributed in the November 1964 issue of Surf Guide.


The explosion had to come. What happened was that a new game had been discovered—a new entertainment, a new recreational device, a new economic device. Once surfing was discovered you certainly couldn’t expect Malibu to be saved from the explosion. I bet all this would have happened without the movies and without half the publicity, just because it’s so much fun to do. And it makes you feel so good. Nothing makes you feel better. I always wonder how people inland really exist. What can they do? Do they really feel refreshed after a game of football? Not unless they take an awfully long shower.


When I first saw Dora I was this little white kook at Malibu, and this guy went by and I didn’t even know who he was. He was dark and agile but I really didn’t know whether he was good or not. All I knew was he could move and I couldn’t. Mickey is one of the best. He lives a unique, nonconforming life and people follow him like sheep. But there’s no one around like him. He’s the one.

[Dora’s] philosophy was “Avoid all work if possible. Do what you want, but above all don’t get captured by brown shoes and white collars. Life is too short. Why make anything of it?” He used to sit there [on the beach] with a sign. It didn’t say “Surfboards for Rent.” It said “Surfboards for Hire.”


The first time I went to Malibu I saw Lance. I knew him from school. His father and mother and grandmother brought him up the coast and set up their umbrellas and towels on the beach. Then they’d send little Lance out into the water on the little black surfboard his father had built for him. I went up and said, “What the devil are you doing here?” And he looked at me and said, “Surf is fun!” I guess we were about 15.


Tubesteak actually lived right there on the beach. He didn’t move. He wouldn’t even go to the frosty shop for ice cream. He had someone go for him. The Pit, where the Valley guys hang out now, used to be filled with all sorts of furniture, so when you came in from surfing you could lounge on these big couches instead of lying down in the sand.

The Shack was probably the most renowned institution at Malibu. It was organized by Tubesteak. In fact, it was the shack where Gidget went, which really started this whole thing we have going now; the explosion. Gidget was just a girl from University High School, and the only really interesting thing about her was she was the only girl who surfed around here.


Johnny lived in the Colony—the only kid who actually lived in the area. When the surf was flat, Dora and Bobby Patterson and Doyle and Tubesteak and I would go up to Fain’s house. He lived in kind of a little resort where we’d have croquet tournaments and tennis games and ping-pong. Mickey would tear his hair out if Fain ever beat him in anything.


When I first met Mike we were both the same size. He had a board with a big totem pole on it that his mother painted in pastels—an African head here and an Indian head there and it all connected. It was really neat. For a long time I didn’t know Mike’s name. He used to have one of those little three-wheel Messerschmitt cars, and he’d drive to Malibu with that totem pole board on top.

Malibu was surfed year-round in those days because we didn’t know the difference between north and south swells. That’s the truth. I think Doyle spent every weekend for a couple of winters at Malibu. It could be 15-foot at Redondo Breakwater and Doyle would be at Malibu, where it was one foot. We used to sit down there at Malibu just looking at each other and asking when it was going to come up. He’d even call Hap Jacobs and ask when the surf was going to arrive—he was supposed to know because he made surfboards. We didn’t realize that nobody knows. No one can tell how big it’s going to be or what it’s going to do. But we were sure that guys like Tubesteak or Hap or Velzy would know. Sometimes they’d make up stories. Hap would say he had heard there were a few little tremors out there, and of course we’d believe it and run around with our heads cut off for a few hours.


[Good surfing] must be like music. So many guys just don’t have the rhythm. Dora has rhythm, Tom Morey has it, Phil has it. You have to have that feeling. You go up to the top and snap down to the bottom, and then up again—all in rhythm. The turn is a swing, and after the swing it turns into something else.

Lance has rhythm—phenomenal rhythm. He plays drums with my brother’s band in Hermosa Beach. Lance likes to hoot [party] and playing drums isn’t like working, and anything that’s not like working he enjoys. He fits in well with my brother [Denny Aaberg] who also likes to hoot. Lance plays until late at night, wakes up in the morning and if there are waves he goes surfing all day. Then at night he’ll go back to the bar and play drums and start all over again. It’s his cycle. Instead of eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed, wake up, go to work—it’s surf all day, play drums at night and earn a little bit of money, hoot it up, wake up and surf. And who’s to say it’s wrong?


The crowd has come to be accepted at Malibu; in fact, half the sport there is just battling the crowd. You adapt your style to it. At Rincon, it’s more of a serious type of thing. The waves break harder, the water is colder, and you don’t want to get screwed up. I remember getting bugged up there when I paddled out on big days and there were people everywhere. You’re looking around thinking “Where’s my spot?” You feel cheated. You feel like someone took it away from you, and it’s bad.

[Photos: Ron Stoner, LeRoy Grannis, John Severson, Tom McBride]

Kemp Aaberg

Subscribe or Login

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos