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¶ Introducing High-Performance Longboarder Jeff Kramer
While longboarding is definitely Yeah.
You're not gonna die, it's just sand. Sorry.
Side slip boogie.
It takes experience.
I read a shortport. If I wanted to, I would, but I just don't find it interesting. Why be like everyone else when you can be different? One fan, one god, one country.
🎵 Music
Uh I've looked up to for a long time. Um used to see'em in magazines and videos. Definitely a very good surfer all are all around, but um primarily known as a high performance longboarder from back in the day.
¶ Infamous Aerial Poster Shot
Please welcome Jeff Kramer.
Hey, thanks a lot. Glad to be here.
Yeah, Jeff. Uh thank you for coming on here with me.
To talking about a little progressive longboarding right off the bat.
Well, you know, that's that's kind of uh what we've seen you on, uh uh historically.
Yeah, I suppose. That's um you know, doing arrows on a nine footer kind of that put me set in stone.
Um I think it's burned into uh some of our brains with uh Uh the logos and magazine shots. I have I have an old poster, all kinds of stuff.
Yeah, the infamous poster, me, Bill, Phil and Mickey.
Yeah, exactly. That w the I still have um it was in Long Border magazine, I believe. is what that came in. And I have a copy of it with it still folded up. inside there and that was never taken out. It's crazy.
Classic. Well, hold on to that one.
Yeah, I think I posted like a photo of a photo of it, but I want to get a better photo of it because it's a pretty famous shot of you uh in the air on a like red railed longboard, right?
¶ Early EPS Boards and Logo Creation
Yeah, that was... Maybe one of the first or second EPS boards Bill was playing around with that foam um 91ish. Ninety two. I remember that that shot was actually after one of the oceanside lawnboard contests and um I'd been working with Randy Dibel a little bit through Bill and he and Bill were friends and uh
It was all big and windy and closed out and you know, we had some time so we ran up there and I think I boosted that thing maybe the second or third wave and the session was done. Randy was like, Okay, rap, we're we're out of here.
That's awesome. And is that the same shot that was used for the logo on on your uh Stuart model?
Yeah, that was that was my logo. Um Around, you know, I was still kind of a shop kid at that point, you know, lifeguarding, doing other stuff, but working on boards with Bill before I actually even had a model or anything and um that photo, you know, circulated around and we did the logo with it as the precursor to my model. And um I think it was Daniel Severson did that as like a sketch and just ran with it.
¶ Behind the Magazine Ad Photo
Um I'm I'm looking at the photo of that right now and one of the things because I posted it, this was back. In March. Um And it's you and Bill standing next to each other and you have a wetsuit on and you're holding your board and then Bill is holding his planer, but he also has a wetsuit on.
Yeah.
That's... It's just struck me as funny and I think uh I think Devin Howard made a comment uh on the post about that too. And I was like, Yeah, that is funny.
Yeah, Devin and his sharp wit. What do you expect? Um now that that whole if you look at that like the the Q logos that are on there, you know, that was when everything was done and you know, overlays. There was no Photoshop, there was nothing. And I think that
photo, I think the trunks I'm actually gonna wearing are like from Debole. And the cue that's on my board was dropped in there. So That whole thing of, you know, Bill and his wetsuit with his planer, dropping in Phil, dropping in Mickey, was if you're paying for an ad and the work that the art department did, you know.
fit into what you could do in that ad, you maximized it. So Bill at that time, you know, had the Hobie license and had the license for Mickey. So those guys were circulated around the factory. So that was that was a promo of his overall business. And O'Neal was giving him suits. I'd just gotten hooked up with Quicksilver. So yeah, you throw all your elements in there and make'em work for it. You're paying.
¶ Quicksilver Sponsorship and Q Brand
Uh yeah. Uh uh so you had Quicksilver, was it just wetsuit?
No, it was clothing. Um We, you know, as a retailer, Bill's business was really booming at that point with longboard resurgence. And I had never looked at a a career, a surfing career anything. I wasn't an NSSA kid on shortboards. You know, I was surfing some high school contests and club contests and longboard for the fun of it. But um, you know, that was when every surf shop carried Quicksilver. They carried O'Neal. It was all the major brands. And um
because of the volume Bill was doing through the store, you know, the brands would pick up shop kids. They're like, okay, we'll we'll pick up this kid for product or whatever. Well as longboarding was was exploding the big brands, they had money, you know, money was coming in. This was like Kelly Slater and Baywatch area era. Tony Hawk booming with skateboarding. There was money in the industry. So why not throw it at um longboarders?
So that's kind of how the relationship, my relationship with Pixelver started. So it was it was clothing and then um they started that logo, the brand Q, which was eventually, you know, evolved into their Waterman brand.
So Q was Quicksilver.
Yeah, Q. They didn't really have a good name, but they wanted to do something that was separate. You know, it was kind of going in the Hawaiian of clothing, a little more sophisticated fabrics and um getting you know, more mature than just what their current young men's was. And um
that's where they placed me. It was actually more focused for Japan and Europe at that time than it was US, I think. So, you know, I was lucky. I got to get everything from Quicksilver because they didn't really have Q product.
¶ Joey Hawkins and Q Menswear Ads
That's funny. So I I was noticing I remember seeing it back in the day, but then I was noticing it again recently. looking in the mags again and the Q menswear ads, and it was always you and Joey Hawkins were typically
Yeah, we we got picked up at the same time.
Yeah, and then I remember also seeing Quicksilver like stickers and stuff on your guys' boards as well. So that makes sense.
Yeah, it it eventually they you know, Q wasn't a good name. Um, and once they got organized with it. it evolved into silver edition. And I did a couple ads, like they had Buzzy Kerr box and some other older guys that were wrapped up in there too. And they didn't really know where the young longboarders fit. But uh yeah, they plugged us in. It was good support.
Yeah, that's cool. Th there were some definitely some cool ads in those old magazines for the for the Q stuff. And you and you and Joey were pretty uh Forefront in the high performance. aspect of longboarding at that time.
¶ Joey's World Title and High Performance
Yeah, he you know, he'd won the world title of in uh ninety two. And um I would I didn't attend that one. I always worked in the summers and I think that was the Beer Ritz year. that everybody was over there. It was really small, if I remember correctly. Um I were talking to Joel about it and Iz and some other guys and Joey went out there, you know, was doing his pop shovels and helicopters and uh
You know, judges responded to that. You know, that wasn't the era that you know traditional style was really really appreciated. So yeah, he nailed it and um that got him on board and you know, like I said, my presence with What was going on with Stewart? It's got me on board. So yeah, we're it was cool. It was a good run for both of us, I bet.
¶ Early Life and Longboarding Beginnings
That's cool. Um, yeah, I wanted to uh I guess uh go back in time a little bit and um ask you where like longboarding first started fitting into your life.
Uh I think always. I you know, I grew up in a beach community, you know, Riviera uh I grew up at Riviera Beach in San Clomeni. That was my family beach. My my parents moved to San Clomeni in sixty three, sixty four. Uh there was really nothing going on down there. Um my dad was a teacher at high school.
My mom worked for the school district. I had two older brothers that were eight and nine, so eight, nine years older than me, sorry. So the beach was everybody's babysitter. You know, kids are seven, eight years old, nine years old, you know. Mom and dad went to work, you had a sack lunch and a backpack and a skateboard, and you were at the beach. So, you know, at that time, mid seventies.
You know, by the time I was eight or nine, that was seventy seven, seventy eight. You know, if I couldn't carry a surfboard, we lived up on this big hill. So there were garages full of seventy single fins that weren't being used anymore.
60s long board, and you could honestly just go, Hey man, can I take that board to the beach for a day? And they're like, Yeah, I don't use it anymore. So You know, if I didn't have a board to ride, there was always some like 70 single fin washed up on the beach or in somebody's garage I could use.
¶ Family Beaches and Vintage Boards
And then um, you know, we started going to San O's and Doheny when I was a little kid. Those were the family beaches and you know, there was always boards around like that. We had a hobie in my family that my dad had since the early sixties. Big ten foot tanker. You know, for lack of a better description, probably weighed ninety pounds Aggie rails, but it rode and um You know, I don't think I had my first like real new board'til I was about thirteen or fourteen.
And so I went through single fins going out, twin fins, which I couldn't deal with because I learned on single fins, I spun out 411 twin fins. Tri fins were great when they came along, but our garage was full of my older brother's old boards. So if I was you know, my my new Trifin when I was thirteen or fourteen was dinged up, I'd take in the six, seven single fin.
you know, infinity or something like that and go ride that. And then Sano is the same thing. Um, you know, we go down there and there's older guys that were hanging out and it's like, hey, can I ride your old long board? So it's always a real blend. There's a a a lot of boards around.
¶ Youthful Disregard for Old Boards
I gotta say it's it's kinda sad I look back as you know, me and some of my buddies, you go to garage sales and there'd be like, hey, there's a Weber or there's old Velzy or there's, you know, a Takeyama for twenty bucks. We buy that thing, ride it all summer, throw rocks at it and burn under fire at the end of the summer. So You learned how to you learned how to ride old boards pretty young at that time, but um fortunately there wasn't a lot of respect for them.
Uh yeah. Um I know what you mean. I I was kind of coming up in the mid to late nineties, early two thousands, uh, getting into longboarding and everything and That was also kind of around the time when the old board thing was kind of first starting to make A comeback as far as people appreciating them, you know? Yeah. And we looked up to guys. um like you guys that you rode modern boards, but you also we saw you guys writing older boards too.
And so if we saw somebody on the beach who had just so happened to have like a garage sale like cool seventies board or something, we would try to scrounge up the loose cash we had in our pockets and offer them like twenty bucks. And if they took it, we'd be like score, and then we'd like share it. But um yeah, they're it's funny that people weren't really appreciating them the way they should have.
¶ Mini Logs and Single Fin Surfing
Yeah, it is. Um, you know, and there were still a lot of guys right The late seventies, early eighties, I remember, um, especially like, you know, Herbie was really prominent in town surfing, and that's right when I was starting to, you know, be old enough to ride my bike wherever I wanted to go surf, you know, twelve years old, eleven years old. So we go to cottons, you know, we weren't really allowed to surf uppers or lowers when you were that young. But
Even uh like the put the city beaches, the beach breaks, like Kirby and his family were down there and there was a lot of like eight twos and eight fours, little thick nosed riders that they'd ride when it was smaller, and that was a longboard. You know, they weren't nine footers. Nine foot didn't get set in stone until we all started competing that ASP told us we had to ride nine feet. Yeah.
They were like mini logs.
Yeah, as a minimum. So there was really, you know, you could always grab one of these guys cool single fins and when you were seventy pounds. All you did is ride the nose. You just run to the nose. So I think kinda early, you know It's really good because writing single fins for young kids, it develops style. In hard waves or mushy waves, you should start on single fins. It develops your style, good body language.
helps you read the waves, no leashes, you learn to swim, you learn to be careful uh what you can and can't do. But um I I you know I think Herbie primarily for me, if I gotta say one guy in San Clomeney. you know, it was sort of foundational'cause I saw him since I was a little kid. And it was Richard Holcomb, some other guys. Um, but then like Brian Clark and Bill Stewart
¶ Early Shaping Influences and Trifins
You know they were
shaping boards in town and they were actually friends, had each had their own shop. when I started working for build my first time around, it was like thirteen or fourteen. Riding my bike home from Shortcroft's middle school, I'd stop by a shop on Los Molinos and sweep and box surfboard.
75 cents an hour or something like that. And so I got to see him start shaping, you know, eight, six single fins with a little bit more performance attitude. And then once his shop opened up in eighty-four and like I think around eighty four, eighty five as he started doing the Trifens, the two plus one concept. And um nobody else was really
focusing on it. You know, maybe they were experimenting and doing it parallel, but he kind of nailed a combination with it that once I got to be fifteen, sixteen, you know, I had a car. And I was had a relationship with them. I started looking at those, like, wow, those are looser, faster. I kind of already know the old board thing. I've been there, done that, and I can always do that when the waves are smaller, but
You know, maybe these looser, faster boards will translate to the waves I like writing in town. You know, the bigger, holler waves at the beach break, better shape at lowers, that type of thing.
¶ The San O's Longboarding Scene
Yeah. And um those so this would be like the mid to late eighties when you really started longboarding?
Um I think You know, you look at freedom when you're a surfer happens when you're a car or when you get a car. Yeah. Um I got a sixty eight V dub bus when I was sixteen. Um, and it was just on the loose, you know, don't come home on the weekends, that type of thing. And um quite a few of my other friends, same thing, I had little trucks. And what what I figured out with a couple buddies was as all my
other friends were going up and down the coast surfing NFSA, you know, trying to do three to the beach. They were surfing mock heats at T Street. I was like, well, that's really not that fun. Um, but what is fun is like we go through beach rakes in the morning, it's a drained out low tide, we'd grab some old logs and go to San O's. And so that was like, you know, sixteen for me was nineteen eighty five. And you could go to San O's at that time.
after school in the fall or in the spring and there'd be eight or ten cars in the parking lot. There might be six guys posted up at the point. There's some volleyball guys. There was some guys at the club. But there was nobody my age down there. Um some of the, you know, the family the family kids were down there, you know, the diamonds.
some of the Hoffman's were down there and Lombards and those type of people. Um and then I made good friends with you know, like Rob Staffy and Brian Bent and uh Paul Carter.
they were down there consistently and that was kind of their spot. And most of those guys were still kind of in like, okay, single fin, drop me and ride the nose and then I started coming around sixteen seventeen with some trifan longboards and, you know, the Pasquitz family was anchored in there and is and uh mostly Jonathan at that time was the star, but uh
You know, is an Abraham too, probably the most influential for me. And those guys were, you know, surfing aggressively. They were doing everything. So yeah, Thanos it probably has the biggest impact on
That's cool. Um I've noticed something. Uh you're the second person I've talked to. I also talked to uh Josh Baxter recently. And the way that you guys when you talk about Sano, I've always called it Sano, but you say San O's with an S at the end. Uh is that like a San Clemente local thing or something?
¶ San Clemente Local Terms
I guess like we say churches or we say trestles. It's actually trestle. It's the church or church. And it should be San O. Um, I don't know. I don't even I don't even catch it.
It it's I have not noticed it until just recently when like I've noticed you're saying it and I knew that Josh said it that way. So I was and you guys are both San Clemente dudes. So
I think about if I wrote it down on paper, I put probably put an apostrophe S for some reason. Now that you bring it up.
That is funny. Yeah, I I don't I don't hear I haven't heard a lot of people say it that way, but you guys do. That's interesting.
Yeah, th maybe th it's you know, there's a lazy F surfer thing that have to be applied somewhere.
Yeah, I don't know. Um
¶ Shapers and Longboard Evolution
So yeah, you talked about like the mini logs of of the eighties. Um, there were a lot of uh good shapers making boards like that. Like one that comes to mind is like the Dale Dobson Uh they were like they were almost all single fins, right?
Yeah. I mean I was pretty young, but that was And again, it's like I bring this up a lot. I I had two older brothers that were a generation ahead of me. So when I was ten, they were eighteen and nineteen and they were surfers. Um, you know, so they were surfers of the seventies. And then also those guys being lifeguards, that's what got me into lifeguarding. And so they were associated with guys that were a generation ahead of them.
So they had, you know, if they were 20, they had friends in their thirties that effectively came out of the sixties. Um so those guys were kind of longboard surfers. Um Sl you know, the seventies single fin surfers had so many longboard qualities as a holdover to them that
You know, when I was running around town at fifteen or sixteen, the forty-year-old surfers were still holdover surfers from sixty-eight, sixty nine to early seventies. So those guys' style and their approach and kind of their um You know, the way they handed down appropriate surfing was longboard influence.
So those were that's what I remember being around was like the eight footers and eight sixes. If those were the only things that were new at that time. Nobody was making like, hey, here's a a nine six. Maybe, you know, maybe there was some older guys like Phil or Mickey shaping boards, Rich Harbour shaping boards like that. But they would have only been for older guys. They wouldn't have been for guys my age.
¶ Single Fin vs Modern Performance
Right. Uh another thing I noticed from the early days of when the longboard revolution was starting again is that even when there were two plus ones around and thrusters and things like that, a lot of guys were still writing single fins. They they were like high performance single fins. Um, I don't know, I you probably had some too, but I d I don't really remember you on them. But
I I didn't. Yeah, I didn't. Um if you look at like the chart house team um at that time, which was like Jay Riddle, Herbie, Israel, and Jonathan, uh all the uh if one Pasquitz was on a team, they were all on the team. Um, then you have Paul Carter, or I'm sorry, Matt Carter, Byron. Those guys were all writing single fins. And most of them, they were, interestingly enough, because those guys in real life were writing shortboards of the time.
Um they weren't just longboarders. So they would go do longboard contests or go to Sano's, but they weren't necessarily riding, you know, chunky, flattish, heavy, concave, wide nose. Single fins like maybe, you know, one of Donald's, they were riding South Orange County style, which was kind of bladey and rockered up. And they were made to turn and they were made to trim fast.
Yeah, I I remember Josh Baxter writing single fins in the beginning and Colin wrote single fins sometimes and Uh is he pass Goetz? Well, I think he was always on a single fin, no matter how high performance it was.
He was always on a single film, like he had these Gary Proper boards that were maybe two and three eighth. I mean my my LSP, the way it evolved, that thing was seventeen twenty two, thirteen and something tail and like two and a half. Izzy's were more rockered out, more narrow, more foiled. Uh he he kept'em going. I don't know. I don't know how.
¶ Stewart LSP Model and Pro Career
Yeah. Yeah, he was pretty good. Um you mentioned the LSP. That was your model with Stuart, correct?
Yeah, that was the p the first one.
What did that stand for?
Uh light speed performance. You know, uh I wanted to do LSD, I was all into psychedelic music and all that stuff, thought it'd be controversial. Bill was like, Yeah, no, we're not doing that. So it came out to L S P light speed performance. That was on that's what was on the logo.
Oh nice. Yeah. I I know I've heard from other people that Bill wasn't into uh any kind of drug references or anything like that.
No, you know, he went he went through the sixties and the seventies. He was like, Yeah, enough's enough. Let's get over it. He doesn't look back.
Yeah. Uh as a lot of a lot of the older Shaper guys were were always the same way. Um they A lot of people would come to them and like bring up the old designs and I think I'm sure they appreciated that, but they were always looking forward.
Yeah, and that that's kind of You know that's how the The the mid eighties, like the first couple of club contests I did, um It brought up the Oceanside Longboard Contest. That was the first like amateur big event that I did. I think I was like fifteen. Bill took me down to it. And that was the most fun thing. Like he said Dobson, king of the hill at that time. Um
If it was small, he was on nose rider tripins, nose riding, doing helicopters, side slips, hanging heels, switch dance, whatever. But the the variety of boards that would show up at a contest like that, like You'd have guys from Santa Cruz on vintage planks. Then there was like South San Diego influence of their single fins, but then like
Huntington and San Clemente, I think, were bringing in the more modern equipment. North County San Diego was more modern equipment, but definitely, you know, Donald's influence, which was more traditional even on Trifins at that time. So
¶ Contest Equipment Variety and Fun
the representation of different equipment. Um, when I was like sixteen, mid eighties was was crazy. You could paddle out like if I was sixteen and I went out on a on a tri fin There could be somebody in the same heat writing a mid sixties board. And we were being judged pretty equally. So that that was really cool.
No, that is cool. That that actually kinda reminds me of the way it was when I was coming up doing contests in high school. And that would have been the early two like late nineties, early two thousands for me because I uh I kinda wrote everything, but I I m gravitated more towards the tr traditional, but I could be in a heat with a guy on a quad fin longboard or a guy with a big ten foot heavy single fin or And everything in between. It was there was a lot of variety going on.
¶ Amateur vs Pro Contests
Yeah, that's where amateur was so much more fun. Um, you know, you could it it wasn't maybe it was serious for For me it was I I didn't care about plastic trophies and I got excited when the waves were good. Or if I you know, it was somebody I'd met A couple of months ago in a contest that I thought was cool and I got to surf with them again. All right, sweet, we get to share some waves. But um there was more openness than when it started getting into pro point rated events.
Yeah. Uh sorry about that. The dog was barking. I don't know if you could hear that, but Yeah, I I've got I've got three and a cat right now'cause I'm watching one of my mom's talks. So They're causing problems, but they're good.
¶ Jeff's Path to Pro Surfing
Um yeah, so Um when when you first got the m your model with Stuart, was that the nineties or was that the still the late eighties?
I think it was probably I think it came out in ninety two. I think that was it. Um I wasn't it's pretty weird. Like I wasn't really a pro surfer, you know, paid contract until I was twenty one. So prior to that like I had some you know, clothing sponsors, that type of that. But I was focusing on Like doing a little bit of school, surfing a lot. Um, I figured I would be a career lifeguard. Um you know one
We spent six, seven months backpacking through the South Pacific right off the bat. Um, so I wasn't, you know, today it's like You can get a thirteen year old can start focusing on a pro longboard career. Nine year olds are focusing on pro shortboard careers and they got trainers and nutritionists and marketing people. Then it wasn't it wasn't really gonna be a thing. I didn't want to be a pro shortboarder. I didn't have the competitive chops for it or the focus. So travel was my thing.
Um after that South Pacific trip, I then I went back in'89. Um I flew down to Porto by myself. That year after lifeguarding in September, stayed down there till January, January or something like that. Um, just cruised around mainland Mexico and just thought that's what I was gonna do. Work. And then work a lot, surf, come back, work some more, go on surf trips. And um You know, once longboarding started kind of getting a buzz.
again, being hooked up with that brand or that that with Bill, then it just sort of it it happened for me. So that's when the model became appropriate for him. And it was the first might have been the first pro model that he did.
Yeah. And then he had a a lot of pro models after that as well.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was the way it was done.
So you are you're older Than like Colin, right?
Yeah, a couple years. Yeah, we're good friends, but we were never kind of like same group. You know, he was m I think three years younger than me in school, maybe. Maybe even more. I'm not sure. We're close, but not not super close. And he was all into short, you know, he was chasing NSSA titles when he was in high school. By the time longboarding came around for him, I was I was kind of already established.
Now my my career, my sponsored career is actually kind of brief, but um I think I I you know, I was really well seated into the Quicksilver thing, my models and then Colin. Dow did he win an NSSA championship? He might have. Um but yeah, he was I'd love surfing with him, but he was more like Mike Parsons school of competition. It's controlled, do the maneuvers all the way to the beach, get another one, get another one, consistent. Um I was, you know.
Or it was fast.
Yeah. Yeah. He was kind of a machine out there with contest. Yeah.
I didn't have much to show him as far as as earning points. I I think I learned more about him for writing for how to try and get through a heat.
Yeah, I guess that's true. I know that I did see you in contests and stuff like that, but not as much as just really good shots and video sections.
Yeah. And I I think the people that inspired me were more guys that were You know, traveling, you know, back of a truck in Baja, you know, deck of a sailboat in the South Pacific. That's what I wanted to do.
Totally.
¶ Lifeguarding Career and Trestles Patrol
You you mentioned lifeguarding. Um, you've you've been doing that for a long time.
Had been, yeah. I I finished in two thousand ten, started in nineteen eighty five, did that seasonally for twenty five seasons.
Um and what was that like for you?
Uh, you know, I I joke it ruined me for everything else, you know. How can you compare any other job to going to the beach, you know, kicking off your shoes, putting on trunks and working in the sun, watching people have fun in the ocean and um testing your own skills and the uh you know, the mentorship that you you get in a job like that and especially The department I was in a lot of surfers, you know, when I if I was
15, 16, 17, working my first couple of years. There were guys that already been doing it for 25 or 30 years. You know, they were from the 60s. and um they're crusty hardcore and you know good manners, good style, self reliance in the ocean. Um It also gives you a really, really good view of your local community. So you know, I I work from
Boneyard at Doheny to Trail Six. That's where I was, you know, nude beach to the Kitty Beach. It was everything in between. And then I got placed at Lowers, well, Trestle specifically. Um In maybe two thousand, I think. Um there was a lot of BS going down at Trestles thefts and fights and weird stuff. So they wanted a full time patrol down there and
uh, me and a couple of other guys that were pretty connected, the community got placed there. Just cottons to churches. And we, you know, our supervisor at that time, Steve Long, Die Hard Surfer said, Look, you guys need to integrate. And you're already integrated. So we need to take the job a little bit further. And how about we put you guys in the water?
And uh it was a little sketch'cause n the crowd was not happy about it. You got you know, there was still quite a bit of localism at that time, so there was a lot of self regulation in the pack going on and they didn't like you know, prying eyes. But um, you know, being a local kid it was it was good. Got to smooth some things out, stop some kind of shit that was going on down there unfairly. Yeah.
Yeah, you know, blame it on me, just like longboarding. It probably helped increase the crowd there.
So when you say in the water, what did that what did that mean?
Um, kinda you know, there's kind of the Hawaiian water patrol model. It's like, you know, if you deem it safe, go out there and get in the mix. You know, have you see some beef going on? And things look like they're gonna get out of control, paddle out, paddle out, you know, try and make some peace, straighten things out, and um make your own rules on how you do it. And uh, you know, it was it was by the book, but it was it wasn't happening anywhere else in the department.
So I I was really fortunate.
So would you paddle out on a board?
Yeah. Yeah. We're you know, um it was kind of It was kind of weird'cause there was no way I was going out there and not people not knowing who I was for one. It was like I was either surfing their off work or I was patrolling their on work. So I wasn't gonna paddle out there on the rescue board. Um But you know, I basically just go out and try and intervene. It's like, look. One person's being unreasonable, let's let's figure it out. And if you guys want to
keep the beef going, how about you guys take it down the beach and, you know, get out of the crowd, quit antagonizing the crowd,'cause you know you can be sixty, seventy guys out there and it's all peace peace and quiet. And then you get one knucklehead that can't stand being dropped in on that wants to square off and next thing you know, it's like it goes from a pack of lambs to a pack of lions and it just ruins the whole thing.
¶ Trestles Localism and Sonny Garcia
Yeah, I I had my own um story from paddling out there and this was my bad, but I paddled out on a longboard. And being uh someone who wasn't from there and didn't surf there that often that, you know, and it was pretty good. But uh I happened to paddle out with and be on the same surf team as Sonny Garcia at the time. Yeah. In his uh in only a way that he could, uh, made the guy apologize to me and then everything was okay.
I loved when Sonny showed up. It was the crowd went quiet, real quiet.
It was awesome. It was awesome to have a guy like him ha have the back of a longboarder out there.
Yeah. You know, there was a moment that, you know, longboarding was cool at uppers. It was cool at cottons. It was cool at churches. It was not cool at lowers. And I don't think I really rode my longboard out there'til maybe about Eighty eight, eighty nine. You know, I was kind of doing it low key and it was by that time I'd you know, I'd I could sit at the top of the peak. I was in the pack, you know, I knew everybody, I grew up there and uh it was it was okay.
And there was a couple other older guys that started longboarding there a little little bit again and it kind of got to be a thing. And then once it got going, you know, you bring up like Josh, you know, Josh. grew up there too and we started longboarding together a lot. So you know he and I would go down there and it was it was kind of cool. You know, Clint Carroll would go, Corky's kid, and there was a couple other guys local, but it wasn't really much of a movement. Um and then
You know, you talk about sunny. It's we I had a house on on one of the streets right above Ripcurl for a few years and it was just it was the Trestled house. Um
full you know, garage full of bikes, people coming and going. Every time the swell is up, I'd have people all over my house. Well, once the contest start got got going over here, I'd have the Hawaii come over and crash there during the summer. And I think the first year it was maybe 93 when I got hooked up with Quicksilver and I had Dino Miranda, Joey Valentine, Bonga, Lance.
Russ and maybe Zane I cow. And they're like, okay, you're taking us to Lowers, right? And I had the key to the gate. I parked at the headquarters up there. And I'm like, okay. But I kind of kinda keep it down low, you guys. This is where I work. You tell Lan Lance is like Sonny. You tell him to keep it down in the lineup. That just like, oh, how loud do you want me to be? Fucking loved it. It was so fun watching those guys go out there and just regulate.
Yeah, and nobody was gonna say anything to those.
No, and it may and it made and it was very different when they left. It was very different because it was like, okay, I guess you guys are fine.
Uh yeah, and I mean, obviously the talent level with with all of you guys was kind of hard to to deny, no matter what kind of board you were on.
That was the deal. Anybody anybody gave any lip is like all right, let's trade boards. It's you know, next week I'm gonna be out here on a six three. What you know, this is what I'm doing today. And it's like I can either you know, my MO was And it's kind of how it made it work for me. It was like I let every every other set go. But if you wanna start blocking me for waves, I'll be a pig. Otherwise, and especially I'm a goofy footer, I don't think I went right at lowers for a decade.
So I just, you know, sit out there on my longboard. There was, you know, a fur dog. He'd sit off to the south end of the peak and wait for the rights and people knew at a certain point it's like, I'm gonna get, you know, Maybe every second set I'm gonna take off on the third one. And so it it worked. I just wasn't it wasn't a pig.
¶ Longboarding Etiquette and Wave Selection
Right. I was gonna ask about that. I and I kind of assumed that's what you would do because You know, we, you know, as a lawnboarder, you have to be aware of that, you know, you're on a way you're on a wave harvester, basically. So you gotta let some go.
Yeah, exactly. But the nice thing is you can always cat catch the best one.
Sure, you can set it out at the back.
Rest of them can have it.
Yeah, I think that was probably the only time I had longboarded out there because it's still still not cool to go out there on a longboard.
No, it's fine. You just you know, you you pick your days. It's better to go when it's big'cause, you know, the the crowd's dumb. You know, it's it's thirty sheep when no sh with no sheepdogs. One heads for the first wave of the set. They all heard head for the first wave of the set.
So you just paddle over second wave, third wave and next thing you turn around there's nobody there. I don't surf there that much anymore, you know, it's just it's not my crowd anymore and not really I'm not that that into it, but if I go, it's gonna be on the bigger days and just sit out, I'll get three or four waves and leave.
Yeah, and you mentioned surfing the left as well. There's yeah, I'm a goofy foot as well. So m primarily whenever I go there I kinda just sit on the left and I can usually catch it a little farther out than the groms and then I'm okay.
Yeah, it's a it's a very different scene now. You know, it's really cool what's going on, but it's not my
¶ Current Surf Spots and Lifestyle
Right. Are you still in San Clemente now?
Uh I'm in Oceanside.
Okay.
So I I work in San Clemente. I'm back working at Stewart's. Um Kind of as a everything guy, mostly board sales and uh a little product development. But yeah, I'm up in San Clemente quite a bit.
And where do you surf most often now?
I mostly surf oceanside. I like closed out beach break'cause the crowds are sparse. So I I surf down here a lot. I don't really hang out at the harbor. as uh you know the little crew CJ and his crew, Taylor's over there shooting, doing whatever they're doing and you know, that's always been like, you know
I like that. That's a local shortboard spot. Let those guys have it. So I I find my space, my peaks down here and just kind of paddle around. I'll I'll surf the close out spot, you know, and get my corners here and there. Longboard, mids, you know, whatever.
Yeah. Um my family will we've rented a beach house in Oceanside for many years now and For the last few years we've been right at that that spot where the rock is.
Mm-hmm.
And I've had a lot of super fun days out there.
Yeah, it's it's it's really it's really convenient. I'm just a couple blocks from the beach, so it's I can go out for a half hour, forty minutes. you know, get a maintenance surf in and split and then I still go to Santos, you know, I'll go down and surf, you know, barb wires or middles or something like that or, you know. If the the spells are big, you know, I'll hit church or something or off season lowers, but I don't spend too much time up in that zone.
¶ Reflecting on Aerials and Style
Um I wanted to read you I I posted a photo of you. um earlier last month and it was the cover of Long Border magazine, um, You Doin'a in Air. And uh the tagline is getting air versus hanging tent. Um but uh in the comments a lot of people had cool nice things to say, but um Joel was one of them and he says, Jeff is amazingly talented. Started lifeguarding at a very young age, became full time and retired before the age of fifty-five. A le a legendary life well lived.
I like Joel. We uh since we met you know, I was always really good friends with him. We got on a few trips together, did some Hawaii together, a lot of mutual friends. Um, you know, back out you Joel, talk about a legend. But uh yeah, I You know, I just wanted to surf, you know, still do and um didn't chase titles or anything like that
My sponsorship thing really only lasted about five years and when it was done I didn't fight it, you know, I wasn't kicking the cage, scrapping for more. It's like move on. You can still surf. Um, answer if good waves. So yeah, you know, happy for the recognition, especially from someone like Joel. But uh the air thing was
I don't know, it wasn't intentional and it wasn't meant to be controversial. It was more of a reflection of where I grew up. You know, I'd grew up parallel to guys like Matt Archibald and Christian Fletcher. So I was seeing more of progressive shortboard surfing and the advancement of shortboard surfing than I was
Longboard surfing. You know, I'd go to Thanos and you'd see Skip up there. You know, Mickey was around quite a bit still surfing trestles, but that was very traditional. And it's like, okay, we know that. Um I guess the errors were a result of I wanted to make longboards when I was a teenager that reflected like this 68, 69 period. you know, Wayne Lynch just slashing a a deep cut back on, you know, kind of an eight footer evolution board.
um, you know, McTavish's V bottom, that sunset picture. Like I wanted to do boards that did that, but recovered and then You know, you could also get, you know, a nice solid five on it. Didn't have to be a ten, hang ten. Um, didn't have to drop me. You know, I was we were really into downhill skating at that time. We have big hills in San Clementi and they were all lit up with no traffic because all the houses had been built out. Asphalt was perfect.
So we go up there and we make our own longboard skateboards and we'd just do these big hand drag swooping turns and it was like, all right, that kind of is like using the rail line on a longboard. Yeah, that's how that happened. Um but now stoked, you know, it was it was a that was a really fun time. It's it's cool to have compliments from people about that'cause there's a lot of criticism.
Yeah, I'm sure there was and like it's still a debate today, you know, and the pendulum has swung more traditional in the last ten years or so. But I think it's a testament to uh Uh, you know, how good you were and the fact that it didn't really matter what you were on or what you were doing, like even someone who was like you who was doing airs on a long board.
even people like Joel who have always been more traditional. Um Uh, you know, they could see talent and recognize style even on a high performance longboard.
¶ The ASP and Longboarding's Direction
Yeah, that was pretty cool. Um yeah, I don't know, you know, there was a a time when Competitive lawnboarding really took started to get organized and the ASP had to do something about it. And there were meetings um actually started at Stewart's store and then other places in San Clemeni.
where Joel and his camp came up, you know, Nat, his parents, Donald, my camp being, you know, some guys from San Clemente, Bill, and then you had the ASP guy sitting down, which Nat was really controlling the ASP at that time, was like Look, we have to have a narrative. And, you know, now you look at what contests are and you're selling a package, it's really obvious. You're you're packaging something, a theme.
And these are the characters that are promoting that. There it was so jumbled up. And there was a moment where the ASP, you know, Joel's camp was like, let's make it traditional longboarding. And I looked at it, I was like, okay, fine. I I will ride single fin, three stringer, you know, whatever boards because I like that style of surfing, but
The contests were hold held at six to eight foot junky ass Huntington Beach. That's not fun. They won't hold one at Peeling Malibu or Cardiff, you know, good longboard waves. So the equipment that I I was on became more common because, you know, look at the the 93 um World Contest. The finals are held in like but eight to ten foot 30 knot onshore Holy Eva. And they invited half of the top 16 shortboarders to compete in the event because they couldn't fill the roster with long borders.
You talk about messed up. Like they couldn't make it one thing or another. And now it's like, cool, if you want it to be traditional, go for it. But you it gets stale. It gets real stale after a while.
Yeah, I think I think both sides of the coin can get stale if you do one too much, you know. And and I mean I think that's why you're seeing you've seen it gone go more traditional because In the early 2000s to mid 2000s, things were just so high performance and so progressive that some of the style was being lost.
And some of the traditional aspects were like not there anymore. And I I didn't like seeing that. Of course, there were always guys that were on tour that were obviously still really stylish, even on high performance boards. But there were a lot of guys who weren't too. And and then now it's gone the other direction. And now I'm I'm wishing that, you know, it was cooler to get on some more high performance equipment again.
when the waves call for it, because it's like you're saying, it's getting a little stale. I don't want to see only nose writing, you know. I, you know, I liked when it was a little bit a little bit more mixed up.
¶ Hotdogging, Nose Rides, and Modern Style
Yeah. I you know, my favorite style, you know, late fifties, early sixties, trim, drop me, every you know. Heavier equipment, that's great. My favorite style of that era is late sixties. I like hot dogging. Watch, you know The beautiful photo of Johnny Fain at Malibu, that gnarly bottom turn that he's just rearing up, you know, looking at Dewey roller coastering. Um, but you know, even earlier than that.
Like Phil Edwards is a power surfer. You know, that he his style was because his boards were difficult to ride and those conditions were hard to ride. So luckily the guy had a beautiful style and was muscular and um controlled his body so that it didn't look as difficult. But really I like the hot dogging era. And I kind of think, you know, you look at the boards right now and I don't pay that much attention to it. Um kind of not my thing.
Um, but of course I see it and I was watching, you know, a contest last summer at Huntington online. And guys are getting great nose rides, but they're backpedaling, getting on the tail. And I can see their eyes are looking at the lip, and that board does not want to go there. And then they just fade out and put their hands in the air, do this fade and uh I don't know. I'd I'd rather see him busted off the top at that point.
Um, yeah, I would agree. Uh I think as long as the style is still involved and you can keep it controlled and not make it look wonky, then you should do that. And
Absolutely.'Cause you have space you have space to fit in another maneuver instead of you know, Oh look, he did a drop knee, isn't that beautiful control and poise? It's like, no, he's turning away from you know, an area that he could have done a maneuver. Yeah, do it with style. Don't be flapping your arms all over the place. But yeah, you know don't turn away from something. A strong surfer, you know Take the opportunity.
Right. And a lot of those guys can surf like that and do know how do know how to do good turns like Taylor Taylor Jensen and Kai Solas and even a lot of the new kids. And you could tell that they were they were limiting themselves on purpose because they knew that wouldn't get a score.
Yeah, let him bust a big floater instead of having to do a drop knee away from the face. With you know, not to be mean, but jazz hands, you know.
Yeah, the the jazz hands thing can ha ha had gotten a little out of hand.
Yeah, that's an uh that's an F I'll say on that.
¶ Future of Progressive Longboarding
Um and then there were guys, um, like I don't know if you were aware of Kyle Ellis Flint on the tour last year who was doing a lot of rail surfing.
Okay, it serves great.
Yeah, and look he created a lot of buzz, but like probably, you know, being new to the tour and everything, didn't quite have he couldn't quite put the heats together necessarily, you know. But some of those turns he was doing were way better than some of the other like half turn type stuff some of those guys were doing.
Yeah, it and that kind of like that's more my taste. If you're gonna mimic an era and these guys aren't even mimicking an era anymore. You know, they're so many generations away from what Joel and I tried to emulate or what we had as examples. We had living examples from the sixties still surfing around here when we were kids. Those those guys don't have it. Um
So like the surfing he's done in the equipment, I think, is it's leaning into progressive speed. And that's what I I've always been stoked on speed. Um so his turning i is speedy and con and smooth and concise.
Yeah, it kind of reminds me of like how Joel surfed um his more progressive boards back in the day. They kind of wrote them like an egg from the tail, but then it's still nose ride and everything too. Yeah.
¶ Herbie Fletcher's Impact and Mentorship
Um you mentioned earlier uh when we started uh a few times you you talked about Herbie Fletcher and um Herbie uh pretty much gets brought up in every one of these podcasts because his movies and him him in general as a figure was so influential. And uh I know that that's probably other than the magazines and stuff, that was like my introduction to you was was seeing your sections in Herbie's movies.
Yeah. Um You know, again, uh Thank Limeni uh anybody that's born and raised here is really fortunate on the access that you have to people that are promoting surfing. Um Surf Herbie was has been a promoter Always self promoter, promoting other people, promoting movies, promoting product, building product, whatever it is. Um that guy is moving all the time. And he likes radical. He likes new. Um he will promote people before himself for his own benefit. Um I don't think that
unknown. But, you know, if it wasn't for like, okay, Guy Motil starting Longboard Magazine and he started Longboard Magazine and then You know, you had some surfer magazine staff photographers start paying attention. Jeff Devine, really open minded, took some photos of me at lower as they got printed. I was you know, beyond happy about that. And um
They never would have looked at lawnboarders if they were older. Um, art brewer, same thing, had access to guys like that and then Herbie. You know, Herbie could call me at the lifeguard headquarters. Hey, what's lowers like? I'm coming down there. You're off at five. Good. Jimmy's going to be down there filming. You're there. Like you and you snap to it.
Herbie, you know, took me in in Hawaii, paddled me out of pipeline my first couple of times. And that was always a goal to long me, you know, for me to longboard pipeline until I figured out what the crowd was like and how pale my skin was. But he opened the door for me, you know, for whatever my time there was. Um, super generous. And yeah, he was making a product out of it, but Fun, fun, fun, fun. And you know, super good role model for how to be a surfer, um, not just a product.
Yeah, and Talk about somebody who he he he was very loud about um, a lot of things, but about himself in particular and Um, I think some people may have found that off putting, but the guy could back it up because he really was, even with all the young guys, one of the he would be one of the best guys out there, no matter on any kind of board.
Oh yeah, there's a lot of people with no substance behind them. You know, there's a lot of guys, I'm this, I'm that. you know, really they're just spinning plates. Or Herbie was if he said this place looks great, y this is gonna be good and you're like, Yeah, I don't know. Now he's out there
freaking killing it, you had to go. Like that it's he peddles you out somewhere says you show up there and do that. It it was it was a reason. You know, the the videos and him him putting And putting out the longboard videos. He was still putting out shortboard, he was still Astra Deck was at its peak. He had all this stuff going on. So it didn't work. It didn't work. It it didn't work because It didn't work for him and he didn't care if it didn't work for anybody else.
He was stoked on what he was putting out. And it was a good formula. You know, he banded together a bunch of really fun kids uh to go surf and filmed He's really good at identifying scenes. Okay, what's what's the new scene that's going on? Who are these characters? Really good about that. There's a s there was a time like yeah, by the time I was twenty-seven, twenty-eight, if Herb was down filming with
you know, Alex or Tommy Witt or somebody like that. I wasn't even gonna bother. It's like he's got his kids now.
¶ Baja Pacific Air Clip and Nostalgia
Yeah. Um there's uh a a little clip that I posted of you.
Um
What looks to me like lowers, but um it was in the m in the movie Baja Pacific, one of his movies. And um you have a lot of really good waves, but the the final wave is an air. that you get pretty good air and then you like land and like lay back into the soup and then stand back up. And uh I think to that point um on my little Instagram page. That was the most viewed video that I had gotten. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It it got like.
Uh last I checked it had like twenty thousand views or something like that.
Yeah, I I learned to take the heat. You know, a a while ago before there were comments or videos out, you know, got a lot of shit for doing stuff like that, but um It's fun now to see people r kind of nostalgic about it. It's like, wow, that was actually rad.
Yeah, because it was and I think it's a very good thing.
Yeah.
It's testament to um where people's heads at or are right now. I know like the traditional thing is fully uh set in, but I think people are starting to get a little bored of the same thing over and over again and to see things like that. I mean, um some of these kids that are young in the longboard scene. not only have probably never seen things like that, but they never even rode any other kind of board other than like a, you know, traditional style single.
¶ Lost Boards and Modern Manufacturing
Well, there those boards aren't aren't around. You know, none of mine survived. Um, I every now and then I hear from somebody when I'm at work, like, Yeah, I've got one of your boards in the rafters in my garage. It's from 95, and I'm like, I can't believe that thing's still in one piece because I broke everything doing stuff like that. And um, you know, I know.
There I don't
think you're gonna see it a market for oh look here's a nineteen ninety one Kramer model or whatever. Those aren't worth anything like a 1967 old longboard. They'd, you know, they were cool and they were, but things were evolving so fast and um So kids that are, you know, fifteen or so now, they're not they might come across'em, but
Everything's done on CNC now. You can have you can have a scan. There's files of those. Go get one made, a brand new one, and improve on it, make it better. Um, or make the same thing, whatever. But I think kids They don't have to do contests anymore to be surfing public figure, you know, you can get twelve, thirteen year old kids on social media that build their own brand. So okay, maybe I should be on the lookout for some twelve or thirteen year old that's doing errors.
At some beach break on a nine foot trifin that looks like mine but has improved and hopefully he's got better style than I did and you know, he's gonna get acceptance. That's kinda cool.
¶ Balancing Progression and Tradition
Yeah, I I I def I definitely see things um maybe not going back to that place, but like somewhere in the middle, you know? And things being a little more open as far as what kind of longboards you write, you know, much less any other kind of board. Because things are more in the other realm of, you know, like alternative mid length shortboards, eggs and all that stuff or
super popular, but like when I first started writing them, you know, they were looked down upon just like a longboard was. And now everybody's open to it. And it seems like everybody, you know, even has a longboard in their quiver.
It is. You know, it comes down to style and and what you're like in the water at the break you're surfing. You know, you you can't be a dick. Um, no matter what you're on. Um I I just I think that, you know, surfing hopefully still is kind of punk rock and there will be that kid out there doing airs, but he's gotta have the foundation of every other element of aspect uh of style. um, you know, fit the moves to the wave.
So but also take the challenges of writing equipment that's out of your comfort zone and not, you know, what everybody else is writing. Now a lot of the kids that are traditionalists now, look at CJ. CJ was a a blasting progressive surfer when he was a when he was little. I was on my way out when he was on his way in. I was a guy who was a tri finch shredding progressive surfer.
Um, now he's all about, you know, his style of surfing now. That's cool. And everybody's copying, copying him. Um, but that kid's out there, you know, somewhere. That kid that wants to bust an air is out there and let him do it.
¶ CJ Nelson's Evolving Style
Yeah, and and CJ is a good point because most people have kind of When he came on everybody's radar, they thought of him as more of a traditional surfer. But even during that whole time, he was still writing high performance longboards also. And was very radical and cutting edge with the high performance thing. And he obviously has a ton of style. So
Well, sa and you know, Santa Cruz area's got a history for that. You know, it goes w it goes back. They've got powerful waves, they've got fast waves, they've got hollow waves and you know, they got longboarders gotta get up and go there.
Yeah. And most of the guys from the nineties Santa Cruz scene were on more high performance stuff. Um, like all the Pierce and Arrow guys like Um Tanner Tanner back in the U.S.
Yeah, you had Matt Tanner, you had, you know, Jay, uh Terry, I think he was Pierphone Harbor's. after Pearsons maybe, but yeah, those guys were all you know, they were all tail s tail surfing as well as nose riding, but their waves were great for tail surfing. Um But there was also, you know, there was also a lot of influence from the contest then. And it's I like to see the fact that not everybody's influenced by what the you know, the WFL says now. Um they don't need it.
¶ WSL, Style, and Equipment Choices
Yeah. And I yeah, I keep saying the like I think the good thing about the WSL now, like the main good thing is that style wa was really put in the forefront and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Um Um, I think having the emphasis on style is important, especially in longboarding and surfing in surfing in general too. But um um so that's a good thing. I just think I would personally like to see it be a little less rigid as far as um the type of maneuvers and equipment.
It would. It it should be to suit the conditions. Um, you know, I I only surfed a couple of contests at Malibu and each time I did it was small. I wasn't taking a tri fin out there. I was taking a single fin and that was trim and nose writing. You know, fading back into the pocket, back up into the high line and go. That's that's the way. If I was gonna take my LSP out there, I'd get laughed at and you know I wouldn't score one point. Not the board for it.
and not not the attitude for it. So, you know, let them decide. Instead of being dictated, it's like, hey, it's eight to ten foot. We should score on maneuvers instead of you guys having to hang ten in large waves the entire course of the wave. Not saying you're wasting it, you know, that's something I've always been against. It's like, hey, you want to stand a foot from the nose and go into parallel stance trim and scream down the line? Freaking awesome ride.
But the nose ride can't be the only thing.
Right, I agree. And like I said before, as long as The more high performance maneuvers are done with style, then I think that's okay.
Not my axe to grind. Let em let them do let the kids do what they want. One thing Ruby said. Let the kids do what they want.
Yeah, and it's and it's not even them necessarily as as much as, you know, everybody's writing the same thing because they've all figured out what's gonna get scored. So that's why they're all on the same type of boards, the like wide tailed, flip tailed nose writer type boards.
Yeah. Oh good for them. I couldn't figure out how to s how to get scored.
¶ Personal Surfing Philosophy and Board Quiver
Yeah, I mean I've always had boards like that. And they are super fun in the right waves, but
Right.
Yeah. Uh you know, like you you said earlier, like you've always been about speed and that's one thing. Every time I'm on one of those and like it's good for that kind of board, but then a set wave comes and I just don't feel like I can get that proper speed. I'm like, I wish I was on something else.
Yeah, you know, it's right board, right conditions, right attitude, or you know, stick to your guns and You know, serve serve to your own satisfaction.
Totally. And I mean, yeah, we can all do that. We don't have to. We're most of us aren't under the criteria of a of a contest organization. So we can surf how we want. And that's one of the beauties of longboarding in general is that it it allows you to surf in basically any kind of conditions.
Yeah, and that that is the fun part. You know, and I think that was a challenge for me when I was younger was You know what, let's take a longboard out and eight foot beach break. 'Cause I know what my six oh is gonna do. Let's go out and pret I'm gonna pretend I'm Greg Knoll for a day.
And uh, you know, try and use the rail line, try and figure out, you know, where you you can't jam a bottom turn, you gotta you gotta nurse the bottom turn, but then you gotta set a line and uh it you know, it's challenge yourself.
¶ Lifeguarding Retirement and Pacific Northwest
Yeah. So you did uh you did uh retire from lifeguarding, you said in twenty ten.
Uh yeah. Not not really retired. Um I mean I did it for so long. I hit 25 years and that was 2010. And I did I worked other things during that time too. Uh when I met my wife and ninety seven she was a rep, so I started repping with her for a little bit and I was not a good rep, so that didn't last real long.
So my primary thing was lifeguarding. Um, I'd work nine months a year and then go, you know, do my surf thing the rest of the the year I had secondary occupations as well. But yeah, once I hit hit twenty five seasons, I was forty. We had two kids that were going off to college. Uh my wife was an exec in the surf industry and got laid off in 2010. And we had a second grader. And both of us kind of look look at each other as like, God, you know, we want to make a break. You know, I was either.
Going on surf trips for surf editorials and then coming home and lifeguarding, like I was on the beach every day and I did that for decades. I don't think I missed this housewell at Trestles for twenty years and um we both wanted it wanted something different. So we went to the Pacific Northwest for ten years, um, raised our third kid up there and then um
Didn't plan on coming back to California, but we did. And now we're back just a couple of blocks from the beach and that's it. Anchors down. We're here. It's not gonna move again. So yeah, lifeguarding was huge. I mean, huge impact on my life. The the people that I worked for and with. Um, like I said, getting up every day and going to the beach and
working in that environment, you know, among people that are just there to recreate and have fun, or that's their community identity. Um it was a good separation. I don't take it for granted anymore. I'm glad I'm back.
Uh where were you at in the Pacific Northwest?
Uh, we were on the Puget Sound just a little bit above Seattle. So I wasn't in an unsurfable area, but um I was about an hour from the nearest surf break. So I surfed in the Straits for About the first four or five years I was surfing a lot. Um it's cold, dark.
not consistent, but there's some really good waves. Um got up to Vancouver Island a few times, down to Oregon quite a bit, but I started snowboarding a lot more. It's three mountains, a little over an hour drive from my house. So I could drop my son off at 7 30 in the morning for school, hit first chair, go to one, come back, pick him up, did the Mr. Mom thing, you know, coach sports, uh, or participated in school, all that kind type of thing for a while.
Yeah, and it was it was really good, but um I I like sun. I don't like rain. More power to the people that can take that.
Yeah, I don't think I could handle that for that long myself.
I yeah, it's a it's a real thing. You gotta deal with it.
¶ Family Life and Return to Stewart's
Um, so you you pretty much did the family thing during that time.
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. I went to work for REI for a little while. That was kind of fun. Yeah, got my outdoorsy on. And um, like I said, we'd we were gonna head to Idaho where my wife's family's been for quite a few decades and work called her back down here. And uh so we actually landed Temecula and uh had a little mini horse property out there that was bitching and um COVID came.
We'd made a good clip on that house. I'd re I'd rehabilitated the property and yeah, now we're just anchored back at the beach.
And are you are you retired now? Are you still working?
No, I'm working. Um I'm back at S I work back at Stewart's. I went in about two years ago and uh Bill's daughter Ashley and her husband have taken over the business and um
I was actually in there to get a board and she's like, hey, what do what are you doing? Your wife's gonna be really pissed if you're just you know surfing trestles every day and taking naps. I said, uh, you know, I don't know. And I says, well, how about I put you on the schedule? Okay, what would you want me to do? She says, I'd just show up. So I've just been showing up the last couple of years and having a really good time watching
them run the business, watching the business grow, um, talking to people about surfing, surf forwards. That's it's really cool. It's real it's a full circle thing for me. It's it's really, really nice.
¶ Current Boards and Diverse Surfing
That is cool. Um, what kind of boards are you writing these days?
Everything. Mids, you know, I got a 7.4 that I really like, a little 7.0, kind of more high performance mid, one of our new models. And then I ride that as a quad, the wild bill. And um They've, you know, Bill's got he hot rods everything. So I've got this nine six hot rodted glider, the glide sail. I ride that as a quad too, of course. Um then I've got, you know, ten foot nose riders, nine foot tri I don't ride my nine foot trifins up.
Nine feet doesn't make sense to me anymore. But um I everything. So I I get I got I get through I get bored with surfing. Um same conditions all the time, so I gotta switch the boards up a lot.
Yeah, I think I think to stay in the water we all get like bored and things get stale. So it's it's awesome that there's so many different things and especially now with well every all different types of boards being so much more uh uh open. Like everybody's open to it. It's pretty fun.
Yeah. Yeah. And uh it's I mean kind of your point earlier is, you know, you talk about First they were eggs, then they were mini mouths, and then there were fun boards and well mini mouths are different things, but then there were fun boards and fun boards were not acceptable until you were forty-five and fat. Um now fun boards are mids and mids are cool, but all of those designs have been refined. Like so many people are making them. Like they're really good. They're, you know, you
It's not longboard or shortboard. There's everything in between. And you know, I I also did a lot of big wave riding, so I like writing longer equipment and when it gets bigger and more closed out here it makes me feel like I'm riding bigger waves. So That's really fun. Uh still head down to Baja quite a bit to the sand points and you know, ride my ten footers there and get my trim on. So that's keep trying to keep it interesting.
Yeah, I I've I've noticed for myself as well. And I think it's just part of getting older as well, but Uh we're lucky to be getting older and those m uh in between boards being more okay, more more acceptable. Because like you were saying, when it gets big, I don't think about going smaller. Like I I don't necessarily want to ride my
uh like long board anymore, but I I have like an eight foot board that pretty much works in everything as soon as it gets bigger. And I I just I just feel like I get lost when it gets bigger if I have a smaller board.
Yeah. And the bigger boards, you know, you c you chase down the the takeoff spot better. You get in earlier and deeper, which helps, you know, my takeoff Everybody's like, Oh, your pop up slows down. I I'm not really slowing down on my pop up, but my head doesn't turn as fast left or right. So I kinda gotta I wanna get in earlier, a little more a little safer. Um, I don't want to take airdrops every single time. But that kinda sets you up for a barrel too, so yeah.
Yeah. Need my needs are smaller on the ride.
Yeah, that was something for me growing up on a longboard that I always loved and appreciated was being able to get in early and like take off behind the peak and set up for the barrel off the bottom turn as opposed to uh like
Sliding into it. Uh-huh.
Yeah, it it uh i I I think spending all that time when you're younger on different equipment helps when you get older to adapt to it. You don't have to back out because you can't handle The equipment that you need to catch waves. You know, and uh for me anymore, it's like especially when it's just mushy and crummy here, it's like I wanna ride that close out all the way to the beach.
¶ The Joy of Ocean Time with Kids
'Cause I'm not riding the way with open face where I'm getting ten maneuvers. Now it's distance a ride, just so I can have the ride. And if that's what I have, that's what I have and take advantage of it keeps me in the water.
Yeah, you you realize that you know, or I did when I was younger that I was taking it for granted and Just getting out there and getting my body moving and being in the ocean, like sometimes is all I need in the morning. Like getting good waves is always better, but sometimes just the exercise and being in the ocean is is worth it.
Yeah, use it or lose it.
Yeah, exactly. Like for me when I had kids is when that really changed for me. And I was like, okay, I only have so much time, so I'm just gonna paddle out no matter what.
Yeah, but that you know, that's something that I think a lot of people Surfers, especially competitive surfers don't realize is that not every kid is going to be a young
high performance standout right off the bat and paddling out the back with you. You know, you you want your kids to have a lot of fun and be comfortable and that means surfing to their comfort level. So you're you're kind of you're sacrificing your days of God, I should be out the back or swell's huge, I should be going there, I should be, you know, doing this and
Now you're taking your kids surfing and you gotta kinda lower your expectations, your satisfaction to make sure that they're having fun and then let them explore their own limits. But you gotta be there. Yeah.
Um my kids are nine and seven and they both just started surfing during the summer and stuff and It's that's totally true, you know. Like my daughter wants to go out there and do it by herself, but she wants me to be around. And uh, you know, I gotta have send her out when it's good for her to go out, not necessarily good for me.
Right. Yeah. Oh that's that's the fun stage though. That's where, you know, progression goes fast.
I know, and when they get the bug, like I remember when I got it as a kid, and then you know, you can't be stopped.
Yeah, well, you gotta start budgeting for their boards instead of yours.
Totally. I'm gonna have to start selling some of mine.
¶ Connecting Through Surfing History
Well, Jeff, uh uh, this has been really fun and I want to thank you for your time.
Yeah, thank you. It's it's always good, you know, talking story a bit and bringing up old friends and old times. It's good for me to reflect on too and You know, it's cool that you're posting the stuff you're doing and you know, it's neat seeing comments about things that happened that long ago. I'm sure, you know.
You brought you brought up Josh, you know, I still see him every now and then, but you know, that reminds me of times we had together and it's it's fun to hear other people comment and stuff that I remember directly and people were, you know, seeing in magazines. It's pretty cool.
Yeah, it just um I I didn't really think about it before I started posting stuff, but it just seemed like it would be a fun thing to do and I had all the old magazines and videos. So I figured I would do it. And then I just realized in the midst of doing it that I was like, Oh, this is People are interested because they ha haven't seen this stuff in a long time. And either that or they hadn't seen it at all. And this is all new to them, you know. So it's been a lot of fun.
That's the best part is the new to them and hadn't seen it. You know, that was me with old surf mags when I was a little kid. And you know the that What you hadn't seen can set the pace of your sur your your character in surfing for the rest of your life. You know, you don't know it. You know, people will come up with it on their own, but if you see it and you're inspired by it, you know, you can latch onto that. That's that's pretty cool.
Yeah, and I think that's one thing that's kind of unique to longboarders. It seems like
Yeah.
we have always been A lot of longboarders have always been interested in in the history. And it seems like maybe up until just recently, um, a lot of surfers, maybe more just your average shortboarder. wasn't as into looking to the past to uh inform the future, you know. And so I think that's one thing that we were we were lucky to be longboarders and to have A lot of people ushering us in and telling us to look backwards and watch the guys uh that were came before us.
Yeah, just let'em do it their own way.
Exactly. Yeah. Take some of that information and add it into what you're doing.
Right on. Well, good times.
Yeah. Um, thanks for being on here. And uh um I you know, I say it to everybody, but it'd be cool to do it again further down the line.
Yeah, it'd be fun to do it in a group in a in a group conversation too. That'd be pretty pretty rad.
That would be cool. Um, well, all right, Jeff. You have a good rest of your night and uh thanks. Thank you once again.
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