By now you have almost certainly heard of HBO’s Momentum Generation. Much like William Finnegan’s Pulitzer-winning Barbarian Days, it’s an example of what can happen when the larger non-surfing world takes a good hard look at surfing. When real professionals pull back the curtain, the show is often much better than when the surf industry does it. Although the surfers that Momentum Generation focusses on shaped the future of surfing and became heroes to a generation, they all had heroes of their own. One of those heroes was, of course, Tom Curren—it was he that influenced the influencers in those early days. Above is Curren’s section from Taylor Steele’s One Step Beyond, which was released in 1990, prior to Momentum, and it’s a wonderful reminder of exactly why Curren is a living legend.
