I have seen “Downhill Racer” and I agree with you. Are there any surf films that you like?
Tons of hardcore surf films, sure, usually just for the surfing. I liked Kai Neville’s “Dear Surburbia,” from last year, mainly for the Japan footage, which has Dane Reynolds and John John Florence just on fire. “Splinters,” a documentary by Adam Pesce, also from last year, about surfing in New Guinea, is really strange and good. The conflicts that erupt around surfing in the film are so tense, so painful, so real, they’re almost unwatchable.
What about surf literature? Are there any books, fiction or non-fiction, that you admire?
I love leafing through Matt Warshaw’s great reference books–The Encyclopedia of Surfing and The History of Surfing. He also wrote a good coffee-table-style book about big waves called Maverick’s. Leonard Leuras’s Surfing: The Ultimate Pleasure is a solid illustrated history, though it’s pretty dated now. The best surfing memoir I’ve read is Thad Ziolkowski’s On a Wave.
Are you able to squeeze in surf sessions when out of the country on writing assignments?
Yes, if there are waves, usually. In the last couple of years, I’ve managed to surf during breaks from reporting in Madagascar, Australia, and Fiji. I sometimes find myself on coasts that look promising but where I can’t find a board. That’s happened in Somalia and Mozambique.
You’ve done extensive investigation and writing on the drug war in Mexico. Would you advise against driving down to Baja for a surf trip?
No. I still go camping in Baja. We no longer drive some stretches at night that we used to, but I’m not sure those security problems are related to organized crime, which is what I’ve mainly written about in Mexico. The bad guys on the roads are not working for the cartels.
Do you envision the drug conflict affecting surf tourism in other places in Central America like Costa Rica?
I don’t know Costa Rica well, but I was in Matapalo last year, and it seemed as safe as ever. The Caribbean coast might be more affected. With drug trafficking, everything depends on the stability of the agreements between the different smuggling groups and the authorities. If they’re cool with each other, it’s cool. Nobody in the trade wants to hurt tourists or tourism. Nicaragua and El Salvador have actually gotten much safer over time. I haven’t surfed El Salvador since the civil war, when Libertad was fairly safe (and uncrowded), but the whole eastern part of the coast was a guerrilla-controlled no-go area. That’s all open now, of course, and the waves look good. I haven’t been there yet. Half of your readers probably have, though.
I’ve read that you’re working on a surf memoir. How’s that going?
Okay. It’s supposed to come out next year. I need a title. And an ending. The story starts in Hawaii where I went to junior high and ran with a bad little haole gang and was the only kid at my local spot with a drop-knee cutback. Then it moves through all these places where I lived and surfed—L.A., the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, San Francisco. It’s mainly about complicated friendships, most of them consummated, so to speak, through surfing. I know it ends in New York, but I haven’t nailed that chapter yet. Maybe I’m waiting for something to happen.
What boards are you riding these days?
Whatever Kelly Slater’s riding, I try to ride. So I’m struggling along right now on a 5’4” Fred Rubble 5-fin carbon-flex-strip thing. I hope he breaks out something else for Tahiti. Not really. I have a bunch of boards ranging from a crummy Chinese retro fish to a great old 8’0” Brewer gun. I actually needed the gun this March in Puerto Rico, which was a treat. I wish I had a longboard for these terrible Long Island summer days, but it’s too much trouble to lug one around, at least if you live in Manhattan. I last owned a longboard in 1968 before they suddenly went out of style. My travel board now is a 7’2” Rusty quad. I snapped its predecessor twice last summer at Puerto Escondido, but it goes so well that I got an identical replacement. My step-up from that board is a 7’3” Owl Chapman swallowtail thruster that’s slightly thicker and goes really fast.
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