February 19, 2013 • 49 mins
You know the Beach Boys and you've seen those Hang Ten shirts with the little feet emblem, but there's a lot more to surfing than appears on pop culture's surface. From learning how to pop up on the board to the physics of how waves form and break to the Sport of Kings' Hawai'ian origin, learn all about surfing with Chuck and Josh.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
you Stuff you should know front House, Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, and it's stuff you should know, just the
same as it always was. Huh. I guess, so how
(00:23):
you doing? I'm good like your hat. I'm ready to
hang tin, are you? That seems like probably a very
difficult thing to do, but not that great, not that cool.
Oh it's super difficult. I can imagine. Um, I don't
think it's super cool to him. It's old school. You
remember Spuds Mackenzie had that Hang twenty or hang whatever poster?
(00:45):
Do you remember Spuds Mackenzie? Well, that's all good surf
video really, according to the posters that I've seen, people
still call those dogs Spuds Mackenzie's too, after all these years. Yeah.
What kind of terriers? It's some sort of pit bull terrier,
but it's a like a Stratfordshire. I think I have
no idea it is a terrier though, for sure. Yeah,
(01:06):
because they go after rats and mailman so um, Chuck, Yes,
can you guess when the first recorded description of someone
surfing was what are you going to guess? The fifties,
the sixties, Well, I know what it is, so I'm
going to tell you again. It was seventeen seventy nine.
(01:31):
In fact, did you know that? So that was the
one you're gonna guess. That's everyone's aware. Um. So. And
it was, as you know, I guess, by a guy
named Lieutenant James King, who at the time of the
writing had just very recently become the captain of the
HMS Discovery because his captain, uh, Captain James Cook, very
(01:54):
famous explorer, um had just been killed by the Hawaiians
because he had taken the chief captive in order to
force them to return a boat because he surfed in
their waters. And localism was rough. Yeah, I guess so,
I guess so. And apparently the tradition among Hawaiians, as
far as localism goes, it was pretty serious and always
(02:15):
has been. It's always been that way. It's very stratified
out there. Um. But anyway, so James King, he first
describes this this site of people riding these long wooden boards,
catching a wave and riding it on in and um
it kind of established or set the precedent for Hawaii
(02:36):
as the originator of surfing. But what's pretty cool is
this is one of those instances where Europeans came in
eons after something had started and actually got it right
because Hawaii was an almost all likelihood the place where
surfing was born. That's right, like it had started in Polynesia.
(02:57):
They had like kind of belly boards, I think they
called them, but they didn't really ever stand up. It
was the Hawaiians who first stood up. So Hawaii is
the cradle of surfing, of modern surfing, and man did
they ever do it? Yes, they sure did and do
to this day. Yeah. Well they're carrying on a very
long turdition they are. Um. Yeah, it's like we were saying.
(03:18):
You mentioned localism, but um and I said it was
stratified out there. There were actually places in Hawaii where
if you weren't a member of the ruling class, you
didn't surf there, and if you did, you got in
huge trouble. Um. So like the the like King Kamayamaya
was a chief Hawaiian chief, very famous one. That's the
(03:40):
club that Magnum hangs out at is named the King
Kameyamaya Club. And he was noted for being like a
really great surfer. Did you know that? I did not
know that. Never heard of the guy, actually, King Kamama,
that's pretty much the only Hawaiian chief like I'd ever
heard of, probably from watching Magnum. Yeah, but he was
a great surfer. And if so, the surfing became known
(04:01):
as the sport of kings because of that, because the
chiefs um surfed and they were pretty good at it,
and their social status was um exemplified by the length
of their board. Oh yeah, which is pretty So the
longer the board, the higher status you had as a
commoner or a king. Yeah. And you could be a
(04:22):
very good surfer and not be part of the ruling class,
but you're still pretty well revered. And actually you were
called the kahuna. You're a surfing expert, so it's a
big kahuna. Yes, that was the fat surfing expert. Okay,
well it's a lot of those guys are yeah. Well yeah,
it's like one part of the world word. You can
be a big old fat guy and lay around on
the beach and you're like king Daddy and have um
(04:44):
face tattoos. How do they have those? Two? Well, the
Miori do, and I think they surf. Okay, I thought
we were talking Polynesia. Okay, I think oh man, I hope.
So so let's talk some more surfing history. Okay. Uh,
you know they were surfing big time in the late
seventeen hundreds. Uh, standing up, pushing up, doing all the
(05:07):
modern moves, while not all the modern moves because they
were pretty much long boards back then. But it was,
you know, it was a huge part of society, still is.
But they likened it in this one article too, like
baseball was in the US, how it was in Polynesia?
And uh, even though it's all just a guess how
it evolved, we have no idea really because Polynesians, uh,
(05:31):
there's really no certainty about their movement around the earth
thousands of years ago, so we're all just sort of
guessing at this point. But Mark Twain surfed, Yeah, he did.
He didn't have a very easy time with it. He
tried it at least, right, yeah, in eighteen seventies, I'm sorry,
eighteen sixty six he published in his book Roughing It.
I tried surf bathing once everything was bathing back then.
(05:53):
It's on bathing and then like, uh, I think just
bathing was when you started going into the ocean. Yeah,
even though you weren't, like, you know, washing your butt right,
because no one really bathed back then, That's sure they did.
I tried surf bathing once subsequently, but made a failure
of it. I got the board placed right and at
the right moment, too, but missed the connection myself. The
(06:16):
board struck the shore in three quarters of a second
without any cargo. I guess he was the cargo, and
I struck the bottom about the same time with a
couple of barrels of water in me. So Mark Twain's
first experience was probably like many people's first experience was surfing.
Mine included yeah and um. So Twain visits Hawaii at
(06:37):
a time where there are a lot of Americans hanging
out there, and they were growing a lot of pineapples,
and they since Hawaii wasn't a state, there are a
lot of tariffs against those pineapples, and a couple of guys,
two cousins with the last name of Dole, decided to
overthrow the Hawaiian chieftam so that they could get the
(06:58):
US to annex Hawaii and get these tariffs lifted. And
as a result of this, and missionaries coming and Cooks
people and all that the Hawaiians had dwindled from about
eight hundred thousand by the time Cook showed up to
like fort and surfing kind of went with it. The
interest windled um, but there were some people still surfing
(07:21):
right and just enough so that there was a resurgence.
When Mark Twain was doing it, it must have been
he was probably like the first, the second, I guess,
the second white guy to ever write about it. But
the third white guy, Jack London, was the one who
brought surfing into popular culture. Yeah. He visited Hawaiian nineteen
(07:42):
o seven and he hung out in one of the
One of the ways that he helped spread surfing was
just by writing about a guy named George Freithe. Yeah
he is He basically invented modern surfing. Yeah, and was
a heck of a lifeguard, as were some of the
lot of the early surfers. It seems like, yeah, we're
great swimmers, great lifeguards, great surfers. Uh. Duke Kahana Maku
(08:09):
he was a five time Olympic swimming medalist. Yeah, and
he like traveled Europe and everything and gave swimming exhibitions
and maybe the first guy to play beach volleyball too,
Is that right? Oh, he has a great restaurant. And
supposedly one of them invented the the little backboard that
like the rescue board. Oh yeah, even though that that's debated,
(08:30):
but some people I think it was freeze or freeze. Yeah. Yeah.
But he was the first dude to like stand up,
do good moves. I think his boards were shorter and all.
And this was you know, turning the century stuff, right,
like nineteen o seven nineteen twelve, when those guys were
surfing and they were surfing on like long wooden boards
(08:51):
and I mean like really long, like ten ft sixteen feet. Yeah,
like imagine trying to maneuver one of those. Well you
don't really, but they were the first one, as you said, hey,
we can kind of change these boards and make them maneuverable.
So they were the first ones to figuratively I guess
literally shape modern surfboards. Did they create the short board,
(09:11):
They started to they started to make changes to its.
It wasn't just a flat plank of wood any longer. Nice.
Uh So in the twentieth century is when the short
board came along in earnest and they added things like, uh,
they made him lighter, of course, which helps UM easier
to manage. The new shapes helped with stability, and then
(09:33):
they started missing with the fins too, which I guess
we can get to here in a minute. But the
fins make a big difference. Of course. You know, there's
a lot of a lot of stuff that the finns affect. Well,
like what I guess, we can go ahead and go there.
They impact stability, feel, drive, maneuverability, and you can have
(09:54):
all kinds of things from like a single fin to
up to five. Even though I get the impression that
five finns is a little obnoxious, kind of like training wheels. Wow,
I don't know. I think two or three fins is
what you're looking for as well. It depends what you're
trying to do. Uh. The angle of the fin is
called the toe and that's um the angle in relation
to the center of the board, So it can be cocked,
(10:15):
you know, a little diagonally or just straight on. Uh.
If it makes the board more responsive, the closer that
the front of the fin is to the center of
the board, So the closer the more it's angled, the
more responsive it's going to be. Uh. And then you
have the can't that is the angle in relation to
the bottom of the board. So if you have no can't,
(10:36):
it's just straight up and down. It's not angled at all.
It's gonna be super fast. Uh. If it's angle, it's
going to be more responsive. So it all changes depending
on how many fins and how deep they are, how
big they are, what the angle is, on how you're
going to drive this thing. Basically, Uh, it can be
foiled on both sides or have no foil. It can
(11:00):
have a rake, which is hard. How far back the
fin curves. So if it's like a super shark fan,
it's going to be different than it's if it's a
little more just straight. Small rake is faster, but again
not as maneuverable. Uh. Flex stiffness that can be really
super stiff or have more you know flex to them.
Stiffness is uh stiff. If it's it's not as forgiving.
(11:25):
But I think if you're like a better surfer, you're
gonna want it more stiff. Uh. And then you know
the base link. The smaller the base of the fin,
the tighter the turns, the height and the depth of
it's taller, it's more stable, but it's not gonna be
as maneuverable. So some of them are removable now, some
of them are set in, but they make them now,
or you can actually remove the fins, which is great
(11:46):
for traveling and storage and I guess if you just
want to mix things up a little bit. But uh, yeah,
it's there's a lot of work that goes into it's
just the fins along, that's just the fins on the bottom. Yeah,
because I always wondered until I looked into this, like
why why is that one just have one thin? Why
does that have three? Why are those fins huge? Where
are those angled? Then it all matters. It all makes
(12:07):
a difference, and it really just depends on what kind
of it's like when you're buying a car, depends on
what you're looking for. We have like the addition of fins.
You can thank like Duke and Um and George for
that at the very beginning, but they kind of popularized
surfing on the West Coast, and the West Coast took over,
(12:27):
and then about the early sixties things too, things like
Gidget and the Beach Boys. Surfing just exploded, right, and
now we have just the I guess the the change
from surfboards in nineteen twelve to two thousand twelve, and
that hundred years, it's just incredible and exponential. And then
(12:49):
it hadn't changed much for the thousand or so years
leading up to nineteen twelve, So everything is kind of
took off in the in the twentieth century. And um,
now you can basically categorize the kind of board that
you're holding or surfing on um as either a short
board or a long board, right, well, I mean yeah,
and then there's dozens of other boards within those categories.
(13:12):
But yeah, those are two big categories. So like, if
you're pretty good at surfing, you're probably going to use
a longboard, right, It depends what you're looking to do.
But like you, if you are a novice along boards
not the good one to start out on. Well, I
mean it's easier to stand up on because it's large
and more stable, and but you're just gonna you know,
(13:35):
you can't maneuver it and cut back and stuff unless
you're like super good, and it's it's I guess I
can to either like driving in the big Cadillac down
the highway or being in your little sports car. Yes,
you know which you could learn to drive on either
one of those. You learn along board. It depends what
you're after. I would be a longboard guy now would
(13:55):
In my earlier days I tried surfing, it was like
I tried the short board and well it's just that
that was the thing. But now I would get up
on the long board and to stand there like walk
up and down, hangd in do all that. Have you
ever seen one of those Frankie and the Net Beach
movies where they're surfing and they're just they are just
literally standing there with their arms out, like moving side
(14:16):
by side, and in the back it's just the green
screen behind them. And longboards you can get a couple
of people on them and two people if you're good,
and you just stand there and wave your arms. I designed,
apparently from what I've seen. So okay. So you've got longboards,
you've got short boards. You've got the fins um, the
sides of the surfboard, the rails impact how the thing moves. Um,
(14:39):
whether or not it's a curved the bottom the board,
the bottom of the board, the rocker, uh, if it's
curved or not, and how much it's curved. I imagine
um makes the board a lot more maneuverable than more
convex it is, right. Um. And then you've got longboards,
which are about nine ft long up to twelve ft long,
(14:59):
which is just crazy to me, Like you could fit
three people on. They're pretty comfortable. Yeah, I've seen like
a lot of people on a long board, like when
they do the tricks and stuff. I can't name a
number of people, but I feel like I've seen at
least four or five people get up on a long board.
And then you've got fun boards, right, they sounds like
the most fun. What's a lot? What's it on board?
(15:22):
It's kind of like in between a long board and
a short board, and U it's fun. It's best for tricks. Um,
I think if you wanna like really kind of shred
or whatever. And also I should probably say I have
no idea what I'm talking about here because I've never served.
I think people have understood that by now. But um,
the short board is obviously better for that because you can,
(15:44):
like you said, you can shred the wave, right, Uh,
But in a longboard's harder to maneuver unless you're really
really good at it. Um. But a funboard just kind
of falls in between those two, Like you can kind
of rest and relax and just stand there if you want,
but you can also maneuver. Right, that's my impression of
the fun board. I have to look into it. I've
never heard of the fun board. Oh you had and
(16:05):
I had? Really, Yeah, I really genuinely have, believe you
one thing, I did know what I was talking about.
Uh So back in the day, they were all made
of wood. Um. Now you can still get wooden surfboards.
In fact, I think a lot of the purest you
can still get, like those sweet handmade wooden surfboards, but
(16:26):
mostly these days they're gonna be what's called popouts, uh,
mass manufacturer. They pop out of a factory mold where
they get the name, and they're either polystyrene or poly
your athane, covered in fiberglass and resin and um. But
you can still act, you know, hand make those two. Obviously,
you can get kits or you can pay, you know,
thousands of dollars for some dude in California or Hawaii
(16:50):
to hand shape your own sweet little board. Yeah, Tracy said.
The surfboards cost between a hundred and fifty and five dollars.
I think that's when you're shopping on Amazon dot com. Yeah, yeah,
I found some that were pretty awesome for less than
a thousand. I mean, like the vast majority or less
than a thousand. Hours kind of surprised because I thought
(17:10):
she was way off, but she wouldn't off by that much. No,
And I think that you can spend over a thousand
like anything. If you get like the sweet dude right
hand makes him and he's done for it, you're gonna
pay pretty buny. But I mean, like I even came
across one. I was Proctor Surfboards, and they do custom boards,
and even those were like less than a thousand. It's
pretty neat. That's nice because that makes it an egalitarian sport.
(17:34):
You think so a little I'd say this is a
little pricing. Um, it definitely is, but I'm saying, at
least it's not like the gap between the the poor
man surfboard and the rich man surfboard is not ten
thousand dollars, it's thousand. Yeah, yeah, that's that's what I mean. Yeah,
(17:55):
you can easily be priced out of it, but you
can still get a decent surfboard for what a couple
hundred bucks? Yeah, I had I bought a surfboard for
fifty bucks that I just kept for in college because
I thought it was cool to have in the corner
of my living room and I took at the beach
couple of times and it sucked. Did your bedroom look
like a pottery barnteen catalog scene. I've never seen that.
They frequently have surfboards like like stood up in the corner. No,
(18:19):
it was just Chuck's silliness in the day. So did
you say that stuff made of polyurethane. Yeah, and it's
covered in a resin I did, and fiberglass, which makes
it light. It makes it brilliant. But I can also
imagine that if you get hit by one of these things,
it hurts bad. Yeah. I mean they're they're lightweight, but
it's just you whack somebody in the head with it,
(18:41):
or if you get stabbed with it. You know, they're
sharp on the front and sometimes on the back. I
would never buy a sharp surfboard. I'd just be afraid
of it. What would you do. I get one that's
more rounded. You get a boogie board, which we'll get
it an inner tube. Um, okay, so you got your
off board. Another really important thing that you have to
(19:04):
have you have to have all this other stuff um
aside from the leash is kind of superfluous. It's nice.
It's an add on. You have to have wax because
polyurethane resin bound surface tends to be slick, especially when
you're standing on it in the water, and you can
use wax to basically create like a traction surface. Yeah,
(19:28):
for your feet, it helps for sure. And they're also
that like completely slick on top, like where you stand,
they'll have like, you know, the I don't know what's
not sand paper or maybe the sand paper Okay, I
was wondering glashed into it to help out a little bit,
but not always. Again, surfers are very particular about what
they like and what they don't like, and they're all
(19:48):
sorts of choices. And is is dr zog sex wax
like the wax or is that just the wax that
guys like me you've heard of. I'm sure that was
the stuff that we wore as teenagers. Like that's like
saying was was it was the guy the Sun Damila
and guy Panama Jack. It's like saying was Panama Jack
like the lotion of Choice. I think it's sort of
(20:11):
like that, but Panama Jack was the lotion of choice.
Was really the t shirt of choice for sure? Yeah,
rolled up sleeves. Yeah. So board shorts. Tracy Wilson wrote this.
Tracy points out board shorts are sturdy your versions of
swim trunks. I didn't know that. I guess they're beefed up. Well,
they have they have a tie, so it's not just
(20:33):
like um elastic. Yeah, is that the difference. It's got
a it's got a strong tie. They usually don't have elastic. Um. Yeah,
all right, and they are sturdy. Yeah. I just think
they don't come off as easy. I think they're designed
not to be. Could that'd be embarrassing, rash best Um,
those are just like the little short sleeve um Oakley
(20:55):
shirt that you wear that keeps your and she she
says it helps a bit chafing with impact with the water.
Maybe true, but if you've ever been on a surfboard,
your chest it gets a little chaped as well from
the sand and stuff like that, so that protects you there.
And then of course wet suits when you're cold or
if you're in the Pacific Ocean, which you know usually
(21:17):
year round, they're wearing wet suits up there. Yeah, I
guess the wet suits probably not superfluous. I mean, depending
on where you're surfing, you have to wear a wet
suit and you're either regular surfle or your goofy foot,
which means which foot do you put forward? If you
put your left foot forward and your right foot back,
it's just standard. And then if you turn around and
put your left foot back, you're known as a goofy foot.
(21:39):
Same with the skateboarding too. Yeah, and I don't know
if well surfing led to skateboarding. Some say I think
it directly led to skateboarding. Uh. And I don't know
if that's a slag to call someone a goofy foot
or to be a goofy foot or not. I think
it probably was originally, but so many people skate or
surf goofy foot know it's just like a term. It
(22:01):
had to be a slide because they would have called
it like a cool foot or something if it was
like super cool to do it that way, or if
like a really popular guy named Tom had done it,
they'd be like, well it's Tom footed. Well, wherever you
put your your foot in the rear, that's the one
you want to have. The lesha attached to and that
is not superfluous either. You want to have your board
(22:21):
attached to your ankle because if you fly off, you
don't want to have to go swimming too far to
get it sure. And it also can you know if
it's attached to your foot and you're having trouble, you
can grab hold of your surfboard. And it's another good
reason to help save yourself perhaps. So how do you
learn to surf? Josh? It's uh. I think one of
those things that it's easy to learn how but very
(22:45):
very difficult to master and it takes tons of practice.
And I want to also I want to give a
shout out um too too. We got a lot of
that history from a site, from an article written by
a guy named Ben Marcus, and the article is called
from Polynesia with Love, Good Stuff stuff Uh. And then
um the surfing handbook dot com has this whole section
(23:06):
called Beginners Surfing Tips, and they have everything you need
to know. They're so friendly and like one of the
one of the things that they just kind of put
out is like this mantras, like just go into this
whole thing knowing that you're not going to be good
right away. That you're going to fail, and it's like,
just try not to get frustrated. And certainly if you
(23:27):
start to get so frustrated that you don't want to
surfing more, they say, like, take a break, like it's
supposed to be fun. It's sure, you don't get so uptight,
and just basically don't come in like you're going to
just be a champ right away. Takes tons of practice,
and a lot of the practice starts on land, like
practicing the pop up. Yeah, I had the opposite experience
that you described, which was easy to do, hard to master.
(23:49):
I had a really tough time doing it at all.
Yeah I did. And everyone in my little group that
had never done it, like, we none of us could
stand up on that first day at all. Well then,
oh yeah, yeah, I think on um, I mean like
if you're just looking at it on paper and thinking
about what you have to do, that that's not that
much to it. It's like, but being able to do
(24:10):
it mastering it too, Yeah, I can imagine um, and
it will be for me too eventually. You can try it. Sure.
So basically, when I say it's kind of easy, there's
just a few steps. Basically you want to swim out.
You paddle out on your stomach to um the breakers. Right,
(24:32):
and this is where the waves are starting to turn
into white caps. They're breaking. Um. And when you get
to this line where is it where all the surfers
hang out, what's it called the lineup? That's where all
the surfers just hanging out waiting for the wave, right,
talking philosophy and music and how to beat up people
(24:55):
who shouldn't be there. You want to go in a
curve because you don't want to get beat up up
and you want to avoid the waves, and you just
basically it'll make it easier to paddle out there. Um.
And it's easier than not get beat up from getting
in another surf's way. So when you get out to
the lineup and you're I'm starting to catch your wave,
you want to be facing the shore and as a
(25:17):
as a wave starts to swell, as a swell comes
in and starts to break, you want to be right
on top of or right in front of it, right,
And you're paddling really fast trying to catch the wave.
As they say, yes, I think that's even in bold
um and uh right, as the right before the way
starts a break, or right as it starts to break,
like maybe to your right or to your left, you
(25:40):
do what's called the pop up. Right, You do like
a push up, and then you pop your feet underneath you,
and now you're standing and you can apparently, right, well
that's the that's the process, and you can apparently like
get onto your knees and then get onto your feet
and it can work. But apparently, like don't want to
(26:00):
learn to do that because it's a really bad habit
and it's going to keep you from really surfing. Well, right,
So what you want to do is push up with
your with your hands and then put your feet underneath
you and stayd up and kind of a crouching position,
and now you're surfing a sideways, yeah, crouching position. And
then that's it. That's all there is to it. Yeah. Yeah.
My favorite part when I tried it with back in
(26:23):
college and stuff was when you're sitting out there with
the other dudes and there aren't there's no surfing involved,
when you're just like sitting there feeling cool, bobbing up
and down with the surfing guys. Right. I used to
like that a lot, a lot of standing around and
talking just sitting down on the skateboard called dimple butt
because of the grip tape eventually would just kind of
(26:46):
form a little pattern in your butt. You actually ride
at the skateboard sitting down, you're just sitting there talking,
talking shop with the other thrashers. Yeah, so when you're
going out, you mentioned, you know, you to go out
in a curve and not like go with this thing
straight on. If you've never done this in and you
don't have anyone teaching you how, it can be very
(27:08):
frustrating because you will paddle out and the wave will
bring you back into shore over and over and over,
and then eventually you're just gonna go to the beach
bar with your surfboard looking cool. But what you want
to do is what's called the duck dive, and that
is as the and this is on a short board,
as the wave approaches before it's like cresting and falling
(27:28):
on you. You just want to push down on the
board and go through the wave and come out on
the other side. And if you do this right a
couple of times, then you'll be behind where the waves
are breaking and you're all good to go. You're you're
maneuvering yourself out of the way of most of the
force of the wave. Yeah, and it's the duck dive.
I think they call it that. You actually roll upside down.
(27:50):
And what's called the turtle roll with a long board.
But I bet you can duck dive with a long board.
Maybe not, I don't know. I wonder about that. But yeah,
with the turtle role, you roll underneath the board and
then pull the nose down, right. Yeah, that's the turtle role.
Duck dick sounds easier, turtle roll sounds more fun. I've
never been on along board. I should try that. Um.
(28:11):
So let's talk about waves, man. This is see that's
funny because I'm kind of like we're finally at a
point where I know what I'm talking about. Yeah, the
physics of waves, right, so um yeah, you can't surf
without waves. And if you really want to surf, man,
you have to understand what you're dealing with, like what
you're writing. You know, if you're going to shred a
(28:34):
half pipe, you better understand the physics of wood, right,
So if you're gonna hit the bonds I pipeline and
and by the way, we were talking about duck diving
and all that. For these huge mavericks, like you know
near San Francisco at Princeton by the sea the Bonds
Eye Pipeline, most of these dudes and ladies are being
towed by like a jet ski because they're just too big.
(28:56):
You can't be like, see that fifty ft wave. I'm
just gonna duck dive. You will be uh duck comfi
if that happens, right, Yeah, you get towed out there
by like a personal watercraft. Right. So we're just gonna
cover what you know, your average West Coast surfing waves. Okay,
so if you're if you're out to sea and some
(29:18):
wind suddenly whips up, you're probably gonna see some white caps, right,
which is like basically like froth, just the water being
batted around by the wind. But there's also gonna be
a little crests that form, right, and these crests, uh
give the wind a little more service area to work with.
And all of a sudden you have what is called
(29:41):
a um peak, yes um, and this peak starts to
travel away from the direction of the wind. Now we're
not talking about just like a nice little breeze or something.
We're talking like hurricanes typically to form a good sized wave,
but any wind could conceivably create a wave. Right, Yes,
So when this peak starts to travel away from the
(30:03):
from the wind, it actually expends a little bit of
its energy and it goes from this kind of choppy
wave to this nice rounded thing called the swell. It
doesn't look like there's much to it. The reason it
doesn't look like there's much to it is because it's
actually really deep at that point. Right. So you get
a bunch of these swells lined up. Um, as they
(30:24):
get closer and closer to shore, and the they start
to make contact with land at the bottom, the ones
in front start to slow a little bit, the ones
that back started to catch up, and sometimes they combine
into large swells. Right, that's right. And as these are like, yeah,
they get together essentially going in the same direction and say, hey,
(30:45):
come on, let's make a let's make a big wave.
And it's called constructive interference as far as wave physics goes. Right, Um,
what's cool is if you look at a wave from
the side, it looks like just like what's called a
transverse wave, like something like you're looking an e G
or something. It's the wave length that the trough and
the crest are up and down, but they're moving from
(31:08):
left to right or whatever. Left right. Yeah, But really
what a wave is doing is actually an orbital wave
where all of this motion is actually making a circle
as it moves along. Right. These are the molecules actually. Yeah.
But if but you could, you can make a you
could make an animation where you could trace the movement
(31:29):
of the waves and it'd be like this, this kind
of big circle that goes from the back of the
wave to the crest into the trough and then back
down again right right. So, um, that's that's a wave.
And as it gets closer to the shore, um, it
starts to slow down. And when when it hits land,
(31:51):
the force of land or the immovability of land and
the force of the wave combined to push the wave
upward above the water surface. And then the run of
the wave starts to slow before the back of the wave,
which means you have a wave breaking because the back
crashes over the front, and if you have a really
steep bit of land, you're gonna have a really steep
(32:13):
um crash. It's going to form a barrel or a
hollow wave. If the slope of the land that the
wave runs into, the swell runs into. Because a little
more gradual, you're gonna have what's called a crumbling wave
that just kind of breaks slowly in in in a
kind of a nice gentle pattern. Yeah, it's what happens
when water meets land. So if you've ever seen a wave,
(32:34):
you know, a hundred feet out in the ocean, it
means that there's some sort of shallow reef right there
making that happen. Yeah, because a wave is about one
point six times it's um depth. The height of a
wave is right, or it's it's depth is one point
six times it's height. But yeah, but I mean if
you're riding a six ft wave, which has a lot
(32:55):
of power to it, that's still only what less than
ten ft of water that you're dealing with out there.
That's a lot of water, Yeah, it is, But I mean,
like that's still pretty shallow and you can hit the
bottom surfing, I think is the point. Yeah, absolutely, Um,
And you know that the the shape of the land
under the ocean makes a big difference and what kind
(33:16):
of waves you're gonna get, obviously, So that's why the
surfing like really good surf spots in the world are
super limited, Like, you can't man make this stuff. They've tried, Yeah,
but come on, I mean that's stuff that's lame. Um,
it's all mother nature, dude. So the best surf spots
in the world are few and far between, especially if
(33:39):
you're looking for the big giant daddies. There's only a
few spots on Earth that you can encounter those, right, So,
wind obviously pays a big difference, not just in the
formation of the wave but in how it blows on
shore offshore. What you're looking for ideally is a gentle
offshore wind blowing towards the wave. Uh, if you're blowing
if it's an onshore in coming from the ocean towards
(34:02):
the beach, um, it can be a little rougher to
deal with as a surfer. So well, at days, with
the gentle offshore wind, that's when the surfers hear that
on the radio, they get up early, go out there
at daybreak. Is that the best time to surf daybreak? Well,
I mean there's all different times, but yeah, or maybe
that has something to do too with well, not with
people just having to go to work. But I used
(34:23):
to see people on the pch all the time, like
super early morning and then in the evenings. That's pretty cool. Yeah,
but maybe it has something to do with the best
waves too, because you know, surfers will blow off work
if it the best waves. A written in bro, That's
when I'm going. I've seen Summer School and UM Fast
Times at Ridgemont High. I'm familiar with surfing. UM, so
(34:46):
we were talking about UM. I thought that I don't
think either one that's actually had any surfing. Did they
really did? Really? Sure? They talked really Summer School definitely
had shots like establishing shots surfing. UM, I don't know
if they actually showed any and Fast Times in Richmond High.
They're in the valley. There wasn't many waves, but Spaccoli
of course was. It was a surfer. Yeah. Well and
(35:09):
at the end, you know that that was the great ending.
He rescued uh, Mick Jagger from drowning while Surfing's the
little interview with Stu and what do you do? Hired
Van Halen to play his birthday party. I know he
won some sort of competition. Well, the competition was saving
Mick Jagger's life. Huh. No, he has like a trophy
(35:29):
or something and the dream sequence. Um, okay, so we're
talking about we're talking about the power of waves, right.
Did you know that a cubic meter a cubic yard
basically a cubic meter of water. That's not much man,
we're talking like this, that weighs a ton. What do
(35:49):
you mean it weighs a ton. It weighs um two
thousand two pounds. So if you took a box that
big and put water in it, it would weigh two
thousand pounds. Yes, yes, at four degrees celsius. It's very
specific because you remember from the metric episode, like they
calibrate like that. But yes, it weighs a metric ton.
(36:10):
A cubic meter weighs of metric ton, when like a
gallon of milk just weighs like a couple of pounds.
I don't know. I looked it up, though, I swear
I looked it up, and I actually double looked it up.
I was like, because I thought the same thing. It
seems like a lot um. But yes, there weighs a
lot of Yeah. So um, when that's when that comes
(36:32):
crashing down on you. It's kind of a thing, and
there's different kinds of wipeouts, but apparently the worst kind
of wipe out, which I think Tracy described as falling
off of your surfboard. His called going over the falls
and it's on one of those hollow barrel waves right,
are just very very powerful because they hit land really
(36:52):
quick and break really quick, and when you get caught
in the lip that part where it's breaking at the top,
it trips you up and basically throws you right in
front of the wave at the trough, so you have
like the full force of the way just doing this
orbital wave right over you. You're You're like in a
washing machine at that point. So falling in, falling off
(37:13):
your board, wiping out is one danger. Yeah, we should
probably talk about surfing dangers. I want to alert people
to these things because they're out there. Have you ever
been caught up in in a wave like that? Yeah?
It's scary man. Well, and you feel completely helpless like
mother nature has got me and is throwing me around
(37:33):
like a little rag doll and I am completely helpless
to do anything about it, and then feel like you're six.
It does no matter how old you are, And if
you're six, boy, that's really scary. Um So riptides are
dangerous and that's one of the things that is at
play there. Uh, that is the water returning to the sea,
and that retreating water can be a fast moving current
(37:55):
to take you really far out to see before you
know it. So they advise you. You know, I've always
heard like swim uh uh perpendicular way, parallel, parallel, always
get this confused to to avoid the rip current. It's
been perpendicular to the shore, away from the shore until
you pass out. Uh, So that can be kind of scary,
(38:16):
the pull of the rip current. Um. You can also
hit stuff underwater. Like we said, if a waves out there,
whatever its height is I think times one point six
that's how deep the water is. So you can very easily,
especially in a heavy wave, get thrown to the bottom.
You can get thrown on a coral reef or hit
by another board. Yeah, which brings us to um etiquette.
(38:40):
Surfing etiquette. There's because it can be very dangerous to
run into people and because you know, really great surf
spots are few and far between, that means that there's
often a lot of people out there. So there's there's
kind of two informal rules of catching a wave of
who gets precedent, right, Um, I guess first one up
(39:01):
or first one or closest to the break that gives
you the right of way. Yeah, and everybody else has
to get out of your way. And if they don't,
what happens to them? Well, people, if you're in a
nicer area, people might say, hey, bro, that's not too cool.
Here's how it's done. Or they might just drag you
(39:22):
to the beach and kick the crap out of you
and break your board and throw it in the back
of your car and put you in that car. That
happens and what Regardless of what beach experience you have,
they're probably gonna call you a kok too, what a kuk?
That's somebody who doesn't follow surfing. I bet you'll hear
other words too, But I'll bet cooks in there. So
(39:45):
are we at localism? I wrote an article why do
surfers have gangs? And it's a thing, and it has
been a thing for a long time. I know most
people think of surfers is like thiss in spouting, easy going, uh,
philosophical beach dudes, and a lot of them are like that,
but um, a lot of them are not. Surfing has
(40:06):
been tied to violence over territory for many, many years.
And that is because, like we said, there are only
so many surf spots in the world, and when dudes
like you and me get all excited to go try
it out, we're taking the limited amount of space and
waves that exists for them. That's why I'm going to
(40:26):
try and Dubai first, and Dubai a wave machine. Now
you should, I think if you're taking a class or something,
they know to go to a place where you teach
classes and everyone else knows don't go anywhere near the classes.
So that's a good thing to do. Um. But surf
gangs has been around for decades, and localism since the
(40:47):
seventies is gotten kind of bad in some areas, and
the boogie board was a big reason why, because all
of a sudden, this thing was invented for all these
little kids to go out there and they can ride
waves without any experience or technique or skill whatsoever. And
they don't know the rules and they don't care, uh,
and their parents don't care as long as they're not
in their hair on the beach. So thanks to the
(41:10):
boogie board, the violence picked up in the seventies and
there are well established surf gangs, even though you won't
hear them call that. Yeah, the wolf Pack in Hawaii
on the North shore of Hawaii. They're they're just a family,
but they can also be pretty violent. Um. Russell Crowe
did a narrated a documentary called bra Boys Blood is
(41:32):
Thicker Than Water about Australia's Braa Boys and they were
some tough dudes since the nineteen sixties. Who have some
of which have spent time in and out of jail. Uh,
the Averton brothers in fact, I think one of the
Aberton brothers made the documentary. But if you ask them,
you know they're just protecting their area and something sacred
to them. Yeah, don't don't be a cock. Southern California, No,
(41:55):
San Diego has long been noted for localism, right, Yeah,
I didn't know that. Um, the Silver Strand locals to
SSL and the ox Nard Shore locals San Diego. No,
those aren't the pier Point rats um in the eighties
and ninetieses or just some of the notorious surf gangs
that you know they have run ins with cops. Some
of people have been beaten to death. In two thousand
(42:17):
seven in Lahoya, a surfer was beaten to death. Hawaiian
surfer was killed in a fight in two thousand eight.
So this stuff happens. And um, if you go out
to surf, just don't don't be scared. You know, like
these people are gonna hurt me. But it's definitely cool
to to try and ingratiate yourself somewhat. Bring them maybe like, um,
(42:39):
some home bake cookies or something out to the lineup,
ask questions. There's probably some nice guys would be like, hey, dude,
which you should probably do this and steer clear of
the red hot chili peppers. You ever run across them
in a lineup, you want to get away because they
are bad dudes. As far as surf gangs go, is
that a real surf gang? Don't you remember in Point Rake?
(43:01):
What what were they the They were like a surf gang.
They were like the rival surf gang that they're in
the movie. I don't think I knew that. Yeah, but
that was early on for them. That must have been
their formative days. That was in the eighties, um or
early nineties. Was that early nineties it was maybe like
he directed that was Katherine Bigelow, that was one of
(43:22):
her first movies. I didn't know that. Yeah, that was
a great movie, so we should point out Tracy points
out that surfing it's pretty cool. Not many sports have
spawned a musical genre and a film film genre like
surfing has You know, there's not a lot of songs
about basketball outside of I guess Graay, Maaster Flash and
maybe run DMC. But people aren't writing songs about football
(43:48):
or croquet. There's no croquet songs, but if they are
there from like the yeah, not good surf music was
a huge thing, though it still is in a lot
of circles. Uh. And then of course the movie's point break,
what's your favorite? Have you ever seen Big Wednesday? No
good movie? Have you seen Surf Nazis Must Die? I
have not? That's a good one? Is it? Is there
(44:09):
actually surfing in it? Yeah? Yeah, there's a lot of
fights on surfboards and yeah, people shooting one anothers on surfboards.
And Big Wednesday is a classic. Blue Crush is a
more recent one that covers the ladies and um, Emily
loves that movie, by the way. And then there's some
great documentaries, the Old Endless Summer movie that was really great,
(44:31):
And then Endless Summer two was not bad. And then
there's recently more recently, Stacy Prolton made a one called
Writing Giants, which is awesome anothere called Step into Liquid,
which is really cool too. Yeah, I think that's like
number two or something like that, and like the best
after Endless Summer. Yeah, well in the summer night stuff
was cool, but that was like old school, and today
(44:54):
they have the technology to like get inside the tube
and go underwater, and it's like the footage that gets
pretty amazing. It's very thank you, go pro Ah, you
got anything else? Nope? Cool. I can't wait for you
to try it. That's the next thing in this podcast
is for you to report back of your experience. Okay,
I will go. I think be good. You'll you'll you know,
(45:15):
if you spend a day or two, you'll be able
to get up and go like, hey, I'm surfing, look
at me, I'm Frankie Internet. But I mean it's crazy
what you're doing though. You are standing on top of
a plank of fiberglass on the writing water. Yeah, you
know it ain't easy. No, I'm sure it's not. Yeah,
and uh, I already can just feel my ankles can
(45:38):
banged up on surfboard. Do you have good balance? Are
you good at stuff like skateboarding? And I'm not so
bad with balance surprisingly for my size. I'm I'm I
can stand up on like one leg that's balanced. Yeah,
it'll be okay, you're able to surf a little bit.
It'll be fun. I'm not. I'm gonna go in there
with an attitude suggested by the Surf Guide have fun. Yeah,
(46:00):
it's gonna be fun. Yeah. I'm not one of those
people that gets all aggravated. If I can't do something
like that, you don't get agro bro. No man, no, wait,
what's the point I quit doing it before I got aggravated.
Well that's good. That's how it helped more quitter than
I am. Aggro Um. Do you want to learn about surfing?
And I mean like pretty decent amount about surfing? You
can type that word into the search bar at how
(46:21):
stuff works dot com. And I said search bar. So
it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this
uh black museum. Yeah. Remember we talked about that in
the death Mask Eupside. I still want to go. I
was really hoping somebody would write in and be like
I can actually get you in there. No one did, no,
(46:41):
but I bet if we really pushed for it, we could. Well,
let's start pushing lots of about hands and the name.
All right, guys, just got done listening to your show
on Death Mass. I heard you mentioned the Black Museum
and you said they should make a movie about it.
I instantly had a flashback of listening to a radio
show by the same name when I was a team.
Although it was in the early nineties. My local AM
radio news station I would air old radio dramas in
(47:03):
the late evening and I would tune in occasionally. One
of my favorites was The Black Museum. I went and
looked it up. It was. The Black Museum was one
radio crime drama based on real life cases from the
files of Scotland Yards. Black Museum. Orson Welles was both
host and narrator for stories of horror and mystery. Uh
(47:23):
So the show would open with Orson Wells speaking from
London Big Ben chimes, and then the Black Museum with
the pository of death here in the grim Stone structure
on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard in a warehouse
of homicide where everyday objects a woman shoe, a tiny
white box, a quilted robe. All are touched by murder.
(47:45):
So that sounds pretty cool. I mean and Orson Wells
to like him saying things like that for sure, Chuck
Bryant saying something doesn't have the impact of an Orson
Wells's uh so there you guys. Maybe someday, uh, somebody
will make a TV show about it or a movie.
And for now you can go on the internet and
listen to the old episodes gip do you want of them?
And all. So that's awesome, big fan, looking forward to
(48:09):
seeing your TV show soon. That is Dan from San Diego,
which I believe means whales. No, it doesn't. What does
san Diego mean? Uh, it means sat Diego. That's right
in Spanish. I would not quote Anchorman and ruin this
g rated podcast. Um, if you have some I guess
(48:32):
additional information for something that we've talked about, or if
you can get us into the Black Museum, we want
you to get in touch with us. You can tweak
to us at s Y s K podcast. You can
join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know.
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
Discovery dot com, or you can hang out with us
online at our House Stuff you Should Know dot com.
(49:00):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how Stuff Works dot com. Brought to you by Toyota.
Let's Go Places
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
you Stuff you should know front House, Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, and it's stuff you should know, just the
same as it always was. Huh. I guess, so how
(00:23):
you doing? I'm good like your hat. I'm ready to
hang tin, are you? That seems like probably a very
difficult thing to do, but not that great, not that cool.
Oh it's super difficult. I can imagine. Um, I don't
think it's super cool to him. It's old school. You
remember Spuds Mackenzie had that Hang twenty or hang whatever poster?
(00:45):
Do you remember Spuds Mackenzie? Well, that's all good surf
video really, according to the posters that I've seen, people
still call those dogs Spuds Mackenzie's too, after all these years. Yeah.
What kind of terriers? It's some sort of pit bull terrier,
but it's a like a Stratfordshire. I think I have
no idea it is a terrier though, for sure. Yeah,
(01:06):
because they go after rats and mailman so um, Chuck, Yes,
can you guess when the first recorded description of someone
surfing was what are you going to guess? The fifties,
the sixties, Well, I know what it is, so I'm
going to tell you again. It was seventeen seventy nine.
(01:31):
In fact, did you know that? So that was the
one you're gonna guess. That's everyone's aware. Um. So. And
it was, as you know, I guess, by a guy
named Lieutenant James King, who at the time of the
writing had just very recently become the captain of the
HMS Discovery because his captain, uh, Captain James Cook, very
(01:54):
famous explorer, um had just been killed by the Hawaiians
because he had taken the chief captive in order to
force them to return a boat because he surfed in
their waters. And localism was rough. Yeah, I guess so,
I guess so. And apparently the tradition among Hawaiians, as
far as localism goes, it was pretty serious and always
(02:15):
has been. It's always been that way. It's very stratified
out there. Um. But anyway, so James King, he first
describes this this site of people riding these long wooden boards,
catching a wave and riding it on in and um
it kind of established or set the precedent for Hawaii
(02:36):
as the originator of surfing. But what's pretty cool is
this is one of those instances where Europeans came in
eons after something had started and actually got it right
because Hawaii was an almost all likelihood the place where
surfing was born. That's right, like it had started in Polynesia.
(02:57):
They had like kind of belly boards, I think they
called them, but they didn't really ever stand up. It
was the Hawaiians who first stood up. So Hawaii is
the cradle of surfing, of modern surfing, and man did
they ever do it? Yes, they sure did and do
to this day. Yeah. Well they're carrying on a very
long turdition they are. Um. Yeah, it's like we were saying.
(03:18):
You mentioned localism, but um and I said it was
stratified out there. There were actually places in Hawaii where
if you weren't a member of the ruling class, you
didn't surf there, and if you did, you got in
huge trouble. Um. So like the the like King Kamayamaya
was a chief Hawaiian chief, very famous one. That's the
(03:40):
club that Magnum hangs out at is named the King
Kameyamaya Club. And he was noted for being like a
really great surfer. Did you know that? I did not
know that. Never heard of the guy, actually, King Kamama,
that's pretty much the only Hawaiian chief like I'd ever
heard of, probably from watching Magnum. Yeah, but he was
a great surfer. And if so, the surfing became known
(04:01):
as the sport of kings because of that, because the
chiefs um surfed and they were pretty good at it,
and their social status was um exemplified by the length
of their board. Oh yeah, which is pretty So the
longer the board, the higher status you had as a
commoner or a king. Yeah. And you could be a
(04:22):
very good surfer and not be part of the ruling class,
but you're still pretty well revered. And actually you were
called the kahuna. You're a surfing expert, so it's a
big kahuna. Yes, that was the fat surfing expert. Okay,
well it's a lot of those guys are yeah. Well yeah,
it's like one part of the world word. You can
be a big old fat guy and lay around on
the beach and you're like king Daddy and have um
(04:44):
face tattoos. How do they have those? Two? Well, the
Miori do, and I think they surf. Okay, I thought
we were talking Polynesia. Okay, I think oh man, I hope.
So so let's talk some more surfing history. Okay. Uh,
you know they were surfing big time in the late
seventeen hundreds. Uh, standing up, pushing up, doing all the
(05:07):
modern moves, while not all the modern moves because they
were pretty much long boards back then. But it was,
you know, it was a huge part of society, still is.
But they likened it in this one article too, like
baseball was in the US, how it was in Polynesia?
And uh, even though it's all just a guess how
it evolved, we have no idea really because Polynesians, uh,
(05:31):
there's really no certainty about their movement around the earth
thousands of years ago, so we're all just sort of
guessing at this point. But Mark Twain surfed, Yeah, he did.
He didn't have a very easy time with it. He
tried it at least, right, yeah, in eighteen seventies, I'm sorry,
eighteen sixty six he published in his book Roughing It.
I tried surf bathing once everything was bathing back then.
(05:53):
It's on bathing and then like, uh, I think just
bathing was when you started going into the ocean. Yeah,
even though you weren't, like, you know, washing your butt right,
because no one really bathed back then, That's sure they did.
I tried surf bathing once subsequently, but made a failure
of it. I got the board placed right and at
the right moment, too, but missed the connection myself. The
(06:16):
board struck the shore in three quarters of a second
without any cargo. I guess he was the cargo, and
I struck the bottom about the same time with a
couple of barrels of water in me. So Mark Twain's
first experience was probably like many people's first experience was surfing.
Mine included yeah and um. So Twain visits Hawaii at
(06:37):
a time where there are a lot of Americans hanging
out there, and they were growing a lot of pineapples,
and they since Hawaii wasn't a state, there are a
lot of tariffs against those pineapples, and a couple of guys,
two cousins with the last name of Dole, decided to
overthrow the Hawaiian chieftam so that they could get the
(06:58):
US to annex Hawaii and get these tariffs lifted. And
as a result of this, and missionaries coming and Cooks
people and all that the Hawaiians had dwindled from about
eight hundred thousand by the time Cook showed up to
like fort and surfing kind of went with it. The
interest windled um, but there were some people still surfing
(07:21):
right and just enough so that there was a resurgence.
When Mark Twain was doing it, it must have been
he was probably like the first, the second, I guess,
the second white guy to ever write about it. But
the third white guy, Jack London, was the one who
brought surfing into popular culture. Yeah. He visited Hawaiian nineteen
(07:42):
o seven and he hung out in one of the
One of the ways that he helped spread surfing was
just by writing about a guy named George Freithe. Yeah
he is He basically invented modern surfing. Yeah, and was
a heck of a lifeguard, as were some of the
lot of the early surfers. It seems like, yeah, we're
great swimmers, great lifeguards, great surfers. Uh. Duke Kahana Maku
(08:09):
he was a five time Olympic swimming medalist. Yeah, and
he like traveled Europe and everything and gave swimming exhibitions
and maybe the first guy to play beach volleyball too,
Is that right? Oh, he has a great restaurant. And
supposedly one of them invented the the little backboard that
like the rescue board. Oh yeah, even though that that's debated,
(08:30):
but some people I think it was freeze or freeze. Yeah. Yeah.
But he was the first dude to like stand up,
do good moves. I think his boards were shorter and all.
And this was you know, turning the century stuff, right,
like nineteen o seven nineteen twelve, when those guys were
surfing and they were surfing on like long wooden boards
(08:51):
and I mean like really long, like ten ft sixteen feet. Yeah,
like imagine trying to maneuver one of those. Well you
don't really, but they were the first one, as you said, hey,
we can kind of change these boards and make them maneuverable.
So they were the first ones to figuratively I guess
literally shape modern surfboards. Did they create the short board,
(09:11):
They started to they started to make changes to its.
It wasn't just a flat plank of wood any longer. Nice.
Uh So in the twentieth century is when the short
board came along in earnest and they added things like, uh,
they made him lighter, of course, which helps UM easier
to manage. The new shapes helped with stability, and then
(09:33):
they started missing with the fins too, which I guess
we can get to here in a minute. But the
fins make a big difference. Of course. You know, there's
a lot of a lot of stuff that the finns affect. Well,
like what I guess, we can go ahead and go there.
They impact stability, feel, drive, maneuverability, and you can have
(09:54):
all kinds of things from like a single fin to
up to five. Even though I get the impression that
five finns is a little obnoxious, kind of like training wheels. Wow,
I don't know. I think two or three fins is
what you're looking for as well. It depends what you're
trying to do. Uh. The angle of the fin is
called the toe and that's um the angle in relation
to the center of the board, So it can be cocked,
(10:15):
you know, a little diagonally or just straight on. Uh.
If it makes the board more responsive, the closer that
the front of the fin is to the center of
the board, So the closer the more it's angled, the
more responsive it's going to be. Uh. And then you
have the can't that is the angle in relation to
the bottom of the board. So if you have no can't,
(10:36):
it's just straight up and down. It's not angled at all.
It's gonna be super fast. Uh. If it's angle, it's
going to be more responsive. So it all changes depending
on how many fins and how deep they are, how
big they are, what the angle is, on how you're
going to drive this thing. Basically, Uh, it can be
foiled on both sides or have no foil. It can
(11:00):
have a rake, which is hard. How far back the
fin curves. So if it's like a super shark fan,
it's going to be different than it's if it's a
little more just straight. Small rake is faster, but again
not as maneuverable. Uh. Flex stiffness that can be really
super stiff or have more you know flex to them.
Stiffness is uh stiff. If it's it's not as forgiving.
(11:25):
But I think if you're like a better surfer, you're
gonna want it more stiff. Uh. And then you know
the base link. The smaller the base of the fin,
the tighter the turns, the height and the depth of
it's taller, it's more stable, but it's not gonna be
as maneuverable. So some of them are removable now, some
of them are set in, but they make them now,
or you can actually remove the fins, which is great
(11:46):
for traveling and storage and I guess if you just
want to mix things up a little bit. But uh, yeah,
it's there's a lot of work that goes into it's
just the fins along, that's just the fins on the bottom. Yeah,
because I always wondered until I looked into this, like
why why is that one just have one thin? Why
does that have three? Why are those fins huge? Where
are those angled? Then it all matters. It all makes
(12:07):
a difference, and it really just depends on what kind
of it's like when you're buying a car, depends on
what you're looking for. We have like the addition of fins.
You can thank like Duke and Um and George for
that at the very beginning, but they kind of popularized
surfing on the West Coast, and the West Coast took over,
(12:27):
and then about the early sixties things too, things like
Gidget and the Beach Boys. Surfing just exploded, right, and
now we have just the I guess the the change
from surfboards in nineteen twelve to two thousand twelve, and
that hundred years, it's just incredible and exponential. And then
(12:49):
it hadn't changed much for the thousand or so years
leading up to nineteen twelve, So everything is kind of
took off in the in the twentieth century. And um,
now you can basically categorize the kind of board that
you're holding or surfing on um as either a short
board or a long board, right, well, I mean yeah,
and then there's dozens of other boards within those categories.
(13:12):
But yeah, those are two big categories. So like, if
you're pretty good at surfing, you're probably going to use
a longboard, right, It depends what you're looking to do.
But like you, if you are a novice along boards
not the good one to start out on. Well, I
mean it's easier to stand up on because it's large
and more stable, and but you're just gonna you know,
(13:35):
you can't maneuver it and cut back and stuff unless
you're like super good, and it's it's I guess I
can to either like driving in the big Cadillac down
the highway or being in your little sports car. Yes,
you know which you could learn to drive on either
one of those. You learn along board. It depends what
you're after. I would be a longboard guy now would
(13:55):
In my earlier days I tried surfing, it was like
I tried the short board and well it's just that
that was the thing. But now I would get up
on the long board and to stand there like walk
up and down, hangd in do all that. Have you
ever seen one of those Frankie and the Net Beach
movies where they're surfing and they're just they are just
literally standing there with their arms out, like moving side
(14:16):
by side, and in the back it's just the green
screen behind them. And longboards you can get a couple
of people on them and two people if you're good,
and you just stand there and wave your arms. I designed,
apparently from what I've seen. So okay. So you've got longboards,
you've got short boards. You've got the fins um, the
sides of the surfboard, the rails impact how the thing moves. Um,
(14:39):
whether or not it's a curved the bottom the board,
the bottom of the board, the rocker, uh, if it's
curved or not, and how much it's curved. I imagine
um makes the board a lot more maneuverable than more
convex it is, right. Um. And then you've got longboards,
which are about nine ft long up to twelve ft long,
(14:59):
which is just crazy to me, Like you could fit
three people on. They're pretty comfortable. Yeah, I've seen like
a lot of people on a long board, like when
they do the tricks and stuff. I can't name a
number of people, but I feel like I've seen at
least four or five people get up on a long board.
And then you've got fun boards, right, they sounds like
the most fun. What's a lot? What's it on board?
(15:22):
It's kind of like in between a long board and
a short board, and U it's fun. It's best for tricks. Um,
I think if you wanna like really kind of shred
or whatever. And also I should probably say I have
no idea what I'm talking about here because I've never served.
I think people have understood that by now. But um,
the short board is obviously better for that because you can,
(15:44):
like you said, you can shred the wave, right, Uh,
But in a longboard's harder to maneuver unless you're really
really good at it. Um. But a funboard just kind
of falls in between those two, Like you can kind
of rest and relax and just stand there if you want,
but you can also maneuver. Right, that's my impression of
the fun board. I have to look into it. I've
never heard of the fun board. Oh you had and
(16:05):
I had? Really, Yeah, I really genuinely have, believe you
one thing, I did know what I was talking about.
Uh So back in the day, they were all made
of wood. Um. Now you can still get wooden surfboards.
In fact, I think a lot of the purest you
can still get, like those sweet handmade wooden surfboards, but
(16:26):
mostly these days they're gonna be what's called popouts, uh,
mass manufacturer. They pop out of a factory mold where
they get the name, and they're either polystyrene or poly
your athane, covered in fiberglass and resin and um. But
you can still act, you know, hand make those two. Obviously,
you can get kits or you can pay, you know,
thousands of dollars for some dude in California or Hawaii
(16:50):
to hand shape your own sweet little board. Yeah, Tracy said.
The surfboards cost between a hundred and fifty and five dollars.
I think that's when you're shopping on Amazon dot com. Yeah, yeah,
I found some that were pretty awesome for less than
a thousand. I mean, like the vast majority or less
than a thousand. Hours kind of surprised because I thought
(17:10):
she was way off, but she wouldn't off by that much. No,
And I think that you can spend over a thousand
like anything. If you get like the sweet dude right
hand makes him and he's done for it, you're gonna
pay pretty buny. But I mean, like I even came
across one. I was Proctor Surfboards, and they do custom boards,
and even those were like less than a thousand. It's
pretty neat. That's nice because that makes it an egalitarian sport.
(17:34):
You think so a little I'd say this is a
little pricing. Um, it definitely is, but I'm saying, at
least it's not like the gap between the the poor
man surfboard and the rich man surfboard is not ten
thousand dollars, it's thousand. Yeah, yeah, that's that's what I mean. Yeah,
(17:55):
you can easily be priced out of it, but you
can still get a decent surfboard for what a couple
hundred bucks? Yeah, I had I bought a surfboard for
fifty bucks that I just kept for in college because
I thought it was cool to have in the corner
of my living room and I took at the beach
couple of times and it sucked. Did your bedroom look
like a pottery barnteen catalog scene. I've never seen that.
They frequently have surfboards like like stood up in the corner. No,
(18:19):
it was just Chuck's silliness in the day. So did
you say that stuff made of polyurethane. Yeah, and it's
covered in a resin I did, and fiberglass, which makes
it light. It makes it brilliant. But I can also
imagine that if you get hit by one of these things,
it hurts bad. Yeah. I mean they're they're lightweight, but
it's just you whack somebody in the head with it,
(18:41):
or if you get stabbed with it. You know, they're
sharp on the front and sometimes on the back. I
would never buy a sharp surfboard. I'd just be afraid
of it. What would you do. I get one that's
more rounded. You get a boogie board, which we'll get
it an inner tube. Um, okay, so you got your
off board. Another really important thing that you have to
(19:04):
have you have to have all this other stuff um
aside from the leash is kind of superfluous. It's nice.
It's an add on. You have to have wax because
polyurethane resin bound surface tends to be slick, especially when
you're standing on it in the water, and you can
use wax to basically create like a traction surface. Yeah,
(19:28):
for your feet, it helps for sure. And they're also
that like completely slick on top, like where you stand,
they'll have like, you know, the I don't know what's
not sand paper or maybe the sand paper Okay, I
was wondering glashed into it to help out a little bit,
but not always. Again, surfers are very particular about what
they like and what they don't like, and they're all
(19:48):
sorts of choices. And is is dr zog sex wax
like the wax or is that just the wax that
guys like me you've heard of. I'm sure that was
the stuff that we wore as teenagers. Like that's like
saying was was it was the guy the Sun Damila
and guy Panama Jack. It's like saying was Panama Jack
like the lotion of Choice. I think it's sort of
(20:11):
like that, but Panama Jack was the lotion of choice.
Was really the t shirt of choice for sure? Yeah,
rolled up sleeves. Yeah. So board shorts. Tracy Wilson wrote this.
Tracy points out board shorts are sturdy your versions of
swim trunks. I didn't know that. I guess they're beefed up. Well,
they have they have a tie, so it's not just
(20:33):
like um elastic. Yeah, is that the difference. It's got
a it's got a strong tie. They usually don't have elastic. Um. Yeah,
all right, and they are sturdy. Yeah. I just think
they don't come off as easy. I think they're designed
not to be. Could that'd be embarrassing, rash best Um,
those are just like the little short sleeve um Oakley
(20:55):
shirt that you wear that keeps your and she she
says it helps a bit chafing with impact with the water.
Maybe true, but if you've ever been on a surfboard,
your chest it gets a little chaped as well from
the sand and stuff like that, so that protects you there.
And then of course wet suits when you're cold or
if you're in the Pacific Ocean, which you know usually
(21:17):
year round, they're wearing wet suits up there. Yeah, I
guess the wet suits probably not superfluous. I mean, depending
on where you're surfing, you have to wear a wet
suit and you're either regular surfle or your goofy foot,
which means which foot do you put forward? If you
put your left foot forward and your right foot back,
it's just standard. And then if you turn around and
put your left foot back, you're known as a goofy foot.
(21:39):
Same with the skateboarding too. Yeah, and I don't know
if well surfing led to skateboarding. Some say I think
it directly led to skateboarding. Uh. And I don't know
if that's a slag to call someone a goofy foot
or to be a goofy foot or not. I think
it probably was originally, but so many people skate or
surf goofy foot know it's just like a term. It
(22:01):
had to be a slide because they would have called
it like a cool foot or something if it was
like super cool to do it that way, or if
like a really popular guy named Tom had done it,
they'd be like, well it's Tom footed. Well, wherever you
put your your foot in the rear, that's the one
you want to have. The lesha attached to and that
is not superfluous either. You want to have your board
(22:21):
attached to your ankle because if you fly off, you
don't want to have to go swimming too far to
get it sure. And it also can you know if
it's attached to your foot and you're having trouble, you
can grab hold of your surfboard. And it's another good
reason to help save yourself perhaps. So how do you
learn to surf? Josh? It's uh. I think one of
those things that it's easy to learn how but very
(22:45):
very difficult to master and it takes tons of practice.
And I want to also I want to give a
shout out um too too. We got a lot of
that history from a site, from an article written by
a guy named Ben Marcus, and the article is called
from Polynesia with Love, Good Stuff stuff Uh. And then
um the surfing handbook dot com has this whole section
(23:06):
called Beginners Surfing Tips, and they have everything you need
to know. They're so friendly and like one of the
one of the things that they just kind of put
out is like this mantras, like just go into this
whole thing knowing that you're not going to be good
right away. That you're going to fail, and it's like,
just try not to get frustrated. And certainly if you
(23:27):
start to get so frustrated that you don't want to
surfing more, they say, like, take a break, like it's
supposed to be fun. It's sure, you don't get so uptight,
and just basically don't come in like you're going to
just be a champ right away. Takes tons of practice,
and a lot of the practice starts on land, like
practicing the pop up. Yeah, I had the opposite experience
that you described, which was easy to do, hard to master.
(23:49):
I had a really tough time doing it at all.
Yeah I did. And everyone in my little group that
had never done it, like, we none of us could
stand up on that first day at all. Well then,
oh yeah, yeah, I think on um, I mean like
if you're just looking at it on paper and thinking
about what you have to do, that that's not that
much to it. It's like, but being able to do
(24:10):
it mastering it too, Yeah, I can imagine um, and
it will be for me too eventually. You can try it. Sure.
So basically, when I say it's kind of easy, there's
just a few steps. Basically you want to swim out.
You paddle out on your stomach to um the breakers. Right,
(24:32):
and this is where the waves are starting to turn
into white caps. They're breaking. Um. And when you get
to this line where is it where all the surfers
hang out, what's it called the lineup? That's where all
the surfers just hanging out waiting for the wave, right,
talking philosophy and music and how to beat up people
(24:55):
who shouldn't be there. You want to go in a
curve because you don't want to get beat up up
and you want to avoid the waves, and you just
basically it'll make it easier to paddle out there. Um.
And it's easier than not get beat up from getting
in another surf's way. So when you get out to
the lineup and you're I'm starting to catch your wave,
you want to be facing the shore and as a
(25:17):
as a wave starts to swell, as a swell comes
in and starts to break, you want to be right
on top of or right in front of it, right,
And you're paddling really fast trying to catch the wave.
As they say, yes, I think that's even in bold
um and uh right, as the right before the way
starts a break, or right as it starts to break,
like maybe to your right or to your left, you
(25:40):
do what's called the pop up. Right, You do like
a push up, and then you pop your feet underneath you,
and now you're standing and you can apparently, right, well
that's the that's the process, and you can apparently like
get onto your knees and then get onto your feet
and it can work. But apparently, like don't want to
(26:00):
learn to do that because it's a really bad habit
and it's going to keep you from really surfing. Well, right,
So what you want to do is push up with
your with your hands and then put your feet underneath
you and stayd up and kind of a crouching position,
and now you're surfing a sideways, yeah, crouching position. And
then that's it. That's all there is to it. Yeah. Yeah.
My favorite part when I tried it with back in
(26:23):
college and stuff was when you're sitting out there with
the other dudes and there aren't there's no surfing involved,
when you're just like sitting there feeling cool, bobbing up
and down with the surfing guys. Right. I used to
like that a lot, a lot of standing around and
talking just sitting down on the skateboard called dimple butt
because of the grip tape eventually would just kind of
(26:46):
form a little pattern in your butt. You actually ride
at the skateboard sitting down, you're just sitting there talking,
talking shop with the other thrashers. Yeah, so when you're
going out, you mentioned, you know, you to go out
in a curve and not like go with this thing
straight on. If you've never done this in and you
don't have anyone teaching you how, it can be very
(27:08):
frustrating because you will paddle out and the wave will
bring you back into shore over and over and over,
and then eventually you're just gonna go to the beach
bar with your surfboard looking cool. But what you want
to do is what's called the duck dive, and that
is as the and this is on a short board,
as the wave approaches before it's like cresting and falling
(27:28):
on you. You just want to push down on the
board and go through the wave and come out on
the other side. And if you do this right a
couple of times, then you'll be behind where the waves
are breaking and you're all good to go. You're you're
maneuvering yourself out of the way of most of the
force of the wave. Yeah, and it's the duck dive.
I think they call it that. You actually roll upside down.
(27:50):
And what's called the turtle roll with a long board.
But I bet you can duck dive with a long board.
Maybe not, I don't know. I wonder about that. But yeah,
with the turtle role, you roll underneath the board and
then pull the nose down, right. Yeah, that's the turtle role.
Duck dick sounds easier, turtle roll sounds more fun. I've
never been on along board. I should try that. Um.
(28:11):
So let's talk about waves, man. This is see that's
funny because I'm kind of like we're finally at a
point where I know what I'm talking about. Yeah, the
physics of waves, right, so um yeah, you can't surf
without waves. And if you really want to surf, man,
you have to understand what you're dealing with, like what
you're writing. You know, if you're going to shred a
(28:34):
half pipe, you better understand the physics of wood, right,
So if you're gonna hit the bonds I pipeline and
and by the way, we were talking about duck diving
and all that. For these huge mavericks, like you know
near San Francisco at Princeton by the sea the Bonds
Eye Pipeline, most of these dudes and ladies are being
towed by like a jet ski because they're just too big.
(28:56):
You can't be like, see that fifty ft wave. I'm
just gonna duck dive. You will be uh duck comfi
if that happens, right, Yeah, you get towed out there
by like a personal watercraft. Right. So we're just gonna
cover what you know, your average West Coast surfing waves. Okay,
so if you're if you're out to sea and some
(29:18):
wind suddenly whips up, you're probably gonna see some white caps, right,
which is like basically like froth, just the water being
batted around by the wind. But there's also gonna be
a little crests that form, right, and these crests, uh
give the wind a little more service area to work with.
And all of a sudden you have what is called
(29:41):
a um peak, yes um, and this peak starts to
travel away from the direction of the wind. Now we're
not talking about just like a nice little breeze or something.
We're talking like hurricanes typically to form a good sized wave,
but any wind could conceivably create a wave. Right, Yes,
So when this peak starts to travel away from the
(30:03):
from the wind, it actually expends a little bit of
its energy and it goes from this kind of choppy
wave to this nice rounded thing called the swell. It
doesn't look like there's much to it. The reason it
doesn't look like there's much to it is because it's
actually really deep at that point. Right. So you get
a bunch of these swells lined up. Um, as they
(30:24):
get closer and closer to shore, and the they start
to make contact with land at the bottom, the ones
in front start to slow a little bit, the ones
that back started to catch up, and sometimes they combine
into large swells. Right, that's right. And as these are like, yeah,
they get together essentially going in the same direction and say, hey,
(30:45):
come on, let's make a let's make a big wave.
And it's called constructive interference as far as wave physics goes. Right, Um,
what's cool is if you look at a wave from
the side, it looks like just like what's called a
transverse wave, like something like you're looking an e G
or something. It's the wave length that the trough and
the crest are up and down, but they're moving from
(31:08):
left to right or whatever. Left right. Yeah, But really
what a wave is doing is actually an orbital wave
where all of this motion is actually making a circle
as it moves along. Right. These are the molecules actually. Yeah.
But if but you could, you can make a you
could make an animation where you could trace the movement
(31:29):
of the waves and it'd be like this, this kind
of big circle that goes from the back of the
wave to the crest into the trough and then back
down again right right. So, um, that's that's a wave.
And as it gets closer to the shore, um, it
starts to slow down. And when when it hits land,
(31:51):
the force of land or the immovability of land and
the force of the wave combined to push the wave
upward above the water surface. And then the run of
the wave starts to slow before the back of the wave,
which means you have a wave breaking because the back
crashes over the front, and if you have a really
steep bit of land, you're gonna have a really steep
(32:13):
um crash. It's going to form a barrel or a
hollow wave. If the slope of the land that the
wave runs into, the swell runs into. Because a little
more gradual, you're gonna have what's called a crumbling wave
that just kind of breaks slowly in in in a
kind of a nice gentle pattern. Yeah, it's what happens
when water meets land. So if you've ever seen a wave,
(32:34):
you know, a hundred feet out in the ocean, it
means that there's some sort of shallow reef right there
making that happen. Yeah, because a wave is about one
point six times it's um depth. The height of a
wave is right, or it's it's depth is one point
six times it's height. But yeah, but I mean if
you're riding a six ft wave, which has a lot
(32:55):
of power to it, that's still only what less than
ten ft of water that you're dealing with out there.
That's a lot of water, Yeah, it is, But I mean,
like that's still pretty shallow and you can hit the
bottom surfing, I think is the point. Yeah, absolutely, Um,
And you know that the the shape of the land
under the ocean makes a big difference and what kind
(33:16):
of waves you're gonna get, obviously, So that's why the
surfing like really good surf spots in the world are
super limited, Like, you can't man make this stuff. They've tried, Yeah,
but come on, I mean that's stuff that's lame. Um,
it's all mother nature, dude. So the best surf spots
in the world are few and far between, especially if
(33:39):
you're looking for the big giant daddies. There's only a
few spots on Earth that you can encounter those, right, So,
wind obviously pays a big difference, not just in the
formation of the wave but in how it blows on
shore offshore. What you're looking for ideally is a gentle
offshore wind blowing towards the wave. Uh, if you're blowing
if it's an onshore in coming from the ocean towards
(34:02):
the beach, um, it can be a little rougher to
deal with as a surfer. So well, at days, with
the gentle offshore wind, that's when the surfers hear that
on the radio, they get up early, go out there
at daybreak. Is that the best time to surf daybreak? Well,
I mean there's all different times, but yeah, or maybe
that has something to do too with well, not with
people just having to go to work. But I used
(34:23):
to see people on the pch all the time, like
super early morning and then in the evenings. That's pretty cool. Yeah,
but maybe it has something to do with the best
waves too, because you know, surfers will blow off work
if it the best waves. A written in bro, That's
when I'm going. I've seen Summer School and UM Fast
Times at Ridgemont High. I'm familiar with surfing. UM, so
(34:46):
we were talking about UM. I thought that I don't
think either one that's actually had any surfing. Did they
really did? Really? Sure? They talked really Summer School definitely
had shots like establishing shots surfing. UM, I don't know
if they actually showed any and Fast Times in Richmond High.
They're in the valley. There wasn't many waves, but Spaccoli
of course was. It was a surfer. Yeah. Well and
(35:09):
at the end, you know that that was the great ending.
He rescued uh, Mick Jagger from drowning while Surfing's the
little interview with Stu and what do you do? Hired
Van Halen to play his birthday party. I know he
won some sort of competition. Well, the competition was saving
Mick Jagger's life. Huh. No, he has like a trophy
(35:29):
or something and the dream sequence. Um, okay, so we're
talking about we're talking about the power of waves, right.
Did you know that a cubic meter a cubic yard
basically a cubic meter of water. That's not much man,
we're talking like this, that weighs a ton. What do
(35:49):
you mean it weighs a ton. It weighs um two
thousand two pounds. So if you took a box that
big and put water in it, it would weigh two
thousand pounds. Yes, yes, at four degrees celsius. It's very
specific because you remember from the metric episode, like they
calibrate like that. But yes, it weighs a metric ton.
(36:10):
A cubic meter weighs of metric ton, when like a
gallon of milk just weighs like a couple of pounds.
I don't know. I looked it up, though, I swear
I looked it up, and I actually double looked it up.
I was like, because I thought the same thing. It
seems like a lot um. But yes, there weighs a
lot of Yeah. So um, when that's when that comes
(36:32):
crashing down on you. It's kind of a thing, and
there's different kinds of wipeouts, but apparently the worst kind
of wipe out, which I think Tracy described as falling
off of your surfboard. His called going over the falls
and it's on one of those hollow barrel waves right,
are just very very powerful because they hit land really
(36:52):
quick and break really quick, and when you get caught
in the lip that part where it's breaking at the top,
it trips you up and basically throws you right in
front of the wave at the trough, so you have
like the full force of the way just doing this
orbital wave right over you. You're You're like in a
washing machine at that point. So falling in, falling off
(37:13):
your board, wiping out is one danger. Yeah, we should
probably talk about surfing dangers. I want to alert people
to these things because they're out there. Have you ever
been caught up in in a wave like that? Yeah?
It's scary man. Well, and you feel completely helpless like
mother nature has got me and is throwing me around
(37:33):
like a little rag doll and I am completely helpless
to do anything about it, and then feel like you're six.
It does no matter how old you are, And if
you're six, boy, that's really scary. Um So riptides are
dangerous and that's one of the things that is at
play there. Uh, that is the water returning to the sea,
and that retreating water can be a fast moving current
(37:55):
to take you really far out to see before you
know it. So they advise you. You know, I've always
heard like swim uh uh perpendicular way, parallel, parallel, always
get this confused to to avoid the rip current. It's
been perpendicular to the shore, away from the shore until
you pass out. Uh, So that can be kind of scary,
(38:16):
the pull of the rip current. Um. You can also
hit stuff underwater. Like we said, if a waves out there,
whatever its height is I think times one point six
that's how deep the water is. So you can very easily,
especially in a heavy wave, get thrown to the bottom.
You can get thrown on a coral reef or hit
by another board. Yeah, which brings us to um etiquette.
(38:40):
Surfing etiquette. There's because it can be very dangerous to
run into people and because you know, really great surf
spots are few and far between, that means that there's
often a lot of people out there. So there's there's
kind of two informal rules of catching a wave of
who gets precedent, right, Um, I guess first one up
(39:01):
or first one or closest to the break that gives
you the right of way. Yeah, and everybody else has
to get out of your way. And if they don't,
what happens to them? Well, people, if you're in a
nicer area, people might say, hey, bro, that's not too cool.
Here's how it's done. Or they might just drag you
(39:22):
to the beach and kick the crap out of you
and break your board and throw it in the back
of your car and put you in that car. That
happens and what Regardless of what beach experience you have,
they're probably gonna call you a kok too, what a kuk?
That's somebody who doesn't follow surfing. I bet you'll hear
other words too, But I'll bet cooks in there. So
(39:45):
are we at localism? I wrote an article why do
surfers have gangs? And it's a thing, and it has
been a thing for a long time. I know most
people think of surfers is like thiss in spouting, easy going, uh,
philosophical beach dudes, and a lot of them are like that,
but um, a lot of them are not. Surfing has
(40:06):
been tied to violence over territory for many, many years.
And that is because, like we said, there are only
so many surf spots in the world, and when dudes
like you and me get all excited to go try
it out, we're taking the limited amount of space and
waves that exists for them. That's why I'm going to
(40:26):
try and Dubai first, and Dubai a wave machine. Now
you should, I think if you're taking a class or something,
they know to go to a place where you teach
classes and everyone else knows don't go anywhere near the classes.
So that's a good thing to do. Um. But surf
gangs has been around for decades, and localism since the
(40:47):
seventies is gotten kind of bad in some areas, and
the boogie board was a big reason why, because all
of a sudden, this thing was invented for all these
little kids to go out there and they can ride
waves without any experience or technique or skill whatsoever. And
they don't know the rules and they don't care, uh,
and their parents don't care as long as they're not
in their hair on the beach. So thanks to the
(41:10):
boogie board, the violence picked up in the seventies and
there are well established surf gangs, even though you won't
hear them call that. Yeah, the wolf Pack in Hawaii
on the North shore of Hawaii. They're they're just a family,
but they can also be pretty violent. Um. Russell Crowe
did a narrated a documentary called bra Boys Blood is
(41:32):
Thicker Than Water about Australia's Braa Boys and they were
some tough dudes since the nineteen sixties. Who have some
of which have spent time in and out of jail. Uh,
the Averton brothers in fact, I think one of the
Aberton brothers made the documentary. But if you ask them,
you know they're just protecting their area and something sacred
to them. Yeah, don't don't be a cock. Southern California, No,
(41:55):
San Diego has long been noted for localism, right, Yeah,
I didn't know that. Um, the Silver Strand locals to
SSL and the ox Nard Shore locals San Diego. No,
those aren't the pier Point rats um in the eighties
and ninetieses or just some of the notorious surf gangs
that you know they have run ins with cops. Some
of people have been beaten to death. In two thousand
(42:17):
seven in Lahoya, a surfer was beaten to death. Hawaiian
surfer was killed in a fight in two thousand eight.
So this stuff happens. And um, if you go out
to surf, just don't don't be scared. You know, like
these people are gonna hurt me. But it's definitely cool
to to try and ingratiate yourself somewhat. Bring them maybe like, um,
(42:39):
some home bake cookies or something out to the lineup,
ask questions. There's probably some nice guys would be like, hey, dude,
which you should probably do this and steer clear of
the red hot chili peppers. You ever run across them
in a lineup, you want to get away because they
are bad dudes. As far as surf gangs go, is
that a real surf gang? Don't you remember in Point Rake?
(43:01):
What what were they the They were like a surf gang.
They were like the rival surf gang that they're in
the movie. I don't think I knew that. Yeah, but
that was early on for them. That must have been
their formative days. That was in the eighties, um or
early nineties. Was that early nineties it was maybe like
he directed that was Katherine Bigelow, that was one of
(43:22):
her first movies. I didn't know that. Yeah, that was
a great movie, so we should point out Tracy points
out that surfing it's pretty cool. Not many sports have
spawned a musical genre and a film film genre like
surfing has You know, there's not a lot of songs
about basketball outside of I guess Graay, Maaster Flash and
maybe run DMC. But people aren't writing songs about football
(43:48):
or croquet. There's no croquet songs, but if they are
there from like the yeah, not good surf music was
a huge thing, though it still is in a lot
of circles. Uh. And then of course the movie's point break,
what's your favorite? Have you ever seen Big Wednesday? No
good movie? Have you seen Surf Nazis Must Die? I
have not? That's a good one? Is it? Is there
(44:09):
actually surfing in it? Yeah? Yeah, there's a lot of
fights on surfboards and yeah, people shooting one anothers on surfboards.
And Big Wednesday is a classic. Blue Crush is a
more recent one that covers the ladies and um, Emily
loves that movie, by the way. And then there's some
great documentaries, the Old Endless Summer movie that was really great,
(44:31):
And then Endless Summer two was not bad. And then
there's recently more recently, Stacy Prolton made a one called
Writing Giants, which is awesome anothere called Step into Liquid,
which is really cool too. Yeah, I think that's like
number two or something like that, and like the best
after Endless Summer. Yeah, well in the summer night stuff
was cool, but that was like old school, and today
(44:54):
they have the technology to like get inside the tube
and go underwater, and it's like the footage that gets
pretty amazing. It's very thank you, go pro Ah, you
got anything else? Nope? Cool. I can't wait for you
to try it. That's the next thing in this podcast
is for you to report back of your experience. Okay,
I will go. I think be good. You'll you'll you know,
(45:15):
if you spend a day or two, you'll be able
to get up and go like, hey, I'm surfing, look
at me, I'm Frankie Internet. But I mean it's crazy
what you're doing though. You are standing on top of
a plank of fiberglass on the writing water. Yeah, you
know it ain't easy. No, I'm sure it's not. Yeah,
and uh, I already can just feel my ankles can
(45:38):
banged up on surfboard. Do you have good balance? Are
you good at stuff like skateboarding? And I'm not so
bad with balance surprisingly for my size. I'm I'm I
can stand up on like one leg that's balanced. Yeah,
it'll be okay, you're able to surf a little bit.
It'll be fun. I'm not. I'm gonna go in there
with an attitude suggested by the Surf Guide have fun. Yeah,
(46:00):
it's gonna be fun. Yeah. I'm not one of those
people that gets all aggravated. If I can't do something
like that, you don't get agro bro. No man, no, wait,
what's the point I quit doing it before I got aggravated.
Well that's good. That's how it helped more quitter than
I am. Aggro Um. Do you want to learn about surfing?
And I mean like pretty decent amount about surfing? You
can type that word into the search bar at how
(46:21):
stuff works dot com. And I said search bar. So
it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this
uh black museum. Yeah. Remember we talked about that in
the death Mask Eupside. I still want to go. I
was really hoping somebody would write in and be like
I can actually get you in there. No one did, no,
(46:41):
but I bet if we really pushed for it, we could. Well,
let's start pushing lots of about hands and the name.
All right, guys, just got done listening to your show
on Death Mass. I heard you mentioned the Black Museum
and you said they should make a movie about it.
I instantly had a flashback of listening to a radio
show by the same name when I was a team.
Although it was in the early nineties. My local AM
radio news station I would air old radio dramas in
(47:03):
the late evening and I would tune in occasionally. One
of my favorites was The Black Museum. I went and
looked it up. It was. The Black Museum was one
radio crime drama based on real life cases from the
files of Scotland Yards. Black Museum. Orson Welles was both
host and narrator for stories of horror and mystery. Uh
(47:23):
So the show would open with Orson Wells speaking from
London Big Ben chimes, and then the Black Museum with
the pository of death here in the grim Stone structure
on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard in a warehouse
of homicide where everyday objects a woman shoe, a tiny
white box, a quilted robe. All are touched by murder.
(47:45):
So that sounds pretty cool. I mean and Orson Wells
to like him saying things like that for sure, Chuck
Bryant saying something doesn't have the impact of an Orson
Wells's uh so there you guys. Maybe someday, uh, somebody
will make a TV show about it or a movie.
And for now you can go on the internet and
listen to the old episodes gip do you want of them?
And all. So that's awesome, big fan, looking forward to
(48:09):
seeing your TV show soon. That is Dan from San Diego,
which I believe means whales. No, it doesn't. What does
san Diego mean? Uh, it means sat Diego. That's right
in Spanish. I would not quote Anchorman and ruin this
g rated podcast. Um, if you have some I guess
(48:32):
additional information for something that we've talked about, or if
you can get us into the Black Museum, we want
you to get in touch with us. You can tweak
to us at s Y s K podcast. You can
join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know.
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
Discovery dot com, or you can hang out with us
online at our House Stuff you Should Know dot com.
(49:00):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how Stuff Works dot com. Brought to you by Toyota.
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