On the 11th episode, the guys discuss an eventful week that included a pigeon intruding Brad’s apartment, a unicorn sighting on South Beach during Storm Riley, and upcoming events to celebrate the life of a dear friend, Malaka. We explore the evolution of surf movies and delve into ‘dressing like a surfer.’ For the first time, Caleb joins the ‘cast to share his perspective on surfer style.
This episode includes:
- Weekly Local Happenings
- Surf Report/Forecast
- The Surf Movie
- How to Dress Like a Surfer
Transcript
Brad: [00:00:00] This is March 23rd, the 11th episode of Talk Story. Talking story all the time. I can’t believe we made it this far.
Chris: Cheers to you.
Brad: Cheers. It is actually really nice to be here tonight. I had a crazy week, a crazy day that ended with a pigeon in my apartment right before I got here. Yeah, you showed
Chris: me that picture, it was pretty unreal.
I mean, I never, well, you know, he maybe liked that picture that he was up against.
Brad: Oscar Siqueiros, um, not for the birds. How
Chris: do
Brad: you like that pun?
Chris: That’s so good. But, um, so, the bird left.
Brad: Yeah. Was it hard to get out? Was it on the carpet? I’m like, yeah. It was on a lot of stuff. It was bad. It was a bad scene.
You did not want to leave.
Chris: What’s your general feeling on pigeons in general? Do you think of them as flying rats and rodents and stuff like that? Or are you like, Oh, it’s a bird. You don’t know. You’re
Brad: baiting me [00:01:00] really. I have a real little chum in the water. I hate pigeons with a passion. Oh, in
Chris: general, that wasn’t even just today.
No.
Brad: Are you kidding? This has been an ongoing battle. Fun fact,
Chris: everyone. Fun fact. Has anybody ever seen a baby pigeon? Where do they come from? Like you see pigeons full grown always, but you never see him as a baby.
Brad: Yeah. Well. You know, you can ask me another time, but I have all the pigeon talk that you could possibly want and more.
I’ve been battling these things for years. They’re a nuisance. They defecate everywhere. They actually try to lay nests everywhere. I have, um, do they
Chris: have any significant purpose in the food chain sort of speak where if
Brad: they, in Europe, they’re fine where they came from. That’s where they’re from. They do well.
They’re in their own range. Everything is great. And then they just. Proliferate in urban environments around here because it has every nook and cranny that they want to nest and there’s plenty of [00:02:00] food. So, um, they’re on my balcony and in my apartment. Now, I left my door this much ajar so I can get a little air.
It’s been beautiful out. And I had a pigeon just sitting on a photo on the wall just relaxing like, what are you doing here? And I was like, this is where I live. What are you doing here?
Chris: And to be clear, when he says next time we might have some pigeon talk, he’s not talking about Hawaiian slang.
Brad: No, I’m not.
Despite the aloha shirts today. It’s just our feathery friend. It is true pigeons,
Chris: but we’re here now. It’s Friday. Some would say Friday. Yes. We are. We are sipping on some. Thank you. Surfing. And, uh, you know, we’re going to go ease our way into the weekend. I see first and foremost, as most have it, at least in Hawaii, it’s Aloha Friday and I’ve taken it upon myself to usually wear my Aloha shirt every Friday.
And I want to [00:03:00] congratulate you for wearing yours as well. I know that we’ll get. Get into this a little bit more.
Brad: Yes. As some of the topics completely copied your style. I’ve got the same sort of threads. I got the same sort of big old day. I’ve been working on this for a week and that would probably take someone like Mark
Chris: Gamez easily a year.
It worked out pretty well in a week. I was pretty. Pretty happy that it, uh,
Brad: turned out. It’s not too bad. It’s getting there for seven days. Hey, I don’t think we’re going much further, but anyway, we’ll get into that later. What other weekly haps we have? Oh, this is a big one. I’m thank you serving right now.
We have a gallery of like a hundred and some odd images from everything that happened on South beach in Miami beach during Riley.
Chris: Really?
Brad: It is bananas. That’s
Chris: right. I thought,
Brad: yeah, it is really, really sick. The stuff that we got was just all time
Chris: and it’s probably an eighth of the pictures and the content everybody
Brad: [00:04:00] has.
They sent so much stuff over and I was trying really hard to try to like, call it down to something reasonable. And I was like, reasonable is probably. 135 images, right? I mean, it even takes the page a little bit to load like nine or 10 seconds because there’s so many images on that thing. I tried, but I couldn’t take away some of them
Chris: while
Brad: I was going through the whole gallery.
Like, okay, I need, yeah, I need to, I need to get some of these off of here. I’m just going to star the ones that are good star star star star. Star. I was like, I was like, I’m not making a gallery. I’m just like making a heap. I’m making a mess. Yeah. Why did I volunteer for this?
Chris: But it turned out amazing.
Yeah. When
Brad: I got all their images and I saw that there was like, uh, lifestyle stuff, people just like hang out on the [00:05:00] beach. There’s people like, like portraits, almost of people coming in and coming out of the water and just
Chris: it’s great about pictures and what they capture in a sense of the essence of the moment of, of, of the feeling and stuff like that.
You know, and they say that, you know, pictures, pictures. You know, can tell you a thousand words, so to speak. And, and, um, it’s not just the pictures of surfing. It’s not the pictures of the moves and stuff like that, but it’s also lifestyle and everything going around. And as you flip through that, you almost feel like you’re there and you almost feel the edge.
You almost feel that because it’s so crazy and such a great feeling. And you get on the beach and those swell moments and stuff like that. And you have onlookers that haven’t ever seen that, you know, because Miami isn’t known for surf in general, let alone good big surf. So when people come around, it’s.
It’s the unicorn that is South Beach, and, uh, but it, it really speaks to so many different ways. And that’s, I think one of the most amazing things about surfing is, uh, what that does to us, each of us emotionally and in all different ways. [00:06:00]
Brad: It was awesome.
Chris: Yeah.
Brad: And like to go through it and put it all back up there.
So you guys check it out.
Chris: Surfing’s a
Brad: gallery of, uh, of awesome storm. Riley. Yes. The unicorn.
Chris: Other weekly hops we have, uh, tomorrow. Um, you know, we, we had a death in the surf shop family about a week and a half ago and, um, with, for Malacca and, uh, we’re all still kind of processing it and trying to kind of find some reason through it.
And, uh, it’s, it’s been amazing to see the outpouring of love and, uh, connections within the community. Um, that kind of supports each other through the process and celebrates this, this man’s beautiful life. And he was just so full of energy and, and vigor. And he was just like, just that new one speed and it was just all or nothing.
And literally be like, dude, I love your shirt. And he’d be like, here you go. Like when he says he’d take the shirt off his back, he would give you the shirt off his back. And we’re going to miss him. Um, but we’re going to do things to go ahead and celebrate his life. We have a paddle out coming up April [00:07:00] 2nd, which is not this Monday, but the following Monday on 3rd street.
Uh, at about 6 p. m. We’ll be meeting at the third street lifeguard tower. Um, please bring boards and flowers. Uh, you don’t have to paddle out. You can celebrate on the beach. And if you don’t have a board, we’ve got plenty of boards here. Please come by. All you got to do is leave an ID or a credit card and you can go ahead and take a board out.
And you know, the more the merrier. We really want to go ahead and send him out into his next journey, uh, with a lot of love and a lot of presence. But also tomorrow we’ll be raising some money for his family, uh, at Purdy. Uh, Purdy Lounge, which is here on Miami Beach, uh, at about 9 p. m. Um, we’ll be serving Cozquina, which is Peruvian beer, as well as, uh, as some Pisco Sours, and all those proceeds are gonna go to his family.
So, I’ll be there. It’ll be fun. Uh, DJ Marimoto, uh, which is an old time local from here, she’ll be playing a bunch of 80s music, so it’s really super fun. We’re trying to get a slideshow going as well. So, 9 p. m., Purdy Lounge, tomorrow, Saturday. Swing by, drink some beer, drink some [00:08:00] Pisco Sours. Let’s have a good time.
Let’s celebrate this guy’s life. And, uh, let’s raise some good money for his family. Pass that, uh, not much else going on other than in Wynwood at our division and, uh, skate tattoo shop. We’re doing a Facebook live every Friday.
Caleb: So tonight
Chris: that starts off at 9 PM and goes on. We’ll have some beverages there.
So free drinks. If you happen to be in Wynwood cruise buys, you know, check out something, the antics, it’s pretty funny. Uh, these guys getting tattoos that people on Facebook are voting on to see who’s going to get what. What a concept. I was there last week. It was too good. Um, but it’s, and besides that we have regular artists there too, so if you want to just get a regular tattoo while that’s going on, you’re more than welcome to do that too.
That’s tonight from nine to about midnight and that’s going on every Friday for the next like seven weeks. It’s all I got. That is the Weekly Haps. That is the Weekly Haps. Moving on forward. Yes. You know, I had a little wave yesterday.
Brad: Report
Chris: and the
Brad: forecast. Yes, I had a
Chris: little wave yesterday. I am still tingling.
I’d only got an hour and a half out [00:09:00] of it. But man, that hour and a half felt like a whole day’s worth.
Brad: Yeah. Thursday was a good day
Chris: in South Florida. Yes. And, but it didn’t start off that way. I came out here early morning looking as a lot of people did. And we had that. It was the North wind seemed like it was pretty on it.
Um, I saw a lot of pelicans dive bombing as well as bait fish jumping all over the place and just these weird guys in gray suits cruising around. Yeah. How about them? And, and they’re always been there. And it’s one of those things where everyone’s kind of been staying in their lane, you know, nobody’s dealing with sharks and the sharks aren’t coming at us.
So everything’s cool. But you know, it was kind of small and a little chilly to kind of jump out there. Yeah. I’ve heard that from a few folks. At what time did it pick up yesterday?
Brad: Um, I’d say probably around 11, 11 a. m. Missed it by a couple of hours. Was when I first started to see, uh,
Chris: More of a real swell show
Brad: up.
Chris: And for us down here, for those of you that don’t live down here and might check our cameras out and stuff like that, [00:10:00] for me an indicator is the water lapping up against the jetty. You know, you look at that jetty and you see, for swell at least, if you see some water rising and coming down and rising and coming down and kind of just moving, you’re like, man, there’s some energy moving out there.
Whether you see the wave breaking or not, you’re like, there is something going on right now. And for me that’s always been an indicator of strength. The surf that we get down here.
Brad: Yeah, it’s totally it. And so what we had happened this week was a cold front came down, draped across the whole state and a Northwest, well, actually really a West Northwest and then a Northwest wind kind of blew in.
We got a little bit of a bump on Wednesday evening. Um, and then the winds kind of sat down for a little bit up coast and, um, and then started to blow a little bit harder again, um, maybe late that night. So the Brad
Chris: explained why it was kind of mellow in the morning and kind of came in a little bit later.
That’s
Brad: kind of what I was thinking. Um. Um, you know, the general consensus was that we’re going to see [00:11:00] something real good on Thursday morning. Um, and it really just didn’t pan out that way. It was, I mean, by 11 o’clock it was much better than it was at say dawn. So when did
Chris: it turn
Brad: on? Yeah, like noon, probably noon through the evening hours.
Chris: Cause I got there at about six 30 and surfed until seven and I had a blast, but everybody around me was like, man, you should have been here earlier. It was just cranking all day and I’m just like, some people are like, I’ve surfed the last five, six hours. I’m like,
Brad: yeah. It was one of those. Um, and so interestingly, like, um, after the whole thing kind of happened, I looked back at the buoy readings and you can actually see, um, pretty clearly in my opinion, why we got the conditions we got.
There was that early law, excuse me, short period stuff that we got in the morning was like, Oh, okay. That’s fun. But you know, I was waiting for something a little bit bigger based on what I had seen. Right. Um, and. It’s like, that’s kind of strange. It didn’t show. I wonder, we’re going to get skunked here.[00:12:00]
And then lo and behold, you know, the stuff that did show on the wind started to show up in terms of swell on the buoys. And I was like, Oh, it’s actually still inbound. And. It should show up in about eight hours. And I did the, uh, the calculation, like basically from Canaveral South. Um, most of our swells take, give or take eight to 10 hours or so to get down here.
And I was like, Holy cow. It was actually like right on the money. The peak of that energy from the Canaveral buoy reached our shores around eight hours after it started to show on that buoy. And it kept going until the buoy dropped. And that was around eight o’clock at night. When it should have arrived here.
And I was like,
Caleb: Oh,
Brad: so that actually verified P. S. I have no idea where that 10 second energy came from. It’s, it’s a complete mystery to science as far as I know. Um, yet the Bermuda
Chris: triangle strikes again.
Brad: Yeah, it was telling you claiming that thing, it was a really good example of like what people call like a bounce swell or refractor swell or [00:13:00] whatever else.
I mean, the buoy showed a straight. Pretty much North swell at 10 seconds at seven seconds at seven feet. So like that’s, that’s what was happening. Where it came from is really hard to figure out because even the storm that was departing from the New England coast, marginally in our window would have produced something like more than like the 12 second range or so.
And so. I have no idea. And, you know, all the other forecasters out there like got a lot of guff this time because they’re off just slightly. I
Chris: mean, can we remind people that nature just does whatever she wants and at any given point like, yeah, she’ll give us the indicators and yeah, she’ll cut and yeah, you know, you’ll kind of see patterns and stuff like that, but it’s not an exact science.
Brad: Okay. Great. Great. Segway into the forecast then. Because. We do this
Chris: professionally, people. I don’t know what you think I do during the [00:14:00] day. This whole surf shop
Brad: thing. Yeah. He’s got the segways down, uh, next week’s forecast. I’m following the trend. Things have been good. We’ve been getting lows moving off the mid Atlantic or just the new England coast and cold fronts draping down and getting swell.
Looks like again, uh, this week coming up, we got a storm that’s going to depart, um, the mid Atlantic coast. It’s forecast to strengthen rapidly and move up, um, towards the northeast. All within our window, all a storm that should throw us well back in our direction. So we’re looking at, again, this upcoming week, more groundswell, uh, in the water for Florida.
So
Chris: what you’re saying is we’re going to have more waves in March. More waves in March. Easily one of the best marches I can even remember.
Brad: Uh, in terms of. I’d say you’re probably right. This is usually a transition month for us and we get a lot of wind swell and like, it’s fun. Normally we get like Northeast wind swell, East wind swell at spring break.
Everyone’s kind of just like hanging [00:15:00] out and it’s really warm. This has been like winter time, um, during the normal transition month. So I’ll take
Chris: it. Jinx. You owe me a Coke. Okay. Or a beer. Just kidding. We don’t drink beer.
Brad: Uh, I think that’s pretty much the report in the forecast. So
Chris: what day are we looking at maybe next week?
What range of dates coming up
Brad: this
Chris: weekend?
Brad: Nah, it’s looking, I mean, pretty small, um, for the most, if we’re down here, for sure. I mean, there’s a little hint of something like sniffing around, maybe around the right tides at the right spots. Right. Um, but for the most part up the road, there’s going to be a little swell.
Um, Yeah. Yeah. But looking more towards middle of the week, Tuesday starts to become a little bit interesting. We’re looking at, you know, still a few days out, so it’s hard to say exactly, but how are the winds towards process? Yeah. Maybe not so great. So, um, stay tuned, I would say, but we got something coming into our window.
It looks like a fairly major [00:16:00] storm. So
Chris: listen, water is moving. You got a board. Get out there. Yeah. You don’t have a board. See me. That is the business you’re in. Hey, listen, you need wax. See me too. Hey, you need a high five. No, all about that business, eh? Well, you know, that’s what keeps the lights on and the mic’s on too.
Yeah. Ah, look at that
Brad: cut segues for I’m gonna, yeah, I’m gonna move this along here. Let’s do it. All right. Um, so you got a couple
Chris: topics today?
Brad: Yeah. Two topics. One is the surf movie and the other is how to dress like a surfer. Right. So the first, the surf movie. Which
Chris: surf movie are you talking about?
Brad: Well, I was.
Netflix has got, um, endless summer on it now. And so I was just scrolling through the internet, couldn’t figure out what to watch. And I was like, it’s been a little while. Let me, let me try this out. And when I put it back on, I was like, wow.
Chris: What
Brad: was the
Chris: first surf movie that you can [00:17:00] remember that, that you still remember that like influenced you, so to speak.
Brad: Endless Summer 2. Endless
Chris: Summer
Brad: 2. Why?
Chris: Costa Rica,
Brad: the whole thing. I mean, really just the intros of both of those movies, um, are so captivating.
Chris: Right.
Brad: And I think it’s, they pull people in that are from outside of surfing really easily. And I was, when I was watching it last night, I was like, Why is this stood the test of time?
Why is this so captivating to so many people across the world? And I have a bunch of different notions on that. Um, but it’s a, it’s a very, um, attractive thing that they put forth in those films.
Chris: You know, it’s interesting with there’s, there’s a different types of films where you have ones like endless summer where there’s the voiceover and they kind of just carry you through this journey and they take you to the different places.
Um, and then you have surf flicks [00:18:00] that are the, the music, uh, according to the, to the movie where it could be fast, it could be hard, um, you know, aggressive, uh, or it could be done in a cinematic kind of way. Like, um, Like Taylor Steele was doing for such a long time where like, I think of, uh, uh, sipping jet streams, uh, where like that could relate to someone that’s not a surfer.
Like you could put that as a background. Well, that’s
Brad: more like in the realm of, I think, and the summer,
Chris: right? Uh, right. It was like, but without the, without the, I guess there is some talking here and there, but it’s
Brad: no, he definitely used voiceover, right?
Chris: But I felt like endless summer is a story. From start to finish.
I guess they’re all kind of stuff. You know what? Yeah, they’re all kinds of stories, it’s, but it’s an interesting, I guess it’s an interesting approach that they each different take, where you have the director or, you know, whoever is the two surfers that are in that process, because like you have SAFE and Just Rings, a couple of different surfers and they all, I guess, had their own interpretations.
Whereas the other ones are just the same people that are going to [00:19:00] different places nonetheless. But. The impact that they have. Endless summer was good for you.
Brad: It, it’s, it was, and that’s number two, especially it had the whole like long board, short board dichotomy. And I was like, well, I didn’t even think about that.
I didn’t know that was like a thing I could, uh, and then just the idea of traveling as part of surfing, you know, like surfing for me was where I was. I was like, Oh, there’s waves here. So I’ll go surfing here. The idea to like go travel somewhere else to go find a wave that you didn’t know about. Or it’s like, Oh, you can do that.
It’s like, this is a whole new realm of possibility. I was like, I didn’t know that I had to learn about. Uh, traveling. I was just trying to learn how to surf, just trying to live. So that, that I think was like a super, uh, cool part of endless summer too for me was just like introducing that. And then like it was, [00:20:00] I actually, I grew up watching Warren Miller ski movies.
And if you guys are ski fans and you haven’t watched anything from Warren Miller, check them out. Oddly enough, those two guys kind of grew up, um, in the same. Um, circles, um,
Chris: Warren and Miller or Warren Miller and someone else, Warren Miller and
Brad: Bruce Brown. Listen, there’s comedy. All that. Sorry. I, uh, just took that for an actual question, but, uh, Bruce Brown, Warren Miller, those guys were kind of like contemporaries, especially when it came for like, uh, the car world and moto.
They were like doing like the foremost films and that stuff as well. Yeah. I didn’t know. And Warren Miller was more on the ski side. And then Bruce Brown was doing a lot of the surf stuff, but they had a similar style and they did like the voiceover. They um, were super into, um, Music and like every, they would have all these cuts with different music and scenes.
And you’re right in the sense, [00:21:00] like it was like, they were showing you like the food and like the lifestyle and the music and the, and they would inject their own like stupid humor and like. And then what I really liked about that summer,
Chris: that humor, like all that zany, like, but that became your humor, right?
Like, like you surf Turkey, you know, like Dick Dale music playing in the background, you know, just like bleeding on the neck of the guitar and just like, it’s so good.
Brad: There’s like certain lines that you can go back to in all those movies that those guys said, God, like six years ago now. And they’re just part of our culture.
Chris: Yeah.
Brad: And so it’s kind of interesting just to see how influential like the surf movie has been. So we can go like way the hell back.
Chris: Um, were they, were they prominent? Cause I know you grew up in New York. Were they prominent? Like, did you have surf films happen consistently in your town? Or they were, what are you crazy?
No way. Well, cause I know that down here we’d really did. And I like, I remember like all the surf flicks that would come down. They usually stopped at Fort Lauderdale. They never came [00:22:00] down to Miami and I’d be like, come on, we’ve got surf culture down here. We’ve got people like waves and they would never come down here.
So you’d have to venture North and do all that stuff. And, and it was tough. So the very limited times that we had stuff down here. Everybody was at, like, I remember the first time I went to one, um, it was on Washington Avenue at what is now Club Madonnas. It was called the Roxy Theater. It was crazy, but it was a Roxy Theater and it was like, uh, an adult theater.
And so I remember going there and, um, it was for actually funny enough that I have it on VHS surfers too. And, uh, with Martin Potter on the cover. And I remember specifically that they had this at the Roxy theater and a surf rider was there and they were giving out pamphlets and stuff like that to, to become a member.
And that’s what everyone used to sit on. Ah! And I specifically remember, I [00:23:00] remember cause it was like, I went with a bunch of guys and uh, I remember Mikey Watson, who’s an old school, uh, South beach local here that lives in Hawaii. Now I remember his grandmother lived right there off of, off of Lincoln road and an apartment back there.
And after the surf flick, we all got pizza and we went to his place and at his grandmother’s place and we watched, uh, the surf flick. Uh, another surf flick and just ate pizza and stuff like that. But it was, it was, I think it was, it was almost like this, this tribal thing, like, because we don’t get it that often.
It was like, if you were a surfer and you were there, then you were a surfer. Like you were part of that clique, whether you were from the North or from the South, or maybe you didn’t congregate with anybody and you surf somewhere else. It was like a gathering point. Right. It was a gathering point because there wasn’t that many of us, you know, there wasn’t that much going on back then, you know, and back then for me as much.
What do they call that? A powwow. Yes, that’s exactly what it is. That’s right. So, uh, surfers too was, was actually impressive to me. And it’s, and it’s just that the whole, and it’s still exciting to like go to [00:24:00] surf flakes, like in California and whatnot. Um, because people still hoot and they holler and they get crazy and you’re just like, Oh my God, you’re transported like 30 years and you’re a Grom again.
And you’re just like hooting and hollering and you know, and then you’re just so excited. You’re so charged when you walk out of there.
Brad: I had not that experience. No, no. I had like completely different experience with this. Um, mine was whatever I could pretty much find at like a, not even Blockbuster, but like the local video store, whatever that was.
And then I guess when Blockbuster came in, there was like more selection really, but it’d be like, whatever was in like the sports rack of the VHS, it was like, how to golf. It’s like Jack Nicklaus is 10 tips or whatever. And then it’s like, next to that was like red hot surfing Hawaii action. And I was like, Ooh, I’m getting that one.
And like, I would just like rewind that stuff at home by myself. And that, that was, that was like surf movies for me. That’s [00:25:00] how I got introduced to like, it’s amazing. The transition
Chris: of surf flicks from the original and the summer. Well, even before that was like eight
Brad: millimeter stuff, just like. That you did because you were a complete nerd, right?
And then you’d show some of your friends and your friends would be like, oh, that’s pretty cool. Maybe we should do this in your garage And the next thing you know, they’re like doing it right like you saw it in a theater somewhere
Chris: Right. And uh, you know, and it was, it was just, it was just, but like they were going to exotic places.
They were going to Indo for the first time. Oh, that’s a whole other thing. Like on the morning of the earth and stuff like that. Like all you. And then how that transitioned into what flicks were like in the eighties.
Brad: Oh, I was looking at, um, what just came up the other day. Oh. Um, forgotten Island of Sania.
Chris: I
Brad: saw that you
Chris: sent that to me today. Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that. Or you knew about it. Oh, I have it. Oh
Brad: yeah. Yeah. It’s incredible. Um, it’s about. Well, basically Jerry Lopez at Uluwatu and like [00:26:00] early, like they just got there themselves. Yeah.
Chris: Because you get tore up there. You’re screwed. I can’t say screwed on live TV.
Can I say anything you’d like? Wonderful. Uh, you’re screwed because you get wiped across the reef. You just got to rub it. Cool. Yeah. And no one’s there. I mean, this is.
Brad: It’s
Chris: very early
Brad: days in Bali.
Chris: Yeah. Oh man, that’s amazing. And then where it went to into the eighties and you had like things that were impressive to me were like, well they have a ton of videos like Green Iguana and Bunyip dreaming and all this other stuff that the Aussies were putting together and it was just like, and then all of a sudden the music started to become just as important as the actual footage itself that kind of just like got you going and stuff like that.
Cause it puts you in that place. It was a
Brad: whole change in the industry right there in the eighties.
Chris: And then it just. Further told that story. It was that emotional connection to sometimes,
Brad: but sometimes I think, and that was, I think the changing point, I think prior to that, there was a lot of like storytelling [00:27:00] and where we are and like the struggle because there was a struggle, a lot more of a struggle than there is now, they were like, Oh man, I got to fly 30 hours.
Like, yeah, we flew. For days. Three times that amount. Cause it was like puddle jumpers the whole way. And if you didn’t
Chris: bring your own TP, you were using leaves.
Brad: Yeah.
Chris: It’s
Brad: exactly right.
Chris: Yeah. And hopefully it wasn’t poison ivy.
Brad: Yeah. It’s anyway, completely different. It’s like, yeah, there was no poppies lane and you’re going to go stay in a nice little spot and then someone’s going to take you out to the beach.
It’s like, no, no, no. You’re like, hack your way through.
Chris: Go to Costa Rica or wherever. You’re gonna stay in this bungalow. No AC. No AC? No AC.
Brad: Exactly. This is way before all that stuff.
Chris: Come on. I’m a grown man now. I can.
Brad: But then in the eighties, money started to come into the pro surf scene.
Chris: Industry kind of, right.
There was
Brad: real surf industry. And that’s when we started to see like funded trips. Right. Like, Oh wait, what? [00:28:00] We can stay at nice places. Now you’re going to pay
Chris: for our airfare. And then we roll into the nineties and then you have like the era of like your momentum area. Yeah. I mean, you can’t
Brad: stay nineties of that momentum.
I mean, that was, I mean,
Chris: that’s where all the kids came out over there where they were kids. You’re Kalani Robb’s, you’re Kelly Slater’s, you know, you’re, you know, everybody, everybody, you’re Shane Dorians, Taylor Knox, Pat O’Connell, like all these guys, you know, and for at that point, that’s when. Things just went low, low, like as far as like what they were doing.
But back then, I mean, even in board designs, right, these guys had longer boards, but they were like one and seven eights thick, you know, but they’re like, but they’re doing chop hops on with six eights, you know, and stuff like that, because, you know, it was completely different. And now we’re like in shorter, stubbier boards, but,
Brad: um, the music and the, uh, the filmmaking style of those was completely unlike.
What the predecessors have been, it was [00:29:00] less about like storytelling. Right. Um, and there was just like a punk rock soundtrack, just like short clips. You
Chris: had your, you know, blink 182’s, your sublimes. Yeah. Uh, Motorhead was good back then. Like, uh, so this is actually, Spades was like, still the best song ever.
One
Brad: of the craziest things that I’ve noticed was, um, a lot of these things that I listened to and I was like, just music that I always heard. Cause I watched these videos so much. These bands are all popular now. It’s like a weird side effect that I started to notice from like all the surf videos that I ever watched, uh, like shelter, which is a later one.
But it was like, Oh yeah, like Mason Jennings in that. Mason Jennings is now enormously popular and he was just sessions
Chris: and you’re jack Johnson. I got to wear that kind of spawned off to and stuff like that, but
Brad: it’s so influential in many different ways outside of surfing easily. But anyway, back to the momentum days, those short clips, the punk rock thing, it was a completely different way.
And [00:30:00] like, they even messed around with like doing like, uh, what was that? The show. You ever see that one?
Chris: Yes.
Brad: It was like. Spaghetti Western surf movie. Like he was like in film school. And so I guess they just sort of like doing super weird stuff. I mean,
Chris: and then they, and then you go into stuff like loose change, loose change, or it had like Rob Machado and all these guys, and all of a sudden they’re like, Hey, we’re a bunch of knuckleheads.
Let’s go ahead and do sketches and stuff like that. And it was, it was great because then you’re just like, Oh, we’re not taking ourselves so seriously. Oh, we’re personalities. Oh, we’re people. We’re just having a good time. Kind of like you and I kind of just started this on having a good time and just being like a couple of surf knuckleheads have fun with it.
These guys took it to a whole new level because they kind of killed it in their sections. Whereas don’t watch us. And
Brad: yeah, we have, we have no good sections
Chris: except this one. We
Brad: can make the blooper reel for probably. I’m hoping. My wipeouts might be good enough. I’m working on it though.
Chris: I try to start my session off with one.[00:31:00]
Actually, I don’t try. It just happens. So now that we got that out of the way.
Brad: Yeah, I got this, uh, that scar from Riley’s healing up pretty nicely. I’m a little concerned that I got too much sun so I may scar permanently.
Chris: And your modeling career might be on hold now?
Brad: I don’t know. Unless they have
Chris: a spot for the creepy van guy.
Brad: Yeah. I’ve got this good mustache going. So there’s, there’s a lot not working in my favor right now, as far as the modeling career. I like the mustache. I’m not going
Chris: to lie. I wish people might chime in and say, you know what, Bradley, keep the mustache. Let’s see. I mean, have you ever tried growing it, growing it, like getting there?
Like.
Brad: I’ve done, I did, uh, one of those Movember things and I did, uh, this is a week. So you can imagine four weeks, I think in four weeks it would be pretty serious. And when you
Chris: start chewing on it with every meal that you have and then you’re like pulling out hair as you’re doing it, then you’re like, okay, maybe this.
It’s not for
Brad: me.
Chris: [00:32:00] It sounds awful.
Brad: It sucks. Yeah, well, we’ll see next week if this is still here. Um, we definitely came way off the surf movie topic here.
Chris: I mean, I’m wincing. I know. Sorry. Um, We’ll keep moving forward. But the influences of these surf flicks and what they’ve done to surfing, because at the momentum time, at that point, progression was starting to really kick in.
Brad: But it was because VHS was out, I think. And it was everybody, you could, I don’t know. There’s like VHS of the month, Columbia house,
Chris: all these
old school videos, like you had all the lost videos. I mean, all the lost videos were
Brad: lost across America.
Chris: A lot really went wrong, but it’s like
Brad: five,
Chris: five, five. This is the redux one, but the original five, five was out of control.
Brad: By the way, the redux does include the original five, five, 19 and a quarter and a whole lot of extras. If you want to get a very long surf movie. at a very cheap price. You want to buy a five, five and nine. 19 and a quarter. Yeah. 19 and a quarter redux,
Chris: but [00:33:00] you can’t buy it here because nobody sells them anymore.
Brad: I don’t know where you’d even get
Chris: to jump
online people. I remember somebody asked me,
Brad: I
have one also oddly. Uh, there’s a lot of Curren in this one.
Chris: Yes.
Um, talk about Curren God, the
Brad: Curren
Chris: searching for Tom
Curren.
Brad: Yeah. You’ve got Curren in a Mohawk riding what looks like the new Tomo boards back then.
So you want to pick this one up folks.
Chris: So good.
Lost at
Brad: sea. Right.
Chris: But all those videos are, all the DVDs and VHS are kind of obsolete at this point. Like I can’t remember the last, like I remember about 10 years ago when we got into this game as far as starting a surf shop, you know, it was important to have a good rack of DVDs for people to kind of, yeah.
So like, I remember having my orders and stuff like that. Yeah. No, like, and it got, it probably, we kind of held on to that for a couple of years and it slowly just went away out of demand. I guess people just didn’t like, it became a novelty for like Christmas. As a gift, you know, stocking stuffer, but pass that.
Now you can go ahead and just download stuff, you know, garage, entertainment, house stuff, [00:34:00] where you can kind of just go, I mean, I’m a subscriber towards it. You go and pay X amount of dollars per month or for the year. And you get access to just not only just surfing, but you have snowboarding and all sorts of levels.
Yeah. It’s really good. Sounds
Brad: like I have another monthly subscription. I just wait for like, uh, people to put it out on social media and they’re like, Hey. We just did another edit, check it out on Vimeo, check it on YouTube.
Chris: And so now it becomes engagements where now we like as a surf shop, we work with, you know, surf companies and everybody else.
And it’s just, it becomes a gathering point and it’s more marketing than it is the actual, you know, making any sort of money off of it. I mean, there’s just so much that goes into the production of these things from the sleeves to the actual DVD and to the pressing and stuff like that. So now with everything being digital, it’s just like direct to consumer.
So, you know,
Things change, but you know, it’s influenced, it’s still
Brad: surf movies. It’s still, I still like to see like full lane stuff. I still like to see the shorts.
Chris: I wonder if anybody younger or [00:35:00] people that are just getting into surfing kind of look into some of like, well, I wonder if there’s a way to kind of look into some of the old surf flicks to be able to understand where things have kind of progressed.
I mean, I’m sure, I don’t know if there’s everybody that’s a nerd like that, but you kind of nerd out a little bit and you’re just like, I mean, like Kelly Slater’s black and white. I mean, that is just OG.
Brad: I should put together a list of these things and post them as like a blog post. I will help you with this list.
Required viewing.
Chris: Yeah. I will help you with this list and shortly we’ll have it on the thank you surfing. Yeah. Shortly.
Brad: Thanks for throwing me. Hey, how’s that
Chris: list going? Oh gosh. Page, page, page, page. You know what we can do?
Brad: You can also like maybe get some help from, from like everybody out there in the world and just be like, send me your list and we’ll just start compiling it or something.
Is there
Chris: an email or a place that they can go ahead and just send you some
Brad: information? They can always contact me at thank you surfing at gmail. com or through any of the social media. We’re out there.
Chris: DM, do
Brad: whatever. You can also find me on the beach. Yeah. I am on the beach quite often, especially when there’s waves.
[00:36:00] Yeah. And I’m here at the shop.Chris: Yeah.
Brad: Drop off a list of him drinking soup. Um, next topic is, Oh, you know what? I want to bring Caleb who has been doing our audio and visual into the mix. Um, hopefully nothing blows up while he’s doing this. Um, Accept our live feed because, uh, we’re going to, Oh, wow. Another say, I don’t know if there’s a Segway.
I do like the hype man and Segway. It’s
Chris: winter music conference right now. Oh, yeah. Things going out there. There are people partying. It is. And it’s funny. It’s one of those things. We’re just going out surfing yesterday. I made a comment where I was just like. Oh my God, I feel like we have waves every winter music conference because I remember sitting out in the water and Nikki Beach is right across from us.
And it’s, for those of you that may not know, it’s just a beach club that is just all about that electronic music and it’s super hot and chic and stuff like that, but you can [00:37:00] definitely hear it in the water. And it’s one of those things where you’re waiting for a set and you’re like, Oh my god, I am bobbing to the,
Brad: stop it!
Yeah, and on the weekends you get like, uh, the bacon coming from Big Pink and the eggs and a little bit of bass, suntan lotion, it is a very bizarre place.
Chris: But it’s great because it throws people off and then a set comes through and you’re like, is that that song? And they’re like, what? And then you’re like, boom, I got you!
It’s a chess match out there! Caleb, you wanna jump in here? Caleb, let’s get you in the middle of this.
Caleb: Alright. Cable? Speaking of
Chris: facial hair. This
Caleb: guy, look at this. This is what happens when you don’t do anything for a long time. That’s beautiful. So it’s
Chris: so good for those of you that can’t grow facial hair.
Be envious. What we, um, give it time.
Caleb: It’ll come.
Brad: That’s a good advice. Actually, it does. Uh, the topic we’re about to get into is how to dress like a surfer. I think I’ve done my job. [00:38:00] I’ve copied Chris, apparently I’m a surfer. He owns a surf shop, so I think that’s a pretty good indication that I’ve got the style correct.
I’ve got a mustache, I’ve got an Aloha shirt.
Chris: Um, but what is style
Brad: Caleb? I don’t know if he, I don’t know if he’s, I don’t know if he’s a surfer. It’s kind of confusing. He might be. He might not be good. Um, I want
Caleb: to confuse you. That’s good. That’s my goal,
Brad: which actually. It’s a great question. And I think that’s what brought up the whole question.
Like, how do you dress like a surfer? What the hell does that even
Chris: mean? I mean, throughout time it’s changed, right? I mean, you have in the fifties and you had kind of like that, like you had the Pomodoro. Yeah. I like kind of like a certain look. It was kind of still kind of grease or ask a, when you were kind of dressed up a little bit.
Yeah. By, I mean, but where are they
Brad: jacking that look from probably like car culture and stuff, right?
Chris: Because at the same time, car and car culture is still a big part of the surf culture. A little bit. You have a lot of guys that really kind of get into bikes and motorcycles and mechanics of things. And, and it just, you know, I guess, you know, [00:39:00] the nature around your normal area will influence what you look like.
So we’re in a metropolitan city being in Miami and international city, and there’s so many different. Flavors and influences. So like the aloha
Brad: shirt would be so typical of our environment.
Chris: Sure. I mean, I think it’s not really, but I think it’s, you know, it’s one of those things where in Hawaii you have like a, you know, a dressed down, you know, business, like a look would be an aloha shirt and some slacks.
You know, um, in Hawaii in general. In Hawaii
Caleb: for sure.
Chris: And, and here it would be a Guda , you know, that’s true if you were doing that same concept. So, but I think the Aloha shirt still kind of represents, um, some, you know, a, a little bit of a, uh, dressed upness. Uh, but at the same time it’s still relatively casual.
I mean, but I think maybe people look at it and say.
Brad: Resort wear.
Caleb: Yes. You know? Yep. That’s basically it. You’re either an old [00:40:00] man on vacation or you’re a surfer looking at ya. True
Chris: story. True story. That’s it. Which is why I think it’s so funny. But style is, is, is based on interpretation, right? It’s, it’s for within each one of us, how we interpret what we, what we feel, how we look, how we want to look, how we want to present ourselves.
Um, perception as Rudy had mentioned kind of earlier. Um, and that changes. I mean, I like, I mean, again, Caleb’s a surfer. And you know, he is dressed kind of relatively casual and kind of hipster and you know, he’s just hip. He’s just, maybe he’s not hipster because I feel like there’s such a negative connotation to hipster.
It really is. It’s like everyone’s like hipster what man buns. He got something underneath there, you know, he’s just trying to use
Brad: like young kids on the man
Chris: vocabulary. Crazy kids are using these days. I dunno. I mean, but like when you, his style is no style. I mean, but do you, but there, but how much effort is there?
Maybe how much effort is there? Like how much effort do you put in. Every morning when you’re getting dressed [00:41:00] pretty much zero.
Caleb: That’s good.
Chris: And when you shop, do you shop for clothing?
Brad: Excuse me, right? I guess not. Um, this shirt was given to me by my brother. I think I got these pants because I needed to by like, someone was like, you need to have gray pants.
I was like,
Caleb: okay,
Brad: I need to buy gray pants. What does one get these gray pants? And I went on Amazon and I bought these gray pants from ugh, Amazon, Volcom , Jesus Jesus pants. But that was, uh, pretty much the uh, extent of nor I do buy a lot of clothing is for my friends and relatives here at First Shop.
Great plug. I like him.
Chris: But I mean, like for you, like, uh, do you, do you put much effort into how you look? Like, do you think about it as like, does
Caleb: it represent being a surfer dressing like a surfer? I want to dress not like a surfer. What does that mean? Because I don’t want people to look at me and think I’m a surfer.
So if I go out in the water and I like, don’t suck, then they’re like, Oh, there’s a [00:42:00] guy that’s not a surfer. That doesn’t suck. But if I roll up with like long hair and like a Hawaiian shirt and all that, the whole thing and like. Like the whole, yeah. And then I go out there and I sucked. They’re like, well, what are you, some sort of pressure
Chris: on me, right?
Caleb: So, so you dress for like another sport or like dress like a farmer. That’s that’s the two might go to if you’re going to go play volleyball, you wear like indoor soccer shoes because they’re like, Oh, well, he sucks at volleyball, but maybe he plays soccer really good. It’s not even like a lowering of expectations.
Like you catch a wave and I’m like, Oh, okay, cool. You don’t have to shred, you just have to like, use the out there. Misdirecting everything. But listen, listen,
Chris: there’s truth in that. Because I remember when I lived in Hawaii, like you had all these Japanese people. The, the Hawaii to Japanese people is like Miami to New York people.
Like it’s their Riviera. Okay. You know? And so you would come and they would just buy boards and like they would have, That walking out to the beach at the bleached hair and they [00:43:00] were just be labeled out and the boards got complete labels all over the place. And if you were to just look at him, all I can
Brad: think is dumb and dumber when he walks out all set up, like in the speeds, super set up, like you
Chris: would see some of them and you’d be like, they would look like they’d rip.
And you’re just like, Oh, this kid must kill it. Then he’s got his
Brad: fins in backwards or something. And you’re like.
Chris: But it’s, but it’s one of those things where those impressions matter because you go out in the water and you’re surfing really kind of dictates where you’re, the pecking order in the lineup, right?
Cause somebody sees you serve, uh, you goofed it on the big set way of all of a sudden you’re goosed. You’re in the back of the line, sort of speak. You know, all of a sudden you look like you fit the part, but all of a sudden you can’t even catch the wave. And you look like, so, you know, you’re cooking up all stance on the, on the board and you’re just like competing wide stance, you know, good.
And people are like, Oh, and then all of a sudden you’ve now become that guy. So you got it. You got doubt playing it. If you downplay it where you’re just like, I look like I suck, I whatever. And then you kill it. People like, Oh, homie knows what’s up.
Brad: Homie knows low expectations via style. Interesting. No, it’s secret’s out though, so.
Chris: But like when [00:44:00] you shop, do you, I mean, do you go shop at surf shops or do you just find your stuff wherever something attracts to you? Is it, do you specifically go shopping? Cause there’s, you know, people go, Hey, I need to buy new clothes. I’m going to here, I’m going to here and I’m going to buy clothes.
And some people are just like, I just pick up stuff along the way.
Caleb: I get a lot of hand me downs. I wear a lot of hand me downs. Rudy gave me this shirt. It’s never, we’re shopping at Rudy’s is always good. I don’t even know what it is. What’s
Chris: that? Velvet? What
Caleb: is this? Velvet? Something nice. Herbs and berries in there?
I bought this hat at a thrift store in Colorado. It’s a cool hat. It is a cool hat. I saw it and I was like, for three dollars? Of course. Well, there you have it. And then I put the, which side is it? Yeah. We got some branding there. Yeah.
Brad: So, some sort of like opportunistic fashion sense. Oh, for
Caleb: sure.
Opportunistic. Opportunistic. That’s it. That’s the good description of it. If it’s cheap and easy to Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. And I find it weird that I even got into retail because growing up, I was just like, whatever, whatever. Like hand me downs as well. This and that. But, [00:45:00] but within the whatevers, I still had within myself, and that was just me, a personal sense of how I wanted things to match or the little subtleties, like, you know, like the yellow hit on a shirt might be subtle.
And then I, it might draw the attention to a pair of socks for whatever reason, but it’s like, it’s really subconscious. You know, and a lot of the merchandise Doesn’t sound
Brad: subconscious, sounds very conscious Well, for me For
Chris: me it’s very conscious, but as I As I layer it or dress it and stuff like that I want to touch into the subconscious So, it’s one of those like I decided what I want it to look like But I want others to make it To see it or view it as if Like, Oh, that’s just super casual.
Oh, like just the random little hits. So you
Caleb: put a lot of work into looking like you didn’t put a lot of work into it.
Brad: I don’t put a lot of work into it. I think that’s what fashion is. I’ve heard that. That is what it is. I’ve heard that definition. Oh, for sure. Right.
Caleb: You know how long it takes to make your hair look like you just woke up?
For, or you can just wake up. And this is like, but this is a perfect [00:46:00] example.
Chris: Is there, it’s a, it’s, there’s, it’s a duality, right? There are people that maybe take a lot of work into doing things and stuff like that. And there are people that just kind of feel. Because it just, it just feels this way and you just kind of layer it and you put it together so that it does seem like there is some sort of little bit more effort where there is an effort coming in, but it’s not so preconceived and contrived and you’re just like, I’m going to spend time and making this happen.
It’s just what it makes you feel, you know, and that’s kind of how we merchandise the store as well. And stuff like that. We look at colorways and palettes and stuff like that. And I look for just the random little hits. It could be the smallest colorway on a, on a label. That kind of just like stands out and then I’ll put it next to a shirt that might have that same color where it’s completely different.
And to some, you look back at it and you’re like, okay, but then there’s something subconscious that draws it or ties it all together. And for me, I’m about that subconscious tie together. Um, that works for me, but you know, I, but I ended up pulling from my sale rack more than anything else. I’m not like, Oh, I love that.
I’m going to pull it. I’m just like, what do I got in my size on a sale rack? That works for me. You kind of build things and you [00:47:00] build your inventory. That’s the opportunistic side of it. I
Brad: think. Right.
Chris: Yeah. And I know there’s a lot of women, and it’s funny, and this kind of translates into how women and men shop differently.
Like men, we compartmentalize things a little bit where we’re just like, I need board shorts. Where’s the 34s or where’s the 32s or where are these? Okay. You look within what’s your size. What do I have to choose from? Cool. Done. Whereas I’ve noticed, and I’ve been told from some women, they just know what’s in their closet.
They have a great inventory collection going on up here. And they buy pieces that just add on to whatever it is that they have. They just buy pieces, add on. So they keep an inventory of what they got. And they add on to it. Whereas for us, it’s a little, for guys, I feel so it’s impulse buys a little bit more where you’re just like something just speaks to you at that moment.
Brad: Complete impulse or complete necessity, right? There’s like nothing between the two for me. It’s like, I have no socks. I need to buy socks. I think, cause I’ve been wearing them all of a [00:48:00] sudden.
Chris: And if you happen to be in a store where they carry Ruka socks, you’ll buy them. Or if you happen to be in Walgreens and they have some socks and you remember, I’ll buy those.
So it just doesn’t really matter
Brad: unless I was looking for really cool socks, which has never happened in my life,
Chris: but there are a lot of cool socks out
Brad: there. I know. I’m actually thinking about changing my sock game.
Chris: Well, listen, I, I don’t like before the sock game got so good, like between stance and richer and poor and stuff like that, like years ago, like 10, 12 years ago, I wanted to do a start company because I felt socks were the, was the working man’s tie.
You know it was because this is what you’re pushing forward. No, I mean like years. I got well, everyone’s doing it now So what’s the point? But it was one of those things where like the sock was so subtle. It was one of those things
Brad: where, where the working man’s tie. Well,
Chris: like a tie, right? There’s certain colors that create power, create energy.
There’s something that’s translates into it. Where if you’re wearing it at a certain time, you walk into a room, it commands a certain kind of attention. Whereas socks, it’s this subtle look. It’s like, there’s two [00:49:00] inches at the bottom of the cuff of your pants. Whether you’re wearing pants that are like super hipster high.
Or you even got a little lower at some point you get to see the socks, but it’s one of those things where if you notice somebody socks from a distance and it’s got some pizzazz or some sort of color. And then again, I’m just talking from my perspective that I’ll look and I’ll be like, Oh, this guy’s got a little something in him.
This guy’s got a little, you know, pizzazz going on, you know? And for me, it was just, it spoke more volume than just having your white tube socks.
Brad: Well, it’s cause guys are generally allowed to make decisions on two things. Socks and ties. Everything else is like gray, black, or navy.
Caleb: It’s all predetermined, yeah.
And so it’s like That’s the only thing you can put that’s like, colorful. Exactly, it’s like Maybe like a little kerchief in the pocket. Which is why Jerry Garcia had his ties, he had like a whole tie collection, and he was like Yep, I
Chris: have one. It’s crazy! Yeah. But, but it’s true, like those little things, but it’s weird how the sub and that’s so much I think of fashion and stuff like that, where they tie into [00:50:00] it’s that emotional connection.
What does it do for you? Again, I refer back to my over 20 pairs of board shorts infatuation that I have that I can’t get rid of certain ones. I’ve got a bunch of shirts that I just, I pack up and I put aside because it’s like, there’s some sort of feeling to it. There’s some sort of connection. And as a retailer and how we do things at here and merchandise and stuff, it’s my job to curate.
What the brand story is going to be and how that emotionally connects to the person that’s coming in here so that they say, this makes me feel something. I’m going to, I’m going to put it on. And aside from what the experience of being here and the conversations we have where they’re just like, I remember this shirt or remember these shorts from that time I purchased it from over here, you know, but yeah, but those experiences don’t necessarily just happen at retail stores or happen at restaurants.
They happen at different places. We’re seeing so much more people like
Brad: to come to a surf shop. Because there’s something about it. Actually, we’ve talked about it here before, I think. It’s like, when they come out and they buy something, like, they feel good. They feel [00:51:00] cool. There’s something about dressing like a surfer, whatever that means to whoever is wearing it.
And I don’t even know, like, what is like a surfer inspired outfit or look. Because it’s changed so many times. It’s like, it used to be super short shorts that were like made out of canvas. It’s like, is that surfer style or is it, I mean, we’re
Chris: back to short shorts again. Yeah.
Brad: So I don’t know what exactly it is, but apparently like surfers have had like a compass on it that people haven’t been like, Oh, whatever they’re doing.
That’s pretty cool. I’m just going to follow that.
Chris: Well, surfing had always been counter culture for such a long time. And then it became part of culture. It became its own culture of which other industries and other cultures. You know, borrowed from so, you know, all of a sudden you had the fashion industry jumping into you had just even the retail industry I mean like where do you think the birth of Hollister came from Abercrombie needed something to combat?
You know where Quicksilver was coming to in the early 2000s as far as building all these retail stores at the malls and packs [00:52:00] on Your buckles your tillies and stuff like that and they were like what we and they fabricated a story Hollister’s built off of a made up story of some guy in a shed great northern, California And all of a sudden, like, so, but you walk in and it’s like the sense that they put in the air.
It’s the low lighting. It was the fact that all their staff would ignore people still don’t understand that. Don’t understand that part, but for whatever reason, it killed it for them. And people that bought stuff there, whether you were in Wisconsin or whether you were in the coastline of Texas, you felt like you were a surfer because you bought that stuff.
And, and it’s, it’s, it’s. It’s so weird where it came from to where it went through industry and through the necessity for making money or the others necessities for making money and where we’re at now. We’re now because of the retail world has gotten through a little bit of purgatory for the last couple years, online purchasing and stuff like that.
Where it’s different. The early two thousands were kind of like as a surf shop owner, you can go ahead and throw a dart at [00:53:00] whatever and you’d sell it because surf was cool as far as dressing like a surfer again. And then, you know, economy tank, things kind of went weird and everyone’s been kind of figuring things out.
But I’m noticing there’s a lot of brands like Quicksilver and like Billabong that are starting to now return back to the root of what made them cool as far as culture. And going away from worrying about so much of their bottom line that they used to and oversaturating the market and putting product and different distribution channels, like your Marshalls and stuff like that, which unfortunately kept someone like me away from brands like that, because I’m like, I’m not going to feed people out there the same thing that you can get at Marshalls down the street, and it’s going to be 20 bucks less.
It’s like, why? What’s the point? And a lot of what we do is try to protect the integrity of the clothing and making sure that what you’re wearing. Is only one of seven or one of 10 out there, you know, and I think people have kind of come to appreciate that individualness that it is in wearing your product.
And when you can find a place that you can find stuff that you know is not [00:54:00] oversaturated that so many people are wearing, it kind of kinda makes you feel a little better. At least it makes me feel better. That’s a different angle on it. Yeah. But those are for people that might shop at particular shops, because obviously you guys’ shopping patterns are completely different than everyone else’s
Well, listen, that’s what keeps me in business, hustling, trying to make guys like you change your ways. I’m hopefully putting shirts out there, shorts out there that you guys like, you know what? We’ll throw this guy a bone. That’s kind of cool.
Brad: Well, I think that just, there’s a certain like way people carry themselves that more defines like dressing like a surfer.
So I have a friend that saw a picture of me in a suit and she was like, That’s so funny. I can still tell you’re a surfer and you’re wearing a suit. And I was like, well, what do you mean? And I think it was just like this, like you carry yourself differently when you surf, like you can kind of wear it. [00:55:00] You can kind of like, I could look at you and I could tell you surf now, just because of the way you like carry yourself almost.
Or like,
Chris: what is it? Is it the easy goingness? Is it the shoulders down a little bit? I mean, is it the,
Brad: and it’s, it’s not everybody, sir, clearly, but like there’s, it’s almost like a, like a mafia where it’s like, you can kind of tell by the way, like, and it may not be immediate, but it’s like, okay, that guy is wearing Vans.
Right. Vans generally is a counterculture, skate, snowboard, surf shoe. Interesting enough, like, maybe he just wears those shoes because he likes them. Maybe he’s a surfer. And then it’s like, next thing you know, it’s like, oh, he’s like, at us. Uh, an event where a band’s playing where, you know, like two to three guys in the band are also surfers.
And you’re like, okay, now you’ve got a guy wearing vans. It’s at a concert. That’s like two to three guys. It’s like, you [00:56:00] start to like build a
Caleb: case for it almost. And you’re like, you see a guy walking down the street here early in the morning when you think there might be a wave and he’s wearing like a.
Hurley hoodie or something. You’re like I could probably ask him how it is, right? I don’t recognize him, but I guess I could ask him How’s it look out there right because of the location that he was and it’s like our 70 degrees and he’s wearing a hoodie. So
Brad: Yes, I’m gonna be my hand man, yeah certain peculiarities that we carry it’s like if you It’d be like another one.
It’s like, if you have like a tub in the back of your car, like a big, uh, for your wetsuit or something like that. And you’re just like, Oh, I drive a truck. I don’t know what that’s about. Oh, well, yeah, we’ve gotten as a Northeast thing. It is not so right.
Chris: I get it. You know, it’s just like certain calling
Brad: cards that you can like look at.
It’s like, Oh, or like right now, I don’t know if you can see it on the camera, but I’ve got a pretty good wetsuit tan going. And so it’s like, My hands
Caleb: are sunburned from yesterday, just my hands.
Brad: Do you have like the top of your neck burned and the bottom of your neck completely white? [00:57:00] You’re probably a surfer.
I’ll tell
Chris: you what, I went, I, you know, I go to expos and shows and stuff like that and they’re mostly all surf, skate driven, but I went to uh, the outdoor retailer show this past summer, uh, in Utah and I was invited to kind of look because it was, it was, it’s all these other. from rock climbing to camping to kayaking to paddleboarding.
Um, but it was just all these other sports. Um, and for me, it was just interesting that on the fashion side, you have to ask yourself, well, What do these board sports have to offer in regards to fashion and whatnot? We see where surfing’s come from. We see that skating, you know, spawned off of the surfing part and stuff like that.
And it’s
Caleb: less North face is what they have. Right,
Chris: right. There’s less, way less North face. I mean, it’s no more puffy jackets and stuff like that. You know, those are great, but those are those necessity pieces. Those are necessity pieces, but you, I noticed that there were a lot more brands that were really moving in that fashion forward direction.
[00:58:00] But like in shorts for summer and stuff like that, they’re still producing four way stretches and they’re, but they might be adding a loop on the short for your carabiner, if that’s how you say it. God, I’m so bad at this. I wish I knew,Brad: but could you tell everybody apart? Like, could you tell like the rock climbing crew from the surf crew and stuff like that?
Chris: But there was no surf there, but you could, but it felt like, it felt like everybody was still under that same umbrella, like it, like it’s, it’s transitioned to. It all, like we’re all in it together, so to speak, like we’re all kind of like the, the, the differences were so minute and they were more geared towards that sport that they were doing, but you know, certain cuts and just even certain, the fact that there was even, I guess the fact that there was even any sort of.
Uh, direction in fashion was the impressive part that it wasn’t just like that really rough 50, 50 cotton that you’re getting at a gas station and stuff like that, that you’re just like, it’s wearable if you’re fixing your house, but [00:59:00] not like you’re going out.
Brad: That industry is so much bigger than surfing.
Right. The rest, the rest of like outdoor sports compared to surfing is ginormous. When I was there, I didn’t know, but the example,
Chris: the outdoor market is about. Is about one sixth of the country’s GDP. Yes. I know. Yeah. One sixth of the country’s GDP is the outdoor market. Yeah. We love
Brad: outdoor recreation.
That’s
Chris: everything. So it goes to show you. Well, it’s a testament to the fact that they changed, that they moved this show. From Utah Park City, Utah, that you had for over 30 years, they moved it to Colorado because the governor decided to go ahead and open up all the state parks to oiling. Well, I believe it was to, uh,
Brad: they were selling off rights to certain, uh, lands that were previously set aside for preservation, right?
Chris: And so it pissed everybody.
Brad: Not only did they do that, but they did it in a way so that there was critical habitats that were kind of like pathways [01:00:00] for wildlife. That became separated from each other, essentially bifurcating the way nature worked. Right. So it’s like, you might as well have just taken all of it because you took.
These two pieces of it. Right. Things like this. Right. So it
Chris: forced a huge industry to move from that state somewhere else where turns
Brad: out the lobby for outdoor sports is enormous due to the fact that they are such a huge part of the economy.
Chris: And when I was there, I was talking to like, uh, waiters, bartenders and stuff like that.
And they were all so bummed, so bummed because they knew that this would come and, and that that show would come every year or twice a year. And at that. That point, it was, it just generated so much money for them that in those small towns that sometimes don’t get a lot of activity or action that holds them over for four or five months, you know?
And so it’s a big detriment to them and now, and you know, Colorado, here you go.
Brad: We went way [01:01:00]
Chris: off the topic. That’s the beautiful thing about what we do. We went into Colorado.
Caleb: We probably overpassed Instagram live too.
Chris: Oh, we’re getting there. I think we’re almost at an hour. Uh, but you know, but that, but that’s what this conversation is all about.
It goes, it goes
Brad: wherever. But that’s, that’s the whole thing. So like surf style did, uh, like dressing like a surfer, whatever the heck that means, did influence other sports to have their own style and. Now, some of those things have pushed back to the point where they’re like political forces and you can almost like recognize these things in terms of trade shows and they’re like their own economic.
Chris: Dancing, we’re dancing. Well,
Brad: they’re like their own economic force. And so like dressing like a surfer is now like. Changing where people are holding giant conferences and, uh, maybe even [01:02:00] changing the way laws are written or laws are pushed back. It’s just, it has, uh, I guess like a calling card towards a movement or towards like a lifestyle that if you dress like a surfer or you dress like a rock climber or you dress like a fisherman or you dress like a hunter.
Whatever those things are. Right? If you’re wearing like, like real camo, right? People are hanging out. I’m just like going to the bar and I’m like, yeah, I’m a real, my real camo was in my nice new one. And it’s like, get her done. Yeah. And like that’s, that’s part of their culture now too. So I don’t, I don’t know like how many other cultures happen like that, but I
Chris: guess I could relate to anything, right?
I mean, if you were in the deep south and you’re cruising around and you, you see somebody with like. Full on camo garb and stuff like that. You’re going to probably think that’s a person’s a hunter, right? They’re probably hunting wild pig and boar not so much
Brad: anymore That’s the cool thing. That’s just like, just like surf stuff.
It’s like, if you see a guy wearing like you, like we were talking about [01:03:00] before, like the guy in Japan, who’s like decked out, right. Fins in backwards, like Zinka, whatever. Look the part, but you can tell something’s a little off. Same thing. It’s like the guy that’s like wearing like real tree camo at the bar.
You’re like, you probably don’t hunt. Or maybe you do, but you’re not really like about the game and, and it’s just, they, they kind of like take from the culture a little bit and they pull it into fashion. Um,
Chris: but you know, I think at certain points there’s certain pieces like shirts, hats and stuff from certain companies that represent certain sports, um, that people just identify or want to wear it because they want people to, it’s a flag, right?
It’s a flag that you wear. For example, we have fishermen down here. It’s like a calling card. It’s a, it’s a, you’re letting people know where you stand. So you know, um, with fishermen or people that fish down here and stuff like that, they love, they’d love. Uh, companies like ocean grown gear, or they love this company or that company, uh, because if they wear that, [01:04:00] they let people know, I fish, I do this pelagic, all these other companies.
And the same thing that was such a huge identity for surfing, where if you were Volcom, if you wore Quicksilver, O’Neal, you kind of represented what that culture was about. And what I found interesting in over the years of being in surf retail was that people kind of just gravitated to certain companies and said, I’m a Vulcan person.
I’m an O’Neill person. I’m a, this kind of person.
Brad: Sorry to like move beyond surf cult, beyond just being a surfer and representing that in your fashion. It was, I’m a surfer that wears. Vulcan because it’s this right. Or I wear Billabong because it’s like that or what have you. So
Chris: then whatever it is that speaks to you in regards to what that company represents.
And I found that 10 years ago when we launched into this surf world of stuff that we worked with companies out. weren’t the big box brands completely. You know, we worked with smaller companies that most people weren’t given much shelf space for from day out to critical slide society to [01:05:00] insight way back in the day, a iron and resin Rourke.
And a lot of them had a great story to tell like campfire stories. Um, but it was different. It wasn’t your typical surf clothing. It was just cool clothing, things that you could wear out. To dinner as a casual dinner or things that you could just it was just wearable every single day And it wasn’t just something that was super branded and it was just it was they were they went went subtle You know and they kind of just told a story in what they wore It’s
Brad: kind of like they went back to stuff that surfers wear that became in like the the popular the popular realm Surf clothes, right?
It’s like no, these are just clothes And it’s like, why did you call them surf clothes? It’s like, well, you surf, right? You’re like, uh huh. It’s like, well, all you guys wear that stuff. And it could’ve, back in the day it was like, Keds, denim, and like, a white t shirt. Right. Probably with like cigarettes and then, and then,
Chris: and then as we get into the nineties, like all the board shorts were like 22 inches long.
They were [01:06:00] way past your knees. Yeah. And if you want those back, and then if you were a Cali guy, you’re like, you know, way past your legs. And you know, you had to Dickies that were super long. And then when Junko Junkos came in and stuff like that, but you had long tube socks as well. I need long
Brad: board shorts,
Chris: you know?
So, but you know,
Brad: beyond my knee.
Chris: I know, but that’s where now, we don’t carry anything longer than 20 inches over here, you know, for the most part. I want to institute
Brad: the Catholic school rule for girls skirts, for guys, two fingers or two fingers over the kneecap, your hand at your side and wherever your hand falls, your skirt has got to be.
Caleb: I just bought these shorts at Walmart. Uh, when I was in Colorado, we had to buy team shorts because we’re out there skiing. Things went sideways, got a little western, we couldn’t do the trip we were planning on. We wind up doing a random day in the hot spring. We had to [01:07:00] buy team shorts because no one had shorts to get in the water with because it’s snowy, right?
So we Snow in Colorado? Weird. So we go to the You weren’t prepared for that, huh? We go to the Walmart, and we come across these. Like five dollar, nine inch inseam, bright green shorts. Huh. The, they, they surf terrible cause they don’t stretch or like they’re super uncomfortable, but they’re the best looking shorts that I have.
Like, I don’t know why you want short, I can’t, I’ve worn them like twice and they’re terrible, but but you like them, but they look so good. They’re like bright green and they’re like to here. It’s just not even like, it’s not appropriate, but it’s, I don’t know why you want shorts flapped around past your knees, but.
But the short ones, that’s, that’s all those styles have changed
Chris: over the years. You know, you went into the nineties in a certain way and then early 2000 survey and, and we’re at where we’re at now. And I feel like it’s kind of like morphed itself, at [01:08:00] least with what we do here, um, to being more about, you know, Does it feel good?
You know, it’s not about the branding. Those don’t feel good. If you
Caleb: can hook me up with those shorts that feel good, I’ll pay money for that.
Brad: I got you. I got you. Alright, next we’re coming up with a private label for Caleb. It’s just bright green and really short. That’s all it is. Nothing but short shorts and bright green colors.
I think we’ve got a bestseller on our hands. Yes. I think it’ll work. Vistla, looking at you. We’ve got a creator. Can you
Caleb: make it with coconut and, uh, and plastic bottles? Yeah. Coconut
Brad: upcycle. Yeah. Upcycled green short shorts.
Chris: I, which is a lot of what companies do, right? I mean, they’re kind of always pushing the, you know, the edge a little bit in what they’re doing.
So the materials that they use as well from, I think it’s recycled plastic on
Brad: that.
Chris: Absolutely.
Brad: Well, that is a dressing like a surfer. You are a surfer. So.
Chris: Just [01:09:00] how you want. If you want some help, come on over.
Brad: Someone will emulate it for sure.
Chris: Doesn’t matter. But Brad, thank you for emulating my outfit today.
Brad: Yeah. I mean, I, I think I did a pretty good job
Chris: and might I add, I think he should keep the mustache and let’s see how far we can go.
Brad: We’ll let the fans decide. Actually, we will definitely not look at this. I’m probably going to shave, like, tomorrow morning. But, uh, it’s been a little bit of fun. Actually, on the way over here, just a quick segue into this, I, uh, was skating over, and this guy in a truck just looks over at me, and just gives me, like, this nod.
And I was like the only thing I could possibly think aloha shirt is the mustache and the aloha shirt Has given this guy some sort of reason to nod like i’m also driving a truck Or you know like jeep drivers. They like kind of like oh,
Caleb: yeah, there’s there’s like an unspoken brotherhood of the beard When somebody speaks it, it gets really weird.
It’s true. I remember when I had, I had [01:10:00] grown out to be a lewder. I think I’m doing it right now because this guy like, This guy, this guy like, Yeah, this guy was like, what’s
Chris: up? I was like, I, hmm. Dude, the mustache commands
Brad: power, bro. It is. I, I had like, different experiences walking down the street and there’s like, Little children playing like parents are like flocking their children closer to them.
You’re at the
Chris: early stage right now Which is a creepy stage. I don’t really like this
Brad: anymore. Give it time. Give it time. I think I’m probably done with this. If you guys see me with this next week, it’s probably because they bet me
Chris: Well, I’ll say that, you know, the mustache, as soon as it grew in, all of a sudden commanded attention.
I mean, we’re like the other day when we were surfing a couple of weeks ago and we saw Austin, you know, in the water, he was just like, I’ve seen that mustache. I
Caleb: like it.
Chris: Yeah. That guy’s from thank you. Surfing. I’m like, really? This thing. I
Caleb: spotted that on the road the other day.
Chris: That’s right. First thing.
Caleb: First thing I see him off the Island, like out in the wild. And I was like. Through the pat [01:11:00] of the driver’s side window. I think I know that mustache. And then he comes around with a big fur sticker on the back of the truck. I’m like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s Chris.
Brad: This is kind of weird. There you go. You want to
Chris: stand out in the world?
It’s not about fashion, it’s about the mustache. Or facial hair.
Brad: This thing is definitely going to go. This thing is definitely going to go. Alright, so this is, uh Apparently Surfer Style is having facial hair this week, uh, stay tuned next week where you never know what’s going to happen. Yeah, I might not have a mustache.
I will probably not have one. I’m guessing Caleb will probably have this whole thing there. It’s probably
Caleb: not going to
Brad: go anywhere.
Chris: Too lazy to shave. Caleb, thank you for joining us. Yeah, thank you.
Brad: That was sweet. Boom. Boom. Lead us out of here, Bradley. Uh. Are we done? Uh, thanks so much for joining us for a talk story.
Episode 11.
Chris: Don’t forget tomorrow. We’ll be at Purdy Lounge at 9 PM to celebrate Malacca’s journey onto his next trip into, uh, into better tomorrows and all that. Um, please join us. Purdy Lounge, Miami beach. [01:12:00] We are going to wrap this up. We’re going to see you next week. Thank you for joining us. Thanks Caleb for joining us.
Brad: And for doing all the audio visual. God, this guy kills it. It’s going to get much better from here just because of this guy, hopefully a lot of pressure. Cheers.