In episode 12, Brad Wells, Christian De la Iglesia, and special guest Rudy Dubois dive into shaping your own surfboards, individuality in surfing, and how personal style and cultural influences shape the surfing experience. As always, we stress the importance of supporting local surf shops and brands that contribute positively to the community.
This episode includes:
- Weekly Local Happenings
- Surf Report/Forecast
- Building Your Own Surfboard
- Individuality in Surfing
- Supporting Brands
Transcript
Brad: [00:00:00] Hi
Chris: everyone.
Brad: Hello. Everyone out there in Cyber World.
Chris: We are doing it up here on Thank you. Surfing. It is Thursday, not Friday? No,
Brad: we’re day early. I know. Tomorrow’s good. Friday I’ll be flying home to New York. So we’re uh, getting into this one
Chris: day. That’s why early I got it. And we are now on episode 1212.
Brad: Today is March 29th, episode
Chris: 12. Come on in. Special guest today. Special
Brad: guest. Some shoppers coming in, getting in on all the deals. Wait, we don’t have any deals. They, they like this. Look. Checking out some other board shorts. I don’t blame them. That’s a good rack over there. It’s a good
Chris: board. Short
Brad: store.
Chris: We have board shorts, people.
Brad: So, uh, today is, yeah, March 29th, episode 12. We are live from South Beach, Miami.
Chris: Doing things and what is probably one of the most active marches of [00:01:00] surfing that I remember around here. Yes. In a long time. I’m gonna just dive right into it, Bradley, you know? Yeah. You jump right in.
We’re not taking things casual. We’re about two hours late from starting this thing. We are moving. Yeah. We went from intro into weekly happenings, I guess. Right? And we’re done. See you guys later for breakfast. You missed it.
Rudy: Yeah. We’ve been having some waves later. Yeah, we had a little,
Chris: we had some
Brad: waves today.
All right, so, uh, weekly HAPS is our time to get into what’s been going on in the neighborhood in the hood. What is good? Well, I Spring break’s in effect. Spring
Chris: break is kind of eased out. We’ve got the winter music crowd. Well, well those guys are just wrapped up this past weekend and we have now the local kids spring break.
Oh, that’s right. All the one, not the out of towners college kids Miami Spring break. All the ma dates spring breakers. By the way, I, I’m Rudy Dub boy. Today’s guest, uh, there he is, Rudy.
Brad: We really, actually, let’s go back to the intro. This whole thing, okay. First, we kinda, we like skipped right back into weekly Hals, [00:02:00] but uh, subscribe to our YouTube channel.
This will help us, uh, look at all the social media for thank you surfing. Check out thank you surfing.com. I’m Brad Wells of thank you serving.com.
Chris: I’m Christian Deia, a first serve shop, as well as Division Winwood
Brad: and our special guest for this week, Rudy [email protected]. And, uh, Rudy, give, uh, the people a little bit, uh, in are yourself,
Rudy: uh, what are you here to represent?
I’m here to represent the individual. No, I don’t know.
Chris: Yeah, well, yeah,
Rudy: yeah, yeah. So, Rudy Dubois, photographer, born and raised in Miami, left at an early age, but like all of us were still here.
Chris: How long have you been surfing?
Rudy: How long have I been surfing? I grew up off and on, on the board really religiously, I would say for the last five years.
Chris: Nice. And I, and I ask that only because you kind of give a little bit more of a, a fresher perspective Yeah. In coming into it because you’re how old
Rudy: 33.
Chris: Exactly. [00:03:00] So it’s never too late. It really isn’t. Like, you know, whether you’ve connected with it at one point in your life and disconnected. And when you’re saying, oh my God, I can’t get back into it.
I’m so old God. I’ve heard that so many times. It’s just like, you’re not dead, you’re
Rudy: not old. You know, I picked when my friends surfed when I was young. I was, I, I rode BMX from let’s say 14 till I was like 26. Like that was the, the mecca of my life. That’s all I did. B-M-X-B-M-X. And in that time, you know, some BM Xers surfed and we all went out, whatever.
But it was never serious. Not till, yeah. Not too long ago. Maybe I was 29 and the last three years have been like one-to-one with my craft, which I’m a photographer. It’s like right there. You can’t do one without the other. It’s like the physical outlet, which is nice. You know, you, you put it and you give it that much praise, it gives back to you.
Chris: Awesome. And I wanna tap on more of that once we get into it. Of course. Um, that’s great. Quite an intro. Yeah, that is such a good intro. So
Brad: definitely keep tuning in because Rudy’s got some, [00:04:00] uh, words of wisdom into it in store for sure. It’s exciting. Um, yeah, so I guess, um, back to weekly haps, um, we’ve got AKA’s Paddle out coming up, got Malaka paddle coming, but on Monday.
On Monday, um, actually his dog was just in the shop. His dog was just here. That was pretty heavy. Um,
Chris: it’s kind of good to see the dog, oddly. Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a continued, you know, there’s, I’m a big believer about energies and the sharing of ’em and it’s, it’s not just Humanlike, it’s Right. We feel it in animals as well.
And, uh, Malaka and, and his dog really shared Inca, which is his dog is great ’cause Malaka was pretty much Inca Indian like I am. Um, and, and, you know, it’s, it’s almost a, a real physical. Entity energy that you get to still almost speak to Yeah. That shared so much time and, and, and spirit with another person that you, that you’ve cared for.
And so it’s nice to [00:05:00] see, um, Inca cruising around and still being a part of the process. Um, you know, I was gonna say that’s not, it’s not
Brad: like that was not coincidence in my, like heart. No, in my mind that is
Chris: No.
Rudy: The fact that the dog’s still here at the surf shop. Right. Just, it is still, it’s kind of cool.
Yeah.
Chris: Grateful. I think it reaffirms Yeah. Those things that you kind of know already in your, in your heart and your soul when you, when you meet people and those connections that we, we get to create and we feel, um, that sometimes beyond words, um, and then you get to see it in animals and, and truly animals are just the most.
Amazing beings of love and, and just, and the sharing of energy in the itself. Especially dogs. Yeah. Dogs. So cool. I mean, we’re, we like cats? Cats are fine too, but they’re, you know, they’re their own breed. But, but nonetheless, yes, we have Molokas Paddle out coming up on Monday, this Monday, another couple days at 6:00 PM over at the third Street Lifeguard Tower.
Um, that’s kind of the meeting point at that time. And then from there we’ll be going and, and padd out accordingly when everybody shows up. Yeah. And so if you guys [00:06:00] don’t have boards, I’m guessing you come to the shop Absolutely. Swing by the shop first. Come first serve. Just gotta leave an id. Grab a board, whether it’s a paddle board, a surfboard.
We should, we will have a bunch of ’em here. Uh, if you wanna participate and join us. Absolutely. I know there’ll be, if you
Rudy: just wanna be in the sand, you know, that’s nice. There’s gonna, there’s gonna be plenty people there, there’s plenty people together as possible. Right. There’ll be plenty
Chris: of people that don’t paddle out.
Yeah. Sharing that energy on the shore as well. So please come by. Water’s
Brad: cool. And if you’ve never seen a paddle out before, like even if you didn’t know Maka, like I think it’d be nice if you came down and just saw what happens in these sort of ceremonies. It’s. It’s beautiful. It’s kind of a thing to behold in and of itself.
Right? Um, even if you didn’t know the person, it’s very, very moving sort of ceremony.
Chris: Yep. I agree. I think anytime you have the ability to kind of get around this collective energy of people that are kind of sharing it in the same direction mm-hmm. It’s moving, it’s powerful. You know, I, uh,
Rudy: when, when bird passed and I saw his, I was in the hospital during his Oh wow.
So I saw the whole ceremony on Surfline. Oh wow. Like the whole act. I was sitting there in ICU [00:07:00] Mrs. There as well, and watching the whole entire ceremony happen on Surfline. Wow. Yeah. I took photos of it on my computer. It is cool. It was, it was like, even from my perspective, it was like Oh wow.
Chris: And a complete different perspective.
Oh yeah. Wow. That’s amazing. That was my experience. Well, we’re, we’re glad you, you made it through that and you’re back and you’re here with us. Um, and it’s unfortunate that we’ve lost a couple friends like that, but yeah, it’s on Monday, as you said, and that’s going on. Um. Uh, past that. If you guys happen to be in Wynwood tomorrow, we are, uh, doing um, a mystery tattoo with his, with, uh, army James and our Liberty City tattoo company, out division Wynwood.
This
Rudy: is crazy. What does that mean? Mystery. Mystery tattoo, right?
Chris: Crazy craziest concept. It is just funny. So, uh, they get Facebook involved and they go Facebook Live and they have people that are willing to go ahead and get kind of any tattoo that they really don’t know what it’s gonna be like. Dick in the forehead.
It could be. Alright. Anything like Richard on the forehead of the forehead? Yes, Richard on the forehead. Hey, kids. [00:08:00] Richard. It’s okay. Just words. Just words. But Uncle, uncle Rudy doesn’t mean it, it’s just words, ear mouths. Um, but aside that, yes, it it, they leave it up to Facebook viewers to kind of go ahead and they say, this person, I wanna see this tattoo.
That person sitting there has no idea what tattoos are picking through. And then they literally go sit down and they’re videotaping. Watch it. We’re videotaping. Really? ’cause this is on videotapes. Yeah. They’re filming. So we’ve got our camcorder out, right?
Rudy: Yeah.
Chris: So they’re filming and they’re, they’re just kind of doing this and this person’s getting a tattoo and they’re, they’re seeing whatever it is that’s supposed to come happen right there in front of ’em.
So anyways, we’ll have some drinks. We’ll have some food. Starts at 7:00 PM 5 1 9 Northwest 26th Street. Uh, if anything, look up Division Wynwood on Instagram. You’ll find the address there. Swing by 7:00 PM Free drinks. Free food. I’ll be check it out. I’ll be there. Oh,
Rudy: what A plug mustache will be there.
Pretty interesting. What a plug. I like that. Good.
Brad: All right, so moving forward into the report slash forecast.
Rudy: Yeah.
Brad: Uh, let’s go into the [00:09:00] report.
Rudy: Yeah.
Brad: We’ve had waves. It’s been kind of like the springtime transition, east wind swell kind of time. Uh, usually coincides with spring break, so thank you. Surfing.
Yeah. For a real, we’ve had some waves. Thank you. Nature. Yeah. This march has been pretty stellar, uh, as it goes for surfing in South Beach and really all of the East Coast, I guess. Um, unfortunately it looks like.
Rudy: That was it. That’s today’s it. That was the
Chris: run. Yeah. So you may, so I didn’t surf in the last two days.
I’m dsky. Yeah.
Brad: Well, you might get a little something in the morning, but, um, that was it. It’s looking like, uh, we’re heading into a downward trend for the next week. And,
Chris: uh, you know,
Brad: it, it’s typical this time of year we’re going into spring. Miami is
Rudy: one of those where when it goes, there’s no ease in the transition.
It just goes
Brad: right off the cliff. It’s like spectacular. And then
Rudy: it’s, you show me a little bit. You can’t have any
Chris: No,
Rudy: [00:10:00] that’s, that’s you done.
Brad: That’s, that’s a photographer talking to you
Chris: right there. It’s like, oh, it is hot Chick syndrome. Every day. It is one of those like, hot chick, I want you, I want you, I want you.
All of a sudden,
Rudy: you know, my, the warm water. It’s clear. It’s nice.
Chris: Yep.
Rudy: Done.
Chris: So we’re getting into skiing. It looks like a, I’m, I mean, everyone’s skiing it seems like this time of year. That’s the Miami thing to do. Everyone goes skiing. There’s a must be, must be nice. Yeah. I don’t know.
Brad: Yeah, actually the, I’ve
Chris: barely seen snow.
Brad: The same storms that have, uh, been making the snow are, yeah, so the snow out west, uh, the jet dipped down and, uh, got into snow into Colorado and those same storms are kicking off the east coast and making waves for us.
Chris: Fine. You guys get snow, we’ll get surf, whatever. Yeah.
Brad: Uh, if you want to get a real good spring snow session, probably want to go to Colorado or maybe Montana, Northern [00:11:00] Idaho.
Those are all places that have been getting dumped on British Columbia as well. Anyway, that’s a snow nerd in me coming out. Uh, that is not the forecast for surf, that has a forecast for snow. I don’t know how you guys twist. I mean, you ruined us. He
Chris: said there wasn’t much coming on. So let’s pass. Yeah.
Bring
Rudy: on the snow. Yeah. You know, the good thing about like surfing in, in, uh, Miami is that if you’re an avid surfer and it affects you, you have a lot of free time outside of surfing. Because we don’t get much and we could develop other skills,
Chris: things Miami people say, and
Rudy: that, that’s like, I mean, indirect in, in indirect.
It is kind of like a luxury a little bit. ’cause if I lived in California, fuck, I’d get nothing done. You know? I’d be in the water. All the people say,
Chris: I don’t know. I don’t know. I feel like that’s the same thing was like in Hawaii because I, you know, when I lived there it was like, it was like an ease.
There was an ease where you’re just like, oh, okay, well I’ll just, I’ll just surf on that day. And it’s like, you stuff would take every year. Oh, it would take a year for sure. It would take some, well it took me about that long. There is a transition period, right? Absolutely. To California
Rudy: [00:12:00] tomorrow.
Chris: Yeah.
You’re turbo dummy. Yeah. You’re out. There’re making things happen. You know,
Rudy: county line I’d been, I’d been, yeah, it didn’t even matter. And it would take, it would, it would affect the income.
Brad: Yeah, for a little while. And then you realize, actually how about the traffic is I shoot dumb photos of like sunsets
Rudy: and shit.
That was, be it, the sunset out of the van or something like that. Right. How many times like your toes hanging out the back of the van, you’re really gonna go to California
Brad: style, like have a van and like
Rudy: basically retire? I would think. No. I mean, I don’t know about that, but I would think that go, the little time that I spent out there and the small doses, you’re like, get the fuck outta here.
What do you mean? Like I could surf whenever I want you and it’s not like I just not this winter not to have a thruster, you know? I got the log, you got the mid length, you got the whatever, you gotta quiver. You’re like, well what do you, I just gotta drive an hour and I’m gonna catch a wave. That second’s kind of
Chris: cool.
I Costa Rica, you can do the same thing too. I’m just saying. Yeah, yeah. But
Rudy: Costa Rica, there’s nothing else going down. Well
Chris: listen, I [00:13:00] will beg to differ ’cause I feel like Costa Rica’s got a lot of the first world amenities dude. I’ve never played. So I can
Rudy: lean into,
Chris: oh my God, you’re gonna lose it. I didn’t wanna do that guy.
It’s got all the first world amenities. It has all the first world amenities. I mean, where can you watch the, the contest in Fiji while you’re feet up next poolside with the waves breaking right behind you as you’re drinking a dark and stormy.
Rudy: Oh,
Chris: anywhere. Oh yeah.
Rudy: No, no, I get it. I get it. I get it. You can in Costa Rica.
Now it’s not cheap. Costa Rica from what they tell me, it’s not cheap.
Chris: It depends on how you go. I got you. This is,
Brad: this is an argument for another time of boys.
Chris: Move on. Let’s get back to the facts here. Please. Can we
Rudy: weekly, uh,
Brad: yeah. Surf report. So we’re there’s fly people. We’re done. It’s, it’s, yeah. The waves have how other
Rudy: hobbies?
Brad: Yeah. Basically do something
Rudy: else probably for the next week. This is cool ’cause this is how fine, that’s how, that’s how it goes. Like, one of the topics that we have going on here is, is building your own surf border. Fucking around with, with other things. You, we have that luxury building your own
Brad: surfboard
Rudy: where you said like, fuck.
We can’t surf. What else do we do? We [00:14:00] think about surfing, right? We’re like, ah, I’m thinking about surfing. And in that process you’re like, you know, you start doing shit and you like, I’m going to, I’m someone that’s curious. So I get, I’m like, I wanna fuck around with, oh, you’re like fixing ding repair. Or you break the tail on aboard.
You’re like, what the fuck? Do I do this crap? And you take from there. But, and that’s a, a short winded answer or, or perspective. So that’s how you got into it? No, not really. So it was like the, how did I, how did I get into shaving boards? Okay. So
Brad: the idea is really here, building your own surfboard. I see.
Yeah. There’s not many people out there that have actually gone through the process of really making a board from scratch.
Chris: Little DIY doesn’t hurt anybody.
Brad: I mean, lots of people have like mucked around doing a ding repair, but you can’t, some people have gotten very proficient at doing ding repairs, but the idea of actually taking a a, a blank.
Or even like a old board and stripping it down and having a, a raw piece of [00:15:00] foam and saying, I am gonna make this piece of foam into a surfboard. I mean, which is a
Chris: much cheaper way of doing it. Well, I mean, can, you know, take taking
Brad: board apart? I would argue just buy a surfboard off the rack is the cheapest way.
Well, I’m just saying if you
Chris: were gonna go between taking a board, peeling off the, uh, the uh, the glassing and being able to go ahead and reshape it how you want to versus actually buying the foam blank and, and the materials to be able to do so, which one would be cheaper?
Rudy: A part of the materials really?
Maybe, I gotta think instead of taking the glassing off and just resing the board. No, like it’s just the work would be more, I like the fact, I do usually do it that way, where I upcycle an old board that just. It’s like another add-on to
Brad: it, I think. I think upcycling as your first project is a very good idea.
Especially like something that’s broken. Because the first board you make, you’re gonna screw up, you know, so bad. Or you might as well pencils with you if you’re alone. If you’re not alone, that’s not
Rudy: mattering. We can let in, like I wanna lean into this [00:16:00] conversation a little bit through the perspective of, I don’t think people oddly think outside the box, right?
So if you’re a surfer, you just wanna surf and I can’t blame people for not being in inquisitive or, or even considering the thought of shaping their own board. I just think it doesn’t even go in their
Chris: head.
Rudy: Right? Really? Yeah, I think it’s that simple. Now I also think people consider the thought of, oh, it’d be like I did it based off, like it’s expensive to, to buy a board off somebody.
I’d wanna buy a board off if it’s a Tyler Warren or a Birch or like Elmore, any of these guys, it boards are 800 bucks, $1,200 and these boards are expensive. So you say to yourself like, this is. This didn’t happen at day one, this happened. Like
Chris: no, it’s like I bored 4,000 and I gonna lean into it and I gotta twist it around
Rudy: and bring it back.
But just to talk on the topic on, on the regular surfer, I look at all the people that come in the shop. I, I think there’s a big percentage of them that don’t even consider the [00:17:00] thought of shaping their own board. It’s not even, they’re like, they wouldn’t even know where to start. And it’s not that complicated hydro, it’s so complicated.
It, there’s hydrodynamics is not complicated in the sense of shaping your own board. I don’t think so. That’s the nerd. It’s basic, it anything surfs, they surf TVs, you know, like a flat board would surf in the right wave to get a board to do what you wanted to do. It gets more complex, you know, things change.
But you could Google hydrodynamics in surfing and they’ll give you the 1 0 1. Okay. There’s no extremes. If you don’t do any extremes if things are gonna work, you know not to get into the depth. But I just think that Okay, fine. I’ll give you that one. I think that there’s a big majority of the population don’t even, they don’t even think about it.
They’re, they’re not even thought about, like, where, how would I start doing the research of it? It’s,
Chris: well, I mean that, I mean, that kind, I guess could be applicable to so much and it, I guess it depends on the, the, the. The dating if you will. Like, I mean, uh, let’s [00:18:00] go back 20 years, you know, and let’s say technology wasn’t as available IE Google.
Mm-hmm. And being able to research things. ’cause I know that 20 plus years ago when I started doing ding repairs and it was kind of purely out of that love of wanting to go ahead and feel the rails and the curves on boards and Yeah. To mine surf as you’re fixing and board and you’re kind of feeling it out, you know?
And that’s how I got into Ding Repairs where I went to bird surf shop up in North Miami and Dave Hah was doing all the ding repairs. I brought him an old diffenderfer that I found at the, in a trashcan at the fountain blue. ’cause I was working beach concessions. I’m like, who threw this away? And I was like, full DA And I’m like, Hey, how much to fix this?
And he is like, ain’t worth it kid. You know? It’s like, it’s way too much work and money because yeah. And as I found out, because I decided I was gonna fix it myself, I bought some material and I kind of just went through it, peeled it off, and I laid the glassing and all that stuff. And kind of, you know, back then J JC John car had a couple VHS videos on.
Uh, I, I still have the ding repair one. There was one for ding repair and there was one had a shape of board and airbrushing. Oh, I didn’t get that. I didn’t [00:19:00] see that one. And, and I totally kind of learned off of that basically. And it was just trial and error. Right. So it was before that anything could give you that much of how it was supposed to be.
And asking questions was just not possible. No, it was just like, not even how questions are crazy. I really wanna look like that donkey. And there was no
Brad: one even to ask in my case. So, so, and John CVHS was like.
Chris: Dude, it
Brad: was so good. Shaping
Chris: 1 0 1. Glassing 1 0 1. It was so good. Air 1 0 1, it was so good. It was so detailed.
And he was like, and the way that he spoke was just like you. It was inclusive. Like you’re like, oh, okay. I can, and, and it was exactly that. And then I realized as I was sanding this whole thing, I was just like a, you know, make sure you monitor how much resin you put on there. ’cause the more that you put on there, the more you have to sand, sand off.
And b, large amounts of areas suck, you know? Yeah. And I could see why he was gonna charge so much in regards to labor, but those are those things that you learn. Mm-hmm. Along the way. It’s that process in that DIY. Do it yourself. DIY. Yeah. God, I’ve been getting that wrong. And um, I’m glad we talked about [00:20:00] this.
I was, I was in a DIY project yesterday at the house with a yard that I was just like, in theory you’re like, oh, I’ll just rake the grass, I’ll throw the rocks down, everything be easy. What could go wrong? And then all of a sudden the process takes two days and all of a sudden my bot my back is shot. And you’re like, wow, I’m not young anymore, am I?
And you’re really this one, but Right. But you, but you learn things through it. And, but there is that tangible accomplishment and that feeling of just like, I did this, you know, no matter how bad it was or whatever it is, I did this. And then you’re saying, cool, I’m gonna try that next one and whatever I get cool, I’m gonna learn from that and I’m gonna carry on.
And so going back to these guys from your Tyler Birch and all these other guys that do phenomenal stuff, I remember hearing a shaper once say like, you’re not gonna get a good shapers board until he is done at least 20,000 under his, under his belt. You know, that’s,
Brad: yeah. I mean, it’s just like the hours that you put into anything to be good at anything.
I, and that’s, that’s the repetition that you need to shape boards well. So I think that you can, you can go into the shape [00:21:00] shop and mow out some foam and it’ll work for you maybe. And like I’ve got a whole quiver of boards that I’ve like mowed out my cell with my brother in like my parents’ garage. And they probably don’t work for anybody else other than like my feet.
And it’s because like I did it. I did it purposefully for what I thought I could surf, like, and they suck for most other people. I think. Here’s an interesting pers
Chris: but I surf in RKI think. And here’s an interesting concept in the three and just understanding our, our backgrounds in a little bit. You have someone that’s been surfing since he was a young kid, got into the surf industry super young, did ding repairs, but never attempted to even.
Shape aboard. Like I’ve, I’ve kind of thought about it, whatever, but I never got into it. You know, you got into it at an earlier age, did it for a little while, and then kind of stepped away. And Rudy, you kind of got into surf, you were into surfing, got into a little bit more passionately relatively recently, and jumped [00:22:00] into it as well.
Rudy: You know, I, I have a, a big, yeah. So how the heck construction background. Wait, how
Chris: did,
Brad: so the idea of going surfing is hard to learn how to surf is really hard. And then to decide somehow that you’re gonna try to craft the, the thing that’s under your feet yourself. Yeah. Is like,
Chris: really, and you made a great point earlier in regards to the type of people shaping the type of boards and why,
Rudy: uh, the cool thing is I got an interesting group of friends.
I’ve always, I’ve been, I guess I’m lucky to have the same group from an early age. They’re artists and they’re fully involved in crafts and great surfers and who they know the, the, the history of surfing very well. It’s super educated where I just know it through them. Like I just kind of like go off the people that I know and.
It. And that’s how, how I got into surfing. So I got into surfing more through that avenue where my good friends talk so highly about something. I gotta give it a good go. You know, I gotta get out there. I love the water, you know, I love the [00:23:00] beach. You know, my girlfriend loves the beach. Like, oh, let’s go.
And in that process, you pick the right boards, you know, they tell you, Hey, you wanna know what, here, take this board. It’s gonna be a little easier for you to surf. And then you make that connection, huh? And I think the right board for the right wave is so important, especially if you’re a novice. You know, if you don’t have too much surf experience, right, then you can actually stand up and get that.
You surf. You’re not out there fucking treading water. And in Miami we don’t have much of a wave all the time. So when you go out there, it’s usually chop, you know? But nonetheless, you make that connection and you’re, and you’re like, oh, and hopefully you’re altered, like all of us, just the way surfing is a part of it.
And it, it has dips and valleys, but it is, so let’s just say fast forward, buying a couple boards, surfing really geeking out. And I’m a, I’m a very studious dude where I go deep. When I go in, I go in, you know, like I, I don’t do many other things. I, [00:24:00] I’m a photographer by trade, by, excuse me, by occupation. I do a lot of, you know, I very big into building, you know, always playing around with friends in, in that, in that regards where we’re creating constantly.
So I, I have a full set of tools.
Chris: You should see his origami set. It’s amazing.
Rudy: I got a, I got a good, uh, sense of building. So you are like, I got these old crappy boards, you know, laying around the house. I’m like, what the fuck am I gonna do with these craps? And I look at all these, and the internet’s great.
The internet is to our favor. You say when you’re young, you don’t know who to come. Now I’m like, well, what type of surfing do I like? Well, I know what I like. Or, or more say more. So I know what I don’t like in surfing, and I know what I like. Well, I’m going to, what do they surf? I’ll be like, oh, those, those are pigs that long board’s a pig.
Or, oh, that’s an edge board. Oh, what does he surf? Anini. What? That’s a va. Is that a hole? What does a hole do? Then you, could I make this still up? I go deep. Yeah. I’m like, oh, what is a hu what is a [00:25:00] tri plane? Hu What’s a hydro hull? Uh, what’s a, what does concaves do? What does the ratio between, you know, nose rocker and tail rocker?
Why do you have a ratio? When do you need that? And you start, oh, what is volume? Where is vol? Where should volume be at? What is a diamond tail? What is, you know, like, can you start, you start, that’s naturally how I do it. It’s full. It’s full
Chris: on
Brad: mad scientists. So, so I’m, I’m, so let me just stop you there for a second.
Mm-hmm. Because that’s a, not a very, like, uh, I would think. Normal approach or traditional approach to how most people go surfing. First off, they didn’t have like a crew of people that they are around. I got were, I got the wild post for my boys are wild, right? So they, you got the creative wild and like you said, something really important, which is like the right board for the right wave, man.
Like so many people miss that in so many sports, whether it be snowboarding or [00:26:00] surfing or Yeah. Having the right equipment, fishing, you know, like having the right tool for the right job is, and I mean, I don’t know if we’re gonna tie it back to construction, but like that’s really what is the most important And it seems like that’s almost how you decided I’m gonna make my own board.
Rudy: And I think it’s important to you understand, like one of the other topics we have is individuality and surfing and we’re not gonna lead into that yet. I got a lot to say about the building the boards, but I’m not scared of liking what I like. I’m not scared of not having to do that to be accepted in the lineup, to be accepted at that surf shop.
I’m not, I give zero fucks. I am what I am and luckily I’ve developed that within myself before anything. So it’s So he would
Brad: not been in, uh, influenced by the momentum generation?
Chris: No,
Brad: he would, everybody else would’ve been riding those little potato chips boards and he would’ve been like on a twin fin somewhere.
So, and, and like it’s just, I don’t care. One in seven eighths, you’re like, yeah, no ski. I’m like two and [00:27:00] three quarters over here.
Rudy: I’m pretty open to it all. But I, I, I surfed boards based off surfers that I liked and my friends as well. Like, I looked at the boards, they surfed. I’m like, these guys are doing shit that I think is cool as fuck.
’cause they’re cool dudes. They speak highly about these surfers. They’re cool dudes. We’re all living the same lifestyle.
Chris: So you come at it from an observer’s perspective. I mean, you really do. Like you’re, you’re, you’ve seen it and, and you’ve built this observation pattern over, over time in life. Yeah. And it’s not just in surfing obviously.
It’s, it’s all, it’s into other things. And in that you’ve picked up certain things, whether it’s through the influences to your friends and Yeah. And that that’s maybe you’ve gravitated towards. And at the same time, it’s been applicable to what it is that you wanna shape. And I, and that was the point that you made a little bit earlier, that, uh, when we were talking off screen, that was just like, you know, I make boards according to what it is that [00:28:00] I like, and that, like, whether it’s a retro board or mini sims or, or something along those lines.
That’s what, and, and in a sense, like what this topic is, it entails is a couple different levels of it. You have someone that. Shaped boards earlier on, doesn’t do it as much, but kind of got into it. And what was it that got him into it? ’cause it’s a little bit of the root of what it is. And what was it that got you into it?
What was it that didn’t get me into it? And at the same time, for all those that might be out there that wanna go ahead and try it, whether it’s sting repairs or building your own board, what is it that attracts them to that and why?
Brad: I think it’s the ding repairs that like is a really good entry point into this whole thing.
I know that. I think that sucks. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Because why? It’s labor intensive. No, but it’s like this is, this is uh, your tool, the thing that you use, that you enjoy so much and you need to take care of it. And when you see it get damaged, you’re like, oh man, I love it. Because I think
Chris: it’s like magic.
It really is. ’cause what happens is like, how do you do this? Right? You see this, you see this? [00:29:00] Screw up whatever it is on the rail, this and that. And you have challenges here and there. And then you just look at it and you just say, well, how am I going to get this back to exactly what it’s to look like?
Right? Right. So from the feeling and the shape and where you’re saying, Hey, as I’m sand this rail, I can’t go too heavy. ’cause friction creates heat, heat’s gonna go ahead and burn the fire, the resin on the side. And how do you learn that through trial and error. All of a sudden you’re just like, you know how, how many older boards that I’ve started with a ding that was like this big all all of a sudden have to fix a rail that was this long?
And it’s like, I don’t understand every, every area around it keeps on going, oh my god. Glass of backup. And then, and then you come to understand, hey, I don’t ever want to fix an older board. Yeah. Because that’s the worst. It is just like constantly fixing a rail and all of a sudden you’re like, I’m just gonna go and peel this sucker back and fix it and just make a new board altogether.
Yeah.
Brad: But I think for me, it was like getting started in that little process where you’re like, oh, I fixed this, and then you bring it into the water and like. When you got out of the water, there was like this little bit of pride, like yeah, like I did this correctly. And they’re like, it’s get, [00:30:00] so I could use this again.
Whole, it works, right? And like I fixed my tool so that I could use it again another day. Right? And then I was like, that brings
Chris: you the happiness, right. That is surfing.
Brad: Right. It was like a weird like, wait, like I could fix my own equipment. I didn’t even, I never even had that too. I had, I had wetsuits
Rudy: that, um, have you
Chris: fixed the board before?
Rudy: Of course not before. Shaping board. No. Right. Oh, really? No. That’s weird. I mean, it’s fiberglass. Like I’ve worked on boats. You know, it’s a little different. I have little dings on my board. Well, the resident in the cloth they use is different. I never even considered even a good job. Oh. I was just like, I need to get this back in the water.
Right. This thing is stupid. Right. Whatever. But I’m like, I’m the patient grass. Now it’s different. You my approach. Now obviously I know how to do a thing repair and I could do it where, but it, it wasn’t. Like, oh, I’ve gotta do it. So that was like
Brad: my entry point into shaping that. I was like, wait,
Rudy: if I could,
Brad: this
Rudy: is stupid, do
Brad: this much.
I wonder if I could do the [00:31:00] whole thing. And then I was like, oh, that board over there is pretty much garbage. Let me strip it down. And I was like, so I ripped off all the glass and I got down to the foam and I like remember the smells. And I remember the crackling of the glass and I was trying to pull it off.
And I remember how some pieces stuck to the foam and ripped off more foam. And, and then I wound up with like this foam cord that was like really too small to even do anything with. And then I started like shaping it down to something that I thought would come into form, like a fish, you know, from a, like a longboard or a fun board.
Chris: I mean the, what’s great is that I’ve seen a couple of Instagram accounts out there that have to deal with putting old boards together. I think Franken High or Frank and I, oh, I’ve seen stuff like that. That’s so cool. Like he really puts the boards to like a bunch of different boards together and like.
Makes cool single fin and lawn boards and whatnot. But like all this wraps into, right, because we’re sitting here as three different people having three individual kind of approaches to different things. Whether [00:32:00] it’s just the craft of surfing as well as the sport of it. Um, I mean that plays in itself within our own individualities.
Yeah. And within that, how does that transition into our next topic, which is the individuality in surfing?
Rudy: Well, it, I think it, I think it’s a big deal. It ties together a little bit. Hang
Brad: on one second. There’s, last week we talked about dressing like a surfer, right? Which is basically stereotyping surfing as like a singular thing.
And I think through that last episode we were like, oh yeah, actually it’s really not that at all. And so I think this is almost like a, uh, reaction to that topic from last week because there really is, uh, and should be. I recognize more individuality because, I mean, the three of us are nothing alike. Nope.
But we have a meeting for, if you notice, Bradley
Chris: doesn’t have the mustache anymore. Yeah. Or the Aloha shirt. Or neither do I have, I don’t have the Aloha shirt. Its not Friday. That’s right.
Rudy: You know, you know [00:33:00] Brad. And for me, it all ties together. It’s not, it’s all one, but it’s really difficult to be an individual now.
And I said it the last time I was on it. It’s not easy. Luckily, I, I have a big BMX background where I wrote BMX from the age of like 14, 13 till I was like 27.
Brad: What do you mean it’s not easy to be an individual?
Rudy: Yeah. I got a, I’m got a kick into, I had a, I had the ability to create a skill, develop a persona based off acceptance in the social circles.
Travel way beyond social media, way beyond likes for, you know, any type of gratification I developed. I knew who I was off like, you know. Writing BMX, right? I was in a crew based off on a skillset that I developed on my own. There was nobody saying that looks good, that looks bad, right? No, I developed it through So,
Chris: natural pecking order, would you say?
Just in life. Like, I mean, I just,
Rudy: so [00:34:00] the, I applied that same train of thought. That’s why I feel like I, it’s like my, my hack to anything that I do that same fucking like monastic approach to producing as a A BM Xer. I could apply it to anything. I don’t matter. Like, I don’t seek outward. I’m like, I love surfing.
I love my friends. My friends surf. Oh fuck, you’re shaping boards. What are you doing? Who do you like? Then it’s like, I love X, Y, and Z surfers. Right? So what do they say? Ah, I’m gonna geek out. I’m gonna learn about hydrodynamics. Oh, I got all these old crappy ass boards. I can’t afford one of his boards.
You know, I can’t afford a Orion love lace. I can’t afford a title war. I didn’t live in California. You know, I gotta go. So I’m like, I can’t even afford the shipping.
Chris: Yeah.
Rudy: So I’m like, well, I got these old boards and it starts, it’s, you know, a surfboard is like you’re sculpting, it’s like, it kinda like a sculpture, like art sculpture.
It’s really, that’s how I look at it. [00:35:00] Right.
Brad: I’ve seen them in Art Basel, in marble. So I had a, I had a
Rudy: option of doing an, so the way it started was like really
Chris: in marble, or wasn’t like the hay shapes kind of like marble kind of looking thing. It was, it’s marble. Marble,
Brad: yeah. And then I actually try to take it like off the rack and feel it up.
It got tackled. Yeah. I was like, oh, I’m not in a surf shop. Sorry. It’s like, it’s a instinct. Sorry, Rudy. No, no.
Rudy: You know, the way my buddy was, was shaping boards for a solo show. He had BTI and he had the whole set of shaping boards and I was like, I wanna shape a board. Yeah. You know? Course I, I So
Chris: mechanical art, I love it.
Yeah. It’s
Rudy: like in the naive approach. Sorry. I shaped a quick fish. Takes. Awesome.
Chris: Two losers. You guys are doing this for years, and this is all long it
Brad: took you. I just like, that was easy. I went over there. He is like, so I had a friend that, uh, was doing this insulation. He had the tools. Turns out I got blasted
Rudy: and I went over there and just shaved a fish.
Awesome. You know, took it to El Salvador. It was, think it was like [00:36:00] four 11, you know, it was, is what I called it the first p and instantly the great thing about sculptures that you could actually use, you know what’s right and what’s wrong, right? Like it became a lifesaving device and you’re like, this thing is, remember that I need more thin, flatter out the tail, maybe a little more nose rocker.
This is awesome. I just rode something that I shaped right and I did it off. But again, I have a, a background in building stuff. So I could look where it is. I could look at this board and say, well, I could shape that, right? I get close enough that I’m not gonna see the difference, right? That I won’t feel the difference through my skillset.
So that was the first one. I’m like, well, I’m gonna shave a couple more boards. Right? Yeah. I, I gotta do it right now. Like I, he’s still building boards. I wanna do something I thought of. I had, I’m being a photographer. I don’t just work in commercial or fashion. I do a lot of personal work. I was gonna have a show of myself and I, and I have this couch [00:37:00] series called the Davenport Series.
It’s my living room. Thin it down. I was gonna set up my living room at this art show, and at this art show, my living room has surfboards. It’d be fun to shape some surfboards for this art show, et cetera, et cetera.
Chris: And cookie crumbs. There’s cookie crumbs because everybody’s living room. There’s cookie cru.
Rudy: Yeah. Interesting. So I start, so I say, I’m gonna shape a mid length and I’m gonna shape a fish because those two boards are my favorite. The mid length’s gonna be a hole, which, you know, a hole is the opposite of concave and the fish is gonna be a straightforward fish. I want it to be fast and et cetera.
Then I thought about, well. How do I make this, how do I take at another level? So I said, well, I’m gonna upcycle boards. I got these old boards, I got a long board. I’m gonna turn into the, the seven two hole. And actually I did another fish. But the fish that I used, I wanted to go through a process of getting two pieces of foam with the stringer, gluing it together and going through A to z.
The [00:38:00] process, I felt like I had to do it, making a blank.
Brad: He made a blank.
Rudy: So I do the whole stripping out. This modern longboard I have, it was like a nine three modern thing, wave. So much. It’s taking up so much water. So I just kind of score the rails, ripped the glass off it. I already had it. I, I drawn out a good concept of what I liked, and then I added my 2 cents to that outline.
You know, I added a 2 cents to the rails. Uh, it’s a haul, but where do I want it to haul at? And, and then same with the fish. I like a fish. Not too much rocker. I want to fast. Twin glass on, and you just go from there. You write it down and you approach it that way. I know what I would do different if I had to shape those two boards again, of which is great.
All right. So lemme get into that point at some point. That’s the,
Brad: that’s the, to me this is like the coolest part. So deciding you to shape a board. Yeah, yeah. Fine. Great. Getting all the tools. Yeah. Good. Uh, going into the shape shop and doing that crap. [00:39:00] It’s kind of intense. You hate yourself, you love yourself.
You hate the tools, you love the tools. You screw up, you do great things. Yeah. But it’s not until you actually put the darn thing in the water Yeah. That you really like. Oh my gosh. It’s like a you fall
Rudy: in love with your boards. Yeah. The connection you have with what you just, especially if they work right.
Well, that’s the thing. Alright, so, so they don’t, they work so
Brad: they don’t, they don’t. If I don’t put it in the water and they disintegrate, they awesome. I can tell you, I can tell you straight away because I, we were talking about earlier is that. I’ve shaped a bunch of boards, none of them work. And I, and I know that you’ve shaped, uh, some boards and I can tell you none of them work.
There’s a, this, uh, festival they have up in New York, it’s called, it doesn’t not work. Yeah. And it’s a bunch of just like hack shapers that just when is this festival put their stuff together and it doesn’t not work. And that’s, that’s Do my boards work. [00:40:00] Yeah. Shut, man. My boards work. It’s, it is just, like I said before, they work for you.
Yeah. Just like the boards that I have, like if I put ’em under your feet, you’re in a struggle under my feet. Like some of these boards are basic magic boards for me. And like, they’re things that, like my brother hacked away at my pants garage. Isn’t that what it
Rudy: is? Like if you put someone on a, you know, a Chris Christensen and they’ve never surfed anything like a Chris, it’s not gonna work the same way.
It would work as
Brad: I think, I think it’ll probably work better. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I think when you get so good at your craft that like you can make a novice look good on it, that’s
Rudy: something. But we’re talking it’s different levels. That’s a 20,000 board, 10,000 board. Right. But when you
Brad: have like me and my brother, like in a little plastic room, well man, I
Chris: will say some of the christiansen boards, especially the one that I have, it’s nine six, is just like, that’s tough.
The dead slide it, it’s got three different spots and it’s like, that’s tough. It is. It is full on thought process before, like, especially with the kind of, I mean, again, the, the waves we have are [00:41:00] tough. Let’s not joke that let’s, I mean, so like using certain crap boards here and crafts, like as great as they are, as amazing of a shaper that you are and whatnot.
Like, it’s gonna suck here, right? It’s just like, oh, so this is meant for something that’s gonna give me a ride for longer than five seconds.
Brad: This is why actually building your own surfboard could be better than something you’d find off the rack.
Chris: I mean, is it expensive? I mean, kind of going back into like building your own surfboard.
I mean if you, Val, if you value your own time,
Brad: yeah.
Chris: All right, well time. It’s so expensive. Well, time our effort. Effort is free. So fine. Let’s go ahead and just throw it at the door. It, it depends, I mean, if this is something you really want to do, problem, like material wise, problem is
Rudy: time, material wise.
But if you put si, if you put time aside, it’d probably cost you, let’s say you’re gonna buy a blank Uhhuh. I’m gonna throw in like 200 bucks two
Chris: and change all in
Rudy: probably three. And change with glassing three and two. Well if you
Chris: throw it out glass, I’m just throwing raw blank.
Rudy: Oh,
Chris: it’s not board coming at you.
So I know you can get a blank for like a buck 80 raw material. No tools, no [00:42:00] labor. Ah, there’s a tool part.
Rudy: Yeah. Tools get price. Alright, so you just, you’re so I did it with the team. Don’t
Chris: get into it, kids. It’s expensive. Just come buy your surf shop first surf shop. We’ll just sell you a board. It’s much easier.
Look, I,
Brad: I started a shape shop for about 1500 bucks. All tools, um, all the racks, I say under a hundred
Rudy: bucks in tools. There’s hand
Chris: sanding swap shop.
Brad: Oh, if you’re hand, if you’re hand sanding. Yeah. A planer, like
Rudy: hand sanding, a planer. Jeez. A planer’s like 70 bucks at Home Depot. 60
Brad: bucks. I I got the Hitachi Clark foam planer talking about the crappy 60 Sure.
Foam shirt I got. You still have
Chris: these? Yeah. You got ’em all. Dude. Let’s whip ’em out. Let’s get some boards.
Brad: Um, next up, next week, making board Eric Compressors. Oh, wow. To do the paint jobs. Yeah. I, I got the whole thing. I mean, we did like 20, 30 boards, like production style. We’re doing five or 10 at a time.
We, um,
Chris: you know what, we’re gonna get a shaper on [00:43:00] here. We’re looking at you, whoever you are, that shapes boards. We want you to come on, we want you to talk some more story. Take it to that next level. Yeah. It’s hard. It is
Brad: like easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I have never cursed at my little brother more than we have at each, at each other.
In that little shape shop. It is this little plastic groom. And things go wrong so fast. And you’re like, when you have a blank where you’re like, oh, this has cost $200. And you’re like, when you screw up and like the planter goes, W like, oh fuck, I didn’t want to win SI could hear that from like the front yard where my brother would be shaking the backyard, I guess.
And I would, I would run in the back and be like, Trevor. And he’d look at me like, you know, and he’d be like, well, I guess this is gonna be a smaller voice coming back to the
Chris: personalities and are different sides of it. ’cause looking at Rudy, it seems like he comes to perspective’s like, oh, was that a mistake?
We’ll just go with it. Oh my God. Whereas where you have someone a little bit more Ooc D about it. Bradley, that’s me. Where [00:44:00] it’s like, what do, did you do it 22? Si. Did you get the dragon paper 22 times on that side? Oh, love me some dragon paper on the other side. I
Brad: still got some dragon paper.
Chris: No. Did you?
Did you? What do you mean you lost count? I get it. I got it. I’m a little like that too. Oh my gosh. I’m
Rudy: really good with this. So if I could look at it and know, yeah, I know for me it’s. It’s a labor of love, right? I’m not getting paid for it and I’m trying to make it a piece. Me neither. I just, I was so happy why I’m doing it.
I’m like, oh fuck, this is, I got music going on. Couple drinks in. Alright, let’s go into the
Brad: individuality, into surfing. So when I started shaving boards, this is a little bit of a, my individuality and serving, I decided that, um, I was going to start it like the beginning and, and then I was gonna try to move forward.
And so when we started shaping boards, I was like, let me try to shape something that was not modern. ’cause there’s no way I was gonna be able to shape a good modern shortboard. I don’t have the skills for that. What year was [00:45:00] this? 19. No, 90. Uh, 2000. 2001.
Chris: Okay.
Brad: And so I was like, let’s uh, try to shape like right around the Shortboard revolution.
I was like, I think that point forward we could probably. Manufacture boards that were somewhat close. So we, it seems
Chris: like if you went for like late eighties, early nineties, it shaped kind of like Tom Kern get a type boards might be a little bit easier. ’cause it seemed like there was just a lot of foam involved.
Right. So if you go further back that they were a lot, they seemed a lot flatter. Yeah. So I, I was going like
Brad: seventies through eighties, right? 1970 basically. So it was before the Shortboard revolution. I was like twin fins, single fins that were like cut down to like seven feet, six feet. I was like, huh, okay, I can get into boards like this.
And it turned out that those boards worked really, really well for me because I was not that great a surfer and I was surfing crappy ways all the time. Front foot surfer or back foot surfer. I’m definitely a front foot surfer. Front foot surfer.
Chris: Good to know. I’m just saying. [00:46:00]
Brad: So, uh, we started shaving boards, like in that realm it was like, let’s try to go from this point in time forward.
And we got to like, basically that timing that you were saying like the, almost like right before momentum. And I was like, ah, that’s enough. I was like, these boards work for me. So like single fins, twin fins, shortboard, revolution time, those are the boards that work for me. ’cause they’re like bigger, right?
Foamer. Yep. More float. I was like, oh, this is great. And then I started writing the modern short board like, you know, I had other people shape, um, boards for me and stuff, and I could do okay on those. But when, like I really come back to like my style of surfing, it’s from older boards and like that individuality like comes out Like even if I, I surf like a short board, like I’ll do a knock need bottom turn just ’cause I don’t know how to do it any other way.
If the wave like allows for it, this board’s
Chris: feeling real soulful. So I’m just gonna throw a soulful bottom turn into it. [00:47:00] Not because of any other reason than that’s what the board’s saying for me to do. That’s a wave.
Brad: And it’s just like I, I’ll put that into, uh, a board that maybe shouldn’t have it just because that, that’s my.
Like natural reaction, my upbringing, right? In surfing, I was like, oh, let me go back to this point and like, let me come forward. And I kind of stopped right in that weird period. Um, because I, I can’t ride those momentum area boards.
Chris: Well, I mean, back then I, they were, they were doing super skinny boards.
They were like maybe 17 and three quarters wide, fuck by one and seven eighths thick. But they were long, they were like six sixes and six eights and they were full, like super, like glass slipper on the front, like entry rocker. And just, I mean, I mean it just, it was a lot different, you know, charger and uh, and now everything’s much shorter, much wider, much fuller from nose to tail rail to rail know.
And so
Brad: you, when I watched you surf, like I think you surf unlike pretty much anybody I know out there. That’s not a good thing. I wouldn’t say it’s a good thing or it’s a [00:48:00] bad thing. It’s just you are your own surfer, right? You surf, uh, generally like longer boards or mid lanes. Uh, we should
Rudy: all be our own surface and
Brad: right, it’s.
It like I, I, I think you have your own style and I don’t know where in God’s name it came from. I still don’t either, but it’s, it’s kind of like easy to see, like if I’m like walking across and even like if it’s back lit, I can’t really see and that’s funny. I’d be like,
Chris: oh, that’s good. I’ve totally been able to, from surf line, being able to watch Surf Line and just kind of check it out, see someone catch away and be like, oh, that’s so and so.
Yeah, that’s so and so, and you’re right. That totally speaks to the individuality of surfing and how we approach everything, whether it’s waves or anything else. It’s just your perspective. And again, I think that’s what, what draws all of us to surfing is that like, again, it’s like this is mine. I own this in a sense of my own little world of what I do.
This, this is just how I see it and how I perceive it and how I release into it. And everyone has got theirs. I mean that, I mean, [00:49:00] granted, I, there’s a little bit more for someone else in here and there, and that’s the beautiful, that’s the beauty of the world and life, but it’s so hard to, to critique
Brad: that sort of like individuality because when you look at it.
When you look at it like on a, uh, on a wave, you’re like, oh, I would’ve done this, or I would’ve done that. Like, yeah, right. Topic. Have no idea what, what about the board that you’re riding? What about like, that’s such
Chris: a future topic going into wave pools, boards, and how No, I, I don’t how we’re be critiquing all that.
Rudy: I don’t think we have enough individuality and a lot of different mediums for the, yeah, like if you come out here on any good day, everybody looks the same. There’s a handful of guys that you could really, by my perspective, there’s a handful of guys that approach it a certain way that say, well, I’m gonna surf over here, or I’m gonna pick this board for here.
It’s like anything else, like, we’re super tribal. We nobody’s thinking outside the box. Is that Sure, there are exceptions in our circle trying to, there’s a reason why [00:50:00] we’re here. All three of us. I’m trying to think about it. There’s a reason for that, but okay. I mean, it,
Chris: that kind of lends into that the third and last topic that we got going on in regards to supporting brands,
Rudy: but uh, I think it’s all from individuality, depicts supporting brands, even considering the fact of shaping your own board or shape or surfing different boards.
Not just, you know, that board because that guy’s surfing it and whatever. You know, you’re like, oh, you know, who do I wanna support?
Chris: Right. Are why are you the sheep or are you the goat?
Rudy: Yeah. And I’m lucky, or let’s just say we are lucky that we could even have these topics. ’cause people aren’t thinking like this.
I, and if I’m wrong, I’m wrong, whatever. I look great, but I have no idea. Butt write
Chris: us, tell us are we right? Are we wrong? Is he right? Is he wrong? I think that
Rudy: there’s a lot of people that don’t develop, they get stuck in a certain head space and that’s fucking it. That this is the only thing they know.
And you know that’s probably true. Fucking repeat, you know? No, that’s rinse and repeat. [00:51:00] Rinse and repeat. And they follow the same people and they’re all fucking idiots.
Brad: And they’re all, that’s not a nice thing to say because I, but it’s a true, A lot of these guys don’t, you don’t have, don’t to, but you can consciously, I’m gonna lean into it.
You can consciously allow that to be that. That’s your being. Sure that’s what you’re cool with. But I’m just saying
Rudy: without proper development, you get a lot of sheep. And these people don’t come up with their own perspectives, have the same arguments. Usually the people that argue on the lineup look around who’s yo broing on a lineup.
And then, and then think to yourself, yo brewing, who is around that person? That yo bros on a lineup? What’s yo bro? Then I’m just joking around. But think about who lends itself to arguing about who’s what and what’s where. And then correlate. God, I can try and bring up a
Chris: whole new topic on this one. No, but
Rudy: it it, an individual or someone who comes up with their own ideals in their head, it’s not gonna be that fucking serious about shit.
It’s, it’s gonna be [00:52:00] more relaxed. It’s a dude who gets it a little better, who’s a little more sensitive to topics and things and brands and whatever. It’s the people who don’t really think they get a little apish That’s my perspective.
Chris: Well, I mean, I, I think that goes it’s cultural within surfing. Oh yeah.
I mean there is, I mean, we are tribes in a sense, and within tribes, right. There’s that cultural part where there’s a beating of the chest where, and the beating of the drums, so to speak, whether it is to, uh, for the onslaught of waves to come. Yeah. Uh, whether it’s that person that’s leaving town that you say, thank you, you’re the sacrificial lamb that’s bringing us waves.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or it’s exactly that. It’s a beating chest in the water and saying, I am this person and I’m that person and, uh, hear me roar, so to speak. Yeah. Um, there is that individuality that’s all in it. And, uh, you know, it’s, it’s the beautiful part of what it is that we are attracted democratic is the, is the individuality in it.
Yeah. I
Brad: mean,
Chris: look, you
Brad: had like the busing down the doors kind of stuff, right? I mean, that was. I mean, in surfing
Chris: back in the day, [00:53:00] that was a big, well, you had, you had, well, bus and if you’re referring to busting down the doors of the, the movie and the of the sixties and these guys of the Aussies coming to Hawaii and kind of doing all that.
I mean, yeah, absolutely. There was in Hawaii, there, it’s, it’s, you know, you know, surfing is precious. It’s, it’s like, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a way of, of, of, of ancestry, of just royalness, Uhhuh to be part of the ocean, to be able to share in this thing of surfing. And Aussies were looking at it back there and just like, I wanna fucking rip the bag off the top of this wave right now.
Right. I just want, and they, and they were kill it and approach it with such aggression and such competitiveness and is, and, and, and they were like, we’re here, we’re do that. And all
Brad: the Hawaiians are like, Hey, all
Chris: bra,
Brad: a bra. That’s not, that’s not how we do it.
Chris: Break it down a little. Yeah. And, and, and, and it was by.
Uh, you see that both so still rich in our cultural surfing history is that you have the aggressive competitive side approach to it. Yeah. And then you also have the holistic, natural, you know, very mono surf kind of [00:54:00] put to it. And it’ll always have that dichotomy in regards to you have like, I mean, you have Matt Archbold, Christian Fletcher that were just fucking, that are just like this of surfing, right.
They’re the rock and roll. They’re the, the Motorhead the ace of spades. Yeah. But they weren’t surfing like they were. And then you have, I mean, you have like Donovans and Yeah. Yeah. And you’re, you’re Joel Tudors and Rob Machado that are just like, you know, just looking at the curves of, of a wave and trying to figure out your Dave Rastovich, is that just like real, you’re Derek Hynd you know, and just your eyes.
That’s just right. The, the connection that goes into it and, and none of them, those are all
Brad: individuals and none of them are
Chris: right or wrong.
Brad: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: They’re all beautiful approaches to the same thing that we love and we enjoy. I like,
Brad: no, I think he even like a. The more, uh,
kind of black and white version of that is in female surfing. So you have like your kilas who is like, I am gonna charge jokes. Yeah. I’m gonna get like [00:55:00] pioneer for her. I’m gonna, I’m gonna like get thrashed over the reef and wound up with like staples in my head. Yep. And then you almost as an eye. Yeah. I mean that’s like a totally other kind of surfing on the female side.
And then you had stuff that was just like chicks, butts in reef adss for so long. Right.
Chris: We start talking with chicks butt, we start talking, we start going into industry and cult and, and cultural roots, but they see individualism. Uh, I think that, I think we’re talking about different
Rudy: things in individual individuality and surfing.
We’re talking about the high we got commercial side, right? Because Yeah. And to get to that level, you are an individual. You’re actually a trendsetter. You’re setting. You’re making culture from Kelly Slater to, and you don’t have to be
Chris: famous to do that. Uh, you, you don’t have to have a million followers or even a thousand followers to be able to, no, I’m say,
Rudy: but that’s a trickle down effect.
What’s, what’s difficult for people is to see that and not just completely try to emulate that. It’s difficult for people to see that, value that, [00:56:00] and then figure out who they are within their craft. I think that’s the hard part where you say like, oh, I think individuality in surfing is that I, I question it at our level, like, who is an individual?
Can you really deter? Is there more individuals than not? I don’t think so. Not too many people are saying like, not too many people are in their backyard shaping boards from where you’re from. Like, I don’t know. Yeah. Or not too many people are like, oh, I’m gonna open a surf shop and do it, and.
Chris: Don’t do it.
Rudy: Pursue it. Yeah.
Brad: And there’s the reason why there’s nobody
Rudy: around me. Yeah.
Brad: There’s a reason I stop shaving boards too,
Rudy: even for supporting brands. Like I don’t think a lot of people sit down and say, oh, well I like Vis I. Let’s get into that. So this
Brad: is our next topic, is supporting brands. Why would you support one brand over another?
Why would you support a brand at all? Do you support brands?
Rudy: Well, like I was [00:57:00] saying, like a lot of people pick a brand based off a surf they like, and that’s what brands want you to do.
Chris: Yeah.
Rudy: Brands are like, well, people are gonna look at sub marketing budget, this guy, so let’s give ’em a bunch of shit and pay him.
And then the masses is just gonna flock to that. And so, but why? Why, why we’re some surfers and why is it ’cause we’re tribal? Well, but in a sense, we don’t think, and there’s no individuals
Chris: in that marketing scheme, so to speak, in regards to go taking a free surfer and, and taking him to a place and allowing him to just go ahead and just have rain.
Mm-hmm. And, and capturing those images and, and attaching it to the board short that he’s wearing. You’re saying why or the hat that Well, why do they do that? Why is it part of it? Because obviously we are trying to, uh, well, the industry in a sense is trying to go ahead and attach a cultural and or emotional connection of what it is that the is happening.
Right. You’re punting this air, you’re going nuts. I mean, it’s why everyone’s gonna have that board, right. Monetize it. It’s gonna make them do that move. And I think they should, but, but not only that, but, but aside [00:58:00] monetizing, they’re just, they’re connecting the dots for people in a sense like that.
They’re saying listen, because it’s really what all these brands are doing. They’re telling a campfire story of whatever it, but of whatever it is that. Affects them or influences them and it comes out in the product that they go ahead and produce. Yeah. Um, whether it’s Vista or Rourke or this company.
And so they’re organizing the tribes for you? No. No, but because I’ve noticed that for years and being in the surf retail industry, there were people that certainly gravitated before a lot of the smaller brands came up. They said, I’m a Volcom person, I’m an O’Neill person, I’m a Quicksilver person, and I’ve seen this up and down the coastline.
And that someone would go to the shop and they’re just looking for just, they can walk by, right. Some cool pairs of board shorts that are O’Neill or Quicksilver. But because they have already identified themself with Volcom, they say, I’m gonna buy Vulcan pairs of board shorts or a Quicksilver, and there’s a reason for it.
It’s because that story, it’s that brand stands
Rudy: for something in their head. Right. Well, that’s what I mean. And I think as it’s super important, [00:59:00] and I think we live in the best times ever for this, that if there’s any brand that that’s not holding up to their own, you could call bullshit. I think as a consumer.
I
Chris: consumers way smarter and has way more options. Yeah. So I pick a
Rudy: brand that I’m like, you know what, these guys are supporting the right people. Right. For the right reasons. Right. And they’re fair with their prices. Wow. My local surf shops, they’re, they’re like supplying my local, so surf shop, these guys, they’re good.
But that in
Chris: itself is also the, the, the challenge as a surf shop because there’s, there’s always been two type of shops. There’s your local surf shop, boutiquey kind of stuff. Yeah. Your local person that really carries the flavor of the local community and, and kind of, and has that responsibility on their shoulders.
Yeah. And at that point, any brand that is being showcased in their store, it is a, it is a direct relation between that shop and the brand to say, this is who we support and why. And I think you could tell. And then the people that support those shops, interns, support some of those brands as well.
Rudy: I think you could [01:00:00] tell now more than ever, you could say, okay, why do I like those?
Oh fuck, look what they do. Look how they give back. Look how they’re a part of the communities. These guys are sick now. They’re not, they’re not running off ones and zeros. They’re not on paper having some sort of fucking board meeting, making decisions. They make a decision, then they give it to the board meeting, Hey, this is what we’re doing.
Make it work. And that’s how I app, that’s how we should all approach things. Fuck these guys are, these guys are the real deal. These guys.
Chris: I, I will say that there are a larger, like, I mean this whole quick Silver Billabong acquisition that’s come together, you know, so many people. Oak Tree, this is a big business.
Oak Tree Capital has kind of been there and kind of made this happen. But, you know, as a, as a former. Employee of Quicks over, over about six years or so, that, you know, being in the retail world with them, you know, I’d always bled red because they were culturally such a rootsy kind of company, just like Billabong.
Yeah. You know, uh, they’d been around forever and there was, uh, a connection that [01:01:00] I had to them and that when I worked for them, that I hoped to share in the way of Aloha and Ohana, um, with all the people that came and visited our stores. Um, and granted naturally as sometimes being a publicly traded company has it, and you have to appease so many shareholders, your direction goes a certain way.
And a lot of people that are core to the root or the brand kind of gravitate somewhere else. And that me as a retailer, I hadn’t carried Quicksilver before because I was like, yeah, well I’m not gonna battle you over another distribution chain that you have to go through because you’re a publicly trader.
But all that’s changed as of recently. So it’s interesting to see where Billabong and Quicksilver are gonna take their whole program now that they’re not at that level anymore. And they’re saying, you know what? We’re recognizing that the core of what our brand was about was what got us to this point.
Why not return to where that’s at? And capitalize on that. And that’s kind of why we’ve teamed with people like Vis where Paul Aldi of Vista is just, he’s gotten it, he gets it and he’s, he’s tapped into [01:02:00] it and we’re just like, oh, I
Rudy: wanna shoot your stuff. I’m gonna reach out. I wanna shoot your stuff, buddy.
Chris: So you know that, that, but that is, you should, um, that is part of the support in brands, right? We kind of go to it and we say, what is your backstory? What I mean, surfers are some of the best campfire storytellers ever. You know? I mean, look at us. We’re over an hour right now. Now we can keep going for another hour.
Rock is doing
Rudy: with all their small stories that you get to read, right? That thing is sick, right? You read their stuff, you’re like, how great. I can’t believe they’re supporting these guys to travel and write about and take photos. I don’t know. I’d like we live in the best times ever. I think so. I agree.
We live in the best times ever, especially for the small shops, so
Brad: that’s why it’s really, I think like it’s important to, to show the brands that you do enjoy what they’re doing. Yeah. Look, thank you. Serving is a brand.
Rudy: Yeah.
Brad: I like when people come up to me or send we and say, Hey, I like when you did this, or I don’t like when you did this.
Or, Hey, could you do more of that? That’s like, [01:03:00] that’s, that’s the stuff that, that, and I think we should do it
Rudy: to other people that we’d like to. Yeah. Surfers, people that you admire brands ever just reach out to ’em. Just be like, thank you. Well, that’s, that’s a big part of thank
you.
Chris: Surfing. I mean, you guys really nailed a great key phrase.
It’s like, and word and branding all together. I’m like, thank you surfing. There’s just so much
Brad: gratitude that you can give out to so many different people that make, uh, your life better. Your whole. This worldly experience better? It’s tough, man. And it could be a shaper. It’s tough for all of us. It could be a brand, it could be a surf forecaster.
Like, like Chicky. I mean, you make everyone’s life better. You do, you really do. Um, even with all your crazy emine m lyrics, I
Rudy: think, no. But now we’re living in the best times ever. We’re able to really dive into things and like, oh, these guys are cool, these guys. Because before, I mean, it’s, it’s a lot more organic.
Even before social media, I didn’t know who you were because of social media. You get [01:04:00] a kind of like a, an understanding of what your product is doing. And therefore, I could say, yeah, Nate, where if you didn’t, if we didn’t have social media, I wouldn’t know. So you have no. Definitely you have the ability to support the right people based on Absolutely.
I mean,
Chris: when I first heard about Brad Wells, it was on Dayco Surf and it was ’cause what Scott was leaving from doing the reports and you were gonna start doing reports. Mm-hmm. And I was like, dude, this guy’s gotta be on like the major guy, like, for these guys to go ahead and pass it on, he’s coming from over here.
And I thought you were way older than what you really were. So part of me was really kind of intimidated a little bit because I’m like, oh, this guy and all saw me. I’m like, this guy’s a character just like me. I’m like, he is not older. He is younger than me. I’m just like, I got this guy. Uh, but it, but it’s been a serendipitous in a sense with, um, even, I mean, Rudy, you and I haven’t known each other for a long time either, but the, the store organic, um, attraction that people have to a surf shop in regards to it being a lighthouse, if you will.
And more so being [01:05:00] here in Miami Beach where you, we lack a lot of surf. You guys are good dudes. Well, that’s the brand that you put out, right? Well we tried to make it look real inclusive. You guys weren’t
Rudy: good dudes that wouldn’t be here. Right. It’s, I support. The right people. Oh, we appreciate it. I’m like, oh, these guys are like-minded dudes.
Like-minded dudes. Meet there. I’m gonna go whatever way that I could give back, I’m gonna give back. Right. Because you guys keep the right fire a lot. That’s one of the things that we’re proud
Chris: about, is trying to like, and it’s just a natural thing for us. That’s the right, but that’s,
Brad: that’s not like if you guys don’t know surf shops, that’s not normal.
Rudy: Yeah.
Brad: Um, well it should be surf shops out there looking at chick make it normal. A lot of surf shops are kinda weird when you walk in. They’re fucking weirdos. They make it really hard to support the them as a brand.
Chris: Right.
Brad: I think you guys do a really good job of like inviting everybody in and like when someone walks in, whether they’re like a tourist from Milwaukee or a surfer that like wants to drop off their keys, it’s like the same exact thing.
It’s like, Hey, [01:06:00] what’s up happening? Like, welcome. Like, what? What could we do for you? And like I, I saw Brandon before, like giving, like restaurant recommendations. I mean, I mean it’s kind
Chris: of what we pitch to these guys is like that’s, you know, we’re kind of concierges to our neighborhood. We’re an ambassador of our local community.
We’re ambassador, not just shop. That’s, if you guys guys were in here, I’d
Rudy: probably move. Aw. But it’s pretty, it’s like in, we live in, we’re in South Beach, Miami. Like there’s very few things left here in this area that are run like this. Right. They know you that are worth wild
Brad: supporting,
Rudy: you know, they get a good sense of what you’re about.
Yeah. They five. So first Surf
Brad: shop, which you can see right above my head right here. Yeah. I mean, this is like one of those places that you wanna support because it’s a brand that stands for something that whatever it is, like it’s hard to identify Exactly. But you’re behind that. Yeah. And, and, and for, at least for me, it’s like two local guys that are in the scene, that have been in the [01:07:00] scene that are.
Just two normal guys that are trying to provide stuff that we all need. Yeah. And, and actually it’s actually probably cooler than I can imagine in my own head because they like curate the shop in a certain way where I’m like, oh yeah, if I wore all that stuff, I’d probably look cooler than I do. And they had ding repair stuff and wax, which is what I really come in for.
And,
Chris: and for us, that’s always been that challenge to like, I mean, coming into our 10th year, it’s just like, it’s like how do we keep the community still engaged? How, and like, and we constantly move product around so that it just looks fresh. For the most part, the
Brad: product is like the lease, the third thing of what you guys really provide.
Oh,
Chris: that’s good.
Brad: I, I mean, but buy the product, it helps us out. I that’s, I mean, that’s what everyone like keeps coming back for, but it’s more about like a, like you said, like it’s like a lighthouse or like a, a landmark that you, you passed by. And like Renee said it the other day when he came by, he was like.
Yeah. When I come here, like it feels [01:08:00] like home. Yeah. Yes. And like a surf shop, as a brand, if it feels like home, I think you guys are
Chris: doing a good thing. Well, and I, I’m so excited that we have new blood like Joon and Brandon that work for us, right. That grew up around here. Have that feeling more businesses get to extend
Rudy: that a little bit of what we were about.
Or businesses need to buck up. If you’re gonna run a business, be a part of the community of not fuck off. Dude, I, I’m tired of people, pussy fun things. The fact is we’re a losing, no, we’re losing de involved. We’re losing that type of, just that type of human by the fucking second dude. But those are the kinds of brands that you see.
I hope it comes back. I hope this is just like when you look, we’re going even out. I’m sorry to be so fresh. When you said
Brad: vis, why did you say vis? Because you’re like, oh look, they’re doing stuff with creators. They’re doing the right shit. Right. And you mentioned another brand that was like that you supported because they are supporting certain things.
Yeah. And locally, the surf shops around you. If they’re not supporting the right things, tell ’em be like, look. I wanna buy wax from you. I wanna buy a board from you. I wanna buy [01:09:00] wetsuits from you. But like, would you do a little something with the Surf Rider Foundation locally? Would you maybe, uh, go talk about surfing rights on the beach by us at the commission meeting?
Would you get involved with like merchant issues? Like you guys are crazy at this stuff. Yeah. Like you guys are like all up in like the business community here. You held like a Chamber of Commerce meeting at a surf shop. Sure. And I mean, the Chamber of Commerce, Miami Beach is big business. We’re talking about hotels that make millions and millions of dollars.
This surf shop, uh, to date, we don’t, to date has not yet made millions of dollars. Help us. Yeah. You know, like this is the kind of stuff that you should be support, wanna supporting, I wanna make some, this is the brands that you should get behind. And when you see that someone doing something right, let ’em know.
Yeah. You know, well, we’re, we’re
Chris: thank, we’re thankful for the community support. We honestly are, and we wouldn’t have made it this far. And, and I think it’s, I think it’s emulating a lot of what life is about. Like you don’t do anything by yourself. I think, you know, we all have our individuality and being able to progress and whatever it is that we want [01:10:00] to do personally, that passionately moves us.
But at the end of the day, like we don’t get there by ourselves. Yeah. There are plenty of people and there are plenty of things around us and plenty of variables that add to that allowing to happen. Right. You know? Um, and we’ve, we’ve made such a great night of tonight with all these topics. We’re kind of pushing an hour and a half already.
Something just came
Brad: up to mind, you know, when uh, people came up with that whole idea of like, companies are people too. Oh
Chris: yeah.
Brad: They
Chris: Mitt Romney. Didn’t he say that once on he like, what Come cut companies? MIT Romney totally said it was like something, and it
Brad: was a tax issue that he was referring to. But I think like in terms of local business, what about the people and supporting brands?
Could do, yeah. Like First Shop are people too, right? And especially like Rudy are people too, you know, like he’s a photographer. Like support him. I have this surfing thing that I started like support it. Why not Like or not
Rudy: if you don’t like it, support If you don’t [01:11:00] like, yeah,
Brad: absolutely. But you know, like don’t force
Rudy: you to support anything.
Brad: Do yourself a favor and like get behind what you’re actually behind.
Chris: Yep. Because the more that you push that, the more that initiative grows and the more that that grows, the more that you’re actually stamping your place in this world. In a sense. You’re kind of drawing a line in the sand. You’re saying, no, I believe in this and I want this.
And I do like, yeah. We have that power to go ahead and say, I like this, I don’t like this, I want this in my life. I don’t want this in life. Just give it a little
Rudy: bit of thought. Don’t just Right. Absolutely Don’t just fucking sheep around. But here’s, we we’re tribal and we do your research, do your due diligence.
So I went to public get in
Brad: there and all of a sudden they’re accounting. This new brand of olives.
Rudy: Oh shit.
Brad: That I really like. And I was like, they were counting them. They were carrying ’em. Oh, carrying it. Was it new on the shelf? And I was like, I You eat a lot of olives. I, yeah. I love olives. You like olives?
Yeah. Yeah. So Italian. What’s that? Yeah, Sicilian half or how much Sicilian and Spanish
Rudy: are you? Yeah. So, um, he’s single women. He’s single.
Chris: Makes a mean [01:12:00] burrito taco
Rudy: make a mean everything. He has a good view. Lives in the sand,
Chris: likes long walks on beaches. Wait, this is Bradley hour right now.
Rudy: Multiple businesses.
Wink, multiple businesses. Tinder profile,
Brad: forthcoming. The, the point was that I saw these olives come up on the shelf and I was like, I’m buying every single jar. Of these olives. He’s not obsessive composers. Because I wanted, I wanted Publix to know that I supported their decision
Rudy: to distribute this new brand.
He’s fine, ladies. That’s not a crazy act. That’s,
Brad: I, I, I think that’s what it’s about. And so like, if you see your local surf shop, pick up a brand that you like. Go buy a pair of chunks. Don’t be like, Hey, those are cool. And not buy ’em. Buy them. Yeah. If you see a new board on the wrap, buy a bunch of my photos.
Buy it. If you see Rudy’s photos and you, and you think they’re cool, don’t just sit there and say like, that’s cool. Buy it. Show em they’re all what we say, what your
Chris: Instagram was so that they could follow you.
Rudy: Rudy Dubois, that’s it. And Nick, Rudy du [01:13:00] I-B-O-U-E. Thank
Chris: you. It’ll be on Thank you surfing.com.
We’ll have a little
Brad: link. You
Chris: really do have such epic photos. I mean, they’re just that like I was just talking to someone else before. It’s what, it’s kind of stuff that you like. It is so subconscious, the thoughts that come of it. Like you wa you see it and there’s so many routes that your brain can go on when you look at it, but they’re so simple.
Communicate a lot of emotion, and it’s just, there’s this, there’s, there’s a, there’s a simple humanness to it. Thank you. That, um, that I appreciate personally.
Brad: Yeah. So, Rudy, incredible photographer. Great. Uh, Bradley, let’s wrap this up. A fun surfer to hang
Chris: out. It’s been a long night. I love you guys.
Rudy: Oh, but there’s a dog.
It’s getting like
Brad: that.
Rudy: Got an emotion. Call group hug you guys. Uh,
Brad: so yeah, here we go. Um, here we are. We’re thanks. Thanks for supporting, uh, this podcast. Having guys, we’re on number 12 already, obviously. Thank you for having, we’re still doing this because we’re getting some
Chris: feedback from you guys that says, Hey, don’t knock the mic over the
Brad: mic.
[01:14:00] That’s what you guys are saying. So tell your friends if you guys enjoy this stuff. Um, like we were saying, support, support the brand. This is a brand I guess now. So, uh, and it’s justChris: subscribe.
Brad: Yeah. Oh, subscribe to the YouTube thing. Um, look at us on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter. Oh, on LinkedIn, if you’re a professional.
Uh, we’re we’re also on, can I, can
Chris: I add this to my LinkedIn? Yeah. Ladies. He has
Brad: a Tinder. I mean, ’cause I keep on getting hits
Chris: and I realize I haven’t updated in like
Brad: eight years. Yeah, we’ll get on that. And, um, on, I didn’t know what that is. Rudy, thanks so much for joining us tonight. Thanks for having me
Rudy: guys.
Caleb, Caleb in the background. What is
Chris: Tomato? Tomatoes? It, Caleb, Caleb, whatever you want it to be because I almost be like DJ Caleb.
Rudy: Alright guys. Better, let’s go. Cutting out. Thanks
Chris: for being behind, making this all happen. We’ll see you guys. Bradley, walk us out here next week.
Rudy: That was great guys. Later.
Thank you again. Thank you.
I, I.