March 30, 2010 Tuesday

Surfer Magazine

“I just got out of the dentist office and I washed my hands,” Jack the Dave Sweet team rider greeted me at Sam’s in Tiburon for lunch. “Thus I won’t soil the magazine.”

I slid my prize possession, an original copy of the first Surfer Magazine, over to him.

“Ooooooh man!! I haven’t seen this in fifty years.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Jack stared at the famous cover picture, a classic black and white grainy photo of Jose Angel coming backside down a huge Sunset Beach wave. Jack and I are the same age. We were both 14 years old in January 1960 when John Severson published the first surfer magazine ever printed. We both put down the seventy-five cents needed to purchase copies and spent hours going over every one of the magazine’s 36 pages.

Last Fourth of July, my brothers and I had to empty our mother’s house of forty years in Palos Verdes of all of her possessions. Due to age, we had helped her move to an assisted living facility in San Diego and put the house up for sale. We had one weekend to move everything. In the garage was a trunk provided to me when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1968 – 69. I knew it was filled with books and Peace Corps literature. Every time I saw that trunk I reminded myself that I would some day have to go through it and sort out all the stuff in it. For forty years I never opened it, it just sat there. So that weekend I had to open it. When I did open it and to my surprise, my mother had filled it with memorabilia from my youth. Under a stack of high school annuals and newspaper clippings of old football and baseball games was my copy of the first Surfer magazine.

Imagine my delight at finding a treasure I thought I had lost years ago. The magazine was still in good condition, a couple of loose pages and one coffee stain but other than that it was in mint condition. Everything froze while I leafed through all those famous photos of the heroes of my youth: Mickey Munoz in the forward – squatting – left arm “Quasimoto,” Kemp Aaberg trimming mid-swell in a perfect Rincon wall, Fred van Dyke dropping left down a Waimea monster, 300 pound Chubbie Mitchell locked in the curl at Queens, and 15 year old Linda Benson screaming backside down a head-high shore break at Makaha. I had spent hours going over and over every page of this of magazine.

High school art teacher and surfer, John Severson had made two surf movies (Surf in 1956 and Surf Safari in 1958) and to promote his third movie Surf Fever, he put together The Surfer, a photo journal filled with images from his latest movie. He printed 5000 copies and hocked them at surf shops and at showings of his movies. The magazine was an enormous success. This was the beginning of the longest running sports magazine ever. His next venture was a quarterly Surfer, then to a bimonthly to monthly. Surfer became the “Bible of the Surfing Industry”, far out-pacing all of the competition. Severson sold the magazine in 1971 and moved to Maui with wife and kids to pursue his life long loves of art and surfing.

The first Surfer was 36 pages in length, black and white, had twelve advertisements and cost $0.75. The 50th Year anniversary issue had 170 pages, incredible in the water, color photos, endless ads and cost $6.99. This issue had a graphic of Surfer magazine development over the years: number of pages, number sold and the price. For you economists out there, $0.75 in 1960 is worth $5.80 in today’s dollars. So in relative terms the price has remained about the same, but the quality has greatly improved. This issue had quotes from all the past editors, including John Severson. What advice was he given when he started out, “Don’t start a magazine you will lose your shirt.”

“Nose riding,” Jack exclaimed looking at the classic shot of Joey Cabell at Trestles. “I love nose riding. And look at the boards: no leashes and no rocker. Boards are faster when they are straight. I like my boards straight for speed.” I was talking to an accomplished surfer who has been doing it for over 50 years.

“Denny Buell!” Jack loudly exclaimed looking at the photo of Denny at the bottom of a double overhead closeout at the Huntington Pier that was about to unload on him. “I knew Denny. I went to high school with him and Robert August. Denny was fearless.”

“Jack, what is the most memorable photo for you?” I asked.

“The one with the guy in the fur coat,” he said. On page 30, Duke Brown stands there with wet hair wearing a knee length ratty, torn-up fur coat. “When we saw that, we all went out and got old fur coats, trench coats, any old ratty thing to wear at the beach.”

“My favorite is Renolds Yater at Rincon,” I said. In this shot Yater is just completing a bottom turn into a shoulder-high perfectly formed Rincon wave. “I love it because I can easily imagine myself on such a wave. I can’t imagine dropping into a Sunset or Waimea monster. But a clean Rincon curl is my style.”

“Malibu Lizard?” Jack was puzzled. “I remember that as one of the shapes offered by Bear Surfboards.” We’re looking at the short story “Malibu Lizards” on page 14.

“I’m sure they took the name from this short story,” I answered. “Besides the Bear label originated in the movie, Big Wednesday.”

“Jack, you surfed for Dave Sweet and there are two Sweet ads in here,” I commented. “One for Dave Sweet and one for Robertson and Sweet.”

“No there’s only one, Dave Sweet,” he answered. “The other is Cliff Robertson, the actor, who loved to surf, and Dave Sweet’s brother. Dave parted ways with them and went out on his own. They wanted to mass-produce boards and Dave wanted to go the custom board route. Robertson and Sweet went broke in a couple of years.”

With a couple of cool ones over a good Sam’s lunch, Jack and I spent an enjoyable two hours reminiscing about the old days, the surf, the times, the movies, the magazines, the technical changes and most of all the stories. This classic black and white booklet brought it all back for us.

The last page sums it up for all of us: “In this crowded world the surfer can still seek and find the perfect day, the perfect wave, and be alone with the surf and his thoughts,” John Severson.

What fun it was to share my treasure with a friend who was also there. A treasure that was in that trunk all those years and I didn’t know it. “Thanks mom!”