Just about everybody who has ever pulled a dawn patrol to get in the water before school or work, bailed on a class or meeting to catch a swell has tried to figure out what they could do to combine the two—making surfing their job. ~Click Read More for photos and the full interview.
{gallery}Wingnut{/gallery}
You graduated with a degree in economics and marketing, is this what you expected to be doing twenty years later?
Wingnut - I was trying to make money without really working.
So you get paid to surf without competing.
Wingnut - Ah Ha! You see my plan.
So, obviously Endless Summer II was the turning point in your career…
Wingnut - Absolutely, it gave me the opportunities to have a career surfing in the athletic vein. If the movie hadn’t come along, I would have ended up being a rep working for some company somewhere because I am passionate about surfing, but it gave me an opportunity to make a living as a longboarder which is not easy to do. The companies tend to support the kids. It’s a youth driven business and most kids don’t longboard.
But you continued to longboard right through the height of the shortboard revolution when most shops didn’t even stock longboards.
Wingnut - People like Robert August and Takayama were always shaping longboards and people were buying them even in the 80’s and 90’s. It’s always been there but the industry wasn’t paying attention to it… it wasn’t “cool.”
You were a grom in the 80’s, what drew you to longboarding?
Wingnut - I started surfing in ’83, I always liked hanging out with the older longboarders. They had jobs. They came to the beach with coolers and had cookouts… (points to our young buck photog) You get three of your friends together, they can’t even pitch in for gas, freakin’ worthless.
But there couldn’t have been many longboarders your age out there.
Wingnut - No, in the 80’s there were just a handful of young longboarders. At competitions we couldn’t even field a junior division. There was just one age group, you were out there with everybody. Endless Summer II kind of made it cool to longboard again, in California I get blamed for it all the time.
At the same time, in the movie you weren’t surfing a longboard like most of the old guys we were used to seeing,
Wingnut - I was trying to adapt the best of the traditional style, there were guys around trying to surf a longboard like a shortboard. To me that just means you couldn’t catch waves on your shortboard. I appreciate the true aesthetic of how a longboard should be ridden and still try to update it enough to make it work in the conditions we had.
If you had some advice for the kids out there, do you think adding a longboard to their quiver can make them a better surfer?
Wingnut - I think it does because it makes you understand waves better, you can’t shortcut on wave knowledge. You have to anticipate and look at the wave more and you can catch more waves and surf more days and there is no substitute for time in the water.
I know you were diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, which affects your balance, bad news for a surfer…
Wingnut - Yeah, about 10 years ago, right after my son was born. I went through a rough patch, but I did some things, switched up my diet. I have been symptom free now for 9 years. I think it’s got something to do with vitamin D. They don’t have MS in the tropics, did you know that? They get a lot of vitamin D because they’re in the sun all the time. Never been a case reported in the tropics.
(At this point the crowd around Robert August clears enough that he can make his way over where we are talking)
August - You know, most surf magazines are chicken shit.
Really?
August - You never read any of the bad shit that goes on in this industry. You never read about the guys that go to jail or get in trouble. That stuff gets swept under the rug like it never happened. We need some investigative reporting, somebody digging into what really goes on. Clean up the sport a little bit.
You’re right. We should do some of that… you guys got in any trouble lately?
August - (laughs) No, but I’m sure somebody has.
So, how long have you been doing these shop tours?
August - A long time, one year I just flew into Florida, rented a car and drove all the way up to Maine. I want to get out and see who I’m doing business with. I might get some guy that comes to my booth and puts an order in for 50 boards, but when I get to his town I find out he’s a jerk and this guy across the street is who everybody likes. That’s the guy I want to do business with.
So you’ve never stopped traveling. You’re kinda living the Endless Summer.
August - Yeah, but I stick to my spots for the most part. I spend time in Costa Rica when I can…
At your house, Casa Augusto…
August - Original, right. Yeah, and we have a surf contest and golf tournament down there every year, Surf and Turf. We do it to raise money for the Cepia Foundation that raises money for poor children and families in Costa Rica. You should come.
Sounds fun. Do you think there are really any spots left to discover?
August - I think there are. There are places with waves that nobody is really surfing. I remember when we were making Endless Summer we had to stop off in India, and we had a four day layover, and they confiscated our camera equipment and our boards at the airport. They said the only way we could take our boards to the hotel with us was if they could split them open first to see what was in them. We were like, “No, no, you hold the boards here, and we’ll take them with us when we leave.” So we sat in our hotel on the beach in India and watched waist to chest high waves roll in for four days and we couldn’t do anything about it. So, I know there are waves in India, and I don’t think many people surf there.
Wingnut - There is surf in the United Arab Emirates. We know a sheik who owns a hotel and he sent of pictures of it, and we were looking at the pictures. We were like, “Woah, there is surf right out front.” I emailed back and I asked him if he had any more pictures of the ocean out front. He wants us to come see his hotel and I’m thinking, “Send the plane.”
What are you doing when you’re not on the road?
August - I’m in the shop. Still shaping boards. I have guys that work with me, but I get orders and the customer wants a board shaped by me specifically, and I go shape it.
Will there ever be an Endless Summer 3?
Wingnut- I don’t think so, I know Bruce doesn’t want to, and I don’t think Dana is into it. I imagine if someone threw a bunch of money at them to make another one they would, but I don’t think they will on their own.
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