A Few Surfers of Note: The Wild Call is Now a Cash Cow

"Where but the moment before was only the wide desolation and invincible roar, is now a man, erect, full-statured, not struggling frantically in that wild movement, not buried and crushed and buffeted by those mighty monsters, but standing above them all, calm and superb, poised on the giddy summit..."
-- Jack London, Learning Hawaiian Surfing, 1907

Jack and wife in Waikiki.

When Jack London tossed himself into the Hawaiian rush of surf culture in 1907, he could not have known that one day, in the same way that he brought a significant portion of fame to the writing profession, his own words would help elevate the surf world to lucrative heights. Here are a few famous surfers that plot the rise of style and cash in the scene...

Mr. Iconoclastic: Miki "Da Cat" Dora - a man with an original mind and slick surf skill who was always wary of commercialism in the sport hated official contest, famously mooning the judges in one event. He saw professionalism as a disease that would nail the coffin on the surf world. He rocked the Malibu scene in the 1950s and 60s and perished in 2002

A current Mark Richards' contest winner follows the legend's wounded flightpath.

Soar Over Sea: Mark Richards' is known by the title "the wounded seagull," because of his tall frame, and unusual style of making bottom turns and cutbacks with his arms splayed out awkwardly behind his back. And like Kelly Slater, Richards was hooked in with the grunge scene that emerged in the late 1980s, even helping Pear Jam's Eddie Vedder work on setlists.

Hits the Big Time: An important date in sufing history is the one where a surf bum becomes a millionaire. In 1989 Tom Carroll signed a five-year million-dollar contract with Quiksilver become the first surfer in history worth seven figures. Miki Dora predicted it and any economist worth beans would have known the inevitability, and now you can buy into surf culture in a multitude of shops down on Yonge St. in Toronto, or smack dab right in the middle of the Prairies, even though only about one per cent of these shoppers (or less) will ever truely have the opportunity or capability to actually surf. Concerned oldschoolers write whole essays about the "kookocracy" that's taking over, wrestling surf industry time of day away from the hardcores like Miki, who just want to surf, and giving it to suburbanites with cashflow. Here's an article from Transworld Surf by Vaughn Dead about Tom Carroll.

--Also I have to thank Sara for turning me on to David Guetta -- a rad pop-electronic DJ with some sweet-ass catchy tunes, that I've been vibing along to recently. I apologize for expecting all your shitty "dance" artists would suck. :P

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