This is my favorite band. Old school BMX freestyler Mike Sarrail dragged me to a club called Scream in L.A. in 1988 to see these bands, one of my first punk shows ever. I wasn’t so sure about punk back then. Skater Per Welinder once discribed punk rock as “sounding like a couple of guys were dragging garbage cans down an alley while shouting poetry.” And that’s what my first couple punk shows seemed like. But Social D sang “Ring of Fire,” a Johnny Cash song I knew from listening to the country stations my mom played when I was a kid. I thought, “a punk band that likes Johnny Cash? Fuck yeah!” Almost no one in the punk crowd knew who Johnny Cash was in those days.
I was a fan in 1988, I’ve seen them live about seven or eight times. I went to the Dennis Doneill tribute show. Social Distortion still rings true a couple of decades later.
Why did I tag skateboarding for this post? Because at one show at the Anaheim House of Blues, Mike Ness had a broken arm… broken while downhill skateboarding. Old school baby.
When I started riding BMX in the early 1980′s, it was all about dirt jumping. We actually had a seven foot deep keyhole shaped bowl in the desert near our trailer park that we would jump in and out of. we dreamed about things like the dirt pipe in the video above. That is so freakin’ cool.
I saw the movie Soul Surfer, about surfer Bethany Hamilton last night. Since I wound up in North Carolina, where there’s virtually no alternative sports scene, I’ve been jonesing for any BMX, skate, and surf input I could get. I’ve been out of work and homeless and just started working as a taxi driver here, and finally had a few bucks to go see a movie. I went to the cheap movie theater, and saw “Soul Surfer” on the marquis, and just thought, “anything with surfing is great right now.” I spent half my life in Huntington Beach, California, where I was a BMXer and occasional skater and Boogie boarder. I never learned to surf, but I was surrounded by surf culture for 20 plus years.
I had no idea what the movie was about, and to be honest, I was a little bit bummed when I saw it was about “that chick who lost her arm to a shark.” That’s who she was in my mind. I heard about her when the accident happened in 2003, and I knew she was a good competitive surfer to got bit by a shark, and lost her arm. I knew she started surfing again with one arm, and was pretty good. I remember hearing people in HB say “That one arm surfer girl is gonna be at the Trestles contest,” back in 2004 or so. (SAVE TRESTLES!) Everyone was stoked she survived and was surfing again. But there was resentment that this girl was getting so much media coverage while there were hundreds of great surfers who you’d never see on TV. As far as I knew, she was competing again and surfing decent, but not particularly great.
I saw the book about her at the library last year, but wasn’t motivated to read it. In my mind, Bethany Hamilton was a surfer girl who survived a tragic shark attack, and had the guts to get back in the water and surf again, which is really cool. But I was in the mood for a movie like Endless Summer, In Gods Hands, or Bra Boys, or evenBlue Crush last night. I didn’t really want to watch a movie about a teenage girl. But it had surfing. And I was jonesing for some kind of alternative sports action, so I went to see it.
All in all, I liked it. It was a cool surf movie, but it got really preachy in parts. It was almost like the religious scenes were directed by someone else. That’s the impression I got. But most of the movie was about characters much like my surfer friends in Huntington Beach. A surfer family, which reminded me a bit of the Fletchers, living the ocean life on Kauai. Then Bethany gets attacked by the shark, and it’s a family drama. But that surf stoke really came through in the movie, which is pretty unusual in a Hollywood flick. I was stoked on the fell of much of the movie.
Then came the surprising part. Bethany not only got back in the water and learned to surf with her one remaining arm, but she continued to improve. I know it’s a movie, and it was pro surfers doing most of her surfing parts, but there were a few shots that looked like the real Bethany surfing. AND SHE RIPPED. Holy crap. I had no idea she was that good now. That was amazing to see.
But what really blew me away was a shot during the credits. There wetre shots of everyone in her family surfing, including Bethany tearing it up. Then out of nowhere was this shot of the real Bethany surfing this HUGE wave. Like XXL contest stuff. And that’s what it was, Bethany on a huge tow-in ride at JAWS. That blew me away. She’s not only surfing again, but she’s riding waves that few people in the world have the huevos and talent to ride. I gained a whole new respect for Bethany Hamilton from that movie. Forget the whole shark/one arm thing. Bethany Hamilton just plain RIPS.
So I put three You Tube clips together here so you can get a look at Bethany the surfer, not just Bethany the tragic story. Like Yoda said in Star Wars… “the force is strong in this one.” Bethany, you’re one amazing and inspiring chick. Keep doing what you’re doing.
I love the quote, “She’s a FREAK! She’s not only still surfing… but she RIPS!” Soul surfer, ripper, and surfing Jedi, Bethany Hamilton and some friends talk about her learning to surf again after the shark attack. The force is strong in this one.
Here’s the best women big wave surfers riding MASSIVE surf, and these clips competed for the Billabong XXL contest in 2010. Sharkbite survivor and soul surfer Bethany Hamilton ends the clip with a great ride at Jaws in Hawaii. OK, since Bethany’s a hardcore Christian I’ll keep the cussing down. But holy freakin’ crap that’s a big wave. Years ago I saw a caption in a surf mag that said, “I don’t care how you measure this wave… mainland scale, Hawaiian scale, or the Richter Scale. This is a BIG wave.” That caption applies here.
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