massive lines stacking up.

Yeah . . .  I had good times with Marty, too.   Not as raucous as other accounts.  I was always too protective of my cameras to directly confront the forces that be.  No tossing of grenades or shouting “Nazis” at the police.  Although I did get arrested in Virginia Beach for sleeping in my van.  I was in jail and ready to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.  When Dewey bailed me out and reminded me we had a tour to finish. But I was outraged.  I’d always slept in my van on surf trips.   Standard surf accommodations. 

With Marty, Lucoff, Mike Mishich, etc, etc, we’d spend the night at Cardiff Reef.  

I remember sitting in the parking lot at Swami’s with huge lines rolling thru on a crisp winter morning.  2 or 3 people out?  Maybe nobody.  Yet. 

Marty and Mike Mishich were looking nervously at each other talking about the cold as they looked at the massive lines stacking up.  We were mostly small wave, style-conscious hot-doggers.  And this didn’t fit our mold.  I went out and was soon joined by Marty.   I dropped into a few double overhead walls as did Marty.  We’d look both ways, and realize there was nowhere to go.  I don’t remember if Mishich even paddled out.  Which was an ordeal that day.

Bonesyards at Doheny/Dana Pt. was more our style.  And Marty showed his stuff.  His Dora-esque affinity.  (as featured in “The Living Curl”.)  Marty showed up at the “Premiere” at Duke’s Malibu in 2008 for the digital re-release.   And gave me a glowing intro before the film.  Devoid of all the competitive banter that had accompanied our discussions in the sixties. Thanks, Marty.  Although I did miss the banter.

There was always a political edge in the air on a surf trip with Marty.  Yeah . . . we were there to surf.  But the casual conversations could cover anything from the enlightenment of LSD, Miki’s anti-social antics, the war in Vietnam and a general consensus of life as surfers in the sixties.  Seventies.   I miss that interaction in today’s society: where it’s all reality shows and sound bytes.  By contrast, it makes what we did seem all the more “real” than today.

I was fascinated and appalled with the reports that Marty had gone to Afghanistan (?) to be a journalist.  I mean . . . how was the surf there?  When I asked him about it years later, he said merely, “Yeah.  Got tired of it.  Missed H2O.”   Literally and figuratively.   I guess.

It seemed we were all members of a semi-exclusive club.  And still are.  In spite of the eccentric contrast with the mores of today.

Marty and I sat in the patio at Pepperdine at the “Girls in the Curl” event last year.   Listening to Denny Aaberg playing upstairs.  It felt OK.  Like we had all done our thing and had our time and place.

And still do . . .   sharing antics of the past with the generations of today.  Who all say they wish they’d been there then.

“Don’t it always seem to go . . . . “

Live long and prosper, Marty.

Jamie Budge