People often ask what I feel when somebody quotes a really awesome thing I said almost 30 years ago. My response? “100% pure adrenaline.”
See, you’re laughing because you know that line came from my days as an undercover Eff-Bee-Eye agent who infiltrated a gang of surfers who were also bank robbers cleverly dressed as ex-presidents. That period of my life is also better known as “my prime.” I learned a lot of things about life back then. I learned how to read clocks properly so I’d know when the little hand says it’s time to rock and roll. I even learned basic dog psychology, which proves that when you project weakness, that promotes violence, and that’s how people get hurt.
And whenever the shoe was on the other foot and I was the one trying to hand out life lessons, things didn’t always go so well. “Bodhi, this is your fucking wake-up call,” I would scream. “I am an F. B. I. Agent!”
“I know, man. Ain’t it wild,” he said without hesitation. And that’s when it all clicked. And I mean all of it. In life, you can do what you want and make up your own rules. Why be a servant to the law, when you can be its master? If I wanted the ultimate, I needed to be willing to pay the ultimate price. So soon after, I jumped out of a plane without a chute because it’s not tragic to die doing what you love.
Funny enough, that was the last time Bodhi and I really hung out. We had one other awkward interaction some time later and I’ve recently heard murmurs of him paddling all the way to New Zealand, but that last little dust up was basically the end of our very intense, short-lived relationship. So it will soon be 30 years since our awesome tale of bank robbing surfers was first told (…until Paul Walker and Vin Diesel kind of did it 10 years later…eight times…and then until it kind of happened again two years ago with two other actors whose names you don’t remember). And you know what? I may be a little biased but I think Bodhi and I did it best the first time around.
Also, I’d like to take this moment to drop some historic behind the scenes Point Break knowledge on you. Not every “brah” was scripted. Sometimes we would just improv them on set.
