So, what am I doing in Hawaii?
In 2003 a writer for GQ magazine wrote an article about my music. He later contacted me, saying he was researching a book about neuroscience, spirituality and surfing. He asked if I’d be interested in sharing my ideas about the altered states of mind surfers frequently report experiencing. We spoke at length about this subject and eventually the book, called West Of Jesus, was published with several quotes and anecdotes from me included.
Now here’s where the story gets interesting. The beautifully written, deeply insightful book was well received, both by the scientific and surfing community. The next year the author, Steven Kotler, was contacted by legendary surfboard design pioneers Malcolm and Duncan Campbell, (the guys who invented the Bonzer, which is the arguably the prototype for all modern three-fin boards). They told him how much they enjoyed West Of Jesus and his exploration of the science of spirituality as viewed through the lens of surfing. They then added that they were especially gratified to see that their favorite musician Jim White had contributed to the book. Steven forwarded me their note and after I incredulously read it a couple of times I just sat there laughing for the longest time. What are the odds? Remember, nearly thirty years prior I laminated their boards at G&S, who they subcontracted to build Bonzers. I had actually not only met them and worked for them, but I rode their boards in many of the contests I won. So our lives were intricately connected at one point, then disconnected for thirty years, the miraculously reconnected. And I knew for a fact that the Campbells had no idea of our shared past because in those days my name wasn’t Jim White—Jim White’s a stage name I took when I became a recording artist. So how did they know? What esoteric pull in my direction did they respond to?
You’ve heard about the physics model called the butterfly effect I’m sure—how a butterfly flapping its wings in Argentina can cause a snowstorm in North Dakota? But that model is incomplete, isn’t it? Because it fails to address how the snowstorm in North Dakota subsequently re-affects the butterfly in Argentina. That’s how I ended up waiting here at this luggage carousel in Honolulu three decades later. The fin of my board went through my foot, setting off a seemingly random series of events that sent me tumbling willy-nilly through the fields of time, bringing me right back to the place I started. In mystic traditions they refer to this dynamic as “the journey from the unknown to the unknown”.
I contacted the Campbells and informed them that their favorite musician (apparently many Bonzers have been shaped with my music playing in the background) was none other than that lanky long-haired Jesus Freak who used to laminate their boards back in San Diego. There was a moment of regrouping, then Duncan, struck by the astonishing synchronicity of events, immediately offered me a free trip to the islands in exchange for me doing a performance at his beautiful cafe in Haleiwa. Cool, right?
No. This was not an attractive offer at first.
I travel for a living and am on the road too much as it is. I have two beautiful daughters who I see too little of and so truly hate being away from home. Additionally that’s a long long way to go just to play one damn show. I was tempted to politely turn Duncan down, as that’s too much of an investment of time just to confirm a small but compelling coincidence. But something in this equation seemed irresistable, so here I am in Hawaii, sick as a dog and floundering around in a trough of bewildering signifiers, waiting for Duncan Campbell, who is the promoter of the show.
Duncan finally appears and introduces himself. We shake hands, as we did so long ago in the office of the G & S factory, and as we do the vague image of a map of the paths he and I have traveled in the intervening decades forms in my mind. It’s a bewildering scrawl of irrational lines zig zagging all over the world then suddenly, elegantly reconverging in the here and now. And time, ever the trickster, has hobbled me once again with this sickness. I tell Duncan about my lost guitars, my flu, my laryngitis. He seems unconcerned. A few minutes later he’s found my guitars and we’re walking towad a rental car facility. To Duncan’s credit, he makes no further mention of the fact that his pricey entertainment (for what it turns out is a high profile Triple Crown event at his place), has laryngitis and may not be able to go on. I admire his calm. He rents me a Dodge Charger (?!) to drive while I’m there and off to the country we go. We make small talk along the way and somewhere, on a winding back road, as we pass a group of bums jamming on a few crappy guitars gathered under a grove of majestic Koa trees, I’m suddenly struck by the utterly breathtaking beauty of this place. Even the winos look like mythological creatures. I know that sounds, well, utterly cliche, but back when I was a surf junkie I never so much as noticed these surroundings. The only meaningful signifiers in my world at that point involved waves and surfboards. But this is a beautiful place…breathtakingly so.
We arrive at Duncan’s lovely enclave–a restaurant/cafe/clothing store hybrid. I meet his wonderful keen-eyed tribe who run the various Campbell brother enterprises and as we start sorting out logisitical issues for the show the following night who comes strolling in to the store? Hawaiian surfing legend Reno Abellaro. He’s making a rare appearance on the North Shore after decamping to Mexico some years prior. For me it’s almost an unfathomable honor to meet this surfer in particular, as when I was learning to ride waves in the piddling wind chop on the Gulf Of Mexico Reno was a mythic figure to me; a championship level surfer, big and small wave master, design innovator, and soul surfer who understood the deeper meaning of the sport. In my mind Reno’s approach is everything good in surfing all rolled into one powerful yet compact package. And here he is shaking my hand. He asks what I’m doing in Hawaii. I tell him I’m a musician playing a show at Duncan’s place. He shoots me a wily grin.
The next night as I perform on the funky outdoor stage surrounded by Hawaiian beer ads I’m joined by waterman extraordinaire Reno Abellaro, who it turns out, plays a mean conga. It’s like some kind of absurd, incongruous dream. Imagine if you got up one morning and found, say, Woody Allen in your kitchen cooking you breakfast. It’s like that. Reno’s never heard my songs before and just wings it, showing a surprising touch. The crowd is receptive through slightly tipsy, the night air intoxicating in it’s own right. A few hundred yards away in a corrugated tin school gymnasium a heavy metal band thrashes away, gurgling and howling rage-filled syllables with no apparent meaning creating the perfect counterpoint to my finely knitted, word-and-idea-heavy songs. The wind mingles our disparate sonic emanations together and carries them away, out over the surrounding hills and on to the restless ocean. The night, my raspy half-assed performance, the friendly talkative crowd, the free beer, the heavy metal band, the Dodge Charger winking at me out in the parking lot, the general casual feeling of goodwill permeating the event, everything is as ragged as it is beautiful.
As we’re talking just before the show Duncan reflected on his struggles getting established in Hawaii back in the early eighties. Extortion rings were common on the North Shore and at that time went unchecked by local law enforcement. No sooner did Duncan open his business than his expensive restaurant equipment mysteriously vanished. He showed up for work one fine day and found an empty kitchen. Everything was gone. No sign of forced entry—his stuff just disappeared. Soon thereafter he got a call demanding a ransom but to the astonishment of the shake-down artists when Duncan met them alone at Velzyland, he bravely stood his ground, looked them in the eye and flatly explained that he didn’t do business that way. Usually refusing to pay means at the minimum you’ll be run off the island in short order. Instead, somehow Duncan prevailed and an unspoken understanding materialized. Crazy fucking haole. The next day the stolen equipment was returned, the ransom unpaid. In turn Duncan befriended these low lifes who’d tried to victimize him. Over the years he fed them, helped out their families, listening to their tales of inevitable decline. To this day more than thirty years later he occasionally helps out one of these guys (now a hapless diabetic confined to a wheelchair) by loaning him cash in times of need. “Life is long,” Duncan tells me in the presence of the former gang leader. The wheelchair bound cripple agrees.
Later as I’m croaking along to the happy crowd, from up on the stage, I spy the lonely figure of the wheelchair-bound man in the distance slowly making his way down the Kam Highway. Crutches and wheelchairs and everything in between. Life is long. For the rest of the show Duncan’s words circle in the sky of my mind. Life is long. There are some truths that only time can reveal.
I forgot to mention; during the afternoon the 15-foot swell rose steadily, reaching 25-30 feet by sundown. They say by the time I leave tomorrow it’ll be the biggest swell since the legendary swell of ’69. As I pack up my gear I listen for the roar of the distant ocean waves and can hear it holding steady far off in the distance. Over the years from time to time I’ve dreamt of being back here on the North Shore again. Invariably in the dream I paddle out into perfect, sparkling waves. I turn a try to catch them but I never can quite seem to stand up, to ride, to affirm my place here. Some invisible force holds me back. For the last few months, knowing I was coming back, I’ve been working out; doing push-ups, lifting weights and jogging with the hopes I’d be in good enough shape to surf the North Shore again, but I know I won’t get in the water this visit. What’s beautiful is that I don’t care. Life is long, and I have nothing to prove this time around, and, free of the baggage of proving, now, even though I won’t set foot in the water, I’m still surfing, riding the biggest wave there is….you know the one I’m talking about…
