Two months ago a traveling journalist decided to get a first hand look at surfing’s uglier side. He took a friend, his gear, and pushed record on his camera, curious what he’d encounter at Southern California’s Lunada Bay. The hidden camera footage put the Bay Boys back in the wrong kind of spotlight (although they probably don’t see it that way) and reminded not only surfers of the “localism” we risk running into every day, but also showed the non-wave riding population how much we suck.
The Bay Boys’ threats were attention worthy on their own, but the reaction of Palos Verdes police caught on the same video gave the local PD a black eye while simultaneously reminding us there’s at least one spot on California’s coast where old school bully culture is above the law. Right now Lunada Bay won’t see waves for months, but somehow the story, the culture, and law enforcements’ nonchalant attitude about it all are all still riding high. Nothing new has happened, other than the fact that the story is somehow still a story. At least that’s the case according to the LA Times, who did their own follow up piece on May’s viral phenomenon. So now the story is that this is still a story. A news organization that’s remained the largest metropolitan news paper in the United States as recently as the past decade finds it important enough to remind their readers how much we suck.
Why is this unique? As Surfrider Foundation’s Chad Nelsen put it in the article, “There are unwritten rules that we all respect and you see scuffles pretty much anywhere people break the social order, but at Lunada Bay, this is a case where you don’t even get to that point because they don’t even give you a chance to even get in the water.” You see, we all know the rules at some of the heaviest waves on the planet. We all know there’s consequences and a different brand of “localism” in waves of consequence, but Lunada Bay is different. It’s the one wave that is just flat out, as the Palos Verdes police officer in the original hidden camera footage said, “Like a game with kids on a schoolyard…and they don’t want you playing on their swing set.”
At the end of the 2014/2015 winter I asked Hawaiian born actor Chris Taloa about this. At the time he was the latest person to make big headlines at Lunada when he famously challenged the Bay Boys by casting an open invitation to anybody who wanted to surf with him. It was to be a peaceful takeover of California’s least peaceful wave. The irony was that Taloa is most easily recognized for a role in the movie Blue Crush, in which he hung by the mantra of “You flew here, we grew here” and beat the stuffing out of haoles simply for showing up on the beach. “I don’t think there’s any warranted reason for hitting another person unless you’re protecting somebody directly in danger,” Taloa told me. It was funny to hear a person I had identified as “one of Kala’s buddies” since I was a young lad, rap about surfing’s social injustices in his newly adopted home of Southern California. At worst I came up with screams and threats in the lineup on only big winter days at The Point at Steamer Lane – and those moments were reserved for moments of complete recklessness that deserved a wake up call or two. One time I pulled up to a spot I didn’t surf often on Santa Cruz’s East Side with a eggy thug standing nearby. My windows were down and before I could say a word he poked his head into the car and said “If I ever see you here again I’ll put a brick through your window.” I guess that’s pretty spot on with Lunada Bay’s typical charm, but that was one time, coming from a single person who didn’t recognize me, in the first 20 years of my life while growing up in Northern California. I think that qualifies as a pretty good run of avoiding trouble in a town known for “localism.” But somehow, near my adopted home, this is just the normal occurrence that stays in news headlines even if it’s “off season.”
In Taloa’s story, the last straw before starting his social media guided take over wasn’t just about taking a stance against The Bay Boys for a couple waves. The same Southern California schoolyard bullies, in Taloa’s recollection, had been coming to Hawaii and been more than gracious (entitled) guests. They’d traveled across the Pacific and surfed waves in his home, with “all the uncles,” and not thought twice about their hypocrisy. When he saw a photo of one of the Bay Boys on his porch back home, sharing a beer with his family, he’d had enough. Here was a group of people threatening him anytime he’d show up cliffside in PV, and now they were yucking it up in his home.
I guess the only lesson to take from this story still being a story isn’t to start penning monthly takeovers in our calendars – no, it’s to look at ourselves and ask if we’re being the same person in the lineup on the road as well as in the comfort of our backyard. Maybe the way to eradicate surfing’s black eye isn’t with takeovers and social awareness or just letting violence become unfavorable. Maybe we should be embarrassed enough to see any group of surfers in a major newspaper that we stop pointing the finger and pretending it’s only a Lunada problem. Because if you assert your “authority” at home, even just with a stink eye or cold stare, there’s always a chance the person on the receiving end of your bad juju is now anxious for the day you paddle out to their favorite wave.
