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How Surfing Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
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Speaker 1: you Stuff you should know front House, Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
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Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and it's stuff you should know, just the
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Speaker 1: same as it always was. Huh. I guess, so how
0:23
Speaker 1: you doing? I'm good like your hat. I'm ready to
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Speaker 1: hang tin, are you? That seems like probably a very
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Speaker 1: difficult thing to do, but not that great, not that cool.
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Speaker 1: Oh it's super difficult. I can imagine. Um, I don't
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Speaker 1: think it's super cool to him. It's old school. You
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Speaker 1: remember Spuds Mackenzie had that Hang twenty or hang whatever poster?
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Speaker 1: Do you remember Spuds Mackenzie? Well, that's all good surf
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Speaker 1: video really, according to the posters that I've seen, people
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Speaker 1: still call those dogs Spuds Mackenzie's too, after all these years. Yeah.
0:56
Speaker 1: What kind of terriers? It's some sort of pit bull terrier,
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Speaker 1: but it's a like a Stratfordshire. I think I have
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Speaker 1: no idea it is a terrier though, for sure. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: because they go after rats and mailman so um, Chuck, Yes,
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Speaker 1: can you guess when the first recorded description of someone
1:19
Speaker 1: surfing was what are you going to guess? The fifties,
1:22
Speaker 1: the sixties, Well, I know what it is, so I'm
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Speaker 1: going to tell you again. It was seventeen seventy nine.
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Speaker 1: In fact, did you know that? So that was the
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Speaker 1: one you're gonna guess. That's everyone's aware. Um. So. And
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Speaker 1: it was, as you know, I guess, by a guy
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Speaker 1: named Lieutenant James King, who at the time of the
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Speaker 1: writing had just very recently become the captain of the
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Speaker 1: HMS Discovery because his captain, uh, Captain James Cook, very
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Speaker 1: famous explorer, um had just been killed by the Hawaiians
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Speaker 1: because he had taken the chief captive in order to
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Speaker 1: force them to return a boat because he surfed in
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Speaker 1: their waters. And localism was rough. Yeah, I guess so,
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Speaker 1: I guess so. And apparently the tradition among Hawaiians, as
2:12
Speaker 1: far as localism goes, it was pretty serious and always
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Speaker 1: has been. It's always been that way. It's very stratified
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Speaker 1: out there. Um. But anyway, so James King, he first
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Speaker 1: describes this this site of people riding these long wooden boards,
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Speaker 1: catching a wave and riding it on in and um
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Speaker 1: it kind of established or set the precedent for Hawaii
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Speaker 1: as the originator of surfing. But what's pretty cool is
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Speaker 1: this is one of those instances where Europeans came in
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Speaker 1: eons after something had started and actually got it right
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Speaker 1: because Hawaii was an almost all likelihood the place where
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Speaker 1: surfing was born. That's right, like it had started in Polynesia.
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Speaker 1: They had like kind of belly boards, I think they
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Speaker 1: called them, but they didn't really ever stand up. It
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Speaker 1: was the Hawaiians who first stood up. So Hawaii is
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Speaker 1: the cradle of surfing, of modern surfing, and man did
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Speaker 1: they ever do it? Yes, they sure did and do
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Speaker 1: to this day. Yeah. Well they're carrying on a very
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Speaker 1: long turdition they are. Um. Yeah, it's like we were saying.
3:18
Speaker 1: You mentioned localism, but um and I said it was
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Speaker 1: stratified out there. There were actually places in Hawaii where
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Speaker 1: if you weren't a member of the ruling class, you
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Speaker 1: didn't surf there, and if you did, you got in
3:30
Speaker 1: huge trouble. Um. So like the the like King Kamayamaya
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Speaker 1: was a chief Hawaiian chief, very famous one. That's the
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Speaker 1: club that Magnum hangs out at is named the King
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Speaker 1: Kameyamaya Club. And he was noted for being like a
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Speaker 1: really great surfer. Did you know that? I did not
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Speaker 1: know that. Never heard of the guy, actually, King Kamama,
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Speaker 1: that's pretty much the only Hawaiian chief like I'd ever
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Speaker 1: heard of, probably from watching Magnum. Yeah, but he was
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Speaker 1: a great surfer. And if so, the surfing became known
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Speaker 1: as the sport of kings because of that, because the
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Speaker 1: chiefs um surfed and they were pretty good at it,
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Speaker 1: and their social status was um exemplified by the length
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Speaker 1: of their board. Oh yeah, which is pretty So the
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Speaker 1: longer the board, the higher status you had as a
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Speaker 1: commoner or a king. Yeah. And you could be a
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Speaker 1: very good surfer and not be part of the ruling class,
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Speaker 1: but you're still pretty well revered. And actually you were
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Speaker 1: called the kahuna. You're a surfing expert, so it's a
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Speaker 1: big kahuna. Yes, that was the fat surfing expert. Okay,
4:34
Speaker 1: well it's a lot of those guys are yeah. Well yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's like one part of the world word. You can
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Speaker 1: be a big old fat guy and lay around on
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Speaker 1: the beach and you're like king Daddy and have um
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Speaker 1: face tattoos. How do they have those? Two? Well, the
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Speaker 1: Miori do, and I think they surf. Okay, I thought
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Speaker 1: we were talking Polynesia. Okay, I think oh man, I hope.
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Speaker 1: So so let's talk some more surfing history. Okay. Uh,
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Speaker 1: you know they were surfing big time in the late
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Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds. Uh, standing up, pushing up, doing all the
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Speaker 1: modern moves, while not all the modern moves because they
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Speaker 1: were pretty much long boards back then. But it was,
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Speaker 1: you know, it was a huge part of society, still is.
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Speaker 1: But they likened it in this one article too, like
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Speaker 1: baseball was in the US, how it was in Polynesia?
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Speaker 1: And uh, even though it's all just a guess how
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Speaker 1: it evolved, we have no idea really because Polynesians, uh,
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Speaker 1: there's really no certainty about their movement around the earth
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Speaker 1: thousands of years ago, so we're all just sort of
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Speaker 1: guessing at this point. But Mark Twain surfed, Yeah, he did.
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Speaker 1: He didn't have a very easy time with it. He
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Speaker 1: tried it at least, right, yeah, in eighteen seventies, I'm sorry,
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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six he published in his book Roughing It.
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Speaker 1: I tried surf bathing once everything was bathing back then.
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Speaker 1: It's on bathing and then like, uh, I think just
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Speaker 1: bathing was when you started going into the ocean. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: even though you weren't, like, you know, washing your butt right,
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Speaker 1: because no one really bathed back then, That's sure they did.
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Speaker 1: I tried surf bathing once subsequently, but made a failure
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Speaker 1: of it. I got the board placed right and at
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Speaker 1: the right moment, too, but missed the connection myself. The
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Speaker 1: board struck the shore in three quarters of a second
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Speaker 1: without any cargo. I guess he was the cargo, and
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Speaker 1: I struck the bottom about the same time with a
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Speaker 1: couple of barrels of water in me. So Mark Twain's
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Speaker 1: first experience was probably like many people's first experience was surfing.
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Speaker 1: Mine included yeah and um. So Twain visits Hawaii at
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Speaker 1: a time where there are a lot of Americans hanging
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Speaker 1: out there, and they were growing a lot of pineapples,
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Speaker 1: and they since Hawaii wasn't a state, there are a
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Speaker 1: lot of tariffs against those pineapples, and a couple of guys,
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Speaker 1: two cousins with the last name of Dole, decided to
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Speaker 1: overthrow the Hawaiian chieftam so that they could get the
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Speaker 1: US to annex Hawaii and get these tariffs lifted. And
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Speaker 1: as a result of this, and missionaries coming and Cooks
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Speaker 1: people and all that the Hawaiians had dwindled from about
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Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand by the time Cook showed up to
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Speaker 1: like fort and surfing kind of went with it. The
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Speaker 1: interest windled um, but there were some people still surfing
7:21
Speaker 1: right and just enough so that there was a resurgence.
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Speaker 1: When Mark Twain was doing it, it must have been
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Speaker 1: he was probably like the first, the second, I guess,
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Speaker 1: the second white guy to ever write about it. But
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Speaker 1: the third white guy, Jack London, was the one who
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Speaker 1: brought surfing into popular culture. Yeah. He visited Hawaiian nineteen
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Speaker 1: o seven and he hung out in one of the
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Speaker 1: One of the ways that he helped spread surfing was
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Speaker 1: just by writing about a guy named George Freithe. Yeah
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Speaker 1: he is He basically invented modern surfing. Yeah, and was
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Speaker 1: a heck of a lifeguard, as were some of the
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Speaker 1: lot of the early surfers. It seems like, yeah, we're
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Speaker 1: great swimmers, great lifeguards, great surfers. Uh. Duke Kahana Maku
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Speaker 1: he was a five time Olympic swimming medalist. Yeah, and
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Speaker 1: he like traveled Europe and everything and gave swimming exhibitions
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Speaker 1: and maybe the first guy to play beach volleyball too,
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Speaker 1: Is that right? Oh, he has a great restaurant. And
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Speaker 1: supposedly one of them invented the the little backboard that
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Speaker 1: like the rescue board. Oh yeah, even though that that's debated,
8:30
Speaker 1: but some people I think it was freeze or freeze. Yeah. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: But he was the first dude to like stand up,
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Speaker 1: do good moves. I think his boards were shorter and all.
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Speaker 1: And this was you know, turning the century stuff, right,
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Speaker 1: like nineteen o seven nineteen twelve, when those guys were
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Speaker 1: surfing and they were surfing on like long wooden boards
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Speaker 1: and I mean like really long, like ten ft sixteen feet. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: like imagine trying to maneuver one of those. Well you
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Speaker 1: don't really, but they were the first one, as you said, hey,
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Speaker 1: we can kind of change these boards and make them maneuverable.
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Speaker 1: So they were the first ones to figuratively I guess
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Speaker 1: literally shape modern surfboards. Did they create the short board,
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Speaker 1: They started to they started to make changes to its.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't just a flat plank of wood any longer. Nice.
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Speaker 1: Uh So in the twentieth century is when the short
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Speaker 1: board came along in earnest and they added things like, uh,
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Speaker 1: they made him lighter, of course, which helps UM easier
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Speaker 1: to manage. The new shapes helped with stability, and then
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Speaker 1: they started missing with the fins too, which I guess
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Speaker 1: we can get to here in a minute. But the
9:38
Speaker 1: fins make a big difference. Of course. You know, there's
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Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of stuff that the finns affect. Well,
9:45
Speaker 1: like what I guess, we can go ahead and go there.
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Speaker 1: They impact stability, feel, drive, maneuverability, and you can have
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Speaker 1: all kinds of things from like a single fin to
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Speaker 1: up to five. Even though I get the impression that
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Speaker 1: five finns is a little obnoxious, kind of like training wheels. Wow,
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Speaker 1: I don't know. I think two or three fins is
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Speaker 1: what you're looking for as well. It depends what you're
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Speaker 1: trying to do. Uh. The angle of the fin is
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Speaker 1: called the toe and that's um the angle in relation
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Speaker 1: to the center of the board, So it can be cocked,
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Speaker 1: you know, a little diagonally or just straight on. Uh.
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Speaker 1: If it makes the board more responsive, the closer that
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Speaker 1: the front of the fin is to the center of
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Speaker 1: the board, So the closer the more it's angled, the
10:28
Speaker 1: more responsive it's going to be. Uh. And then you
10:31
Speaker 1: have the can't that is the angle in relation to
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Speaker 1: the bottom of the board. So if you have no can't,
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Speaker 1: it's just straight up and down. It's not angled at all.
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Speaker 1: It's gonna be super fast. Uh. If it's angle, it's
10:42
Speaker 1: going to be more responsive. So it all changes depending
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Speaker 1: on how many fins and how deep they are, how
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Speaker 1: big they are, what the angle is, on how you're
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Speaker 1: going to drive this thing. Basically, Uh, it can be
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Speaker 1: foiled on both sides or have no foil. It can
11:00
Speaker 1: have a rake, which is hard. How far back the
11:03
Speaker 1: fin curves. So if it's like a super shark fan,
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Speaker 1: it's going to be different than it's if it's a
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Speaker 1: little more just straight. Small rake is faster, but again
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Speaker 1: not as maneuverable. Uh. Flex stiffness that can be really
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Speaker 1: super stiff or have more you know flex to them.
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Speaker 1: Stiffness is uh stiff. If it's it's not as forgiving.
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Speaker 1: But I think if you're like a better surfer, you're
11:27
Speaker 1: gonna want it more stiff. Uh. And then you know
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Speaker 1: the base link. The smaller the base of the fin,
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Speaker 1: the tighter the turns, the height and the depth of
11:36
Speaker 1: it's taller, it's more stable, but it's not gonna be
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Speaker 1: as maneuverable. So some of them are removable now, some
11:42
Speaker 1: of them are set in, but they make them now,
11:44
Speaker 1: or you can actually remove the fins, which is great
11:46
Speaker 1: for traveling and storage and I guess if you just
11:49
Speaker 1: want to mix things up a little bit. But uh, yeah,
11:52
Speaker 1: it's there's a lot of work that goes into it's
11:54
Speaker 1: just the fins along, that's just the fins on the bottom. Yeah,
11:57
Speaker 1: because I always wondered until I looked into this, like
11:59
Speaker 1: why why is that one just have one thin? Why
12:01
Speaker 1: does that have three? Why are those fins huge? Where
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Speaker 1: are those angled? Then it all matters. It all makes
12:07
Speaker 1: a difference, and it really just depends on what kind
12:09
Speaker 1: of it's like when you're buying a car, depends on
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Speaker 1: what you're looking for. We have like the addition of fins.
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Speaker 1: You can thank like Duke and Um and George for
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Speaker 1: that at the very beginning, but they kind of popularized
12:23
Speaker 1: surfing on the West Coast, and the West Coast took over,
12:27
Speaker 1: and then about the early sixties things too, things like
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Speaker 1: Gidget and the Beach Boys. Surfing just exploded, right, and
12:34
Speaker 1: now we have just the I guess the the change
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Speaker 1: from surfboards in nineteen twelve to two thousand twelve, and
12:44
Speaker 1: that hundred years, it's just incredible and exponential. And then
12:49
Speaker 1: it hadn't changed much for the thousand or so years
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Speaker 1: leading up to nineteen twelve, So everything is kind of
12:55
Speaker 1: took off in the in the twentieth century. And um,
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Speaker 1: now you can basically categorize the kind of board that
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Speaker 1: you're holding or surfing on um as either a short
13:06
Speaker 1: board or a long board, right, well, I mean yeah,
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Speaker 1: and then there's dozens of other boards within those categories.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, those are two big categories. So like, if
13:15
Speaker 1: you're pretty good at surfing, you're probably going to use
13:17
Speaker 1: a longboard, right, It depends what you're looking to do.
13:22
Speaker 1: But like you, if you are a novice along boards
13:25
Speaker 1: not the good one to start out on. Well, I
13:27
Speaker 1: mean it's easier to stand up on because it's large
13:31
Speaker 1: and more stable, and but you're just gonna you know,
13:35
Speaker 1: you can't maneuver it and cut back and stuff unless
13:37
Speaker 1: you're like super good, and it's it's I guess I
13:39
Speaker 1: can to either like driving in the big Cadillac down
13:43
Speaker 1: the highway or being in your little sports car. Yes,
13:46
Speaker 1: you know which you could learn to drive on either
13:50
Speaker 1: one of those. You learn along board. It depends what
13:53
Speaker 1: you're after. I would be a longboard guy now would
13:55
Speaker 1: In my earlier days I tried surfing, it was like
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Speaker 1: I tried the short board and well it's just that
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Speaker 1: that was the thing. But now I would get up
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Speaker 1: on the long board and to stand there like walk
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Speaker 1: up and down, hangd in do all that. Have you
14:07
Speaker 1: ever seen one of those Frankie and the Net Beach
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Speaker 1: movies where they're surfing and they're just they are just
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Speaker 1: literally standing there with their arms out, like moving side
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Speaker 1: by side, and in the back it's just the green
14:19
Speaker 1: screen behind them. And longboards you can get a couple
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Speaker 1: of people on them and two people if you're good,
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Speaker 1: and you just stand there and wave your arms. I designed,
14:28
Speaker 1: apparently from what I've seen. So okay. So you've got longboards,
14:31
Speaker 1: you've got short boards. You've got the fins um, the
14:34
Speaker 1: sides of the surfboard, the rails impact how the thing moves. Um,
14:39
Speaker 1: whether or not it's a curved the bottom the board,
14:43
Speaker 1: the bottom of the board, the rocker, uh, if it's
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Speaker 1: curved or not, and how much it's curved. I imagine
14:48
Speaker 1: um makes the board a lot more maneuverable than more
14:51
Speaker 1: convex it is, right. Um. And then you've got longboards,
14:56
Speaker 1: which are about nine ft long up to twelve ft long,
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Speaker 1: which is just crazy to me, Like you could fit
15:01
Speaker 1: three people on. They're pretty comfortable. Yeah, I've seen like
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Speaker 1: a lot of people on a long board, like when
15:07
Speaker 1: they do the tricks and stuff. I can't name a
15:10
Speaker 1: number of people, but I feel like I've seen at
15:13
Speaker 1: least four or five people get up on a long board.
15:15
Speaker 1: And then you've got fun boards, right, they sounds like
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Speaker 1: the most fun. What's a lot? What's it on board?
15:22
Speaker 1: It's kind of like in between a long board and
15:24
Speaker 1: a short board, and U it's fun. It's best for tricks. Um,
15:31
Speaker 1: I think if you wanna like really kind of shred
15:34
Speaker 1: or whatever. And also I should probably say I have
15:36
Speaker 1: no idea what I'm talking about here because I've never served.
15:38
Speaker 1: I think people have understood that by now. But um,
15:41
Speaker 1: the short board is obviously better for that because you can,
15:44
Speaker 1: like you said, you can shred the wave, right, Uh,
15:48
Speaker 1: But in a longboard's harder to maneuver unless you're really
15:51
Speaker 1: really good at it. Um. But a funboard just kind
15:53
Speaker 1: of falls in between those two, Like you can kind
15:56
Speaker 1: of rest and relax and just stand there if you want,
15:58
Speaker 1: but you can also maneuver. Right, that's my impression of
16:01
Speaker 1: the fun board. I have to look into it. I've
16:03
Speaker 1: never heard of the fun board. Oh you had and
16:05
Speaker 1: I had? Really, Yeah, I really genuinely have, believe you
16:10
Speaker 1: one thing, I did know what I was talking about.
16:13
Speaker 1: Uh So back in the day, they were all made
16:15
Speaker 1: of wood. Um. Now you can still get wooden surfboards.
16:19
Speaker 1: In fact, I think a lot of the purest you
16:21
Speaker 1: can still get, like those sweet handmade wooden surfboards, but
16:26
Speaker 1: mostly these days they're gonna be what's called popouts, uh,
16:29
Speaker 1: mass manufacturer. They pop out of a factory mold where
16:32
Speaker 1: they get the name, and they're either polystyrene or poly
16:36
Speaker 1: your athane, covered in fiberglass and resin and um. But
16:40
Speaker 1: you can still act, you know, hand make those two. Obviously,
16:43
Speaker 1: you can get kits or you can pay, you know,
16:45
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars for some dude in California or Hawaii
16:50
Speaker 1: to hand shape your own sweet little board. Yeah, Tracy said.
16:54
Speaker 1: The surfboards cost between a hundred and fifty and five dollars.
16:57
Speaker 1: I think that's when you're shopping on Amazon dot com. Yeah, yeah,
17:01
Speaker 1: I found some that were pretty awesome for less than
17:04
Speaker 1: a thousand. I mean, like the vast majority or less
17:08
Speaker 1: than a thousand. Hours kind of surprised because I thought
17:10
Speaker 1: she was way off, but she wouldn't off by that much. No,
17:13
Speaker 1: And I think that you can spend over a thousand
17:15
Speaker 1: like anything. If you get like the sweet dude right
17:18
Speaker 1: hand makes him and he's done for it, you're gonna
17:20
Speaker 1: pay pretty buny. But I mean, like I even came
17:23
Speaker 1: across one. I was Proctor Surfboards, and they do custom boards,
17:26
Speaker 1: and even those were like less than a thousand. It's
17:29
Speaker 1: pretty neat. That's nice because that makes it an egalitarian sport.
17:34
Speaker 1: You think so a little I'd say this is a
17:36
Speaker 1: little pricing. Um, it definitely is, but I'm saying, at
17:40
Speaker 1: least it's not like the gap between the the poor
17:45
Speaker 1: man surfboard and the rich man surfboard is not ten
17:48
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, it's thousand. Yeah, yeah, that's that's what I mean. Yeah,
17:55
Speaker 1: you can easily be priced out of it, but you
17:57
Speaker 1: can still get a decent surfboard for what a couple
17:59
Speaker 1: hundred bucks? Yeah, I had I bought a surfboard for
18:01
Speaker 1: fifty bucks that I just kept for in college because
18:03
Speaker 1: I thought it was cool to have in the corner
18:05
Speaker 1: of my living room and I took at the beach
18:08
Speaker 1: couple of times and it sucked. Did your bedroom look
18:11
Speaker 1: like a pottery barnteen catalog scene. I've never seen that.
18:15
Speaker 1: They frequently have surfboards like like stood up in the corner. No,
18:19
Speaker 1: it was just Chuck's silliness in the day. So did
18:23
Speaker 1: you say that stuff made of polyurethane. Yeah, and it's
18:27
Speaker 1: covered in a resin I did, and fiberglass, which makes
18:31
Speaker 1: it light. It makes it brilliant. But I can also
18:33
Speaker 1: imagine that if you get hit by one of these things,
18:35
Speaker 1: it hurts bad. Yeah. I mean they're they're lightweight, but
18:39
Speaker 1: it's just you whack somebody in the head with it,
18:41
Speaker 1: or if you get stabbed with it. You know, they're
18:43
Speaker 1: sharp on the front and sometimes on the back. I
18:46
Speaker 1: would never buy a sharp surfboard. I'd just be afraid
18:49
Speaker 1: of it. What would you do. I get one that's
18:52
Speaker 1: more rounded. You get a boogie board, which we'll get
18:56
Speaker 1: it an inner tube. Um, okay, so you got your
19:00
Speaker 1: off board. Another really important thing that you have to
19:04
Speaker 1: have you have to have all this other stuff um
19:07
Speaker 1: aside from the leash is kind of superfluous. It's nice.
19:11
Speaker 1: It's an add on. You have to have wax because
19:14
Speaker 1: polyurethane resin bound surface tends to be slick, especially when
19:19
Speaker 1: you're standing on it in the water, and you can
19:22
Speaker 1: use wax to basically create like a traction surface. Yeah,
19:28
Speaker 1: for your feet, it helps for sure. And they're also
19:31
Speaker 1: that like completely slick on top, like where you stand,
19:34
Speaker 1: they'll have like, you know, the I don't know what's
19:37
Speaker 1: not sand paper or maybe the sand paper Okay, I
19:39
Speaker 1: was wondering glashed into it to help out a little bit,
19:42
Speaker 1: but not always. Again, surfers are very particular about what
19:46
Speaker 1: they like and what they don't like, and they're all
19:48
Speaker 1: sorts of choices. And is is dr zog sex wax
19:52
Speaker 1: like the wax or is that just the wax that
19:54
Speaker 1: guys like me you've heard of. I'm sure that was
19:57
Speaker 1: the stuff that we wore as teenagers. Like that's like
20:00
Speaker 1: saying was was it was the guy the Sun Damila
20:05
Speaker 1: and guy Panama Jack. It's like saying was Panama Jack
20:08
Speaker 1: like the lotion of Choice. I think it's sort of
20:11
Speaker 1: like that, but Panama Jack was the lotion of choice.
20:14
Speaker 1: Was really the t shirt of choice for sure? Yeah,
20:17
Speaker 1: rolled up sleeves. Yeah. So board shorts. Tracy Wilson wrote this.
20:22
Speaker 1: Tracy points out board shorts are sturdy your versions of
20:25
Speaker 1: swim trunks. I didn't know that. I guess they're beefed up. Well,
20:30
Speaker 1: they have they have a tie, so it's not just
20:33
Speaker 1: like um elastic. Yeah, is that the difference. It's got
20:36
Speaker 1: a it's got a strong tie. They usually don't have elastic. Um. Yeah,
20:41
Speaker 1: all right, and they are sturdy. Yeah. I just think
20:44
Speaker 1: they don't come off as easy. I think they're designed
20:46
Speaker 1: not to be. Could that'd be embarrassing, rash best Um,
20:51
Speaker 1: those are just like the little short sleeve um Oakley
20:55
Speaker 1: shirt that you wear that keeps your and she she
20:58
Speaker 1: says it helps a bit chafing with impact with the water.
21:03
Speaker 1: Maybe true, but if you've ever been on a surfboard,
21:06
Speaker 1: your chest it gets a little chaped as well from
21:09
Speaker 1: the sand and stuff like that, so that protects you there.
21:12
Speaker 1: And then of course wet suits when you're cold or
21:15
Speaker 1: if you're in the Pacific Ocean, which you know usually
21:17
Speaker 1: year round, they're wearing wet suits up there. Yeah, I
21:19
Speaker 1: guess the wet suits probably not superfluous. I mean, depending
21:22
Speaker 1: on where you're surfing, you have to wear a wet
21:24
Speaker 1: suit and you're either regular surfle or your goofy foot,
21:28
Speaker 1: which means which foot do you put forward? If you
21:30
Speaker 1: put your left foot forward and your right foot back,
21:33
Speaker 1: it's just standard. And then if you turn around and
21:36
Speaker 1: put your left foot back, you're known as a goofy foot.
21:39
Speaker 1: Same with the skateboarding too. Yeah, and I don't know
21:41
Speaker 1: if well surfing led to skateboarding. Some say I think
21:47
Speaker 1: it directly led to skateboarding. Uh. And I don't know
21:51
Speaker 1: if that's a slag to call someone a goofy foot
21:54
Speaker 1: or to be a goofy foot or not. I think
21:55
Speaker 1: it probably was originally, but so many people skate or
21:59
Speaker 1: surf goofy foot know it's just like a term. It
22:01
Speaker 1: had to be a slide because they would have called
22:03
Speaker 1: it like a cool foot or something if it was
22:05
Speaker 1: like super cool to do it that way, or if
22:07
Speaker 1: like a really popular guy named Tom had done it,
22:10
Speaker 1: they'd be like, well it's Tom footed. Well, wherever you
22:14
Speaker 1: put your your foot in the rear, that's the one
22:16
Speaker 1: you want to have. The lesha attached to and that
22:18
Speaker 1: is not superfluous either. You want to have your board
22:21
Speaker 1: attached to your ankle because if you fly off, you
22:25
Speaker 1: don't want to have to go swimming too far to
22:26
Speaker 1: get it sure. And it also can you know if
22:29
Speaker 1: it's attached to your foot and you're having trouble, you
22:31
Speaker 1: can grab hold of your surfboard. And it's another good
22:33
Speaker 1: reason to help save yourself perhaps. So how do you
22:37
Speaker 1: learn to surf? Josh? It's uh. I think one of
22:41
Speaker 1: those things that it's easy to learn how but very
22:45
Speaker 1: very difficult to master and it takes tons of practice.
22:48
Speaker 1: And I want to also I want to give a
22:49
Speaker 1: shout out um too too. We got a lot of
22:51
Speaker 1: that history from a site, from an article written by
22:57
Speaker 1: a guy named Ben Marcus, and the article is called
22:59
Speaker 1: from Polynesia with Love, Good Stuff stuff Uh. And then
23:02
Speaker 1: um the surfing handbook dot com has this whole section
23:06
Speaker 1: called Beginners Surfing Tips, and they have everything you need
23:10
Speaker 1: to know. They're so friendly and like one of the
23:13
Speaker 1: one of the things that they just kind of put
23:15
Speaker 1: out is like this mantras, like just go into this
23:18
Speaker 1: whole thing knowing that you're not going to be good
23:21
Speaker 1: right away. That you're going to fail, and it's like,
23:24
Speaker 1: just try not to get frustrated. And certainly if you
23:27
Speaker 1: start to get so frustrated that you don't want to
23:29
Speaker 1: surfing more, they say, like, take a break, like it's
23:31
Speaker 1: supposed to be fun. It's sure, you don't get so uptight,
23:34
Speaker 1: and just basically don't come in like you're going to
23:36
Speaker 1: just be a champ right away. Takes tons of practice,
23:39
Speaker 1: and a lot of the practice starts on land, like
23:42
Speaker 1: practicing the pop up. Yeah, I had the opposite experience
23:46
Speaker 1: that you described, which was easy to do, hard to master.
23:49
Speaker 1: I had a really tough time doing it at all.
23:52
Speaker 1: Yeah I did. And everyone in my little group that
23:55
Speaker 1: had never done it, like, we none of us could
23:57
Speaker 1: stand up on that first day at all. Well then,
23:59
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, I think on um, I mean like
24:03
Speaker 1: if you're just looking at it on paper and thinking
24:05
Speaker 1: about what you have to do, that that's not that
24:07
Speaker 1: much to it. It's like, but being able to do
24:10
Speaker 1: it mastering it too, Yeah, I can imagine um, and
24:15
Speaker 1: it will be for me too eventually. You can try it. Sure.
24:20
Speaker 1: So basically, when I say it's kind of easy, there's
24:24
Speaker 1: just a few steps. Basically you want to swim out.
24:26
Speaker 1: You paddle out on your stomach to um the breakers. Right,
24:32
Speaker 1: and this is where the waves are starting to turn
24:35
Speaker 1: into white caps. They're breaking. Um. And when you get
24:40
Speaker 1: to this line where is it where all the surfers
24:43
Speaker 1: hang out, what's it called the lineup? That's where all
24:48
Speaker 1: the surfers just hanging out waiting for the wave, right,
24:51
Speaker 1: talking philosophy and music and how to beat up people
24:55
Speaker 1: who shouldn't be there. You want to go in a
24:58
Speaker 1: curve because you don't want to get beat up up
25:00
Speaker 1: and you want to avoid the waves, and you just
25:03
Speaker 1: basically it'll make it easier to paddle out there. Um.
25:06
Speaker 1: And it's easier than not get beat up from getting
25:09
Speaker 1: in another surf's way. So when you get out to
25:12
Speaker 1: the lineup and you're I'm starting to catch your wave,
25:15
Speaker 1: you want to be facing the shore and as a
25:17
Speaker 1: as a wave starts to swell, as a swell comes
25:19
Speaker 1: in and starts to break, you want to be right
25:22
Speaker 1: on top of or right in front of it, right,
25:25
Speaker 1: And you're paddling really fast trying to catch the wave.
25:27
Speaker 1: As they say, yes, I think that's even in bold
25:32
Speaker 1: um and uh right, as the right before the way
25:35
Speaker 1: starts a break, or right as it starts to break,
25:37
Speaker 1: like maybe to your right or to your left, you
25:40
Speaker 1: do what's called the pop up. Right, You do like
25:43
Speaker 1: a push up, and then you pop your feet underneath you,
25:47
Speaker 1: and now you're standing and you can apparently, right, well
25:51
Speaker 1: that's the that's the process, and you can apparently like
25:55
Speaker 1: get onto your knees and then get onto your feet
25:57
Speaker 1: and it can work. But apparently, like don't want to
26:00
Speaker 1: learn to do that because it's a really bad habit
26:02
Speaker 1: and it's going to keep you from really surfing. Well, right,
26:04
Speaker 1: So what you want to do is push up with
26:06
Speaker 1: your with your hands and then put your feet underneath
26:09
Speaker 1: you and stayd up and kind of a crouching position,
26:12
Speaker 1: and now you're surfing a sideways, yeah, crouching position. And
26:16
Speaker 1: then that's it. That's all there is to it. Yeah. Yeah.
26:20
Speaker 1: My favorite part when I tried it with back in
26:23
Speaker 1: college and stuff was when you're sitting out there with
26:26
Speaker 1: the other dudes and there aren't there's no surfing involved,
26:29
Speaker 1: when you're just like sitting there feeling cool, bobbing up
26:32
Speaker 1: and down with the surfing guys. Right. I used to
26:36
Speaker 1: like that a lot, a lot of standing around and
26:38
Speaker 1: talking just sitting down on the skateboard called dimple butt
26:42
Speaker 1: because of the grip tape eventually would just kind of
26:46
Speaker 1: form a little pattern in your butt. You actually ride
26:48
Speaker 1: at the skateboard sitting down, you're just sitting there talking,
26:51
Speaker 1: talking shop with the other thrashers. Yeah, so when you're
26:57
Speaker 1: going out, you mentioned, you know, you to go out
27:00
Speaker 1: in a curve and not like go with this thing
27:02
Speaker 1: straight on. If you've never done this in and you
27:05
Speaker 1: don't have anyone teaching you how, it can be very
27:08
Speaker 1: frustrating because you will paddle out and the wave will
27:10
Speaker 1: bring you back into shore over and over and over,
27:13
Speaker 1: and then eventually you're just gonna go to the beach
27:15
Speaker 1: bar with your surfboard looking cool. But what you want
27:19
Speaker 1: to do is what's called the duck dive, and that
27:22
Speaker 1: is as the and this is on a short board,
27:24
Speaker 1: as the wave approaches before it's like cresting and falling
27:28
Speaker 1: on you. You just want to push down on the
27:30
Speaker 1: board and go through the wave and come out on
27:33
Speaker 1: the other side. And if you do this right a
27:36
Speaker 1: couple of times, then you'll be behind where the waves
27:38
Speaker 1: are breaking and you're all good to go. You're you're
27:41
Speaker 1: maneuvering yourself out of the way of most of the
27:44
Speaker 1: force of the wave. Yeah, and it's the duck dive.
27:47
Speaker 1: I think they call it that. You actually roll upside down.
27:50
Speaker 1: And what's called the turtle roll with a long board.
27:53
Speaker 1: But I bet you can duck dive with a long board.
27:54
Speaker 1: Maybe not, I don't know. I wonder about that. But yeah,
27:58
Speaker 1: with the turtle role, you roll underneath the board and
28:01
Speaker 1: then pull the nose down, right. Yeah, that's the turtle role.
28:05
Speaker 1: Duck dick sounds easier, turtle roll sounds more fun. I've
28:08
Speaker 1: never been on along board. I should try that. Um.
28:11
Speaker 1: So let's talk about waves, man. This is see that's
28:15
Speaker 1: funny because I'm kind of like we're finally at a
28:18
Speaker 1: point where I know what I'm talking about. Yeah, the
28:21
Speaker 1: physics of waves, right, so um yeah, you can't surf
28:25
Speaker 1: without waves. And if you really want to surf, man,
28:27
Speaker 1: you have to understand what you're dealing with, like what
28:30
Speaker 1: you're writing. You know, if you're going to shred a
28:34
Speaker 1: half pipe, you better understand the physics of wood, right,
28:37
Speaker 1: So if you're gonna hit the bonds I pipeline and
28:40
Speaker 1: and by the way, we were talking about duck diving
28:43
Speaker 1: and all that. For these huge mavericks, like you know
28:46
Speaker 1: near San Francisco at Princeton by the sea the Bonds
28:49
Speaker 1: Eye Pipeline, most of these dudes and ladies are being
28:52
Speaker 1: towed by like a jet ski because they're just too big.
28:56
Speaker 1: You can't be like, see that fifty ft wave. I'm
28:58
Speaker 1: just gonna duck dive. You will be uh duck comfi
29:04
Speaker 1: if that happens, right, Yeah, you get towed out there
29:07
Speaker 1: by like a personal watercraft. Right. So we're just gonna
29:10
Speaker 1: cover what you know, your average West Coast surfing waves. Okay,
29:14
Speaker 1: so if you're if you're out to sea and some
29:18
Speaker 1: wind suddenly whips up, you're probably gonna see some white caps, right,
29:22
Speaker 1: which is like basically like froth, just the water being
29:27
Speaker 1: batted around by the wind. But there's also gonna be
29:30
Speaker 1: a little crests that form, right, and these crests, uh
29:34
Speaker 1: give the wind a little more service area to work with.
29:38
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden you have what is called
29:41
Speaker 1: a um peak, yes um, and this peak starts to
29:47
Speaker 1: travel away from the direction of the wind. Now we're
29:50
Speaker 1: not talking about just like a nice little breeze or something.
29:53
Speaker 1: We're talking like hurricanes typically to form a good sized wave,
29:56
Speaker 1: but any wind could conceivably create a wave. Right, Yes,
30:01
Speaker 1: So when this peak starts to travel away from the
30:03
Speaker 1: from the wind, it actually expends a little bit of
30:06
Speaker 1: its energy and it goes from this kind of choppy
30:10
Speaker 1: wave to this nice rounded thing called the swell. It
30:14
Speaker 1: doesn't look like there's much to it. The reason it
30:16
Speaker 1: doesn't look like there's much to it is because it's
30:18
Speaker 1: actually really deep at that point. Right. So you get
30:21
Speaker 1: a bunch of these swells lined up. Um, as they
30:24
Speaker 1: get closer and closer to shore, and the they start
30:28
Speaker 1: to make contact with land at the bottom, the ones
30:32
Speaker 1: in front start to slow a little bit, the ones
30:33
Speaker 1: that back started to catch up, and sometimes they combine
30:36
Speaker 1: into large swells. Right, that's right. And as these are like, yeah,
30:42
Speaker 1: they get together essentially going in the same direction and say, hey,
30:45
Speaker 1: come on, let's make a let's make a big wave.
30:47
Speaker 1: And it's called constructive interference as far as wave physics goes. Right, Um,
30:53
Speaker 1: what's cool is if you look at a wave from
30:55
Speaker 1: the side, it looks like just like what's called a
30:58
Speaker 1: transverse wave, like something like you're looking an e G
31:00
Speaker 1: or something. It's the wave length that the trough and
31:05
Speaker 1: the crest are up and down, but they're moving from
31:08
Speaker 1: left to right or whatever. Left right. Yeah, But really
31:12
Speaker 1: what a wave is doing is actually an orbital wave
31:16
Speaker 1: where all of this motion is actually making a circle
31:19
Speaker 1: as it moves along. Right. These are the molecules actually. Yeah.
31:23
Speaker 1: But if but you could, you can make a you
31:26
Speaker 1: could make an animation where you could trace the movement
31:29
Speaker 1: of the waves and it'd be like this, this kind
31:31
Speaker 1: of big circle that goes from the back of the
31:34
Speaker 1: wave to the crest into the trough and then back
31:37
Speaker 1: down again right right. So, um, that's that's a wave.
31:41
Speaker 1: And as it gets closer to the shore, um, it
31:45
Speaker 1: starts to slow down. And when when it hits land,
31:51
Speaker 1: the force of land or the immovability of land and
31:54
Speaker 1: the force of the wave combined to push the wave
31:57
Speaker 1: upward above the water surface. And then the run of
32:00
Speaker 1: the wave starts to slow before the back of the wave,
32:03
Speaker 1: which means you have a wave breaking because the back
32:06
Speaker 1: crashes over the front, and if you have a really
32:09
Speaker 1: steep bit of land, you're gonna have a really steep
32:13
Speaker 1: um crash. It's going to form a barrel or a
32:16
Speaker 1: hollow wave. If the slope of the land that the
32:19
Speaker 1: wave runs into, the swell runs into. Because a little
32:22
Speaker 1: more gradual, you're gonna have what's called a crumbling wave
32:24
Speaker 1: that just kind of breaks slowly in in in a
32:27
Speaker 1: kind of a nice gentle pattern. Yeah, it's what happens
32:31
Speaker 1: when water meets land. So if you've ever seen a wave,
32:34
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred feet out in the ocean, it
32:36
Speaker 1: means that there's some sort of shallow reef right there
32:38
Speaker 1: making that happen. Yeah, because a wave is about one
32:41
Speaker 1: point six times it's um depth. The height of a
32:45
Speaker 1: wave is right, or it's it's depth is one point
32:49
Speaker 1: six times it's height. But yeah, but I mean if
32:53
Speaker 1: you're riding a six ft wave, which has a lot
32:55
Speaker 1: of power to it, that's still only what less than
32:59
Speaker 1: ten ft of water that you're dealing with out there.
33:02
Speaker 1: That's a lot of water, Yeah, it is, But I mean,
33:04
Speaker 1: like that's still pretty shallow and you can hit the
33:06
Speaker 1: bottom surfing, I think is the point. Yeah, absolutely, Um,
33:11
Speaker 1: And you know that the the shape of the land
33:13
Speaker 1: under the ocean makes a big difference and what kind
33:16
Speaker 1: of waves you're gonna get, obviously, So that's why the
33:20
Speaker 1: surfing like really good surf spots in the world are
33:22
Speaker 1: super limited, Like, you can't man make this stuff. They've tried, Yeah,
33:28
Speaker 1: but come on, I mean that's stuff that's lame. Um,
33:33
Speaker 1: it's all mother nature, dude. So the best surf spots
33:36
Speaker 1: in the world are few and far between, especially if
33:39
Speaker 1: you're looking for the big giant daddies. There's only a
33:41
Speaker 1: few spots on Earth that you can encounter those, right, So,
33:45
Speaker 1: wind obviously pays a big difference, not just in the
33:48
Speaker 1: formation of the wave but in how it blows on
33:51
Speaker 1: shore offshore. What you're looking for ideally is a gentle
33:54
Speaker 1: offshore wind blowing towards the wave. Uh, if you're blowing
33:59
Speaker 1: if it's an onshore in coming from the ocean towards
34:02
Speaker 1: the beach, um, it can be a little rougher to
34:04
Speaker 1: deal with as a surfer. So well, at days, with
34:08
Speaker 1: the gentle offshore wind, that's when the surfers hear that
34:11
Speaker 1: on the radio, they get up early, go out there
34:13
Speaker 1: at daybreak. Is that the best time to surf daybreak? Well,
34:16
Speaker 1: I mean there's all different times, but yeah, or maybe
34:18
Speaker 1: that has something to do too with well, not with
34:21
Speaker 1: people just having to go to work. But I used
34:23
Speaker 1: to see people on the pch all the time, like
34:25
Speaker 1: super early morning and then in the evenings. That's pretty cool. Yeah,
34:29
Speaker 1: but maybe it has something to do with the best
34:31
Speaker 1: waves too, because you know, surfers will blow off work
34:35
Speaker 1: if it the best waves. A written in bro, That's
34:37
Speaker 1: when I'm going. I've seen Summer School and UM Fast
34:41
Speaker 1: Times at Ridgemont High. I'm familiar with surfing. UM, so
34:46
Speaker 1: we were talking about UM. I thought that I don't
34:48
Speaker 1: think either one that's actually had any surfing. Did they
34:50
Speaker 1: really did? Really? Sure? They talked really Summer School definitely
34:55
Speaker 1: had shots like establishing shots surfing. UM, I don't know
35:00
Speaker 1: if they actually showed any and Fast Times in Richmond High.
35:02
Speaker 1: They're in the valley. There wasn't many waves, but Spaccoli
35:06
Speaker 1: of course was. It was a surfer. Yeah. Well and
35:09
Speaker 1: at the end, you know that that was the great ending.
35:12
Speaker 1: He rescued uh, Mick Jagger from drowning while Surfing's the
35:17
Speaker 1: little interview with Stu and what do you do? Hired
35:20
Speaker 1: Van Halen to play his birthday party. I know he
35:23
Speaker 1: won some sort of competition. Well, the competition was saving
35:27
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger's life. Huh. No, he has like a trophy
35:29
Speaker 1: or something and the dream sequence. Um, okay, so we're
35:33
Speaker 1: talking about we're talking about the power of waves, right.
35:37
Speaker 1: Did you know that a cubic meter a cubic yard
35:41
Speaker 1: basically a cubic meter of water. That's not much man,
35:45
Speaker 1: we're talking like this, that weighs a ton. What do
35:49
Speaker 1: you mean it weighs a ton. It weighs um two
35:52
Speaker 1: thousand two pounds. So if you took a box that
35:56
Speaker 1: big and put water in it, it would weigh two
35:58
Speaker 1: thousand pounds. Yes, yes, at four degrees celsius. It's very
36:02
Speaker 1: specific because you remember from the metric episode, like they
36:06
Speaker 1: calibrate like that. But yes, it weighs a metric ton.
36:10
Speaker 1: A cubic meter weighs of metric ton, when like a
36:13
Speaker 1: gallon of milk just weighs like a couple of pounds.
36:16
Speaker 1: I don't know. I looked it up, though, I swear
36:19
Speaker 1: I looked it up, and I actually double looked it up.
36:22
Speaker 1: I was like, because I thought the same thing. It
36:24
Speaker 1: seems like a lot um. But yes, there weighs a
36:27
Speaker 1: lot of Yeah. So um, when that's when that comes
36:32
Speaker 1: crashing down on you. It's kind of a thing, and
36:35
Speaker 1: there's different kinds of wipeouts, but apparently the worst kind
36:37
Speaker 1: of wipe out, which I think Tracy described as falling
36:40
Speaker 1: off of your surfboard. His called going over the falls
36:44
Speaker 1: and it's on one of those hollow barrel waves right,
36:49
Speaker 1: are just very very powerful because they hit land really
36:52
Speaker 1: quick and break really quick, and when you get caught
36:56
Speaker 1: in the lip that part where it's breaking at the top,
36:59
Speaker 1: it trips you up and basically throws you right in
37:02
Speaker 1: front of the wave at the trough, so you have
37:04
Speaker 1: like the full force of the way just doing this
37:06
Speaker 1: orbital wave right over you. You're You're like in a
37:09
Speaker 1: washing machine at that point. So falling in, falling off
37:13
Speaker 1: your board, wiping out is one danger. Yeah, we should
37:16
Speaker 1: probably talk about surfing dangers. I want to alert people
37:18
Speaker 1: to these things because they're out there. Have you ever
37:20
Speaker 1: been caught up in in a wave like that? Yeah?
37:24
Speaker 1: It's scary man. Well, and you feel completely helpless like
37:30
Speaker 1: mother nature has got me and is throwing me around
37:33
Speaker 1: like a little rag doll and I am completely helpless
37:36
Speaker 1: to do anything about it, and then feel like you're six.
37:39
Speaker 1: It does no matter how old you are, And if
37:41
Speaker 1: you're six, boy, that's really scary. Um So riptides are
37:46
Speaker 1: dangerous and that's one of the things that is at
37:48
Speaker 1: play there. Uh, that is the water returning to the sea,
37:52
Speaker 1: and that retreating water can be a fast moving current
37:55
Speaker 1: to take you really far out to see before you
37:57
Speaker 1: know it. So they advise you. You know, I've always
38:00
Speaker 1: heard like swim uh uh perpendicular way, parallel, parallel, always
38:07
Speaker 1: get this confused to to avoid the rip current. It's
38:10
Speaker 1: been perpendicular to the shore, away from the shore until
38:13
Speaker 1: you pass out. Uh, So that can be kind of scary,
38:16
Speaker 1: the pull of the rip current. Um. You can also
38:19
Speaker 1: hit stuff underwater. Like we said, if a waves out there,
38:23
Speaker 1: whatever its height is I think times one point six
38:26
Speaker 1: that's how deep the water is. So you can very easily,
38:29
Speaker 1: especially in a heavy wave, get thrown to the bottom.
38:32
Speaker 1: You can get thrown on a coral reef or hit
38:35
Speaker 1: by another board. Yeah, which brings us to um etiquette.
38:40
Speaker 1: Surfing etiquette. There's because it can be very dangerous to
38:43
Speaker 1: run into people and because you know, really great surf
38:47
Speaker 1: spots are few and far between, that means that there's
38:50
Speaker 1: often a lot of people out there. So there's there's
38:53
Speaker 1: kind of two informal rules of catching a wave of
38:56
Speaker 1: who gets precedent, right, Um, I guess first one up
39:01
Speaker 1: or first one or closest to the break that gives
39:05
Speaker 1: you the right of way. Yeah, and everybody else has
39:08
Speaker 1: to get out of your way. And if they don't,
39:10
Speaker 1: what happens to them? Well, people, if you're in a
39:14
Speaker 1: nicer area, people might say, hey, bro, that's not too cool.
39:18
Speaker 1: Here's how it's done. Or they might just drag you
39:22
Speaker 1: to the beach and kick the crap out of you
39:24
Speaker 1: and break your board and throw it in the back
39:27
Speaker 1: of your car and put you in that car. That
39:30
Speaker 1: happens and what Regardless of what beach experience you have,
39:34
Speaker 1: they're probably gonna call you a kok too, what a kuk?
39:38
Speaker 1: That's somebody who doesn't follow surfing. I bet you'll hear
39:41
Speaker 1: other words too, But I'll bet cooks in there. So
39:45
Speaker 1: are we at localism? I wrote an article why do
39:48
Speaker 1: surfers have gangs? And it's a thing, and it has
39:51
Speaker 1: been a thing for a long time. I know most
39:53
Speaker 1: people think of surfers is like thiss in spouting, easy going, uh,
40:00
Speaker 1: philosophical beach dudes, and a lot of them are like that,
40:04
Speaker 1: but um, a lot of them are not. Surfing has
40:06
Speaker 1: been tied to violence over territory for many, many years.
40:10
Speaker 1: And that is because, like we said, there are only
40:13
Speaker 1: so many surf spots in the world, and when dudes
40:17
Speaker 1: like you and me get all excited to go try
40:19
Speaker 1: it out, we're taking the limited amount of space and
40:23
Speaker 1: waves that exists for them. That's why I'm going to
40:26
Speaker 1: try and Dubai first, and Dubai a wave machine. Now
40:31
Speaker 1: you should, I think if you're taking a class or something,
40:34
Speaker 1: they know to go to a place where you teach
40:37
Speaker 1: classes and everyone else knows don't go anywhere near the classes.
40:42
Speaker 1: So that's a good thing to do. Um. But surf
40:44
Speaker 1: gangs has been around for decades, and localism since the
40:47
Speaker 1: seventies is gotten kind of bad in some areas, and
40:50
Speaker 1: the boogie board was a big reason why, because all
40:53
Speaker 1: of a sudden, this thing was invented for all these
40:56
Speaker 1: little kids to go out there and they can ride
40:57
Speaker 1: waves without any experience or technique or skill whatsoever. And
41:03
Speaker 1: they don't know the rules and they don't care, uh,
41:05
Speaker 1: and their parents don't care as long as they're not
41:07
Speaker 1: in their hair on the beach. So thanks to the
41:10
Speaker 1: boogie board, the violence picked up in the seventies and
41:14
Speaker 1: there are well established surf gangs, even though you won't
41:16
Speaker 1: hear them call that. Yeah, the wolf Pack in Hawaii
41:22
Speaker 1: on the North shore of Hawaii. They're they're just a family,
41:25
Speaker 1: but they can also be pretty violent. Um. Russell Crowe
41:29
Speaker 1: did a narrated a documentary called bra Boys Blood is
41:32
Speaker 1: Thicker Than Water about Australia's Braa Boys and they were
41:36
Speaker 1: some tough dudes since the nineteen sixties. Who have some
41:39
Speaker 1: of which have spent time in and out of jail. Uh,
41:42
Speaker 1: the Averton brothers in fact, I think one of the
41:44
Speaker 1: Aberton brothers made the documentary. But if you ask them,
41:48
Speaker 1: you know they're just protecting their area and something sacred
41:51
Speaker 1: to them. Yeah, don't don't be a cock. Southern California, No,
41:55
Speaker 1: San Diego has long been noted for localism, right, Yeah,
42:00
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Um, the Silver Strand locals to
42:03
Speaker 1: SSL and the ox Nard Shore locals San Diego. No,
42:06
Speaker 1: those aren't the pier Point rats um in the eighties
42:10
Speaker 1: and ninetieses or just some of the notorious surf gangs
42:12
Speaker 1: that you know they have run ins with cops. Some
42:14
Speaker 1: of people have been beaten to death. In two thousand
42:17
Speaker 1: seven in Lahoya, a surfer was beaten to death. Hawaiian
42:21
Speaker 1: surfer was killed in a fight in two thousand eight.
42:24
Speaker 1: So this stuff happens. And um, if you go out
42:27
Speaker 1: to surf, just don't don't be scared. You know, like
42:32
Speaker 1: these people are gonna hurt me. But it's definitely cool
42:35
Speaker 1: to to try and ingratiate yourself somewhat. Bring them maybe like, um,
42:39
Speaker 1: some home bake cookies or something out to the lineup,
42:42
Speaker 1: ask questions. There's probably some nice guys would be like, hey, dude,
42:45
Speaker 1: which you should probably do this and steer clear of
42:48
Speaker 1: the red hot chili peppers. You ever run across them
42:51
Speaker 1: in a lineup, you want to get away because they
42:54
Speaker 1: are bad dudes. As far as surf gangs go, is
42:57
Speaker 1: that a real surf gang? Don't you remember in Point Rake?
43:01
Speaker 1: What what were they the They were like a surf gang.
43:03
Speaker 1: They were like the rival surf gang that they're in
43:06
Speaker 1: the movie. I don't think I knew that. Yeah, but
43:09
Speaker 1: that was early on for them. That must have been
43:12
Speaker 1: their formative days. That was in the eighties, um or
43:16
Speaker 1: early nineties. Was that early nineties it was maybe like
43:20
Speaker 1: he directed that was Katherine Bigelow, that was one of
43:22
Speaker 1: her first movies. I didn't know that. Yeah, that was
43:25
Speaker 1: a great movie, so we should point out Tracy points
43:28
Speaker 1: out that surfing it's pretty cool. Not many sports have
43:31
Speaker 1: spawned a musical genre and a film film genre like
43:36
Speaker 1: surfing has You know, there's not a lot of songs
43:38
Speaker 1: about basketball outside of I guess Graay, Maaster Flash and
43:42
Speaker 1: maybe run DMC. But people aren't writing songs about football
43:48
Speaker 1: or croquet. There's no croquet songs, but if they are
43:51
Speaker 1: there from like the yeah, not good surf music was
43:55
Speaker 1: a huge thing, though it still is in a lot
43:57
Speaker 1: of circles. Uh. And then of course the movie's point break,
44:00
Speaker 1: what's your favorite? Have you ever seen Big Wednesday? No
44:03
Speaker 1: good movie? Have you seen Surf Nazis Must Die? I
44:06
Speaker 1: have not? That's a good one? Is it? Is there
44:09
Speaker 1: actually surfing in it? Yeah? Yeah, there's a lot of
44:11
Speaker 1: fights on surfboards and yeah, people shooting one anothers on surfboards.
44:17
Speaker 1: And Big Wednesday is a classic. Blue Crush is a
44:20
Speaker 1: more recent one that covers the ladies and um, Emily
44:24
Speaker 1: loves that movie, by the way. And then there's some
44:27
Speaker 1: great documentaries, the Old Endless Summer movie that was really great,
44:31
Speaker 1: And then Endless Summer two was not bad. And then
44:34
Speaker 1: there's recently more recently, Stacy Prolton made a one called
44:37
Speaker 1: Writing Giants, which is awesome anothere called Step into Liquid,
44:41
Speaker 1: which is really cool too. Yeah, I think that's like
44:43
Speaker 1: number two or something like that, and like the best
44:47
Speaker 1: after Endless Summer. Yeah, well in the summer night stuff
44:51
Speaker 1: was cool, but that was like old school, and today
44:54
Speaker 1: they have the technology to like get inside the tube
44:57
Speaker 1: and go underwater, and it's like the footage that gets
44:59
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. It's very thank you, go pro Ah, you
45:02
Speaker 1: got anything else? Nope? Cool. I can't wait for you
45:07
Speaker 1: to try it. That's the next thing in this podcast
45:09
Speaker 1: is for you to report back of your experience. Okay,
45:14
Speaker 1: I will go. I think be good. You'll you'll you know,
45:15
Speaker 1: if you spend a day or two, you'll be able
45:17
Speaker 1: to get up and go like, hey, I'm surfing, look
45:19
Speaker 1: at me, I'm Frankie Internet. But I mean it's crazy
45:25
Speaker 1: what you're doing though. You are standing on top of
45:27
Speaker 1: a plank of fiberglass on the writing water. Yeah, you
45:32
Speaker 1: know it ain't easy. No, I'm sure it's not. Yeah,
45:35
Speaker 1: and uh, I already can just feel my ankles can
45:38
Speaker 1: banged up on surfboard. Do you have good balance? Are
45:41
Speaker 1: you good at stuff like skateboarding? And I'm not so
45:44
Speaker 1: bad with balance surprisingly for my size. I'm I'm I
45:47
Speaker 1: can stand up on like one leg that's balanced. Yeah,
45:52
Speaker 1: it'll be okay, you're able to surf a little bit.
45:54
Speaker 1: It'll be fun. I'm not. I'm gonna go in there
45:56
Speaker 1: with an attitude suggested by the Surf Guide have fun. Yeah,
46:00
Speaker 1: it's gonna be fun. Yeah. I'm not one of those
46:01
Speaker 1: people that gets all aggravated. If I can't do something
46:03
Speaker 1: like that, you don't get agro bro. No man, no, wait,
46:06
Speaker 1: what's the point I quit doing it before I got aggravated.
46:09
Speaker 1: Well that's good. That's how it helped more quitter than
46:11
Speaker 1: I am. Aggro Um. Do you want to learn about surfing?
46:16
Speaker 1: And I mean like pretty decent amount about surfing? You
46:19
Speaker 1: can type that word into the search bar at how
46:21
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And I said search bar. So
46:24
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this
46:29
Speaker 1: uh black museum. Yeah. Remember we talked about that in
46:34
Speaker 1: the death Mask Eupside. I still want to go. I
46:36
Speaker 1: was really hoping somebody would write in and be like
46:38
Speaker 1: I can actually get you in there. No one did, no,
46:41
Speaker 1: but I bet if we really pushed for it, we could. Well,
46:43
Speaker 1: let's start pushing lots of about hands and the name.
46:46
Speaker 1: All right, guys, just got done listening to your show
46:48
Speaker 1: on Death Mass. I heard you mentioned the Black Museum
46:50
Speaker 1: and you said they should make a movie about it.
46:52
Speaker 1: I instantly had a flashback of listening to a radio
46:55
Speaker 1: show by the same name when I was a team.
46:57
Speaker 1: Although it was in the early nineties. My local AM
47:00
Speaker 1: radio news station I would air old radio dramas in
47:03
Speaker 1: the late evening and I would tune in occasionally. One
47:05
Speaker 1: of my favorites was The Black Museum. I went and
47:08
Speaker 1: looked it up. It was. The Black Museum was one
47:11
Speaker 1: radio crime drama based on real life cases from the
47:14
Speaker 1: files of Scotland Yards. Black Museum. Orson Welles was both
47:19
Speaker 1: host and narrator for stories of horror and mystery. Uh
47:23
Speaker 1: So the show would open with Orson Wells speaking from
47:26
Speaker 1: London Big Ben chimes, and then the Black Museum with
47:29
Speaker 1: the pository of death here in the grim Stone structure
47:33
Speaker 1: on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard in a warehouse
47:36
Speaker 1: of homicide where everyday objects a woman shoe, a tiny
47:40
Speaker 1: white box, a quilted robe. All are touched by murder.
47:45
Speaker 1: So that sounds pretty cool. I mean and Orson Wells
47:48
Speaker 1: to like him saying things like that for sure, Chuck
47:51
Speaker 1: Bryant saying something doesn't have the impact of an Orson
47:54
Speaker 1: Wells's uh so there you guys. Maybe someday, uh, somebody
48:00
Speaker 1: will make a TV show about it or a movie.
48:02
Speaker 1: And for now you can go on the internet and
48:03
Speaker 1: listen to the old episodes gip do you want of them?
48:05
Speaker 1: And all. So that's awesome, big fan, looking forward to
48:09
Speaker 1: seeing your TV show soon. That is Dan from San Diego,
48:13
Speaker 1: which I believe means whales. No, it doesn't. What does
48:18
Speaker 1: san Diego mean? Uh, it means sat Diego. That's right
48:23
Speaker 1: in Spanish. I would not quote Anchorman and ruin this
48:26
Speaker 1: g rated podcast. Um, if you have some I guess
48:32
Speaker 1: additional information for something that we've talked about, or if
48:36
Speaker 1: you can get us into the Black Museum, we want
48:38
Speaker 1: you to get in touch with us. You can tweak
48:40
Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K podcast. You can
48:42
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know.
48:45
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
48:48
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com, or you can hang out with us
48:51
Speaker 1: online at our House Stuff you Should Know dot com.
49:00
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49:03
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49:13
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