I HEARD THERE ARE NO WAVES IN NEW JERSEY....

[00:00:00] Tyler: The Swell Season Podcast is recorded by the New Stand Studio at Rockefeller Center in the heart of Manhattan and is distributed by the Swell Season Surf Radio Network.

[00:00:57] Hello and welcome to the Swell Season Surf [00:01:00] Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Brewer, often overlooked for the warmer waters of its Hawaiian and Californian counterparts. The Atlantic Coast of New Jersey has been home to surfing for over 135 years and in turn has held an unsung influence over the history of the sport in America.

[00:01:23] That is the opening quote of the newly released book, I Heard There Were No Waves in New Jersey, Surfing on the Jersey Shore, 1888 to 1984, by Rizzoli Publishing and edited by Danny DeMauro. And Johan Kugelberg. Our guests today are the contributors to this beautiful book and it is this gorgeous tribute to New Jersey surfing.

[00:01:49] Book editor and former guest Danny DeMauro is here with us and if you're not familiar with Danny, he is an exceptional character in New York and New Jersey surfing. He was [00:02:00] an editor of Saturday's Magazine and has written Uh, in Vogue and other, uh, numerous, uh, publications and is just an all around awesome goofy foot.

[00:02:11] We also have New Jersey legend, infamous surf industry sales rep, incredible surfer, photographer, and just all around awesome guy who I've known since I've been a Grom, uh, Mark Newstetter. And if you don't know him, you should know him, he's freaking coolest. And then we have former Atlantic City heavy, Mike May.

[00:02:33] May is a founding member of the New Jersey Surfing Hall of Fame. And he wrote the definitive story on Duke Kahanamoku's protege, Sam Reed. He is also just an incredible person who's, uh, uncovered all sorts of, uh, history for East coast surfing over the years and has contributed so much to our culture. Uh, so I'm super stoked to have them and all of them contribute this beautiful book.

[00:02:58] It's a, it's. Drawing on [00:03:00] archives of photographs and ephemera from private collections. And from those who held in New Jersey, uh, all this stuff has been held in New Jersey surf museum and the New Jersey surfing hall of fame. And this book is just a beautiful celebration of East coast surfing. I am super excited to have these guys on to talk about this book.

[00:03:19] And, uh, yeah, I mean, I'm, we're going to nerd out on this. This is going to be full surf history, nerdism. So listeners be prepared. And I'd like to welcome our guests, Danny, Mark and Mike to the show. Uh, Mike is going to be remote, so we're not seeing him. So give us a, cut us some slack if we talk over each other and, um, yeah.

[00:03:38] Welcome to the show, everyone.

[00:03:41] Mike: Thanks, Tyler. Thanks, Tyler.

[00:03:43] Tyler: So, oh my god, this is, I mean, I've been bothering Danny about this, uh, getting you guys on the show since he told me about this project, but I got a bone to pick with you guys on this. I'm going to start off here, uh, put you on your heels a little bit.[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Where the fuck is the boss in this book? There's no Bruce. I didn't see any Bruce in this book. What the heck? You're a New Jersey surf book. This guy lived with the, you know, Shaper and everything and was kind of a little involved in the surf scene. Where, where was the, where's the boss, man? It's a great question and I can answer

[00:04:17] Danny: that question for you if you like.

[00:04:18] Tyler: Yes. I knew there'd be

[00:04:20] Danny: something good to this too. I knew it because I know you're probably thinking of it. We did think about it and it was one of the things that we wanted to have in the book and we searched for far and wide for a photo of Bruce surfing and we'd gotten, we'd, uh, one of my clients, uh, in my other profession.

[00:04:38] Yeah. Um, works with the, um, the, uh, the, the music hall of fame. What is that called? The The rock and roll? The rock and roll. He's on the board of the rock and roll hall of fame. He's a personal friend of Bruce and he called Bruce. We asked if there was a picture of him surfing and there, it doesn't exist as far as we know [00:05:00] because it was something that we wanted to have in the book.

[00:05:01] You have it? I have it.

[00:05:03] Mike: I have it. No way!

[00:05:07] Tyler: Aw,

[00:05:08] Mike: man! It's a black and white photograph.

[00:05:12] Tyler: Is he surfing, Mike? Describe the shot for us.

[00:05:15] Mike: He's surfing and he's a regular foot. And he's a big Lock Harbor guy.

[00:05:21] Tyler: Wow. Dude, that, oh, man, had we known. Stop the presses, stop the presses. Second edition, second edition print, right?

[00:05:35] Mark: He's in the book in spirit.

[00:05:37] Danny: Where did you find the photo, Mike?

[00:05:40] Mike: I came across, I'll tell you who had the, I think Matt Warshaw with EOS. Has one also, of

[00:05:47] Tyler: course he does

[00:05:48] Mike: and it just came across and all that the investigating I do so much stuff is in newspaper. com and ancestry. com. So, you know, I'm I had it.

[00:05:59] So I'll [00:06:00] send it to you for for the next edition black and white.

[00:06:05] Tyler: Send it my way so I can post it on the social to promote this episode. There we go. I will do it. Good call. I'll send it off to you today. Um, but now getting to like the real questions here, because that was a fun one though, um, I gotta, I guess I want to ask like, why was this book so important to make?

[00:06:25] And what are you trying to communicate to surfers of New Jersey and the surf world abroad? Uh, you know, like, how did this start? And, and, and what was the, the reason and to make this book?

[00:06:39] Danny: Okay, well,

[00:06:41] Tyler: Danny first. Um,

[00:06:43] Danny: my partner in this book, Johan Kugelberg, who has had many books, um, you know, mostly centering on like, uh, did a book on the Sex Pistols, The Velvet Underground.

[00:06:53] Uh, he was a record label executive, but he's an archivist now and um, he's just got a lot of cool stuff. He [00:07:00] knows about a lot of great, cool things, you know? And he wanted to do a book on surfing and he actually came up with the idea to do it on New Jersey. And the idea was sort of like, you know, New Jersey is this, always this underdog state, underdog place, you know?

[00:07:17] And I, I agreed with him and. I told him, I said, you know, I don't think New Jersey's ever gotten it's just desserts, you know. It's always been sort of the red headed stepchild of the surfing world, um, but as we get more into this, you'll see that it has a, uh, Rich and diverse history.

[00:07:35] Tyler: And, Mike, what about you?

[00:07:37] I'm curious, because you've been kind of doing all this work all along, I guess. And I'm curious, like, how you all kind of connected on this book, or this project.

[00:07:46] Mike: So mine was, you know, it's that proverbial rabbit hole. So when we started the New Jersey Surfing Hall of Fame, and Sam, and I knew Sam Reed's name, and just for everybody who doesn't know, Sam Reed was born [00:08:00] in 1905.

[00:08:01] He saw Duke surf in Atlantic City in 1912. And by 1926, he's surfing Malibu with Tom Blake. The first, the first, by the way, right? The first. The first. Because I always like to say to my, my friends in California, the first. Um, people that serve Malibu 1 was from Wisconsin and the other 1 was from New Jersey and it, it creates a lot of consternation when I say it.

[00:08:27] So keeping my journey. I say it often.

[00:08:32] Bruce: I love it.

[00:08:34] Mike: That took me down a path that just I started to find things other that had nothing to do with read that refuted a lot of that initial story. And, you know, we, as we go on, we can get into some of that. But, you know, Duke wasn't the 1st guy and there was this rich cultural relationship between Hawaii that started in 1910.

[00:08:58] It went for [00:09:00] 60 to 70 years by the ability of sending Hawaiian divers and swimmers and dancers to the steel pier and they surfed and, you know, they brought all that information. So, I actually tried to find if George free to really get a lot of credit for surfing in California. If he came to Atlantic City to serve, and it ends up being this young guy who actually came to Atlantic City and spent the entire summer surfing under a spotlight.

[00:09:34] Giving lessons, saving people. He was surfing next to Steel Pier one day in September. His friends were using the board and people started to jam. So once you, you get into the mix of those stories, you just don't stop. And there's, Tons of them in newspapers. Tons. It's amazing.

[00:09:54] Tyler: I, I was always under the impression, and, and I was on the EOS researching this, and [00:10:00] he says George Freeth was the one that got arrested in, for surfing Atlantic City.

[00:10:04] So that, um, thank you for clearing that up. And we have to probably scold Matt Warshaw a little bit.

[00:10:10] Mike: Yeah, Patrick Moser, who wrote the book on George Freak.

[00:10:14] Tyler: Yeah,

[00:10:14] Mike: really cleared up a lot of the stuff that was out there. I mean, George Freak went to Atlantic City. His brother was going to school back there

[00:10:23] Bruce: and

[00:10:23] Mike: he swam, but he never the 1 thing he did bring is that I don't know if it's true.

[00:10:27] You have that terminology using the can to save people as lifeguards. Well, the can was actually an aluminum can that was invented really by the Atlantic City lifeguards and Freak took it back and used it in Redondo Beach and Hermosa and Santa Monica. So, but he never surfed. That's,

[00:10:48] Tyler: that is fascinating and really interesting because, uh, there's always been this misconception, I think.

[00:10:54] And if you, and listeners, if you go on the EOS, even like there is a whole thing on, on [00:11:00] New Jersey and they do talk about Freeth, so we're going to have to castigate, uh, Matt Warshaw a little or get them to correct that. I

[00:11:07] Mike: think he's cleaned it up a little bit. Matt and I have had long conversations, so he has to go back and rewrite.

[00:11:14] The fact that he had to change Duke to be the first one surfing in New Jersey when we found out it actually was a woman

[00:11:21] Tyler: is, uh, is pretty cool. Well I want to dive into it because you guys start the book really with, with this, um, this story, the gay queen of the, of the waves and the discovery of surfing in New Jersey.

[00:11:34] And I was hoping you guys could expand on, on this information because it's, it's, it's It's a super interesting story with lineage that, that kind of passes on and it, it, I don't know. There's just, there's something about it with the connective tissue of it all that really I find fascinating. So I was hoping you can, uh, Mike, I'm going to let you expand on this.

[00:11:55] Actually, I, I would like to

[00:11:56] Danny: take it away. Oh, Danny.

[00:11:58] Tyler: Okay. Danny, take it away. So. [00:12:00] It's a

[00:12:02] Danny: funny story and it's very Jersey esque. So in Jim Hayman's book on surfing, there's a thumbnail on one of the pictures up in the right hand corner and it says, factor fiction, you know, did this, this woman in 1888 surf Asbury Park.

[00:12:20] So they were throwing it up as like, maybe it existed, maybe it didn't exist. Maybe it was true. Maybe it wasn't true. And we just. Said it was true. So we, we just put 1888 to 1984 on the book and then years went by. Cause we started this book in 2016. Mike calls me up on the phone basically. And it's like. I found, not only is it true, but I found out who this person actually is.

[00:12:50] And that story is even, I'll just let Mike take it from there, but I mean, that's pretty much how it went. As I remember it, Mike, please tell me if I'm, uh, if I'm [00:13:00] incorrect. No,

[00:13:00] Mike: that's spot on. And that's one of the things like that pops up, you know, um, people tell stories and then you have to go back and say, well, that's, that's actually true or not true.

[00:13:11] So for me, it was another one of those, it was a footnote and. Moser's book about a guy who was doing a, uh, historical reference of the Spreckels family. And he, he literally had in the book that he wrote, it's a gentleman by the name of Vinnie Dick. How, how much of a Jersey name is that?

[00:13:34] Tyler: I was just going to say, like, this is the M.

[00:13:37] O. B. guy. Hey, yo, Vinnie Dick, how you doing?

[00:13:41] Mike: Hold on. And he's a historian. And he just, he put things together that made us realize exactly who it was. That it was Emma Spreckels. the great aunt of Bunker Spreckles, which makes it even more amazing. But the, the way the article was written [00:14:00] at the time, there was this, it was almost tabloid like, and the Spreckles family had moved to Philadelphia in 1888, And there was all sorts of things to find.

[00:14:12] The brothers would hang out in Atlantic City. The father was heading off to, uh, back to San Francisco. So Emma was left alone during this time. And every time you read something about Emma Spreckles in the Philadelphia papers, they called her the young lady from the Sandwich Islands and the daughter of, you know, a big landowner and a sugar baron.

[00:14:38] Well, if you read the article that was written at that time, that's exactly how the girl is described. Um, and it's immediately, it jumps out at you because they were all afraid of the father. They wouldn't use her name because she was wearing a swimming outfit that was a little bit risque for the time.

[00:14:58] And the thing that kind of confirms [00:15:00] it, there was a young Hawaiian princess that was married to a gentleman by the name of JL Graham, and they were up in Rumson and had a beautiful estate and she lived there during that time. And ads were taken out in the Asbury Park Press, and it was from Graham saying, the young woman who was described in this article, please.

[00:15:23] Let me know where she stayed because I know her. So it's a whole compilation of, of stories from here stories from there. Do we have a picture? Obviously we don't, but the story is so unique and so much, um, tied into the family that, you know, if Matt Warshaw says it's her. And I'm, I'm in full agreement that, that, uh, we found exactly who the, uh, the Sandwich Island princess was, but another one of those things that it sat out there for decades.

[00:15:56] And, um, it's, it's, uh, it's the [00:16:00] power of the internet and the fact that we continue to get newspapers added onto these websites that we never saw before. And, you know, every week I get a new story about something that, that I didn't see the week before. So it's pretty cool to go down that path.

[00:16:15] Tyler: What did, what does that mean to you guys?

[00:16:18] Like when you, when you discovered this or found out like that surfing had taken place in New Jersey? In 1888, like, what was your reaction and, and what do you think that means for like, New Jersey surfing as a whole? Uh, let's start with Danny here.

[00:16:35] Danny: Well, I guess one of the things about doing this book, um, was that these things just kept being uncovered.

[00:16:44] And I was like, whoa, this is getting to be so much more rich than I thought it was going to be. You know, here we've got this. This 17 year old girl giving surfing demonstrations at Asbury Park Pier in a bathing costume, you know? [00:17:00] And then to discover who she was, I was like, holy, this is incredible. You know?

[00:17:04] Um, so, like, for me, I was like, whoa, this history is really, it's deep, it's rich, you know what I mean? It's, it's in our DNA and, uh, it's been going on forever.

[00:17:15] Tyler: And Mike, what about you? I'm curious, like, what did that mean to you when you found this out and got this information?

[00:17:23] Mike: I think a lot of it because I come from the generation of guys that became expats to California, right?

[00:17:32] And when they would surf out there they would keep it to themselves where they were from and I've always been of the mindset of, you know, let's let's Own exactly who we are and what our history is because it's rich. So it just gave another fabric of the overall aspects of of what we are and what we've been.

[00:17:53] And, you know, Paul Strau had a, had a great comment that said, we had to be really foolish [00:18:00] to think that if somebody had a wave that was breaking on their shore that. And I think his perspective was invaluable for me, because it really started to give value to the thing that that we have in our history.

[00:18:15] And then to go even beyond to know that Hawaii thought so much of New Jersey and Atlantic City that that's the 1st place that they sent people to. There are folks to from an exhibition standpoint to get people to come to Hawaii. So, yeah, I mean, it gives us, it certainly gives us a lot more panache in the surf world.

[00:18:36] I mean, if you look at the web at what's going on now, we're like the flavor of the month. Those of us who've surfed some, some of those waves realize that, you know, you might make one out of 20,

[00:18:47] Bruce: um,

[00:18:48] Mike: but I love to see it. It's, it's been a wonderful thing. And when you tell people now in California, I mean, I've run into people everywhere, Uluwatu, one of the main guys I surf with [00:19:00] there was a guy from Seaside named Ryan Donnelly.

[00:19:03] So we're everywhere. We're like, You know, we're, we're like the rats of the surf world.

[00:19:11] And, and Mark Neustadter would know all about that aspect of it.

[00:19:15] Danny: Oh, let's

[00:19:16] Tyler: bring in Mark. Yeah, Mark. You got a response to that?

[00:19:23] Mike: I meant it as a positive. Oh, okay. One of the early guys moving to California, you know.

[00:19:29] Danny: Yeah. Let me, let me team Mark up. Team up. Well, so when we were You know, starting to think about what we wanted this book to look like and we had decided it was going to be about New Jersey.

[00:19:40] I'm like, well, so I called up Mark and I'm like, we're going to be digging through your negatives and we pulled boxes out. And I mean, it was mind blowing. I mean, one of my most memorable childhood memories was, um, the OP pro in Atlantic City. I was, um, You know, I was like 13 years old and [00:20:00] I rode my bike on the boardwalk from Margate up to Atlantic City and, uh, And, uh, I just knew that Mark had those photos and that was the first thing I asked for.

[00:20:08] I'm like, where are the OP Pro photos? We need those photos. Like, I got them and we're digging through boxes, endless, endless boxes. And, um, and that's how, how Mark came in. But when I was a kid, I mean, Mark and Mike, they were like, they were the guys, you know? Like, I was, a teenager and like Mark had already competed, you know, quite a bit and, and traveled to all these exotic places.

[00:20:33] He was the rep for Rip Curl and he would, you know, when you needed, like, he would have these events at his house and like, if you got invited to one of Mark's events, like, it was a very big deal. You know, he would sell all the old wetsuits that, you know, the samples.

[00:20:47] Mark: Well, they were new, but they were new.

[00:20:48] But like, but I mean, you know, it was

[00:20:50] Danny: the eighties. They were like bright yellow, but you know, a hot pink wetsuits. Like it was wild. And, uh, Mark was the guy, you know,

[00:20:58] Tyler: rolling size mediums, right? All [00:21:00] size.

[00:21:00] Mike: We

[00:21:01] Mark: got lucky. There were some

[00:21:02] Mike: large

[00:21:05] The guy who knows the business right there. Sample size. Oh yeah.

[00:21:11] Tyler: I guess, Mark, like, I, first, like, you know, for our listeners, like, I think, I can't, Express, like, how, uh, integral of a figure you are in New Jersey surfing, I think. And people don't realize that. And, um, you know, you've, you've been involved with the industry.

[00:21:30] You've, uh, you, for, I mean, like, 40 plus years now, not to age you too much, but, uh, You know, you've been in the industry, but you're also, like, you've been the guy. Like, the guy, like, anyone come see East Coast, you know, for, for a number of years, like, they came through you, you know, and I'm curious, like, first, like, You have all this history there and you were just sitting on it, like, were you just waiting for a moment like this?

[00:21:56] Like, were you aware of what you were sitting [00:22:00] on and, and thinking about it? Or were you just kinda like, oh, that was the past, that was whatever?

[00:22:04] Mark: No, no, I, I, I know I got the goods. Ha ha

[00:22:08] Tyler: ha ha! And I got

[00:22:10] Mark: plenty more.

[00:22:11] Tyler: Spoken like a true sales rep, by the way.

[00:22:15] Mark: But, um, you know, I guess so I was, uh, you know, somewhat of a photography major in college, I went to Stockton university, but before that I traveled a lot and, um, But, um,

[00:22:30] Tyler: so Ah, you went to Stockton.

[00:22:32] Yeah. How was it? I think, uh, Jimmy Matico went there, too. Oh, did he? Yeah. I

[00:22:37] Mark: thought he was a Texas guy.

[00:22:38] Tyler: Yeah, but you went to California for, for school. Yeah, he went

[00:22:41] Mark: to, um Brooks. Brooks.

[00:22:43] Tyler: That's it. I'm sorry. Institute of Photography. I'm mixing up. Sorry. Yep. Okay. Mixing up. Sorry, but yes. Sorry. All

[00:22:48] Mark: right. How did I know that?

[00:22:50] Well, I almost went to Brooks at one point. That's why. That's why. So I knew it existed. But, um, you know, when, when Danny and Johan, uh, you know, [00:23:00] approached me and Danny was looking for some, some good, you know, uh, photos from that era. And I kind of started shooting in the seventies and into the mid eighties.

[00:23:12] Um, so, you know, when they saw my stuff, they were like, Oh my God. You get enough for your own book, let alone this book. So, we, we got the goods, we've got plenty more. And, um, and then after, after they looked at my stuff and, you know, I, I have been published in Surfing and Surfer magazine, in front of the camera, behind the camera.

[00:23:34] And we used to shoot with slide film because that's all you could use back in the day. You know, digital was like some Wasn't even a thought then. Wasn't even a dream. Like you didn't even know that. Yeah, we didn't know that. So, um, uh, so, you know, that, that was the format back then. And I had access to, when I worked at Rip Curl from 79, well, I worked into the nineties with them.

[00:23:59] But [00:24:00] when I moved to California and became their Southern California rep and their marketing guy and their sales manager guy, I was also the photo guy. So, you know, I had access to guys like Robert Bartholomew and Tommy Curran and, Uh, Tommy Carroll, Wayne Lynch, Nat Young stayed with Derek Hynde, Derek Hynde, I mean, it's just endless.

[00:24:22] So we had a team that was like, you know, I mean, Shane Horan, four time runner up to MR. I mean, he had the best, they had the best team, had the best. And we were on tour, you know, doing shop ops and promotions and things like that. And, you know, uh, took Shane up to the ranch with Al Merrick, you know? Uh, so, you know,

[00:24:43] Tyler: I mean, first, okay, Mark, now I'm just realizing we need to do another podcast just with you for

[00:24:52] Mark: that

[00:24:54] Tyler: story, but keep going.

[00:24:55] Sorry. Yeah.

[00:24:57] Mark: So, um, So we, [00:25:00] you know, they edited down the photos and then, you know, Danny said, well, do you know anybody that has photos from the 60s? I said, yeah, I know a guy, you know, and his name's Dan Middleman. And Dan was like one of the top photographers. In the sixties. And, um, when those guys saw his work, you know, they were like, Oh, geez, here we go.

[00:25:25] Here comes the river of, of photos. And, you know, he's got maybe the most photos in the book and some of them are iconic and classic and lots of black and white water photography back then in the sixties, you know, was a little bit of a challenge. But he's, he's got that and it's actually one of the cover shots that, that Steel Pier.

[00:25:45] Um, so, you know, when they put all our stuff together, like, you know what, maybe you guys want to join in on this project. So, you know, not to talk too much, but you know, that's kind of how I got involved. [00:26:00] And um, you know, so here we are.

[00:26:03] Tyler: It's um, it's interesting, like, like, I'm curious, like what it's like for you then looking back on all this stuff and seeing it now, like.

[00:26:12] edited by someone else, like put together, like, what does that do for you and your memories of, of New Jersey surfing and growing up and like, what, what sort of emotions that response to, you know, for you?

[00:26:24] Mark: So, you know, I, I've, I've got the content

[00:26:28] Tyler: and

[00:26:29] Mark: I look at it a lot and I know that, you know, there's a, there's, there's something coming down the road.

[00:26:35] I don't know exactly when, and I don't know exactly what, but, you know, it could be 40 years on the road. It could be, you know, chapters of my Rip Curl days, my Rusty days, you know, so there's, there's a lot of stuff. And I didn't realize what I was doing back then, kind of like Jimmy Medeco.

[00:26:56] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:26:56] Mark: Like I used to go to Santa Barbara all the time.

[00:26:59] My [00:27:00] boss, Doug Warbrick, they call him Claw.

[00:27:02] Bruce: Yeah.

[00:27:03] Mark: He left after he hired me and he says, listen, I want you to take care of this kid. His name's Tom Curran. He says, you don't have to call us or telex us, if he needs a suit, just get him a suit. So I was in Santa Barbara once a month for almost three years.

[00:27:17] Holy shit. And served with Tommy at Rincon, and we had a jersey crew. You know, you want to talk about jersey crew? We had the Rincon jersey crew, there would be six to eight guys in the water all the time. I'd be coming down the line and these guys would be hooting and hollering and other people would be like who the hell's this guy You know, but they all backed off man, it was like warfare back then And then of course tommy and al you know, they were regulars and fixtures there and you know Al's kids were just little at that time.

[00:27:48] Tyler: So Um, dude, that's insane. And like, I'm trying to now imagine a bunch of Jersey guys in Rincon just being like, Hey, yo, get the fuck out of the way, motherfucker. You know, like, kind of like that a little bit. [00:28:00] Sorry to stereotype guys, you know, I'm, I mean, I'm Long Island, so I can give you that. Well, you know, We're, we're all in the armpit of the U.

[00:28:07] S., by the way.

[00:28:08] Mark: So look, Long Island, Jersey, you know, yeah, yo, yo, whoa. You know, everybody had a nickname. Okay. So you're screaming. No way. No way. No way. You know, and you know, everybody's name got half, you know, it was Mel for, you know, Billy Mellon and Dwyer for dwiddles, you know, I mean, all these guys were in the water and it was like just a round robin.

[00:28:31] It was the craziest thing, man. And Tommy Kern, he loved it. He's like, Oh, I know the Jersey guy. That was the early 80s and that's that's what his book is about also Published by Rizzoli too,

[00:28:44] Tyler: and we will be right back and now back to our show so I guess like Danny and Mike like and Danny like I want to know like when you started coming up with this book Like [00:29:00]what did you initially think it was gonna be?

[00:29:03] And what did it become for you? Like, were you thinking, all right, this is going to be like encyclopedia of surfing, or this is going to be more of an image based type of thing, which, which the book is, is it's mostly image with, uh, some first person accounts from you, Mark and, and, and everyone else. But, um, you know, I was curious, like what your initial vision was and how you ended up where you are with this book.

[00:29:30] Danny: I think originally we started out saying it was going to be like a Garden State scrapbook. We wanted to stay away from saying this is the definitive history of surfing in New Jersey. Um, and as it, as we started to get into it, um, we started to look at Mark's photos. We started to look at Dan's photos.

[00:29:49] And it really became very Absekin Island centric, which, you know, we had thought when we had started the book that the Duke had been the first person to, you know, to [00:30:00]demonstrate surfing at a million dollar pier. And then as the book continued to evolve, like with, with Mike's research and other people's research, if you look at the timeline, it just kept unfolding and more history kept unfolding and it just became sort of like, Whoa, this is so much bigger than what we ever thought.

[00:30:20] You know, it was going to be at its inception. We thought we were going to basically catalog Mark and Dan's, um, you know, these negatives that have been sitting in boxes for over 40 years, you know, and, uh, create a nice sort of, uh, tribute to Absecon Island, but it evolved into something much bigger.

[00:30:38] Tyler: How much did the, um, you know, the, the New Jersey Surfing Hall of Fame and the New Jersey Surf Museum contribute to this?

[00:30:46] Like the, the whole back of the book is. All these incredible, iconic, um, graphics, I guess, uh, you know, you could call it because there's some stickers, some poster art, there's like a whole bunch of, you know, from all the [00:31:00] local shops, skate, it's crazy, like, and I'm curious, like, how much did, did they contribute?

[00:31:05] And also, like, how important is an organization like those? You know, for our surf community.

[00:31:13] Danny: I mean, I think they're very important. You know, I think it's really, I think it's um, It's really underrated how, how deep this goes. You know, and how long, you know, Mike can really speak about this. Um, How entrenched New Jersey's roots are in the surfing lexicon and the history of surfing.

[00:31:30] And, um, I mean, one of the things that was really fascinating for me, if you look, um, you know, they were surfing in the I always thought surfing in the winter started in the 90s when the wetsuits got better, because that's when it started for me. They were surfing and diving 60s. There, there's a page in there of them having contests in the winter in 1968, in 38 degree water.

[00:31:56] I mean, like we think that when we go out in the winter, it's like a big deal, but the [00:32:00] wetsuit technology is so great, but they were doing it in really like crude equipment,

[00:32:05] Tyler: you know? There's, there's a wonderful photo of a woman wearing like a, like a dive suit with buttons and latches and. It's got like a BDSM type of thing going, but like it, I mean, like it's, it looked restrictive to say the least.

[00:32:24] Mark: They were dive suits and they had zero stretch. They were quarter inch, the seams would fall apart, and we would, you know, try and always have the, uh, wetsuit glue to try and, you know, fix them. And, you know, Mike will tell you, it was, it was brutal, man.

[00:32:43] Mike: I still have a scar on my neck.

[00:32:45] Tyler: Oh, really?

[00:32:46] Mark: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:32:48] You were guaranteed to get rashed up everywhere. How

[00:32:52] Tyler: was it, Mike? Like, uh, tell, tell us, like, what was surfing, both you and Mark, like, tell us what was surfing like in the [00:33:00] winter during those time periods of, uh, minimal, uh, wetsuit, uh, accessories.

[00:33:08] Mike: So, I think it's, it's one of those things, like, you don't know what you, you know, Don't have right when you hear the California guys talking about surfing, um in Santa Cruz in wool sweaters I think we probably had that that kind of same mindset.

[00:33:24] I used to live next door to the The guy who was the parkway Wetsuit rep and they started to make kind of surf wetsuits parkway they took some of the rough edges off and I would walk down there and buy a shorty for like Or my father would buy a shorty for 15 bucks, you know, and so we didn't know. So we thought we were, um, we had our own kind of niche.

[00:33:52] And I really believe to some extent that we, I know we look a little bit to California, but this was a, this was a New [00:34:00] Jersey culture. This was. At Atlantic City at the Second Island Seaside, New York, there was this culture that was created and yeah, a lot of us got boards from there, but I always felt that it was kind of a unique perspective and we just didn't know how bad this stuff was.

[00:34:17] I mean, when we. Transition to the shortboard period. We were pretty quick to get off those tanks. And, you know, Mark, I can remember Mark, you know, I think he still has it. But boy, it was, let me get to something that I'm not taking it on the head. I always been thankful that I learned how to surf and a longboard because I learned how to swim.

[00:34:38] I can tell you a lot of guys that I pulled out of the water whose, whose leash is broken and they were like, what do we do now? So, um, and to go back to it, it's, it's truly, you don't know what you don't have. And I think the joy of the sport outweighed any sense that we were lacking anything, [00:35:00] even lacking anything from waves.

[00:35:02] I mean, our, our trip to Hatteras was like, we were heading to. Pipeline every year. And boy, when it was big and, and firing there, it helped me learn how to ride a tube, I'll tell you that

[00:35:13] Tyler: much. Well, I imagine that the hardship breeds community and togetherness, right? Like, you're all, you're all suffering, but you're doing it together at least.

[00:35:26] Mike: There's some truth. Boy, when you took your gloves off, like the first guy who took his gloves off, like, End of april beginning of may which was ridiculous And we all followed pretty quickly and man, it was painful

[00:35:40] Mark: Uh some of those winter days, um, you know, we all you know, I happen to live on the beach block I think mike lived real close and mcgill and you know a few of the guys but I would literally wait till I would get so cold I'd like through the talent and then I'd run up to my house, [00:36:00] put the hot water on.

[00:36:01] You couldn't put it on too hot because your hands and your feet would sting so bad. Oh my God. So, uh. Anyway, I'll, I'll tell a quick little story. So, um, you know, as far back to what Mike said about, you know, guys that, you know, we used to swim.

[00:36:19] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:36:19] Mark: There weren't leashes, you know, you dug a rail, you know, a hundred yards, 200 yards.

[00:36:24] So I'm in a contest, the polar bear contest. The polar

[00:36:28] Tyler: bear contest. Yeah. Let's bring that back. Yeah.

[00:36:30] Mark: So Ocean City, New Jersey Surfing Association, they had this, you know, triple crown. It was the turkey trot. The Polar Bear Contest and the Spring Fling. Wow. And I'm in one of my heats and, uh, you know, we're out there and, you know, they were 12 minute heats.

[00:36:48] It was like, and I think it was unlimited waves. So, I'm just motoring, motoring, motoring. Guy wipes out. He says, I need help. I need help. I said, [00:37:00] you're like 50 yards from the beach. I can't, I, I, I said, dude, we're in a contest. I can't save you in the middle. I only got like eight minutes left. And the guy, I said, just start swimming.

[00:37:14] And you know, he doggy paddled into the beach.

[00:37:18] Tyler: It's interesting. I think, uh, there was a landmark case in New Jersey, actually, where, um, someone had drowned, and their, their leash broke, and they drowned, and the wife tried to sue leash company, and, uh, and it was, uh, Dismissed, thrown out, because the leash is not a safety device, it's just recovery.

[00:37:37] And I think it was New Jersey that actually set the precedent, by the way. I thought you were going to say the leash company had no money. No. What are you kidding me? The leash companies are probably the most profitable in the surf industry, I think.

[00:37:51] Mike: They break all the time. Yeah,

[00:37:53] Tyler: exactly. Um, Danny, I want to read an [00:38:00] excerpt of yours because I feel like we've danced around this topic a little bit and I think this excerpt kind of speaks to it and something I want to dive into.

[00:38:10] Uh, so I'm just going to read real quick a quote from you. I knew that California was the place to be if you were a quote unquote real surfer. And I had to experience what that might feel like. If even for a, for a brief moment, I'll never forget when someone asked me, What brought you to California? And I said, I'm a surfer from New Jersey.

[00:38:34] The guy laughed and said, I heard there are no waves in New Jersey. And it was pointless to argue because comparatively, I had zero frame of reference. This was the first time I'd been anywhere. I was just a pimply faced teenager. I had to read that part. Searching for the promised land. I felt ashamed because I knew what he meant.

[00:38:55] He was Letting me know that we were irrelevant, irrelevant in the [00:39:00] surfing world. And I think it's interesting how I think many of us, uh, end quote, by the way. Um, I think it's interesting though, how I think many of us from the East coast and moreover, from the Northeast. We kind of grew up almost with like a bit of a chip on our shoulders and, and when it came to our relevance to the surfing world.

[00:39:20] And the funny thing is, and I think Mark, you can even speak to this, how the East Coast and Northeast had probably lined the pockets of so many surf industry execs with our multi seasonal surf life and all the gear that comes with it, you know? And I want to speak to that, that kind of. feeling of being irrelevant, right?

[00:39:40] Or, you know, to the surfing world, uh, you know, we, the surfer magazine would do the East coast section, which was in black and white with, you know, it was never color and we never felt like we always felt excluded.

[00:39:52] Mark: I was the sales manager, uh, for that insert called East coast surfer for three years, [00:40:00]

[00:40:02] Tyler: black and white with pink.

[00:40:05] Yeah.

[00:40:05] Mark: And Jim Kemp, Jim Kempton and I talked about that the other day. He was actually the editor along with Lisa Roselli.

[00:40:13] Tyler: But that, that's like, did you, did you feel that, Mark, when you would go out and work with the surf brands and the industry, did you feel like there was this belittling of, of Northeast surfing and East Coast surfing?

[00:40:26] Mark: So, my entry into the surf industry was, um, you know, other than when I worked in surf shops, Jim Earl's Reef Surf Shop, and I worked with David Nueva in California. But, um, um, so, my entry was with Rip Curl. And we were primarily a wetsuit, you know, company. Yeah, we did hoodies and tees and some other stuff and accessories and it started to build.

[00:40:54] But in the beginning, as a rubber company, the Northeast meant a lot to the big picture [00:41:00] because they, you know,

[00:41:01] Tyler: we needed it, we needed it all year long, all

[00:41:04] Mark: year long, three twos, four threes, five threes, six, five Springs, boots, gloves, you name it. So, you know, I did a, you know, a fair amount of business. Uh, that was probably a little bit disproportionate to some of the other brands, you know, like billabong and quick Um, you know that was more apparel driven.

[00:41:23] Yeah, so But you know, I knew all the Numbers in the regions and you know, uh, the Northeast, uh, and particularly like Maryland through New York was always like the number three market in the country. So Southern California, Florida, and then us. So, um, you know, when in the eighties, when things popped, it was like game on.

[00:41:49] And then a lot of those companies in the nineties opened up showrooms up on Broadway here. And It was just gangbusters. And then, you know, Roxy comes along and, you know, the women are [00:42:00] in there big time. So, um, yeah, I mean, this, this territory is important to the overall picture of, uh, the surfing.

[00:42:08] Tyler: And Danny, you, how do you feel like?

[00:42:12] You know, like I, I felt this, like it was always like a surprise, like, Oh, you surf in New York or there's surf there or whatever. And like, it was always, and they would always like not expect us to surf well. Um, and, and I'm curious, like how you experienced that. And I'm also curious, like how that's developed over time now, where I think now we could probably claim more core status than, than Southern California and actually.

[00:42:41] They're kind of irrelevant in some ways to the surfing, uh, conversation globally these days.

[00:42:48] Danny: Yeah, I think it's interesting how that's gotten flipped on its head a little bit. Um, I think Mark's experience is a bit different than mine because he worked in the surf industry. So, you know, just as a kid who, you know, wasn't a [00:43:00] competitive surfer, who lived on this small barrier Island, that's eight miles long.

[00:43:05] You know, my experience in surfing was unlike. It was so drastically different than what I was seeing in Surfer Magazine, you know, and it was like, you know, it was the Echo Beach time period in the 80s when I grew up as a teenager surfing and it was like, you know, neon wetsuits and like polka dot surfboards, new wave.

[00:43:28] There was like, you know, this soundtrack that went with it and um, it was very cool, you know, and it was like, Blonde hair and, you know, all the guys I knew that surfed had like dark hair and Italian and Jewish last names, you know, gold chains and it just wasn't the same thing. And, you know, historically to a greater or lesser degree, California has pretty much controlled the narrative on what surf culture is.

[00:43:52] Right. My experience was like, you know, when we drove up to Atlantic City to go surfing and at like 5 a. m., you [00:44:00] would count how many, you know, prostitutes were still out from the night before. It was like, you know, it was cold. It was rainy. We have weather on the East Coast. It's just different, you know? And so, yeah.

[00:44:10] I didn't see any representation in those magazines, so like, I felt like, hey, that's the real thing. You know, as a 14, 15 year old kid, like, that's the real deal. And this is all pre internet, pre social media. Like, people didn't even know that we had waves. Like, that guy said to me, he's like, there's no waves in New Jersey.

[00:44:30] You know, now you've got, um, What's his name? The, the old editor of, uh, Surfer Magazine. Bob Mignona? No, but I wrote a letter, uh Jim Caffey? No, no, um He was married James Murray? He was married to, uh, Leilani from the North Shore. Uh Oh, Sam George? Sam George just wrote an article in the Inertia talking about, when did New Jersey get all these waves?

[00:44:49] Like, what are you talking about? We've always had waves. What do you mean? You know, but so, like, these, these guys are now realizing that, like, you know, you [00:45:00] Dropping into 15 foot beach break. It's like, you know, well, I mean, what was it? Well,

[00:45:04] Tyler: it was like a month ago where you had the day of days where it was just terrifyingly big and and and so impressive What people were doing?

[00:45:16] It's crazy,

[00:45:17] Danny: you know, Mike is always, you know, I think Mike would would agree with me We'll have to ask him but yeah, you know This tightly controlled narrative is, um, I feel like Mike's always like shouting from the rooftops. Like, yeah, we've been here forever.

[00:45:32] Tyler: Well, yeah, Mike, can you speak to that your experience with that and and the the the kind of belittling or the younger sibling kind of attitude that that the paternal attitude almost that we get from like the West Coast.

[00:45:48] Mike: So I, I've been lucky enough. I've moved to California twice. I moved there in the late 70s and then I moved in early 2000, which I've been there since. So [00:46:00] my first experience in the early or the late 70s was pulled up parked at a little Volkswagen. Paddled out at Huntington Beach came in my racks were gone And I had had them they were like welded to the top, you know rusted So there was this I I brought a board in there was an east coast heritage board They wouldn't work on it at the frog surf shop in newport.

[00:46:24] What so there was that kind of you know, like You know, we're really not and it didn't matter how good you were. That was that was not the point and then You know, I was back and forth for years and, you know, like, Mark, I was lucky enough to get get a few days in the ranch and started to see as long as and California's attitude change.

[00:46:46] And I think that's what happened. We suddenly started to send these people out to populate the masses of Southern California and. Uh, and I think it changed, you know, [00:47:00] we've got this, you know, Ed Discoli, who owns Excel, Jeff Bushman, who makes, you know, the best guns by everybody, you know, Jeff was an Ocean City surfer who learned how to, uh, Uh, work on fins and skateboards at Heritage.

[00:47:18] So as we started to populate the community I think the attitude change, I was sitting, my brother in law used to be the, uh, the CO, the WSL underneath the speaker period. And, um, he ended up getting the boot because he started to think more along the lines like the rest of us, you know, let's, Let's get them in some better ways and stop doing all the stupid thing we're doing.

[00:47:39] And that didn't go over well. So I was sitting at a party in Manhattan beach and we're just talking about the sport and somebody brought up somebody's name. I said, well, yeah, he's from New Jersey and somebody else brought up somebody else's name. Yeah. He's. And then the guy goes, well, I guess you're going to tell me John Florence is from New Jersey.

[00:47:59] Technically [00:48:00] exactly. And he just looked at me and went, what's everybody from? There's a lot of us that that are, you know, and a lot of us have brought that kind of cultural perspective to change the California attitudes towards us. So now when I paddle out and I have a, you know, a little reef that I surf all the time, my son calls everybody I surf with the golden girls.

[00:48:29] He, they want to, they want to talk about all the New Jersey history all of a sudden, and it's been refreshing. But like I said, you know, my first experience, my rats got cut off the car and they wouldn't fix my surfboard. So

[00:48:43] Tyler: times

[00:48:43] Mike: changed.

[00:48:44] Tyler: Well, let's, I want to speak to that. Like the influence of New Jersey surfers on the surfing world as a whole.

[00:48:51] I think a lot of people don't realize like how New Jersey surfers, like I don't, I don't think they just spread out. They [00:49:00] infiltrated, I would say, even like they infiltrated the industry. You got like Bob McNona, who was the publisher of surfing magazine. Right. You got like 30 years, right? Like that guy, he's Jersey guy.

[00:49:12] I mean, you have all these incredible people who came out of New Jersey. Uh, Jason Murray was a photo editor at surfer magazine. Yeah. Tyler Calloway, right? Jersey guy who, who, who ended up like, Running FCS and all these huge surf companies like

[00:49:30] Mark: he was a West Hampton guy.

[00:49:31] Tyler: Oh West Hampton guy Oh, I'm sorry. I mix it up clog.

[00:49:34] Oh

[00:49:38] Mike: You know who you interviewed who is in the wind wind and sea surf club You know, I found a, uh, pulled a piece of information out a couple of weeks ago. Lynn Boyer wrote her first wave in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey. Wow. That's where her grandmother was from. So there is this, it goes back to that sense of we had an [00:50:00] ocean and, you know, we were pretty addictive to, there was a reason why Bruce Brown brought the Endless Summer to the East Coast to show to everybody.

[00:50:10] And I got to see it. And we're in a snowstorm and Bruce Brown, it was outside the place and it's, it just was these sparks that got lit into, you know, I'm just one story and then there's Mark and then there's guys like Steve Dwyer, who, you know, becomes one of the most important Maverick surfers of all time.

[00:50:31] So pretty extraordinary. Jamie Sterling's mother. Yeah. I mean, the Gdowska's brother. Or Gdowska's brother's mother, who Mark can serve in his, uh, Well,

[00:50:41] Tyler: I just want to point out, there's this wonderful photo of you in the Gdowska's mother, And I was just like, And she's got her hand interwoven around your leg and everything, And I was just like, yeah, those kids may want to check to see where their dad is.

[00:50:55] And

[00:50:58] Mike: that's going to go really [00:51:00] well.

[00:51:03] Mark: You can tell I'm being pretty quiet, right? No, but I will say Nancy is a gem and a sweet, sweet gal. She literally was the girl around the corner from where I grew up. That's awesome. Two blocks away, same surf beach, same beach. And, uh, you know, we, we had some good times. We traveled a lot and, um, you know, whether it was California or the Keys or, you know, in between, but, um,

[00:51:28] Mike: she would bring those boys back to Vantner every year and they would come and serve, you know, they had a, a rich, you know, when I talked to them and see them and I see them often, you know, we, they talk about how much they love.

[00:51:42] You know,

[00:51:43] Mark: Oh, they love coming to Ventnor. Yeah.

[00:51:45] Mike: Nathan Florence surfing Lock Harbor, Ivan skating Long Branch, you know, when they come back. So

[00:51:52] Mark: yeah, Nancy's, Nancy's family. She's, I think one of eight. Yeah. Okay. So it was a big family, uh, [00:52:00] seven or eight. And, um, you know, they were just a nice tight family. A lot of them surfed.

[00:52:07] You know. Well, I want

[00:52:08] Tyler: to She had the gene. Well, this, this brings up something I want to talk about, what I loved about this book is And, and, and from conversations I've had with, with numerous people, everyone from like Sandy Ordele, um, you know, and other women who, who had come from or gone and visited New Jersey, uh, you know, surfing, like, it feels like the scene was much more accepting of women surfers, uh, than I think other parts of the country were, you know, it, it really feels like.

[00:52:41] And you, when you look in the book. They are present, women are present in this, very heavily present actually, which I, I was really excited and happy to see and, you know, you have people like Linda Davoli, who's, you know, world class as well, and you had the other incredible female surfers come out of New [00:53:00] Jersey.

[00:53:00] And I wanted to see, like, is that the, was that actually the case? Did you feel like it was much more accepting and open to women surfing, uh, back in the day? Yeah, definitely.

[00:53:10] Mark: Well, um, I'll, I'll jump in.

[00:53:12] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:53:12] Mark: Uh, this is Mark. Yes, like it. There we go. Um, so, you know, it was hard in the 60s because the boards were, you know, 30 plus pounds.

[00:53:23] So, even if a gal had like an 8'8 which is like a small board or an 8'6 Yeah. You know, it was kind of hard to lug around, but, um, you know, that was the craze. That was the beach Boys. That was the endless summer. Almost everybody was doing it, doing it, you know? Mm-Hmm. . So, um, you know, uh, the girls were getting into it, but then there was like this breakthrough moment that you had.

[00:53:47] with like a gal from Ocean City, New Jersey, Barbara Belyay, and she was 15 years old. She went to, um, Australia to surf in the world contest, um, in 1970 and she wound up [00:54:00]taking third place at 15 years old. So, you know, that's like the light started to go on. And then soon after that, you mentioned Linda, you know, Linda, you know, grew, you know, across the inlet and Brigantine.

[00:54:12] And, you know, she won Bells Beach in 81. She was number two in the world in 81 or 82. I have it in the book. Um, so, you know, just, you know, heaps of respect for the women that, um, you know, started, you know, in Florida you had Mimi Monroe, who was like, you know, amazing, but, you know, back to the respect part, you know, when we talk about the California situation and I think it, you know, like we had proper tabling Coggins Crawford, you know, like in the seventies there, the early seventies, late, late sixties, these guys were good.

[00:54:51] They were really good. They were going to international contests and then, you know, Crawford won the pipe masters in 75. So quick little [00:55:00] story. We're surfing the U S surfing championships in 1973. I took third in juniors and Jeff Crawford was surfing a. a final with Dale Dobson. It was a best of three. We have 50, 000 plus people on the beach.

[00:55:18] And, uh, Dale, um, won the first one. Crawford won the second one, so they went out. It was like a three round heavyweight bout. And, um, it was a best of three. You know, after the contest, I'm sitting there up on stage. I said, so what are you going to do? He says, uh, I'm going to Hawaii. I said, what are you going to do?

[00:55:40] He's I'm going to surf pipe. I said, yeah, like with Rory and Jerry and all that. And he goes, oh yeah. He says, I'm going to be behind those guys. I was like, this guy's he's, he's going for it. Three years later, two years later, he was Pipe Master. That's crazy. Yeah.

[00:55:57] Danny: You know, upsetting the timeline of when [00:56:00] surfing was introduced to the East Coast.

[00:56:02] The truth of the matter is, is that surfing was introduced to the East Coast by a 17 year old girl.

[00:56:06] Tyler: Exactly. And that's where we're at. I feel like maybe those, the women who grew up surfing New Jersey had maybe a leg up on maybe some other women around the country because of maybe the attitude that's been ingrained in it, you know, um, because I feel like there's, it feels like it was more supportive.

[00:56:27] When I talked to Sandhya O'Dealy, she said she never had any issues until she went to the West Coast and experienced that sort of misogyny. So it is really. I think something as a point of pride, uh, for New Jersey to have such incredible female surfers coming out of it. Um,

[00:56:46] Mike: if you go back, if you go back to the stuff I pulled up from, you know, the 1910 through about 1920.

[00:56:52] Bruce: Yeah. There's

[00:56:52] Mike: more articles about women stating their names as surfers than there are men. Wow. [00:57:00] A short blurb about surfboard season has opened and 3 Atlantic City high school seniors and they mean the 3 women are out surfing. Another young woman, Evelyn keys in 1913 is holding a 1000 people on the boardwalk watching and they describe her standing up and riding waves on her surfboard.

[00:57:24] So, the women, you know, they had this role that was pretty unique. To that environment during that timeframe. And all I can say from my year, you know, when Linda, the bully paddled out at States Avenue. And they got whatever way she wanted. That's awesome. That was a rough. It was a rough lineup, but we knew how good she was.

[00:57:46] And I think that ultimately drove a point home of of the value of who the person was, as opposed to whether she was a woman or a

[00:57:55] Tyler: male. I love that. That's, that's so awesome. And that's, that's the [00:58:00] sense that I get from this book, which I think is great. Like you've, you've really captured, I think, like a lot of those ingredients into this.

[00:58:09] And we will be right back. And now back to our show. Um, I also want to touch on something that maybe isn't discussed as much in the book, but it feels like from my, maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like there's always been. Also, this really, uh, for a long time, New Jersey had, like, bans on surfing and blackball and you couldn't surf a lot of beaches.

[00:58:35] I mean, Asbury Park wasn't until the 2000s when they, they opened up surfing to people. And I'm curious, like, how much did, you know, did that influence your surfing or your, your lifestyle as well?

[00:58:49] Mike: We all hated lifeguards. Yeah

[00:58:53] Mark: I was a lifeguard. I think I lasted two seasons I I couldn't take watching the waves and sitting there all day [00:59:00] But you know just to speak to what you're saying Uh, like we're danny and mike and I we all grew up in you know, margaret ventnor And margaret was one of the most liberal towns on the jersey shore I mean, we had surf breaks almost every other street where they're, you know, where the lifeguards were not.

[00:59:19] Um, and, you know, a lot of the guards did surf and some of them, you know, were kind of cool. So, you know, it depends on what the chief's mood was that day. Uh, they'd let you drift into the, the bathers a little bit, but if not, then they just kind of whistle you out. But the guys up north had it really bad.

[00:59:38] Like, you know, Greg Masanko and his brother Chris will tell you. You know, and Seaside, they ran that thing with like an iron fist, you know, and they had, they just like boxed in. They didn't have many surf beaches and they always had a fight for whatever they could get. And, you know, it was like that along the way.

[00:59:56] So, you know, thank God we had a guy like Cecil Lear [01:00:00] and, uh, you know, he's the founder of the ESA as we know it. And, um, he was a former Belmar lifeguard and. You know, hall of fame legend, but, you know, he really helped up in that area to, to have surfing recognized and, you know, on the up and up,

[01:00:16] Tyler: it's incredible.

[01:00:18] Mike: It starts, so Keith starts surfing in 1910. I have articles and notices from 1911 where they're banning boards, surfboards for use in the main central beaches in Atlantic city. So within a, you know, a year of the standard kind of. Although having an 8 foot of Redwood fly through the middle of those lineups when you can see the old pictures, you know, there's a great story of Sam Reed.

[01:00:47] He kept writing his Redwood board in Santa Cruz into the 60s, but he, the board hit him in like, 58 broke both of his legs and started to just, you know, He just started to take off [01:01:00] and lay down on the board and just run people over the whole time he's out there. So he never really, he never really stopped having a New Jersey attitude, even though he's going to Hawaii.

[01:01:11] But they banned him and there would be articles about, I have 1 where they're, they're saying surfboards are banned and the lifeguards have to stop flirting with the young women that are on the beach. And then. That's 1912. I grew up watching all those guys doing it, 1960 through the 70s. Nobody watched the water if, if beautiful girls walked by.

[01:01:34] So they kept doing it.

[01:01:37] Tyler: One of, one of my, uh, favorite stories that were talked, told to me were, um, Peter Cole Sr. Uh, the late Great Peter Cole, big wave surfer. He was telling me how he used to come and visit New Jersey sometimes, and, uh, how we went out swim. He does his this big swim, like he used to do this big swim every day in Hawaii where he'd swim from like, you know, sunset to to Monster Mu [01:02:00] all the way around to Rockies and back.

[01:02:02] And then he, when in New Jersey, wanted to do a similar type of swim and he started swimming. And the lifeguards started yelling at him because he was too far out, and they couldn't get to him. So, a lifeguard went to chase after him, and he ended up just swimming the lifeguard up and down the beach. He ended up having to rescue the lifeguard because he got too tired chasing him.

[01:02:23] You couldn't

[01:02:24] Mike: go against a Stanford swimmer. That's right. Very much

[01:02:30] Tyler: so. I want to ask then, like, uh, there's, I guess like, first, how is it that, why do you think New Jersey surfers are so tight knit? And close and, and organized because here in New York, we don't have anything that you guys have. We don't have like a surf history museum or, or even a surfing hall of fame or any of that stuff.

[01:02:54] And, and I feel like New Jersey has, it has more cohesion with their community. [01:03:00]And I was curious, like, if you had any insight as to why that is.

[01:03:05] Danny: I think one of the most interesting things about putting this book together, like, I had always heard that the Duke had introduced surfing and knew a little bit about Sam Reed, but from my own experience as a, as a kid who grew up on this barrier island in New Jersey, And saw the level of talent.

[01:03:24] I was always like, Whoa, this is crazy. How talent and many talented surfer like Dean Randazzo and like how many great surfers came from the area I grew up and the surrounding areas. It was really like a hotbed. Mark can attest to this of like really talented surfing. So I suspected. as we got into this book, that more was going to be revealed that there's this just incredible heritage around surfing in New Jersey.

[01:03:51] And it didn't disappoint. It just kept going and going and going. I mean, Mike told me recently that you could order a custom [01:04:00] longboard from the lumber yard in Summers Point in 1912. So like, wow, that's, it's been going on forever. You know, so I think that's a little bit a part of it.

[01:04:10] Tyler: I mean, you said also like, Tom Blake came to New Jersey too, right?

[01:04:14] And

[01:04:14] Danny: Tom Blake introduced all the lifeguards, um, boards. To the kookbox boards. Yeah, to the kookbox boards for um, you know, for rescuing people and stuff.

[01:04:24] Tyler: Mark and Mike, I was hoping maybe you can gimme some more insight on this too. Like what do you think it is about New Jersey surfers that, that keep, keep it tight knit?

[01:04:34] Um, you know, my, my, my, my thought is that New York is just inherently a pretty trans transit transitioning type of place. A lot of transient people come through where I feel like maybe people stay put more in New Jersey and when people move to New Jersey, they just stay there for the most part. A lot of them.

[01:04:53] Obviously, Mike, not you. Well,

[01:04:57] Mark: I think, you know, a lot of [01:05:00] it has to do with it. You got to be pretty hardcore to be a year round surfer in Jersey. And everybody is going through that same experience. I mean, it's snowing. It's 30 mile an hour offshore winds. I mean, you know, the guys in Santa Cruz think they're hardcore.

[01:05:16] And I remember going up there when I was in high school. I'm like, you guys aren't even wearing gloves and you think it's cold. So, um, but, um, uh, I think that's what kind of the glue is in the camaraderie is that we all kind of, you know, you know, we wait for these fronts to come through. We wait for the wind to get right.

[01:05:38] And, you know, we're going up and down the parkway and picking our zones and, um, you know, so, um, it's a little bit different than New York because, you know, you have these zones. Like, it's Long Beach, and it's Montauk, and there's a lot in between. Oh, yeah. We can go to the Rockaways. That's gonna be good, too.

[01:05:57] And, hey, we can get there by the subway.

[01:05:59] Bruce: Yeah.

[01:05:59] Mark: So [01:06:00] that's pretty cool. But, you know, you have all these, uh, barrier islands that aren't really inhabited. Um, there's just, you know, Field 1, 2, 3, 4. Big parking lots. So, you know, everybody's kind of, you know, tightened up a little bit, uh, you know, running up and down the, uh, the parkway rather than, you know, the southern state and trying to figure that out.

[01:06:20] Well,

[01:06:20] Tyler: there's no beach, not a lot of beach culture in the sense, like, where you can gather and hang out on the beach, like, you know, I grew up, Surfing a lot of Robert Moses and even, you know, Gilgo even to a certain extent, like you have a little bit there, but that's a bit of an outpost, but like, you're not gonna hang in the parking lot too much in Moses, you know, and then there's Fire Island in between, you know, which again, you need a boat to get to or take a ferry.

[01:06:45] So it, it is like, yeah, you, you all have these gorgeous, um, towns that are lining up the whole, whole coastline. And

[01:06:56] Mark: the shops that we have. You know, some of them are oceanfront, [01:07:00] some of them are a block, some of them are, you know, half a mile inland. But, uh, you could ride your bike to the beach from any one of those.

[01:07:06] So, you know, like your dad's shop, Sundown, Levittown. It's far. It's a little off the beaten, you know, it's not off the beaten path, but it's not on the beach. You know, same thing with Bungers and, you know, a few of the others. But, you know, they're great heritage shops. And You know, guys really, you know, I guess, have to wait until they can drive to do that.

[01:07:28] Yeah. So, you know, they're in their teenage years, um, where the kids growing up in all these beach towns, whether it's LBI or Belmar or, you know, South Jersey. They just get on their bike, go to the shop, and go surfing, and you know.

[01:07:42] Tyler: It is. And that brings me to also, like, how integral the surf shops are into your culture.

[01:07:48] Like, I think New Jersey has a very rich surf shop culture. Um, you know, like, some of these shops have been there for ages. Um, you know.

[01:07:57] Mark: I know who they are off the top of my head. Yeah, [01:08:00] you

[01:08:00] Tyler: want to give us a list here?

[01:08:01] Mark: Well, I mean. You know, Grog's still in the business, you know, he has the Billabong store, but you know, he was the icon shop in the seventies.

[01:08:09] He had the best board selection and he is the ultimate sales guy and he's knowledgeable and he rips and his brother, Chris. So kudos to them. My, my good buddy, Tony G I'll give him a shout out, still doing it, making his cream surfboards and the heritage family. Yeah. You know, 60 plus years, the guys that surfers apply 60 plus years, Mike from coming up, you know, 60 years, and they're still doing it.

[01:08:34] Brave New World. I mean, you know, these guys have just been around for a long time.

[01:08:39] Tyler: It's, um, it's, it's, it's interesting. Like, I think the surf, surf shops are more alive in New Jersey than they are elsewhere in the country. I think there's probably some of the best, you know, core shops that are still kind of thriving and keeping a community around them.

[01:08:56] Mike: Yeah. Good luck finding them in Southern California.

[01:08:58] Tyler: Yeah. Right. [01:09:00] Like it's, it's not the same.

[01:09:02] Mike: You know, I have another take on why we all kind of, there is a closeness, there was a really rich, not that I was a huge competitive guy, but there was a really rich competitive circuit in New Jersey. Ocean City had contests, you know, they were not, they had the largest ESA district for years in Southern New Jersey.

[01:09:24] So we got a chance to kind of see guys come down from seaside and they would surf Ocean City and then you would start to develop these friendships. You know, I'm one of one of the great ones. Jeff Aaron's men who just passed away. Jeff would consistently come down and serve these small contests. An ocean city all the time.

[01:09:45] So, not only did you have ESA, you had all these and we would kind of cross pollinate. So I knew guys from up north just because I might have been sitting and I competed for a couple of years and I would judge contest. Then they would show up in [01:10:00] Puerto Rico and suddenly that group would be down there, or we literally 1 year.

[01:10:06] We're at a, um, a bud tour contest and Holly Eva. And it was guys from Seaside and and, because Dean Mendeza had a heat, he was up against Charlie Coon and all these guys and he won the heat and the whole tent screamed because there was literally 20 of us that were all there in Hawaii at the same time.

[01:10:25] And Mark was there during that that trip. Wow. Pretty sure you were on that

[01:10:29] Bruce: so

[01:10:31] Mike: I think the You know, Cecil was a, was a great catalyst, but there was Don Pellegi that was in Ocean City and the Carys and we got to know each other a lot better than than a lot of the other beaches did. And we might not have liked each other as much.

[01:10:48] I wasn't welcomed at Jenks if I showed up with them. It's not

[01:10:52] Tyler: many people welcome there in general, though.

[01:10:56] Mike: But you eventually, because guys, I know that guy, or I [01:11:00] would show up a wooden jetty in Long Beach Island, and I would know guys there. And so we cross pollinated a lot. And I wanted to have one other woman.

[01:11:09] We had Janice Damarski in 68, who came in sixth in the world in Puerto Rico. So we've had a, and she was from Bradley Beach. Um, so pretty amazing. The women really kind of set the stage before the men did.

[01:11:23] Mark: So, you know, just to follow up on Mike said, um, B when the ESA first started, it was the whole East coast was one district.

[01:11:33] I'm not kidding. It's crazy. And there were five contests. Oh my God. The first one was in Newport, Rhode Island, and then there was Gilgo. And then it was Seaside Heights. Then it was Virginia Beach, and then it was Coco, and we were like a traveling caravan. So the Florida guys, and they were like stacked one week after the next.

[01:11:52] So when I was 13, 14, in 67, 68, we would start up and we, you [01:12:00] know, just work our way down the coast. So I got to know all the Florida guys. The Carolina guys, the Virginia guys, and, you know, you were pretty hardcore when you were doing that. You had to be in it, you know, to kind of win it. Um, uh, but, uh, so, you know, as far as the camaraderie goes, it was way beyond just New Jersey in the very, very beginning.

[01:12:22] Um, So

[01:12:24] Tyler: it's, it's, it's amazing. Like, I think that I really do think that competition aspect does help in building a community. And I always remember New Jersey, we had a very robust competitive circuit cause it wasn't just the ESA. You guys had the NSSA too, which New York didn't have. And it was always like, Oh, are you going to go down to the NSSA comp maybe?

[01:12:43] And I'm like, I know this Jersey guy's going to whoop my ass. I think. Yeah. You know, there was always a bit of that. And now you guys have the, the board riders club, which is firmly established in New Jersey, which is incredible. Yeah.

[01:12:56] Mark: In the short two year, three year period, it's, uh, [01:13:00] really, you know, gotten, you know, it's expanded a lot and you know, there's a big participation and they just had a contest last weekend and they're going to send the Cape May guys to.

[01:13:14] Mike: And that's a generational leadership. You know, it's guys like Kevin Morris and Rob Kelly and Matt Key and guys that have The chops, right? They can develop that kind of stuff. And you end up getting this new core group of kids who figured out how to get a career just through social media, like Cruz Benapa

[01:13:34] Tyler: and Ben Gravy, you know, you're, you know, he's probably the most famous New Jersey surfer of all time.

[01:13:40] Probably. Right.

[01:13:41] Mike: Listen, when Chad Smith is talking about him on the grid all the time, you know, he's made it. I

[01:13:48] Tyler: love that you listen to the grit, man. You give, you inspire me, Mike. I got a lot of

[01:13:53] Mike: friends with Chaz and Scales. I see those guys often.

[01:13:58] Tyler: They're the best.

[01:13:59] Mike: They are. [01:14:00] They're huge. Chaz especially is a huge Jersey supporter.

[01:14:03] Yeah.

[01:14:04] Danny: Chaz could actually be from Jersey.

[01:14:07] Tyler: Well, with a name like Chaz, I mean. Now Danny, I got to ask, like, how difficult was it for you? to include and leave out parts of the, uh, for this book. Like how difficult was that editing process?

[01:14:23] Danny: That's a great question. I mean, we just used what we had. So there was, there's nothing on the cutting room floor.

[01:14:31] There's nothing, everything we came across, we put in the book. Um, and then of course, you know, when you do projects like this, all this stuff comes out that you're like, you wish you could have put in, like, Mike had discovered so many things after the fact that I would have loved to have put in the book.

[01:14:51] But as I said, we were never trying to do the definitive history of East Coast surfing or New Jersey surfing. We were calling it a Garden State Scrapbook, you know, [01:15:00] to kind of keep all the historians at bay. Yeah, keep all those nerds out there like me, you know. Stay calm, guys.

[01:15:07] Tyler: Um, Danny, I think you kind of messed up here.

[01:15:09] It was actually 1964, not 65. And, uh, it happened in August, not July. Yeah, exactly.

[01:15:17] Mike: That was my job. That's your job, Mike.

[01:15:22] Mark: I flubbed a few of the captions on a few of the photos.

[01:15:26] Tyler: Well, I really, like, I'm going to have to get you back on because you're so full of incredible stories. But I'm curious, like, First, like, what was it like hosting the pros coming through New Jersey?

[01:15:42] Like, can you give me some, some crazy stories or anything of note that you, that sticks out to you?

[01:15:49] Danny: Tell them, tell them about the OP Pro and what happened with

[01:15:52] Tyler: the

[01:15:52] Danny: OP Pro in 83. It was

[01:15:53] Tyler: on my list here. So I always get into that.

[01:15:56] Mark: That could be a whole podcast. So you know, one of the things [01:16:00] about, um, guys that got into the industry and there was a fair amount that came from the East Coast.

[01:16:07] The reason that we were so successful, we had a lot of drive. You know, East coast energy is different than, Hey man, what's happening? It's

[01:16:16] Tyler: biggie in energy, right? Biggie energy. So,

[01:16:21] Mark: um, yeah, I mean, we, we just had a lot of drive, but, um, when I was running the Jersey, you know, part of the territory and, you know, I'd have the pros that would come in the town and, you know, rip curl was big on doing, you know, shop ops and promos and signings and.

[01:16:40] You know, I mean, I was with all those guys, all these world champs, and because I was close in age to the guys who were the superstars, not just the rip curl guys, we're talking about Sean Thompson and M. R. and Simon Anderson. And a lot of the guys that, you know, I [01:17:00] used to see them at the contest. I used to see them around different events, uh, in California.

[01:17:05] But so, um, uh, you know, the world tour, you know, comes to, uh, Atlantic city. And P. T. was involved, uh, Pewter Town, and, you know, our first 76 World Champ. Uh, I'm not sure if Ian was involved with that or not, but he was probably there. Um, and, you know, I'm the Rip Crow guy, so, like, where are we staying? What, you know, you, so My parents, for some reason, were out of town that week.

[01:17:32] So, I had a big house. So, in my house, I had Rabbit, I had Wes Lane, I had Vinnie Kline, I had Derek Hine. Um, then, you know, I couldn't fit Tom Carroll in, so. I

[01:17:45] Tyler: couldn't? What do you mean? He's like five foot nothing. I know, but we had guys literally

[01:17:50] Mark: sleeping on the floor everywhere. But I hooked Tommy up, he did really well.

[01:17:56] Not in the contest, but with some other friends in town. [01:18:00]

[01:18:00] Tyler: Some other female friends maybe? Yeah, why not?

[01:18:04] Mark: And I won't, but she's in the book actually. She's in the book! I'm not kidding you. Great cow. We'll just leave it at that. Uh, but, um, you know, uh, Wes came and he stayed with me and, you know, he wound up surfing the final against Bud Llamas and he won and, you know, it was exciting.

[01:18:24] Uh, so we had one guy in my house and he was a rip curl guy and Wes and I got along. Great. I couldn't have asked, you know, as far as a rep and, you know, we became friendly and, you know, you, you worked in the surf shop, so here's Wes, you know, it's the height of the eighties. And he's on the world tour and he's in the top 10.

[01:18:43] And it just so happens he worked at 17th street surf shop. So his sponsors were Canyon surf boards, Rip Curl, Prolite, Quicksilver. I mean, he had the logo stacked, but he was mostly a Rip Curl guy. And, um, [01:19:00] you know, he worked in the shop. I mean, you got a top 10 pro, works in the store. He's selling the wetsuits.

[01:19:06] He's running the surf team. It's like, can I get 10 of these guys? Yeah. And that makes my life easy. So anyway, the contest went off. Uh, it was good. Uh, we actually, it does happen. Like those nor'easters start to show up and one of them showed up and all of a sudden they went from knee high to like overhead.

[01:19:28] Wow. And, um, You know, you see the pictures, the beach was packed, um

[01:19:34] Tyler: Where was the celebration after? I don't know. I, I think

[01:19:39] Mark: these guys took the money and ran me. You know, it was a long week. Let me tell you.

[01:19:47] Danny: The casinos had promised, uh, well, didn't the casinos promise all the surfers rooms? And then when they got to town, the, the, the cord got pulled and they had to stay with local surfers.

[01:19:59] Sean [01:20:00] Thompson was like staying at my friend's house at the Sless's and I'm like out at my local spot. And this is, what is this, 1983 and Sean Thompson's at my local spot. I mean this is, I'm surfing with Sean Thompson.

[01:20:14] Mark: So in my house, Like, you know, my parents had an oceanfront house. Yeah So the guys would sneak out and surf to do a little warm up and it's only like waist high But then you had rabbit you had sheen you had wes Um, I I mean, I can't remember.

[01:20:31] Uh, richard cram was there vinnie klein So like out of nowhere, then there'd be 10 little kids like just like glued to these guys Literally watching the world champs,

[01:20:41] Tyler: you know, that is so cool.

[01:20:43] Mike: I lived around the corner from,

[01:20:45] Tyler: yeah,

[01:20:46] Mike: from Mark then. And I didn't realize that we're all staying in Mark's house.

[01:20:49] And I came down to the beach one evening to check the waves. And I looked down like four blocks over guys going down the water, water's crap. And I [01:21:00] walked down and I look and I see all of them. Like, it's amazing. And Mark, Mark's not even in the water. He's like sitting on the bulkhead. Oh, I'm taking notes.

[01:21:11] Mark: Yeah. With my camera.

[01:21:13] Mike: Yeah.

[01:21:15] Tyler: Let me ask you, Mark. Mark, did you like, were you casually name dropping to all your friends? You're like, Oh yeah, I was just talking to my friend, Sean and, uh, Wayne over there. You know, those guys over there. Nah,

[01:21:28] Mark: that wasn't, that wasn't my MO.

[01:21:30] Tyler: I would totally be doing that.

[01:21:32] Mark: Yeah.

[01:21:32] They, no, everybody, everybody knew what was going on, you know, a little coconut telegraph, you know, was moving. Yeah, Mark wasn't

[01:21:41] Mike: like that at all.

[01:21:43] Tyler: No.

[01:21:45] Mark: I don't even remember now.

[01:21:47] Tyler: Let me, let me ask you then, Mark, were you here for the Allentown contest in Pennsylvania?

[01:21:52] Mark: I took Tommy Carroll and a couple of the other guys.

[01:21:56] No way. Cause they were, you know, how am I getting to [01:22:00] Allentown? I drove up, I got photos of the Allentown Concert. Shut up,

[01:22:03] Tyler: you have photos of that? Yeah, I

[01:22:05] Mark: was there the whole time.

[01:22:06] Tyler: Did you get to surf in the pool?

[01:22:08] Mark: No.

[01:22:08] Tyler: No.

[01:22:09] Mark: No. Dude. It was, it was bad. It was bad.

[01:22:12] Tyler: Oh my god, I am so You had

[01:22:14] Mark: guys like Derek

[01:22:15] Tyler: Ho

[01:22:15] Mark: tearing the shit out of this wave pool, but, you know, everybody was doing the same two maneuvers.

[01:22:22] You know, take off, hit the lip one more time, bam, and that was it.

[01:22:25] Tyler: Well, I heard like that, like Derek, Derek Ho would like hold on to the wall to keep pushing himself along the wave and stuff.

[01:22:31] Mark: It was, it was crazy.

[01:22:33] Tyler: Oh, we are so getting you on for that one too, because that, that contest is like, to me, like a really, it's a watershed moment, uh, especially now in the world that we live in with wave pools.

[01:22:45] Like, that was like. The first pro contest in a wave pool is amazing.

[01:22:49] Mark: Basically. Yeah, that was it. So

[01:22:51] Mike: the guy who Was kind of the manager of the pole in allentown. Yes runs a a jim carabas who was kind [01:23:00] of Underneath the, almost like the pool lifeguard. He runs the bay kind of windsurfing club in Atlantic City to this day.

[01:23:11] Whoa! Still in the mix of things, yeah.

[01:23:14] Tyler: Oh my god, I want to get his perspective as a lifeguard for that event.

[01:23:19] Mark: He's a talker too. He

[01:23:20] Mike: will toot his own horn.

[01:23:22] Tyler: He did like doing that, so we could share that with Jim. Awesome. That's awesome.

[01:23:28] Mark: Hey, I know it's not my podcast.

[01:23:30] Tyler: No, please. By all means, you are the guest.

[01:23:32] Mark: Yeah. And I, I wanted to ask you, you, you, you read the book where there's anything that really stood out like picture wise that, you know, like, wow, look at this. There was a

[01:23:44] Tyler: photo, um, by Dan, I think, uh, trying to find it, or maybe it was in the back and it was like a long border getting fully barreled. Uh, and it was like, you know, for that time period, [01:24:00] a rarity to see, and, and there's a photo, I don't know, maybe it was in the back in the, um, in the back section, I have to take a look, but that, that and also, oh, here it is, a day in October, and it shows, Right here, there's a photo of a guy just cruising on a log, no leash, in the barrel.

[01:24:20] Uh, it's ridiculous.

[01:24:22] Mark: This guy was a little bit older than I was. His name was Bobby Leeds.

[01:24:26] Tyler: Yeah.

[01:24:27] Mark: And that was, uh, an article that ran in International Surfing Magazine. And that was like one of the iconic photos of that era right there.

[01:24:36] Tyler: That shot is crazy. The other thing is the, the photos from the piers, it's, it's like, uh, pre drone, but it's drone footage, which you, you didn't get a lot of that type of, uh, that type of photography in the, in that age.

[01:24:52] And so the piers provided this very unique perspective, uh, and unique photography that I, that you don't see many other [01:25:00] places.

[01:25:00] Mark: How about the photo that I have of the guy standing on the jetty with the icicles coming off the pier? Dude,

[01:25:05] Tyler: okay. Can we talk about that one? That's, that is hardcore. That's crazy.

[01:25:10] So listeners, like there's a photo and I, what year was this?

[01:25:15] Mark: Well, that was in the

[01:25:16] Tyler: early eighties. All right. Early eighties, stiff as fuck wetsuits. The zipper would go from like your, your, your bicep on your right arm and all the way to your bicep on your left, like right where your elbow is. And. These things are, and it worked, it was fine, and, but there's this photo, and it's dark, and it's a big swell, and it's right next to, like, the pier, and there are saltwater icicles off the pier, which is, it has to be fucking cold for saltwater to freeze, and this guy is just waiting to jump off this jetty, which just looks sketchy as fuck, and it doesn't look like, and it really doesn't look like he's going to get that much of a gain from jumping off there either, he's not, It's like [01:26:00] he's not gonna go right out into the lineup, he still has like the whole impact zone to get through.

[01:26:03] Yeah, he's got a

[01:26:04] Mark: ways to go. Well, we all surfed that spot, it's one of our favorite spots, and it really did set up like a left point break. It was truly like a gift, and it could hold a fairly big swell. You know, Mike, what we're talking about, right?

[01:26:19] Mike: Yeah, I'm a goofy foot, so I know this very well. We could jump off the end of that pier too when it was big, so that was the other great part.

[01:26:30] Mark: God,

[01:26:30] Tyler: it's a, it's a, a really, that, that photo actually also, Mark, I, I, it, it really does stand out and to me epitomizes the core ness of, of New Jersey surfing, you know?

[01:26:44] Danny: The photo that you flagged of, um, the Leeds fellow is the famous Leeds family of New Jersey. of Jersey Devil fame.

[01:26:52] Bruce: Oh!

[01:26:53] Danny: If you've ever heard the lore about the Jersey Devil, you know the woman had 13 children, and when she spawned the [01:27:00] 13th child, this was in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, she spawned a devil with wings.

[01:27:05] No! Isn't that the same family, right?

[01:27:09] Mark: Sure it is! It is!

[01:27:11] Tyler: This is great. Gold, Jerry, this is

[01:27:15] Mike: gold. I'm not quite sure, but If it's the, uh, the same group, but that is the, they actually found at Seacon Island, which, uh, it was the Leeds family during that timeframe.

[01:27:25] Mark: Yeah. So

[01:27:26] Mike: I

[01:27:27] Mark: have some of my, uh, Machatunam that lives down by Leeds point

[01:27:35] Mike: near

[01:27:36] Mark: Smithville.

[01:27:37] And, you know, I always say you guys What do you see when you go for a walk down the street and you see the Jersey Devil? The Jersey

[01:27:44] Tyler: Devil.

[01:27:45] Mark: It's, it's, you know, people do talk about it and there's the hockey team, Jersey Devils. Yeah, exactly. So it must be a big real story.

[01:27:54] Tyler: Must be. Must be true.

[01:27:57] Mark: I think that's how Dean got his nickname.[01:28:00]

[01:28:00] Mike: Bruce sang about it, so it must be true.

[01:28:04] Tyler: And we will be right back. And now back to our show. All right. So. I'm gonna finish up here. I want to ask you guys, what do you miss about the old days? And what don't you miss about them? And I'll give each of you a chance to answer. Uh, we'll go with Danny first.

[01:28:26] Danny: On the spot.

[01:28:27] I don't know, I mean, I wrote about it a little bit in my essay, but like, it was a terrifying experience as a teenager in my neighborhood to go to the beach, and I'm sure Mike and Mark can, can comment on this. Like, I'm kind of glad that those days are over. The, the

[01:28:44] Tyler: localism abuse.

[01:28:45] Danny: I mean, it was, I think, the Jersey guys sort of read about the localism in California and then in typical Jersey fashion took it like 50 times further, you know, but I mean my early days as a young [01:29:00] kid, you know, going to the beach and surfing, it was a pretty terrifying experience.

[01:29:04] You know, like the older kids like would generously dish out like, you know, punishment just for even showing up, you know, so I'm glad those days are over. Um,

[01:29:15] Tyler: What was the other question? Uh, what, what don't, what, that's what you don't miss and what do you miss about the old days?

[01:29:23] Danny: I miss the simplicity of surfing back then.

[01:29:26] Yeah. And how pure it was.

[01:29:28] Tyler: You didn't have to worry about wave models, surf cams, all the gear, the politics and whatnot. Exactly. All that stuff. Yeah. I get that. Mark?

[01:29:40] Mark: Well, um,

[01:29:41] Tyler: He's got all these notes, by the way. Mark has been taking notes the whole time. This is amazing. I've never had a guest do that. I've never had a guest do that, and I love it.

[01:29:50] I love that.

[01:29:52] Mark: Um, yeah, well, my memories, you know.

[01:29:55] Tyler: To me, that signs you're, you're engaged. So I love that. Yeah, I am [01:30:00]engaged.

[01:30:00] Mark: Um, so, you know, I, I think Mike will remember this, uh, you know, when we were teenagers, uh, we would always get rides to go surfing up in Atlantic City because the waves were better up there and the points, you know, the groins and the piers and all that.

[01:30:15] And, uh, early in the morning, You would, you know, you'd, you'd see all the zombie life and you know, the hookers and all this crazy crap. You go to Atlantic donuts, you get your box of donuts. And, um, the coolest thing I remember is when a guy would be coming back now in the morning, if a guy was coming back at like six 30 or seven, he would give you the thumbs down.

[01:30:39] Tyler: So I remember

[01:30:40] Mark: doing this too, man. I'm like, ah, shit. You know, the worst. Now we got to go turn around and go back. But then the coolest thing if you got a little bit of a late start and a guy had to like to go to work Early, and it was like 8 30 9 o'clock and he was on the early shift and he gave you a thumbs up It was like, oh good.

[01:30:58] It's still you know, it's still [01:31:00] on so But you know, I look I don't miss, you know, the crappy gear and the stiff wetsuits You know, the stuff that fell apart and boards that were a little primitive. It was rough when we, when we went from the longboard era, you know, 66, 67 to the shortboard era, it was a big adjustment.

[01:31:20] We're riding nine, 10 foot boards. And now like, okay, we go to eight footers and then we go to seven footers. And then we go to this sub five, you know, fives and sixes and five eights. And then I happened all in about three, four, five years.

[01:31:35] Tyler: Crazy.

[01:31:35] Mark: So, you know, it was just hard to get used to all this different equipment.

[01:31:40] And we went through twin fins and. single fins and, you know, just all sorts of crazy stuff. But, um, I mean, obviously now, you know, we've got technology and at least you can plan a little bit like, Oh, Hey, we know the swells coming in two to three days, you know, because I can't tell you how many times [01:32:00] my parents reamed me.

[01:32:01] What do you mean you're not coming back for dinner? What do you mean? You know, and the girlfriends are like, what? I thought we had a date, you know, I mean, just completely crapped on a million different ways. At least now, you know, you can,

[01:32:15] Tyler: you can avoid, avoid hurting people's feelings by, by planning your surf a little bit more strategically.

[01:32:21] Mark: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the technology is good and it's bad because, you know, right now, anybody can be a surfer. Anybody knows how good it is. Everybody knows where to surf and, uh, you know, it's fine. Just roll with the punches.

[01:32:35] Tyler: And Mike, how about yourself? What do you miss and what don't you miss?

[01:32:40] Mike: I mean, I was going to say that that I miss the days of being the older guy, pushing me around in the water, but I think that would have been a little bit, a little bit too harsh.

[01:32:53] You know, I think the thing I miss the most is the joy of a simple. Surf trip, right? I can [01:33:00] remember knowing that there'd be a swell and heading down to Cape Mayo, or the joy of heading to Cape Hatteras with a handful of guys. And. Early 70s and I think there is that kind of sense of being on a mission and now you've got to travel to mentalize to, you know, make it seem the same way.

[01:33:22] So I missed that aspect of it. You know, I can remember pulling up at the lighthouse when those grins were all working. In May and about 74 75 and seeing pristine less peeling down those beaches as good as anywhere you could, you could possibly go. I think the simplicity of the surf trip was was something that we all didn't realize how much joy there was in that experience.

[01:33:48] I'll tell you what, I don't miss. I, I don't miss having a, because I would, I purposely went off to college in Pennsylvania 'cause I knew I would never go to class if I lived, if I went to college [01:34:00] somewhere close to the water. Some very good self-awareness there. Ride home when I knew there was a swell to get back to get, get there.

[01:34:06] So I don't miss that at all. I miss those few years of living away from the ocean. Were the most painful ever, but at least I graduated . That was the key.

[01:34:17] Mark: You know what? I, um, and, and Mike and you guys will all know this, but in the early seventies, uh, Stockton state college, their first dorms were in a hotel on the boardwalk called the Mayflower right at New York Ave, St.

[01:34:33] James place. And, you know, guys like Steve McDool, you know, some buddies of mine would go and you could look over the balcony down the street and we would pull up and they would be like thumbs up. And, um, You know, fast forward 50 years, yeah, Stockton has built dorms on the beach, brand new. Like everybody's got an ocean view, dude.

[01:34:59] So you [01:35:00] know, like even at Monmouth college, you know, Monmouth university now, I mean, they were like a mile from the beach, but now you're literally in your dorm looking at the surf every day.

[01:35:09] Tyler: You never go to class. I

[01:35:11] Mark: mean, you know,

[01:35:12] Tyler: well, I mean, actually you would when it's flat, but, um, yeah, I mean, Guys, like this has been freaking awesome, like I've had such a blast here with all three of you and I'm so stoked to have you on and I'm super stoked to have this book.

[01:35:28] It's, it's, it's awesome. Um, Danny, can you tell us where can our listeners get this book? Where can they find you? Well,

[01:35:37] Danny: Tyler, it's sold everywhere fine books are sold. Amazon, Rizzoli, you can buy them from us when they get delivered. We're going to have a couple events. We're going to have an event in, um, our hometown, Margate, New Jersey, uh, with Heritage Surf Shop sometime probably in July and, um, some other events up and down the coast.

[01:35:57] And as they materialize, we'll, we'll [01:36:00] put it on the, on the social media worldwide web.

[01:36:02] Tyler: All right. All right. And, uh, uh, Mark, where can our listeners find you if, uh, you know, if they need, uh, want to, want to just Chew your ear, have a, have a, have like some good historical perspective, or if they need gear or, uh, want to find out when you're doing another sample sale.

[01:36:20] Mark: Or if you want to buy a house now. Yeah, if you

[01:36:21] Tyler: want to buy a house now, too, exactly.

[01:36:23] Mark: Okay, you can find me at Mark, M A R K, New, N E U 24 on Instagram.

[01:36:30] Tyler: Excellent.

[01:36:31] Mark: And, um Yeah, uh, the books will be available at your favorite surf shop. Um, once again, we're waiting on a delivery and, uh, we look forward to having some real nice events.

[01:36:45] Uh, I've been invited, uh, to the California Surf Museum. That's awesome. So, we'll, as soon as we nail the date down, it'll probably be sometime in July.

[01:36:55] Tyler: And, uh, Mike, yourself, where can our listeners find you and, and find [01:37:00]some of your incredible work in like the, the New Jersey surf his, you know, uh, Hall of Fame and, and the museum?

[01:37:09] Mike: So my big, the, my big role these days is I do all the social media posts for the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame. So any of the new posts that are coming up, and we've taken a kind of a historical, uh, Perspective on early surfers, pioneers, all that stuff is stuff that I've worked with with a friend of all of ours, Dave Skybull.

[01:37:31] So follow that and you'll get all the tidbits of history that goes even beyond New Jersey and the things that I'm working on now and I'm still working on stuff. So I'll share that through the New Jersey Surfing Hall of Fame and you can, join that as a group on Facebook. The two places.

[01:37:54] Tyler: And if, um, and if I need to try to pitch to get my dad inducted into the Hall of Fame, [01:38:00] how, you know, how do I do that now?

[01:38:01] We're going to have to have a side conversation about that.

[01:38:05] Mike: Well, Mark's the vice president and I'm on the voting team. All right, there we go. All right. And you got to get Will Allen and a couple of the New York guys to get moving on a New York Hall of Fame because they really have a pretty rich, darn rich history that needs to be promoted for sure.

[01:38:22] True. Absolutely. So true.

[01:38:24] Mark: And I think one of the things that we could do, and it might be a little out of context, but we should recognize some of our neighbors, you know, whether it's down in Maryland or New York, just as a special, you know, Award, uh, in recognition and Tyler, your, your father and Charlie Bunger, you know, they're at the top of the list.

[01:38:45] And my good buddy, Tony Cameron, Tony C, but Tony's in these coast surfing hall thing. Yeah,

[01:38:50] Tyler: he is. Yeah, he is. Um, guys, this was so awesome. I'm so stoked and I'm so stoked on this book and, and all the [01:39:00] work that, that all three of you have done in preserving. Uh, our history and our culture, it really, I'm, I, I hope the, the gravity of it isn't lost on you.

[01:39:12] Like, I think it's really important that people see this, know this, and understand, uh, what, how much New Jersey has contributed to the surf culture as a whole. I think it's really important and this book is beautiful and listeners like, you need to go get a copy. It's, it's going to be a fucking great Christmas gift for sure.

[01:39:33] Father's Day, Father's Day, and all that. Absolutely. You know this. Birthdays.

[01:39:37] Mark: We're not saying that this is, you know, like the.

[01:39:40] Tyler: Not the definitive.

[01:39:41] Mark: Not the definitive. And, you know, look, we know there's great photographers in New Jersey, whether it's Mezna, you know, Mez or Krisner, you know, these guys, they shot up the whole Jersey Shore for 20, 30 years.

[01:39:53] But this is a feeling of space and time. And, you [01:40:00] know, hopefully that comes across when you get the block.

[01:40:02] Danny: And it's a start of what I hope to be a larger conversation. I love that. I

[01:40:07] Tyler: love that. Well, guys, thank you so much. And, uh, listeners, uh, first gotta give a quick shout out to Joe, our engineer here, for keeping us, uh, sounding pretty good.

[01:40:19] And, uh, gotta give a shout out to the Newsstand Studio at Rockefeller Center, where we are recording right now. Had all these people walking by and it's amazing that these guys were able to stay on point and not get lost in it. So super psyched. And of course, um, follow, uh, swell season at swell season, surf radio on Instagram, or you can go to swell season, surf.

[01:40:39] com and, uh, yeah, until next time. We'll all see you down the line and, uh, don't forget to buy one of these books.

[01:40:46] Mike: You, you, thank [01:41:00] you.