Sidetracked

When you think of body builders, you’re more likely to conjure images of Muscle Beach than Sunset Beach. Yet, legendary surfer Gerry Lopez did manage to get former Mr. Universe Arnold Schwarzenegger on a surf board in Hawaii one time.

“I took him surfing one time on Maui,” said Lopez, who appeared as the sidekick Subotai in the future governor’s 1982 movie “Conan the Barbarian.” “He paddled out fine, but when we got outside, he looked at me, got off the board, shoved it and said, ‘Ah – I think I go in by swimming.”

As we’ll note in tomorrow’s Ticket story, Lopez is one of several well-known surfers planning to attend Thursday’s tribute to film maker Bud Browne as part of the SLO International Film Festival’s Surf Night. To prepare for our preview, we talked to several of the guests. Here are some interesting tidbits that didn’t get into the story in today’s Tribune:

Gerry Lopez
The man known as Mr. Pipeline now lives in Bend, Oregon, 3 ½ hours away from the nearest beach, but he still gets out to surf whenever there’s a swell.

• What the movie “Five Summer Stories” did for Hawaii’s famous Pipeline: “Ruined it,” Lopez said with a chuckle. “Back then the Pipeline was kind of a side show. Sunset Beach was the main spot. That’s where all the best surfers went and that’s where all the best surfing happened. And that was really the most important spot during the winter season in Hawaii. Things started to change after ‘Five Summer Stories.’ The Pipeline started to become more and more popular . . . The Pipeline’s much more photographic than Sunset Beach. (But) it’s not necessarily a better wave.”

• On Honk, the band featured in “Five Summer Stories:” “Oh, great. I think they’re still together. They’re a bunch of old hippies now, but they’re a terrific band. Nobody had ever heard of them outside Laguna before that movie. . . After the movie, I got to meet all of them. We’d go and listen to them play and stuff – they were terrific.”

• On the Beach Boys, whose music also appears in the movie: “To real surfers, the Beach Boys were never really surf music,” he said. But he conceded: “They’re part of the culture.”

• When he took Schwarzenegger surfing, he let the action star use a board from the movie “Big Wednesday,” directed by John Milius, who wrote the famous surf scene in “Apocalypse Now.”

• Lopez was surprised to hear that Milius was partly the inspiration for the Walter character in “The Big Lebowski.” As soon as he heard, he called out to Grubby Clark, founder of Clark Foam, who was nearby. “Grubby – in ‘The Big Lebowski,’ remember Walter’s character by John Goodman? It’s supposed to be Milius!”

• Does anything about Walter remind him of Milius? “The .45 – that’s John’s favorite sidearm.”

• Like the other surfers we talked to for this story, Lopez has never surfed in San Luis Obispo County. (And, no, he doesn’t plan on bringing a board – at least that’s what he told us.)

Linda Benson
The 5-time U.S. champ went to Hawaii for the first time at 15, when she first meet Bud Browne.

• While a wigged Mickey Munoz was Gidget’s double in the original “Gidget” movie, Benson was the stunt double for the sequel, “Gidget Goes to Hawaiian.” “They were bad movies,” she said. “Many people feel that if Gidget’s dad (Frederick Kohner) never wrote the book and there was never a movie, maybe there wouldn’t be as many people surfing. But surfing has been on its own course. And everybody has a right to surf.”

• On surfing a 15-foot day when she was just 15 years old: “I paddled out at Waimea. Fred Van Dyke took off on a wave, he wiped out and his board broke in half. And John Severson wiped out. He popped up right near me. I’m just paddling out, and he looked at me and said, “You’re crazy. . .’ I got back to the beach, and I was kind of silly. I was stumbling and laughing. I did something that was kind of scary and I, of course, would never do it again.”

• On her friendship with Laird Hamilton’s mother: “I went to high school, and one of my best friend’s was Laird’s mom. My mom and dad used to take care of Laird. Laird’s mom was a single mom until she met Billy Hamilton, and I got her in those beach part movies. So my mom and dad took care of Laird when he was still in a baby bed.”

• She still surfs, but she prefers warmer water. “As with all of us, we absolutely hate this age thing because we were so active. I kind of say we’re all here, cleverly disguised as adults.”

We’ll have quotes from Peter Cole, Jack McCoy and Bud Browne in this blog tomorrow. Meanwhile, surf fans might also want to think about two other surf movies coming up.

“Five Summer Stories” not only features the music of Honk and the Beach Boys, it also features Lopez in some classic tubes. While very dated to the groovin’ 70s – when the shortboard era was in full swing — it’s still visually appealing. This one shows tomorrow at 4 p.m. at Downtown Cinemas in San Luis Obispo.

“Of Wind and Wave,” meanwhile, is a documentary about 94-year-old Woody Brown. Anyone who has seen “Surfing for Life” – another great surf flick – knows what a great character Brown is. Writer and director David Brown (what’s with all the Browns in surfing?) will attend the noon screening Saturday at La Perla del Mar in Pismo.

For more on those, visit the film fest’s web site.

– Pat P.

Photo (Of Benson and Browne) courtesy of Bud Browne

Posted on March 12th, 2008 by Pat
Filed under: Surf stuff