THE RIDE
by John Milius © John Milius 2025
It is Sour Milk’s honor to be the first to publish THE RIDE by writer/director John Milius. This 1967 essay is where we first meet Jack Barlow, who would go on to star in Milius’ 1978 surfing epic Big Wednesday. THE RIDE chronicles the rapid development of Southern California and the existential dilemma that all hardcore surfers face: freedom vs. responsibility. “When you are young and have no responsibility, that’s the time to be a surfer,” John Milius said many years later. “But gradually, the world comes and calls you to other things. You have to go inland, face the whole catastrophe, get married, divorced, have a job.”
LOOMINGS
I'm Barlow. Sometimes I need a wave. I feel out of touch with something as though I'm sick and not functioning properly. Sometimes I can go for a week, month, once for a year, but one day I'll know that I'm not in rhythm. Parts are broken. I need an overhaul. I need a wave.
You see, you might look at the blonde surfer in the Volkswagen bus and say does he need it on a cold winter day? He doesn't. He's not like me. He doesn't need a wave, he just wants one. He looks like it. He rides waves but he does this at the beach. It's not the same for those of us who go “down to the sea on boards.” We're insane. And so, whenever I'm in the middle of a department store and I see myself in the mirror--a grubby stump in a forest of sophistication, or whenever I can no longer give audible responses to cocktail conversation, when it requires a strong moral principle to stop me from crashing headlong into the rush hour freeway, when I find myself jealously reading the evening paper about another mass killing, when I can't stand rock'n'roll--then it's high time I got away. Some noisily puff the Indian weed or devour the sugar cube I go quietly to the reef.
It's no accident that men have called the sea woman. And it's no accident that the wave rider tries to ride inside the wave; he knows the excitement of carnal love. The gratification beyond orgasm. A rhythm you can't duplicate in bed. Why, man, it is “the very tide beating heart of the earth”, the mating of the elements, fountain of youth, elixir of the souls. And so, you can see why, when it's all done and I phantom over the top and paddle back out, I wonder why I was asked to participate.
When, after my twenty-second birthday I suddenly realized I was older. That one doesn't stay the same. That cells deteriorate. That fat can replace muscle. That I was white and stale. Then I knew that if something didn't happen, if I kept on, I would get out of rhythm, come down with dysentery and die. It wasn't too late so I got in the car and drove to Malibu.
MALIBU
I somehow miraculously avoided a traffic jam (it would have been my last), and the drive was uneventful. There was a swell running but it was from the northern seas and thus missed the point at Malibu.
Malibu! What various and sundry connotations does the word conjure up. Malibu! Stocked with bikini-clad Venuses. An abundance of sun, bronze skin, blonde hair, huts upon the beach, movie stars, the jet set, marijuana, Sandra Dee, Jimmy Darren, LDS, roaming commerce, the Great Kahuna, woody wagons, Frankie Avalon, brush fires, beer, blondes who have more fun, motorcycle gangs, palm trees and free love. A paradise on earth. Malibu, a synonym with Cannes, St. Moritz, and Papeete. This is where it all started, man. This is it, Surf City.
Malibu Surfriders State Beach is the half-mile of beautifully curved point just north of the fishing pier. When the waves come from the southwest they form into long walls and wrap around the point spilling across as they near the beach and then form the world's most perfect wave. Surfers have searched the world and a perfect spot is still described as “just like Malibu.” The wave is peerless for riding, offering a long ride that requires constant skill and rhythm. When you see a great surfer ride at Malibu, you know something special is happening.
And so, it's only natural for the beach of the perfect wave to become one of the most important influences on surfing. Its history is the history of modern surfing. The art of riding waves had not changed from the time of the ancient Hawaiians and it was the discovery of Malibu that blew the lid off. Nobody knows who first rode the place. One can only imagine those pioneers in the Thirties stopping by the old highway watching the warm summer swells curl around the point.
“Think it can be done?”
“No, too fast.”
“I’m game anyway.”
And then the long walk in with the eighty pound redwood, clean water slipping by as the surfer paddled into the lineup, turned the board and slid into Nirvana.
Their numbers grew. A colony existed on the clean sand. There were all sorts of doctors, lawyers, boat builders, lifeguards, a few kids. Then the war came along and things changed. Many never came back to Malibu for one reason or another, but California started to grow. Men coming home from the War stopped and said this is a good place. I like the climate, I’ll build an empire. And a new generation grew up at Malibu and they were younger and full of zeal and fire and lived only for Malibu and the Pacific. They were still few and so they had it to themselves, they went crazy like an addict with a mountain of junk. Then came a short, scrawny god with a withered right arm named Simmons and he told them they were doing it all wrong that a man need not ride out on the green wall but right in the very realm of the tube, the hook, the genitals of the wave. He showed that a man can not only ride on the sea, would be a part of it, make love to it, live with it. He invented the Malibu board which was made of balsa wood and weighed only 30 pounds. He gave fire to the mortals and paid dearly. Then came Korea. Those who came back told the rest how it was and didn't know why it was, and they all said they'd had enough. Why right here was the fountain of youth, the rest of the world lived and inland anyway, let’ em have there are Cold War, we're going to raise hell and ride a lot of great waves. Thus the Golden Age: When the boards were made of wood and men were made of iron and the world didn't know. When man could dedicate his life to the sea and the perfection of his art. He could live governed only by wind and current, water temperature and storm front. It didn't matter what he did, he was on the lunatic fringe anyway. But time was mounting, houses were built, schools, neighborhoods, industries. California, the Golden West. They came by the thousands every day and just beyond the Santa Monica mountains they piled up into the greatest mass of bourgeois humanity in the history of the world. They poised waiting for something, looking for some wilderness to smother because it was wilderness. And the Malibu surfer of which I was one said, “What do inland people do?” and the masses went to the movie houses to watch “Gidget” and said, “Is that what beach people do? I dig it.”
And so they thundered down to see Sandra Dee and go “surfin’” man. And the Malibu surfer was at first too swamped in girls and free surfboards to care and then everybody was a Malibu surfer and everybody rode the same wave and the styles changed. The riders were no longer smooth, sweeping and expressive, but short, quick and spectacular and a good surfer used to make it look easy, while the new order made it look very difficult, very hard.
But the explosion spread good as well as bad. The Malibu surfer carried his style to the waves of the world and became the standard of excellence. The giant waves of Oahu's North Shore, long challenge by only a few redoubtable Hawaiians, were ripped apart by Malibu ex-patriots. And to Australia we showed that being in the water is not enough, that things can be done, that man and wave can fuse into art and they listen, watched and learned. To the Knights of Malibu came every honor and glory; they became the Champions, the big names, the epitome of what it was to be a good surfer.
The crowd surged in and apartment houses were built, hills were subdivided, and there appeared liquor stores and laundromats, television dealers and tacos stands. Men looked at Malibu and said, “I've built an empire and this is where I’ll relax and bring my kids.” And surfers who had never seen a 10 foot wave bleached their hair and wore iron crosses and swore and belched and urinated on people's lawns. And the police said, that's not a sport, it's a disease. And then came surfing music and national recognition. Time magazine quoted it as being better than sex:
“If everybody had an ocean across the U. S. A.
Then we’d all be surfers
Like California
You’d see ‘em wearin’
Their baggies
Huarache sandals too
Bushy, bushy blonde hairdos
Surfin’ USA”
—Beach Boys
THE MEETING
It was raining lightly at Malibu and very cold. I stood on the hill shivering. A good north swell was missing the point and only an occasional three foot line would roll in. There was quite a crowd and they all wanted the same wave. I looked down the hill at a few of the girls huddled up with some very young boys. They couldn't have been more than fifteen and I felt ridiculous standing at their beach. I didn't see anyone I recognized or had even seen before. I stayed for a while, the rain quit and I watched the sexy little girls. A car finally honked behind me and it was Mitch the Masochist. He was double parked. “Hey, man, what's happening?” was his usual salutation.
“What are you doing, you've been surfing?”
I was delighted to see one of the old guard. I felt like I belonged.
“No, but it's big up north. I'll be at the Jetty later — listen, I'll meet you
there. I gotta cut and pick up a chick, man.”
He roared off and his battered Porsche that had no seat covering so that he got good pain when he accelerated. He really was a masochist, a classic, not like the rest of us who thrive on failure or frustration but physical pain man. His exploits dated back to the pre-Gidget era and he was one of Malibu's most colorful traditions. Whenever there was an exposed rock, a board to run into, a grizzly man-eating shore break, Mitch was there to exploit. The bulk of his reputation came from the fact that he would ride any wave and do anything on it, almost always ending in disaster. One time, he emerged from the water with a huge slash across his forehead, bleeding heavily. “It's nothing, man, so I hit my board.” He gave a false name at the emergency hospital and smiled as they stitched it up. The rest of us were all sadists, we would go in the water to kill, maim, and destroy the invading hordes, but our skills were not enough and a loose board found even the greatest of aces. So someone said, look at Mitch, he has a good time, he thrives on the crowd. And we all tried it and started the Masochist of the week award (a pack of beer for the best pain) and conversations would be like this:
“I was low in the wave and the guy in front just jumped off so his board got me in the shins and as I fell, the wave broke and I got finned in the back by my own and landed on a rock.”
“That's nothing. I slipped off the nose and got it in the groin, and then in the back, and on the way in someone ran over me and then I stepped on a sea urchin.”
It was late in the afternoon, the clouds made it dark before its time. I had squandered the day - no waves. I wasn't satisfied and except for my brief meeting with Mitch, I had little feeling of the ocean. So, being desperate, I turned the car towards the Santa Monica Jetty where I knew the surf would be poor, but at least it would have size and I could get tumbled and smashed in the shore break. I knew I was cheating myself. There were strong lines out there, the ocean was alive and huge slabs of water crashed into each other and the shore and the newly built houses that seemed ridiculous and transient even though they've been there 20 years. Hell, that was half of Malibu's surfing history and almost all of my life and a wave only lasts an instant. But they've been here forever and probably broken perfectly off myriad points in the pre-Cambrian dawn, and Malibu itself was even transient. Was it not true that the ride used to end at the pier? Wasn't it once possible to walk 100 yards of clean sand before touching the water? And there were already whispers and dark rumors of a Marina with breakwaters and concrete parking lots and guards at the gates. Then they build a housing tract and call it Malibu Lagoon -- Tropical waterfront living – Exclusive homes from $34,095. Haven’t you always wanted to live on the Malibu?
Thus the desperate existentiality of the surfer. The swell is here on Monday and gone by Wednesday and even within that there is the set and all this is still being governed by the wind. So the waves, sets, swells, beaches and coastlines are fleeting at best. You have to ride when it's there because, like each breath, it's only once and in an instant it's foam on the shore.
And what of the seasons. “In sunny, southern California, it's summer all year long.” The surfer knows the seasons, he knows them as well as any mountain trapper and they change no less dramatically than on the slopes of the Colorado mountains. The surfer can feel every degree the temperature drops. That brisk wind that makes one put on a jacket that can leave the skin raw, the hands numb and senseless. I, or the surfer, goes forth naked in the elements and comfort must be sustained from within. But this also puts one in contact with the cherished rhythms, the subtle orchestration of water temperature and swell direction, low pressure area and tidal movements. If you endure a little pain, put up with some discomfort, the rides are simple and without measure. I remember many a day when I stepped into the 55
degree water and it hurt and almost burned it was so cold I'd say to myself, “have I ever really done this before?” And, then a few minutes later after a really good set I couldn't think of any place I'd rather be. Each summer we frantically indulge in warmth and secretly desire the winter when the swell is stronger, the crowds less, the air crisp. And then in the spring, the joy of the first south swell, when the water temperature reaches 60 again. It never ceases to amaze me that the water gets warm again, that the storms and winds change, I never really believe it in the middle of winter. Almost all men at one time or another hold the same feeling with me.
But the swells were pushing in and I hadn't done it justice. Not here anyway, but 60 miles north -- above Ventura -- the Overhead was crashing malevolently through time. A vast mountain of violence, the antithesis of the city I lived in. The great uncivilized overhead where no one had yet laid claim, where killer whales and the ghost of Simmons lurked. Was the sea really a woman and if so what was to stop her from being black with evil? For to love the sea one had to challenge and fight, to contest with, like the bee which must fly as high as the queen to mate and die.
And as I was driving down the highway I once again became aware of the rhythm but not subtle as before, but like a Pagan drum that urged me to the sacrifice and I not work tomorrow, I have to drive up north, past Ventura, to the Overhead.
I need an accomplice, someone of heathen blood who would spearhead the attack. Someone who would go without reason like myself. I needed someone with a passion however perverse that would go up there and ride no matter what happened. And thus Mitch had to be the choice.
I found him at the jetty as he said. It was nearly dark. He was riding. I honked and he acknowledged with a wave, then turned to scan the horizon. He was sitting just off the end of the jetty and presented a striking picture with the sun setting amid the breaking storm. Huge waves rolled into the jetty exploding as they struck the end and folding into the shallows with tremendous force. I watched Mitch ride several that were well over his head. The rides were short, ending in spectacular violence usually with Mitch vaulting off the board into the wall or being crushed down and hurled into the shallow bottom. Somehow he always survived. I watched curiously without too much excitement somewhat detached from his drama.
I felt tired and stretched and in doing so caught sight of some absurdly surrealistic figures down the beach. They looked like death, the grim Reaper, cloaked in black, yet dancing lightly, insane as death would never dance. They held hands and moved across the sand, silhouetted close to the horizon, dancing to some unheard music. As the lead one turned, I recognized them to be muses but this didn't make them any less bizarre. They were the sisters of darkness, framed by a sky of brilliant orange and gray. There, black and mystic, prancing to some mode modvious flute, were they not the heralds of my death? Or were they real angels, cryptic, brooding and darkened? They surely weren't mortal I felt terrified as I watched, obsessed with their dance. If they stopped or disappeared something horrible would happen. The world itself would go mad and the ocean in apocalyptic fury would rise and swallow Mitch the Masochist, myself, and all of us. And so, for me they performed a rite, a dance to honor, the horror, and appease the Pacific. Or was it not for the sea but for me that they danced off down the beach? They finally disappeared in the distance, leaving only the falling night. So when Mitch got out of the water, I didn't need to tell him about it. I acted excited about the strong waves and suggested we ride the Overhead tomorrow. He was insane. I knew he'd agree with me. I know he'd be jazzed and pretend not to fear the place.
GIRL
I went home, my home, my abode. A place to hole up, hide out. A place where I sallied forth from each day in search of my lost tribe. I went home and found my girl, Lauren, waiting for me. She went through the usual ritual of trying to be nice, trying to wash over the fact that this morning I had cut out. She told me what she did all day, about the sculpture class at UCLA, about her car not working, about how she was going to make things with her hands which she never did. She wanted to fill the void between us with words, hoping to form a bridge of sorts whereby one of us could cross. I was moved by this. It was a rare occurrence when this seemingly vicious creature could actually try and reach out for someone's companionship. This morning she had been without fault, she had been wronged. Perhaps it was when she saw that nothing she could do would change it or stop it, that I really needed the ocean, not her. Perhaps then she saw that there are forces that were greater than guilt and love and that what people have they must cherish because it to transient and human companionship is the only real luxury we've got. And because she felt these things and I saw them, her frightened attempt to make friends with me was received with warmth. And as she went to the kitchen to cook me dinner, I said, “Lauren.”
“Yes?”
“Hi.”
“Hi”, she returned feebly. “Why did you say that?”
“I just wanted to.”
“Did you surf today?”
“No, but I’m going tomorrow and that’ll be it, I hope.”
She worked on the dinner and seemed much more relaxed. Occasionally she would look off into space while working and seemed about to speak. But whatever it was, she held it back at the last moment. I looked at all this and wasn't curious. I saw a book by the sink it was Burdick's “The Ninth Wave.”
“So you’re reading the Ninth Wave”, I ventured.
“I found it in there, it has a kinda sexy cover. You know, it's really
interesting, but I don't like the main guy. He's too much like Paul
Newman. Paul Newman would have played him in a movie and you can
always tell what Paul Newman will do.”
“I thought you dug him.”
“Only when I was younger, he's attractive, but I don't like that type
anymore.”
“You know who that's about?” I said.
“What, the book?”
“Yeah, that character is supposed to be Simmons. Burdick knew
Simmons, but Simmons didn't like him.”
“Who was he?”
She brought me a round steak with BBQ sauce and frozen spinach souffle.
“He was the one who changed it all. My God, Lauren, you mean I've
never told you about Simmons? He was a student at Caltech, a scrawny
guy, mathematician or something and he got his arm crushed in a car
wreck and while he was healing he met a surfer who told him all about
the Cove and Malibu and got him jazzed. So Simmons just came down
to the beach one day and started to take over.”
“What do you mean?”
“He told them they were all wrong, that the boards were too big and
that they rode wrong too. People beat him up. He laughed in their
faces and built the first balsa-fiberglass boards. He learned to ride
quickly and even though he wasn't that good, he taught other people
how to do all the things we take for granted now. And it all changed
overnight and he was like a god. He was never wrong and people still
think he was”
“Jim?”
“Yeah, what?”
“Do you like the dinner?”
“Yeah, it's really good, why?”
“I wanted to have candles and surprise you. I wanted it to be nice.”
There was silence for a while. “Go on,” she said.
“He was really there with the sea. He had all kinds of weather maps and
wind gauges and lived in this old car and ate only cottage cheese for a
whole year because it was more efficient. And he knew when the swells
would hit and how every inch of this coast was composed.
He even helped the Navy make depth charts. And, of course, he made
the great boards and you could only get one if you were his good friend
and even then he may not decide to finish it. He taught everyone what
they should do. How to really get right in there and people started
getting great. And one day he walked down on the beach and saw Matt
Kivlin ripping off beautiful turns and he said, that's the one, he's the best.
And Kivlin was, and became the father of a modern technique.
“Was he like the guy in the book? I mean hard and cynical?”
“He was hard alright. He'd sit outside at Malibu on a good day and pick
up the biggest wave, then he'd run every one over riding it. He just ran
them down smiling without turning or doing any of the things he helped
perfect. Then he paddled back out and tell them they were all
chickenshits because he got the biggest wave.”
“Sounds interesting. What about the book? Did he become a politician
too?”
“No, That's about as far as it went, except for the way he died. Burdick
dug him, kind of was caught up in the adoration. When you talked to
people who knew him, they all give a sort of mystical reaction as if he
came from another time or something.”
“Jim?”
“Yeah?”
“When are you going to find out about the garbage disposal?”
“Don't you want me to talk about Simmons? Don't you want to hear
how he died?”
“Yes, but I wish you'd tell me about my things sometime--so you think
we can look on Sunday?”
“I don't know. Let me tell you the rest--”
“It's not right to say I don’t know”.
She got up and took some dishes to the sink and began washing them, staring out the window. I didn't pursue the topic. I didn't want to talk to her, she wouldn't understand anyway. Simmons died at sea. He died at the Overhead alone, and his body was never recovered. They left him to go get lunch and when they came back, his board had washed up. Nobody saw it, nobody really knew and some reasonable middle-aged men still say he just went back into the sea. And she wouldn't understand that it was important that they never found him, she would just think it was interesting, if she thought about it at all. I left the room and read a while and thought about her and women. She was the end product of special breeding like the rest of Los Angeles and that breeding had long since disposed of any real relationship to Simmons or even myself. They bought products, used the great stream of money, products and waste turned dynamos, lit cities, carved mountains into deserts, deserts into lakes, covered thousands of acres in concrete and erected shelters of solid glass. and men would say, “They need a new car, I’ll build a million.”, and the senses were deadened and new ones rose to take their place and in the end, to the American woman, childbirth, the act of reproduction became grossly heroic.
So it wasn't out of context when I went in the room later and she was smoking pot. I knew that she would feel alright soon again and that garbage disposals wouldn't really matter. It was no more out of context for Lauren, a junior art student at UCLA, to take pot than it was for her millions of sisters to take “Compose” and it was no different for her to live with me than it was for her mother to go away to college 20 years earlier and the garbage disposals and new cars and houses and kids and better neighborhoods all wore out and had to be sometimes replaced just like the storms that came and went in the North Pacific and they could never remember any satisfaction, just like I could never remember a wave because these things weren't meant to be remembered. But she was muddy water in a new stream while I was a rock in the path soon to be worn into that same fluid. But not yet.
Laster, as she slept, I looked at her. I hated her sometimes because she made me feel alone. And she made me feel alone really because she so blatantly showed that there was nothing in common between us. She had grown up a pretty little girl and gone to junior high school and attended senior proms and drove around town with her head on some boy's shoulder and thought about being popular. And finally to college where she slept with boys, realized how much of life the masses were missing and found sculpture and pot, and the new left and “freedom”. And when she bored of this, she searched or whatever else had been measured by that. But could I blame her? I was the freak, she never was prepared for understanding my life and so how could she expect to identify. My actions were as bizarre to her as her world to me. Yet, she, like the city of Los Angeles, was my home and I thrive on their drama and pulse and though I cursed them by day, I love them by night.
I slept little and awoke many times, thinking about the black nuns. Then towards dawn I had a nightmare about the Overhead. I was out there, and it seemed like the first time, it always seems like the first time at the Overhead, alone, half a mile from shore, I was cold and naked and the sky was grizzly. A set came, even though I wished it wouldn't. I just wanted to sit on the board and not have to ride. A set came and I'd paddle erratically up the awesome faces, each one being bigger than the one before. And one would start to fringe and as I surmounted it, I'd see a bigger one beginning to break further out, and then I abandoned the board and ran up their faces, clawing my way over the tops and ran down the backs, but they would steepen and I slowed down exhausted, out of breath, and started sinking in. I knew that if I stopped running, they'd break and finally they did; slap-bashing into the cold black water and the hard reef. and tons of dark water were between me and my world. I woke up shivering, I screamed but nothing came out and I lay there until dawn, afraid, while all the time I thought about the Overhead and it became narcotically irresistible. So, as the light came through the windows, I kissed Lauren’s cheek and she moved slightly and I got up, lashed the board on the car and drove north.
HAMBURGER
The sun rose on a beautiful day, tinting the houses red and purple. It was a clear day with no smog or haze. The rainstorm had left a few scattered clouds that reflected the brilliant dawn. It was fresh again, a wonderful feeling to get up at dawn, no cars on the road and the great highway and a whole day before me. Indeed, it was such a splendid sight that I almost forgot the Overhead and the nuns. Nothing could die on a day like this. A light wind twinkled the leaves on the tree, it was an offshore wind that would hollow the waves and sculpt them into tubular perfection.
I picked up Mitch at his house near Malibu. He too had been awake to watch the sunrise and he greeted me with much enthusiasm.
“Hey, man, what a day! The waves are really good, I think it picked up a
bit.”
“Yeah, it should be really good up there, you can probably ride
anywhere and it'll be good.”
I hesitated then ventured,
“Maybe we should try Hueneme or California St. in Ventura, at this size
and a low tide, the place could be nice.”
“Why cheat yourself, man? The biggest, best quality is at the Overhead,
so why get second?”
I'd made my first and only offer and I knew that the course was set. We would ride the dreaded place come hell and high water, and they would. The only thing to pray for was that some one of the thousands of things that have to be right would be wrong. That the wind would change, that the swell didn't strike the reef right, that even the place would be crowded, the Overhead Is never crowded.
We pushed on past Malibu, whose soft languid swells curved gently around the point, dappled in sunlight. We cruised by the bright hills with winter’s dark green grass and occasional cattle grazing, and up around the rocky cliffs near point Mugu, then through the great valley of Oxnard surrounded by straight furrows of tomato fields and rows of tall Eucalyptus trees. The sun was all the way up and beginning to warm the day and everything was bright even as we drove into the town of Oxnard with its car agencies and sleazy cafes. But it was here, off on a side street, that one of our objectives lay. Oxnard was famous to us for Starburger, where we decided to eat our breakfast.
Starburger is just another hamburger stand except that it has a big sign with colored stars all over it and you have to sit down inside. We entered, we were the only customers. Old Lady Starburger Was yelling at old man's Starburger about something. She was perhaps the meanest looking old woman in the world. She took her time and cussing the little man out and seemed not to notice us. Finally she turned to us and said, “Rare or medium?”
“Rare.”
“Medium.”
“Well, you'll certainly get it rare then.”
She turned and hurled two large hamburger patties on the grill with such force that I thought they would shatter and then she took out a large salt shaker and started shaking out a peppery substance.
“Easy on that stuff”, Mitch said.
“This ain’t pepper, it's my special seasoning. I make it with thirteen
kinds of vegetables and when I quit this damn job, I'm going to market
this stuff. Got an offer last week anyway.”
I heard the story each time I ate at Starburger and each time I'd been asked the same question, “Rare or Medium”, and each time I left, I vowed that next time I'd ask for a grilled cheese, but Mrs. Starburger’s look always drove me down. By now, the savory aroma of well-seasoned meat drifted across the room. She was buttering the sides of the buns and frying them too on the grill. In a jiffy mine was ready and when presented with it, garnished and lettuce, tomato, melted cheese and more of the special seasoning, I had only one thing to say, “Another.”
And so, Mitch and I ate two Star Burgers apiece and split a third and it was a magnificent breakfast. We waved goodbye to Mrs. Star Burger, who didn't care, and once again resumed our journey.
THE PACIFIC
When finally gliding from the traffic lights of Ventura, we emerged upon the Great North coast. It was here that water turned to azure shades and the white beaches stretched from the sweeping green mountains. And it was here also that the north swell pounded relentlessly, ripping at the sand and rock of the continent and found its ultimate expression in the Ventura Overhead. This primeval swell that rose from the depths suddenly like the great white whale was the epitome of its own barbaric realm. This mysterious sea that beckoned me with its shark-sleek movement, awed me with its gargantuan majesty, and terrified with its timeless malevolence, this sea appeared to be from some far gone age when the world was not settled and stirred in the throes of restless slumber. Indeed, when one sees the Overhead which thundered indifferently for Indian, Spaniard, gold miner and surfer; when one sees this lifting peaked mountain rising and indomitable, one does not think of Neptune but turns his head to Thor.
But these thoughts didn't pass through Mitch's brain as he sat poised like a lion, his nostrils making note of the fertilizer in the Ventura stockyards (where even now some bull is planting his precious seed). There we were, the land speeding by much too fast, bringing us closer to those final waters. And then the inevitable shrill cry, “There she is, breaking full force from the farthest reef!”
THE RIDE
We turned off the highway and down under the overpass while huge walls of water, rising and crashing, obscured our view of the great peak. There were numerous other cars filled with surfers parked under the bridge. Most of their boards remained on the roofs. They scanned the horizon, standing on their cars, looking through field glasses, they were tense and nervous. Their friends were out there and some of them might have just come in. I looked over this whole thing and at once identified with them. Yes, I too wanted to watch from the cars. It wasn't too late, perhaps Mitch, you belong here. And now, the first set rolls in and we can only see five or six specks on the horizon, they slip safely over the undulating mountains into the deep channel and the relative calm period nobody rides.
“It's perfect,” says Mitch, “absolutely perfect, but my God, it's huge,” and the kid comes up and looks us over and then asks if we're going out, and Mitch is almost ready. The kid pretends it's nothing to go out and tells us about the rip and the half mile swim, not to mention the wave, but he's dry. I dress myself, put on my armor. Not even a wet suit, nothing can constrict my movement today, only nylon trunks. I'm going forth naked! The wind is crisp and makes me feel exposed my skin is white. I DON”T WANT TO GO, MITCH, You belong here. How long since I swam 1000 yards or even 100?
Mitch is already in. He's impervious to the cold. He bashes his way through the monstrous shore break and disappears behind. I wait, scan the water. Finally, minutes later, he appears, a frighteningly small creature working towards the outer ocean. And so, I just stand there on the beach and the kids behind me gasp at the size and fight for the use of the glasses. And somehow, ever so slowly and painfully, I inch into the water. It laps around me, aching cold but it doesn't matter, my board under my arm, my board, which has long since become part of my feet. I DON’T WANT TO. I put the board in the waist deep water. There's a lull, go! But I can't seem to paddle fast, the board doesn't move and a distant line rises and I know it's going to get me, and I paddle for all I'm worth. BUT I KNOW IT’S GOING TO GET ME. And I'm still in a daze when I roll over clutching the board in the cold wet as the thing impacts on top of me and tries to wrench out the board and my arms. But I hold on and roll up and on top again and my heart pounds. I feel I've been slugged and in off few crazed moments I'm free of the shore break. You belong here.
Now, the long buffeting paddle through the chop and riptides to the outer reef. I'm safe here, off to the side, in the channel. It's a different world than most surfers ever see. Great hunks of the sea have been uprooted, causing wide fields of turbulence and leaving large gobs of foam scattered about. And as the eye follows this path of chaos to the horizon it is suddenly confronted with the great Overhead itself, rising to a crescendo of beauty and violence. The turquoise monster hangs threateningly then slowly rolls over into itself with the texture of wet cement and the sound of a thunderclap and I watch wave after wave stunned with awe, my arms unconsciously bringing me nearer. Its grandeur, terrifying grandeur. Men don't feel grandeur anymore. How can they go about their lives at the very moment when this is happening? DON’T DO IT, IT’LL KILL YOU! And suddenly I'm out there sitting amongst the other five. We are safe in the channel, no waves are coming. They sit there with smug complacency on their faces. I feel like grabbing one and saying, “You punk it's really big, you don't have to hide your fear.” But it really won't do any good. They're here for a chance at one small wave so they can write their names on the highway pillar and tell everyone what it was like. Then my head turned to scan for sets, and to my astonishment way over in the impact area was Mitch. He was trying to line himself up. He looked crazy, bizarre and he didn't seem to belong there, nobody did, he was heroic. As I looked at him, he was beautiful in the way that astronauts are. I called over to him and started over. IT’LL KILL YOU. The ocean was heaving outside and soon a set would be upon us. If we played wrong by only a few feet, we'd be caught inside. Indeed, it seemed much safer to stay on the shoulder. We were crazy. KILL YOU, you belong here, sure it'll kill you but it doesn't have to. And then we were there and they came. The first one just mounded up and passed under, breaking far inside and each one grew steeper and bigger and Mitch turned while I said to myself, he's not really going to do it. But the position was wrong and he stopped and turned and suddenly I was yelling orders.
“I'm going, pick up the outside!”
And then I was paddling frantically because I knew if I missed the next one would get me. DON’T DO IT. If you must, then do it well. All the water around me lifted and hurled me forward and one more stroke and I was up and going straight down at a million miles an hour. My God, I'm calm! I thundered down towards the very heart of the peak and out onto the huge sloping bottom. Far above me a ton of water closes is like a fist but I rocketed into a searing turn, heaved full into the awesome face, banking hard off the bottom and up onto the huge vertical shoulder, the hook cracking over behind me. And there I was at the top of the whole thing, I smiled and dropped my foot to the board's tail and ground off the vest and back down again. The speed was immense, every step was right, every move classic and as I turned smoothly over the top, my knees gave out. My body was charged beyond compare, adrenaline shot through like a constant orgasm. I was laughing, screaming, I couldn't believe it. Then I looked out and saw Mitch, locked perfectly into a huge walled peak. I started cheering, I just couldn't stop and forgot to paddle to the channel and almost got nailed.
I was back out in the lineup in no time. I was still scared but the Overhead had given its best and I was right there. It seemed as if all my past life, every wave had led to this day, this moment. And another set came and I carved a huge arching turn across the first one while Mitch shot across the peak of the next, and after a few more, we had that strange feeling that one gets when you're shooting a bow and arrow and you can't miss, when you're asked questions and you know every answer, when for a brief time at a special place in the universe you know that you're the very best of your kind there is. And they kept coming and I rolled off the bottom in sweeping drives and tucked into the hook and slashed back down again and always deep, deep in the wave, deep where you don't really know you're going to make it but something special is happening and the waves seem to know you understand and you ride deep but the wave lets you and everything is smooth and graceful and assured by your daring.
And so it went for an hour or two and then a huge cleanup set rolled in and neither of us would touch it and it almost got us, as if the Overhead still had to have the last word. Then a cross wind started and chopped formed so that a man couldn't ride anymore and we went in. And even though I'd handled it, I didn't really feel good until my foot touched sand again.
“And the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.”
Hommage to Melville
We were heroes. the kids on the beach looked at us distantly and seem to ask who are you, you who come from the city with dark hair and pale skin, you who come here on these few special days. We felt like heroes to each other too. We made small talk as we dried and changed and finally Mitch said, “I was terrified until I rode the first one,” and then it occurred to me that I had been sold a lie. I've been taught since birth to be scared, that man wasn't good enough. It was different to be afraid, when you're afraid you just know the apparition but you still believe in yourself. We had ridden the Overhead in the way it deserved and we had been more than good enough. I say this standing on dry ground and it would be different if I had to go again. But even as we drove away a certain sadness seemed to prevail. We looked back on that splendid place, now mutilated by the wind and tide, and it seemed as if it were dead, and we had participated in the last act.
We drove to Ventura and feasted on tacos and grapefruit juice. To the victors go the spoils. And all the way back down the coast the car was filled with animated conversation, of great waves and heroic rides. Finally, we pulled up at the curving beach at Malibu and because it was Malibu, we couldn't resist standing on the hill and looking it over.
There was a good steady three foot swell coming through and lots of kids to ride it. I breathed in the special smell that is Malibu, the smell of seaweed and hot dogs. I enjoyed standing there like a king, feeling the right to be a king. Down the beach a group of young punk surfers sat, in amongst them was the most beautiful young girl I had ever seen. I walked closer to make sure. She was tall with long legs and full breasts. Her skin was satin bronze and her hair blonde. She sat with an acne-faced kid of no more than sixteen with bleached blonde hair. The kid was deliberately dirty looking and wore a sweatshirt with “Coors, Breakfast of Champions” on it. I looked at her. She should be mine. Her languid curves and smooth firm muscles, these were meant for a champion. Why would such a girl be with these punks. I walked by staring and they looked up and seemed to notice someone older, someone who was probably a tourist and they went back about their business. And I looked at the boy and realized that it was his turn. I relinquish her to you. It's yours now. I've been here a long time and we were passionate lovers and she'll always still be my mistress but I give her to you now and she's not easy and very fickle but I loved her and well, it's your time.
© John Milius 2025