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| ALL FOR A FEW PERFECT WAVES had to be 500 pages or less -- not the original 800! Material was cut that, in the final analysis, interrupted the dramatic flow and story. Some great scenes were lost, but even a great scene can't just come out of nowhere. Maybe one day I'll do a special edition, an author's cut. But until then....enjoy. And check back now and then for new stories, and individual interview excerpts. |
| 1966 DUKE at Sunset Beach. Miki interviewed by Bruce Brown at 2:40. Click MENU to see other Miki video -- and more! |
MIKI IN GUETHARY, OCTOBER 2001.
STILL SMILING. Photo by Jan Snyder.
STILL SMILING. Photo by Jan Snyder.
MAGIC CARPET RIDE
Denny Aaberg, brother of Kemp Aaberg, co-wrote the John
Milius movie "Big Wednesday."
Joey Cabell is the iron-man of surfers and lives in Hawaii.
DENNY AABERG: In the summer of 1973, Joey Cabell invited
me to visit him in Kauai. Joey is a world-renowned surfer, co-
founder of the Chart House restaurants; he now owns the
one in Honolulu. Joey also won a bunch of surfing contests in
the ‘60s: Duke’s, Makaha, Malibu, and more. He’s also a
skier, and an adventurer. He’s a health-conscious guy and
always exercising.
At the time I’d been hanging out a bit with Miki. He took me
surfing at the old Pacific Ocean Pier. POP Pier. The place
was in shambles and kind of spooky. Miki showed me how to
walk along the edge of the pier, to the Mystic Isle ride,
throw your board in the ocean, and jump down into the dirty
water. You didn’t know if pilings were just below the
surface, so it was scary.
When I got to Hawaii that Fall, I asked if Miki could join us.
Joey and Miki met in the ‘50's and had been friends on and
off for years. Joey didn’t mind. Miki came over with Linda
Cuy. Joey had a fantastic house, not far from Cannon’s, up
this little canyon road, maybe a mile from the hillside. He’d
built it.
JOEY CABELL: Miki slept in the garage with his girlfriend
Linda. The house was the edge of a forest, and the garage
dug out of the hillside. I used stream bed rocks for the
foundation, and eucalyptus logs and corrugated iron ropes to
hold it up. In one corner I framed out a bedroom. That night
a centipede that crawled onto the eucalyptus logs, crawled
under the corrugated iron, walked along the log, and fell on
Miki Dora’s chest. The lights went on and I heard complete
turmoil: Screaming, yelling. Linda screamed. Some night.
The next day, I planned to go with my wife Gail into Koloa. I
put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and moccasins. I had a
little waist-pack and a space blanket, some food – a couple
bags of poi, some avocados, cans of tuna fish. The trail was
eleven miles. Most people went in with climbing boots and
heavy backpacks. I went in light and easy. Miki, Linda, and
Denny wanted to go, too.
DENNY AABERG: The mountains are high and serrated, just
beautiful, with huge drops to the ocean, like Big Sur.
Narrow, windy up-and-down trails. For a normal person, it’s
a pretty tough hike. I was in OK shape, Miki, too. The night
before we packed light, took boiled eggs, bananas. The idea
was to spend the night along the way.
JOEY CABELL: Linda had tennis shoes, a bad thing to wear on
that sort of trip. Everyone gets blisters – but they don’t
know until it’s too late. Miki was totally unprepared. His
boots were like elf shoes with turned up toes, no traction,
no nothing. Some kind of leather pants. I said, “I don’t
recommend dressing like that.”
We got two and a half miles in, across the stream, to the first
good ridge climb. Gail and I were ahead, the other three
falling way back. At the ridge top, I could see the ocean. I
went back to check on the stragglers. Linda was ready to
turn back. She had heavy blisters. Denny and Miki decided to
continue. I said, “You have to pick the pace up a little bit or
we won’t get there before dark.”
DENNY AABERG: Soon, Miki complained his feet hurt. We saw
star fruit in the trees, and I tried to eat some. I don’t know if
it was that or the water I drank from waterfalls, but I started
to feel sick and weak. I fell over at one point with the pack,
and Miki went, “Oh my God! You’ve squished the deviled
eggs!”
The day wore on. We’d climb a big hill, go down a big drop.
Then it started to get dark. Miki said, “Look at us, we’re like
a couple of stumble bums, out here.” We had no flashlight;
the drop to the ocean was a hundred feet, there was no
moon. “This is the end,” Miki said, kind of making fun, but
kind of serious. We felt our way through the brush. I fell a
couple of times, missed the trail, got scraped up.
JOEY CABELL: Gail and I found a place to sleep just as it got
dark, and settled down for the night. Dora and Denny were
still on the trail. About two in the morning I heard voices and
rummaging.” Joey, Joey, is that you?” I let them sleep on a
canvas. It must have been pretty miserable.
DENNY AABERG: I felt like I had the flu. We slept in a little
cave. Miki said a drop of water kept hitting his head like the
“Chinese water torture.” In the morning Miki said, “Jesus
Christ, there’s poop stains in your pants.” Apparently, I had
some dysentery, and I guess I shit my pants a little bit. I was
sick. His feet really hurt. He didn’t want to keep hiking. He’s
said, “Jesus Christ, Tarzan is out there with Jane. We need
to be rescued!”
JOEY CABELL: I was ready to leave but Miki wouldn’t go.
DENNY AABERG: Miki lived by his wits and he wanted a way
out. I watched the wheels turning in his head. I felt
miserable. He fed me some poi. Then in the early afternoon
he disappeared for a while. When he came back he told me
that a helicopter had landed about one hundred yards down
the beach. He said he’d constructed an SOS on the beach
with rocks, or written HELP in the sand. “I told them my
friend was dying on the beach,” he said. Dying? “The pilot
said he’d be back for us.” We waited. Meanwhile Cabell,
who’d made a little fire couldn’t believe it. But he knew
Miki.
At dusk, a beautiful red sunset at twilight, this little black
speck appeared on the horizon. The helicopter. We did the
100-yard dash to the landing site across soft sand. Twenty
yards out Miki said, “Hey, you’ve got to act a little sicker.”
He put a towel around me. The pilot gave me the once over,
like he expected a dead guy. I didn’t know what Miki had
said, but I saw the pilot thinking, Ummmm, OK. He let me
into the helicopter, but when Miki tried to climb in he said,
“Oh no, this is for emergencies only.”
Miki was quick on the draw. He pulled out this asthma inhaler
and said, “Oh no, I ran out of asthma medicine. My feet are
bleeding. I can’t walk. I. Can’t. Breathe.” The pilot went,
“Oh man, OK.” Miki got in, holding back his laughter. We
lifted off. We saw Joey and Gail at their campfire, green
mountains, red sunset, and paradise all around. Miki took it
all in and said, “Magic carpet ride.”
We landed in Lihu’e, about fifty miles away, surrounded by
emergency vehicles with lights flashing. These guys expected
a big story. But I was just a stooge determined to act as sick
as I could. When the door opened people converged,
“Where’s the sick guy?” I didn’t pay attention to Miki, and
neither did they. Suddenly, I hear, “Where’s the guy you
were with?” But Miki had disappeared.
At the hospital they found dysentery and a little bit of blood
in my urine. Meanwhile, the cops put out a bulletin for Miki.
Eventually they let me go. I sat in the waiting room, trying to
figure out my next move, and a big guy came in leading Miki.
He’d been busted trying to rent a car at the airport. The guy
wasn’t real bright, and Miki kept double- talking him. I tried
my best not to blow it by laughing.
He looked at Miki’s IDs, going, “Are you Chapin? Or Dora?”
Miki said, “I’m Chapin Dora. But I don’t want to be a bother
on you people.” Finally, the guy just gave up, gave him his ID
back. Some kid gave us a ride back to Cabell’s house, and
Cabell showed up a day later. He was pissed because we’d
taken advantage of the public trust.
MORE THAN ONE WAY TO GET A PINK SLIP
John Reilly now lives in the UK
JOHN REILLY: In 1967 I met Miki through my friend Diane,
who had lived with Miki a few years earlier. Diane said, “I
love this guy, he’s so cool. He’s one of the wackiest people I
know, but also one of the most brilliant.” She introduced us
at a place in the Valley that we used to refer to as “The
Peace Farm.” It wasn’t a commune, it was just these two
hippy guys that lived in North Hollywood that would have
these weekends when people would just come over. She
brought Miki to one of these “love-in” type weekends,
people walking around tripping. But Miki and I weren’t. He
came over and said, “Well, you are the only one I can talk
to, because everyone else here is out of their tree.” That
was our first connection. We just talked, and you decide
immediately whether you like someone or you don’t.
We clicked. Then Miki found out I had an English car called
an Alvis. Classic, similar to a Bentley, but not so expensive.
It was a convertible that could be open in the front and
closed the back at the same time. Miki told me he wanted it.
Miki treated Diane and me to several dinners. One night he
took us to Chasen’s, at that time a very smart restaurant in
Beverly Hills. We were duly impressed and had a great meal
and a lot of laughs. When the bill came he smiled and said,
“Guess what? I don’t have any money.” I said, “Neither do I.”
Diane said, “Oh shit.” And with that, Miki asked us if we had
our tennis shoes on because he was going to the toilet and
while he was there, carrying the bill, he said we should head
for the front door and run, which we did. We got away and
looked back to see Miki leaping over the back fence, and
screaming to us “Keep running, keep running.”
We ended up in Malibu the next morning, on the beach,
getting stoned and laughing, and he asked me if I had ever
surfed. I told him I had tried without much success, and he
told me to get on the back of the board with him while he
paddled out. We waited for the waves for a few minutes and
then they came big time. As the board started to move he
leapt up, grabbed me, and said, “Get on my fucking
shoulders now.” Soon I was in the same position as Sandra
Dee in Gidget riding the wave on Miki’s shoulders. And let
me tell you this was no easy feat! I was 6ft tall, weighed 170
pounds and was a gymnast at that time in my life; so in other
words, not a little guy!
To my amazement, we glided in without a problem and when
we stood on the beach I started jabbering about how
sensational it was. He just laughed and said, “Any time you
want to again just let me know.”
Shortly thereafter, Diane and I decided to leave manic Los
Angeles and emigrate to Europe. But we had to say farewell
to her family and mine all over the U.S.A.
Miki came up with the solution, one of his many scams. He
knew we wanted to do several flights before leaving and
said, “I know how you can fly free.” I said, “Ok, what’s the
deal?” Miki smiled and it covered his entire body. He said,”
You fly free and you give me your car because you can’t
afford to take it to Europe.” I said “Deal. But how we do it?”
He had somehow learned that if you booked your ticket
through the new computerized facility, if you then re-
routed it, the system lost the billing and you flew free. It
was that simple, and it worked. We flew everywhere saying
goodbye to friends and family before we sailed from New
York to the United Kingdom.
When we’d met to say goodbye, Diane kissed and embraced
him. He shook my hand and then said, “Oh shit, give me a
hug. I’m going to really miss you guys.” We hugged, and he
said, said, “Never hugged a guy before – but you gave me MY
car!”
OH, AND NO STARCH ON THE SHIRTS
MIKE MCNEILL is an expat American living in France for the
last twenty-five years. Surfboard maker then, now working
for Quiksilver Europe. Had "the pleasure to share voyages
with Miki and to be his friend."
MIKE MCNEILL: In the late 90's, when Miki had moved back to
Guethary, he and I decided to take a private trip to the Ivory
Coast area, to a surf camp. We’d seen neat pictures of
African kids, empty waves, a beautiful coastline.
I got my vaccinations, but Miki didn’t want to get a shot; he
said in Africa he’d gotten a yellow fever vaccination but he’
d lost his card. So we made photocopies of my vaccination
card and forged his yellow fever card. He said, “Don’t go
with me through Control because they’ll see your card and
notice that mine’s a little off-color.”
While going through customs Miki disappeared. I got our
baggage, and still couldn’t find him. Suddenly, uniformed
officials grabbed all our stuff, took it to a separate area and
started opening the bags. Miki had brought three huge bags
and a huge board bag with two surfboards inside, but when
opened Miki’s stuff they were full of Miki’s dirty laundry. Not
just from the week before; I mean months of dirty laundry.
Even the Customs guy couldn’t take the smell. They kept
pulling it out, and piles grew everywhere. And I don’t know
where Miki is.
I repacked Miki’s laundry. The officials wanted money. I said,
“I’ll give you the clothes.” When I found Miki, he shrugged
and told me everything was fine.
At the surf came he left all his laundry with the lady who ran
the place. She washed and pressed evrything. We were gone
for two weeks and by the time he came back he had three
bags full of clean clothes. It was like going to your mother’s
house to get your laundry done. Worse.
We stayed in a hotel for one night. Mike didn’t want to share
a room. The clerk said, “You should share it. It’s like two
rooms.”
Miki said, “No. I want my own bathroom.”
The guy said, “Okay, but you’re not going to like it.”
In his room, Miki saw an airconditioner. “Perfect,” he said.
They guy tried to say something but Miki didn’t want to know
about it. Turned out the air conditioner didn’t work, the fan
didn’t work, and the windows had no screens. There he was,
boiling hot, no air, and no mosquite netting. I think he spent
all night in the shower.
When it came time to leave, all of our stuff was on the
plane, the propellors were spinning, we were the last people
who had to board. Suddenly, Miki said, “I want my bags off. I
want to stay.” I said “Whatever. I’m going.”
Of course, he couldn’t stay because all his bags were on the
plane.
MEXICAN MYSTERY TOUR
GARDNER CHAPIN, JR is the son Gard Chapin and Ramona
Stancliff. He is Miki's half-brother. Born in
Los Angeles, California, on August 4, 1946; passed away
August 4, 2006.
GARDNER CHAPIN, JR.: One day Miki said, “Have you ever
dropped acid?” and I said no. He said, “I’m going to get some
acid from Switzerland. This will be pure pharmaceutical.” He
called me about three weeks later. “I’ve got it.”
We drove to Mexico, to Salsipuedas, about five miles north
of Ensenda. There was only a ranch and a little dirt road. We
each dropped half a cap as we crossed the border. Then we
went to a fresh fruit market, went to the beach and surfed.
Afterwards, we went to a restaurant and had a late lunch. I
was pretty high on LSD and all of a sudden Miki started
choking on a fish bone. I thought he was gonna die, but it
was all enhanced because of the LSD.
Back at the beach we started coming down. Miki said, “I’ve
got one more capsule. Let’s drop that too.” Afterward we
walked on the beach and he said, “Look at the rocks – they’
re all alive. Everything on this beach has life in it.”
We came to a spot where a car had gone off the cliff behind
the beach years before. Only the engine remained, laying in
the rocks. Miki said, “Look at that engine, which is dead. It’s
man-made. Compare it to the rocks.” Well, I looked and at
the time it seemed like Miki did have an awfully good point.
Miki carried the conversation. He talked about nature, said
everything was made by God, and that everything not
manmade was alive, from the water to everything else. We
looked at the stars coming out. He went on and on.
Eventually we got into our sleeping bags. We lay on the
beach, looking at the stars, and suddenly we heard a car
coming. The car, a real old Chevy sedan full of Mexicans
screeched around the corner. We could wear their music.
They were flying. But when it hit next corner, they didn’t
make it. It sailed off the road. Oh, man! All we could hear
was the sound of music. Then, BOOM! boom! boom- boom-
boom!
I said, “Sheeesh!” Miki said, “Sheeesh!” I said, “Let’s get
outta here!” Miki said, “Yeah, let’s get outta here!” We
were both wiped out and didn’t want to be around when the
cops got there. We threw our stuff into the car went a
couple miles down the road, and camped there.
WAITER, I’LL JUST HAVE ANOTHER PISCO SOUR
Everyone knows championship surfer Corky Carroll
CORKY CARROLL: Miki and I went to Peru together in
February 1967 for the International Big Wave Championship. I
was 19. We sat next to each other on the plane—Saturn
Airlines, a big green jet. It was a long flight, plus we got
stuck in Panama for five hours because a bird flew in the
plane’s engine. We sat in the airport in the middle of the
night. It was like 120 degrees.
I was a full-blown surf punk. I lived, ate, breathed, and
drank surfing. Miki was older and into different stuff. The
whole way down there he was talking to me about politics,
communism, the president, world issues. He talked about
Gard Chapin a little bit. I knew nothing about all that. It was
like being with a teacher, but it went in one ear and out the
other. All I could think about was how the waves were going
to be.
In Peru, they put us up at different people’s houses. The
surfers there at the time were the really affluent, so we’re
in these beautiful mansions in Lima. Miki had brought along
one of these portable Sony televisions. The first thing he did
was plug it in and blew out all the electricity in the house.
The surf club was the Club Waikiki. All the members drove
Ferraris and Jags. They’d speed through town going 120, and
if they ran someone over they’d jump out and yell at them
for getting blood on their car. Miki was perfect for the
place. He had the look, he wore the clothes, he tried their
Pisco sours, hustled the girls. He had a girlfriend at the time,
Peaches. He’d sneak downstairs to use the phone, and talk
to her for hours. The guy he stayed with told me later about
the bills.
The first weekend of the contest was the big elimination,
and the finals would be the following weekend. On Sunday
night of the first weekend, I got sick. I had been surfing with
some guys on one of the local beaches where the water wasn’
t clean, and I got incredible dysentery. I threw up until they
found me on the floor of the bathroom passed out, and they
took me to the hospital. They fed me intravenously.
I was there all week, and then it was Friday. The finals were
Saturday. Miki had visited me every day. He may not have
the finest reputation but Miki was a good guy. Not if you
owned the house he stayed, but otherwise! So I said, “Miki, I’
ve got to get out of here, finals are tomorrow!”
Miki came up with a scheme. He said, “I’ll get the doctor,
take him around the corner, talk to him about your
condition, and you jump in the elevator and go down. The
car is parked right in front of the hospital.”
I had on a hospital gown that went only to my waist, and Miki
wouldn’t take out my intravenous needle, so I had to jerk it
out myself. I’m dizzy, but I wandered out the door and
stepped into the elevator. The wrong elevator. This was the
service elevator, and when the doors opened I was in the
kitchen of this huge downtown Lima hospital. Suddenly
everyone was looking at me, which was understandable since
I was exposed from the waist down. Totally exposed. There’s
screaming and yelling. But I saw this open window, and
through it I could see the street. So I just dove through. How
I didn’t hit an elbow or a knee, I have no idea. I made a
perfect dive into some grass, did a perfect roll up to the
sidewalk and found myself three feet from where the car is.
But I’m also in downtown Lima, half naked. Then I saw Miki
coming out of the hospital and I dove in the backseat as the
car is peeled out.
The next day at the finals the police came to arrest me for
escaping from the hospital. I was out in the water, the police
were on the beach, waiting. But the Peruvian club members
took care of it and it was all settled before I even got in.
Oh – I won the contest. Probably the only reason was
because I was so sick. At the time they judged based on who
caught the biggest wave and went the greatest distance. The
surf was real big. It was your best five waves. I had just
paddled way outside of everybody else, because I was really
weak. So when a big set came along, I’d catch it. Then I
stayed on a long as I could because I was too weak to risk
falling off. In two hours I caught the five biggest waves that
went the longest distance.
Miki didn’t make the finals. He was probably on the beach
drinking Pisco sours.
ADDED 3/20/08
Miki’s friend, Allan Carter, said, “I once took Miki to Lyford
Cay, in the Bahamas, to a private club belonging to a
Canadian tycoon, E.P. “Eddie” Taylor. Next door to us was
Stavros Nicharos, a Greek shipping owner; on the other side,
down the road, was Bill Paley, from CBS. Bill had the junkiest
shack down there. The house where I used to stay was called
Villa Capricorn. It had a half-mile of private beach. When the
Queen and Prince Philip came, that’s where they stayed.
“Miki, David Frost, Lord Henry Montgomery – who was my
best friend in England – and I were playing Monopoly and I
got a phone call from Los Angeles. I was winning and Miki was
losing; Henry and David watched, bemused. Miki didn’t like
to lose. When I came back after my phone call, half my
deeds were missing and all my money under the side of the
board. If Miki had to cut the corners to win, he’d do it.
“Lord Henry Montgomery had brought David Frost over
because David was doing his show in London and New York at
the time, and British Airways was on strike. We had dinner
and a couple really good bottles of Pouilly fuisse. Then David
Frost and Miki and I sat around until about 2:30 in the
morning, talking about jets.”
“Later,” said Marcia McMartin, “Allan told me later that Miki
had brought out his bag of jewels and showed them to David
Frost. Afterward, when Miki was out of earshot, Frost said to
Allan, ‘Is your friend a jewel thief?’”
~~~
LEROY GRANNIS: In the late ‘90s I wrote Miki in France and
asked him if he’d be interested in picking out ten of my best
pictures of him, putting them in an album and selling them
through Longboard Magazine. I got a letter back, “Sounds
like a good idea.” I sent him twenty-five Xeroxed copies – I
didn’t know what he’d do with them if I sent him the real
prints – and he picked out ten. Steve Pezman had told me,
“Be careful!” and so had Greg Noll, who told me he’d left
the negotiations for the new Da Cat boards to his wife Laura
because he couldn’t take it anymore.
I made twenty-five sets of the ten Miki chose, and I sent
them to him Fedex, with a $100 cashier’s check to pay for
sending them back after he signed them. I told him about a
big contest at Malibu coming in the first week in August. “If
you can get the repints back before then I can probably sell a
few there. Please be careful of fingerprints on the photos.”
A couple of months went by and no word.
JEFF HAKMAN: LeRoy called me about two months later and
said, “Hey, Jeff, you see Miki ever? Could you help me out?
Could you push Miki along to send me these things back? I’ve
sent him all these prize photos and I haven’t heard anything.”
I went to Miki and said, “Listen, I don’t know really want to
get involved here, but my friend Leroy has just asked me if I
could stick my nose in. What’s the deal?” Miki just went,
“Never got ‘em.” I said, “Miki, he said he sent them FedEx.”
Miki said, “Never got ‘em.
LEROY GRANNIS: I offered him $4000 if he’d just send the
pictures back to me, because I said I could sell them without
his signature and I’d still split the money with him. Pezman
said he’d mention the sale in The Surfers Journal, I could
take ads in Longboard magazine, and we could sell them on
the internet. Nothing. Finally Pezman told me, “I talked to
Miki and he said he sent them so they must have been lost in
the mail.”
Miki sent me a letter: “I am very concerned! with
apprehension. I’m now checking with the postal authorities
on this end. May I suggest you do the same. Photos were sent
on 08/08/99. By air mail. Perhaps it was sent by surface mail
-- by mistake....” He even included a postage receipt for 155
Francs.
After he died, they found all the pictures in his apartment.
~~~
GREG NOLL: A couple years after we started selling the new
Da Cat boards we discovered some guy doing knockoffs. I
walked into Sam Ryan’s shop in Encinitas, and saw a couple
Black Cats, but the goddamn boards just didn’t look right. I
got a tape measure and discovered the boards were twenty-
three inches wide. Mine were never more than twenty-two
and a half. But the boards were damn close. The guy did a
pretty good job.
Four or five guys with these boards got wind of it and asked
if their boards were knockoffs. One guy was a cop [laughs]
and, man, he didn’t like it. He called his buddies on the
LAPD fraud squad; his buddies were surfers, too.
They located the counterfitter and planned to set him up.
He worked out of a garage on an alley, so they put cars at
either end, to block the escape routes. They wired one cop
who went in for the kill. He said, “You know, my Dad wants a
Cat board and I’ve been looking high and low to get him
one.” The counterfitter said, “Oh no. I had a couple but I
just can’t get them any more.” The cop said, “Jesus, I really
want to get this present.” The guy says, “I got a really close
friend who’s got one. I might be able to talk him out of it.
Give me a deposit and I’ll get you the board.”
At that point an unmarked car pulled up. The guy said, “I’m
sorry sir, but you can’t park there and block the road.” The
cop said, “Man, you don’t understand. You’re going to jail
for fraud.” They hauled him in, the boards were confiscated.
But I never went to trial. The cops said, “The guy has paid
restitution. Do you want to press charges?” I said, “Look, I
don’t blame the guy. If it was me, I probably would have
done the same goddamn thing when I was young.” As far as I’
m concerned I let the guy off the hook, and that was the end
of it. The boards went to the big holding deal in Los Angeles.
I saw them in a big room stacked on a pallet. They gave them
to me. And that was that until the Los Angeles Times got
ahold of the story. The headline was COPY CATS.
I’ve still got one or two knockoffs left. I bought a bunch of
the newspapers and framed the goddamn article, stuck it
with the board and sold one board for a couple grand.
Collectors are attracted to some strange things. But think
about it: Twenty years from now it’ll probably be worth
something.
~~~
MICKEY MUNOZ: Dora was often more puff and bluff than
conviction. My wife and I were in France, hanging with a
photographer friend, Bill Parr, and his girlfriend. Dora’s
there. We’re in a restaurant. Other surfers are there, as well
as people who have nothing to do with surfing. One of the
Hawaiian guys, a really tough guy, sitting at another table,
comes over and says, “Hey, I’d like a picture with Dora. You,
me, Dora.” I said, “Well, I’m not going to ask him, but I bet if
you ask him, he’s not going to turn you down.” So he goes
over and says, “I want a picture of you, Miki.” Dora goes
[barely speaking], “What do you mean?” The guy says, “I
want a picture of the three of us.”
Now the negotiations begin. Dora is with a French
photographer, and his lawyer,Robert Simpson. Dora’s getting
all these people involved in the negotiations. We’ve got a
couple point-and-shoot cameras, not for publication quality,
but Dora gets them all involved. I go over there and talk with
them. I say, “It doesn’t have to be complicated. Let’s just
shoot a picture.” Of course, all the wives of the different
surfers are going, “I’d like to take a picture, too.” Now there
are probably 10 or 12 cameras. I’m going, “Peggy, I want you
to take a picture with our camera.”
The three of us get over by the fireplace. Who’s going to be
in the middle? Here’s this crowd of people with their
cameras, getting ready to shoot a picture. Bill Parr’s got the
only professional camera and is kind of in the middle of the
crowd. We’re posing for the picture and Bill’s pre-flash goes
off. Dora comes out of the pose, goes rushing into the
crowd, grabs Bill by the neck, runs him across the room and
pins him on the wall: “You fucker! Don’t you EVER take a
picture of me!” Just screaming at him. Women are crying.
Children are screaming. Bill’s going, “What’s going on?” The
Hawaiian goes over to Dora, grabs him and pulls him off.
I talked to Bill later on. Bill said Dora never squeezed. He
said, “He never really pinned me. It shocked me, but it was
all showbiz.”
I never saw a photograph out of that.
~~~
PHIL GRACE: I’d like to get him going to tell me stories. One
day we did a trip in my old Oak Cadet panel van, which was
quite slow, a diesel. It was Trudy and myself, and Miki in the
back, in the fold out back-seat. We were plying him with a
few beers. It was a two and a half hour drive on a slow road.
One of the stories was fantastic. Half of it’s probably made
up. It was concerning Charles Manson. He said that in Malibu,
the Manson gang was hanging around and they were quite
threatening. He wanted to get on the good side of the gang.
He said, “I told them about this party that was happening
next week in Beverly Hills. I got this guy and said, tell your
leader, there’s a really big party, a lot of pickings for you:
drugs, cash, women. Get your boys up there.” They went up
there, stole cars, money, and drugs. Turns out it was one of
the Beach Boys’ houses. Miki said he wanted to get back at
the Beach Boys for, well ... being the Beach Boys, and he
also wanted to get in on the good side of the gang. The guy
said to him, “Thanks for the tip, we’ll remember this.” And
Miki said, “It’s just between us.” Wink wink, nudge nudge.
PETER DAY: When Ovidio and I were doing our documentary,
In Search of da Cat,” we were watching Dale Davies' films as
research and there’s a very strange outtake of Miki standing
at the beach at Topanga Canyon with some Family- looking
types. It looks a bit like Charlie Manson; a very odd-looking
geezer. I used to kid Ovidio and say Miki knew Charlie.
Ovidio was, “No way, man; there’s just no way he knew
anyone in the family. They’re fucking miles apart.” I said,
“No, stands to reason. Topanga Beach, Topanga Canyon. Up
and down the road.”
Eventually we were driving around with Miki in South Africa,
and I said, “Did you know Charlie Manson?” I was trying to
wind Ovidio up, who was in the back seat. Miki said, “Yeah,
yeah. I knew Charlie.”
It sounds improbable, but that’s the story he told us.
Whether Miki was lying or not, winding up some
impressionable filmmakers, I believe he did meet Charlie
Manson. I believe all those people in that community knew
each other.
Denny Aaberg, brother of Kemp Aaberg, co-wrote the John
Milius movie "Big Wednesday."
Joey Cabell is the iron-man of surfers and lives in Hawaii.
DENNY AABERG: In the summer of 1973, Joey Cabell invited
me to visit him in Kauai. Joey is a world-renowned surfer, co-
founder of the Chart House restaurants; he now owns the
one in Honolulu. Joey also won a bunch of surfing contests in
the ‘60s: Duke’s, Makaha, Malibu, and more. He’s also a
skier, and an adventurer. He’s a health-conscious guy and
always exercising.
At the time I’d been hanging out a bit with Miki. He took me
surfing at the old Pacific Ocean Pier. POP Pier. The place
was in shambles and kind of spooky. Miki showed me how to
walk along the edge of the pier, to the Mystic Isle ride,
throw your board in the ocean, and jump down into the dirty
water. You didn’t know if pilings were just below the
surface, so it was scary.
When I got to Hawaii that Fall, I asked if Miki could join us.
Joey and Miki met in the ‘50's and had been friends on and
off for years. Joey didn’t mind. Miki came over with Linda
Cuy. Joey had a fantastic house, not far from Cannon’s, up
this little canyon road, maybe a mile from the hillside. He’d
built it.
JOEY CABELL: Miki slept in the garage with his girlfriend
Linda. The house was the edge of a forest, and the garage
dug out of the hillside. I used stream bed rocks for the
foundation, and eucalyptus logs and corrugated iron ropes to
hold it up. In one corner I framed out a bedroom. That night
a centipede that crawled onto the eucalyptus logs, crawled
under the corrugated iron, walked along the log, and fell on
Miki Dora’s chest. The lights went on and I heard complete
turmoil: Screaming, yelling. Linda screamed. Some night.
The next day, I planned to go with my wife Gail into Koloa. I
put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and moccasins. I had a
little waist-pack and a space blanket, some food – a couple
bags of poi, some avocados, cans of tuna fish. The trail was
eleven miles. Most people went in with climbing boots and
heavy backpacks. I went in light and easy. Miki, Linda, and
Denny wanted to go, too.
DENNY AABERG: The mountains are high and serrated, just
beautiful, with huge drops to the ocean, like Big Sur.
Narrow, windy up-and-down trails. For a normal person, it’s
a pretty tough hike. I was in OK shape, Miki, too. The night
before we packed light, took boiled eggs, bananas. The idea
was to spend the night along the way.
JOEY CABELL: Linda had tennis shoes, a bad thing to wear on
that sort of trip. Everyone gets blisters – but they don’t
know until it’s too late. Miki was totally unprepared. His
boots were like elf shoes with turned up toes, no traction,
no nothing. Some kind of leather pants. I said, “I don’t
recommend dressing like that.”
We got two and a half miles in, across the stream, to the first
good ridge climb. Gail and I were ahead, the other three
falling way back. At the ridge top, I could see the ocean. I
went back to check on the stragglers. Linda was ready to
turn back. She had heavy blisters. Denny and Miki decided to
continue. I said, “You have to pick the pace up a little bit or
we won’t get there before dark.”
DENNY AABERG: Soon, Miki complained his feet hurt. We saw
star fruit in the trees, and I tried to eat some. I don’t know if
it was that or the water I drank from waterfalls, but I started
to feel sick and weak. I fell over at one point with the pack,
and Miki went, “Oh my God! You’ve squished the deviled
eggs!”
The day wore on. We’d climb a big hill, go down a big drop.
Then it started to get dark. Miki said, “Look at us, we’re like
a couple of stumble bums, out here.” We had no flashlight;
the drop to the ocean was a hundred feet, there was no
moon. “This is the end,” Miki said, kind of making fun, but
kind of serious. We felt our way through the brush. I fell a
couple of times, missed the trail, got scraped up.
JOEY CABELL: Gail and I found a place to sleep just as it got
dark, and settled down for the night. Dora and Denny were
still on the trail. About two in the morning I heard voices and
rummaging.” Joey, Joey, is that you?” I let them sleep on a
canvas. It must have been pretty miserable.
DENNY AABERG: I felt like I had the flu. We slept in a little
cave. Miki said a drop of water kept hitting his head like the
“Chinese water torture.” In the morning Miki said, “Jesus
Christ, there’s poop stains in your pants.” Apparently, I had
some dysentery, and I guess I shit my pants a little bit. I was
sick. His feet really hurt. He didn’t want to keep hiking. He’s
said, “Jesus Christ, Tarzan is out there with Jane. We need
to be rescued!”
JOEY CABELL: I was ready to leave but Miki wouldn’t go.
DENNY AABERG: Miki lived by his wits and he wanted a way
out. I watched the wheels turning in his head. I felt
miserable. He fed me some poi. Then in the early afternoon
he disappeared for a while. When he came back he told me
that a helicopter had landed about one hundred yards down
the beach. He said he’d constructed an SOS on the beach
with rocks, or written HELP in the sand. “I told them my
friend was dying on the beach,” he said. Dying? “The pilot
said he’d be back for us.” We waited. Meanwhile Cabell,
who’d made a little fire couldn’t believe it. But he knew
Miki.
At dusk, a beautiful red sunset at twilight, this little black
speck appeared on the horizon. The helicopter. We did the
100-yard dash to the landing site across soft sand. Twenty
yards out Miki said, “Hey, you’ve got to act a little sicker.”
He put a towel around me. The pilot gave me the once over,
like he expected a dead guy. I didn’t know what Miki had
said, but I saw the pilot thinking, Ummmm, OK. He let me
into the helicopter, but when Miki tried to climb in he said,
“Oh no, this is for emergencies only.”
Miki was quick on the draw. He pulled out this asthma inhaler
and said, “Oh no, I ran out of asthma medicine. My feet are
bleeding. I can’t walk. I. Can’t. Breathe.” The pilot went,
“Oh man, OK.” Miki got in, holding back his laughter. We
lifted off. We saw Joey and Gail at their campfire, green
mountains, red sunset, and paradise all around. Miki took it
all in and said, “Magic carpet ride.”
We landed in Lihu’e, about fifty miles away, surrounded by
emergency vehicles with lights flashing. These guys expected
a big story. But I was just a stooge determined to act as sick
as I could. When the door opened people converged,
“Where’s the sick guy?” I didn’t pay attention to Miki, and
neither did they. Suddenly, I hear, “Where’s the guy you
were with?” But Miki had disappeared.
At the hospital they found dysentery and a little bit of blood
in my urine. Meanwhile, the cops put out a bulletin for Miki.
Eventually they let me go. I sat in the waiting room, trying to
figure out my next move, and a big guy came in leading Miki.
He’d been busted trying to rent a car at the airport. The guy
wasn’t real bright, and Miki kept double- talking him. I tried
my best not to blow it by laughing.
He looked at Miki’s IDs, going, “Are you Chapin? Or Dora?”
Miki said, “I’m Chapin Dora. But I don’t want to be a bother
on you people.” Finally, the guy just gave up, gave him his ID
back. Some kid gave us a ride back to Cabell’s house, and
Cabell showed up a day later. He was pissed because we’d
taken advantage of the public trust.
MORE THAN ONE WAY TO GET A PINK SLIP
John Reilly now lives in the UK
JOHN REILLY: In 1967 I met Miki through my friend Diane,
who had lived with Miki a few years earlier. Diane said, “I
love this guy, he’s so cool. He’s one of the wackiest people I
know, but also one of the most brilliant.” She introduced us
at a place in the Valley that we used to refer to as “The
Peace Farm.” It wasn’t a commune, it was just these two
hippy guys that lived in North Hollywood that would have
these weekends when people would just come over. She
brought Miki to one of these “love-in” type weekends,
people walking around tripping. But Miki and I weren’t. He
came over and said, “Well, you are the only one I can talk
to, because everyone else here is out of their tree.” That
was our first connection. We just talked, and you decide
immediately whether you like someone or you don’t.
We clicked. Then Miki found out I had an English car called
an Alvis. Classic, similar to a Bentley, but not so expensive.
It was a convertible that could be open in the front and
closed the back at the same time. Miki told me he wanted it.
Miki treated Diane and me to several dinners. One night he
took us to Chasen’s, at that time a very smart restaurant in
Beverly Hills. We were duly impressed and had a great meal
and a lot of laughs. When the bill came he smiled and said,
“Guess what? I don’t have any money.” I said, “Neither do I.”
Diane said, “Oh shit.” And with that, Miki asked us if we had
our tennis shoes on because he was going to the toilet and
while he was there, carrying the bill, he said we should head
for the front door and run, which we did. We got away and
looked back to see Miki leaping over the back fence, and
screaming to us “Keep running, keep running.”
We ended up in Malibu the next morning, on the beach,
getting stoned and laughing, and he asked me if I had ever
surfed. I told him I had tried without much success, and he
told me to get on the back of the board with him while he
paddled out. We waited for the waves for a few minutes and
then they came big time. As the board started to move he
leapt up, grabbed me, and said, “Get on my fucking
shoulders now.” Soon I was in the same position as Sandra
Dee in Gidget riding the wave on Miki’s shoulders. And let
me tell you this was no easy feat! I was 6ft tall, weighed 170
pounds and was a gymnast at that time in my life; so in other
words, not a little guy!
To my amazement, we glided in without a problem and when
we stood on the beach I started jabbering about how
sensational it was. He just laughed and said, “Any time you
want to again just let me know.”
Shortly thereafter, Diane and I decided to leave manic Los
Angeles and emigrate to Europe. But we had to say farewell
to her family and mine all over the U.S.A.
Miki came up with the solution, one of his many scams. He
knew we wanted to do several flights before leaving and
said, “I know how you can fly free.” I said, “Ok, what’s the
deal?” Miki smiled and it covered his entire body. He said,”
You fly free and you give me your car because you can’t
afford to take it to Europe.” I said “Deal. But how we do it?”
He had somehow learned that if you booked your ticket
through the new computerized facility, if you then re-
routed it, the system lost the billing and you flew free. It
was that simple, and it worked. We flew everywhere saying
goodbye to friends and family before we sailed from New
York to the United Kingdom.
When we’d met to say goodbye, Diane kissed and embraced
him. He shook my hand and then said, “Oh shit, give me a
hug. I’m going to really miss you guys.” We hugged, and he
said, said, “Never hugged a guy before – but you gave me MY
car!”
OH, AND NO STARCH ON THE SHIRTS
MIKE MCNEILL is an expat American living in France for the
last twenty-five years. Surfboard maker then, now working
for Quiksilver Europe. Had "the pleasure to share voyages
with Miki and to be his friend."
MIKE MCNEILL: In the late 90's, when Miki had moved back to
Guethary, he and I decided to take a private trip to the Ivory
Coast area, to a surf camp. We’d seen neat pictures of
African kids, empty waves, a beautiful coastline.
I got my vaccinations, but Miki didn’t want to get a shot; he
said in Africa he’d gotten a yellow fever vaccination but he’
d lost his card. So we made photocopies of my vaccination
card and forged his yellow fever card. He said, “Don’t go
with me through Control because they’ll see your card and
notice that mine’s a little off-color.”
While going through customs Miki disappeared. I got our
baggage, and still couldn’t find him. Suddenly, uniformed
officials grabbed all our stuff, took it to a separate area and
started opening the bags. Miki had brought three huge bags
and a huge board bag with two surfboards inside, but when
opened Miki’s stuff they were full of Miki’s dirty laundry. Not
just from the week before; I mean months of dirty laundry.
Even the Customs guy couldn’t take the smell. They kept
pulling it out, and piles grew everywhere. And I don’t know
where Miki is.
I repacked Miki’s laundry. The officials wanted money. I said,
“I’ll give you the clothes.” When I found Miki, he shrugged
and told me everything was fine.
At the surf came he left all his laundry with the lady who ran
the place. She washed and pressed evrything. We were gone
for two weeks and by the time he came back he had three
bags full of clean clothes. It was like going to your mother’s
house to get your laundry done. Worse.
We stayed in a hotel for one night. Mike didn’t want to share
a room. The clerk said, “You should share it. It’s like two
rooms.”
Miki said, “No. I want my own bathroom.”
The guy said, “Okay, but you’re not going to like it.”
In his room, Miki saw an airconditioner. “Perfect,” he said.
They guy tried to say something but Miki didn’t want to know
about it. Turned out the air conditioner didn’t work, the fan
didn’t work, and the windows had no screens. There he was,
boiling hot, no air, and no mosquite netting. I think he spent
all night in the shower.
When it came time to leave, all of our stuff was on the
plane, the propellors were spinning, we were the last people
who had to board. Suddenly, Miki said, “I want my bags off. I
want to stay.” I said “Whatever. I’m going.”
Of course, he couldn’t stay because all his bags were on the
plane.
MEXICAN MYSTERY TOUR
GARDNER CHAPIN, JR is the son Gard Chapin and Ramona
Stancliff. He is Miki's half-brother. Born in
Los Angeles, California, on August 4, 1946; passed away
August 4, 2006.
GARDNER CHAPIN, JR.: One day Miki said, “Have you ever
dropped acid?” and I said no. He said, “I’m going to get some
acid from Switzerland. This will be pure pharmaceutical.” He
called me about three weeks later. “I’ve got it.”
We drove to Mexico, to Salsipuedas, about five miles north
of Ensenda. There was only a ranch and a little dirt road. We
each dropped half a cap as we crossed the border. Then we
went to a fresh fruit market, went to the beach and surfed.
Afterwards, we went to a restaurant and had a late lunch. I
was pretty high on LSD and all of a sudden Miki started
choking on a fish bone. I thought he was gonna die, but it
was all enhanced because of the LSD.
Back at the beach we started coming down. Miki said, “I’ve
got one more capsule. Let’s drop that too.” Afterward we
walked on the beach and he said, “Look at the rocks – they’
re all alive. Everything on this beach has life in it.”
We came to a spot where a car had gone off the cliff behind
the beach years before. Only the engine remained, laying in
the rocks. Miki said, “Look at that engine, which is dead. It’s
man-made. Compare it to the rocks.” Well, I looked and at
the time it seemed like Miki did have an awfully good point.
Miki carried the conversation. He talked about nature, said
everything was made by God, and that everything not
manmade was alive, from the water to everything else. We
looked at the stars coming out. He went on and on.
Eventually we got into our sleeping bags. We lay on the
beach, looking at the stars, and suddenly we heard a car
coming. The car, a real old Chevy sedan full of Mexicans
screeched around the corner. We could wear their music.
They were flying. But when it hit next corner, they didn’t
make it. It sailed off the road. Oh, man! All we could hear
was the sound of music. Then, BOOM! boom! boom- boom-
boom!
I said, “Sheeesh!” Miki said, “Sheeesh!” I said, “Let’s get
outta here!” Miki said, “Yeah, let’s get outta here!” We
were both wiped out and didn’t want to be around when the
cops got there. We threw our stuff into the car went a
couple miles down the road, and camped there.
WAITER, I’LL JUST HAVE ANOTHER PISCO SOUR
Everyone knows championship surfer Corky Carroll
CORKY CARROLL: Miki and I went to Peru together in
February 1967 for the International Big Wave Championship. I
was 19. We sat next to each other on the plane—Saturn
Airlines, a big green jet. It was a long flight, plus we got
stuck in Panama for five hours because a bird flew in the
plane’s engine. We sat in the airport in the middle of the
night. It was like 120 degrees.
I was a full-blown surf punk. I lived, ate, breathed, and
drank surfing. Miki was older and into different stuff. The
whole way down there he was talking to me about politics,
communism, the president, world issues. He talked about
Gard Chapin a little bit. I knew nothing about all that. It was
like being with a teacher, but it went in one ear and out the
other. All I could think about was how the waves were going
to be.
In Peru, they put us up at different people’s houses. The
surfers there at the time were the really affluent, so we’re
in these beautiful mansions in Lima. Miki had brought along
one of these portable Sony televisions. The first thing he did
was plug it in and blew out all the electricity in the house.
The surf club was the Club Waikiki. All the members drove
Ferraris and Jags. They’d speed through town going 120, and
if they ran someone over they’d jump out and yell at them
for getting blood on their car. Miki was perfect for the
place. He had the look, he wore the clothes, he tried their
Pisco sours, hustled the girls. He had a girlfriend at the time,
Peaches. He’d sneak downstairs to use the phone, and talk
to her for hours. The guy he stayed with told me later about
the bills.
The first weekend of the contest was the big elimination,
and the finals would be the following weekend. On Sunday
night of the first weekend, I got sick. I had been surfing with
some guys on one of the local beaches where the water wasn’
t clean, and I got incredible dysentery. I threw up until they
found me on the floor of the bathroom passed out, and they
took me to the hospital. They fed me intravenously.
I was there all week, and then it was Friday. The finals were
Saturday. Miki had visited me every day. He may not have
the finest reputation but Miki was a good guy. Not if you
owned the house he stayed, but otherwise! So I said, “Miki, I’
ve got to get out of here, finals are tomorrow!”
Miki came up with a scheme. He said, “I’ll get the doctor,
take him around the corner, talk to him about your
condition, and you jump in the elevator and go down. The
car is parked right in front of the hospital.”
I had on a hospital gown that went only to my waist, and Miki
wouldn’t take out my intravenous needle, so I had to jerk it
out myself. I’m dizzy, but I wandered out the door and
stepped into the elevator. The wrong elevator. This was the
service elevator, and when the doors opened I was in the
kitchen of this huge downtown Lima hospital. Suddenly
everyone was looking at me, which was understandable since
I was exposed from the waist down. Totally exposed. There’s
screaming and yelling. But I saw this open window, and
through it I could see the street. So I just dove through. How
I didn’t hit an elbow or a knee, I have no idea. I made a
perfect dive into some grass, did a perfect roll up to the
sidewalk and found myself three feet from where the car is.
But I’m also in downtown Lima, half naked. Then I saw Miki
coming out of the hospital and I dove in the backseat as the
car is peeled out.
The next day at the finals the police came to arrest me for
escaping from the hospital. I was out in the water, the police
were on the beach, waiting. But the Peruvian club members
took care of it and it was all settled before I even got in.
Oh – I won the contest. Probably the only reason was
because I was so sick. At the time they judged based on who
caught the biggest wave and went the greatest distance. The
surf was real big. It was your best five waves. I had just
paddled way outside of everybody else, because I was really
weak. So when a big set came along, I’d catch it. Then I
stayed on a long as I could because I was too weak to risk
falling off. In two hours I caught the five biggest waves that
went the longest distance.
Miki didn’t make the finals. He was probably on the beach
drinking Pisco sours.
ADDED 3/20/08
Miki’s friend, Allan Carter, said, “I once took Miki to Lyford
Cay, in the Bahamas, to a private club belonging to a
Canadian tycoon, E.P. “Eddie” Taylor. Next door to us was
Stavros Nicharos, a Greek shipping owner; on the other side,
down the road, was Bill Paley, from CBS. Bill had the junkiest
shack down there. The house where I used to stay was called
Villa Capricorn. It had a half-mile of private beach. When the
Queen and Prince Philip came, that’s where they stayed.
“Miki, David Frost, Lord Henry Montgomery – who was my
best friend in England – and I were playing Monopoly and I
got a phone call from Los Angeles. I was winning and Miki was
losing; Henry and David watched, bemused. Miki didn’t like
to lose. When I came back after my phone call, half my
deeds were missing and all my money under the side of the
board. If Miki had to cut the corners to win, he’d do it.
“Lord Henry Montgomery had brought David Frost over
because David was doing his show in London and New York at
the time, and British Airways was on strike. We had dinner
and a couple really good bottles of Pouilly fuisse. Then David
Frost and Miki and I sat around until about 2:30 in the
morning, talking about jets.”
“Later,” said Marcia McMartin, “Allan told me later that Miki
had brought out his bag of jewels and showed them to David
Frost. Afterward, when Miki was out of earshot, Frost said to
Allan, ‘Is your friend a jewel thief?’”
~~~
LEROY GRANNIS: In the late ‘90s I wrote Miki in France and
asked him if he’d be interested in picking out ten of my best
pictures of him, putting them in an album and selling them
through Longboard Magazine. I got a letter back, “Sounds
like a good idea.” I sent him twenty-five Xeroxed copies – I
didn’t know what he’d do with them if I sent him the real
prints – and he picked out ten. Steve Pezman had told me,
“Be careful!” and so had Greg Noll, who told me he’d left
the negotiations for the new Da Cat boards to his wife Laura
because he couldn’t take it anymore.
I made twenty-five sets of the ten Miki chose, and I sent
them to him Fedex, with a $100 cashier’s check to pay for
sending them back after he signed them. I told him about a
big contest at Malibu coming in the first week in August. “If
you can get the repints back before then I can probably sell a
few there. Please be careful of fingerprints on the photos.”
A couple of months went by and no word.
JEFF HAKMAN: LeRoy called me about two months later and
said, “Hey, Jeff, you see Miki ever? Could you help me out?
Could you push Miki along to send me these things back? I’ve
sent him all these prize photos and I haven’t heard anything.”
I went to Miki and said, “Listen, I don’t know really want to
get involved here, but my friend Leroy has just asked me if I
could stick my nose in. What’s the deal?” Miki just went,
“Never got ‘em.” I said, “Miki, he said he sent them FedEx.”
Miki said, “Never got ‘em.
LEROY GRANNIS: I offered him $4000 if he’d just send the
pictures back to me, because I said I could sell them without
his signature and I’d still split the money with him. Pezman
said he’d mention the sale in The Surfers Journal, I could
take ads in Longboard magazine, and we could sell them on
the internet. Nothing. Finally Pezman told me, “I talked to
Miki and he said he sent them so they must have been lost in
the mail.”
Miki sent me a letter: “I am very concerned! with
apprehension. I’m now checking with the postal authorities
on this end. May I suggest you do the same. Photos were sent
on 08/08/99. By air mail. Perhaps it was sent by surface mail
-- by mistake....” He even included a postage receipt for 155
Francs.
After he died, they found all the pictures in his apartment.
~~~
GREG NOLL: A couple years after we started selling the new
Da Cat boards we discovered some guy doing knockoffs. I
walked into Sam Ryan’s shop in Encinitas, and saw a couple
Black Cats, but the goddamn boards just didn’t look right. I
got a tape measure and discovered the boards were twenty-
three inches wide. Mine were never more than twenty-two
and a half. But the boards were damn close. The guy did a
pretty good job.
Four or five guys with these boards got wind of it and asked
if their boards were knockoffs. One guy was a cop [laughs]
and, man, he didn’t like it. He called his buddies on the
LAPD fraud squad; his buddies were surfers, too.
They located the counterfitter and planned to set him up.
He worked out of a garage on an alley, so they put cars at
either end, to block the escape routes. They wired one cop
who went in for the kill. He said, “You know, my Dad wants a
Cat board and I’ve been looking high and low to get him
one.” The counterfitter said, “Oh no. I had a couple but I
just can’t get them any more.” The cop said, “Jesus, I really
want to get this present.” The guy says, “I got a really close
friend who’s got one. I might be able to talk him out of it.
Give me a deposit and I’ll get you the board.”
At that point an unmarked car pulled up. The guy said, “I’m
sorry sir, but you can’t park there and block the road.” The
cop said, “Man, you don’t understand. You’re going to jail
for fraud.” They hauled him in, the boards were confiscated.
But I never went to trial. The cops said, “The guy has paid
restitution. Do you want to press charges?” I said, “Look, I
don’t blame the guy. If it was me, I probably would have
done the same goddamn thing when I was young.” As far as I’
m concerned I let the guy off the hook, and that was the end
of it. The boards went to the big holding deal in Los Angeles.
I saw them in a big room stacked on a pallet. They gave them
to me. And that was that until the Los Angeles Times got
ahold of the story. The headline was COPY CATS.
I’ve still got one or two knockoffs left. I bought a bunch of
the newspapers and framed the goddamn article, stuck it
with the board and sold one board for a couple grand.
Collectors are attracted to some strange things. But think
about it: Twenty years from now it’ll probably be worth
something.
~~~
MICKEY MUNOZ: Dora was often more puff and bluff than
conviction. My wife and I were in France, hanging with a
photographer friend, Bill Parr, and his girlfriend. Dora’s
there. We’re in a restaurant. Other surfers are there, as well
as people who have nothing to do with surfing. One of the
Hawaiian guys, a really tough guy, sitting at another table,
comes over and says, “Hey, I’d like a picture with Dora. You,
me, Dora.” I said, “Well, I’m not going to ask him, but I bet if
you ask him, he’s not going to turn you down.” So he goes
over and says, “I want a picture of you, Miki.” Dora goes
[barely speaking], “What do you mean?” The guy says, “I
want a picture of the three of us.”
Now the negotiations begin. Dora is with a French
photographer, and his lawyer,Robert Simpson. Dora’s getting
all these people involved in the negotiations. We’ve got a
couple point-and-shoot cameras, not for publication quality,
but Dora gets them all involved. I go over there and talk with
them. I say, “It doesn’t have to be complicated. Let’s just
shoot a picture.” Of course, all the wives of the different
surfers are going, “I’d like to take a picture, too.” Now there
are probably 10 or 12 cameras. I’m going, “Peggy, I want you
to take a picture with our camera.”
The three of us get over by the fireplace. Who’s going to be
in the middle? Here’s this crowd of people with their
cameras, getting ready to shoot a picture. Bill Parr’s got the
only professional camera and is kind of in the middle of the
crowd. We’re posing for the picture and Bill’s pre-flash goes
off. Dora comes out of the pose, goes rushing into the
crowd, grabs Bill by the neck, runs him across the room and
pins him on the wall: “You fucker! Don’t you EVER take a
picture of me!” Just screaming at him. Women are crying.
Children are screaming. Bill’s going, “What’s going on?” The
Hawaiian goes over to Dora, grabs him and pulls him off.
I talked to Bill later on. Bill said Dora never squeezed. He
said, “He never really pinned me. It shocked me, but it was
all showbiz.”
I never saw a photograph out of that.
~~~
PHIL GRACE: I’d like to get him going to tell me stories. One
day we did a trip in my old Oak Cadet panel van, which was
quite slow, a diesel. It was Trudy and myself, and Miki in the
back, in the fold out back-seat. We were plying him with a
few beers. It was a two and a half hour drive on a slow road.
One of the stories was fantastic. Half of it’s probably made
up. It was concerning Charles Manson. He said that in Malibu,
the Manson gang was hanging around and they were quite
threatening. He wanted to get on the good side of the gang.
He said, “I told them about this party that was happening
next week in Beverly Hills. I got this guy and said, tell your
leader, there’s a really big party, a lot of pickings for you:
drugs, cash, women. Get your boys up there.” They went up
there, stole cars, money, and drugs. Turns out it was one of
the Beach Boys’ houses. Miki said he wanted to get back at
the Beach Boys for, well ... being the Beach Boys, and he
also wanted to get in on the good side of the gang. The guy
said to him, “Thanks for the tip, we’ll remember this.” And
Miki said, “It’s just between us.” Wink wink, nudge nudge.
PETER DAY: When Ovidio and I were doing our documentary,
In Search of da Cat,” we were watching Dale Davies' films as
research and there’s a very strange outtake of Miki standing
at the beach at Topanga Canyon with some Family- looking
types. It looks a bit like Charlie Manson; a very odd-looking
geezer. I used to kid Ovidio and say Miki knew Charlie.
Ovidio was, “No way, man; there’s just no way he knew
anyone in the family. They’re fucking miles apart.” I said,
“No, stands to reason. Topanga Beach, Topanga Canyon. Up
and down the road.”
Eventually we were driving around with Miki in South Africa,
and I said, “Did you know Charlie Manson?” I was trying to
wind Ovidio up, who was in the back seat. Miki said, “Yeah,
yeah. I knew Charlie.”
It sounds improbable, but that’s the story he told us.
Whether Miki was lying or not, winding up some
impressionable filmmakers, I believe he did meet Charlie
Manson. I believe all those people in that community knew
each other.
All stories Copyright David Rensin/All For a Few
Perfect Waves. You may link but you may not
reproduce elsewhere without written permission.
Perfect Waves. You may link but you may not
reproduce elsewhere without written permission.
| THE CORRECTIONS As always, a book contains some typographical errors and factual misunderstandings. Here's a list -- with apologies -- that will be corrected in subsequent printings or the paperback... The picture of Miki at Malibu behind the title page, and used repeatedly as a design element in the book behind the section openers was inadvertantly left uncredited. The photo is by PAT DARRIN pg 68, bottom: Haole is the correct spelling (not Howlie) pgs: 226, 249, 462:In Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, spaniel is capitalized. pg 303 bottom: Cavalier KC is worded backwards ... pg 328 in BILL DELANEY: Michael Tomson is Shaun Tomson's COUSIN, not his brother. From LAURA NOLL: "There is a clarification on the board royalty Greg would like changed if possible. We agreed to make 300 boards, royalty $100 per board, total received $30,000.00." From PHILIPPE LAUGA pg.375: "You can add to residual checks the monthly check he received from the US Social Security. I can't remember how much it was, maybe usd 1000. can check if necessary. He left the balance of his French Francs account in the BNP PARBIS BIDART to the Guethary city hall in order they invest it into environment friendly projects. pg. 438: "The memorial plaque in Guethary was replaced but not identically.It was all screws and metal bars. Finally the municipality has reshaped the little plaza where the bench was set, to the extent that everything now is gone: the bench, the plaque, the screws and the memory as well. I'll try to find out its fate. It looks like nobody cares now, like an unconquerable disregard for what it stood for." Ben Marcus is missing from the acknowledgments list. Sorry. FROM PHIL GRACE: pg 432: photo of Miklos Sr and Miki at the Chateau, by Phil Grace pg 413: when Phil tells Miklos Sr about Miki's cancer: "Miklos Sr had been phoning me constantly for information,as he was obviously concerned, and I did not want to lie to him so naturally my consience told me a father must know. I liked and got on very well with Miklos Sr and really did not have any hesitation about telling him the truth." pg 450: Bob Beadle bio,should read: BOB BEADLE: “We doubled as ‘Frankie’ Dora and ‘Tab’ Beadle riding Waimea in 1962 for Hollywood surfkitsch flick Ride the Wild Surf. That was followed by four decades of scattershot antics in California, Oahu/Kauai, Costa Rica, and in Brazil, where I’ve recently returned. For me, the best part of all? Intricate, revealing conversations with a mercurial, profound comrade in arms. Neurotically, irresistibly exploited by and exploiting the shallow roles our world expects of originals. --- pg 243: The tape Miki got of Johnny Fain talking about him was sent by a girlfriend who specifically went there to tape him. pg 246: Lulu, of Lulu and Zuzu, is a man, baby! Sorry. Road "catch" stew should be road "cat" stew. Ewww! pg: 469: Barry Haun's name is misspelled. pg 429, top: Ned TANEN is correct spelling pg 405: In HARRY HODGE, first line. Word is "re-sent" not resent |
| MORE MIKI MORE MIKI MORE MIKI |
| WHO IS IN THE BOOK A few of the major voices of the book identify themselves sufficiently in the main text (and are so noted here), but not all. Therefore, what follows is an alphabetic compendium of those whose words are featured here, in their own words, or mine, or as sourced from Matt Warshaw’s Encyclopedia of Surfing. Also included are bios of some other important characters. Even though they don’t speak directly, their voices (but not thoughts) were unfortunately lost due to space considerations. DENNY AABERG: Writer, musician, and younger brother of Kemp Aaberg. Cowrote Big Wednesday with director John Milius. KEMP AABERG: “I am probably best known for being in the early Bruce Brown surf movies, as well as John Severson’s photo image of me doing an arch-back turn that he used as the logo for Surfer magazine for over twenty years. My history with Dora dates back to the Gidget era.” BILLY AL BENGSTON: Los Angeles artist and surfer; knew Miki in the ’50s. Now lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. CYNTHIA APPLEWHITE: Painter, novelist, free spirit. Wife of Louis Zamperini. Cynthia arranged the first meeting between Miki and David Rensin. Rensin later wrote her husband’s book Devil at My Heels (William Morrow, 2003). CLIVE BARBER: Jeffreys Bay surfer and craftsman. “I used to drink with Miki Dora, and we drank the best. He respected me because I had a good reputation as a board shaper and a good surfer in the ’60s.” CAROLINE BARNETT: “I earned a master’s and Ph.D. in clinical psych. I worked on staff in a private psychiatric hospital for almost fifteen years and just retired. Now I live on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.” PETER BARNETT: “I was his go-to guy while he was on the run or in hiding from certain matters. I sent him money when he needed access to his residuals and other incoming assets. I kept his car, which he later sold to me (Lotus X7), his skateboard, surf magazines, passport, driver’s license, bank books, and so on.” BOB BEADLE: “We doubled as ‘Frankie’ Dora and ‘Tab’ Beadle riding Waimea in 1962 for Hollywood surfkitsch flick Ride the Wild Surf. That was followed by four decades of scattershot antics in California, Oahu/Kauai, Costa Rica, and in Brazil, where I’ve recently returned. For me, the best part of all? Intricate, revealing conversations with a mercurial, profound comrade in arms. Neurotically, irresistibly exploited by and exploiting the shallow roles our world expects of originals. ” RICK BECK: “I was surfing Rincon in about 1963, the kook of kooks. Miki pushed me off my board. Years later, I’m driving down to Raglan Point in New Zealand, and Miki comes driving up in a beige VW bus, stops window to window, and says, ‘How’s your memory?’ I had a small surfboard shop there. He would park out front, living there.” YVES BESSAS: “I’m a lifetime surfer and doctor of pharmacy (University of Bordeaux). I specialize in nutrition and antiaging. I’m also a researcher-writer and creator of ‘Sports de Glisse’ concept, a surf and snow films producer.” JIM BEST: “We were teenagers. He was about thirty. I saw him just about every summer weekend from 1962 until 1969.” TAKI BIBELAS: “I’m a photographer, currently filming The Still Point, a documentary on the spirit of surf (due Fall 2007). Most of my exhibitions and films have been for galleries or art centers. Published photography includes Vogue, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Elle, Tattler, Glamour, Sleek, Oyster, Surfers Journal.” GREGG BLUE (MARSH): “In 1971, I was living in Jeffreys Bay when I met Miki in the car park and brought him home for dinner. A year later, in September 1972, Miki and I and a couple other surfers rented an old house in Guéthary that overlooked the ocean. We reconnected a couple years later in Val d’Isère, skiing.” DUKE BOYD: Surf entrepreneur. Founded Hang Ten surfwear in 1960, sold it ten years later. From 1968 to 1970 acted as managing editor for Petersen’s Surfing Magazine. Boyd now runs Duke Boyd America surfwear. Worked with Greg Noll and Dick Graham to create some ads for “Da Cat” boards in the ’60s. GARTH BULLOCK: Currently an artist and fine arts instructor. 1970s /1980s regional and national award-winning sculptor and ceramist. Founder in 1988 of Pismo Beach Longboarders. DAVID CALDWELL: “I met Miki in 1959. He gave me a “lesson” on a tandem board at 3' perfect Malibu. Crossed paths, surfing and traveling, 1974 and 1975 in New Zealand, L.A., Biarritz, Australia, and Bridgeport. I’m currently building large-scale animatronics for the special-effects movie trade and the occasional ultracustom surfboard.” CORKY CARROLL: (see main text) ALLAN CARTER: (see main text) DOUGLAS CAVANAUGH: “I’m a writer, surfing historian (1950 to 1968) and the only person alive who offered Dora money and was turned down!” Cavanaugh’s forthcoming book, about a legendary surfer who died young, is called Remembering Butch: The Butch Van Artsdalen Story. JEAN-CHARLES CAZES: French winemaker, scion of Château Lynch-Bages, maker of fine Paulliac wine. “When Miki learned I wanted to surf— I was eleven— he said, ‘You should play golf. Surfing’s no good.’ I didn’t listen.” RUPERT CHADWICK: Well-connected, South African–born entrepreneur. Started the Billabong contest there. Started the Jeffreys Bay Boardriders Club. Founding member of the Supertubes Trust. Helped create and curates the J Bay Surf Museum, a “non- corporate-denominational” establishment, housed in the local Quiksilver premises. RHONDA CHAGOURIE: (see main text) GARDNER CHAPIN JR.: Son of Gard Chapin and Ramona Stancliff. Born in Los Angeles, California, on August 4, 1946; passed away August 4, 2006. C.C.: “Namaste.” ERIC CHAUCHÉ: “I’m a photographer in quest of light, nature, and waves. I live in Anglet, near Guéthary, in the French Basque country. I shared with Miki, during his last four years, trekking in the Basque country and Pyrenees Mountains, looking for wildlife and harmony, skiing, a river bath, or simply a good meal.” Chauché’s many books include Perfect Waves: The Endless Allure of the Ocean (Edition Herm 2004 and Abramsbooks edition 2006) with Tim McKenna and Sylvain Cazenave. FRANCES CHRISTOPHER: Friend of Susan McNeill’s. Married to a marquis. JACKIE CLEMMONS: Jackie and her husband, Mike Clemmons, “used to belong to a Charismatic church in South Africa. Miki wanted to know why the pastors didn’t sell their BMWs and help the poor. He didn’t like hypocrisy at all, it freaked him out.” STEVEN CONNERS: Mormon missionary on Mahia Peninsula in 1975. Worked to convert Miki to the Church of Latter Day Saints. BOB COOPER: “Regarded as the original surfing beatnik,” says the Encyclopedia of Surfing. Surfed Malibu in 1952, at age fifteen, and “eight years later was one of the first American surfers to visit Australia, where he has lived since 1969.” ADRIAN COTTON, MD: Miki’s physician at Loma Linda University Medical Center. LINDA CUY: (see main text) PETER DAY: Producer, with Grant Keir, of the documentary In Search of da Cat for Faction Films. BILL DELANEY: Did the ’70s surf film Free Ride featuring Shaun Tomson, Rabbit Bartholomew, and Mark Richards, then the 1990 film Surfers: The Movie. ROBBIE DICK: “From 1962 through 1966, I was a member of the Hanson, Harbour, and Hobie surf teams. In 1967, I landed a job with Wilken Surfboards. I helped Mickey rough out some radical 8'10" pintails that were part of the shortboard revolution. I started Natural Progression with Skip Smith and Terry Lucoff in 1968. I left the company in 1985 and started shaping my own label, R. Dick Custom Surfdesign. I now live in Oregon.” WILLIE DIX: Owned the Freedom Surf Shop in Biarritz when Miki lived in the area from 1975 to 1981. PETER DIXON: Wrote four books on surfing in the ’ 60s, including Men Who Ride Mountains (1969). TONI DONOVAN COLVIN: I’m enjoying life in Topanga Canyon as an aging hippie, passing time with good friends and my animals, and traveling to exotic islands. I can still be seen on the beach at Malibu and Topanga. MIKLOS AND CHRISTINE DORA: (see main text) MIKE DOYLE: “Arguably the 1960s best all-around surfer,” according to the Encyclopedia of Surfing. “Everyone wanted to look like him, dress like him, surf like him.” He sold Kathy “Gidget” Kohner her first surfboard in 1956, for $35. His autobiography, Morning Glass: The Adventures of a Legendary Waterman, was published in 1993, and copies today sell for collector’s prices. He moved to Baja in 1980, where he paints. JIM “BURRHEAD” DREVER: According to Steve Pezman, “One of the best surfers on the coast in the ’40s and early ’50s.” Contemporary of Gard Chapin. BOKKA DU TOIT: Filmmaker, producer, herbalist, and Renaissance man from Jeffreys Bay. Befriended Miki, tried to help him forget the past, focus on the future, and live a happier life. WOODY EKSTROM: Legendary surfer from the Tijuana Sloughs to San Onofre. Helped build the original Windansea Shack. BRIAN EDDY: Owner/auctioneer/partner at Barwicks in Gisborne, New Zealand. Eddy still has a plated ewer given to Miki by his father. It’s a family heirloom and part of a set (with a bowl) in which Miki was bathed as a baby. Miklos, now ninety- five, would really like it returned and is willing to pay a fair price. PHIL EDWARDS: “During my life, I’ ve seen a few special people who made me think, there’s no prior art there. This is true creativity. Miki was one.” JOHN ELWELL: “I am a retired educator who began surfing in 1947. My era includes Bob Simmons, about whom I have written biographical stories.” SKIP ENGBLOM: Native Californian born in Hollywood in 1948. Began surfing 1959 at Venice, California. Cofounder of Zephyr Surf Shop and skateboard team. Founder SMA skateboard label. Published poet. Original member of Surfrider Foundation. JOHNNY FAIN: The Surfer’s Journal called Fain “one of the four aces of Malibu.” The others were Dewey Weber, Lance Carson, and, naturally, Miki. Questions lingered long about whether their feud was real or staged, but the facts suggest that it was, at least at the end, authentic. BOB FEIGEL: “I grew up in Santa Monica and Malibu, started surfing in the late 1950s. I write for surfing and lifestyle magazines and have been living in Aotearoa, New Zealand, since the mid-’70s. Miki’s and my paths crossed several times over the years—both in and out of the water—and each encounter was unforgettable.” JIM FISHER: Surfer and body surfer from the early days of Malibu and Hawaii. Lifeguarded at San Clemente, hiring Miki one summer. Wild at heart and sometimes referred to as “Klepto-Jim.” VICKI FLAXMAN: Early Malibu surfer. Met Miki in 1950, in San Onofre, when he was still named Chapin. HENRY FORD: Surfed in all the Bruce Brown films and was manager of the Jacobs Surf Team. “I was lifeguard from 1963 to 1969 at Malibu Point. Currently I have a clothing company, Koko Island, and have model surfboards with Hobie and Surf Tech.” TRUDI FORSTER: “I met Miki through my partner, Phil Grace. He played tennis and golf with Phil and came very often to dinner or just to hang out and watch movies. Miki poached me from Phil, who doesn’t dance, as one of his salsa partners.” KIM FOWLEY: What can one say about Kim Fowley that hasn’t already been said, whispered, or screamed? According to the website www. rocksbackpages.com, Fowley is, “the greatest hustler in the history of rock ’n’ roll. . . .” If you go to www.kimfowley.com, he’ll be glad to tell you all about himself. His forthcoming authorized and uncensored memoir is titled Vampire from Outer Space. MARK FRAGALE: Surf journalist, archivist, and collector of historic surfing artifacts. Mark is a founding member of the Surfing Heritage Foundation and has been actively surfing for more than forty-five years; he lives in Kailua, Hawaii. BILL FREY-MCLEAN: Screenwriter, living in the Okanagan Valley, in B.C. Canada and nowhere near the surf. Miki recommended that I read How to Be Free in an Unfree World, one of his bibles.” ANTHONY FRIEDKIN: Photographer who, according to The Surfer’s Journal, picked up a brownie “at age eight and aimed it seaward.” He started surfing three years later—and still does. His first published photo appeared in Surf Guide in 1963. Friedkin works often for the movies as a unit still photographer (Titanic, Dogtown and Z-Boys—in which he was also interviewed—Stand and Deliver, Riding Giants), and recently published Timekeeper, a collection of his work. JIM GANZER: Aka JimmyZ. “I’m an artist. I met Miki in 1959–60. I was about fifteen. We watched him work Malibu, State Beach, Topanga, Pop Pier, Rincon, parties, movies, contests, filmmakers, chicks, surfboard makers, surf mags, skateboards, Africa, Europe, golf, lunch, dinner, plane rides.” ED GARNER: Friend of the “House of Suede” Wilsons: Tony, Brian, Jeff, and matriarch Eugenia. Ed went to Beverly Hills High and hung out with Duane King, Mike Nader, and others and started going to Malibu. Appeared in the beach party movies, got into the music business, then moved to Santa Barbara in the mid-’70s. GEORGE GEORGE: Schoolmate of Miki’s at St. John’ s Military Academy. This really is his name. MYSTO GEORGE (CARR): Retired schoolteacher, Malibu regular still, in his seventies. SAM GEORGE: A former professional competitor, magazine editor, surf journalist and filmmaker, Sam, fifty, is also one of the sport’s premier surf explorers, having traveled to over forty different countries in search of waves. LESLIE-ANN GERVAIS: Full-time athlete. “In 1997, while in South Africa for the World Fencing Championships, I made a side trip to surf at Jeffreys Bay. At that time, I was a die-hard beginner surfer, so I am very thankful to Miki who took me under his wing.” EDWARD GODFREY: “I am still living on Cape St. Francis, surfing, as well as making buchu oil. Miki was a family friend who participated in the lives of our children and ourselves for many months when he lived with us on our buchu farm in Paarl, near Cape Town, and at our home at the Cape. We surfed together many times.” BRUCE GOLD: According to his friend Dr. Kurt Mariano, Gold is “a living legend in Jeffreys Bay. A free spirit with wit and tenacity . . . surfs every day, more than once if possible.” Formerly an Afrikaans police officer and Durban taxi driver. Now, occasionally, a skilled and talented massage therapist. Says Gold himself, exactly as written: “Can you Adam and Eve it? SIX 0 years old & now heavily dreadlocked by Danish beauty in Tofu, Mozambique while shooting a surfing doccy. Caught biggest wave & longest this year at Supers, separately. Met MIKI & Scooter on the Main St. of Jeffreys after studiously avoiding him for a month . . . He thought I was the last of the Purists. I wasn’t so sure . . . ‘Don’t Sell Me OUT,’ his last words after leaving me all his stuff. Maybe, maybe not MIKI.” PHIL GRACE: “I met Miki around 1975 in Pippi Beach near Angourie. I saw him again in Jeffreys Bay in the late ’80s and in France in the ’90s, for tennis, golfing, surfing, skiing, and at any event where they served free food and drinks. Good old Miki was one of the funniest/caustic buggers I have ever known. When he went home for the last time, he said, ‘Stick a fork in me, I’m done.” LEROY GRANNIS: Born in 1917 in Hermosa Beach, when the Pacific Coast Highway was just a dirt road, Grannis began surfing in 1931 and eventually became one of the sport’s premier photographers. His book of 1960s photos, entitled Photo: Grannis, was published in 1998 by The Surfer’s Journal. His latest book is LeRoy Grannis, Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s: Birth of a Culture: ’60s and ’ 70s Surf Photography. RICK GRIGG: “Supremely confident surfer from Honolulu, Hawaii, winner of the 1966 Duke Kahanamoku Invitational, and sometimes referred to as the first big wave hotdogger,” according to the Encyclopedia of Surfing. Grigg, who earned a bachelor’s in biology, a master’s in zoology, and a Ph.D in oceanography, is now a professor in the Oceanography Department at the University of Hawaii. His autobiography, Big Surf, Deep Dives and the Islands: My Life in the Ocean, was published in 1998. Six months before Miki died, he faxed Grigg, praising the book. SHANE GRIMES: New Zealand surfer, friend of producer Peter Day. MICHAEL HALSBAND: Portrait photographer/filmmaker. “I was the tour photographer for the Rolling Stones 1981 Tattoo You Tour. I made the well-known photograph of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat with boxing gloves. Currently directing a documentary on the life story of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, guru of Ashtanga yoga. I met Miki in Australia in 2001. We surfed together, spent a lot of time talking about Cuba. I made a portrait of him alone for Surf Book, and one with Donald Takayama.” JAN HANDZLIK: A partner in the Securities Litigation, Government Enforcement and White Collar Defense Practice Group in the Los Angeles office of Howrey LLP. GLENN HENING: “I’m currently a consultant doing research into environmental issues at former military sites. I was recently named Regents Lecturer at UCSB based on my reputation of “asking the hard questions” about modern surfing as founder of the Surfrider Foundation and cofounder of the Groundswell Society. I grew up surfing State Beach in Santa Monica and saw Dora’s act in the water—and on the beach—for years. To him, I was just another gremmie at State. To me he was just enough of a role model to help me always recognize bullshit wherever I’ve found it—including, in the end, his.” FRAYNE HIGGASON: Born in 1934, moved to Malibu 1949, and started surfing there regularly from 1951 to 1963. Recently won the 70-and-over division at the 2006 Malibu Classic. “I’m a landlord with properties in West Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.” ANDY HILL: “Surfing for twenty-five years. I started in 1979, in Ireland, aged ten. I’m six times Irish National Surfing Champion, and owner of Troggs Surf Shop in Portrush since 1991. I met Miki in Ireland in 1985.” MIKE HISCHIER: Owner of Wavelengths Surf shop in Morro Bay, California, since 1980. Collector of surfboards and skateboards. HARRY HODGE: Harry Hodge started surfing at fifteen in Melbourne. He began his professional life in the mail room and became a journalist. In the ’70s, he produced and directed the surf film Band on the Run with the title track by Paul McCartney and Wings. In 1982, he became Quiksilver Australia’s first marketing director and, in 1984, founded Quiksilver Europe with Jeff Hakman. He is currently an executive adviser to Quiksilver Inc.; director of the Quiksilver Foundation; chairman emeritus of Quiksilver Europe; director of SAI (SurfAID International), and chairman of Better Energy Systems Inc. After retiring from his positions as CEO and chairman of Quiksilver Europe in 2003, Harry relocated back to Australia with his wife, Sandee, and three boys: Mat, Tom, and Ben. He just recently acquired a significant stake in the Sydney-based jeanswear label, ksubi (pronounced subi), and is executive chairman of the company. RICK HODGSON: “Three things come to mind when I think of Miki. First, he knew me as the Phantom of Topanga Beach when I returned to him some of his possessions from the Gisborne, New Zealand, auction. Second, as a surfer, I learned style from him—but not method. Third, when I correctly predicted a coming swell— and no one else believed me—Miki said, “You lead a charmed life.” Ever since then I have. As for what I do, I think being the Phantom says it all. I’d rather no one know; I’m having too much fun and I’ m very lucky.” PAUL HOLMES: Surfboard shaper, surf journalist, surf contest director, and surfwear marketing executive. “I’m a former editor-in-chief of Surfer magazine and the author of Dale Velzy is Hawk, the story of the legendary Californian surfboard shaper, cowboy, and hot-rodder, published in 2006.” KIT HORN: “I was at Malibu before Gidget. I went with Chuck King in 1942 or 1943. Most of the time you had Malibu to yourself, or with a buddy.” WILLIE HOUSE: Surfed with Miki at Malibu but had to quit because of family issues. Miki thought House’s exit was a tragedy. Currently lives in Switzerland. ROD HUGHES: Mormon missionary in New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula in 1975 who performed Miki’s conversion. SCOTT HULET: The editor of The Surfer’s Journal for nearly a decade. “My interactions with Miki were brief, collegial, and engaging.” DEREK HYND: Australian surfer and writer, who lived for a time on Supertubes in Jeffreys Bay. MIKE HYNSON: Costar, with Robert August, of Bruce Brown’s Endless Summer. Hynson created the “red fin” model for the Gordon & Smith label, as well as other board design improvements. HAP JACOBS: Quiet and thoughtful surfboard shaper from Hermosa Beach, California. Partnered with Dale Velzy for four years before starting his own brand and, by the mid-’60s, producing 125 boards a week. Jacobs quit to become a commercial fisherman for fifteen years but returned to shaping in the early ’90s. PHIL JARRATT: I’ve been writing about surfing for almost forty years and my most recent work, The Mountain and The Wave: The Quiksilver Story, was published late in 2006. I first met Miki in Bali in 1975, spent twenty years on his shit-list for writing about a conversation we had, and twenty-five-years later we were friends and next-door neighbors in Guéthary, France. BILL JENSEN: Malibu regular in Gidget era and object of a Kathy Kohner crush. The real Moondoggie. RICHARD “SPIDER” JOSEPHSON: “I became a Buddhist monk and ran the Chan (meditation hall) for ten years, returned to lay life, went to Nepal and married a Nepalese, and lived there ten years. I very, very rarely surf because of the crowds. My website www.buddhadharma.com pretty much covers my days. I now live on Maui.” DREW KAMPION: Self-described “hodad from Buffalo, New York, who rode his first wave at Malibu in 1962.” John Severson made him editor of Surfer magazine in June of 1968. He enjoyed the job and eventually parlayed it into an extended feature-writing arrangement with Surfing magazine in the 1970s. Now it’s x number of years and about nine books later, including The Way of the Surfer, Stoked: A History of Surf Culture, The Lost Coast, The Book of Waves, and Greg Noll: The Act of the Surfboard. He’s currently the U.S. editor of The Surfer’s Path, the only 100 percent green surf magazine. GERRY KANTOR: I am the owner of Leucadia Surf School (www.leucadiasurfschool. com) in north San Diego, California. MATT KATZ: While living in Chile, writer/surfer Matt Katz opened his doors to a mixed bag of idiosyncratic travelers, most notably Miki Dora. A native of Ventura County, California, Matt moved to Chile in 1995. He now lives in Carpinteria, California. Matt edits the Broughton Quarterly travel magazine. In 2004, The Surfer’s Journal published “Full Circle California,” his account of six weeks in Chile with Miki Dora. JIM KEMPTON: Jim Kempton met Miki in 1974 in Biarritz, France. For the next six years they shared surfing, Ping-Pong, tennis, a lover, numerous French feasts, and uncountable stories. Kempton became the editor and then publisher of Surfer magazine, was a publisher at TransWorld Publications, traveled through several continents on the Indies Trader Crossing Boat, and now works at Billabong as the media director. DUANE KING: “I met Miki at Malibu when I was fourteen, in 1959. I watched as Miki gained insight and perception into all of the forces working to destroy the pristine Malibu at the center of his universe. I now work in Santa Monica, financing commercial construction.” MATT KIVLIN: Accurately described by the Encyclopedia of Surfing as “elegant,” Kivlin, born in 1929, and an architect since 1971, set the stylish trim pose at Malibu that Miki copied; it helped that they bore a resemblance to each other in hair color and body type. They did not share temperament. “Matt invented what I call ‘performance cruising,’” said Kemp Aaberg. “He was gentlemanly and rode that way.” KATHY KOHNER ZUCKERMAN: “I surfed Malibu from 1956 to my last wave there in 1960. Did it again in the mid- ’90s. Call it a lull. I was called Gidget at the “Bu”; Miki was called Chapin.” CHERON KRAAK: (see text) KRIS KRUSESKI: “I was vacationing in Biarritz in 1985 when I was introduced to Miki by a dear friend. We had an eight-month relationship, which included four days of togetherness and lots of love letters. I still live in the San Diego area where I have a garden design business.” JUANITA STANCLIFF KUHN: Ramona’s younger sister, Miki’s aunt. FRANÇOIS LARTIGAU: An artist for Quiksilver for more than twenty years. “I have been surfing since 1961, one of the first French grommets, and I am still doing it as much as I can. I met Miki in 1968. He was older but his ‘aura’ was very strong in the surfing community. At the end of his life I got closer to him and it really hurt me to see the old Cat fading away.” PHILIPPE LAUGA: A native from a fishing village in Euskal Herria (the land of the Basque). “I met Miki as a young man, in the mid-’ 70s. I worked then in a financial institution. We shared friendship and angst, numerous and various activities, throughout most stages of his life in Europe. Miki was always ready on the spur of the moment, questioned my intellect, induced me to look on the other side of the mirror, taught me that the word compromise contains the word promise.” JOEL LAYKIN: School and running mate of Miki’s in the late ’40s and beyond. Joel’s father owned Laykin et Cie jewelers. He currently lives in Hong Kong. CRAIG LEONARD: My twin brother, Keith, and I used to go to State Beach. I used to play tennis with Miki a couple times a week. CHRISTINE LIEPNER: Sister of Jessica Naude. Works for Cheron Kraak at Billabong, in Jeffreys Bay. Her relationship with Miki was instinctive and needed few words. TERRY LUCOFF: Onetime owner and manufacturer of Natural Progression surfboards from 1966 to 1990. Surf shop located across the street from the Malibu Pier—the only one during the golden era of Malibu. “Miki could come into our factory in Santa Monica and create whatever he wanted without any strings attached. He rode our boards. We never exploited it.” CHRIS MALLOY: Oldest of the three Malloy brothers, from Ventura, California. Seen in front of the camera (Momentum and other surf videos), and now behind the camera, making independent surf films through the brothers’ Moonshine Conspiracy collective: Thicker Than Water, September Sessions, Shelter, and A Brokedown Melody. Malloy’s direct connection to surfing’s soul is apparent in the respect he gets from surfing’s greatest generation. He’s always headed somewhere to film and ride. THE MASOCHIST: Miki’s designated nemesis at Malibu. Miki did everything he could to irritate him or frame him for mischief. “The result was a hate/love relationship.” JAN MAYER: Surfer-skier friend of Miki’s in the mid 1970s in Biarritz, Chamonix, Val d’Isère, and Innsbruck. “I was a ski instructor and beginning leather worker when I met Miki, and now own a fiber arts studio (Kriska Painting on Silk) and live in Salt Lake City, Utah. I still love to ski the steep and deep.” Cofounder of Valley Longboarder Surfing Association. ANNABELLE MCBRIDE: Known as Terry. Her mother was Rebecca Harkness, of the Standard Oil family. Rebecca founded the Harkness Ballet, as well as Harkness Pavilion in the Columbia University Medical Center. Annabelle was briefly married to Tony McBride, son of Miklos Sr.’s second wife, Lorraine (mother of Miki’s half-sister Pauline). She died in 2005. MICHAEL MCDONNELL: Currently a film producer. Credits include The Usual Suspects and The Replacement Killers. MARCIA MCMARTIN: Born into a wealthy family with mining interests, Marcia’s life has been filled with many pursuits, including interior decorating, photography, and a job as a meter maid. Growing up she spent summers with her father, an avid hunter, in Bermuda at his palatial home, Elephant Walk. She has traveled most of her life, circling the globe, and was Miki’s traveling companion from 1970 to 1974, and friend until the end. MIKE MCNEILL: Former husband of Susan, below. Expat American living in France for the last twenty-five years. Surfboard maker then, now working for Quiksilver Europe. Had the pleasure to share voyages with Miki and to be his friend. SUSAN MCNEILL: Miki’s longtime confidante, former lover, spiritual supporter, keeper of many secrets. Co-owned the Surf Hut in Guéthary. “He changed my life. He was an intelligent, loving, and beautiful person with a wicked sense of humor. I now live in California and sell art. He once told me life was too short to waste it working. I look for joy in what I do and I have found it. I miss him every day.” GREG MEISENHOLDER: One of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, traveled with Miki, Allan Carter, and Don Wilson to Acapulco and Rio in 1969 and 1970. Now deceased. MIKEY MEYER: “Although I live in Jeffreys Bay and knew him there, I met Miki in France in 1985 in Seignosse, which is north of Anglet and Hossegor in the Côte D’Argent, which itself is just north of the Côte Basque. He was like a mentor.” JOHN MILIUS: Hollywood’s ultimate insider/outsider. Directed Big Wednesday, Conan the Barbarian, Red Dawn, Farewell to the King, The Wind and the Lion, Dillinger. His writing credits are stellar: Dirty Harry, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Magnum Force, Jeremiah Johnson, Apocalypse Now, Clear and Present Danger, Rough Riders. Created Dirty Harry’s famous speech: “Do you feel lucky, punk? . . . Go ahead, make my day.” Also wrote the line “Charlie don’t surf!” uttered by Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now. Milius surfed Malibu in the ’50s and ’60s with friends Shelly Riskin and Jack Barth, both of whom are pictured with him under the director’s credit on Big Wednesday. TOM MOREY: “Mickey Chapin was the kid I knew, a year older and well seated at Malibu, which I’d just discovered in 1953. Naturally, he was the guy not only to learn from, but to then try and best. At times I did. ‘They say you’re seven times as good as me, Morey,’ he would always say to me.” BOB MORRIS: Los Angeles restauranteur. Built Gladstone’s 4 Fish, R.J.’s Rib Joint, and “twenty-six other restaurants in the Los Angeles area.” Currently runs Paradise Cove Cafe, on land originally owned—and sold—by his father. “I never hung out with Miki like Joel Laykin did, but he would float in and out of my life. He’d show up and always try to get a free dinner. We’d end up giving him one.” MICKEY MUÑOZ: One of the world’ s most durable surfers. In 1957 was one of the first to ride Waimea Bay. “He was highly regarded as a snappy and playful small-wave expert,” says the Encyclopedia of Surfing. Muñoz continues to shape boards and recently appeared in Chasing Dora, a documentary based on Miki’s posthumous article (and original environmental concept)—“The Aquatic Ape”— in The Surfer’s Journal. Muñoz rode at Jeffreys Bay on a board, and wearing a wetsuit, both made of biodegradable material. He had the longest ride. MIKE NADER: Beverly Hills High graduate, friend of Duane King and the Wilsons. Best known as character Dex Dexter on Dynasty, but also appeared in the beach party movies, in The Trip, and an assortment of daytime soaps. JESSICA NAUDE: Still living in Jeffreys Bay. “Miki was the best ballroom dance partner I had and I sure miss our lessons together filled with laughter and fun.” CLIVE NEESON: “I’m a consultant physicist and grew up in Raglan whilst Miki was there in the 1970s. Miki’s conversations, photo albums, and advice influenced me to capture the ’70s era and the planet’s unspoilt surf paradises with a movie camera before they were swallowed by the pending commercialism he warned of. As Miki’s prophecy has come to pass the time is now ripe and work on the movie is under way.” GREG AND LAURA NOLL: Nicknamed “Da Bull,” Noll coauthored a 1989 biography with Andrea Gabbard, Da Bull: Life Over the Edge. Originally from Manhattan Beach, California Noll is generally regarded as the first person to ride Hawaii’s Waimea Bay, in 1957. A hotdogger in his youth, he visited Hawaii in 1954 and lived in a Quonset hut at Makaha for seven months. Noll made five surf movies and became a premiere board maker, opening a twenty-thousand- square-foot operation. Laura Noll is Greg’s second wife, and although diminutive in comparison to her sizeable husband, she has always been more than capable of keeping him in line. AGI ORSI: Film producer. When Orsi teamed up with director Stacy Peralta on the skateboard culture documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, they went on to win both the Audience and Directors Award at Sundance Film Festival and a worldwide theatrical distribution. Orsi next produced Peralta’s big surf documentary, Riding Giants, which was the first documentary ever to open the Sundance Film Festival. E. J. OSHIER: E. J. met Gard Chapin at the Palos Verdes Cove before World War II. Member of the Palos Verdes Surf Club and San Onofre Surf Club. A mainstay at San Onofre from the ’30s until he died in March 2007. PEACHES: Met Miki on the beach in 1966 when she was seventeen. Their onand- off three-year relationship went badly, and even today she profoundly regrets having known him at all. STACY PERALTA: A founding father of modern skateboarding in the ’ 70s and former action-sports entrepreneur. Peralta directed and cowrote the awardwinning 2001 documentary Dogtown and Z-boys. In 2004, he directed and cowrote Riding Giants with Sam George. He also directed The Baron Davis Project, an L.A. gang documentary, and is slated to direct the screen version of Allen Weisbecker’s surfing adventure novel, In Search of Captain Zero. DORIAN “DOC” PASKOWITZ: One of the most fascinating characters in surfing. He grew up surfing San Onofre, currently lives in Hawaii with his wife, Juliette. “My connection with Miki Dora is hooked to three mental images: One, a feisty little boy, maybe twelve years old running across the coarse gray sand of San Onofre beach. Miki is laughing. Two: A thin, tanned young man, eighteen or nineteen, dancing on the waves, elegant, bold, maybe even arrogant. Three: a man in a trench coat stops at the top of the old wooden stairs at Malibu to say hello. “Hi Paskowitz,” “Hi Miki.” And off he goes, heading for the burger stand. He’s not smiling. GREG PERSON: Newport Beach surfer, friend of Joe Quigg and Joey Cabell. Met Miki in 1965 at Malibu and then again in Costa Rica in 1991 at Greg Noll’s first Legends event. “Currently a manager at Morningside Recovery Center in Newport Beach.” RICK PETERSON: Longtime friend of Miki, partner in both the water and worldview. According to his website, www. richardpetersongallery.com, “that he is not a “household name” is merely an attribute of creating works that are decidedly not “commercial,” being created in a very limited number for a very discerning clientele all over the world. STEVE PEZMAN: Steve, started surfing in the late ’50s and explored California, Mexico, and Hawaii. “I did six months in the merchant marines hauling stale beer to Vietnam in 1965. Came back and started making surfboards, then writing about it. Ended up at Surfing then Surfer, where with less than a year’s experience I fell into the publisher’s chair. I stayed seated for twenty-one years, and then founded The Surfer’s Journal with my wife, Deb. That’s what we do now, along with parenting three great boys at varying stages of life, from San Clemente, California.” JOE QUIGG: According to the Encyclopedia of Surfing, Quigg is a “virtuoso surfboard designer and craftsman . . . co-founder of the modern longboard and the specialized big- wave board, and credited by many as the most influential midcentury board maker.” RANDY RARICK: According to the Encyclopedia of Surfing, Rarick is “an authoritative surf traveler/organizer/board-maker from Sunset Beach, Hawaii.” A 1998 profile in The Surfer’s Journal referred to Rarick as “Mr. Clean.” Among his many accomplishments was being location scout for Bruce Brown’s Endless Summer II. “As a kid, I repaired Miki’s board that he rode in Ride the Wild Surf and then spent the next forty years waiting for him to thank me!” DOUGLAS RISHWORTH: Miki’s lawyer in New Zealand. Kept some artifacts from the 1984 Barwicks auction and, after not being able to hand them over in person, sent them to Miki in Montecito before he died. ARMAND RIZA: State Beach habitué, volleyball player, and member of the party-crashing club. Lives on the beach. JEAN YVES ROBERT: Ski instructor, friend, and traveling companion (Cuba) of Miki’s for many years. Based in Guéthary. OVIDIO (ANDY) SALAZAR: A Dogtown local and impressionable teenager inspired by Miki during the ’60s. An interest in Sufism led to his self- imposed exile from California and to a career in documentary films in Europe and the Middle East. In Search of da Cat was his eulogy to Miki and to the “Golden Age” of Malibu. He continues to make films and to ride waves whenever he can. www. matmedia.org. JOHN SEVERSON: Currently surfing and painting in Hawaii. Made surf films in ’60s and ’ 70s, started Surfer magazine, inducted into Hall of Fame and received assorted awards. Living full life, close to nature and thankful of surfing influence, friends, and family. “Surfed with Miki— what a trip!” BARBARA SIEVERS: I’m an artist, psychotherapist, and currently work with my son, Teal, at his company, Living Dream Films. Miki was one of my first true loves and a great friend. BOB SIMPSON: An American international lawyer in Paris and a lifetime surfer. Miki lived at Bob’s place in Guéthary, during the 1990s, and the two surfed, played tennis, golfed, partied, and enjoyed fine meals and wines together. Bob also doubled as Miki’ s personal lawyer in negotiations for media deals. DR. DON SMALL: I started surfing when I was a state lifeguard at San Clemente in about 1951. I had seen Miki Dora surf, but I only met him in the brig of the SS Lurline when we both were caught trying to stow away to get free passage from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii. For the last fifty years I have been a medical scientist studying cholesterol, gallstones, and heart disease. JACKIE SMITH: From Long Beach, California. Left the United States in 1969 with four sons: Mike, 15; Steve, 13; Jeff, 11; Joe, 9. “We went around the world looking for the perfect surf spot, which included Portugal, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Crossed paths with Miki over the years and always enjoyed his company.” WAYNE SPEEDS: Veteran waterman, “graphic arts visionary,” and Dora’s neighbor in the late ’60s and early ’70s. “Mickey was one of my few role models in my teenage years. He was good for rides to the beach and wildly outrageous commentary on life and times, keeping me rolling with laughter.” DOUGLAS STANCLIFF: “I currently own a company that makes in-store merchandising displays for manufacturers of extreme sports, and food and hardware products. Miki is my first cousin and had a positive influence on my life.” MERRITT STANFIELD: Got his degree and teaching credential from UCLA and coached football and track at Palisades High School. DARRYL STOLPER: “I’m a real Californio, born in Ventura (1942) and raised on State Beach and Malibu, where I started surfing in the mid-1950s. I first met Mickey Dora (aka Chapin) in the late ’50s, when I brought my brand-new Dave Sweet foam board. Mickey asked if he could try it out and that was the beginning of a friendship.” PAUL STRAUCH: Gentleman surfer from Hawaii who invented the “cheater five” nose ride. Always a strong competitor. Won the Peru International contest in 1963. “When I got out of high school, my graduation gift was to spend the summer in California. I met Miki at Malibu in August 1961. MARTIN SUGARMAN: “Dora and I were very close surfing companions. We surfed Will Rogers State Beach together for years. We surfed Old Joe’ s, Zeros, the Overhead, Hammonds Reef, and Rincon.” Sugarman publishes H2O magazine. DIANE SWANSON OOSTERVEEN: “I’ve been happily married for thirtyseven years and now live in the Islands. Miki was my first love. My Svengali of life. He taught me the good and the bad. I lived in secret with Da Cat for a couple years.” MIKE TABELING: “In the ’60s I broke the ‘East Coasters are kooks’ mold to become the first ‘Right Coaster’ to win contests in California and internationally. In the ’70s, I dropped out to travel the world searching for perfect waves. In 1988, I bought a piece of property at Supertubes in Jeffreys Bay and moved there. I’m currently living in California and working as the West Coast sales director for Global Surf Industries.” STEVEN TAUSSIG: World observer, living on the side of Haleakala volcano. Owner-operator of Royal Hawaiian Cigars. Still enjoying the ocean and company of Cavalier King Charles spaniels. “I knew Miki over forty years.” DOMINIQUE TAYLOR: “I met Miki during a very tough winter when he was living in his van in France, in the mid-’80s. I offered him to stay in a studio apartment attached to my house for a few weeks. I then got to meet him again when I worked at Quiksilver as Harry Hodge’s assistant. I used to help him in his general life (flat, car, administration documents, trips) and we had a friendly relationship. This relationship got closer with his illness as I got to be the intermediary between him and his doctors. I have now stopped working for Quiksilver and am taking care of my family.” ALAN TIEGEN: In the late ’70s, Tiegen got involved with Rip Curl and Quiksilver and did films with Yves Bessas in Europe. Former executive director of EuroSIMA (Surf Industry Manufacturers Association). Now lives in Encinitas, surfing and enjoying life. TUBESTEAK/MALIBU: “(I’m a) legendary figure from Malibu’s olden days. Friend of all, hated by none. Having gone from Malibu’s outhouse to the penthouse back to the outhouse, I’ m now a recluse residing near the ocean in San Clemente, California. Real name: Terry Tracy.” BILL VAN DORN: “I went to Stanford and studied engineering and physics. I came to work at Scripps in 1947, thanks to Walter Munk, who had married Martha Chapin.” “Bill became an oceanographer, a big shot at Scripps Institute of Oceanography,” said Doc Paskowitz. “He traveled all over the Pacific and was the father of the buoys that predict wave heights in tsunamis. He was also an avid surfer.” JOHN VAN HAMERSVELD: “I created a new Surf Guide magazine in 1964 as the famous ‘Malibu Issue’ for a September release. I developed the cover with Doctor Don James involving Dora, Kemp Aaberg, Mary Sturdevant, and Lance Carson. Bill Cleary and I thought up the article and interviewed Dora to fit into the piece. I designed the Endless Summer poster in 1964, too, as well as the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street and the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour album covers.” An iconist and artist of the first caliber, Van Hamersveld continues to create and is currently working on his autobiography in words and images, Existential Monkey. DALE VELZY: Nicknamed “The Hawk.” “Swaggering, innovative surfboard designer, builder and retailer from Hermosa Beach, CA,” says the Encyclopedia of Surfing. “‘Dale could out-drink, out-shoot, out-ride, out-shape, out-sell, and out-finesse all comers,’ The Surfer’s Journal magazine said in 1994.” Velzy died in May 2005, but not before completing an autobiography, Dale Velzy is Hawk, with Paul Holmes. DON WILSON: (see main text) Deceased. BILL WISE: The Maryland/Delaware surf pioneer who became a quadraplegic in 1965 after a surfing accident, died February 23, 2007, after living a life inspirational to all who knew him. PETER WOOLEY: Former assistant headmaster at St. John’s Military Academy about ten years after Miki’s time there. Later became an art director and production designer on many movies. REYNOLDS YATER: Reynolds “Renny” Yater was one of the first real commercial surfboard builders of the 1950s. Glasssed for Hobie, then, in 1957, he moved over to Dale Velzy’s shop in San Clemente where he began to shape balsa boards. During the 1960s, Yater’s two most popular models were created: the Yater Spoon, one of the most innovative surfboard designs of the time, and the Pocket Rocket, a surfboard designed with Hawaiian surfing in mind. In the 1960s, Yater’s customers included surfing legends such as Joey Cabell, Gordon Clark, Miki Dora, Philipe Pomar, Kemp Aaberg, Bob Cooper, Bruce Brown, and John Severson. (from www. yater.com) CRISTAL YOSH: Co-owns, with husband, Gary, Cristal Cove guest house in Jeffreys Bay, right on Supertubes. Remarkable woman with a fierce mind; a force of nature, really. GARY YOSH: Jeffreys Bay surfer and craftsman. Miki lived in the apartment beneath the Yosh home, on the hillside overlooking Supertubes, for seven years— until the accommodation was destroyed by fire in 1998. NAT YOUNG: From Young’ s The History of Surfing, “Nat Young is recognized as one of the great surfers in the history of the sport. Grew up in Collaroy on Sydney Australia’s northern beaches, and won the World Championship in 1966, in California . . . was several times Australian junior and open champion. In the late 1960s he and a handful of others ushered in the ‘new era’ in surfboard riding, a power- oriented style which forms the basis of contemporary surfing . . . he was World Longboard Champion in 1988, ’89, and ’90. He is the author of several books.” These include his autobiography, Nat’s Nat and That’s That. LOUIS ZAMPERINI: Juvenile delinquent from Torrance, California, who turned his life around and became a championship runner. Crashed at sea in World War II, but Zamperini survived and spent forty-seven days drifting two thousand miles on a raft before being captured by the Japanese in the Marshall Islands. He spent two years in a variety of prison camps, but survived. Born again in 1949, started Victory Boys Camp for delinquent boys, active in military, religious, and sports circles. Coauthored his biography, Devil at My Heels (William Morrow), with David Rensin in 2003. Now ninety–one years old, Zamperini had to quit skateboarding at eighty- five—but still skis and travels regularly as a motivational speaker. |
| DR KILDARE EPISODE, "TYGER TYGER" with Miki surfing. Five parts. Click MENU to see more. |