THROWBACK

Mike Purpus and the rise and (mostly) fall of surfing localism

BY VINCE BURNS

A short piece, “The Vibe Tribe,” begins like this: “As I ran over the rocks cutting my feet, five Santa Barbara guys were right behind me running after me with their spears.”

In this fictional satire of out-of-control surfing localism in the 1970s, a wavestarved every surfer weighs which beach to surf, knowing that being spotted as an outsider by the locals could endanger his health. In the end, our protagonist opts for Rincon Point, attaching Santa Barbara license-plate holders and donning a longhair wig which he hopes will let him pass for a local. All goes well until the wig falls off. Mayhem ensues, and our terrified hero makes a dash for his car. In the end he escapes – minus his board, with a modest wound from a spear thrown from one of the “Rincon tribe.”

We unearthed this fictional short about the dark days of localism from a 50-year-old issue of Surfing (Feb. 1972). Adding to the story’s attraction, surf legend and bona fide character Mike Purpus penned it. We caught up with Mike last week to ask about this longago piece and his memories of Rincon Point. Before we get to that, about Mike. Purpus (b. 1948) grew up in Hermosa Beach, rose to surfing prominence in the late 1960s, and was a perennial finalist at the US Surfing Championships from 1967 to the mid 1970s. Encyclopedia of Surfing publisher Matt Warshaw calls Purpus one of surfing’s most colorful and flamboyant characters who provided a more edgy and practical foil to the overly soulful and earnest 1970s. To illustrate the point, Warshaw quotes Purpus: “People say I have as much soul as a go-ahead (a flip flop). But I found out long ago that all the soul in the world can’t buy me breakfast.”

Mike’s surfing achievements go way beyond a massive haul of trophy hardware. A sampling: Warshaw calls him “the West Coast’s most progressive and entertaining surfer of the 1970s.” Purpus had a trademark 360-degree wave maneuver, a host of other tricks, and made appearances in all the major surf flix of the day, including Five Summer Stories (1972). Taken all together, Mike was almost certainly California’s most famous surfer of his day. And then there’s Mike’s extracurricular non-surfing firsts: a nude photoshoot in Playgirl (1974), multiple appearances on The Dating Game, and a famous sans swim trunks photo in Surfing’s comedy issue of 1974. The insert lampooned both teeny-bopper magazines and the Playgirl photos – a double satire. Needless to say, it was a big seller. Only in the 1970s, right?

In his anti-localism Surfing piece, Purpus described a prelapsarian period before surfing’s fall: “There was once a time that I could surf anywhere. I could get good waves, my friends could get good waves, and everybody could have a good time together. We could share waves with the locals and the locals could share waves with us.”

But this paradise was lost as “the locals changed, getting bummed and not sharing anymore, turning instead to violence.” In the lingo of the day: waves were being bogarted, and Woodstock had morphed into Altamont.

Explanations for surfing’s fall from grace are many: the explosion of the sport in the post-Gidget era, ongoing commercialization, competitions, and the rise of pro surfing. Or maybe it had something to do with Malibu. Had Miki Dora inadvertently unleashed localism by shoving everyone and anyone off their boards for daring to share “his” waves? We’ll never know for sure.

We do know the context to Mike’s “Vibe Tribe” piece; it accompanied a separate article by Purpus about real-life localism he and buddies experienced in Oregon. This article (“Oregon: Love It or Leave It”) described how the road-tripping Purpus crew’s autos were vandalized, and tires deflated as they surfed Seaside. As has happened to generations of Californians in the Beaver State since, their non-local license plates blew the group’s cover. Mike’s article didn’t pull any punches, and it was evidently decided at Surfing that the “Vibe Tribe” fiction-cum-editorial would drive the point home. In Mike’s words, the purpose of the piece was “to wake everybody up” to the horrors of aggressive localism. Since “everyone loves Rincon,” the prospect of it becoming an active front in the turf wars was sobering. The piece definitely got attention and stirred emotions, since the next issue brimmed with letters to the editor for and again localism.

As far as Rincon and Purpus: Purpus says he himself never experienced any serious real-life aggressive localism at Rincon, enjoying the surf there with friends like Bob McTavish, Mike Doyle, and other names featured in these pages. Mike does, however, remember surfing Rincon at a very tender age (perhaps 14) and being punched in the face during a tussle for a wave by a monster of a man nicknamed “The Enforcer.” But since the Enforcer himself was from down south like Mike, this wasn’t localism per se! Just all part of paying dues.

Before leaving the localism topic, we checked with knowledgeable longtime Rincon observers. Bill “Blinky” Hubina of the Ventura Surf Shop sees localism as part-and-parcel of the shortboard revolution of the late 1960s. Marc Andreini traces it to aggressive twenty-something hardcores armed with their shortboards and testosterone fighting over waves at every premier break, especially as the longboard decline reduced the number of recreational surfers. Don Balch agrees: a “my waves, my beach” crowd enforced localism, especially at a few notorious locales. Explaining the eventual decline of hyper-localism, both Andreini and Balch point to the inevitable aging out of the enforcers. And as the lineup got multigenerational (sometimes with three generations surfing together), no one was in the mood for blood in the water or slashed tires. Still, holdouts remained, especially at a few well-known locations. We’ll give the last word to Purpus. “I never got hassled at Rincon and I surfed Rincon a bunch. In my mind, Rincon is tied with Jeffries Bay for the most beautiful wave.” Indeed, it is. Thank you, Mike.

The great Mike Purpus suffered a heart attack earlier this year but is now easing back into surfing and pestering his doctors for the go-ahead for bigger waves. Let’s all wish Mike a complete recovery. Vince and Stephen Bates have written a photographic history of Rincon Point: https://www.amazon.com/ dp/1467108707. It is available online or via many local venues. If you have stories about localism and turf wars at Rincon or other aspects of the Queen of the Coast’s surf history, get in touch with Vince at vinceburns805@ gmail.com.

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