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Inside the Mafia. The mavlensmen speak..

On March 7, at the Roadhouse Cafe in Princeton, proexchange.com founders Don Montgomery and Bill Clarke had an opportunity to interview the leading Mavericks photographers from Half Moon Bay, California; Doug Acton, Lawrence Beck, Don Montgomery, Eric Nelson and Frank Quirarte. Much of what has been seen and heard about Mavericks in print and video has been produced by them. They had some interesting things to say. Not all of it was pretty. Hopefully it will provide a window inside the game-into the world of big wave riding and the perils of putting it all on film. It was an excellent breakfast, and impossible to finish. But it was needed provisioning for the amazing discussion that followed. Hellmen Steve Dwyer and Jeff Clark were on hand to keep things real.

DA: Is it rollin?

FQ: Just tell them to make sure spell my name right when they put it on the inside page.

BC: I've got some questions that I'd like to ask.

DM: Well you've got the Maverick's Mafia here so go ahead, shoot.

BC: Why don't you talk about the contest, were you all out there? Were you on the boat? How many wave runners were out there?

FQ: About 13 but only 3 or 4 actual professional photographers shooting off of them. The rest were onlookers.

BC: I've heard about the rescue group?

DM: That's right Maverick's water patrol. Frank works from the water, I spot from the cliff. Who else is involved with that Frank?

FQ: Jeff, Rod Walsha, Grant and everyone who goes out there is really a part of it. Everyone helped the other day. That kinda came about from the photography just being out there on the jet skis. Since were out there anyway why not get trained and save some people.

LB: Who was responsible for missing Grant when he moved into the rocks and lost about 25 minutes of his heat?

FQ: He waved off the rescue?

SD: He didn't have any problem finding waves anyway. He got alot of waves in that heat, he was an animal as usual out there.

BC: Do you have radio communications?

FQ: Yeah, total radio communications from water, land and to the cliff as well. When we hear Don up there barking out, "Heads up! Heads up!

BC: So Don has the whole view, he sees the big sets come?

FQ: It's perfect. Perfect for everyone, the photographers, the surfers.You can tell when its a lull and all the jet ski's turn cause Don says "Heads up, K2 alert, head out the back". It works, it's like a security blanket for me.

BC: Were there any close calls?

FQ: During the contest? Nah it was really a mellow scene. The level of surfers was so high that it was just a show for everyone. Only one guy lost his board, but other than that no big deal.

EN: And I think only one set caught everybody inside and that was toward the end of the day when the tide was dropping, it was a minus tide.

DM: There was one cleanup set came in that caught you guys inside, but they were all OK

BC: I went to Frank's web site and saw all the contest video clips.

I saw the shot of Flea the size of the waves looked much bigger than the video clips. There were some big sets.

DA: That's a shot taken about a week ago. About a week later. That's not the contest.

FQ: It was big though, that one Flea caught was big.

DA: Actually Ritchie got one that was pretty close.

FQ: That one's actually not the biggest one on the web site now, there's a bigger one on that same day and Doug caught an even bigger one in the morning.

BC: Because that one almost looked like last year.

FQ: Yeah those were definitely the biggest waves of the year.

DA: That was the biggest swell I think.

FQ: What day was it?

DM: Monday after Evan got nailed. It was the day after.

FQ: No it wasn't during the IMAX thing. It was a week before that.It was an awesome day Zach Wormhoudt was killing it. Zach got some giant bombs. That was a great photo day early morning light, totally glassed off.

DA: Only five guys out, the hardest Santa Cruz chargers and Matt Ambrose from Pacifica.

DM: Was that the day that Shawn and Matt were the first two in the water?

FQ: No that was two weeks before.

DM: They all run together with me. (Ha Ha Ha)

BC to DM: You were telling me about one day with eighty foot faces?

DA: Oh... another fish story?

DM: I called up Frank one morning and asked him what was going on. He said that he had just talked to Jeff up on the cliff. They were looking at it and that they were actually witnessing waves that were coming through that had estimated eighty foot faces on them.

FQ: That was the day before that day. Before the Flea day.

DA: Oh yeah November 24th..22nd. Super ugly. (See home page)

FQ: I don't know the date.

LB: Because in November we saw a wave break we saw a wave break over the top of the Half Moon Bay Buoy.

DA: That's when Jeff went out and Duster went out.

FQ: Right.

LB: That was a big wave.

FQ: Giant day.

DA: Guys were gettin mowed.

FQ: Yeah a couple of guys; big wave Dave and Doc were surfin, and a couple of other guys went out and just got friggen rifled....

BC: How about the K2, why don't you talk about that?
DA: Show's over.
EN: From last year?
FQ: The party?
BC: Yeah what about the party.
DM: It was all Doug's fault. It was all Doug's fault.
DA: Damn right.
EN: Well there was two parties. There was the K2 party and then it got moved to the Marriott Bar.
DA: There was three parties and then at the hotel room...(ha ha ha)
DM: Yeah and then after a while all of us literally heard the theme of "Cops" that night. "Bad boy, bad boy what ya gonna do.."
EN: One of the Santa Cruz guys I guess one of the Santa Cruz guys pulled out a knife to show to one of the other Santa Cruz guys, we'll just call him...ah..ah

DA: schtkhingdokggchpff! cough cough.
EN: Let's just call him "Westside" just for the sake of argument. And one of the Westside guys pulled out a knife-
FQ: (interrupting) Not just a knife, a bigass-friggen-Bowie-murder-weapon.
DM: It was a "Rambo" weapon.
EN: I thought it was a little knife, I thought it was a letter opener.
FQ: It was huge man.
EN: I guess the bartender panicked! and thought there was going to be a knife fight and called security and he was just showing him this knife and they put it away and they thought it was the other westside guy. And so they grabbed him and all hell broke loose and they..
DA: And how about when we all came out of the elevator?
DM: Oh God...
FQ: Shoot when we showed up Don was in the corner spread eagle, Flea was in handcuffs on the floor.
DA: And I made the mistake of telling the cop, "You can't do that! these guys can't do that! And the cop goes, "Yes you can..up against the wall you. Then he goes, "up against the wall spread em."
BC: Shoot I didn't hear about that Don?

DM: They searched Flea, there was nothing on him, you know?
DA: And he was handcuffed on his knees.
DM: And so they put him in handcuffs and put him on the floor. So I said, "What the hell are you doing? There's nothing on him, you guys searched him...he's clean.
DA: They didn't like that.
DM: They said, "Turn around, up against the wall."
EN: This story has just completely generated into this..I don't know what the hell... this freak show because apparently Australian Surfing Life has an account of the story and it talks about how the whole Santa Cruz and Mavericks team "drank the bar dry" and then a "knife fight"-
DA: They made specifics to the Half Moon Bay photographers.
EN: Was that what it was? also? It was just like all these outrageous charges.
DA: We had "Babes on each arm". We just "totally terrorized the party". Except for Pete. Pete was "the epitome of ambassadorship". Whereas he was probably just as drunk as everybody else. He was smart not to come with us.
SD: You can't let the truth get in the way of a good story.
EN: Oh no are you kiddin me?
DA: Wow you could spin a whole tale off this.

SD: Hey, I didn't get invited man, I'm just a friggen after thought over here.
BC: You're the big wave rider, you do surf Mavericks.
SD: I'm a fair weather guy.
BC: Doug how about your covers. In the last three years you've bagged about what, three or four covers?
DA: Three in surfing publications. Two in Surfing and one in Surfer. Just hard work!
BC: I don't think any photographer has equaled that.
DA: Oh.. ah..Bob is right behind. Bob's out there too.
BC: You and him are kind of running neck and neck huh?
DA: He's out of the loop. He lost his boat driver and he got kind a sour. But he's seemed to put himself out of the loop so...
BC: I remember hearing him in Eric's video "Twenty feet Under" from the boat shot.
EN: Bob Barbour?
BC: Yeah, I think he was on one of those boats, and he was saying,"Watch the horizon Tom..."
DA: Well you know the whole thing about covers in this place is, Gilley kind of summed it up in a letter he gave me. He goes, "That we've raised the standards" like Frankie for instance. If Frankie was shootin like he is, three years ago, he would of had a cover by now. So we've raised the standards of shootin the place so high, that there actually, these people down there are waitin for the next level photos. And I don't think it's ever gonna happen. You can only get ..maybe a pole cam, you know, paddle up the wave face on a forty foot wave, poken it out and lookin down on the person, that might get a cover. But as far as it goes right now, we've raised the standards.
DM: Doug and Frank are pretty much the masters of the water angle right now other guys have gotten great shots, you know, but as far as quantity and consistency.
SD: Who's gonna volunteer to swing that pole cam? I want to know.
FQ: I was just thinking about that (nervous laughter).
SD: Paralta!! Grant could do it but uh...
LB: He's done the sixteen millimeter in the one inch water housing from the pit so...he'd put himself..
SD: Grant could swim with one leg or paddle with one arm and still beat most of us.
LB: Just don't give him a still camera or we'll all be out of work.

FQ: They put Peralta in the pit with the IMAX camera last week. And he just got yarded. Lost the camera, everything.
EN: They got it back though didn't they? Before it got to the rocks?
FQ: I got it. No I got it before it went through.
DM: Undamaged.
EN: Seventy millimeter film?
FQ: Yeah.
BC: How much is the price tag on that?
DM: A thousand dollars a roll.
FQ: Two hundred and fifty thousand...They didn't even care about Paralta..We saved him first. He goes, "Thanks for saving the camera man!!
EN: That's classic.
BC: Where can you get a copy of The "Men Who Ride Mountains" poster. That shot of yours Frank.
EN: It's a Quicksilver Poster actually.
FQ: Yeah, I've got copies. You want one?
BC: Can I sell some on my web site?
FQ: Um, we don't have enough to sell. We only have a handful left.
BC: That's an incredible friggen poster. The size of it.
DM: He's got enough mileage out that already.
DA: That one's over. You've got to better it.
BC: Don brought that print into my class and I hung it up on the wall and would walk over and look at it every once in a while and go....
DA: You're not immortal.
BC: That's death. That is friggen death.
SD: The only reason that shot didn't win was cause Mel made it look too damn easy. And Knox's wave he was just hanging on by his frigging toenails and his drop was so much later. You ask any of those guys a wave like that will rate with Mavericks at Todos. But that day was so far off the richter for Todos. And it had everything to do with the wind, because the wind was kind of pissy that day at Todos. It blew right into the right and it really made em stand up alot more.
BC: That whole angle too, the angle he was shooting from made it look bigger.
FQ: Well the whole thing about the K2 is that they judged it from a cliff angle or a hill angle and they never even considered Don's hill angles which showed the actual size of the waves.
DM: Yeah it turned out to be a "pretty picture" contest instead of a big wave photo contest..
DA: Well it's a double standard..
LB: And the judging was done by the Southern California people. That was a big problem. There was a bias. Bruce Jenkins. He was lobbying heavily along with one other person and they said, "Forget it". Because Mel's wave was bigger.
DA: Originally Sharp was commenting and was telling everybody that the cliff angle will never win. Because the cliff angle does not give the true angle of the wave. Where he said the water angle will do it. And he said that all along the way even in his informational packet and contract, whatever, it's all mentioned that the cliff angle will be considered but it's not gonna be the one that's gonna do it. Well then they turn around and took a cliff angle shot from Todos and used that where they didn't give Don a chance of using his shot to do it too.
DM: They had it in hand but didn't have it at the judging, I understand, to even consider.
SD: I think those mags hate the fact that Mavericks is not in Southern California.
BC: I think you're right.
LB: It's politics.
DA: It's Southern Cal. vs Northern Cal. It always has been that way.
BC: It's a war.
DA: If you ask the guys in Santa Cruz about the rivalry between north and south you'll get a true gist of what's really goin on because it's...Taylor was their boy. They got the right wave, they got their right boy, they made it happen..

BC: Just the way Mavericks has come up shows, the whole soul of the sport has moved north.. The business is still there, but the real soul of it is here.
EN: I think The way Mavericks has changed in the last couple of years on top of that is even more unreal. If you think about the fact that guys three or four years ago were taking off on waves and they were just making it to the bottom and just hanging on and surviving and that was it. Now guys are doing this and they're doing a bottom turn and going off the top-
FQ: The level of performance is starting to, everyone is just coming up to like Peter Mel. I mean he even said it himself. He said, "God damn I hate it out here. These guys are all getting to be as good as me.:" basically. I mean droppin, makin it and surfin it.
EN: Making air drops now, whereas before it was just insane to do that.
DM: The guys who have been surfing this place for years and years now have got it wired and they've raised the level of performance because of that.

LB: Well apart from Flea's airdrop in the Quicksilver, nobody has surfed it the way Richard Schmidt did in his heat. If people on the boat could have seen what he was doing on the inside. He was surfing his ah, his ahh. What board is he riding now?
SD: I think he's still riding that favorite old Rawson, it's like a nine six.
LB: He was surfing it like a seven six on a ten foot swell, he was tearing it up but they couldn't see him from the boat.
SD: No. We did see it. We could see the top turns.
FQ: Oh yeah, you could see it. Flea was doin it, Mel was doin it. They were gettin frigging barreled on the inside. They were carvin, carvin right into the barrell and out of there. Those guys, they really turned it on for that contest. To see that many guys doin what you just said on the inside was amazing. And on every wave.
EN: I think what alot of them didn't realize was that some of those guys are contest surfers. I mean that's all they do is surf contests. So it's not like being out there with your bros surfing Mavericks. It's like we're in a contest right now.
FQ: Right, "We're gonna win it man, we're goin for it."
EN: And that's why Mel and Schmidt and Flea did so well.
SD: I think Schmidt was the perfect example of that. I mean who of you guys were here the night of the competitors meeting. I mean he hoodwinked everybody. Forget about it.
EN: What did he say?
SD: The song he was singing that night about "aloha" and "camaraderie" and he goes out there and..
FQ: He blows it away!! (laughter)
SD: He hoodwinked everybody and goes out there and.. forget about aloha and camaraderie and he backed down Evan big time for one of the best waves of the heat. And nobody was gonna call him on it. I mean Evan came in from the heat and he was bummed, you know, he'd had the wind knocked out of him by..he was waitin for that wave and Schmidt just did him. I said,"Why didn't you take off in front of him?" he goes, "It's Richard Schmidt." I go, "Why didn't you call him on it when he came back out?" he goes, "It's Richard Schmidt" I go yeah, but you're Evan Slater.." and he goes, "But that's Richard Schmidt..."
DA: The thing is Evan knows his place...Richard's part of the history of that wave..
SD: You know what, it's not even an issue if Schmidt doesn't sing that song that he did at the competitors meeting. It's not even an issue because, you know what, when everybody puts on a jersey, anything goes and everybody knows it. But when he said that stuff that night, you could have heard a pin drop and nobody from Santa Cruz backed him up and he put Jeff in a really shitty position that night. I thought that was bullshit.

FQ: This is talking about a meeting we had prior to the contest explaining rules and letting any of the surfers express any concerns and stuff. It was really light and then Richard got up and then just started in on Jeff, really threw him against a corner and started in about the money thing.
EN: So in this case aloha meant goodbye.....

LB: Nobody endangered more people than Evan did in 1994. I've got fifteen or twenty shots of him falling off his board on top of other people. (To Steve) You included!
DA: I still think that's one of the most classic waves I've ever shot is the one where he's taking off on you and you had a clean line on that wave..
SD: It was his fault that I fell. (laughter)
DA: It definitely was. You had a shot at that wave Dwyer whether you think so or not. It's a twenty shot sequence and it's like watching a slow motion....
LB: That was such a big wave. That was probably the wave of the day. And he took alot of heat for that cause the magazines saw  all the photos of him dropping in on people.
DA: He's like this ( Doug acting off balance, falling) you're like this? (Doug again standing balanced) Go figure you know?
SD: Yeah..I can't blame my falling on him, but had I not fallen, he would have been right in my way. That I know because I was...I didn't think I was going to go under the lip on that one, but I had a down the line angle on that wave and he had a straight down the face...
DA: And plus from my experience when you catch something out of the corner of your eye it detracts from what you're thinking and what you're doin and if that caught your attention in any way, that in itself can loose your concentration.
SD: It's funny because I've had this conversation recently with Jay.I was doin a thing for the surf guide where nick sent me a bunch of questions I had to ask all the same questions of Jay and Jeff and Peter. One of the questions was, "The moment you experience the most fear?" and we started talking about his wave from '94. You know the "crucifix thing" and we started talking about what we remember from it you know. I was talking about the wave with Evan and he was talking about that wave. And we were goin you know it's really weird, I think about that wave and other waves where I've had really bad experiences. Even though that one wasn't that bad of an experience.And I can't remember anything that I saw. I can remember Evan and both of us paddling down the line like this cause we knew it was a "swinger" and that we were both kind of deep, but we didn't know that we were that deep. It turned out we were both too deep. But I can't remember anything that I saw in front of me. I can remember seeing his ass paddling in front of me and I knew he was going to go, but I was going to go anyway. But I don't know what the water looked like in front of me or anything on the drop.
LB: You were in the zone.
DA: I remember you popping up the back of the wave going, "Yeahhhhh"
SD: It happened really fast. The lip went over me but I didn't go over the falls. And I came up and I was right back out in the lineup because nothin came after it. And Evan was fifteen minutes almost to get back out. Because he got dragged.
DA: He got worked...
SD: It really made me start thinking about what you remember that you see. And I don't remember seeing anything, I don't remember thinkin anything except when it was over going, uhhh there's not another wave to nailme.
DM: Hey Steve, what were you thinking and what were you seeing when you got sucked over the falls a couple of weeks ago? Huh? (laughter).
SD: The kid from Santa Barbara, Randy Cone was right next to me and he said that real quietly I went, "Oh shit". But I don't remember seeing anything Cause I was looking out to sea and I wasn't gonna turn around. You know how shiny the back of a wave is on a day like that? Even if it's not clean it just pulls it clean? The reef does? But I kinda remember it being real shiny.
DM: But that was a nice scene though.
DA: A pleasant calm before the storm..
SD: I'd seen this happen to other guys. I flashed on the snuff sequence of Pipe. Where they always have a sequence of some guy going over the falls With the poor bastard's head stickin out-shit that's me this time.
BC: Did you hit the bottom?
SD: No I didn't hit bottom but it took me really deep and brought me back up. Where I only had to swim about five strokes to get back up. I got up and Frank was right there and I waved him off cause  there was another wave was coming ;and I was OK. It wasn't two waves.. It carried me a little bit south so thatwhen the next wave came I wasn't in the pit, I was just enough on the shoulder so it wasn't so bad. My leash didn't break and it brought me up really quick It took me really deep. Deeper than I've probably ever been out there, but it also brought me up pretty quick. (To Frank) I don't think I was down for that Long. It didn't feel like it. It was violent. It was like jumping in a pool like this (straight). I knew I was really really deep. Luckily it brought me right back up.
EN: Did you know you were going to go over the falls? You know the feeling where punch through you go ahhh I've made it but then you can feel the gravity start to slow..
SD: Not until the very last second. Because I was in the cat bird's seat right there. That was my wave and when there was a wave in front of it and I saw the bump out there, I said this one's mine. But when it stood up in front of me I realized that I had to paddle over it. But I didn't stroke hard because I thought I had it. But you know, that's Mavericks for you; sometimes it just gets you and that time it got me. And that's why I didn't ditch. I thought I had it and I was paddling over the lip like this (casually) you know towards the southwest, like I'm over this no problem. And I got to the top and I just went...Fuck it. And I just got off my board like this (sliding off) and I let it go next to me...and I knew right away I was goin and I had a few seconds to think about it cause my board went and my board was gone and then the lip passed me by. I knew it was just my head stickin out and I was going oh man. Then the lip's passin me by and I've got a few seconds to think about it. And I say, yeah I've seen this happen to other guys at Pipeline and stuff and now it's me. And I remember recognizing that I wasn't panicking and I figured I was gonna be OK. And I was and it brought me back up so it wasn't that bad. I saw the video and the funniest thing about the video is Curt's angle my head is like a piling...and you can see the water eddy behind my head. Wow that's a little too much detail.
DM: For those watching the video it's probably one of the most enjoyable parts.
SD: Yeah the only thing anybody's gonna remember. That was a career day for me out there but nobody's ever gonna remember any of the good stuff.
LB: Well surfing Mavericks has always been fifty percent lunatic fringe and fifty percent masochism...and you certainly fit the bill on that one..

BC: That reminds me of your video Eric "Twenty Feet Under". Mike Brummet when he's talking about that incredible ride he gets and he can't remember anything about it?.
EN: Oh yeah yeah yeah..That was from the November seventeenth? '97. Brummet and Loya, the freaks friday.
LB: And Zach was that the day that all three of them wiped out and Loya hurt his leg..
EN: Yeah, he hurt his leg and Brummet said he hit so hard on his arm and shoulder that he thought he dislocated his shoulder. His whole upper body was numb, it was like hitting concrete..
DM: That was a dark bumpy day...
DA: That was a scary day..
EN: I have one shot where I just followed this wave breaking and it just breaks forever and you can just see it slowly ledging ahead of itself and it just kept reeling..and I mean Jeff and Schmidt didn't even surf that day they just looked at each other and said, "You gotta be kiddin me" and these guys paddled out and I think Doc was saying that the chops on the face were like two feet? That would have been a good day to tow in..that day....
SD: I love the fact that Schmidt doesn't go out on days like that. It makes me feel better. I'm such a fair weather guy..
DA: I knew the "Deeper Blue" was goin out, so it was like a race to get out. And I saw the deeper blue goin out and I was just pullin up to the ramp and I'm goin, "Oh this guy's gonna beat me out there". So I throw all my shit on gettin out and I didn't realize they got stuck at the gas pump for like an hour. So here I am racin out to get get out to that lagoon there (the Jaws) and it took me six tries because the sand built up right next to the rock was so bad that it just made this huge closeout. So I get out and I'm just sittin out there goin, "Fuck. Where is everybody?" And it's dark, just got done rainin... and I'm goin...I've never seen it look like this before, it was huge, mountains.. where the fuck is everybody, what the hell am I doin out here? Then about a half an hour later, I'm just sitting there taking pictures of empty waves. It went from fear to, "EWHHH.. This is kinda cool...you're watching Mother Nature at its... It's like being at Niagara Falls. Being the first one to see it like that. Then I see Loya paddle out then Brummett and I say, "Hey you guys! Why don't we just go back in and have breakfast...this is pretty fucking huge out here. And everybody was like, "Oh were just gonna sit on the shoulder". Those guys almost went back in. And then I think Loya got the first wave?
EN: He did. He got heavily bounced.
DA: Oh he bounced so hard. He actually had it but he slipped off. The new booties syndrome...
FQ: He was boasting that he never even got his hair wet out there. No wipeouts
BC: Yeah, I remember that was published.
SD: As soon as you say that, "My hair's dry".
DA: I've got shots of him wiping out two years previous. In fact Shawn Rhodes came over to pick photos out and he picked the one of him wiping out two years previous and he goes, "I'm gonna take this shot just because it's Loya kept saying he never wiped out there, and here's the shot. And he goes I'm going to blow it up and put it on the wall".
SD: He must have said that without knockin wood.
LB: I think he had said, "He'd never blown a takeoff." And was it a take off that you got?
DA: Oh,Yeah...Well he gets a quarter of the way down and he's off his board.
SD: When he said that was back in '95.
FQ: No. He was sayin it that morning! He was saying that he never got his hair wet! (acting) "Ahh I've never wiped out I've never even got my hair wet!"
BC: One shot I've got to comment on that I'm really surprised I didn't see published was the shot of Mike Brummet where he takes off and does about a fifty foot bounce. And you (Frank) got the shot and there is no wake. It looked like someone took a body out of one picture and pasted it into another.. It was so clean and big. I think it was that January 30th day.
FQ: That's hangin on the wall in there (Roadhouse Cafe). Pretty wild. It was that day we were on the "Glass Mopping". It was that day you heard Bob Barbour say, "watch the horizon". It was that day. We were all screaming at Tom cause he was fucking so deep. He was so deep in there. We're all goin, "Oh my God". I went, "ahhh fuck it. It we get hit, take the picture and jump off." (laughing) And we were so close, that's how we got that shot. We were closer on that boat than Doug was on his wave runner. We were super close.
BC: It was the picture in the Chronicle, it's right at the tail end of that wave spitting out and you can see that boat there. It looks kind of like an old clunker.
FQ: Yeah that was "The Twins" boat.
BC: And then it looked like a guy in the water bobbin around.
FQ: Yeah Paralta was out there that day shootin.
EN: That was from the 30th?
FQ: I don't know what day it was.
BC: yeah I think it was....

BC: Eric, your videos; how many do you have out now?
EN: Just three. I'm gonna revise "High Noon at Low Tide". I'm gonna redo that one.
DA: What are you gonna name it?
EN: Ummm. "Doug's Secret Adventure." In his garage.
DA: You havn't got all the good footage yet though..
BC: Eric, where do you come up with these names?
EN: That's a good question. You should hear the name of my next video
BC: I mean "12/11" I went that's really deep...
EN: We couldn't come up with a name. I mean "Twenty Feet Under" was easy cause of the Neil Matthies wipe out. I mean watching that board tombstone. It was like a shark moving through water from our point of view.
BC: I watched that video and you kept the camera running through the whole thing which was amazing and it was a forty second holdown.
EN: I think the amazing thing about that wipe out was that I had the presence of mind to grab another video camera and run down there and interview him still dripping wet. I take Dave Alexander's camera who in turn turns it over to Alexi Usher and tries to sabotage my career.
DM: But that's another story.
DA: We'll get to that one later.
EN: But Niel says that it felt like he just kept going over the falls. And then I couldn't come up with a name for the video and then I just thought about that wipeout; the fact that those leashes are about fifteen or twenty feet long and he was at least twenty feet under and then you always hear the term "six feet under" so I thought why not twenty feet under. And then "High Noon at Low Tide" I got the idea from, I always found that it broke really well at low tide. And "High Noon" representing the truth...and that things are always dealt with like the old westerns.
LB: The gunfight.
EN: Everything is in plain sight, it's in broad daylight and either the facts and the truth is there or it's not. You can either surf the place or you can't surf the place...and so you have "High Noon at Low Tide".
DM: His most recent footage was shot on March first. He comes up with the name, "Ides of March". Now how'd you come up with that?
BC: That from Shakespeare. That's when they kill Julius Caesar.
SD: The eleventh of March is the Ides.
EN: I figured March roars in like a lion and leaves like a lamb...and it roared in like a lion. I'm not gonna put "The: roaring lions"..
DA: Wait a minute, I thought when you get older your brain cells are kinda supposed to die out. What's happenin here Eric are they starting to regenerate?
LB: The thing about the Neil Matthies interview was he was so cavalier about it, "Oh, it wasn't that bad".
FQ: Well you know he's in there kind straightening up his back, "I think I really hurt my back." He ended up breaking his back that day. He had a broken back...
EN: Yeah that's what I heard.
LB: I asked people about it and they said he didn't break his back.
FQ: That was a misprint. No, he broke it..but he didn't even know it.
EN: That's the difference between a broken back and a severe spinal injury...You can break your back and still walk around.
FQ: Yeah he said, "No I broke it". He paddled out this year a couple of times
EN: So the Ides of March could happen in four days is what you're sayin?
DM: Possibly.
EN: So I'll have to retitle the video?
SD: The Ides of March is the eleventh. For future reference Eric..
EN: OK. I'll remember that. I gonna carry a calendar with me...
BC: Lawrence, I wanted to ask you about your photo of Jeff Clark "The biggest cold water wave ever ridden"....
LB: At that point in time, in '93. That was the caption from Peter Townend at Surfing Magazine when I took the photos down to him. I shot from the very end of the point that day and I think it was the first and only time I ever shot from the end of the point because of the way the sun works at Mavericks: As you get closer to eleven, eleven thirty it shifts around and if you're shootin at the end of the point, you're shootin right into the sun. But fortunately this was March fifth of 93. It was early enough in the morning and Jeff takes off on this left and it was the first day I ever shot with a 560 Lieca lens which I've been using to this day. I put a 2X converter on it, for that wave. It's the only time I've used the 2X converter. And was shooting Kodachrome 200 pushed to 500...and you can see every finger on his gloves. The detail in that is incredible in a 30 by 40 inch print. And that to me was such compelling evidence that this was the lens to be shooting with...that I bought it.
BC: What's the price tag on that lens?
LB: Used $1500 and you can pay 9, 10, 11,000 dollars for Japanese optics..I've tested em both side by side, laid em out on the light box for people to compare... and every single person has picked the Leica optics.
BC: Yeah, that shot's amazing.
LB: It's a two element lens. Two pieces of glass instead of eleven or twelve in most of the Japanese optics.

BC: I wanted to ask you guys a little about the equipment you use. Don? what do you use? What kind of lens, what kind of camera?
DM: I shoot with a Canon EOS system, 500mm, 4.5 lens. Occasionally when the light's right, I'll throw in a 1.4 converter. I am very happy with that lens.
BC: How about you Doug, what do you shoot with?
DA: I picked up on a new Kodak disposable..
EN: Your shots look like it too...
LB: It's water proof to twenty feet which is the beauty of it. Splash proof and since you never go under, it's perfect.
DA: Exactly, but I have to keep wipin the plastic off...
SD: Your kid can use it.
DA: She is startin to use it. Anyone can use it. Even Don..
DM: I hear shooting through binoculars with one of those works real good too..
DA: So that's what you've been doin on the cliff!!!
DM: Shhhhh! Shhhhhh..
BC: Frank, what do you using out there?
FQ: I use the Canon EOS system. I use the 70-200.
BC: A real fast one?
FQ: Super fast..2.8 and they forgot to tell me the first time I bought one that they weren't water proof...
DA: So he tested it..
BC: Do you have an underwater housing?
FQ: No.
BC: No kidding, you just zoom around and stop and shoot..
FQ: My underwater housing is a ziplock bag, I just bought a new box of them the other day.
DM: So what happened to the first camera there Frank, huh?
EN: (laughing)
DA: Yeeeehaaa! cowboy!!!
FQ: Like I say, they forgot to tell me that it wasn't waterproof. I was thinkin about events the whole last year when we were shootin off the Zodiac.You're super conservative on the Zodiac, you know, you stay out. And then this year I got the wave runner to shoot off of and I'm feelin all...Cowboy! New camera, new wave runner...I'm gonna go sit on the left. Jeff says, That's OK, go sit in there on the left. I'm lookin through the lense and I look at the first wave and I go, "That's really big..It starts to feather on me, so I shoot off, instead of going sideways on the wave I went straight up..and the camera got hit and I took a big hit of water and I'm wipin it off..you know, I,m OK and I look up again and there's another one about to break on me. Fuck! I shoot up again, fly straight up in the air and had the camera around my neck.The jet ski starts to go back on the wave so I had to decide in a split second to either kick the jet ski out or let itgo over the falls so I said, "ah, the jet ski costs more than the camera" and ust kicked the ski off and went swimming with the camera. Then I had to swim back over to the jet ski with the camera around my neck underwater. And then I went way out to the buoy and I stopped and I just opened up the back of the camera, and shhhhhh water just....
EN: I have a shot of Frank going like this.. (shaking imaginary camera out) and he's literally pouring water out of his camera.
FQ: Yeah and I had alot of good waves in that film.
BC: Ah man, somebody was telling me about that, watching it from shore.
FQ: Yeah, it was crazy.
BC: Are you guys sponsored for your jet skis?
FQ: Yeah, now we are. Actually Kawasaki sponsors the Water Patrol and kicked down two Kawasaki 1100s, beautiful machines.
BC: So next time you'll let the jet ski go right?
FQ: Oh no, save the jet ski..No we learned. We learned fast what to do.
DA: He took his cowboy boots off..
FQ: That's right! (laughing).
BC: Frank, you want to talk about your web site?
FQ: Yeah, actually you know a photographer helped us out when we got started. My cousin and I just started foolin around with em. His dad got us started on it and we wanted to do something that we were interested in so we did surfing and he was actually friends with Vern Fisher another Mavericks photographer and Vern wanted to get into the web stuff too. So he gave us a disk of six or seven pictures and we had those pictures on the web site for a year and a half. Just these six pictures and we built the whole thing around that. You know and then as we got along I started talking to Doug and Don and getting some of their shots on there to so. We just kind of built around all that.
BC: The quality is just goin up. Every time I go on there I see better and better shots it's an addiction.
FQ: Well you know I joke around..photographers, anal bastards man I don't want anything to do that fuckin classification.  And I thought, I'll just get my own camera. If they can do it, I can do it. I actually got a really good camera from a friend of ours over here, Lili Schad. And it was a good camera but I still wasn't shootin anything good. And Doug really dialed me in on some hot tips out there. And after that it's just been pure practice.
BC: Now you are one of the best photographers out there.
FQ: Taught by the best...
DM: What do you attribute that to Frank?
FQ: Alot of drinking and sexual experiences...bestiality.
BC: Cause I went out and bought one of those Kodak Instamatics after talking to Doug and it just didn't work right.
DA: It's how you use it...It's your subject matter.
BC: I understand you're getting a million hits a month..
FQ: Three million...With this contest we actually had three million, seven hundred thousand or something like that? On the contest day alone we got over a million hits. And in the hit reports, like 85%, and they give you a little pie chart, 85% of the hits were all images...just people clicking on the pictures.. of the photos.
BC: If only you could get a dollar from everybody who goes on there..
DA: He's workin on it...
BC: You've got the audience.
FQ: Well on the web site we keep it...how did we say that the other day?
DM: Keep it real.
FQ: kind of a little soulful. Not "sell out" too hard on it. Everyone picks up on that. Not a, "Stuff a bunch of shit down their throat, now that we're here buy that. We're not about that.
DM: But that's gonna change soon..(general laughing)
FQ: I'm not saying that we won't go there.
SD: Links to hot links baby.

BC: Don you're working on a web site too, you and I, why don't you talk about that.
DM: Actually its a web site called proexchange.com and it's dedicated to action sports photographers of all kinds. We like to feature photographers work on it. It's a place where photographers can buy and sell used equipment at a very reasonable rate. You can get the best price here and of course almost infinite access to anybody out there in the web world.
FQ: Will you have photographers tips and things like that? Secrets?
DM: Yeah and there's a cool page on it called travel where you can check out sailing vessels leaving from areas up and down the coast to points north, south, east or west.
BC: Yeah, if somebody is free for the months of June and July, a friend of mine is bringing his boat up from La Paz. He said he's willing to stop everywhere in Baja, Point Conception, the Channel Islands. Anchor, stop and let people surf. He just needs crew to help him bring the boat back up. From June first to the middle or end of July. So if you can tear yourself away, there'll be some phenomenal shots.
EN: A two month trip?
BC: Yeah. There are alot of people out there who need crew on their boats. There are alot of undiscovered spots out there.
EN: Are you guys gonna charge a buck a hit on your web site or is it completely free?
BC: No, if something gets sold, we charge the seller 10%.
EN: How will people know it's there?
BC: That's a good question, we still have to learn how to get it on search engines. We have it on a few. But it's mainly word of mouth right now.
FQ: I know a hot web site you can link it up to..
DM: Yeah Frank, could you help us out in that area?
FQ: A dollar a hit.
DM: ha ha, Yeah right we'll keep it real too huh?

So for now the Mavlensmen have spoken. A bunch of wise guys who are willing to risk life, limb and equipment to deliver you the reader, the goods. You'll be seeing (and hearing) alot more from them in the future.....Count on it.

-proexchange