November 4, 2025 • 38 mins
What does it mean to live a life of service? Pipeline pioneer John Peck was devout to many things over this 81 years, and exploring this question was amongst them.
In 2015, we hosted John for what was a precursor to this podcast - a storytelling evening in our local community hall. He was captivating - virtually no one moved for hours, as Dave's questions and John's stories interwove with improvisational tunes from The Babe Rainbow. Sipping chai and sitting on cushions in concentric circles, it felt like a gathering from a bygone era.
In honour of John's metamorphosis, we share this snippet from that evening - an audio recording that was only re-discovered after his passing - thanks twice to Nathan Oldfield.
We trace John Peck’s path from pioneering Pipeline to a life of service, music, and sobriety, and reflect on why elders’ stories matter to surf culture. The ocean rebirths us; our job is to carry that clarity home and be useful.
On John Peck in the Encyclopedia of Surfing:
"Peck placed fourth in the juniors division of the 1960 Makaha International, and returned the following year to finish third, but was virtually unknown in the surf world until New Year's Day, 1963, when he and California switchfooter Butch Van Artsdalen put on a fantastic display at Pipeline, with Peck spontaneously inventing a low-crouch stance, his right hand grabbing the rail of his board, that allowed him to ride high and tight to the curl. That summer, Peck's thrilling Pipeline rides were the highlight of three surf movies—Angry Sea, Gun Ho!, and Walk on the Wet Side—and earned the 18-year-old the first-ever SURFER foldout cover.
Peck had meanwhile set out on a lengthy course of alcohol and drug abuse, including a seven-year LSD phase beginning in 1965. He was involved in the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a Laguna Beach consciousness-raising group...".
He gave up drugs and drinking in 1984, four years later began surfing again, and in the mid-'90s was reintroduced to the
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
What when I was walking around, I didn't need to
eat or breathe or do anything.
I was just a cosmic phantom oflight, rainbow flying around,
and somehow still had a body onthe earth.
People would when they wouldencounter me, it would scare
them.
Somebody who didn't need to tobreathe and have a heartbeat and
just a walking drug zombie, soto speak.
(00:21):
It was frightening to them and Icouldn't do any communicating
with them.
I was no help.
People would try to throw me injail and said I committed
treason against the U.S.
by causing the Hip Rebution.
How about that for a joke?
Sure.
Yeah.
Right.
A spontaneous combustion ofconsciousness, maybe.
Okay?
(00:41):
But not me.
No, I was not the master.
SPEAKER_02 (00:45):
Welcome to Water People, a podcast about the
aquatic experiences that shapewho we become back on land.
I'm your host, Lauren Hill,joined by my partner Dave
Rastovich.
Here we get to talk story withsome of the most interesting and
adept water folk on the planet.
We acknowledge the BunjalongNation, the traditional
custodians of the land andwaters where we work and play,
(01:10):
who have cared for this seacountry for tens of thousands of
years.
Respect and gratitude to allFirst Nations people, including
elders, past, present, andemerging.
This season is supported byPatagonia, whose purpose-driven
mission is to use business tosave our home planet.
(01:30):
Today we're in conversation withthe venerated elder John Peck.
Dave, I was thinking to writesomething about John, but can
you intro us?
SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
Yeah, yeah, John Peck, one of the originals in
the surfing timeline and modernsurfing anyway, he was a very
talented surfer in the 60s ofhis young, you know, probably
early 20s sort of age group ofpeople who were filling the
space that was left in Hawaiiand California in lineups, you
(02:02):
know.
So people who'd been surfingSunset Beach, Palmalu, all those
sort of incredible waves alongthe North Shore for a very long
time before industrialism,colonialism came there.
But in the next wave of surfersthat came to those breaks,
people like John Peck, GregKnoll, Mickey Munoz, and plenty
of locals too, who were ridingpipos deeper than a lot of those
(02:24):
guys.
That was a very interesting timebecause people like John were
looking at pipeline, forexample, and there was no one
out there, and they were tryingto figure out how do you ride a
wave like that on these huge,clunky longboards, essentially,
that were made for like Maliburiding at Malibu and slopey
little slow California waves.
(02:46):
So he cracked the code one dayat Pipeline.
It was New Year's Day, and hetells the story.
So I won't go over it here, butessentially the way he figured
out how to slide down the faceand successfully ride pipeline
on his backhand is still the waywe all do it today, which is
jamming your arm in the wall,grabbing the outside rail, and
(03:09):
steering yourself along to makethe the wave.
So John was that guy, and he wason the first posters and issues
of Surfer magazine and becamethis celebrated guy.
SPEAKER_02 (03:20):
It's probably rare that we trace like a particular
wave writing adaptation back toa particular person.
Like that probably hasn'thappened a lot.
SPEAKER_01 (03:28):
Yeah.
So he though also was an extremecharacter.
So around that time, there'sanother surf film that is out
where he's captured on filmsurfing Honolulu Bay really
well, but he's he's so cocky andlike just full tilt that he's
smoking a cigarette while he'sdoing that out in the lineup.
And there's there's a film withthat in it.
So if someone can find that andtell each other where to find
(03:51):
it, I would be interested.
So that's interesting just tosee that he was a pretty extreme
character who then went on todive deeply into psychedelics
and into esoteric interests likeyoga and meditation.
SPEAKER_02 (04:04):
He was part of the great hippie boom in the US,
young people really questioningthe way their parents had chosen
to do life in sort of domestic,suburban everything better
through science kind of living.
And people were going back tothe land, or so the story goes,
and also getting superexperimental.
SPEAKER_01 (04:26):
And surfing was wrapped up in that cultural,
romanticized yeah.
So his proximity in SouthernCalifornia to the Brotherhood of
Eternal Love, which is a groupout of Laguna, who were
basically running hash and acidaround the world through
surfboards and their surfingnetwork and boats, because you
(04:46):
know lots of surfers had boatsand were traveling the Pacific.
And John was really wrapped upin that whole movement.
And he was probably one of thosepeople that were right on that
edge of it all, where otherswould look and go, Whoa, okay,
Peck is really pushing thingsthere with how much acid you
could take, how much yoga youcould do, how much meditation
you could partake in, how muchfasting, and all of these
(05:10):
things.
He was such an extreme characterwho was willing to push all of
those interests to their endpoint.
So, you know, like fasting everySaturday, taking acid every
Sunday, going out at SunsetBeach trying to figure out how
to ride the wave or pipeline orall these other waves.
So a very extreme character whothen went down the dark sort of
(05:30):
path of alcoholism and addictionfor a while there, and then came
out of it.
And when he came out of it, heprobably had a decade or two of
being clean and sober and acomplete yogi, and that's where
I met him.
So I met John probably early2000s, and I was passing through
(05:50):
Southern California with somefriends.
We were playing music andsurfing, and we happened to stay
at Garth, Murphy, and Uva, theirhouse, the Derby House in
Encinitas, which is like thisliving museum of art and music,
and people like Um Hendricks andMorrison and Beatles, all these
kind of radically f incredibleinfluential artists had passed
(06:11):
through that house.
So we were staying there too.
And John was the caretaker atthe time.
He was looking after the Derbyhouse.
We arrived and had perhaps acouple days there, and the next
day happened to be a Tuesday.
At that time in my life, I was acouple years into fasting and
being silent every Tuesday,every week.
(06:32):
And when that day came along, Itold John the day before that I
was going to be fasting tomorrowand silent, and he was just
stoked.
He was like, right on, brotherDave.
Great! He was really lit up bythe fact that I was willing to
do that so often.
So the next day I'm silent.
I think we went for a surf, wecame back to the house, and then
he and I started playing music,and he had this beautiful guitar
(06:54):
tuning with this crazy resonantguitar that he would play, and I
had some different instrumentsthat were kind of drony and
psychedelic.
We sat down and silently playedmusic in that house for about
eight hours.
And the funny thing was, all ofour friends who were with us
would like they sat down at thestart and after half an hour or
so got itchy feet and left thehouse, went, got some lunch,
(07:17):
came back.
John and I are sitting there inthis trance playing.
Then they went surfing, cameback.
John and I were sitting there inthis trance playing, and then
the sun went down, everyonewent, had dinner, came back, and
there we were still seatedtogether, hadn't spoken a word,
and just were in this blissedout musical state.
And for me, that experience wasreally special because he was
(07:39):
someone who had so much historyin the surfing timeline, but who
was also so interested in thosesubtle realms and those sort of
more esoteric areas of life.
And previously, in myexperience, surfing and that
world were very separated.
But he was someone who embodiedboth, and I really appreciated
that.
And he really appreciated thatin me because I was like, you
(08:00):
know, 21, 22 years old.
And the night ended, we sat upand or sorry, we stood up and
smiled at each other, went tobed the next morning.
I woke up so excited, like, Ican't wait to ask John how that
was for him, because that wasjust crazy for me.
And the sun came up, we woke upand we spoke about it, and we
(08:21):
just had a link forevermoreafter that.
And so I would always seek himout when going through
California and or Hawaii even.
And then I would learn of hisimpact on other people, and you
know, he he always did thisthing where he was really into
being of service.
He wanted to be useful in theworld.
He wanted to use his awarenessof his body through yoga and his
(08:44):
spirit through meditation andmusic and everything.
He wanted to use what he wasexperiencing as this kind of
psychonaut, cosmonaut who wasout on the furthest edges of
being a human and reporting backto the rest of us here on earth
how to navigate life and thoserealms, those subtle realms.
And so he would always offer hisuh service of giving you kind of
(09:07):
like a massage relaxationsqueeze around your shoulders
and your neck and light up yourChristmas tree.
Lighting up your Christmas tree.
He he would give you thatopportunity to lay down and
deeply relax, and he would helpyour spine out and help your
neck, and then he would get hislittle rope thing and pull on
your head, which was very scary.
SPEAKER_02 (09:26):
Wrap it around, was it the front?
It's like the back the back ofyour neck.
I remember laying down and beinglike, I don't really know this
person, and I feel like I'm in avery vulnerable position right
now.
SPEAKER_01 (09:37):
Yes, but it it was um he would give you traction,
basically, it was gentletraction.
SPEAKER_02 (09:42):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (09:43):
But he would say it would light up your Christmas
tree, and often it would.
You'd maybe a couple little popsof air would come out of
knuckles in your spine orwhatever, but you would you'd
deeply relax, and that for himwas the feeling of being useful
for other humans.
And I really loved that.
And he was just unwavering atthat point in his life with his
focus on that.
He wouldn't compromise.
SPEAKER_02 (10:03):
Can you trace how John came to be in our local
little community hall and wherethis recording came from, where
the idea came from, and uh andhow we captured this audio?
Yeah.
Because it was before WaterPeople existed.
And but it was part of seedsthat were sown, I feel like,
(10:24):
right at the very beginning ofour relationship.
Do you remember when you came toFlorida and we I feel like there
was a sense that we knew we hadwork to do together around
stories and elders specificallywere noticing what was happening
in the surf media, and it waskind of the same rehashing of
the same stories, but we're wewere traveling together and
meeting all of these super wild,vibrant people living in really
(10:49):
creative ways, and John Peck wasone of them, of course.
And I remember sitting on thedeck of my mom's beach shack in
Florida and thinking about howdo we pull these stories
together and share them with ourcommunity.
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
Yeah, where can they exist?
And at the time it was such ayouth-centric sort of reflection
back to our surfing organism,you know, like if you were a a
magazine editor or a surfcompany, you're pretty much just
focusing on 14 to 20, whateverit was, and that always quote,
you know, that's the market andall that sort of jargon.
(11:22):
But what it meant was that wejust had a lack of depth in our
storytelling, it felt like, andthe one thing that would be told
of yesteryear's heroes wasalways the same sort of stories,
like you said.
But here we were travelling andmeeting these people who just
had the most fascinatingstories.
Yeah.
And so John was certainly one ofthose people.
(11:42):
And I really felt like ourcommunity in the Northern Rivers
region has a lot of people thatare interested in those sort of
esoteric or subtle realms oflife, the sort of causal realm,
not the effect realm.
So, like, how do you feel beforeyou start to do things in your
life?
And so that takes the you knowthe shape of yoga classes and
(12:06):
intentional communities.
There's a lot of likeintentional communities in the
hills here where people arefocusing on that.
So I felt like there would be anaudience, there'd be people here
who would really appreciate somestories from John and perhaps
even want to ride some of hisboards.
And so, you know, remember wewere just talking about bringing
him down here and having a farm?
I have no idea, but it wouldhave been a day to go.
SPEAKER_02 (12:30):
It would have been 2015, I'd say.
SPEAKER_01 (12:34):
Sounds great.
SPEAKER_02 (12:34):
Yeah, so yeah, ten years ago.
SPEAKER_01 (12:35):
Yeah, yeah.
And he was super into it becausehe'd passed through here before,
and he was again, he would justbe like, Yeah, whatever's useful
and helpful in the world,brother Dave.
And so we got him down here andhe was living on the farm here
for a little while with us, andjust through going surfing and
being in our area and seeing howpeople responded to him, because
you know, like visually, he'sjust a sad.
(12:57):
He's like a full yogi, longbeard, stick thin, but rubbery
and flexible, constantly likesun-gazing and staring up into
the heavens and just a presence,you know, and so I knew I could
just see people's heads turningaround here, like, who is that
wizard with the Yeti?
Who is that guy walking aroundwith Dave?
And so we came up with the ideaof filling our little community
(13:20):
hall down the road here withfriends and interested people
who would want to sit down andlisten to some talk story with
John.
And at the time I was playing abit of music with the Babe
Rainbow fellas and Alioski andCoolbrees and Angus, and we were
really interested in sittingdown, having John talk story,
and then have a breather, and wewould play some music to let
(13:42):
those pretty wild stories sinkin.
And we'd play music for a coupleminutes, and then I would prod
John with another question, andwe'd get another story, and we
would do that.
And so we did that thinking, ohyeah, it'll be like, you know,
45 minutes to an hour perhapsthat that we'll do this, and
people will be able to sit stilland be interested.
And the whole hall wascompletely filled, and the talk
(14:05):
ended up going for three hours,and no one even stood up to go
to the toilet.
It was just like people wereglued to their spot on the floor
in the hall.
SPEAKER_02 (14:14):
I remember Colbrees playing the sitar and that the
resonant sound in the timbercommunity hall was just it was
really captivating.
SPEAKER_01 (14:24):
And like you said, this is before we had an a a bit
more of an act.
Um we didn't have a properrecording gear or anything, and
I think really the only audiorecording of that is from Nathan
Oldfield.
Thankfully, Nathan was theretaking pictures and recorded
somehow.
So the audio is what it is.
SPEAKER_02 (14:41):
It is what it is, and it's only a snippet of the
night because I think Nathan'scamera died, and then we meant
to release this many years ago,um, but it was lost in the ether
of the internet for quite sometime.
I couldn't find the link when Iwent back after hearing of
John's passing, but Nathanmanaged to find it.
So we're stoked to be able toshare a little moment of that
(15:04):
night and and John's reallyinteresting words with you.
SPEAKER_01 (15:09):
Yeah, yeah, super fun, and it really makes me feel
like I would urge people to findtheir version of John Peck in
their world and sit down withthem whenever you can and have a
cupper and listen to theirstories.
Let them be heard and seen aspeople who have walked the path
(15:30):
longer than us and might havesome things to share that are
really valuable and and even ifyou felt compelled to perhaps
record them and share them withyour community because look at
us now.
John just left his body and itseemed like he'd prepared his
whole life to die, much likeRamdas said, he'd been preparing
his whole life for death.
(15:51):
And so there's probably verylittle sadness around John
leaving his body, probably moreof a celebration than you'd
think actually, and he, youknow, would just be shedding his
earth suit and in the next ride,the next wave that he's riding,
and it just makes me gratefulthat we have this little snippet
to share with people, and yeah,I would I really just recommend
(16:14):
that people do that in their ownway in their own communities
because it's really enrichingand fulfilling and it feels
really good for us too.
SPEAKER_02 (16:21):
And you never know when the opportunity might not
be there any longer.
Life is so rare, so precious.
We've had a number of uh formerwater people guests pass away in
this last year (16:33):
Jack McCoy, Lane Davy, and then John.
And uh yeah, I'm so grateful tohave shared moments getting to
talk a story and sit with themand have those stories recorded
to be able to ripple on evenafter their bodies have left the
planet.
SPEAKER_01 (16:50):
Yeah.
It's precious.
Oh man, there are so many JohnPeck stories too right now in my
head.
I'm like, oh, I want to tell theone about how he broke out of
jail and disassembled the bricksof the building, and then he
broke out again, but he stayedin his prison cell just to prove
that he could escape anytime hewanted to.
Or the time where he left theplanet and he didn't come back
for five days, and then hecracked the code on how to surf
sunset.
Or like, or the fact thatanytime there was a good swell
(17:12):
anywhere between Santa Cruz andScorpion Bay in Mexico, John
Peck would appear, and fordecades everyone was like, Oh my
god, that guy's a wizard, bestday of the year, and there he is
again, he just appears.
It's just endless, it's endless,and it just makes me smile and
laugh, and it makes me want toknow about those kind of people
in our timeline of surfing.
Like, where are they?
(17:33):
Who are they?
I'm sure every region has aperson like that, and make sure
that their story is continuedbecause they're just
fascinating, and he certainlyprompted me to take an interest
in all things in life, butespecially where surfing fits
into it.
And he was a great proponent ofyes, be joyful, be a surfer, and
(17:55):
be useful in your world.
And that's in Cyrus' great shortfilm when he says, Heal
yourself, heal your family, healyour country, heal the world,
and don't forget to go surfing.
And that's just beautiful.
SPEAKER_00 (18:52):
Any of you musicians out here, you know where that
happens.
When you get in the way, itdoesn't come through like when
you're out of the way.
You know, when you let yourselfflow, it flows really well.
I just hit a few wrong notes.
(19:13):
See.
SPEAKER_01 (19:31):
Thanks for coming.
Thanks, John, for coming acrossthe other side of the Pacific.
SPEAKER_00 (19:37):
Thanks, Dave, for inviting me.
And all of you for being herepresent.
In Hawaii, we call the family orHana.
When I come home, Hana meanswork.
And how many people are ahundred percent comfortable with
(19:57):
the word work?
Well, that's perfectly normallyhuman.
Somebody explained to me oncewhat the word work meant.
You know, and I wondered, like,oh Hannah family, you know,
family is the most wonderfulthing in the world, and you are
(20:19):
our family here right now,completely.
We're all we have.
A presence here.
Holy.
And somebody explained to me,you know, I noticed you're
uncomfortable with the wordwork.
And I said, well, a little bit,you know.
And I said, well, let me explainto you what work really means.
And she said, work, John, isletting God manifest love
(20:39):
through you.
If you're not letting Godmanifest love through you,
you're not working.
So get to work.
And then all of a sudden I feltreally, you know, different
about it.
Like, I thought it was like uh,she said, don't bother.
If it if it isn't love, if itisn't God's love flowing through
(21:00):
you, don't bother.
You're not doing yourself oranybody else any good.
So I I learned to pay attentionto what I call my higher power,
what should I call God.
Do my best to let that energyflow through, and that's why I
stopped playing when I findmyself trying to play a few
notes on my own.
You know, it sounds so prettywhen I'm letting God flow
through me.
And when I try to do it on myown, something goes software and
(21:22):
strange.
So it's really nice for me to beable to understand what is me
for me and what is God workingthrough me because I need, I'm a
God junkie.
I gotta have God flowing throughme 24-7.
Because I gotta feel better,better, better.
You relate with that?
Anybody here need to feel betterall the time?
I think so.
By nature.
(21:42):
So um, I'm gonna get off thestage here and pass it to some
other people sharing here.
Thank you for letting me sharethe little bit of the shared,
and we'll share some more, I'msure.
SPEAKER_01 (21:51):
Yeah.
So John and I met probably 10years or so ago, I think, in uh
Southern California in theoldest house in the town of
Encinitas, which probably a fewof us have been to Southern
California, you know where thatis.
SPEAKER_00 (22:06):
Owned by the lady who told me that about work,
exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (22:09):
Uber.
And that's uh, you know, a realbeacon of a spot you've got uh
Swamis, the the site where YogaNanda brought yoga from India,
brought it to the west, broughtit to California, right there
where one of surfing's realcultural hubs exist, and you
know, who happened to be passingthrough and in those areas at
(22:33):
the time were a lot of ourculture's elders, our surfing
elders.
One of them is is a local aroundhere, Rusty Miller.
A lot of us are know Rusty, anduh Rusty tells stories of
surfing at tsunamis and lookingup and seeing uh perhaps Yoga
Gananda sitting on the hillthere watching them surf, and
you know, that's a real um realpowerful spot in surfing
(22:55):
culture's timeline.
And that's where John and I met.
And I've heard of John beforethat through one of the millions
of stories about John thatcirculate the surfing world, you
know, pioneering pipeline in the60s with the approach that is
still being used to this day.
In the 60s, John was there atthe forefront of the movement to
(23:17):
decode and surf pretty much thegnarliest waves in the world.
You know, still to this day,Pipe is the most feared by most
of us and has uh taken many,many lives and delivered them
elsewhere and delivered a lot ofinjuries and uh extreme moments.
You know, and that was rightwhere John pioneered that style
(23:38):
of taking off and writingpipelines somehow on enormous
logs from yesteryear.
And I feel like that's a reallygreat start to night, which is
really just you know, sharingstories, talking story, that
kind of Hawaiian idea of talkstory, just creating the moment
like cultures have for so manythousands of years where we
(23:59):
would sit around the fire andlisten to some of our elders
share their stories and help usthrough their example.
And and I feel like those ridesof John's at Pipeline are like
real physical examples of thepath that he has blazed, you
know, he's blaz many differentpaths in this life.
SPEAKER_00 (24:30):
Anybody got a clue?
Let me know it.
SPEAKER_01 (24:34):
But could you share like what was what was happening
on the North Shore leading up tothat moment of you know, that
was captured on on film?
You know, I'm sure there's many,many things that were happening
at that time, but in yourexperience, what what was
happening?
How did it feel to be deliveredto that point where you kind of
(24:54):
got spat out onto the shoulderat a pipe and had successfully
rode a wave there before anyonehad done that?
SPEAKER_00 (25:01):
Actually, technically there was a few
crazy people like uh that triedto they used to body surf uh a
rock a little south of the aircalled Banzai Rock.
That uh uh a guy from La Holidayused to body surf it, and they
called him Tiny Brain forobvious reasons.
Okay.
But nobody tried to uh surf itwith a board until because it
(25:23):
was just too inside out and thereef was too shallow and gnarly.
And the year before, uh actuallythe Butch Ben Hustelen and I uh
got the privilege of ridingpipeline in really good quality
uh on a good West Swell, NewYear's Day in 1963.
Uh the year before, Phil Edwardsand uh Dave Willingham and Mike
(25:45):
Henson wrote it smaller.
Actually, we weren't the firstguys to ride the pipeline.
That's a misnomer somebody's youknow on a board.
Phil Edwards actually paddledout there first on his own.
But it was a little overhead, itwasn't it was double plus
overhead.
Pipeline becomes a whole nothercritter when it starts getting
up to double overhead andbigger.
So nobody was crazy enoughexcept Butch and I that morning,
(26:08):
New Year's Day, until thatpoint.
And the only reason I think wedid it is the night before was
the heaviest drinking party onthe North Shore at Bud Brown's
house, uh, where Dewey Weber andand uh you might know some of
these names, famous surfers,Dewey Weber, Mike Henson, and
Mike Diffendurfer, and Buddy BoyKeoghi, and uh uh a bunch of
(26:32):
crazy North Shore surfers, andgot together and and we were
drinking straight in black andwhite scotch drinking contests,
and that was nuts.
We overdosed completely, and hehe died, I died, and we were
brought back to life somehow.
And the next morning I I I hewas already out surfing,
(26:52):
somebody pushed him out in thewater, you know, buddy of his
cameras, and the pipeline wasbreaking perfect.
They woke me up and said, Hey,Butch is already surfing the
pipeline, and Butch and I surfedtogether a whole lot before
that.
He learned how to surf at Windin the Sea, which is uh can be a
really, really humble big islandstyle wave.
And I pretty much learned how tosurf high-quality performance
(27:13):
stuff at a la Moana, and a lamoana bowl, when it gets really
big, is a lot like the pipeline.
So we both had some experiencewith that kind of wave, and um
uh we just got lucky.
I I went over the falls anddidn't kill myself on the first
try on the big wave, andrealized there's no way I can
get into this wave unless I justdo the side slide, you know,
(27:35):
under the lip side slidetechnique, you know.
Be right in the spot and let thewave start pitching and just
push, get it pushing me downwith its lip already thrown, you
know, slide-sliding down intoit.
Or I'm just gonna get thrownover the falls trying to drop
in.
So I I got lucky and slide-sliddown into one, and they got it
on a film, and Brown's uhdentist, uh guy named Don James,
(27:56):
caught it on still and made aposter out of it, and that
poster just just got reallyfamous.
And uh it was just a survivalexperience, is what it was.
And then a little bit after westarted getting the hang of it,
uh, you know, uh just we're itwas we were able to surf it, you
know.
I I just actually purple in thatthat first good wave, I started
(28:19):
a purple and side sliding downinto it.
The only way I could keep fromfalling out was grabbing the
wave with my arm and and holdingthe rail and pushing the rail in
the wave, and they came to callthat the pig dog maneuver and uh
what we learned at all on a bowlwhen it would be pitching.
Um it was a survival technique,you know, nothing good surfing
(28:40):
about it.
Keep from getting killed.
And uh once I got into it, Islid up by the nose and got
barreled, and uh it was it was alittle easier once I once I got
spit out of the first one, itkind of started being kind to
me, and I caught the feel of it,and and we actually sobered up
in the water that morning iswhat it was.
I I think.
(29:01):
And and um I got 31 yearswithout a drink nowadays, right
now today.
And uh that's important to mefor me to have a clear
consciousness because I spent alot of years chasing the
feel-good and in a lot of placeswhere it ended up feeling worse,
you know.
And uh nowadays I I um I'm a Godjunkie.
God makes me feel better thanall the best combinations did,
(29:23):
you know.
And if they didn't, if it's Iwould go back to something, I
would try something else.
So I'm gonna pass it on for thatone, you know.
It's kind of the the in on thatone.
I uh you know just a briefthing.
I actually like to surf a lot ofother places.
The North Shore my home to me in1960 onward.
I got to surf the North Shore bymyself.
(29:44):
You know, I remember ridingSunset Beach and Hane Kea, which
is an incredible, incrediblewave.
And Halle himself, there'd benobody around even seeing me
riding.
Nobody's taking pictures muchexcept Bud Brown once in a
while.
So there's a little little viewon my early days at the at the
North Shore.
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_01 (30:00):
What was it like then when the influx happened?
What were you do what was yourday-to-day?
SPEAKER_00 (30:05):
It was a bummer.
You know what that's like, youknow.
People lived around here inByron Bay when it was, you know,
still kind of the country morethan it is now.
But it's about getting you I itwas a bummer until I got used to
uh sharing with people uh andthey got more courteous.
And um there's a good evolution,it's family evolution, you know.
(30:28):
Today I'm really comfortable slysurfing in pretty crowded ways
sometimes in California andHawaii when it gets uh pretty
good out at Hanalaya can getkind of grouted sometimes.
What was your question?
How do this track really didn'treally matter?
I'm just kind of um overwhelmed.
(30:48):
I'm a really uh a loner kind ofguy a lot.
I don't spend a lot of time witha lot of people, and I'm not
used to being so-called a pointof attention where a bunch of
people are looking at me to seewhat I'm gonna do, you know.
I try to be invisible more thana point of focus, is what I
spend most of my time doing, lowprofile.
He asked me the other day, whatdoes surfing mean to you?
(31:09):
You know, what's what's theessence of the most important
thing about surfing to you?
What does it really mean to you?
And I thought about that for awhile, and and I went, you know,
uh there was in the first surfermagazine, there was a page, the
last page in the first surfermagazine that ever came out,
John Sieberson put it out.
He didn't know if he's gonnamake any more or anything, and
then it got annual, and then itgot biannual, and then it got
monthly, and that was the startof surf magazines.
(31:32):
And the first one, the last pagewas a picture of a perfect wave
in Santa Barbara with a singleguy paddling out and offshore
winds and flawless and reallypristine looking, that pristine
purity that we we all have ourown idea of.
And it the caption under itsaid, part of the world, the
surfer can still seek and findthe perfect day and the perfect
wave and be alone with this withthe surf and his thoughts.
(31:55):
And that's kind of it rightthere.
It's like when you get in thetube by yourself, it's like
nothing else in the universeexists.
You get reborn, you know, and uhit's that solitude time with
nature that's really important.
And and then you can carry thatback to your family, and you can
share that bliss and that loveof that naturalness, you know,
that you got out in nature.
And to me, it's it's worthsharing.
(32:18):
The important thing is sharingwhat I get from my higher power
uh in nature and and inmeditation and in whatever my
higher power wants to do withme.
It's like uh uh I've wanted toget out of the way as much as I
can.
In your biography, you write, Iremember reading Yeah, I've been
writing one because somebodyinsisted I write a book for him.
SPEAKER_01 (32:39):
There's a moment where you say that you kept you
came back to surfing and therewere some shadow times in your
life and you weren't surfing andkept on coming back to surfing.
And is that why?
Is it that that that's theessence of your return when
shadow or very challenging timescome?
SPEAKER_00 (32:59):
Why did it come back to surfing or yeah, and how did
that help?
How did how did that happen?
And what was that about?
Yeah, I I um got so bombed at atthe world and people and
ruining, you know, like surfinggot so popular so fast, and
people who didn't know anythingabout surfing using surfing and
(33:20):
using surfers to promote theirlook and felt ugly and didn't
feel good to me trips uh to doso.
I'd bombed out, you know.
I was a progressive, crazieralcoholic addict.
And um I it got too much troubleto carry a surfboard around.
I'd I'd stash one at surf spots,you know, and and sometimes
people would steal them.
(33:41):
A lot of stealing started goingon in those times, you know.
I took way too much psychedelicsand got off of alcohol for a
while and started smoking a lotof hashesh to come down off the
psychedelics.
And uh I was taken, actuallytaking LSD before it was
illegal, and I that's why Ifirst, well, it was like I was
asking God what's going on, andI thought it was the LSD that
(34:04):
made God talk to me, butactually I found out later it
was actually actually just mysincere hearted desire that God
chose to answer me and and talkto me.
And um, after I met God, it'slike things were really
different.
I I just left it all behind.
I took everything I owned.
There was a guy who reminded methe other day here, uh, who came
(34:25):
up to me and he said on theNorth Shore.
Wayne Lynch came up to me on theNorth Shore when I had a tree
house and a surfboard, and andit was like when I really cast
surfing off, was that pointwhere he saw me do it.
He said, uh, where there was abig storm came up, and and I was
I needed to let go ofeverything, and I just threw
(34:45):
everything I owned.
All I was a Muslim bathing, so Ihad to keep that on to keep them
getting thrown in jail for nude.
And I I took my blanket and myholy books and my my my um
surfboard, and that's all Iowned, pretty much, and uh a
hash pipe, and I threw it all inthe ocean in a storm.
And and it all went out in therip at Sunset Beach.
(35:09):
And um so I walked around theisland and came back, and and um
I just I found that I was takinga lot of psychedelics and I
found that the whole universe iscomprised of electromagnetic
waves of energy, and I couldactually, you know, uh ride
those waves of energy, thosecosmic waves of energy, and I
was like, you know, going offthe planet body and all, and and
(35:32):
people actually saw me do it,and you know, like the silver
surfer.
So that that comic book came outabout that time, the silver
surfer, and I was the silversurfer.
According to them, I was justsurfing all over the universe
without a surfboard.
You know, I I found that peopledidn't understand what was
happening at all, and I wouldlose touch with people, and I'm
a human being.
(35:52):
And I I found I discovered Godmade it very clear to me that
I'm here on earth to be ofservice, and that's why he's
giving me life.
And so I'm here to be on serv ofservice to other people in
whatever way he wants to be ofservice.
Unless I'm acceptable to humanbeings, you know, when when I
was walking around, I didn'tneed to eat or breathe or do
(36:13):
anything, I was just a cosmicphantom of light, rainbow flying
around, and somehow still had abody on the earth.
People would, when they wouldencounter me, it would scare
them.
You know, my my reality that youknow that somebody didn't need
to to breathe and have aheartbeat and and was just a
walking drug zombie, so tospeak, uh, was frightening to
(36:33):
them and and their bodies, Icould there was no
communication.
I couldn't do any communicatingwith them, I was of no help.
I was just a fright.
And people would try to throw mein jail and accuse me of causing
revolutions, the hippierevolution, federal indictments,
treason.
They said I committed treasonagainst the U.S.
by causing the hippierevolution.
How about that for a joke?
(36:54):
Like, sure, yeah, right.
Me?
Uh-huh.
No.
Uh spontaneous combustion ofconsciousness, maybe.
Okay.
But not me.
No, I was not the mastermind.
Just because there was afather-creative voice that used
to talk out loud, really loud,sometimes in front of other
people, and federal agents werethere one time when he talked
(37:16):
really loud, so they thought Iwas the leader because people
would look at me because Godtalked at me.
And I don't know.
God will talk to any of you.
God talks to all of you allevery day.
It talks to you through yourchildren.
You do you listen to God talktoday?
I'm getting tripped out here totalking to imagine.
But you know, like Yeah, it'sit's it's like uh I returned to
(37:39):
wave surfing because every timeI would get too far, I would not
go out in the ocean and let awave hydraulically massage my
body and give me this new lifethat it was releasing its life
that it got from the sun intothe wind, into the water, into
the wave, into me.
And when the wave is breaking,it's uh it's it's expiring.
(38:00):
It's it's ending its life andit's it's releasing that energy.
And when I my body, when thatenergy passes through my body,
it re-rebirths me.
SPEAKER_02 (38:25):
Thanks for spending some of yours listening with us
today.
Our editor this season is themulti-talented Ben Jake
Alexander.
The soundtrack was composed byShannon Sol Carroll.
We'll be continuing today'sconversation on Instagram, where
we're at Water People Podcast.
And you can subscribe to ourvery infrequent newsletter to
get book recommendations forquestions or pondering behind
(38:46):
the scenes glimpses intorecording the podcast, and more
via our website, thewaterpeoplepodcast.com.
What when I was walking around, I didn't need to
eat or breathe or do anything.
I was just a cosmic phantom oflight, rainbow flying around,
and somehow still had a body onthe earth.
People would when they wouldencounter me, it would scare
them.
Somebody who didn't need to tobreathe and have a heartbeat and
just a walking drug zombie, soto speak.
(00:21):
It was frightening to them and Icouldn't do any communicating
with them.
I was no help.
People would try to throw me injail and said I committed
treason against the U.S.
by causing the Hip Rebution.
How about that for a joke?
Sure.
Yeah.
Right.
A spontaneous combustion ofconsciousness, maybe.
Okay?
(00:41):
But not me.
No, I was not the master.
SPEAKER_02 (00:45):
Welcome to Water People, a podcast about the
aquatic experiences that shapewho we become back on land.
I'm your host, Lauren Hill,joined by my partner Dave
Rastovich.
Here we get to talk story withsome of the most interesting and
adept water folk on the planet.
We acknowledge the BunjalongNation, the traditional
custodians of the land andwaters where we work and play,
(01:10):
who have cared for this seacountry for tens of thousands of
years.
Respect and gratitude to allFirst Nations people, including
elders, past, present, andemerging.
This season is supported byPatagonia, whose purpose-driven
mission is to use business tosave our home planet.
(01:30):
Today we're in conversation withthe venerated elder John Peck.
Dave, I was thinking to writesomething about John, but can
you intro us?
SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
Yeah, yeah, John Peck, one of the originals in
the surfing timeline and modernsurfing anyway, he was a very
talented surfer in the 60s ofhis young, you know, probably
early 20s sort of age group ofpeople who were filling the
space that was left in Hawaiiand California in lineups, you
(02:02):
know.
So people who'd been surfingSunset Beach, Palmalu, all those
sort of incredible waves alongthe North Shore for a very long
time before industrialism,colonialism came there.
But in the next wave of surfersthat came to those breaks,
people like John Peck, GregKnoll, Mickey Munoz, and plenty
of locals too, who were ridingpipos deeper than a lot of those
(02:24):
guys.
That was a very interesting timebecause people like John were
looking at pipeline, forexample, and there was no one
out there, and they were tryingto figure out how do you ride a
wave like that on these huge,clunky longboards, essentially,
that were made for like Maliburiding at Malibu and slopey
little slow California waves.
(02:46):
So he cracked the code one dayat Pipeline.
It was New Year's Day, and hetells the story.
So I won't go over it here, butessentially the way he figured
out how to slide down the faceand successfully ride pipeline
on his backhand is still the waywe all do it today, which is
jamming your arm in the wall,grabbing the outside rail, and
(03:09):
steering yourself along to makethe the wave.
So John was that guy, and he wason the first posters and issues
of Surfer magazine and becamethis celebrated guy.
SPEAKER_02 (03:20):
It's probably rare that we trace like a particular
wave writing adaptation back toa particular person.
Like that probably hasn'thappened a lot.
SPEAKER_01 (03:28):
Yeah.
So he though also was an extremecharacter.
So around that time, there'sanother surf film that is out
where he's captured on filmsurfing Honolulu Bay really
well, but he's he's so cocky andlike just full tilt that he's
smoking a cigarette while he'sdoing that out in the lineup.
And there's there's a film withthat in it.
So if someone can find that andtell each other where to find
(03:51):
it, I would be interested.
So that's interesting just tosee that he was a pretty extreme
character who then went on todive deeply into psychedelics
and into esoteric interests likeyoga and meditation.
SPEAKER_02 (04:04):
He was part of the great hippie boom in the US,
young people really questioningthe way their parents had chosen
to do life in sort of domestic,suburban everything better
through science kind of living.
And people were going back tothe land, or so the story goes,
and also getting superexperimental.
SPEAKER_01 (04:26):
And surfing was wrapped up in that cultural,
romanticized yeah.
So his proximity in SouthernCalifornia to the Brotherhood of
Eternal Love, which is a groupout of Laguna, who were
basically running hash and acidaround the world through
surfboards and their surfingnetwork and boats, because you
(04:46):
know lots of surfers had boatsand were traveling the Pacific.
And John was really wrapped upin that whole movement.
And he was probably one of thosepeople that were right on that
edge of it all, where otherswould look and go, Whoa, okay,
Peck is really pushing thingsthere with how much acid you
could take, how much yoga youcould do, how much meditation
you could partake in, how muchfasting, and all of these
(05:10):
things.
He was such an extreme characterwho was willing to push all of
those interests to their endpoint.
So, you know, like fasting everySaturday, taking acid every
Sunday, going out at SunsetBeach trying to figure out how
to ride the wave or pipeline orall these other waves.
So a very extreme character whothen went down the dark sort of
(05:30):
path of alcoholism and addictionfor a while there, and then came
out of it.
And when he came out of it, heprobably had a decade or two of
being clean and sober and acomplete yogi, and that's where
I met him.
So I met John probably early2000s, and I was passing through
(05:50):
Southern California with somefriends.
We were playing music andsurfing, and we happened to stay
at Garth, Murphy, and Uva, theirhouse, the Derby House in
Encinitas, which is like thisliving museum of art and music,
and people like Um Hendricks andMorrison and Beatles, all these
kind of radically f incredibleinfluential artists had passed
(06:11):
through that house.
So we were staying there too.
And John was the caretaker atthe time.
He was looking after the Derbyhouse.
We arrived and had perhaps acouple days there, and the next
day happened to be a Tuesday.
At that time in my life, I was acouple years into fasting and
being silent every Tuesday,every week.
(06:32):
And when that day came along, Itold John the day before that I
was going to be fasting tomorrowand silent, and he was just
stoked.
He was like, right on, brotherDave.
Great! He was really lit up bythe fact that I was willing to
do that so often.
So the next day I'm silent.
I think we went for a surf, wecame back to the house, and then
he and I started playing music,and he had this beautiful guitar
(06:54):
tuning with this crazy resonantguitar that he would play, and I
had some different instrumentsthat were kind of drony and
psychedelic.
We sat down and silently playedmusic in that house for about
eight hours.
And the funny thing was, all ofour friends who were with us
would like they sat down at thestart and after half an hour or
so got itchy feet and left thehouse, went, got some lunch,
(07:17):
came back.
John and I are sitting there inthis trance playing.
Then they went surfing, cameback.
John and I were sitting there inthis trance playing, and then
the sun went down, everyonewent, had dinner, came back, and
there we were still seatedtogether, hadn't spoken a word,
and just were in this blissedout musical state.
And for me, that experience wasreally special because he was
(07:39):
someone who had so much historyin the surfing timeline, but who
was also so interested in thosesubtle realms and those sort of
more esoteric areas of life.
And previously, in myexperience, surfing and that
world were very separated.
But he was someone who embodiedboth, and I really appreciated
that.
And he really appreciated thatin me because I was like, you
(08:00):
know, 21, 22 years old.
And the night ended, we sat upand or sorry, we stood up and
smiled at each other, went tobed the next morning.
I woke up so excited, like, Ican't wait to ask John how that
was for him, because that wasjust crazy for me.
And the sun came up, we woke upand we spoke about it, and we
(08:21):
just had a link forevermoreafter that.
And so I would always seek himout when going through
California and or Hawaii even.
And then I would learn of hisimpact on other people, and you
know, he he always did thisthing where he was really into
being of service.
He wanted to be useful in theworld.
He wanted to use his awarenessof his body through yoga and his
(08:44):
spirit through meditation andmusic and everything.
He wanted to use what he wasexperiencing as this kind of
psychonaut, cosmonaut who wasout on the furthest edges of
being a human and reporting backto the rest of us here on earth
how to navigate life and thoserealms, those subtle realms.
And so he would always offer hisuh service of giving you kind of
(09:07):
like a massage relaxationsqueeze around your shoulders
and your neck and light up yourChristmas tree.
Lighting up your Christmas tree.
He he would give you thatopportunity to lay down and
deeply relax, and he would helpyour spine out and help your
neck, and then he would get hislittle rope thing and pull on
your head, which was very scary.
SPEAKER_02 (09:26):
Wrap it around, was it the front?
It's like the back the back ofyour neck.
I remember laying down and beinglike, I don't really know this
person, and I feel like I'm in avery vulnerable position right
now.
SPEAKER_01 (09:37):
Yes, but it it was um he would give you traction,
basically, it was gentletraction.
SPEAKER_02 (09:42):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (09:43):
But he would say it would light up your Christmas
tree, and often it would.
You'd maybe a couple little popsof air would come out of
knuckles in your spine orwhatever, but you would you'd
deeply relax, and that for himwas the feeling of being useful
for other humans.
And I really loved that.
And he was just unwavering atthat point in his life with his
focus on that.
He wouldn't compromise.
SPEAKER_02 (10:03):
Can you trace how John came to be in our local
little community hall and wherethis recording came from, where
the idea came from, and uh andhow we captured this audio?
Yeah.
Because it was before WaterPeople existed.
And but it was part of seedsthat were sown, I feel like,
(10:24):
right at the very beginning ofour relationship.
Do you remember when you came toFlorida and we I feel like there
was a sense that we knew we hadwork to do together around
stories and elders specificallywere noticing what was happening
in the surf media, and it waskind of the same rehashing of
the same stories, but we're wewere traveling together and
meeting all of these super wild,vibrant people living in really
(10:49):
creative ways, and John Peck wasone of them, of course.
And I remember sitting on thedeck of my mom's beach shack in
Florida and thinking about howdo we pull these stories
together and share them with ourcommunity.
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
Yeah, where can they exist?
And at the time it was such ayouth-centric sort of reflection
back to our surfing organism,you know, like if you were a a
magazine editor or a surfcompany, you're pretty much just
focusing on 14 to 20, whateverit was, and that always quote,
you know, that's the market andall that sort of jargon.
(11:22):
But what it meant was that wejust had a lack of depth in our
storytelling, it felt like, andthe one thing that would be told
of yesteryear's heroes wasalways the same sort of stories,
like you said.
But here we were travelling andmeeting these people who just
had the most fascinatingstories.
Yeah.
And so John was certainly one ofthose people.
(11:42):
And I really felt like ourcommunity in the Northern Rivers
region has a lot of people thatare interested in those sort of
esoteric or subtle realms oflife, the sort of causal realm,
not the effect realm.
So, like, how do you feel beforeyou start to do things in your
life?
And so that takes the you knowthe shape of yoga classes and
(12:06):
intentional communities.
There's a lot of likeintentional communities in the
hills here where people arefocusing on that.
So I felt like there would be anaudience, there'd be people here
who would really appreciate somestories from John and perhaps
even want to ride some of hisboards.
And so, you know, remember wewere just talking about bringing
him down here and having a farm?
I have no idea, but it wouldhave been a day to go.
SPEAKER_02 (12:30):
It would have been 2015, I'd say.
SPEAKER_01 (12:34):
Sounds great.
SPEAKER_02 (12:34):
Yeah, so yeah, ten years ago.
SPEAKER_01 (12:35):
Yeah, yeah.
And he was super into it becausehe'd passed through here before,
and he was again, he would justbe like, Yeah, whatever's useful
and helpful in the world,brother Dave.
And so we got him down here andhe was living on the farm here
for a little while with us, andjust through going surfing and
being in our area and seeing howpeople responded to him, because
you know, like visually, he'sjust a sad.
(12:57):
He's like a full yogi, longbeard, stick thin, but rubbery
and flexible, constantly likesun-gazing and staring up into
the heavens and just a presence,you know, and so I knew I could
just see people's heads turningaround here, like, who is that
wizard with the Yeti?
Who is that guy walking aroundwith Dave?
And so we came up with the ideaof filling our little community
(13:20):
hall down the road here withfriends and interested people
who would want to sit down andlisten to some talk story with
John.
And at the time I was playing abit of music with the Babe
Rainbow fellas and Alioski andCoolbrees and Angus, and we were
really interested in sittingdown, having John talk story,
and then have a breather, and wewould play some music to let
(13:42):
those pretty wild stories sinkin.
And we'd play music for a coupleminutes, and then I would prod
John with another question, andwe'd get another story, and we
would do that.
And so we did that thinking, ohyeah, it'll be like, you know,
45 minutes to an hour perhapsthat that we'll do this, and
people will be able to sit stilland be interested.
And the whole hall wascompletely filled, and the talk
(14:05):
ended up going for three hours,and no one even stood up to go
to the toilet.
It was just like people wereglued to their spot on the floor
in the hall.
SPEAKER_02 (14:14):
I remember Colbrees playing the sitar and that the
resonant sound in the timbercommunity hall was just it was
really captivating.
SPEAKER_01 (14:24):
And like you said, this is before we had an a a bit
more of an act.
Um we didn't have a properrecording gear or anything, and
I think really the only audiorecording of that is from Nathan
Oldfield.
Thankfully, Nathan was theretaking pictures and recorded
somehow.
So the audio is what it is.
SPEAKER_02 (14:41):
It is what it is, and it's only a snippet of the
night because I think Nathan'scamera died, and then we meant
to release this many years ago,um, but it was lost in the ether
of the internet for quite sometime.
I couldn't find the link when Iwent back after hearing of
John's passing, but Nathanmanaged to find it.
So we're stoked to be able toshare a little moment of that
(15:04):
night and and John's reallyinteresting words with you.
SPEAKER_01 (15:09):
Yeah, yeah, super fun, and it really makes me feel
like I would urge people to findtheir version of John Peck in
their world and sit down withthem whenever you can and have a
cupper and listen to theirstories.
Let them be heard and seen aspeople who have walked the path
(15:30):
longer than us and might havesome things to share that are
really valuable and and even ifyou felt compelled to perhaps
record them and share them withyour community because look at
us now.
John just left his body and itseemed like he'd prepared his
whole life to die, much likeRamdas said, he'd been preparing
his whole life for death.
(15:51):
And so there's probably verylittle sadness around John
leaving his body, probably moreof a celebration than you'd
think actually, and he, youknow, would just be shedding his
earth suit and in the next ride,the next wave that he's riding,
and it just makes me gratefulthat we have this little snippet
to share with people, and yeah,I would I really just recommend
(16:14):
that people do that in their ownway in their own communities
because it's really enrichingand fulfilling and it feels
really good for us too.
SPEAKER_02 (16:21):
And you never know when the opportunity might not
be there any longer.
Life is so rare, so precious.
We've had a number of uh formerwater people guests pass away in
this last year (16:33):
Jack McCoy, Lane Davy, and then John.
And uh yeah, I'm so grateful tohave shared moments getting to
talk a story and sit with themand have those stories recorded
to be able to ripple on evenafter their bodies have left the
planet.
SPEAKER_01 (16:50):
Yeah.
It's precious.
Oh man, there are so many JohnPeck stories too right now in my
head.
I'm like, oh, I want to tell theone about how he broke out of
jail and disassembled the bricksof the building, and then he
broke out again, but he stayedin his prison cell just to prove
that he could escape anytime hewanted to.
Or the time where he left theplanet and he didn't come back
for five days, and then hecracked the code on how to surf
sunset.
Or like, or the fact thatanytime there was a good swell
(17:12):
anywhere between Santa Cruz andScorpion Bay in Mexico, John
Peck would appear, and fordecades everyone was like, Oh my
god, that guy's a wizard, bestday of the year, and there he is
again, he just appears.
It's just endless, it's endless,and it just makes me smile and
laugh, and it makes me want toknow about those kind of people
in our timeline of surfing.
Like, where are they?
(17:33):
Who are they?
I'm sure every region has aperson like that, and make sure
that their story is continuedbecause they're just
fascinating, and he certainlyprompted me to take an interest
in all things in life, butespecially where surfing fits
into it.
And he was a great proponent ofyes, be joyful, be a surfer, and
(17:55):
be useful in your world.
And that's in Cyrus' great shortfilm when he says, Heal
yourself, heal your family, healyour country, heal the world,
and don't forget to go surfing.
And that's just beautiful.
SPEAKER_00 (18:52):
Any of you musicians out here, you know where that
happens.
When you get in the way, itdoesn't come through like when
you're out of the way.
You know, when you let yourselfflow, it flows really well.
I just hit a few wrong notes.
(19:13):
See.
SPEAKER_01 (19:31):
Thanks for coming.
Thanks, John, for coming acrossthe other side of the Pacific.
SPEAKER_00 (19:37):
Thanks, Dave, for inviting me.
And all of you for being herepresent.
In Hawaii, we call the family orHana.
When I come home, Hana meanswork.
And how many people are ahundred percent comfortable with
(19:57):
the word work?
Well, that's perfectly normallyhuman.
Somebody explained to me oncewhat the word work meant.
You know, and I wondered, like,oh Hannah family, you know,
family is the most wonderfulthing in the world, and you are
(20:19):
our family here right now,completely.
We're all we have.
A presence here.
Holy.
And somebody explained to me,you know, I noticed you're
uncomfortable with the wordwork.
And I said, well, a little bit,you know.
And I said, well, let me explainto you what work really means.
And she said, work, John, isletting God manifest love
(20:39):
through you.
If you're not letting Godmanifest love through you,
you're not working.
So get to work.
And then all of a sudden I feltreally, you know, different
about it.
Like, I thought it was like uh,she said, don't bother.
If it if it isn't love, if itisn't God's love flowing through
(21:00):
you, don't bother.
You're not doing yourself oranybody else any good.
So I I learned to pay attentionto what I call my higher power,
what should I call God.
Do my best to let that energyflow through, and that's why I
stopped playing when I findmyself trying to play a few
notes on my own.
You know, it sounds so prettywhen I'm letting God flow
through me.
And when I try to do it on myown, something goes software and
(21:22):
strange.
So it's really nice for me to beable to understand what is me
for me and what is God workingthrough me because I need, I'm a
God junkie.
I gotta have God flowing throughme 24-7.
Because I gotta feel better,better, better.
You relate with that?
Anybody here need to feel betterall the time?
I think so.
By nature.
(21:42):
So um, I'm gonna get off thestage here and pass it to some
other people sharing here.
Thank you for letting me sharethe little bit of the shared,
and we'll share some more, I'msure.
SPEAKER_01 (21:51):
Yeah.
So John and I met probably 10years or so ago, I think, in uh
Southern California in theoldest house in the town of
Encinitas, which probably a fewof us have been to Southern
California, you know where thatis.
SPEAKER_00 (22:06):
Owned by the lady who told me that about work,
exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (22:09):
Uber.
And that's uh, you know, a realbeacon of a spot you've got uh
Swamis, the the site where YogaNanda brought yoga from India,
brought it to the west, broughtit to California, right there
where one of surfing's realcultural hubs exist, and you
know, who happened to be passingthrough and in those areas at
(22:33):
the time were a lot of ourculture's elders, our surfing
elders.
One of them is is a local aroundhere, Rusty Miller.
A lot of us are know Rusty, anduh Rusty tells stories of
surfing at tsunamis and lookingup and seeing uh perhaps Yoga
Gananda sitting on the hillthere watching them surf, and
you know, that's a real um realpowerful spot in surfing
(22:55):
culture's timeline.
And that's where John and I met.
And I've heard of John beforethat through one of the millions
of stories about John thatcirculate the surfing world, you
know, pioneering pipeline in the60s with the approach that is
still being used to this day.
In the 60s, John was there atthe forefront of the movement to
(23:17):
decode and surf pretty much thegnarliest waves in the world.
You know, still to this day,Pipe is the most feared by most
of us and has uh taken many,many lives and delivered them
elsewhere and delivered a lot ofinjuries and uh extreme moments.
You know, and that was rightwhere John pioneered that style
(23:38):
of taking off and writingpipelines somehow on enormous
logs from yesteryear.
And I feel like that's a reallygreat start to night, which is
really just you know, sharingstories, talking story, that
kind of Hawaiian idea of talkstory, just creating the moment
like cultures have for so manythousands of years where we
(23:59):
would sit around the fire andlisten to some of our elders
share their stories and help usthrough their example.
And and I feel like those ridesof John's at Pipeline are like
real physical examples of thepath that he has blazed, you
know, he's blaz many differentpaths in this life.
SPEAKER_00 (24:30):
Anybody got a clue?
Let me know it.
SPEAKER_01 (24:34):
But could you share like what was what was happening
on the North Shore leading up tothat moment of you know, that
was captured on on film?
You know, I'm sure there's many,many things that were happening
at that time, but in yourexperience, what what was
happening?
How did it feel to be deliveredto that point where you kind of
(24:54):
got spat out onto the shoulderat a pipe and had successfully
rode a wave there before anyonehad done that?
SPEAKER_00 (25:01):
Actually, technically there was a few
crazy people like uh that triedto they used to body surf uh a
rock a little south of the aircalled Banzai Rock.
That uh uh a guy from La Holidayused to body surf it, and they
called him Tiny Brain forobvious reasons.
Okay.
But nobody tried to uh surf itwith a board until because it
(25:23):
was just too inside out and thereef was too shallow and gnarly.
And the year before, uh actuallythe Butch Ben Hustelen and I uh
got the privilege of ridingpipeline in really good quality
uh on a good West Swell, NewYear's Day in 1963.
Uh the year before, Phil Edwardsand uh Dave Willingham and Mike
(25:45):
Henson wrote it smaller.
Actually, we weren't the firstguys to ride the pipeline.
That's a misnomer somebody's youknow on a board.
Phil Edwards actually paddledout there first on his own.
But it was a little overhead, itwasn't it was double plus
overhead.
Pipeline becomes a whole nothercritter when it starts getting
up to double overhead andbigger.
So nobody was crazy enoughexcept Butch and I that morning,
(26:08):
New Year's Day, until thatpoint.
And the only reason I think wedid it is the night before was
the heaviest drinking party onthe North Shore at Bud Brown's
house, uh, where Dewey Weber andand uh you might know some of
these names, famous surfers,Dewey Weber, Mike Henson, and
Mike Diffendurfer, and Buddy BoyKeoghi, and uh uh a bunch of
(26:32):
crazy North Shore surfers, andgot together and and we were
drinking straight in black andwhite scotch drinking contests,
and that was nuts.
We overdosed completely, and hehe died, I died, and we were
brought back to life somehow.
And the next morning I I I hewas already out surfing,
(26:52):
somebody pushed him out in thewater, you know, buddy of his
cameras, and the pipeline wasbreaking perfect.
They woke me up and said, Hey,Butch is already surfing the
pipeline, and Butch and I surfedtogether a whole lot before
that.
He learned how to surf at Windin the Sea, which is uh can be a
really, really humble big islandstyle wave.
And I pretty much learned how tosurf high-quality performance
(27:13):
stuff at a la Moana, and a lamoana bowl, when it gets really
big, is a lot like the pipeline.
So we both had some experiencewith that kind of wave, and um
uh we just got lucky.
I I went over the falls anddidn't kill myself on the first
try on the big wave, andrealized there's no way I can
get into this wave unless I justdo the side slide, you know,
(27:35):
under the lip side slidetechnique, you know.
Be right in the spot and let thewave start pitching and just
push, get it pushing me downwith its lip already thrown, you
know, slide-sliding down intoit.
Or I'm just gonna get thrownover the falls trying to drop
in.
So I I got lucky and slide-sliddown into one, and they got it
on a film, and Brown's uhdentist, uh guy named Don James,
(27:56):
caught it on still and made aposter out of it, and that
poster just just got reallyfamous.
And uh it was just a survivalexperience, is what it was.
And then a little bit after westarted getting the hang of it,
uh, you know, uh just we're itwas we were able to surf it, you
know.
I I just actually purple in thatthat first good wave, I started
(28:19):
a purple and side sliding downinto it.
The only way I could keep fromfalling out was grabbing the
wave with my arm and and holdingthe rail and pushing the rail in
the wave, and they came to callthat the pig dog maneuver and uh
what we learned at all on a bowlwhen it would be pitching.
Um it was a survival technique,you know, nothing good surfing
(28:40):
about it.
Keep from getting killed.
And uh once I got into it, Islid up by the nose and got
barreled, and uh it was it was alittle easier once I once I got
spit out of the first one, itkind of started being kind to
me, and I caught the feel of it,and and we actually sobered up
in the water that morning iswhat it was.
I I think.
(29:01):
And and um I got 31 yearswithout a drink nowadays, right
now today.
And uh that's important to mefor me to have a clear
consciousness because I spent alot of years chasing the
feel-good and in a lot of placeswhere it ended up feeling worse,
you know.
And uh nowadays I I um I'm a Godjunkie.
God makes me feel better thanall the best combinations did,
(29:23):
you know.
And if they didn't, if it's Iwould go back to something, I
would try something else.
So I'm gonna pass it on for thatone, you know.
It's kind of the the in on thatone.
I uh you know just a briefthing.
I actually like to surf a lot ofother places.
The North Shore my home to me in1960 onward.
I got to surf the North Shore bymyself.
(29:44):
You know, I remember ridingSunset Beach and Hane Kea, which
is an incredible, incrediblewave.
And Halle himself, there'd benobody around even seeing me
riding.
Nobody's taking pictures muchexcept Bud Brown once in a
while.
So there's a little little viewon my early days at the at the
North Shore.
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_01 (30:00):
What was it like then when the influx happened?
What were you do what was yourday-to-day?
SPEAKER_00 (30:05):
It was a bummer.
You know what that's like, youknow.
People lived around here inByron Bay when it was, you know,
still kind of the country morethan it is now.
But it's about getting you I itwas a bummer until I got used to
uh sharing with people uh andthey got more courteous.
And um there's a good evolution,it's family evolution, you know.
(30:28):
Today I'm really comfortable slysurfing in pretty crowded ways
sometimes in California andHawaii when it gets uh pretty
good out at Hanalaya can getkind of grouted sometimes.
What was your question?
How do this track really didn'treally matter?
I'm just kind of um overwhelmed.
(30:48):
I'm a really uh a loner kind ofguy a lot.
I don't spend a lot of time witha lot of people, and I'm not
used to being so-called a pointof attention where a bunch of
people are looking at me to seewhat I'm gonna do, you know.
I try to be invisible more thana point of focus, is what I
spend most of my time doing, lowprofile.
He asked me the other day, whatdoes surfing mean to you?
(31:09):
You know, what's what's theessence of the most important
thing about surfing to you?
What does it really mean to you?
And I thought about that for awhile, and and I went, you know,
uh there was in the first surfermagazine, there was a page, the
last page in the first surfermagazine that ever came out,
John Sieberson put it out.
He didn't know if he's gonnamake any more or anything, and
then it got annual, and then itgot biannual, and then it got
monthly, and that was the startof surf magazines.
(31:32):
And the first one, the last pagewas a picture of a perfect wave
in Santa Barbara with a singleguy paddling out and offshore
winds and flawless and reallypristine looking, that pristine
purity that we we all have ourown idea of.
And it the caption under itsaid, part of the world, the
surfer can still seek and findthe perfect day and the perfect
wave and be alone with this withthe surf and his thoughts.
(31:55):
And that's kind of it rightthere.
It's like when you get in thetube by yourself, it's like
nothing else in the universeexists.
You get reborn, you know, and uhit's that solitude time with
nature that's really important.
And and then you can carry thatback to your family, and you can
share that bliss and that loveof that naturalness, you know,
that you got out in nature.
And to me, it's it's worthsharing.
(32:18):
The important thing is sharingwhat I get from my higher power
uh in nature and and inmeditation and in whatever my
higher power wants to do withme.
It's like uh uh I've wanted toget out of the way as much as I
can.
In your biography, you write, Iremember reading Yeah, I've been
writing one because somebodyinsisted I write a book for him.
SPEAKER_01 (32:39):
There's a moment where you say that you kept you
came back to surfing and therewere some shadow times in your
life and you weren't surfing andkept on coming back to surfing.
And is that why?
Is it that that that's theessence of your return when
shadow or very challenging timescome?
SPEAKER_00 (32:59):
Why did it come back to surfing or yeah, and how did
that help?
How did how did that happen?
And what was that about?
Yeah, I I um got so bombed at atthe world and people and
ruining, you know, like surfinggot so popular so fast, and
people who didn't know anythingabout surfing using surfing and
(33:20):
using surfers to promote theirlook and felt ugly and didn't
feel good to me trips uh to doso.
I'd bombed out, you know.
I was a progressive, crazieralcoholic addict.
And um I it got too much troubleto carry a surfboard around.
I'd I'd stash one at surf spots,you know, and and sometimes
people would steal them.
(33:41):
A lot of stealing started goingon in those times, you know.
I took way too much psychedelicsand got off of alcohol for a
while and started smoking a lotof hashesh to come down off the
psychedelics.
And uh I was taken, actuallytaking LSD before it was
illegal, and I that's why Ifirst, well, it was like I was
asking God what's going on, andI thought it was the LSD that
(34:04):
made God talk to me, butactually I found out later it
was actually actually just mysincere hearted desire that God
chose to answer me and and talkto me.
And um, after I met God, it'slike things were really
different.
I I just left it all behind.
I took everything I owned.
There was a guy who reminded methe other day here, uh, who came
(34:25):
up to me and he said on theNorth Shore.
Wayne Lynch came up to me on theNorth Shore when I had a tree
house and a surfboard, and andit was like when I really cast
surfing off, was that pointwhere he saw me do it.
He said, uh, where there was abig storm came up, and and I was
I needed to let go ofeverything, and I just threw
(34:45):
everything I owned.
All I was a Muslim bathing, so Ihad to keep that on to keep them
getting thrown in jail for nude.
And I I took my blanket and myholy books and my my my um
surfboard, and that's all Iowned, pretty much, and uh a
hash pipe, and I threw it all inthe ocean in a storm.
And and it all went out in therip at Sunset Beach.
(35:09):
And um so I walked around theisland and came back, and and um
I just I found that I was takinga lot of psychedelics and I
found that the whole universe iscomprised of electromagnetic
waves of energy, and I couldactually, you know, uh ride
those waves of energy, thosecosmic waves of energy, and I
was like, you know, going offthe planet body and all, and and
(35:32):
people actually saw me do it,and you know, like the silver
surfer.
So that that comic book came outabout that time, the silver
surfer, and I was the silversurfer.
According to them, I was justsurfing all over the universe
without a surfboard.
You know, I I found that peopledidn't understand what was
happening at all, and I wouldlose touch with people, and I'm
a human being.
(35:52):
And I I found I discovered Godmade it very clear to me that
I'm here on earth to be ofservice, and that's why he's
giving me life.
And so I'm here to be on serv ofservice to other people in
whatever way he wants to be ofservice.
Unless I'm acceptable to humanbeings, you know, when when I
was walking around, I didn'tneed to eat or breathe or do
(36:13):
anything, I was just a cosmicphantom of light, rainbow flying
around, and somehow still had abody on the earth.
People would, when they wouldencounter me, it would scare
them.
You know, my my reality that youknow that somebody didn't need
to to breathe and have aheartbeat and and was just a
walking drug zombie, so tospeak, uh, was frightening to
(36:33):
them and and their bodies, Icould there was no
communication.
I couldn't do any communicatingwith them, I was of no help.
I was just a fright.
And people would try to throw mein jail and accuse me of causing
revolutions, the hippierevolution, federal indictments,
treason.
They said I committed treasonagainst the U.S.
by causing the hippierevolution.
How about that for a joke?
(36:54):
Like, sure, yeah, right.
Me?
Uh-huh.
No.
Uh spontaneous combustion ofconsciousness, maybe.
Okay.
But not me.
No, I was not the mastermind.
Just because there was afather-creative voice that used
to talk out loud, really loud,sometimes in front of other
people, and federal agents werethere one time when he talked
(37:16):
really loud, so they thought Iwas the leader because people
would look at me because Godtalked at me.
And I don't know.
God will talk to any of you.
God talks to all of you allevery day.
It talks to you through yourchildren.
You do you listen to God talktoday?
I'm getting tripped out here totalking to imagine.
But you know, like Yeah, it'sit's it's like uh I returned to
(37:39):
wave surfing because every timeI would get too far, I would not
go out in the ocean and let awave hydraulically massage my
body and give me this new lifethat it was releasing its life
that it got from the sun intothe wind, into the water, into
the wave, into me.
And when the wave is breaking,it's uh it's it's expiring.
(38:00):
It's it's ending its life andit's it's releasing that energy.
And when I my body, when thatenergy passes through my body,
it re-rebirths me.
SPEAKER_02 (38:25):
Thanks for spending some of yours listening with us
today.
Our editor this season is themulti-talented Ben Jake
Alexander.
The soundtrack was composed byShannon Sol Carroll.
We'll be continuing today'sconversation on Instagram, where
we're at Water People Podcast.
And you can subscribe to ourvery infrequent newsletter to
get book recommendations forquestions or pondering behind
(38:46):
the scenes glimpses intorecording the podcast, and more
via our website, thewaterpeoplepodcast.com.
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