'The Cosmic Godfather': Greenough Wisdom At Bird's Surf Shed

It’s a lot to keep up with, unless you love it to the core, there’s no chance of staying afloat, let alone succeeding. In the future, surf culture will continue to thrive and evolve, but the giants of the past will only survive as ghosts if the captain of the ship is not pure to the core.

It wasn’t always this way, and I was recently served a most excellent reminder, at where else, but a surf shop. Not just any surf shop, a temple of surf culture in San Diego, Bird’s Surf Shed. The event in question was a screening of George Greenough’s classic film The Inner Most Limits of Pure Fun. 

"What matters is when you’re in there, it’s the time interval when you’re inside the wave. Time enters space, a zone of its own. The only reality is what’s happening right then." 

George Greenough

I hadn’t been planning on going but when Tim Crozier of Blackbird Surfboards sent me a last-minute invite, I knew it was just what I needed–a pure hit of psychedelic surfing from the Golden Age. The screening was organized by Cher & Steve Pendarvis (Pendoflex Surfboards), long time friends of Greenough’s who still speak with him every Saturday, receiving hysterical stories of surfing’s most enigmatic man who lives off the grid in Australia. While he may be far from the minds of today’s groms, his influence–whether it be from fin design or filmmaking– is undeniable still to this day. 

“George calls every Saturday, after surfing and lunch, as he feeds the hawks and magpies a fish carcass from lunch. He lives primarily off his garden and locally caught fish. On his property there are several large lizards–which he calls land gators–one of them is very large. He recently told us about an episode where the largest of the lizards came charging him and he was terrified, recounting the experience in vivid detail. He said ran for his life across the property, trying to make it back to the house to defend himself, until the ‘most miraculous thing happened’ and the magpies came to his rescue and started swarming and dive bombing the lizard–’they saved me!’”

Another time, he told us about the full sized ‘roo that had been ravaging his lettuce and garden. George, being George, invented a way to make sure the ‘roo wouldn’t do this again and it involved “fishing” for it with a rattle can and luring it into an area where it got all caught up in his trap and never came back again.”

The wildest story, or at least the one that made me laugh the most, involved a snake and scythe, "George has left his home for a week to visit (Andrew) Kidman. When he returned, there was a massive Brown snake, highly venomous, near his house and he instantly grabbed a scythe and chopped it to pieces.” 

The film itself was a treasure to immerse in–a long form journey that eased my nervous system from all of the clips seen at a frantic pace whilst infinite scrolling and turning my brain to goo. It was a reminder of the roots of our culture, the modern roots, where travel and filmmaking were already taking the stage as the ultimate path to discover and share the wild joy of the surfing life. It’s easy to see how, as time progressed, we got carried away with ourselves and corrupted the very thing we love so much. I don’t say that to be a drag–quite the contrary–the idea is to be a reminder as to what it's all about: wild joy, immersion in nature, reflection, progression, community, discovery. 

Now, more than ever, the pure bliss that can come from surfing is perhaps the greatest antidote to the ailments of this modern life where too much screen time and attachment to devices has us all gasping for real emotion. Every surf may not be a revelation, it may not be bliss, but if you try to remember that it’s all part of the larger experience, you may just get what you need. 

A sincere thank you goes out to George, for all of his incredible contributions, and to Cher & Steve for their storytelling, and Bird for hosting it all.