Nelly's Magic Moments Podcast
Dave “Nelly” Nelson is a globally published veteran surf and skate photographer with countless magazine covers and spreads to his name. After spending years as a senior photographer at TransWorld Surf Magazine, Dave now shoots freelance for domestic and international publications.
Major action sports brands such as Vans, O’Neill, Fox, and Reef commonly contract Dave to shoot on location for trips locally and abroad.
As one of the best action water photographers in the world, he is usually in the right place at the right time to produce “the goods”. Dave’s relationships and mutual respect with some of the most elite athletes in the world give him access to the best action at the best spots.
Dave’s dedication to the sports of surfing and skateboarding is matched by his values as a person. A true family man, Dave cares about is daughter and wife as much as he cares for his community of Santa Cruz. A consummate role model for young athletes coming out of his hometown, Dave has helped pave the way for some of the best young talent in Nor Cal.
Nelly's Magic Moments Podcast
David McIntosh: Sunny California
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Santa Cruz can feel like a cheat code when you’re surrounded by waves, boards, and creative people, and that’s the energy we bring to this reboot from Sunny California Podcast Studios. We start with a real catch-up: Nelly talks through the emotional punch of selling a long-time Santa Cruz home, packing up life, and committing to the North Shore of Oahu while still flying back to shoot, work, and stay connected to the lane and the crew.
Then we sit down with our guest, David McIntosh, the founder of Sunny California. David takes us back to gritty Baltimore and the unlikely path that led him into surf culture and entrepreneurship. He shares how booking shows for his own band at 16 turned into a full-on concert promoter mindset, and why “creating the platform” is often the fastest way to find your people. If you’re into creative careers, brand building, or community-driven business, this part hits hard.
From there we zoom out into surfing as an industry: why sponsorship money dried up for regional pros, why the ocean isn’t an arena, and why surfing is harder to turn into mainstream “ticketed sport” economics than basketball or soccer. We also get specific about Santa Cruz’s waves of talent, the gaps between generations, and the resurgence of up-and-comers. We close with what Sunny California is becoming now: a surf and moto shop, coffee bar, in-house apparel making, events, a coworking surf club with showers and board storage, and a place built for real connection in a too-online world.
Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves surf culture, and leave a review if you want more of these long-form conversations.
Rebooting The Podcast In Santa Cruz
SPEAKER_05It's Nelly's Magic Moments Podcast.
SPEAKER_03Everyone.
SPEAKER_05Nell Dom.
SPEAKER_03Super stoked. This is insane.
SPEAKER_05I missed you, bro.
SPEAKER_03It's kind of like the twilight zone of being back in Santa Cruz, you know?
SPEAKER_05And we're just popping podcast studios left and right. We're always dragging Nelly all over the place for could be the North Shore. Could be Cruz I.O. downtown. Could be Upton's house. We don't know where we're podcasting from.
SPEAKER_03It's like the first time I've seen the sun in 12 days here.
SPEAKER_05And where we're at right now, board on your right, Nelly, Ferns, Greens, Sunny California Podcast Studios.
SPEAKER_03That's pretty insane in here.
SPEAKER_05And who better? Now we've been kind of like given the credit, top of these, all these podcasts, where we're at. And I think we did one with our guest before we were actually Sunny California Podcast Studios. But who better to kick off the little reboot of Nelly's Magic Moments podcast? It's been a while. The owner of Sunny California, the owner of Sunny California Podcast Studios, the owner of that. Wait a minute. Do you want that couch? Do you want that couch? It was donated by a very rad dude. Yeah, that's right. Right out of Stacy Upton Jr. donated her office couch for it. Um, welcome, David, Macintosh from Sunny California. Um, Nelly's Magic Moves podcast. Nelly, I think I kind of want to start with a little catch-up here because I think we're got a plan in action of going Riverside, Sunny California, hitting it hard when you're back here on the mainland a little bit. I think I want to do a little update. It's been a crazy year for Nail Dog.
SPEAKER_03It has been a crazy year, man. I don't know, Riverside.
SPEAKER_05FM, so we can do it remote. Get your big guess. You know, I think we're gonna kind of, you know, like I'll get let the audience know because this one is, along with a couple of our podcasts, one of the farthest reaching ones. Um, I think this is still the only one that's reached all seven continents, which is kind of a rad stat. I think we the analytics kind of come out and they show us like who's listening where, and you get all the downloads. And it was very quick. It wasn't like it didn't take us like five podcasts. I think it was um, I can't think of the guests that popped it off, but we've hit every all seven continents with somebody at some point was listening. Um, might have been on a Greenpeace boast boat in Antarctica, but I don't know how we got some of them. But um how about uh just uh it's been a while, so how about a little update on Nelly and what you've been up to and packing up your dog, getting on a plane?
Nelly’s Move To The North Shore
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well uh you know that was a crazy journey coming back from Hawaii and then deciding to actually move there was uh a lot of work and and it was a lot of emotions, you know, and like leaving Santa Cruz is very emotional. And um so me and Christy sold our house, and you know, that was a sell everything mission, pack a pod and have a couple of yard sales, and off we went, shipped our four runners over there, and and uh we arrived in in the North Shore on December 1st, and it was a pretty crazy winter, actually. It was like one of the craziest winters ever in Hawaii.
SPEAKER_05Go backwards one step though, because I don't want to like you know me, I don't want to go over it too hard because I was right next to you when it was kind of happening, but um a lot of us move and a lot of us have like um you know, life business brings us all over the place. And I even think of my kids and our life, and there's two or three different versions of the Upton household, you know, Denver, kind of in New York, and then back in Santa Cruz. But um, that home there, that's a whole Nelly chapter, um Keala, you know, the whole life that some of the images that came out of that, closing that door, locking that door when you guys walked out of there.
SPEAKER_03It was very sad.
SPEAKER_05Huge moment. Sad and excited, or just mostly that day was it mostly sad?
SPEAKER_03Oh, it was very sad, yeah. That moment, you know, but um leading up to it was both exciting and sad. And then, you know, we knew where we were going and we had found out kind of our dream house and uh Pupaquet and the North Shore. And so there was definitely both, but the day that we left was was definitely a trip. It's sad, you know.
SPEAKER_05Well it's psyched to have you back, and it's not like you've I think the one thing about it is um I think at least four or five times over that period you've been back here working and uh still popping into the zip code here. And so it's just a longer commute. Is that what it's turned out to be when you get it?
SPEAKER_03That's what it's turned out to be, and I love it, you know. It's like I roll back in and it's really exciting to see people and go to the lane and see all the boys and you know, shoot photos or or just cruising in here, you know, and seeing everyone and seeing Dave and and uh I don't know.
SPEAKER_05No, it's it's it that's what I want. I just want to kind of a little update, reset, and then um I think we're pretty committed now, especially now we have a permanent studio here, um, to being regular on Nelly's magic moments because I know it it's such a good time when we do it and we're hitting it on a regular basis. Yeah. Um, and still does it an insane amount of downloads weekly for us, not really paying attention to the case.
SPEAKER_03It's gonna be a revamp, it's gonna be a big one, I think.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, Nelly wants to shut people up. We go seven minute timer, get some conversations going. But let's get to our guest. Um, Dave, but I wanted to kind of, you know, you've been on one podcast at least, maybe two of the Vibes Network, um, and the conversations are always a little different. And I had a chance to listen to Mike's chance to listen. I was on, I think, uh co-hosting with the OTC crew. Yeah. But I think today what I want to do with Nelly, and Nelly will jump in as we kind of get to the correct parts, but um a little bit of patience, slow it down a little bit more. And I think I kind of want to start where we have the time to kind of go all the way back, you know, like a little bit, um, because we always kind of get to that thing is what do you do and who are you? And you're you you are sunny California, um, but not that's not who you are. I'm already getting to know you a little bit more. Kind of wind me back a little bit. I don't even know if I know where you were born, where you were raised, like some of those early days and stuff and influences. I don't know if we've had that conversation.
SPEAKER_01No, probably not. You know, it's funny when like you're talking when Nelly's mentioning like we even had his house. How long were you guys in that house before you left? 20, almost 25 years. So Keala like was born there. Yeah, she was born there. It's just like yeah, it's that's really what it is. It's not like the house and moving to the North Shore, right? It's that history, you know. That's it. That's like just all those memories from like 20 years. Yeah, so I I um I that's
David’s Baltimore Roots And Early Influences
SPEAKER_01what's heavy. Like, so I I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. A very um, it was a really weird experience, really weird town to grow up in. Um, I mean, if you've ever seen like The Wire or like something else, you know, that's that's much more documentary than drama. Yeah. And um, and it's a very weird town, it's very gritty, but there's uh really interesting stuff that comes out of it. I mean, there's um, you know, there's uh, you know, the home of like Frank Zappa and Edward Edward Edgar Allan Poe, and yeah, just all this like um really kind of off-beat history, you know. Um it's not like a mainstream sort of sort of town. So um, so that was like a really wild experience growing up. I I I was born in a little town called called Hamden. It was very like um it was a very poor neighborhood, and it was kind of surrounded by a couple other poor neighborhoods and also a really rich neighborhood. So it was like very segregated that town in a lot of different ways. As a white person also, I uh I grew up as a minority. It's like one of the few like really um majority black cities in America. Which um Is it on the coast? No, it's like two and a half hours from the beach. So eventually I got into surfing, and it's a really hard place to what you folks do?
SPEAKER_05Like what what what what's like the little bit with the cliff notes version? I don't want to go too deep into it, but like how do people land in Baltimore? What what you know what was you know, how'd your family get there?
SPEAKER_01My my my mom uh grew up in Baltimore in the same neighborhood. My grandmother actually lived three doors down from us growing up. Amazing. Uh and she had bought her house in like the 1940s, I guess. Um so um, so yeah, my mom uh and my mom was born in the 50s. And um, so we had been in that in that neighborhood for 80 years or so. Yeah. My family. And um, my father was an attorney and my mother was his secretary. Nice. That's how they got together.
SPEAKER_05Did you have any ambitions? Was there any um was there paths like in your high school years of of becoming an attorney, or did you were you just all over the place in high school?
SPEAKER_01No, I wanted to do whatever the exact opposite of whatever my father told me. That's what we do. That's what we do. Yeah, it's funny though, like um as as you as you go through life, um, I didn't want to follow in my father's footsteps for a variety of reasons, but I remember when I got to like college age and I was started thinking like I had this like attorney thing that was like pulling at me. Like I felt like I could be really good at it. Um, but um, but I was already embedded at that point. I
Becoming A Teen Concert Promoter
SPEAKER_01was already embedded in like the music industry. I'd been um a concert promoter since I was like 16 years old. So I just um I just that was that was the path that I I knew I really wanted to do.
SPEAKER_05Hold that thought. How does that happen? Because I mean I was 16 and I loved music and I was around it. We went to club culture and jumped off the stage. But how do you pivot from loving and liking music to promoting music at that age?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, for me, like I was um first it started out very organically for me. I was in a band and I was in a a band that wasn't good enough to get an agent, and so we had to book our own shows. Yeah. And so I was the guy in the band that booked the shows.
SPEAKER_05What kind of music?
SPEAKER_01Uh it was like kind of like uh early stages of like emo and pop punk. And um, and so I started doing the doing the doing the shows, and we only wanted to do all age shows, so we didn't have any interest in playing bars and stuff like that. So um, so yeah, so I started booking the shows, and then all these other out-of-town bands were like wanting to get on the bills that we were doing, or they found out about me doing all-age shows. They didn't want to play bars either. And these were like a lot of young bands that were just getting their start, but it was like Green Day and Blink 182.
SPEAKER_05What was the name of your band?
SPEAKER_01Uh there I had a I had a bunch. I was one one was called Tragic Drive. It was like very early stage emo. Named ourselves after a Sunny Day Real Estate song.
SPEAKER_05Does any of this music exist anymore?
SPEAKER_01You compare it to like the class, the cure? Um, I would compare it to like now these days, it was like uh bands that we would like play with, or like um Jimmy Eat World. Yeah. Um we played with Green Day, we played with Blink 182.
SPEAKER_05Wait, so you were you would you you were a little humble there? Because it made it sound like your band sucked. Um, you didn't suck.
SPEAKER_01Well, we didn't suck, but I was the guy put it on the show, so I decided who played.
SPEAKER_05Well, I mean, but but I it's still even to put I guess that's true. You can put yourself on the bill. You get great bands and put yourself on the on the ticket. Um, did you play an instrument? You sing a little bit of everything.
SPEAKER_01No, I play guitar and sang.
SPEAKER_05And now I again I'm asked the question again because I will drop that shit into this podcast. Does any of this music exist anywhere?
SPEAKER_01It's out there somewhere.
SPEAKER_05Like I can you get it in my handies and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Um I I could.
SPEAKER_05You will because this is that moment, the magic moment of the podcast where like we're gonna play a little bit of Tragic Drive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um here's the here's the here's the cut. What was the best song from Tragic Drive? It's called the Wonder Song. This is the Wonder Song from Tragic Drive coming up on Nelly Radio. All right, so this actually rad. And so you the you you to self-promote became a promoter, yeah, but also started connecting with some real bands.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. And that that's where really what it I what it came down to. I was like, I the my own music got me into like c working with other bands, but then really working with other bands and sort of like more my like entrepreneurial mind and everything, that really became even more of my passion. Yeah, even than playing my own stuff. Um, just because it was really it was just a great, I mean, especially in your I mean your late teens, like twelve twenties, it's like it's a good life to be like you know, you know, club promoter, you know, you're people are stoked coming to your shows, dopamine all over the place. You look out in the crowd, it's like you know, a thousand people just like are just like they're having a great time, and it's all because you put it put that on, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, most of them know you and yeah, yeah. Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I mean it was like that that sort of thing, and then always new bands and just watching the bands grow and um and just kind of being a little bit part of their story, and um, and watching bands change and members of bands going in other bands and just like the whole the whole scene, you know? Yeah, like you felt like you were creating something. Totally. It felt like you were creating you a foundation for other people to create something as well.
SPEAKER_05But it is Nelly's Magic Moments podcast, and I have an obligation as the um the host to kind of when I hear something I'm interested in. I always
First Boards And The Pull Of Surf
SPEAKER_05kind of think about young nail dog. I think about young nail dog in sixth and seventh and eighth grade in high school. What were you listening to? And I don't I I I know where you ended up landing as far as your taste that I, you know, when when you're around, but how did your musical taste evolve like from middle school, grade school, and the surf culture, skate culture? Tell me quickly, how did that kind of change your view on music a little bit?
SPEAKER_03Uh I mean, it changed quickly. Yeah. As soon as you get into middle school. And I mean, it was like it went from like Elton John to like dead Kennedys and suicidal tendencies, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, whatever mom and dad were playing, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, you can fleewood map to suicidal tendencies like overnight.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I think mine was like the same bands, but I went from like my dad had foreigner caliph, you know, um, you know, like uh Boston, you know, a lot of those bigger bands, like Bread to love all those bands you just mentioned, yeah. I do too, but it wasn't drawing chicks in seventh grade. So so you kind of switch quickly and how early? I don't know if I've ever asked you this on the podcast, and maybe we've talked about it, but um, you know, what was your tipping point into surf and skate culture? I don't know if there was because there's kind of we all have singular moments. You either get aboard, you have a friend that's gonna take you down to the skate park. You know, we all have that moment. What was your tipping point from not being in that? I I don't assume your was your pops in the surf and skate culture at all?
SPEAKER_03No. Okay, so my all my friends basically, or the people who I wanted to be friends with, I was kind of a loner actually in in middle school and high school. Um so the guys who I looked up to, they all skated and they skated Winchester Skate Park and whatever. And like by the time that I finally got a sick skateboard, a good skateboard, um, they had all kind of graduated to surfing. And so I started skating by myself and I'd take the bus down to Winchester Skate Park or hitchhike or skate down there or whatever I could do to get down there, and I got fully hooked on skating. And uh I went from just full kookism to like pretty good really fast.
SPEAKER_05Well and uh we'll tell you when you're not a kook anymore, Natalie.
SPEAKER_03And I used to uh I used to go there and and watch Meekster and Steve Cavallero skate, and I was just like, I mean, if there was ever any idol that any kid has never come on, right? I was they were my idols, and I'd just sit there and watch them for hours and take runs and Hey, here's a perspective I've never had.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but here's a perspective I've never had. I want to hear from you because it's at that point you were over the hill, you know, kind of finding your way to this culture, and you said all your friends were going from skate to surf. Um for us it's our backyard, you know, when we're growing up here. When you're say in eighth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth grade, when you you don't have your driver's license, how do those missions work when you're young and you want to surf and you live over the hill? And I'm I'm kind of being naive here because the logistics suck.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, so like I said, I was I was uh got super into skating when all my friends surfed. So they hadn't kind of figured it out for me by the time I started surfing, and I was like six months to a year behind them where I was just like going to Winchester and what age about are you right now? We're talking seventh grade. Okay, all right. So so by the time I finally got aboard, they had they were already like a way better at surfing than I was like could couldn't even stand up yet. Yeah, you know what I mean? And they were already riding waves. So I had a learning curve coming up that was humbling. Yeah, humbling. And then they had their sisters giving them rides to the beach, and they had kind of parents, and and then Bum and a ride, really, is what you were doing. As soon as I got my first wave, being the addict kind of guy that I am, I was like hooked immediately. And so I started cutting school and I would hitchhike to the beach with my surfboard, and people would be tripping because I'm cruising down Saratoga Avenue with my surfboard and like with my thumb out. Little toe head grom. They're like, What the hell?
SPEAKER_05Like, I'm this guy's 30 miles from the it just makes me laugh so hard because again, I this this alternate universe I cut, we all did, but I went to Morello Prep, which became gateway school, which means when you cut Morello, you were 80 feet away from the lane. You know, so when we cut, the logistics weren't too bad. You could actually get back for six periods. Oh, yeah, you could cut the classes you didn't want to go and still be back and do your thing. Um, but that the but you cut, it's a whole day.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, I would get home at like nine o'clock at night, just like still salty. And my parents would be like, Where have you been? I'm like, I went surfing. How did you go surfing? You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_05Like it's so great. And the transition here, that's rad's story. And then I think you know, we kind of were getting the sense of it. Um, so we're 16, we love music, we're in a band, we become a promoter. You also have a deep affinity for the surf culture, and you said you're how far away from it? How many miles?
SPEAKER_01Two and a half.
SPEAKER_05Oh, two and a half. Yeah, two and a half hours away. Um, when did you find your way into that kind of culture?
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, I so Nelly, you grew up far from the beach to the point where you were hitchhiking and people probably thought you were just lost.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01But I grew up far enough from the beach where cutting school was like if I cut school, I'm I got nothing to do anyway. So I never cut school. I was way too far from the beach. Um, but I actually discovered surfing though, um, when I was on a um a family trip.
East Coast Surf Reality Versus Dream
SPEAKER_01So I grew up in Baltimore. We were two and a half hours from Ocean City, Maryland. Okay, yeah. And about the same from Ocean City, New Jersey. Yep. And um, they're both similar, like beach breaks. And so I discovered it on a on a on a you know, families would go down there one week out of the year or two weeks out of the year. And I discovered it then. I was in Ocean City, New Jersey, and I was on the boardwalk and I just saw some dude like standing up on a wave.
SPEAKER_05And that alone was miraculous.
SPEAKER_01Uh dude, so I was like, what he had you know what he had, Nelly?
SPEAKER_05He he in Ocean City had the Three Princes moment back east. He had he had the you you because that same amazing moment to the natives, the people that had never seen it before. If you've never seen it, and I do think there's there's a commonality there, and Nelly might even have this. Like the thought of it, seeing it on TV or having the idea of it and actually being in the water, two things. Either seeing someone execute it is is breathtaking and will get you hooked. The second one is doing it yourself. I mean, clearly those are the two seminal moments of surfing is the idea of it and actually kind of before you get in, seeing somebody do it, the beauty of it and all of that, right?
SPEAKER_03All of it. And then there would be a third thing. Those two that you just mentioned are perfect. And then the third one for me was right when I was at that age when I was just starting to surf and I got my new board and I was so excited, and that's all I thought about. Yeah, was the beginning of professional surfing happening right then. And so it was on Wide World of Sports, it was Michael Ho winning the Pipe Masters with a broken arm. Are we talking mid-early 80s? Talking mainstream TV, and I was just like, whoa, I want to be that guy. Yeah. And I want to go check out Pipeline, and you know what I mean? And it was like it was just the beginning of the boom. Yeah. None of us will ever be Michael Ho. What's that?
SPEAKER_01But that's just we all wanted to.
SPEAKER_05It's just such rad stories. And I think, you know, uh, you know, for me, it's and again, trying to keep it on track with the two lanes here, guest and Nelly. Um, your impression of the culture, the scene, uh, I'm assuming you've photograp you photographed back east in these spots at some point or the other, or no?
SPEAKER_03Uh, number Maryland, but I've been to North Carolina and New York and all that zone.
SPEAKER_05What's your take on the scene back there? Is it what's your take on the overall? Like, I guess it's kind of a fun one because you're here, you have a unique perspective. Um you know, we can actually just kind of do three. Let's kind of, you know, right now because we're thinking about it. You live on you live on the north shore, you basically kind of cut your teeth on all these levels in Santa Cruz. And since we're talking about a guy that was there, like talk about the scene. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03The scene is sick. I love the people out there that have so many friends on the East Coast. As a photographer, I hated it because the sun comes up out, it's the opposite lighting. The sun comes up out in the ocean. So it's the worst lighting ever all morning. Like you that you could ever have. Like you're shooting straight into the sun.
SPEAKER_05How's that possible if the earth is flat?
SPEAKER_03So the other thing is is uh it's like chocolate barrels, you know what I mean? So it's not good for swimming either. Right. Tons of current, and there's these horse flies that are like this big, like the size of a half dollar, that just they'll draw blood. They eat they like eat you.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_03So I wasn't super stoked on shooting photos out there, right?
SPEAKER_01You know, plus by 11 a.m. the wind's on it usually and it's choppy and stuff, and you can usually get like a like an evening. Um, it calms down or whatever. But honestly, when I grew up surfing, um when I was first starting, there it was like almost there wasn't a scene. Like you're looking around for people to surf with.
SPEAKER_05How old are you ish? 52. Yes, okay, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and like you know, there you eventually you find your people, right? You know, but um, but back then and and still. Still still to these to this day, like nobody's like putting Maryland on the surf map. You know, so nobody's like, hey, I want to take a trip to Surf Maryland, you know. Now, some of the best ways I've ever I've surfed all over the world and some of the best ways I've ever caught her in Maryland. But um, but it's just like uh you gotta be on it, you gotta, you know, here in Pleasure Point, man, it's like 350 days a year. You can go out there and surf. I call it like Maryland, there's like maybe you know 10 really like good days. Yeah, hurricane swells? Yeah, hurricane swells and mostly mid-winters. More than northeasters. Yeah, yeah. Northeasters, mid like midwinter, you get pumping swells. Nobody knows about it because nobody goes to the beach midwinter. Everybody goes there in the summer. People think there's no waves there. What's I'm having to do? It's like snowing on the beach, anyways, right? Yeah, it's snowing. You walk you're walking across snow. It's so true, though. But I'll have a I have a funny story. I have an interesting story though. When I first going back to when I first saw surfing, I was surfing um a like a late fall day, probably in like November or something. The beach is totally empty in Maryland. Um surfing uh near 8th Street in City, Maryland, and there's nobody around. Um back then, more people live there year-round now, but back then it was like a million people in the summer and 10,000 people lived there in the winter. It was like, and it was like basically a ghost town. Well, the beach was completely empty. I was getting pumping barrels all by myself. And I look back at the beach, and the beach had been empty, and then I all of a sudden I look back and there's these two Mennonite men standing there. They're like basically like Amish people, like Amish people that can drive cars. And uh, and so um, and they were staring at me in a kind of a spooky way.
SPEAKER_05Sounds like an M. Night Shyamalan movie, right?
SPEAKER_01Totally, 100%. But at the same time, the reason they were just staring at me is they were so flabbergasted seeing this guy walking on water, and they had never seen anything like that before. Probably the first time they ever came to Jesus, probably who knows. But it was but it wasn't too dissimilar, honestly, from my first time seeing somebody surfing. Yeah, probably for a different reason. I just like identified it. I was already a skater and stuff, so like, but then I saw like what you could do on water, it was just like just a life-changing moment for me.
SPEAKER_05It is something we take for granted, and I I don't think until we're having this conversation is that when you're born and raised here, you're thinking, you know, um, as you know, up on Escalona and Capitola is where our first apartment was, then Soquel and Santa Cruz. But you, you know, that would be me in the carriage, me basically on my trike. People are surfing on waves before I can remember my first memories. And so taking a walk with your mom on West Cliff Drive, you everybody's between three and five years old when they start having memories of your life, you know, before that. And so in Santa Cruz, you the surfing is just it's the same way as a tree. It's the same way, and it's a weird thing because I don't think I have that wonder of surfing when you're born and raised here because that is your first memory. Isn't that weird to think about it that way, though? Because at some point, when you don't live here, and I'm kind of trying to give people in town that are listening to this, we don't do that enough, is where we kind of I do it more and more since I moved away and came back, where I really sit there and I'm just sitting there in our deck, or I'm sitting there at the lane, and I'm just thinking, like, so fucking lucky, you know, like so intensely lucky to this is 24-7 for us. It's it is like we always refer to it as the backyard. Um, but it is weird to think about it's not magical to somebody that's born in and around the water.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. We don't take it for granted, you know, or you try not to.
SPEAKER_01We try not to. But the but the funny part about that is though, like you grow up here and you can surf every single day, and it's like the in the culture ingrained, like there's people walking around surfboards everywhere. Like growing up on the east coast, it was the exact opposite of that. It's like there's there's no surf culture. All of the culture we got, we were magazine kids basically. Totally. Like we're and and back when I was started, like really getting into surfing, especially after I had a car and I could go to the beach whenever I wanted, like it was all like Santa Cruz and Hawaii and all the magazines. So we'd re be reading about all the Santa Cruz surfers, like, and it was like hardcore, and every there were like a ton of them back then, like in the magazines and stuff. So it was like this the city that had this like huge surf culture. And I'm like in the middle of winter, like waxing my board in my basement, just like dreaming about the next swell.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and and it it's actually a perfect segue to a conversation, still playing ping-pong here, and we'll get back to it. But that was that was great because I don't think in the two podcasts I've listened to, we haven't gone that far into um you know, young, and we'll we'll we'll have you on enough. We'll get you on Stacy's and I'm we'll talk about proms and shit like that, but that's not for today. Um, but it does make me think about as he's talking about that issue.
Santa Cruz Talent Waves And The Gap
SPEAKER_05I can't remember if it was in the co-working space back there, Nelly, the other day with Homer or whatever it was, but we're having a conversation about that kind of like that that you know that singular moment that was Santa Cruz at the time he's talking about. You were here, you were photographing, you were kind of the magazines that everybody was reading other places, they were likely looking at a lot of your photos. And we did have um, you know, of how I think you made a great comment the other day. You know, you weren't talking about a top 20 or 100 surfers, you're talking about top 3,000 when it was all peaking on the world. And the amount of surfers coming out of this zip code at that time was unprecedented, right?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, it was a huge percentage.
SPEAKER_05And who were the names? Like, like, talk about a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Like I mean, uh, probably when how old were you, Dave? When I was getting into surfing. Oh, well, this was probably this era where you're reading magazines, yeah. Like 15.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, totally 15, 16.
SPEAKER_03Probably like changing of the guard from the Vince Collier, Bud Miller, Ward Coffee era into the flea rat Barney, that era, Peter Mel, Skin Dog. Yeah, I mean, it just went on. Josh Lawyer, Nate Acker, Zach Acker, it just went, and they were all getting published. Adam Ricol. Adam Recognized C Conn. Yeah, Julian and Homer and Rock Matt Rockhold and it just uh Omar Etchevery. It just goes on and on.
SPEAKER_05It's amazing. Yeah, but the thing I I think you were talking about, I this is perfect because I think, and then, and I don't want to kind of throw shade at all, but then we sort of gapped a little bit. We gapped for a certain period of time where it wasn't coming from Santa Cruz much anymore. Like, or at least the names weren't the same as that that peak, but now there's a resurgence. There's a there's a can you talk about that a little bit? And one, if you disagree, just let me know um if there was consistency. But when you talk about it and growing up here, being around it, it did feel like we were in the middle of this um just lightning storm of talent, lightning storm of news, and you were living amongst these famous people, even when you went out for um you know a date downtown, it's like you these people were everywhere, you know, and it was it was part of our background. So again, talk about taking something for granted when they're just your neighbors, you don't they just went to high school down the way, you know, it wasn't a big deal, um you know, in the context of living here. But can you talk about like and I have a follow-up for you that I'll pin, but can you talk about that that that time and then generations and stuff? Yeah, but generations and like tell me if I'm wrong, but did it did it kind of gap until recently? Yeah, what do you think caused that?
SPEAKER_03Uh drugs and there was an era early on in like Nat Young's generation, for instance, where there was a lot of like wannabe gangsters, like and there's there's like this baggy clothes, like it was that whole there was just this whole generation of like kids that never started surfing or never got serious about it, you know. I mean, they were like it was just a different time. And you know, even Nat's generation had like guys like Noe Kay, and and that there was a few guys on the east side and a few guys on the west side, but it wasn't 60 to 80 like in the Josh Loya, Mulcoy, yeah, Mel, yeah, all that. There were so many, and they were all pushing each other, and there was surf minute surf movies coming out of Santa Cruz, and Flea was winning Mavericks, and it was just nuts here, you know what I mean? And then it all kind of calmed down, and then there's certain of the crew got into drugs, and you know, um it just kind of fizzled.
SPEAKER_05It was, and it was all it's funny because I and that kind of leads me to my perception. Some of the podcasts we've done. It's really your podcast is amazing because being in the water, in the parks, but out of the culture, like we always talk about, having these guests and the sort of like the decades of experience that we have on all the way from Hyla to say Sean, you know, you get this huge range of of different people. Um, it feels to me like when you look at the 80s and the 90s, um, that the between the magazines, between the exposure that you were you were in the water giving them, um, there was a rise to quote unquote fame and a lot of money being thrown around for sponsorships. But they didn't these surfers didn't particularly know what to do with that fame, what to do with that. And now, and you can name some of the names that are up and coming in this area. I really get the sense when we talk and we run articles in the magazine that the up-and-coming surfers right now overwhelmingly seem like they know the business of surfing and they have a plan more so than just being famous in the water. Um, because the industry's changed too. So they have to be smarter as business people than just shredding and getting money. That kind of was the the ticket 30 years ago was if you're the best in the world, you're gonna get paid, and you're gonna get paid enough to call it a career. Yeah, it's not necessarily the case anymore for as many surfers. Is
Why Surfing Got Hard To Monetize
SPEAKER_05that fair?
SPEAKER_03Like, oh, it's more than fair. You know, I mean, in this day and age, it's like impossible to make a living at surfing, and and uh certain people do, but you have to be doing something special, you know. I mean, and especially this was even before the surf industry started, you know, fumbling. It had gotten to the point where without going out and getting the biggest wave that you've ever seen at Mavericks, yeah, or doing something that no one's ever been done, like you were just another dude. You know, I mean, we were just talking about it earlier where it's like if you're you're going out and you're doing a big 360 air, it's like people have been doing 360 airs now for 35 years, you know. I mean, Josh Kerry used to do them in heats 30 years ago. It's like you're not wowing anybody anymore. You gotta look for that wow factor and style. And and style, yeah. But uh the other thing is, is there's not a lot of money flying around like there was, you know, I mean for for for photographers or for surfers.
SPEAKER_01Also, I wanted to make just mention that just in that era too, when there were all those surfers coming out, there are also a lot of good bands from Santa Cruz, too. Oh, yeah. I mean, and I used to do them back east, like name them good riddance, yeah, swinging udders, like there were a lot of like really good sort of punk, yeah, punk punk, a lot of punk bands. It was it was kind of like almost it just really fit this whole scene. It was like every everything was punk rock out here, you know.
SPEAKER_05And it's so funny because I I just again, I'm and I'm I know I'm beating the dead drum here. Um, that was just something we did on a Thursday night at Club Culture. I it's it blows my mind because when you hear it in that I I've never thought about those bands in that way. And I don't mean in in a way other than the fact of it was just a thing to do here. It was just normal. It was, and isn't that weird to think about it now? Because you know, you I wouldn't want to go back and recreate history, but um, I think we knew it was rad, we knew they were great, but you you you just had needed something to do on a Saturday. Yeah, and they and they happened to be a really good lineup, and it was because you just saw it on a telephone pole.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Do you know what I mean? It's just a weird thing.
SPEAKER_03It was so normal back then, and then it just disappeared, and that that's why this party I just went to down south was so sick because it was like exactly like the parties we used to have here in Santa Cruz back in the 80s, you know what I mean? And they just fizzled.
SPEAKER_05Stay there for a second, but I want one follow-up to close out the other conversation, make sure we don't we leave it. So we got a lot of those good names out of it, but I do feel like there's a renaissance coming from Santa Cruz right now. Can you just throw out some of the names of the the up-and-comers right now, um, particularly from you know our area right now that are there is a huge renaissance.
SPEAKER_03Um, you know, kids like Max St. Dennis and Oli Moon and Isla Hardy and Cora KK, Riviera Hunter. There's a whole bunch of like soon-to-be world-class surfers, I think, coming out of here. Whether they can make a living off of surfing is the big question. You know what I mean? I don't I don't see big paychecks right now.
SPEAKER_05I do, and I want your take on this. And I do it just from a business standpoint. It's it's totally out of the bounds. But I think the the third space inclusion, this isn't on the planet right now, not just not just these wave pools, and it's gonna take a while, but the wave pools are akin to stadiums. And stadiums are what create even successful G League teams, they create successful minor league soccer teams. And what you need behind is branding, organization, and sort of um uh TV contracts. And I will tell you that the hardest thing to pin the tail on for surfing, this has been forever, is transitioning it to captivating TV. Do you mean so that there's but here's the thing, and this is only from hanging out with you. And and I watch surfing contests, I went down the Civic, watched the movies, but there is drama in surfing competitions, but you have to know what you're looking for. And and Nellie's taught me to look for priority and look for me to tell me like what strategies are. And that's why I'm very interested, even with Isla last week going down south. It's not so much that she didn't have the the time that she was, you know, the result she was expecting. I'm more interested the same way I would watch a Warriors game and wonder like kind of what went wrong there. Was it defense? Was it free throw? You know, the breaking down the strategy of the sporting event that didn't go your way. Um, but I think surfing is very compelling when you start to understand the rules of the sport.
SPEAKER_01Well, one thing though, you mentioned the Warriors. If you go to a basketball game or you go to a football game or a soccer game or a baseball game or even go see golf, pro golf, you're paying, you're paying for it. Right. You like as somebody that sold hundreds of thousands of tickets in my life, you're you're buying a ticket. So that's supporting this whole thing, right? If if if you went to see the 49ers and you just everybody got in free, they wouldn't have the resources to build what they have.
SPEAKER_05You know, the ocean's not an arena.
SPEAKER_01Surfing, I mean, well, it means surfing, you don't have to pay for it, you know. People go to the beach for free, you know, and go see watch surfing competitions, you know, go go to the you know, when O'Neill was going on, you mean you just walk rock up to the to the stadium related.
SPEAKER_05This will make my point though. Do people pay to get into Stab High? Like the tickets to get in and watch those, watch those events?
SPEAKER_03I think so, but not a lot. And then the other side of that is even if this happens, what you're talking about, it's gonna be a long time from now. I understand that. It's not part of the culture, right now. So it's no that's 10 years out of people making money that way with entrance fees and stuff like that. Like the way people used to get paid was they rode for O'Neal or Quicksilver, they had a shoe sponsor, they had a sunglass sponsor, some of them had a car sponsor, they would serve they would have an energy drink sponsor. Totally. And each one of them is paying them you know 50 to 100 grand a year, right? So now all of a sudden, these even regional pros in Santa Cruz, like not world touring for pros, these guys were making 180,000, $200,000 a year. Now they're not even getting paid.
SPEAKER_05You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03And when I I live in Hawaii, and so like the crowd that used to be there was all the regional pros from around the world, from Brazil, from Santa Cruz, from down south, from Australia. They're not there anymore. You know why? Because they're not getting paid.
SPEAKER_05They're not getting paid.
SPEAKER_03And so now it's just the world tour and the challenger series are the only pros that you see there anymore.
SPEAKER_05And David and I's favorite game when we're talking business is always kind of pushing each other, devil's advocate. What's wrong with your business model? I already blew up my business model with the league. And the one thing that's missing from my example is every single other sport you'd compare it to. Say you love basketball. We can go to Jade Street and play basketball. Let's say you love football. On some level, whether it be Madden or you want to join a flag football league, you can fake in your mind that you can play football on the beach, throw the ball around. Very surfing's very hard. Access isn't easy. So even if you love it on TV, baseball, go to a city league, pick up a ball, play in the backyard. Surfing doesn't translate that way. And so all the sports that are major and have the tickets, the other side of it is I think there's a connectivity between people going, like, I can never be Steph Curry, but I get it. I get what we're doing, and maybe that's the the barrier. So, and I'll I think you're both uniquely qualified. We'll
Diversification And Disrupting Your Own Path
SPEAKER_05go Dave first. Do you have do you ever give thoughts on like about the industry? The I'm sure you do, with with the brand that you've got, about where this industry is. And we're only talking about surfing right now. Let's just keep it there. Um, you know, as a promoter, let's say, from your promoter hat on, do you have any thoughts like driving down the road sometimes? How would you fix, say, the surf industry or your thoughts on the surf industry? Do you think about that at all?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, totally, all the time. I mean, it's I don't know, it's interesting. Um surfing, like I said, it's different than than so many other sports. Soccer, we're got we're in the midst of the World Cup right now, right? Soccer is the biggest sport in the world by far. And the reason is all you need is a ball and a bunch of people to play. Like you like, not even like even baseball, you everybody has to have a globe. I mean, there's just so much to um, you know, football, you need pads, like soccer is just so easy to just get totally if you can run and kick, you can play soccer. Surfing, you have to learn how to surf, you don't have to learn how to swim, you need to learn how you know about the ocean and everything. There's just so much to it. Um, and and the culture and everything as well. I mean, you can go on an empty field and just go play soccer. Um, so there's so there's that part of it. And then there's also, like I said, it is the um there surfers have less revenue streams. So it's like, and um, like even if you're on the world tour, you're spent you're spending so much money like going from event to event. If you don't have really good sponsorship, it's a struggle, right? Uh skateboarding's like similar. I mean, super similar, except they did figure it out with like things like the X game. Totally. So so there is a there is a way to do it. And I'm not saying, hey, well, we should just like put up um you know paywalls to go see surfing. Uh that but but the the reality is that you know you can go watch, you can go stand at pipeline and watch the best surfers in the world surfing, have the most amazing experience, and it's free.
SPEAKER_05I did it for the first time last year in that capacity, sitting right next to Nelly. And I've never I've never felt anything like that. I've never um experienced the the power of not only watching athleticism at that level, but just the power of this planet, you know, like like right in front of you, you can feel it. There's an energy, anticipation, um, danger.
SPEAKER_03Danger. I was gonna say, uh, you know, you get guys like pulled out of there on stretchers and stuff, you know. I mean, it's no joke.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So I think we were carving towards, so that's the macro of the industry. Like you're because you're you're kind of a guy that likes to figure things out and put your mind around it. Do you do just um how do we not I don't I don't want to say the word fix it, but what what is there to do with this industry right now?
SPEAKER_01Well, for me, I I diversify, right? So like Sunny California's surf and moto. And so like moto, like surf is um uh it's and coffee. Yeah, and coffee. We got we got a lot of stuff going on here, but like, but but just if you just take this the sports of surfing and and motorcycles, motorcycles people spend way more so much more money on motorcycles. Well, the the the the market for surfing is you're trying to get you know the young kids and all this stuff. In in in motorcycles, it's it's dinks, yeah, which are which are dual income no kits. Yeah, those are the people that are spending all their money on on dinks. And um they they they they they spend all their money on you know, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars on motorcycle parts and going to the track and like all that kind of stuff, or you know, even like the the you know, the like the car heads are that are like you know, riding Porsches down at Laguna Seca and stuff like that, you know, and that's like their passion or whatever. So so you know, diversification for me is like the main thing. I mean, and we've I've learned that from the time I was in a band and saw that like well, I could do a lot better just like putting on shows for other bands. Nelly was, you know, I like he grew up skating, but then hit his stride like when he was like pulled out a camera and started photographing other skaters.
SPEAKER_05Exactly.
SPEAKER_01And like, so there's obviously an industry here, but and it does ebb and flow. Nelly and I were talking about it earlier, you know, the the surfing industry, skating industry, things are things ebb and flow. I was just watching again um um until the wheels fall off, the Tony Hawk document, you know, and he was talking about even after like he had huge success, you know, he was like at one point like struggling to pay the bills, you know. It's part of the journey. So it's just part of that ebb and flow. But um, but I feel like diversification's like like the number one thing for me. And and like I said, just always being able to figure it out, disrupt yourself. That's the biggest thing for me. I I want to constantly disrupt myself. What am I doing where I could do better? Yeah, not to the point of distraction.
SPEAKER_05I think the thing I preached about what you do is like I think there's um I've been in business with people and I've kind of learned my lessons here and there. There's the people that are disruptors and they're disrupting and they have no fucking plan. They're just disrupting because I think they can't quite uh they're they're flailing, they're flailing and they're they're they're sort of addicted to the dopamine of the next idea. Do you mean the the dopamine and the rush of a rad new idea? But I think here what you seem to do, and this is actually a good segue, we'll kind of get into the the farther this has been great, but the the sunny kind. California side of it in that diversification. Um, I I just realized this kind of putting our ads together and the editorial um that yes, Moto, yes, surf, but co-working space, art, this podcast studio we're sitting in here right now.
SPEAKER_03Um designing your own clothes.
SPEAKER_05Designing your own clothes. So talk, I kind of leave the mic open here. Nelly, what are you munching on?
SPEAKER_04Killer beef jerky. From where? From uh, there you go. Bring it over here. Hold on. They're not a sponsor. From Maddie's place across the street. Point side market. Point side.
SPEAKER_05Wait, is this so this would be this would be probably um this would probably be uh from our buddies. Um I'm taking a big chunk. They're not a sponsor yet, but this is from uh oh, it is from Freedom Meat Company's The Meat, but over at Maddie's the Point. Yeah Um this is Asian Sensation Beef Jerky. Not a sponsor, not a sponsor yet.
SPEAKER_03I was trying to be quiet, but from Upton just crinkled it right in the mic. From from from Freedom Meat Locker.
SPEAKER_05Um uh and and I will reach out to Freedom Meat Locker after this and Maddie for some cash for this podcast. But um but you keep this. I think well, this is the part while I why I chew on this right now. Um it's
Inside Sunny California Surf Club
SPEAKER_05gonna take me probably about seven minutes. So I need you to riff on sunny California, but genuinely, um, not just so I can eat, but talk about this space because this is kind of pushing us forward um to that part that I wanted to get in the conversation anyway, which is kid from back east falls in love with surfing, somehow magically makes his way to this zip code of all zip codes. You know, like you could have dreamed a zip code at 16, it would be 95062, right? It would be here. Yeah. Um, and we'll save some of the the details of it, but let's talk right now about Sunny California, how you're diversifying the space and what is available here.
SPEAKER_01Well, first of all, Sunny California is like a celebration of like California lifestyle. So I I grew up like Nelly, I grew up somewhere to Nelly. I celebrated musicians. Nelly was has spent a career celebrating surfers and skaters and putting them in the limelight and showcasing their talent and everything. Um, Sunny California is a celebration of the whole California lifestyle, all that stuff, all the stuff that I grew up dreaming about as a kid. Um, you know, I used to call, I used to, this is making me sound what so lame. But but I used to call when I was in Ocean City, Maryland, I used to call Huntington Beach surfing sport down south, and and I'd ask them how the waves were. And like, and as if I was like right down the street and I'd just like jump on a bike and head down to the beach. But I was so desperate for like surf culture in my life that I just wanted to talk to another surf. That does not make that that's one of the rattest things I've ever heard.
SPEAKER_05But that's one of the coolest things. So you're 3,200 miles away. Yeah, and it was long distance phone calls. Yo, is it pumping out there today? What time you guys open?
SPEAKER_01That's how it was, man.
SPEAKER_05But but that's a classic kid story right there, where the the energy off of that, um uh one, I get it. I I get that. And so that's just amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I used to get chased around all the time skateboarding, you know, and then like Huntington Beach High School had a skate park in their high school. It's like, come on, man, this is the this is the dream of California.
SPEAKER_05Unreal.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, and obviously, so much of the music that I was um promoting back home was um uh was was from California. So for me, Sunny California is just an extension of that. It's like just celebrating the California lifestyle through through um through uh surfing, moto apparel. We've got a yeah, skateboarding. We've got a uh coffee bar with local, you know, locally sourced coffee. Like the co-working space is like, well, I'm so stoked on it because it sounds like you know, co-working space, but it's like a whole lifestyle space back there. Future events, yeah, events and stuff, and just like you know, you can go with our new co-working space, it's we call it Sunny California Surf Club. You can go um store your board there, you can get a hot shower there. You can uh see we're like a couple blocks from the point. Borrow a bike, right? Yeah, borrow a bike, go to the ride the down to the point, surf, come back, shower off, grab your laptop out of your locker, and and go to work with like like-minded people who want to be by the beach and and and integrate like um you know, a coastal living into their business. That's that's the sickest thing ever. I've already used it, and it's just like so dope.
SPEAKER_03It is.
SPEAKER_05And I was I think it's the new the guy back there right now, Shane, I think is is his name. Um, you know, your dream of that thing is from your positive experience at um uh WeWork. I can't remember. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It was like original like WeWorker.
SPEAKER_05I mean, and I think I think it's not necessarily there's an element of that that you want to kind of carry on and you've heavily invested. Um, as you say, co-working spaces. Not to I'm a I'm a co-working space, I'll say it whore when I go to other cities because I'm just always looking for a desk and good Wi-Fi. Um, but I think your idea is like everybody can do a co-working space. So already come of the things you talked about are great, but really talk about that connectivity, the networking, and the community that you're not wanting to build. Because one thing is that you want it, but you're investing in it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Well, like I mean, our we have a locker room that looks like kind of like a WSL locker room. Um we it's it's it starts starts kind of like there. You can like feel like the connection to like, you know, the surf community. Um and then just kind of bringing sort of like-minded people who want like a surf, uh, who want basically a work-life balance um into the into the space and got it creating a whole network of those people um who can kind of like feed off of each other, um doing cool events where people are coming out for all sorts of like like-minded events, whether it's like a film premiere or having a band play, or just having like a morning yoga, you know, all kinds of stuff. Um, just kind of like embracing um embracing the California culture and and certainly the culture here in Santa Cruz, um, of uh what it's like to live and work by the beach.
SPEAKER_05But talk also about like the, you know, talk also in depth about your experience. And I've already had it already, even with Shane. We're connecting next week. He does some mental health stuff that's super rad. I mean, and those are the things, and I think the four of the five people that I've um, you know, met back there, we're either doing business or we're kind of talking about doing business together. But I think you see it as a community networking um hub.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Nelly's Nelly. Nelly, I thought you were a professional.
SPEAKER_01Nelly's microphones wandering away.
SPEAKER_05Nell, the only thing I wish right now, do you know that like we could it won't stop? We can have millions of views right now if this was like on video. Like right now, because it'd be Nelly's Magic Moments podcast and he can't struggling. He can't beat the mic.
SPEAKER_03Just beef jerky on my hand. Just hold it.
SPEAKER_05We got like five minutes left. Can you hold for five minutes?
SPEAKER_03I can hold it, I guess.
SPEAKER_05Sticky fingers, it's all right. But I think that that part of it is is going to be integral to the studio.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, totally. I mean, it's just you know, creating the the whole lifestyle. Yeah. So I mean, and top and and on top of it being like just like a rad space to work and um go um, you know, dip out for a surf or whatever, it's just really the the the stickiest part about it is just um is the the people, you know, getting all the people together. Um, you know, when you've got a rad, when you've got a rad space where it's like you've got a world-class surf photographer sitting over here, you've got a guy that owns a magazine over here, you got a marketing person, you know, an attorney and uh architect and like all these different people that you have like in your network. I mean, that's really where the where the power comes from it, you know.
SPEAKER_05All those people sounded lame, but introduced me to that magazine guy. No, I get it. And the other thing, too, I want to, I want to kind of like, you know, um, I touched on you're talking about the surf club, the access to be able to store your board, have an attendant. But I do think we've touched on this whole podcast, like being here, having access to it, taking things for granted. There's a part of it, because the surf club's not just storing your board. I think there's gonna be, when you list out what comes with the surf club, um, I think you're gonna find a lot of people over a long period of time that are part of the surf club to get that bike, ride East Cliff Drive, and just enjoy the environment. They may never get in the water, they may never have been in the water, but when they have access to a latte at their workstation, when they have access to some of the, and this is where I want to kind of segue into the surf club membership comes with a lot of benefits built in. And then the other thing is I think you're also very getting known for it, and I think this is a big part of the story, is a very active collaborator, not only locally here with the local businesses, but in Santa Cruz and the in in the macro, you know, bigger kind of ideas and collaborations. Um, but I also don't do you see it that way too, as far as you know, like you're working actively on collaborations that are going to enhance the workspace, whether it be monthly, weekly, some different little perks for surf club members. Totally.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think that's what people want right now. I mean, from from all ages, uh, every demographic, from from teens who are struggling uh with connections, um, because everything's like online now and over text, to like older people who um who struggle to to meet new people. Um it's the connection that's really the main thing. So, like with the as a as a surf club member, you're like first access to like when we're doing cool events and stuff. A lot of the events you'll get in for free. Um speakers and shit like that. Speakers, yeah. Totally, yeah. Which we've been doing. 100 inch TV, you know. Um, so yeah, so all the all that kind of stuff. But even like um, even you know, some music events and film premieres and things like that. Um, I think all those things like just help uh create a community. Totally. And um, and we want to tear down the the barriers for community so like a lot of things will be free and um and uh or an invite only with the um you know amongst like community members and things like that for smaller events.
SPEAKER_02Um so yeah, so that's a couple we've got a couple exciting events that we uh have been planning behind the scenes, Dave.
SPEAKER_05I know we don't want to debut on this podcast, they've been a little working out, but there's I've been privy to those conversations, events, and also what I'd call experiences. Totally, you know, and I think that's a big part of this Santa Cruz sort of like trip is um, you know, like I I can give a small little nod to like Nellie's sort of famous um missions down to the wave pool are exclusive, they're rad, and um, and I think what you guys are cooking up is something that has the same dopamine and excitement of a really expensive surf ranch trip where people want to get out of it. I think you're kind of doing it on a local level. The idea of what I'm you know, we'll maybe do that in the next podcast. We'll debut some of those ideas, but I think it comes down to it again, which is um the best thing I've heard about sunny California right now is when you come in, one, you feel like you're welcome. And I do want to give a props to the crew. Um, because in here, it's not just um, you know, it's not just the idea of a of a you know boardroom. You you invested in Dylan, who you who is a you know an encyclopedia of surfboards and can answer uh if he doesn't answer 98%, he's got access to the two percent that he needs to find out, Michelle. And you've got you know, you've you're not just hiring a barista, you're hiring somebody up there that knows how to kind of like manage that cart. You're not hiring a J GM Um you like an Ivan, you're hiring somebody that can, you know, basically is a wild card and can do a lot of different things, but that that that's just more I don't that's not a question, that's just a kudos to how you're building it with that intentionality.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you gotta have the right people. You do. If you're trying to build something big, I mean I'm only one person, you know. Right. So you gotta have you gotta you gotta have that. And that filters all the way down. Um, you know, like and and it's and then like you were going, like you were saying, going back to like some of the cool stuff we're doing, like a lot of it's just like making like really awesome experiences more accessible to regular everyday. That's it. Yeah, that's it. So we've got some cool really we won't say anything now, but we'll we'll we'll we'll we've got some really cool stuff on the horizon where um people have access to things that they didn't know they had access to.
SPEAKER_05Now, what's your overall impression? I know that you know we're kind of um you know, we're on Team Sunny in a lot of ways, but like let's say you don't know Dave, you don't know anything, but even like the boards in the boardroom, some of the the boards sitting right here, kicking around, you know, overall, um, you don't have to talk about specific brands, you know, just a general impression of where the place is going from a standpoint of like, you know, the you know, the layout, the availability, kind of walk around and check it out. What's your vibe?
SPEAKER_03It's high-end fucking sick.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know what I mean? And it always has been. I I met Dave. I came um came over to Midtown Surf Shop one time. My daughter was dancing at Pack right next door. And I met Dave and we hit it off and we sat wrapped out, and he told me some of his ideas, and I was checking out the shop, and I was like, wow, this is you know, it was like different. There was a shaping room in the shop. You just don't see that shit. No, people don't want to waste that space because they want more product to cram in there for people, you know what I mean? And it's like he he had these brainstorms and ideas that I hadn't heard before, and they were really interesting to me.
SPEAKER_05And and you know, every time Keala danced from then on, I'd go over and talk to Dave, and I'd spend hours over there either drinking coffee or just you know, shooting shit and talking about the surf world and you know, and uh I actually have thoughts sometimes that the entire sunny California model, Carmel here, Midtown, however it's evolved, is a front for him to drink a shit ton of coffee during the day. I think this whole thing, I think he hires the best people, spends the most money on co-working space, gets the very best boards, puts a shower back there, does everything. It's really just so he can kind of like cover over the fact that he drinks 12 cups of coffee a day.
SPEAKER_03No, so um some of the clothing he makes, you know, the the independent stuff that he's doing is like it's high-end, it's sick, you know what I mean, and it's like stylish.
SPEAKER_01And you know, I think that's when you boil right down to it though. It is like I do create things in my own vision of stuff that I want. You know, I want a good coffee, I want a cool space to put my board and stuff, I want a cool space to work, I want cool clothes to wear. And so I just and you got your own sewing machines in the shop. I know what I mean. Yeah, I'll sew my own stuff, you know. I mean, yeah, just create.
Craft, Design, And The AI Accusation
SPEAKER_05I just like to create stuff and let's stay there because I think this is this this platform right now, we got a lot of people and a lot of you know locals. But you know, let's it's hard to address a shitty Google review sometimes, like because you feel real kind of loshy on the other end of it. But I do know working with you, being in Carmel, Nellie's shot photos, I've seen you, you know, stitch and I've seen you source the material, I've seen how hard you work on it, um, every small little nuance of each division. But let's talk about this AI slop that you put out.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_05It's not. I mean, I but I think it's not only is that that one shitty kind of passing review that that a lot of people get, these one-star reviews that have no backing, um, they haven't made the call, they haven't stopped into the shop. And, you know, talk about when you create these t-shirts and these brands and these different brands within the brand, um, how much passion and I think the story here, and we'll let you stretch a little bit. I think a lot of this came after Midtown closed and the repositioning of Sunny California. Like, what's it gonna be? Is it gonna be California sourced? What's the art gonna be? Talk about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_03It's gonna be not AI, right?
SPEAKER_05No, no, I'm joking because my whole point is like this is his chance to say because this is the beauty of a podcast, is that's exactly what I'm saying, is it's going the opposite direction of that. No, it's a bullshit review without knowing this conversation right now, as far as sometimes you got to talk to the person behind it. Um, so talk about how it comes to mind.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, there's I mean, we live in a real weird, really weird space right now. It's kind of a whole different subject, but like uh and with like AI and stuff, because um now people have almost grown to expect that like if you do something cool, it's AI.
SPEAKER_05That's exactly it.
SPEAKER_01I mean, Nelly, we posted one of Nelly's photos on our Instagram. It's like one of my favorite surf photos ever.
SPEAKER_05I think it's one of Nelly's, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's just like it's like a uh uh I won't even give away the spot, but it's like a it's a it's a surf break that like it's a great surf break, but this is like on its like best day too. And it was like, and somebody like posted like AI slot.
SPEAKER_05Do you know what he's talking about?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I just think it's like it's uh it's gonna come down to like at some point it's gonna be like considered a compliment, right? Because if you've got you did a photo that's so good that people think that has to be AI, then it's just I mean it's it's just a compliment, you know.
SPEAKER_05That's exactly. But talk about your I think the thing, the the the T up there was for you to talk about your creative process, talk about what goes into because you I I walk back in your studio right now and it's and it's an artist. Yes, there's a screen print back there. Yes, there's you know, your your threading machine, all of those things are back there. Yeah, um, but that is an artist studio back there. Clearly, when you look at the you know, the the remnants around that's work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and like honestly, what I'll I will say that when it comes to like reviews, I I I only own retail stores because I love people. I love people, I love interacting with people, I love making cool stuff for people. I could not care less about people's reviews. Like, that's the one thing like people can say anything that they want about a piece of apparel that I make or like um aesthetically what I do with a space or whatever. I literally couldn't care less. Like it's it's only about like what my vision is, right? Having a vision, having a clear um, you know, point of view, and just executing on that point of view.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01So like um, and I believe at the end of the day, whatever I make, whether it's like, you know, the the stuff I'm clothes I'm wearing right now or um or an interior design project or whatever, it's it's uh if I think it's cool, there's gonna be other people that are gonna think it's cool. And so like whatever, whatever I make, it's just I'm just uh you just go out and find your audience, you know?
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_01But fortunately, we have so much diversity here that it's um that it's not hard to find your audience because there's always people that are gonna like identify with different parts of the business, if not the whole thing, you know.
SPEAKER_05Exactly. And then from a standpoint of like what inspires you, is it just whimsical? Is it like you woke up, had a cup of coffee, and you're like an upside palm tree would be rad? Like like how do you or or even like I think there's that I I should know better, but right now some of that one where you sort of have that that sort of Japanese or Asian influence on a line. You know, what what that what is that?
SPEAKER_01So like I'm I'm a very philosophical person. I was like a philosophy major in college and stuff. And so the upside down palm tree logo, it's um I was standing in the shadow of a palm tree, and it was my view of it was it was upside down, the shadow, you know. And so that's what kind of and then that led me to thinking about how I stand in the shadow of um, you know, palm trees are so sort of ubiquitous to like surfing and surf culture and um beach living, beach living, totally, yeah. And like, and so it's like me like standing in the shadow of all the people that came before me, all the people that created like, you know, whether it's the surf industry or surfing in general, or you know, we're here in Santa Cruz, you know, the three princes that came over from Hawaii, all these people that kind of made sacrifices and stuff along the way to like get get things where they are, um, people that came along before me that invented surfboards so that I could like discover this thing one day and like fall in love with it, you know. Um, so it's um really in my own mind. I don't want to go around and you know tell the story too much, but in in my mind, um, these are sort of like you know, powerful observations that I have that I just um that I just incorporate into you know the products and stuff that I produce. Um the Japantown collection you're referencing, like everything we do here celebrates California. That's the main theme. And Japantown, but you know, there's lots of Japan towns around California and LA and San Francisco and San Jose and so forth. Right. Um these are really rich cultural hubs, you know. And um, and so I'm really inspired by it. And so like that collection kind of came out of like just my inspiration of going around to different Japantowns in California and uh and wanting to create a collection that I thought was super rad and tends to incorporate like music and stuff too.
SPEAKER_05And it's popular, it's people are drawn to it. So that's and it's nice to have those, it's nice to have artistic thoughts. And the other thing is nice to have a platform. Oh, we're we're done. We're we're rolling up. The um it's nice to be able to have an outlet for that, a canvas. And your can't your canvas is clearly there's other mediums, but your canvas here you know can be spontaneous. And um, the thing about Sunny that's pretty rad is if if you like something and there's not quite a size there, you're probably not gonna have to wait too long to get the one you want, which is very unique. We make a lot of stuff in-house, which is which is a cool part of it. Nelly, any kind of final thoughts or follow-ups as we kind of wind down a little bit?
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, just uh just what you just said. Like some of those things are what really make this place cool, you know. The big area parking out back, you walk right through, you see this people sewing up your gear, um, the lockers, the just all of it. It's all unique and uh it it you don't see it at other places, you know what I mean? And um, the fact that it's so close to the beach, you can hop on a bike, ride down to the point market, get a breakfast burrito, check the waves, see people, you know, throw shakas and then come back and you know, all that kind of stuff. The the the convenience and then just the sick product that they have here. The boards are amazing, you know. And uh if you haven't been in here, definitely come check it out because they have like some of the sickest surfboards I've ever seen.
unknownOh thanks, man.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely. And so um we'll kind of circle around the wagon here a little bit.
Where To Find Prints, Shops, And Events
SPEAKER_05Nelly, um, you know, the business side, we never do this, but I think I'm gonna try to start being regular. Um, prints still exist in the world, books still exist in the world. Like if they want to get a hold of it, DM Instagram. What's the best way to order from you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, DM me on Instagram is the best way.
SPEAKER_05Seems like it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I've had a little resurgence of book sales for some reason. It's been pretty sick.
SPEAKER_05And it's just Nelly's magic moments on Instagram.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, with a why. Nellie with a why.
SPEAKER_05Yep. And then Dave, all the contact info and fun stuff to follow Sunny.
SPEAKER_01Sunny California Surf and Moto Shop, 41st Avenue in Santa Cruz. We got another little shop down in Carmel and SunnyCalifornia.com.
SPEAKER_05What's the address in Carmel?
SPEAKER_01So the corner of Fifth and San Carlos.
SPEAKER_05Yep. And then Sunny California Santa Cruz on Instagram, Sunny California brand. There's a few different Sunnies, but the uh the the you know, the Sunny California Santa Cruz is popping off. I know that Dylan and those guys are starting to amp up the daily kind of social media with uh not only the merchandising going on, but surfboard kind of details, things like that.
SPEAKER_03We're doing a first Friday event. Uh what is that? July? Uh uh August 7th. August 7th, first Friday event here with uh oh that's right, Nelly's.
SPEAKER_05And so that that kicks off on August 7th. Yeah, in the art gallery. And we'll be up for a while, or is it just kind of a pop off night? Get your shit together, Nelly. I'm trying to be a busy month. Nelly, so rad to be back on this, and we'll be regular. David, I guess I'll see you in three minutes and then tomorrow. Thanks, guys.
SPEAKER_03Right on.
unknownYeah.
