Waterpeople Podcast
Stories about the aquatic experiences that shape us.
Listen with Lauren L. Hill and Dave Rastovich as they talk story with some of the most adept waterfolk on the planet.
Waterpeople is a gathering place for our global ocean community to dive into the themes of watery lives lived well: ecology, adventure, community, activism, science, egalitarianism, inclusivity, meaningful play, a sense of humour. And, surfing, of course.
Waterpeople Podcast
Sterling Spencer: Fan of the Universe
At age 8, Sterling Spencer was signed to surf sponsorship and then had a successful amateur career before chasing the Pro Tour.
He was an early internet adopter who found his stride not in competitive surfing, but in making good fun of an earnest surf industry and culture.
Sterling is a pro surfer and media maker from Florida’s Gulf Coast known for blending high performance surfing with comedic skits in films like GOLD and Surf Madness. He is the host of Pinch My Salt, a mashup surf and comedy podcast “where surf culture gets roasted, worshipped, and flipped upside down.”
Sterling was the subject of the 2024 film Are You Serious? That traces his diagnosis and recovery from Traumatic Brain Injury.
We go deep on the invisible chaos of concussion—why scans can miss it, how symptoms creep, and what happens when COVID and old infections complicate healing. Surfing becomes both mirror and medicine, not a performance, but a practice that quiets the noise and rebuilds trust in body and mind. Along the way, Sterling opens up about his upbringing, the relief of humor, and the early internet era when he roasted the surf industry and found sudden notoriety.
There are stories you’ll replay: Kelly Slater’s psychological heat tactics, centaur sightings that became an icebreaker, and the hard-earned lesson that being a nobody can feel like freedom.
We talk parenting and breaking cycles, why algorithms flatten originality, the comedic brain, crisis as creative fuel, and making surfing his own again.
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Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich
Sound + Video Engineer: Ben J Alexander
Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll
Additional music by Kai Mcgilvray + Ben J Alexander
Join the conversation: @Waterpeoplepodcast
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He used to stuff like socks in his wetsuit to make his package look bigger. Dude, I'm I'm telling you, he put something there, dude. Well it worked. Did he rattle you?
SPEAKER_02:I was like, You couldn't look away. You couldn't look away.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to Water People, a podcast about the aquatic experiences that shape who we become back on land. I'm your host, Lauren Hill, joined by my partner Dave Rastovich. Here we get to talk story with some of the most interesting and adept water folk on the planet. We acknowledge the Bunjalong Nation, the traditional custodians of the land and waters where we work and play, who have cared for this sea country for tens of thousands of years. Respect and gratitude to all First Nations people, including elders, past, present, and emerging. This season is supported by Patagonia, whose purpose-driven mission is to use business to save our home planet. Today we're in conversation with Sterling Spencer. He's a pro surfer and media maker from Florida's Gulf Coast. Following his lineage, Sterling was signed to surf sponsorship by age eight and had a successful amateur career before chasing the pro tour. Sterling was an early internet adopter who found his stride not in competitive surfing, but in making good fun of a largely earnest surf industry and culture. He's known for blending high-performance surfing with comedic skits in films like Gold and Surf Madness, and he's the host of Pinch My Salt, a mash-up surf and comedy podcast, quote, where surf culture gets roasted, worshipped, and flipped upside down. Sterling was the subject of the 2024 film Are You Serious? that traces his diagnosis and recovery from traumatic brain injury, a health threat that's been taken more seriously in the last decade or so. Pro surfers like Owen Wright, Alby Lair, Courtney Connolog, and Coas Smith, amongst others, have all sustained traumatic brain injuries. Sterling's concussion was the result of a fin to the head, but we now know that violent wipeouts themselves can cause concussion and traumatic brain injury. We caught up with Sterling about his ongoing recovery, the comedic brain, crisis as creative fuel, making surfing his own again, and the impact of glimpsing mystical creatures. We always begin with the same question, and that is about a time or experience after which you were never the same. Can you share a story like that with us?
SPEAKER_05:In my like early 30s, after Bilbong went under, and everything in the surfing industry kind of paused. I kind of didn't know what to like do with myself. I got really into meditation. I was doing Wim Hof breathing, and I was in the woods all day, like breathing and meditating, and I thought I like became enlightened. And I was like really soul searching. And then not too long after that, I got into a really bad accident. I got a really bad brain injury. And I re I'll never forget, like, when I had the brain injury, my whole world changed. Going through intense suffering kind of woke me up to like, oh, now I'm entering a new chapter in my life where now I'm like really learning to be a human. So that was for sure like the biggest shift in my life.
SPEAKER_01:What felt hard before that brain injury?
SPEAKER_05:What was hard was my entitlement. That was really the biggest block in my life.
SPEAKER_01:And what in what ways? What did you feel entitled to?
SPEAKER_05:Well, my dad was a pro surfer. That world is the only thing I ever knew. Like my chores were like, you need to win East Coast championships. You know, like my world was so to be a pro surfer. Where if I if I wasn't climbing that rank, it was like, what is life? So I I didn't have a really good grasp of reality. I felt like I had such a wonderful life, but chasing to be a great surfer, you're chasing this perfectionism that's unattainable to your ego and stuff. So like it it's like you're never satisfied. And then I started to realizing I'm missing out on life. Because the only reason of living is for the experience. So it's like when you start getting older, you're like, the only thing that matters is like being with those people or being present.
SPEAKER_07:Can I ask when you had that moment before the accident and you know your brain being impacted by a freak uh it was a freak accident, right?
SPEAKER_01:It was like wind caught a short board and it hit you in the head.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was like a knee-high day, and it was just really windy, and it just caught my board and I didn't know where it was, and then it just hit me in the back of the head. My legs stopped working after that, and it was just it was a huge wake-up.
SPEAKER_07:Did anything stick with you from that moment in the bush where you felt like really enlightened? Did that did that stay with you or was that gone?
SPEAKER_05:Even though that looking back at that now, that was a super important part of my life because if I didn't do all that meditation, I don't think I could have survived the brain injury.
SPEAKER_07:Why? What makes you say that?
SPEAKER_05:Brain injury is another level of it's really hard to explain. It's like doing ayahuasca, but it never stops. Wow. And it's just you're hallucinating constantly, and you're just for me, I was crippled. So a lot of people that aren't crippled, I think it's almost maybe even harder because they can keep walking around and not know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00:They look normal from the outside.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, they look normal for me. I I couldn't walk, so at least people are like, I couldn't go and be crazy anywhere.
SPEAKER_01:Can you talk about that, the process of getting a diagnosis? Because that I I've known quite a few people now who have mysterious symptoms and have to go through the hell of specialists and GPs and trying to find the right person and getting a diagnosis. And what what change did that make?
SPEAKER_05:Well, when I hit my head, the the effects didn't happen overnight. Like the concussion or the brain injury, it just slowly kept getting worse, and I didn't understand how to treat a brain injury. Because I went and got scans, and normally they can't really detect brain injuries.
SPEAKER_01:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_05:Unless there's brain bleeding of some sorts. You know, I was having a hard time talking. I was having a hard time forming thoughts in the correct way. I was having a hard time like walking around corners. It was losing comprehension of everything. What I think what took me down is I got COVID. It was right, it was right when COVID was happening, like a few few months before COVID. And I already have had a few weird diseases in my life.
SPEAKER_00:Like what? That you can talk about?
SPEAKER_05:I got malaria. I had malaria as a kid. That was fun.
SPEAKER_00:From where?
SPEAKER_05:What my first trip to Endo.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's like my worst nightmare for traveling with a child.
SPEAKER_05:And then I got Lyme disease.
SPEAKER_01:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_05:There's this girl right now, her name's Becca. I don't know if if y'all follow her. She's a surfer, but she had a brain injury, and her Lyme disease came out after two years with her brain injury.
SPEAKER_01:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_05:So it's like if you have these diseases that don't ever really go away, they'll just resurface when you when they were dormant. So I I felt like I had like a concoction of just when COVID hit me, it was just like I could barely lift my arm. Just that took me everything I had. So I was just like, I don't know what's wrong with me. I went to like the hospital and they're like, oh, he's depressed. I'm like, I didn't know depressant can like make you completely crippled. But when they don't when they don't know something, they'll just throw anti depressants at it. That's usually their go-to. Wow, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And so you kept you obviously kept pushing and and how how did you get to a diagnosis?
SPEAKER_05:It it was wild. It everything I learned throughout my life of just even though it was so scary to go through. I think I feel like if you go through something really gnarly and you're able to come out, like you're one of the most blessed people to walk the earth because you you just can't be the same anymore. You're lucky. You're lucky you can like walk away from like your selfish life.
SPEAKER_07:That's so interesting. Yeah. That just makes me think of that experience of how I guess we were as young kids and teenagers and getting pulled into the surfing world and splashing the water and having little tantrums because we didn't m make a certain turn that you wanted to make or whatever, you know, or you you you missed a wave in front of your heroes and you have a little internal meltdown. Yeah, one of those things where you you really do need a a slap in the face to come out of that kind of headspace, don't you think? Like you don't wish it on upon yourself and you don't wish it really upon others in in a harmful way, but we really do need that because that kind of behaviour is like cool when you're you know seven to maybe 14 years of age and you don't know better, and you're just a kid, you're finding your parameters, you're finding your edges of how to be a brat and not be a brat and all of that. Did you ever have anyone modelling that behaviour for you? Like when you were a kid, I I I I'll be curious to know, like, if you could look up when you were a little fella and see someone who was being a man but like a playful man, not being like a little boy. Did you have any role models like that with that helped light the way a little bit?
SPEAKER_05:Well, comedy was always my relief. You know, like my dad was a very stoic person. Like he was a 70s pro he's one of the f first pro surfers. He won the first pro surfing contest in America in the early 70s. So his whole world, he came from nothing, you know. So surfing was absolutely everything, you know. It gave him a whole new life, and he was a super Christian, so everything was just so serious. Like it was so serious about God, and then so serious about surfing. Wow. I had the best life, but it was also like the pressure. I I don't know if kids had to I'm su I'm sure lots of kids did, but it it's like I was just kind of the classic, you know, your dad's a famous star and he hears his pressure and everyone puts it on you. As a kid, comedy was always just like an escape of it. Because I'm a firm believer, if you if you don't find your passion, if you don't like want yourself and someone pushes you to a passion, it's always this tug-of-war. It'll always be a tug of war in your life. Because it's like, are am I doing it for myself? And if you if if you can't know if you're doing it for yourself, it's really hard to get full fulfillment.
SPEAKER_01:Was that a bit of a renaissance in your surfing life after the brain injury then? Did you did you come back to surfing with a renewed sense of like ownership that it was yours?
SPEAKER_05:What was what was so interesting? Surfing gave me the brain injury, and surfing healed me from the brain injury. It was so hard to get my legs working again. That was the hardest thing to figure out, getting that connection back moving. I could kind of like stand and get to the kitchen, and then have like a yoga ball and get to the yoga ball, and like and everyone was like, just be in a wheelchair, just stay in your walker. And I was just like, and it scared me to uh submit to it because I felt like if I submit to it, I'm never gonna get out of it. So I went to Hawaii after two years of like laying in a dark room. I went to Hawaii and I remember I like crawled to the water. My friend Marshall, he he would help me paddle out. I would hold onto his leash, and he would drag me out to the lineup we were serving VLAN and stuff. And when a wave came, it was like everything turned on. My nervous system reacted to it, and it was like the the part of my brain that knew how to surf was like it was all there, so it was like a different part of my brain took over, and I was just like, I would just stand up and surf and I could ride it. And I was I didn't have it much muscle, so that was the hard part. So when I started surfing, I was like, oh my god, like this this is it, this is how I'm gonna heal myself.
SPEAKER_01:But that reminds me, that reminds me so much of Pauline Mensor's story.
SPEAKER_07:I was about to say that.
SPEAKER_01:I just uh it basically exactly what you said on on the North Shore before she won her first world title. She was struggling with debilitating arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, couldn't walk, had a friend basically help her down to the water. She couldn't brush her hair, she was just all locked up, and then got in the water and she won a world title.
SPEAKER_05:Like, just that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:During that time I went and stayed with Rob Machado, there was a brain clinic right next to his house, and they were all just like, this guy's lying. Because I'd be around the house and like I couldn't help do anything. Like they would cook dinner and I felt bad because I couldn't like wash a dish, you know, to show respects. But then they would take me surfing and I'm like having a hell time, and they're like, He's he's fine. Wow. And they're like, Are you lying? So it was it was so it was such a vulnerable place in my life, like to just be dependent on people, and the people aren't fully believing me. And I'm already a trickster, I'm already a comedian, you know, like I I don't have the best reputation of being serious. So it was it was like it was it was kind of like the boy who cried wolf a little bit.
SPEAKER_07:That's a challenge. Can I ask? Did your dad ever laugh at your buffoonery and your jokes? So you said that when you were a kid, that was your response to that. Would you do that around him and in response to him? And did it ever land? Was he uh was he laughing with you and like grabbing you like, oh, that was a good one, son?
SPEAKER_05:No, my mom loved my humor, and if I made her laugh hard enough, he would start laughing, and he's like, I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at her.
SPEAKER_00:That's such a Florida man.
SPEAKER_05:That's a Florida man. I grew up with a guy just like that. He once told me, he's like, I don't like I don't like funny surfers. And I was like, what does that mean? I'm like, your favorite movie is Endless Summer 2, and it's the funniest movie ever. Like it's all about the comedy. He was just yeah, we were polar opposites.
SPEAKER_07:Wow, what a trip. I liked hearing the other day we were listening to a bunch of things you've made, and you said that when you were a kid you tripped out on the fact that when you would surf in contests, you were more interested in making him happy than you being happy. Oh yeah. Is that something you have clarity around these days, or did you know that at the time?
SPEAKER_05:I didn't know at the time. I didn't figure that out till after he passed away and I started doing like therapy and stuff. Looking back now, I'm like, all the like young kids, we were like our dads treated us like the roosters that fight each other, cockfighting. It's like we're kind of like we're all live, all of our dads are living through us and like making us hate each other to get competition out, and it was it was weird. I remember I would surf in my heats, and I would be cheering my friends on and stuff. And I remember I came to the beach, my dad's like, you don't cheer, you don't cheer people on, like you want you want to beat them, you want to like yell at them. I was like, really? Oh, okay. In my next seat, I went and just yelled at my friend for no reason.
SPEAKER_04:I was like, Whaaaa!
SPEAKER_05:Come to my island, and it rattled himself. He lost, he like it took him years to let it go. I was like, I just my dad told me to do it. I don't know, it just felt kind of cool.
SPEAKER_07:So, so was it you that had the story about Kelly Slater saying, Are you going left at J Bay? So is he pretty much doing the same? Do you all do is that what you all do in Florida? Like you just heckle each other to rattle each other off of a wave?
SPEAKER_00:It's not a Floridian thing.
SPEAKER_07:Is that true? Was that him to you?
SPEAKER_05:Was that am I getting that right in my memory? Yeah, the my first my first WCT, I was so excited to surf against Kelly Slater. This was it was one of the first events that was on the webcast on Surfline. It was kind of that era, the early O's transition. And I was just so excited because my brother was good friends with Kelly. So I was like, oh, he's gonna, he knows he he probably knows who I am. He knows my brother. Like he's gonna take me under his wing, and we're gonna be like good friends. That's just so delusional.
SPEAKER_00:And I remember you would think that though. I I can't see why.
SPEAKER_07:I can relate, actually. I'll I'll join with this in a moment, but continue you, please.
SPEAKER_05:And so becoming Kelly's competitor, it was like entering a new realm. This this is like Kelly's imaginary realm.
SPEAKER_04:And all of a sudden he's so stiff and he walks straight up to me and doesn't say anything, just stares at him, he's like just breathing.
SPEAKER_05:And I'm like, oh hey, hey Kelly, uh, do you know my brother? He's like, Yeah, I know your brother. And then he just like walks by me, like hits my shoulder, like Oh, like he shoulder bumped you. Oh yeah, he like walked straight through me. Had his he had his white wetsuit. It was his white wetsuit.
SPEAKER_01:And you're 19?
SPEAKER_05:I was probably 18 or 19.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And he used to stuff like socks in his wetsuit to make his package look bigger. Dude, I'm telling you, he put he put something there, dude. Well it worked. Did he rattle you?
SPEAKER_02:You couldn't look away. You couldn't look along his gnarly.
SPEAKER_05:But in the heat, I actually, my first heat was against Andy, and he's like, oh, you have Kelly in your next heat. He's like, just make sure you catch the first wave, and it'll rattle Kelly. So I like hid up the point and waited for the heat to start. And then when the heat started, he thought I wasn't out there, and then I paddled around. And then a set came. And so I was just like, Andy put me in the perfect spot, dude. Like, and I'm like paddling, and then I like look this way, and then when I like turn back, he's like, he was like that close to me. And he was so close, I could feel his breath. He's like, You're going left. And I it just like and I caught the wave, and it was like all I could think about is like, Am I going left? Like it's a right.
SPEAKER_04:Like, what are you talking about? Oh my lord. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Oh well.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that was my killy. So did you lose? Yeah. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And what did what came of that event? I feel like that would that might have been a turning point as well.
SPEAKER_05:That was su such a cool experience because I was such a kid in my mind, you know, like I drank everything up. Like I that's what was so cool about it. I wasn't really, I was just really drinking it up. Like I it felt like I really understood where I was. I understood how the magnitude of Andy and Kelly. And this is when you were filming Blue Horizon. It was that era. Yeah, it was just a really special era. And so I I just couldn't believe I got to that place. Like I was just like, I just felt like the luckiest person in the world. Like I was like, how did I get here?
SPEAKER_01:Like that's amazing. That kind of presence and self-awareness maybe doesn't lend to winning.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I I didn't have the compet I always struggled with the competitor in me. It was like as soon I had I had the competitiveness, and then as soon as a contest started, it was like the nerves, and by the time I'd serve a heat, it was just like I just didn't.
SPEAKER_01:That was your first WCT event. Was there something about like dipping your toes into that level of seriousness that either uh pushed you away or made you want to step into it further?
SPEAKER_05:That's that's what it actually made me really confuse because I was like, it didn't make me want to do it more. It didn't make me want to stop, but I I was expecting like when you go to Endo the first time, you want to go back. You know, like but something about that I was kind of just it was confusing for sure. It was like because back back then, I mean Rasta, you were kind of the first person to like you have a great line, I think it's in Blue Horizon where you're saying like you told Billabong you just wanted to go surf, and they like you're like it just opened up this path. And I remember watching like your hands, you know, like and it I kind of was definitely inspired by that because I was kind of I wanted to be a pro server, but I just didn't want to be kind of a slave to the ASP at the time.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it's a tricky space for sure, and that was like unknown territory in a way, because really only those sort of you know left-hand branches of the surfing tree were just sprouting then. Like you said, you know, Margot, Frankie O in um South Africa, who was sponsored by Rick Curl, really were the only guys who had gotten backing to live a totally sort of loose, free surfing life and dive you know super deep into it without being previous like world champions and stuff, you know. Yeah. Um so it was all very new, but then like what those new sort of branches looked like, no one knew. Like I was doing my thing, and you know, it was probably just you know, riding strange boards and doing strange activism things was enough of a interesting point for me to do this, but then it's like okay, was there a comedic sort of genius to another branch coming out? Well, no one had had grown something like that before. There was no one to to follow, so you you know, going into the person you are now with super new territory. Like, who who can you look at to do that? There's lots of funny people in surfing and funny moments, and funny moments, but like making it something that you could like devote yourself to it is very new. So, like when that was starting to happen, what did you use to water that part of you and put some light on that and start to grow it?
SPEAKER_05:That was one of the most magical times of my life because I felt like I had found myself and my passion. And it and it and the internet had come and it was and it hit this point. You know, I I was I was like trying to follow your footsteps, I was trying to follow like Machado's footsteps, but you know, like to to create your own path, you have you have I can't be Rasta. I have to be me if I if I'm really gonna make my own path. So I kind of realized I was like, well, I can't be them. So what is me? You know, like what's true to me? And it was always, you know, humor and comedy, and just when the internet was coming around, one of my friends was like this super computer nerd, and he he was just like, have you heard of blogging? And I was like, What's blogging? Like, this was like this was like before my sp uh MySpace era, like and he was like, it blogging was this underworld where everyone who like had their their dial up computer would tap into into the internet, so I was filming Still Filthy, or it was a little bit before Still Filthy, the Bill Bong movie. I I was kind of just doing comedy stuff as a rebellion because of my father, and I was also scared of what Bill Bong would think, you know. Like I kind of only felt accepted in Australia with Bill Bong because all I feel like Australians just have this super lightheartedness, and like if you take yourself too seriously, you're an idiot, yeah. So all it was just kind of like a melting pot of all of it, and I and I just it was kind of a secret for years, and people would hear about it, and it when I would I started just feeling the energy, there was just an energy to it. It was just like I would go somewhere, and like kids would like, dude, I I watch your blog after school every day, and like and I just felt like I found this new secret world with the internet. I jumped head over heels in. It took actually five years for anyone to actually see it. And it was like like Andy was a big part of helping me get to that spot. Andy was actually really a really important person in my life because you know, he was falling off tour and he was feeling lost, and um, something about my energy and his energy, like, yeah, let's just have fun. Like, you know, like he he was like, he was soul searching too. He was just like, because his body was starting to fail him, and he he was he was kind of losing his identity and stuff, and he like told Billboard, he's like, You got he's like, you gotta give this guy what he wants.
SPEAKER_04:Like, you need to give him a movie or whatever he does on the internet.
SPEAKER_07:Like, you need you sound exactly like him and look exactly like him when you do that. That was um unbelievable.
SPEAKER_05:That's so good. I just a lot of things came into place. And Dan when Dane Reynolds took off doing the internet, that's that's when I kind of wrote his coattails because I already had a huge platform, and then I was just like, oh, this is insane.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like comedians are some of the most intelligent people amongst us, and I also get the sense that comedians tend to be really sensitive and also prone to mental health challenges. What do you what do you know?
SPEAKER_05:That was the nicest way.
SPEAKER_01:With your You're all crazy, like in the best way that we all need in our lives. Like, what do you what have you learned about comedians' brains? Is there is there something that sets you all apart from us boring, mere mortal, earnest people?
SPEAKER_05:Maybe it's because we have broken hearts and you know we're we're looking for healing in a way we don't understand, and making people laugh, that energy brings healing. Being a comedian for me, you know, when I was 27, I was like really suicidal, and I didn't know why. I feel like we all have to like stop what you're doing in life and learn how to just work this machine first. And if you're a comedian, I feel like it's you're on the spectrum, you know, like you're you you are thinking in ways people don't normally think, and that's really fun and exciting, but if you don't know how to turn it off and go be a normal har person, it destroys people. And that's what I learned. Like you can destroy yourself with too much fun. I've learned to pick up comedy and then set it down and then go be sterling, like just a normal human just walking around. I think a lot of comedians want to die for their art too, though. Like they don't want to be normal, they want to create they want to be the funniest.
SPEAKER_01:And that energy is totally addictive, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05:Like provoking people, getting laughs, is yeah, it's I really love like Jack Johnson's life. Like he's one of the most famous musicians ever. And then you see him on the North Shore, and he's just like like he's just he's just two eyeballs walking around like, uh and I got a lot of inspo from him and his music, just you know, s sometimes extremes aren't the best, even if you can do them.
SPEAKER_01:Tough to manage almost no one does it well. He's like one of very few people who can manage those extremes well.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so I I've I look for balance in life now rather than you know chasing chasing. I I just try not to chase anything, I guess. Like that that's where I've found more peace in my life. Just I practice being a nobody. Like I get scared watching famous people getting too much. I'm like, dude.
SPEAKER_01:That would have been a major evolution for you, having grown up with someone whose, you know, your dad, whose identity was wrapped up in being someone. Like that was the masculinity that was modeled for you. It's like you're you're a man when you mean something to other people. How do you well?
SPEAKER_05:I got to a place where I was like, I can't get any more pictures in the magazine, or like I can't. It's like we're gonna do another trip. I can't do another air reverse, you know, like it's like there's gotta be more meaning to all this because not not I didn't think I was like the biggest and best, but I started like looking at normal people and I was like, I wanna just like not have anxiety, like to to to chase fame and to chase you know the world we lived in, it you you sacrifice your sanity, I feel like. Like, I mean, look Andy's a great example, he kind of gave it all for the world titles, and he had nothing left after.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:How did you go with that?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, that makes me think of what we were talking about earlier, La about I guess knowing what to look out for when we're kids and then into our teenage years with that kind of thing. So, like I had a dad who is an extreme character as well, and his he didn't place like pressure on surfing for me, but he he kind of showed me what to look out for in terms of like mental struggles and then the inevitable physical struggle struggles from that. So I had like a bit of a warning system there for myself to be like, okay, I gotta watch out for some of the tendencies that I have that are similar to my dad's tendencies, and so well, you know, like dark clouds, extreme moodiness, or being judgmental and extremism in any way, like just extreme physical stuff or any just extremism. But what it did for me was like he was having the hardest times in his life, really, when I was a teenage kid, young teenage kid, and a way for me to get through all of that was to go surfing. It wasn't really to like hang out with people, to like talk it out with my buddies or anything. Like, I was just a loner guy that would just go surfing, and just that was enough for me. So then when I came into all the contest world, which was, you know, a lot of us get railroaded when you show technical skills as a kid, you know, your parents or your community, whatever it is, but generally the culture has had a history of putting you on a track and just being like, this is you, and they railroad you into commodifying and making competitive your surfing. But for me, as a teenager, I knew that I couldn't actually cope with life if yeah, in any way, if I couldn't go surfing and it'd be just simply surfing. I couldn't handle any story on top of it. So I did the monkey dance, I played the game and I did competitions, I did good enough, as good enough as I had to to keep being sponsored, but I kept it really at arm's length because I knew I didn't have the strength in me to deal with challenges in my life if I lost that, if I lost the surfing joy and the ability to just go in the water and kind of all of a sudden stand up on a wave like you, even with your brain injury, standing up and you can surf even in the middle of all the shitstorm of your life. You could stand up on a board and ride a wave, and somehow, for some reason, at the end of the ride, you were better off. And so I knew as a kid that that was something to look out for, and I wasn't gonna trade it. Like when I went to Bilong and asked to still be sponsored, but to like basically be invisible. Like I wanted to disappear, and people would send them some photos every now and again, and that would be enough to tick the box. But I just wanted to disappear and surf, and I was gonna be a barman actually. I was just gonna sling drinks at cocktail bars around the world. That was my master plan. They, you know, they said, no worries, give it a year. We'll we'll see how you go. Just give it a one year. You're only 19, 20. Let's see what happens. And everything after that was fine, but I didn't want to lose my main coping mechanism. And this is where I think our conversation is really fun and everything, but also very useful because I feel like you also have this story, or you especially have the story, of experiencing that fine line of what you put at risk when you're a kid and you get railroaded into that world, and that you potentially lose your main coping mechanism in the turbulent, inevitable turbulent times of being a teenager. And we were really keen to just hear what you had to say about that because you already speak of this when you do your recordings and your chats and and everything, and I think it's really awesome that you touch on it because it it bums me out when I see kids in our area, which is a surf-rich area, and I see kids being railroaded, and I think those parents are wonderful people, but I don't think they realize the game they're playing and the risks for their child. Yeah, when they when they set them on that path. So just wondering what thoughts you have around that, brother.
SPEAKER_05:If we could just focus on kids finding themselves rather than being someone that's already just trying to reach a result, I feel like I I don't know if the new kids feel this as much, but I feel like your generation and my generation it's like the whole Kelly Slater, it was like the magazine to try to brainwash everyone, like who's the next Kelly? Who's the next Kelly, you know, like and it kind of put this pressure on every single surfer of like, if you don't become Kelly, you're not worth anything.
SPEAKER_01:And that's the purpose of surfing.
SPEAKER_04:As if that were the purpose of this. Right.
SPEAKER_05:And it was just like, I think, you know, that was what I was struggling with. If you're just not doing your passion, nothing really means anything.
SPEAKER_01:And it's not unique to surfing. I think that's important to say we were um, we went to a jiu-jitsu comp a couple of weekends ago. Our our son, you know, he's eight, and he's just gotten interested in jujitsu. And so we're watching people roll, and it was so intense and kind of scary. Yeah, that that energy, but also like watching parents. I was watching this little blonde-headed girl go red in a um a headlock. She was pinned, and her mom was yelling like, get out of there, get out of there, come on. And I was just watching this tiny girl's eyes and her body go into this fight or flight state. And I was just kind of like, What are we doing here?
SPEAKER_03:This is kind of literally.
SPEAKER_01:It's super gnarly. And it just made me want to ask you about, you know, you had expectations pushed onto you from your your dad's dreams for you and also his dreams for himself, I can imagine. How does that go now that you're a parent and you have a son? How does that change how you surf with him or don't surf with him or parent him in general?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's been tricky because it's like the injured animal in me will come out. And it's almost like I want him to feel the torture I felt. And I'll have to stop myself because I want to push at him. And when I was nine, I was surfing all winter with no wetsuit. You know, it's kind of a natural reaction. And luckily, I put enough work into myself to be like my goal every day with him is just to love them the way I wish I was loved. And that is just the most fulfilling. It's like I feel like I'm stopping the curse. I'm stopping the generational curse for who knows how long has been going on. And just loving him for him. It's super satisfying. Like, you know, he doesn't surf and I wish he did. Because I just want I would love to spend more time with him because you know I I'm a surf dog. And but I'm just so proud of him. I feel like we've kept a beautiful enough space around him where he just what I'm so proud about him is I I can tell he cares about people. And I'm just like, you're so ahead of the game, dude. Like if you can care about people already, you're gonna have a good life because you can care about yourself. You know, you can't care about other uh about yourself if you don't care about other people. It's it's you there's no you just can't do it. I just feel super proud of, you know, for myself and you know, for him. Like every day I fight that part of dad in me.
SPEAKER_01:And we all have that. We all have different demons and intergenerational tendencies that we have to face.
SPEAKER_07:What are your Florida tendencies like?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I wanted to get to Florida.
SPEAKER_07:Oh yeah, let's let's dive into Florida.
SPEAKER_01:I wanted to get to Florida because I I remember being 20 and going off traveling and surfing, like obviously different than the way you two were doing it, but going off into the world from a small town, a small island off coast of Florida. And um, I remember telling my one of my aunties, and I was like, Oh, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to Thailand and these other Southeast Asian countries, and she was like, be careful. There's false gods out there.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, hell yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know?
SPEAKER_07:Oh, yeah. You two just connected dry lens.
SPEAKER_01:That was they'll get you.
SPEAKER_05:They laid hands on me before I went to Bali. This pastor said the gnarliest prayer, like, he's going to fight the devil, and it's gonna be gnarly. And so I'm like heading to Bali. I'm like, dude, I'm ready to like fight people. And then I get there, and uh, you knew Dustin Humphrey, right? Yeah, his guy first. Yeah, do you remember him? He's like the nicest guy ever.
SPEAKER_07:Yep.
SPEAKER_05:He comes, picks me up, and he's like, hello, like doing everything for me. I'm like, this is the nicest human I've ever met. Like, no one's ever looked out for me like this. And I got immersed into the bali club, like, I was like, dude, take me to the temples, and and I just would follow him around, and that opened my mind up, you know, like, okay, there's like a way bigger of a world than the bubble I grew in, and not everyone's going everyone's not going to hell, it's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_07:Wow, but you came back with malaria, so was it was there like an exit exorcism when you came back?
SPEAKER_05:I actually already had it. I I went on a boat trip when I was 14. I uh I went to Bali a little older.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, gotcha.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I went and stayed with us and Humphrey and stuff, and I didn't go to Bali the first time. Some reason they understood that Bali is like the devil, you know. It's got a island of the gods.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, plural. Yeah, that's the problem. All right, come on, dig up some more Florida gold for me, you two.
SPEAKER_01:I'm just curious to know, like, so you moved to California, had this illustrious career, forged a new pathway in surfing, and then have ended up back in Florida. And I'm just like, how how is that for you? And how how has the culture there changed or not changed? And what's happening in surfing in Florida? I don't we go back sort of every couple years, and I don't necessarily yeah.
SPEAKER_05:You were lucky to get you were lucky to get out.
SPEAKER_00:You could have chosen that too.
SPEAKER_05:Well, I lived in Hawaii for like most of my teenage to young adult life, and I didn't really want to leave Hawaii, but you had to go to California. Everyone has to be in California because that's where the mags are. Okay, like I'll go live in San Diego. And San Diego messed with me, dude.
SPEAKER_00:Like a lot of people, I think, I get that feeling.
SPEAKER_05:It was like, are my shorts on right? Do I have the right color patterns? Do I have the right vans, slip-ons? There was so much pressure to look to be a certain way, and the mags were watching you and like rewarding you, and like I really got that was the most I've ever lost myself.
SPEAKER_01:Like the self-consciousness, huh? I feel like that's a glimpse into being a woman in this world.
SPEAKER_05:For sure. No, for sure, absolutely. Like, it was just like weird, and I loved Hawaii so much because it was like it was more primal there. It was like who had the gnarliest sweatpants? And you know, like it was like kind of the total opposite of who's the guy. You ride the biggest waves and you wear the sweatpants, and like who cannot wear a shirt the longest, and so it was like a really hard transition for me because I felt like from Florida, that's our vibe too, you know? Like the less you care is kind of the more core you are. So California messed with my brain, and I went back to Florida and asked wh why it happened. And so it was like when I had a child here, it was just like, you know, when you become a parent, it's like you gotta be near family, you know, you're kinda in the trenches.
SPEAKER_00:It's not just about you anymore.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was and when I kind of got stuck in Florida, that's when I was like, well, I'm gonna make the most of this. So I started meditating and you're gonna just I was so excited about meditation because I I finally got away from anxiety for the first time in my life and just really opened my mind to just wow, like there's so much to just being alive.
SPEAKER_01:I've I've heard you I've heard you speak about your ex sterling. And all good if you don't want to talk about this, that's fine. It's a little kind of personal, but it was so interesting to hear you talk about someone who loved you. You got to experience someone loving you, whether or not you were successful as a pro server. And you said that she didn't really understand your mental health challenges because she hadn't experienced them, but she had a huge heart, and you felt like she came into your life to help heal you. And and I'm just wondering from where you're at now, do you think that other people can heal us or that we have to do that work ourselves?
SPEAKER_05:Romantic love and your co-partner love, your you know, child's mother love. It's it's some of the trickiest love because it doesn't always come in a beautiful package. You know, like getting along with someone. I learned so much the first years of my son being born, and then with the brain injury. You know, they happened for a reason at the time I needed, you know, and I didn't understand it. And that's what's so beautiful about life. You do you kinda make mistakes or do things you don't plan on at a certain time. But it's it's amazing how life can just bloom anything, you know, like because I was like, Oh, I had a kid, and you know, like this is gnarly, and that it I'm so selfish. And then the brain injury, and it was just like, you know, looking back, looking that time with her, it's like even though it was brutal and it was hard and it brought the worst out of both of us and the best, and it's it's just it's nice to be able to get to hindsight and just be like, you know what, I'm grateful for you, you know, no matter what has happened, you know. It's like you can kind of I feel like the worst thing in life is just holding on to stuff forever, you know. Like I I'm I'm just kind of getting to the place in life where it's like just kind of really learning how to forgive. It's one of the hardest one of the hardest things I've tried to do. And it's almost like you just surrender. It's like I just don't I just don't want my heart to feel this way anymore. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Forgiveness, that's so I feel like that's something that's probably spoken on Sunday mornings all over Florida. And you'd hope that's you know, at the core of those teachings and that work, that that's one of those pillars, you know, forgiveness.
SPEAKER_05:And that was another circle in life, you know, because Christianity really made me not like Jesus. You know?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And then and then you're like, oh, actually Jesus is awesome. It's just the people that build the buildings for it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and make their own interpretations.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You've said that you're the most creative when you're in crisis. I feel like that really echoes this archetype of the struggling artist that a lot of us know well, know personally. Do you still feel that way? Or do you feel like in this pursuit of balance, you've found creative practice through other means?
SPEAKER_05:I guess what I've learned is to try to plan as much as you can, but it don't overplan because you know the art of comedy or the art of surfing is spontaneous. Learning how to balance my life just enough to where I can still be a mad scientist a little bit. Because like with our podcast, we don't plan anything. Like not one thing. We just sit together and like oh, and we just and it's so fun because I don't know what's gonna come out of my mouth, you know? So I'm almost in awe. It's like it's not it's almost like I'm in uh I'm a fan of the universe at the moment, watching it do its thing. And I I'm like honored it chose me to translate it, you know. Like it's a really fun and cool experience, just like surfing. It's the same thing.
SPEAKER_07:It's you just you know riding the energy to just have an open mind on a wave is just like and it's so obvious when it's not like that, hey, because look at the cultural cringe we all have when we see someone doing it in a contrived way, and you can tell, oh, that arm up there like that, oh yeah, that's from Dora, spread through this guy, through that guy, through that lady, through to you. That's an act right there, and we cringe, but like at the center of that cringe is the fact that we know that in that moment when we are dancing because we know everyone's watching, yeah, that that's not as good as it gets. The the best it gets is when you like you said, you're just a fan of the universe doing its thing through you and everything else.
SPEAKER_05:That's all when you when you get the organic feeling, it's just there's nothing sweeter.
SPEAKER_07:Like Yeah, and and and wasn't that um Andy's deal. Like you look at Andy and you go, Oh yeah, that's the way he surfed. Like you wouldn't write that down as like a textbook style master thing, but it was so him that then he became someone who's like everyone wants to have his style and his way of surfing, but he was just there doing that, like you said, spontaneously.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, for sure. I mean, I'm a I'm a huge Curran devotee. It's like I will watch Curran, but I try to let him go when I get out. You know, let him go, man. Because you you'll serve a whole session being Curran, and you're that's not it, you know. Yeah, but he's such a he's such a beautiful guiding light. I I like to call him like the Buddha of serving. It's like we can follow his eightfold steps, but eventually when we find it, we have to go on our own. That's true.
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SPEAKER_07:At the end of the year, every year was the only time I would encounter the rest of the surfing industry characters. I pretty much would zig when everyone zagged all year, and then it was like, oh, as if I'm gonna say no to a bedroom on a beachfront house on the north shore with no rent for a month or so. So I would go. But I always felt like I was on the periphery. I kind of felt a bit awkward. I just do my thing and hang with my closest friends that I hadn't seen for a while or whatever. And I actually remember feeling similar things with you where I'd see you being on the periphery and you were always super kind and friendly and everything, but I don't know, I feel like you would steal away into your quiet zones or whatever pretty often as well. Yeah, anyway, I just was thinking about how we would be in that space, and now sorry, I lost my track train of thought because I'm looking at the lady from um from North Shore whose hair turns into the wave. Oh man, I lost that train of thought. What were we talking about before that?
SPEAKER_01:You were talking about both being on the North Shore and being on the periphery.
SPEAKER_07:I wish we would have hung out more. Yeah, I agree. We would have had a lot a lot of laughs.
SPEAKER_05:I feel like um what's funny, I remember this so clear. Because yeah, you were you were you're like always hiding. I could tell you the scene was a lot. I mean the Bilboung house was it was kind of brutal, even though how lucky we were. It's like every single day there was a party and like Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Cameras everywhere the whole time.
SPEAKER_05:Random people just walk through your house, like, oh, is so-and-so here? And you're like in your underwear, like open the refrigerator, like, what? Yeah. But I remember we, I mean, I probably had known you for years, but I was just kind of a grom. And I shaved the funniest mustache. And I remember I was standing there, and you looked at me and you're like, you walked up to me like real close, and you're like, I get it. I get it you know, I get you now. He's like, there he is.
SPEAKER_07:Yep, the little bit of you that was inside is now on the outside. So I didn't tell you to be a vegan.
SPEAKER_05:Well, we uh one night we're all barbecuing. I was in the bigger house, and I think you're on the kind of the smaller one in the middle, more so. Yep. And we were all barbecuing. We just surfed off the wall huge. I remember watching you surf off the wall. You were like a low-key charger. Like you sat because we were all sitting I was sitting at like back door, and you're sitting at like outside off the wall. And I remember you just rode this one and then just got the craziest barrel and came in. And I remember we're like we were sitting at off the wall, and we're we're I had like 10 pieces of chicken in my hand. And I remember I'm like so stoked on you because I just watched you like got that huge barrel, and like I'm eating chicken, and you're just telling me why it's so bad for me. Just messing with your head. I remember just being like, maybe I need to stop because he's freaking charging and I'm I'm scared.
SPEAKER_07:Oh god. Damn it, I was one of those vegans for a while. You just can't help it when it when you uh when you get sucked into it. No, the reason I brought that up was the centaur thing. I remember it now. So I remember that was circulating around the the the circle of friends at that time and at that space, and I remember Kendall. Um at the time people started calling me Yeti because I was living in a shack in the bush, and I don't know, I just had Yeti like tendencies, long arms, and a bit of a scent to me or something. But anyway, I remember people calling me Yeti, and then Kendall was like, You're not a Yeti, I've seen a real Yeti, and he told us the story of being chased by two Yowie's. You remember that story? Yeah, for real. And he was like, Yeah, exactly. Back beach and Gary. He's like a funny guy, he's a very funny guy. But also snorter and love with so yeah, Kenny, and but he just went stone cold in that moment, was like, You're not a Yeti mate, I've seen a real Yeti. And and we all just were like silent listening to the story. It was unbelievable. So I totally back the Centaur experience. And I think if you're sharing those images with people, that's great because it's a part of the realm that needs to be acknowledged.
SPEAKER_05:Well, I saw I was like, Well, I used to live in the woods growing up, and like a full-on beautiful centaur man just walked up to the front door, and I was so in shock, I was like, uh so I started screaming. My brother runs to the front door and it scared him, and he took off. And my literally my whole life, I would just talk I I would think about it and I was like, what was that monster? And it's funny you bring Kendall up because I was in J Bay, I was with Kendall, I was with Lori Towner, I was with Way Goodall, we were with Andy, and I told them the story. And Lori, because they they seen so many Yetis or whatever, he's like, You saw Centaur. I was like, What? He's like, You saw Centaur, a horseman.
SPEAKER_07:And uh you're friends with Hilton, right? Oh yeah, he lives on the land with us, and he's gonna be so psyched that we're talking right now. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_05:I'm so glad I had Hilton in my life back then because he helped me so much in life. He would have just such beautiful wisdoms for me back then, which my mind was very maybe closed-minded, not on purpose, but he really opened my eyes to it, you know, to the world. I just remember a lot of good conversations with Hilton, like we're just diving into the universe. Awesome, like a 14-year-old kid, like and Hilton's just going to the 12th dimension, like duh.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, bruh. Yeah, that's it. We're going all the way. I'm like, where are we going?
SPEAKER_05:I love Hilton so much.
SPEAKER_04:He loves it too.
SPEAKER_05:So Hilton, everyone just did shoeies, so everyone's fired up, and you know how Hilton will start singing songs?
SPEAKER_07:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:He's like, Centaur, Centaur. And they all start singing it, and then Kendall, he knows how to turn anything into a didgeridoo. He grabs his like uh vacuum thing, and he's just like and this was the night before I served against Kelly Slater.
SPEAKER_00:Well, full circle bomb.
SPEAKER_07:Perfectly. That's um he probably wasn't doing something that different the night before. He was in his underwear stuffing for tomorrow. Okay, so I'm hearing validation in this story. Did they they they heard you and they backed you up?
SPEAKER_05:Well, that was a big part of like kind of becoming me because Surfline interviewed me that morning before my heat, and I was just so scared. I'm like, because it would have been two weeks of flatness, so every day it's like Sterling serving against Kelly, and I heard Kelly did this and Kelly did that, and I heard everyone's Kelly story, and like so. By the time that day happened, I was just so nervous. Where I just I remember Surfine interviewed me. It was GT when he used to do it.
SPEAKER_07:Oh yeah, oh god, and I just haven't heard in years either.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, and I was just like, I couldn't handle the pressure, and I was just like, I just want people to know that I saw a centaur, and I mean this is like my big break, you know? And I couldn't handle so I just started talking about the centaur because it was like so fresh on everyone's mind. Yeah, totally, and then you were backed up the night before. That's totally valid.
SPEAKER_07:I get it, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Dude, I told the story, and it was like it was like I became famous overnight because it was like such a random thing to do right before serving against Kelly, you know. So everyone, the whole event's like call me Centaur. And I remember Dean Morrison walked up to me with like a tear in his eye, and he's like, Did you really see a centaur?
SPEAKER_04:Did you I'm like, dude, I saw something too.
SPEAKER_05:And he like hugs me and he's like, I saw one too. It was kind of like, oh, this big huge icebreaker for me, where it's like, okay, I can just kind of be me now. And that that that was for sure the beginning of kind of the light bulbs in my head. I'm like, man, like being myself works so much better than trying. Because I used to travel with Geordie, and Geordie's the golden job. Me, I have this funny story. Me, Wade Goodall, and Geordie went to South Africa together, and Wade is like the biggest core lord known to man. Like, he's so core, and Geordie's the so opposite. Geordie's like the Michael Jackson of the surf world, you know, like so Wade couldn't stand Geordy. And I'm kind of this in-between guy because I'm like from Florida, and it's like you're from Florida, like you're not even supposed to be here.
SPEAKER_00:Doesn't count, doesn't even count. Irrelevance.
SPEAKER_05:He was living his passion, and he was supposed to be the golden child, and it was beautiful to watch, but it created this crazy energy where it was like, dude, I can't, I can't handle this contest energy. And Wade was there, and Wade had just won the junior championships, I think. The the world or or the tot he won the junior circuit, so he was the guy. Geordie had just won the world juniors. It was like watching this clash of core lord titans, and I was and I was trying to pick which path, like you know, like just like Geordie's path seems kind of weird, he's kind of fruity. Wade has pine straw for chest hair, but also comedic.
SPEAKER_07:So you look at Waito. So I just surfed with Waito a couple days ago, and he was so pumped to hear that we were gonna have a chat. Oh man, I love that guy. Um yeah, we all love hanging with Waito, and he's just such a a good, kind fella, but a just a funny guy too, you know. And like you look at what he was doing, which was pro probably just before you with Passion Pop and his stuff.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I was I was filming with that stuff.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, you were okay. So I just remember the tone of his his creations, his creative destruction stuff. He was like a dark jester. He was like a good, you know, like he would make you laugh, but he had this sort of dark, dark side to him that was like a little angry and it was cool because it was just like, you know what, I don't give a fuck. I'm gonna surf this way and do this this way. And and then when water got serious, he was always charging, and you could see that he was a fearless guy in a lot of ways, not just in being himself at a time where the way he was himself was not the common way, you know. Especially in Oz, it was this you were sporty spice, you're basically like everyone was every everything was sport, and I can relate because I was like, I don't want to be sport, I don't want to be one of those guys, and but it was largely a culture that was celebrating sporting heroes, yeah. Wade Wade was not that, but he still got a culture, yeah. He got backing and he was supported to make fun things and do trippy stuff, and I feel like surely that rubbed off on you a little too.
SPEAKER_05:Well, yeah, it was it was such an honor to be around Wade. I wrote his coattails too, um, because I I had my internet thing going for a while, and he started creative destruction with Jake. People were so confused, they're like, why is Wade and Sterling like why are they buds? Because Wade's such a dark corlord, and I was wearing glasses, and I was goofy, you know, and it and people didn't realize Wade and me were like the same, but he I always called him the uh Prince of Darkness. He was like the Prince of Darkness. We were both rebelling in the same way, where it's just like kudos to Bilbong at the time. I feel like they really did support all of us. I felt like we had the coolest team ever at one point, like across the spectrum, like so many different characters, and he kind of inspired me for sure to be myself because he he never judged me. That's what was so crazy. Like I always felt judged around everyone, and I I was so not as cool as Wade, like I didn't I didn't have the tats, and you know, like he was so cool, but he never looked at me. Like, I I traveled with so many guys, and it's like if I didn't fit the hipsterness, it's like uh we can't hang out with you, and that felt so confusing for me. Like, I think coming from Florida and where I live in Florida is actually like I live in the Gulf of Mexico, so it's even harder to be a surfer. So I feel like I was kind of lucky for my own spirit. I I didn't really judge people because I'm from the bottom of the Gulf of Florida, you know.
SPEAKER_07:Makes me feel like thread that's through this yarn, through this conversation. I keep hearing you mentioning other people and your gratitude for other people who have been along for the ride in your life. What kind of advice would you give to, you know, 12-year-old little sterling starting on this journey when it really seems like you've had a a lot of moments where people have meant a lot to you, like the things they've said or the things they've done to you or with you or for you. Like, do you think about that much? Because it seems like most of our prompts here and the things we've been talking about, you you keep reflecting on someone who was there at that point in your life and the impact they had on you.
SPEAKER_05:My mission just felt so impossible from where I was from. So if someone helped me, it was everything, you know. Like I couldn't, I wasn't the goal, I I didn't live in California. I didn't live it. I was just I just always felt like for me to be able to have gotten to where I was, it was always because someone put their hand out. So I just I don't I don't like I don't really see myself like I'm just so lucky to just have met the people I've met. And yeah, like I just always felt lucky every time I got to go on a trip, it's like oh I get to leave. Like there's no ways where I live, you know. So it's like it's a little bit of my energy, you know, wanting it and calling it, and a lot of just you know, meeting really cool people, like and also listening to that in me, like of who actually cares about you, you know, like following that rather than trying to chase what the cool people are doing, you know, like that could be one thing ki if if I could tell kids is just be careful of chasing coolness because it it can get you maybe it's a shortcut, but it's a dead end too. It's I I just genuinely think if you can really be yourself and find it, but not just like dick around with it, like go for it. You know, you you you have to go for it. It's not nothing's gonna just happen for you. A lot of us are kindred souls, like you. Whenever I saw Margot I f I always felt that, you know, like Margot always felt like maybe like he felt like a Gulf Coaster of the Australian world, the way he made it sound to me. You know, he wasn't on the Gold Coast, like maybe same for you, I believe. Like maybe that's why you're all such classic characters and kind of found yourselves.
SPEAKER_01:I'm curious about what you see of surf culture now in Florida, Sterling. What's happening? What do you see of the younger? Well, a bit of both.
SPEAKER_05:The algorithm is killing serving.
SPEAKER_01:Please explain.
SPEAKER_05:The algorithm supports uh following trends, you know, and the algorithm is keen, you know, to these kids. You know, if to make money is views, clicks, yada yada yada. And to me, that's you know, I think the magic of the early O's was it was kind of like who's doing their thing the hardest? You know, it's like you had so many like Deion Ages and Dane Reynolds, and it it was just like it really felt like we were starting to really find our core and then YouTube and the algorithm. Now people are writing soft tops, like that's that's like the board, you know, and non-surfers are just like, oh yeah, okay, like cool. Like it's like how how do we use the algorithm to bring the core back, you know, without it being like pretentious.
SPEAKER_01:So if if the algorithm is killing surfing as we know it, what what can be the savior? What can what can save it?
SPEAKER_05:If Kelly got hair, that would break the algorithm. I think we have to learn how to use it and still cherish uniqueness. Like, did do you make Rasta look at Instagram?
SPEAKER_01:No, I try, I really try not to. I love he's so pure. He's so pure. I love I love that.
SPEAKER_05:I have no idea what's happening right now.
SPEAKER_07:No, I rely on these conversations to enlighten me, so please do. Well, on the podcast, we make fun of Gen Z a lot.
SPEAKER_01:Dave might not know what Gen Z is. I don't know what Gen Z is.
SPEAKER_07:Who is what age is that? How old are you if you're in that?
SPEAKER_05:I'm I'm a millennial. I think you are.
SPEAKER_01:I'm a millennial. You you Dave would be Gen X, I think. Just a bit older.
SPEAKER_05:So it's Gen X, Millennial, and then Gen Z. They grew up with phones.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So they don't really show their surfing, they're always filming before they go surf. What cologne they're spraying on themselves. Like before.
SPEAKER_00:There's nothing worse than cologne in the lineup. Yeah, what are you the worst?
SPEAKER_07:You can smell when someone's had a shower recently when you're in the water, they're alone cologne. And I always turn my nose up at those people too. Yeah, so I'd be like, yeah, I I actually make a point if someone paddles past me with like shampoo hair to call it out because I'll now just be like, How did you know?
SPEAKER_05:It's so strong. It's like you can smell a kook from so far with okay.
SPEAKER_07:So, what about those people then? Is are they implicit in the doom of surfing right now?
SPEAKER_05:Well, their brains, they're captured. They're captured on trying to get follows and likes. And what's trendy is like looking like a surfer and showing before and doing a TikTok dance or something, and now they're all doing it, and it's like it's it's taking away the creativity.
SPEAKER_07:See, this is these are the kind of conversations that keep me from starting a MySpace page or uh whatever you guys do with your fucking time now. Because it just doesn't sound that fun. Like when I when I encounter I'm making fun of it, but in all sincerity, most of the time when I hear people speak about the internet, it's in a whinging tone. It's like fuck, I've got to do these posts because I gotta satisfy my sponsor thing, or I better do one today because I haven't in a few weeks and I gotta keep that thing bouncing, or oh, this is the only way we talk with our friends overseas, or there's always like this moment before it. It's never with like true zest, it's never with like a deep enthusiasm. So my my way of getting out of all of that is to just not participate. So, what do you do? And I think of Wendell Berry, there's an amazing writer and poet in America, Wendell Berry. I urge you to read him, his writing is unbelievable. But he he is an incredible activist for looking after country in America and and all kinds of good stuff, but he detests movements, and he says, as soon as something becomes a movement, it's doomed. You know, you've got people turning up for the sake of being in a movement or whatever, not necessarily, yeah, they're venting things or they want to be part of something, it's not the the the actual center of the issue that they're there for anymore, so he doesn't like it when things like movements start taking shape, and I can't help but hear what you all are talking about, these sort of things happening on the internet with surfing and these movement of people in this certain way, it just it doesn't sound like it's vibrant and healthy and that wonderful. So, what do you do? So, how do you not be how do you do what you're doing without being a part of that movement?
SPEAKER_05:I think why I can kind of thrive in this area is I focus on making people laugh, not uh following whatever trend. And that's kind of been the beauty of the podcast. It gives us a space to just make people laugh. And I don't I don't look I don't look at Instagram for influence anymore. I only look to give. So it doesn't control my mind. I've already let it control me in my younger years, so it's like I'll just post something and it's just like I kind of treat it as almost a yoga, you know, like I'm making people laugh, this feels good, good energy out, and I don't I don't check back in really. And it's been really rewarding in that sense of using that way. Like when I went to Hawaii, it was like to be almost dead from a brain injury to people so involved in my life again. And something I said or something that made them laugh took you know, they had a hard day and they needed that laugh. It's it's kind of like like it's special in that way, you know? But it's it's a it's a it's a slippery slope. It's a double-edged sword. And it it's like if if we if people can't learn to use it, it will use them.
SPEAKER_07:Wonderfully said. I don't know if this will make the recording or not, but I have to tell you about surfing Kira last year with Kelly. And uh because I can relate to your going left story. My mom she lives at Kira these days, so I go up there a fair bit with family, and we love to surf it on baby days with our little boy as a family. It's like Waikiki and stuff. And so last year I was doing a surfboard test thing, and I get there and the tide's high, and there's no one out, and it's fucking pumping, sunny, beautiful offshore, fast Kira. And I freak out and I run. Like old school. Yeah, I I park in front of my mum's basically at Kira. I run over the groin, I run down Cool and Gatta Beach, jump in at like Green Mount, float down, and I pass Andrew Kidman, and then I pass Slater, and I'm like, fuck, this is pretty interesting. It's like a little twilight zone. Wow. I get down to Big Groin, I look down the whole lineup to the end of Kira. There's there's like two other people out. One is my neighbor, and the other is like Jai Glinderman from Lennox, who I also surf with. It was bizarre. It was like we all just somehow, the four of us were just there. Yeah, and so anyway, it's like Kidman stayed up at Green Mount. Slater comes down the line, he gets a couple beautiful waves, surfing like out of this world. I'm like, wow, look at that guy, go, he's just incredible. And I was riding this super odd, asymmetrical, downstairs mix-up board. Anyway, this beautiful set, yeah. This vegan board, this this beautiful set comes through. Kelly gets a wave, I get a wave. I think I got the first one. We're paddling back out, and he's paddling full steam, and I'm like, oh yeah, cool. Okay, he's he's he wants that inside position. There's only three of us out. I'm like, look at this beautiful day, isn't it beautiful? Look at the sun, how's this offshore wind? I'm like freaking out because it's just like, how could you not be just spewing gratitudes with it? And he's just sort of looked at me and like nodded and go, Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then sort of continued like paddling and scanning the lineup like Robokoff, and I was just like, Whoa, why why isn't he all happy too? Like, this is ridiculous. Like, when does this ever happen in your whole life? And then anyway, we keep paddling up the line, and maybe I got a lot of head noise, maybe he was thinking the same things, I don't know, he just wasn't showing it on the outside. But then a set comes, and the first wave comes, and generally, most people who have grown up here, like I have, we understand which waves in a set are the best ones, and rarely it's the first one. The first one's the burgery one that takes the water off the bank. The second one is a drainer, and the third one, if there is a third one, is like subterranean. And anyway, he's like, Look at this first one. Wow, look at this first one. Oh, this one you're gonna go, this first one, and I'm like, I know what I'm looking at. It's the second one, and he's like, Yeah, but look at this first one. He's like trying to sell me on this fucking first one, and I'm just like, Are you serious right now? And then paddle over the first one because he knows I know, and you know, it's obvious that's not the one. The second one comes and I'm like, Yeah, here we go. This is the one. I start to turn and he turns, and I'm paddling for it, and he's paddling for it, and he's like, he's the guy on the shoulder, and and I'm looking at him like incredulous. Like, do you not just feel like letting someone have this wave because they were the next in line, and it's okay if we both miss it, it's one for the spirits, maybe. Who knows? Whatever. It's just surfing. Anyway, I catch this wave, and he's there with me stroke for stroke to the last second, just in case I miss it. Which is if that's ever gonna happen. I grew up surfing these fucking waves. So anyway, I catch the wave and it's a nice wave, and I come back out, and I'm like, wow, that guy's just relentless. And I watched him catch another couple bombs, right? And then all of a sudden, people start filtering down, and people had realized, oh, it's good already, like you don't wait for the low tide. And the first person to come down in the drainer of drainers is Kieran Perro, another Byron kind of guy, and he gets spat out, and I'm like, wow man, KV, how beautiful was that wave, and he's like, Fuck man, I had to work so hard to keep Slater off of it, and he was paddling me like to the phone pole, and then I had like another person say the same thing, and it was just baffling. I was just like, I was perplexed. I was like, holy moly, okay, you're in another dimension. Like once a champ only is a champ. So anyway, I when you said you're going left thing at the at J Bay, I was like, oh wow, yeah, I can relate to that kind of moment. It's great.
SPEAKER_04:He's a special creature, dude.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_04:We need a he's been doing a lot of ayahuasca lately. Have you heard that?
SPEAKER_07:Well, he obviously didn't do any the day before that swell because he would have been like, go, brother, go! Look at these wavelengths, he would have been psyched.
SPEAKER_05:Dude, I had I had dinner with him a few years ago at Machado's house. I never really sat down with him before. He was really excited, he's stun ayahuasca like 40 times or something. Wow. Dude, it was so funny watching him talk about ayahuasca because it was like he was turning it into like catching waves. Because he's oh, he's like, Oh, you haven't done it? Like, no, you're supposed to do it like this. And like, if you're gonna figure out the universe, you have to and he he was drawing stuff, he was drawing things, he's like, here so if you're gonna know the whole universe, and he's he's like got arrows to like and I was like, have you ever like have you ever tried meditating? So he he he he like he does ayahuasca, like he surf waves. Wow, yeah, it makes sense, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Like he part he goes and systematizing, yeah, systematizing. Yeah, I love it. Do you think into the future in terms of like, well, I know you must because the provider urge for a lot of us when we have children kicks in pretty strong in terms of being able to like feed your child and house them and give them opportunities and stuff? Like, what are you gonna do with yourself moving forward? Do you do your podcast and and other things? Are you like, do you juggle many things?
SPEAKER_05:I mean, I I'm just super lucky podcasting coming from the surf world. No one wants to give you money, and then when you in the podcast world, people ask to give you money, and I'm just like, what is this world? Like, you want to pay us? No, no one's ever said that in the surf world.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, totally. It's true.
SPEAKER_05:Billbong would bring you into a small room, and so we dropped, we dropped all your friends, and we were gonna cut you, but we decided to give you a three-year contract. You're like, okay, I'll take it. 20 grand, I'll take it. So with pop with podcasting, it's it feels like a lot of opportunity. My cousin Ryan, he he does all the editing and stuff, and we're kind of just sailing the ship right now, and I just feel like we're both our heads are good, you know, like we're doing it for the right reasons, and it is making us enough money. It's kind of nice actually getting paid for the art for the first time instead of like fighting uh surf world. I'm trying not to manifest too hard because be careful what you wish for. Because I I am feeling a lot more eyeballs on me for the f like for the first time in my life, where it's like, I'm like, oh, I haven't had I haven't gone to the grocery store, and people are like and want to talk to you everywhere you go, and like, so I'm kind of like, how famous do we want to go? So we're kind of just navigating, trying to stay core lords, but be able to cash in.
SPEAKER_01:Time is precious. Thanks for spending some of yours listening with us today. Our editor this season is the multi-talented Ben Jake Alexander. The soundtrack was composed by Shannon Soul Carroll, with additional tunes by Dave and Ben. We'll be continuing today's conversation on Instagram, where we're at Water People Podcast. And you can subscribe to our very infrequent newsletter to get book recommendations, questions we're pondering, behind-the-scenes glimpses into recording the podcast, and more via our website, waterpeoplepodcast.com. Do you have big Thanksgiving plans?
SPEAKER_05:I'm against Thanksgiving. Why?
SPEAKER_01:I've never heard anyone say that.
SPEAKER_05:Because Rasta told me to never celebrate it. Who's that guy?
SPEAKER_07:Are you still vegan? No, we're a long way from that. No, that was an experiment in my 20s that I discarded.
SPEAKER_05:It was like me, Shane Doran, Donovan, Parko. And you were like, you didn't want us to eat turkey. And you came in and you were looking at us like, really gonna eat that?
SPEAKER_04:Don't do it. Rasta. I have to.
SPEAKER_05:Because I cared about your opinion so much, but I was so hungry.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I see. I don't remember that because there was such a haze of nutrition deprivation. Exactly. It was just functional brain begging for omegas. Yeah. So sorry. I apologize to anyone in that period for anything I'm ever said or done. Yeah. No, my heart was probably freaking out. Like, give me some fucking nutrition. Eating tofu in the corner on my own, all lonely and shit.
SPEAKER_00:An aura of vegan judgmentalism just eliminating.
SPEAKER_07:That's funny though, because yeah. Well, anyway, I'll I was
