The Easy Steeze of
LARRY BERTLEMANN By Sean Doherty Photos by Steve Wilkings
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ask you, has there ever been a cooler surfer than Larry Bertlemann?
The guy who dreamed up skateboard moves in his sleep then went and laid them down in empty swimming pools in Honolulu. The guy who then took those moves into the waves of V-Land, Pipe, the Ala Mo Bowl, redefining short-arc surfing and blowing peoples’ minds. The guy who boosted the first air. The guy who inspired Buttons Kaluhiokalani and the Dogtown generation and surfers and skaters worldwide. Shaolin master, showman, visionary, a guy who positively oozed style.
Gold Coast in a tin can Korean rental, and not cruising downtown Honolulu in a Rolls Royce Ghost. The Bertlemann halo of hair is gone, what’s left is hidden beneath a cap featuring Larry doing a “Larrial” (his healthy sense of personal legacy survives). There’s no red white and blue Stinger strapped to the roof – Bert’s back gave out a while back, the result of throwing too many “Berts” in his heyday. But Larry Bertlemann is in my car and we’re going for a beer and he’s laughing and telling me stories of Machu Picchu and Hollywood and catching arrows with his bare hands.
Riding up front with Bert isn’t quite how I’d imagined it though. For starters, we’re on the
And so I ask you again, has there ever been a cooler surfer than Larry Bertlemann?
HAIR WITH ITS OWN GRAVITY, MIRRORED SHADES AND HIBISCUS LAPELS TO THE HORIZON, LARRY OOZED THE COOL.
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“ U P T O A C E R TA I N P O I N T E V E R Y O N E WA S D O I N G T H E S A M E T H I N G , S O I S TA R T E D T O E AT, S L E E P A N D T H I N K N E W M A N O EU V R E S. I R E M E M B E R FA L L I N G O U T O F B E D B ECAUS E I WA S T R Y I N G T O D O T H I S N E W C U T B A C K I N M Y S L E E P. ” DESPITE BEING THE “ANTI-GERRY”, BERTLEMANN WAS FEARLESS UNDER THE LIP AT PIPE. (WILKINGS)
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SW: You haven’t been back to Australia in over 30 years. Your impressions? LB: Yeah, I haven’t been back here since ‘78. Well, all I can think of is that you can’t stop progress. The good news is the people don’t change that much. I’m not recognising too many buildings, but I remember a lot of old faces. I saw when I walked in you were watching some old footage of Kirra. Well, it looks like the waves have changed too, huh? I was watching the old footage and thinking, yeah, I remember that, but now with the sandbar coming in they’re killing it. I was watching the boats go by and I’m just thinking they’re going to kill the surf. You shouldn’t fool with Mother Nature, just let her take her course… or she’ll get really mad at you! You’ve got fond memories of surfing Kirra in its prime? I got good memories of surfing a lot of places here. Burleigh, Bells, Winki. I had a lot of good surf when I was out here.
LARRY BERTLEMANN LARRY BERTLEMANN
straight! So I started pull up next to the tube and… wham! And I saw their cutbacks and I thought I can do them this other way. Then I started doing airs – “Larrials” I called them. The lines being drawn, I had to change them all. Up to a certain point everyone was doing the same thing, so I started to eat, sleep and think new manoeuvres. I remember falling out of bed because I was trying to do this new cutback in my sleep. But then the next day I’d go out and do it, and everyone who wouldn’t think it was possible before was suddenly out there trying them as well. They were into it. And that’s the thing; anything is possible.
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It sounded like a free time, not a lot of right and wrong. Surfing should be an expression of you. If your surfing reflects you then there is no right and wrong.
Has it been good catching up with your old crew? It’s been great. A lot of blasts from the past. I hung with Cheyne [Horan] yesterday, which was great.
Surfing driven by personality. For sure, just look at us, look at me and Buttons [Kaluhiokalani] and Mark [Liddell]. But like attracts like. Buttons and Mark and me pushed each other when we were surfing. We couldn’t help but get better. It was never competitive though. We just did what felt good and our surfing fed on each other’s surfing. It was never any good for us to surf by ourselves. Where was the fun in that?
Back to the mid-‘70s when surfing was changing so radically, did you realise at the time that what you were doing back then would influence successive generations so profoundly? I didn’t think that far ahead. All I knew was that I wanted to do manoeuvres that hadn’t been done. I was tired of watching all the lines – they were so
How much influence did your skating have on your surfing? A lot. I’d come home from a full day of surfing at 9, 10 o’clock and I’d think, what do I do now? I hate exercising, but I still felt like doing something so I started skating. It was a natural progression from there. All my cutbacks became “Berts”, and
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it was just like surfing on the streets at night. Then we found all the pools in everyone’s backyards in town [Honolulu] that we drained. We used all the big concrete drainage ditches like Uluwatus and Walos to skate on, anything with an angle. I didn’t have a clue what we were doing, or how much influence I would have on the Dogtown guys, Jay and Tony [Adams and Alva] and those guys. In the movie someone said, “I watched Bertlemann do a cutback and I wanted to do that more than life itself.” I was, like, “Wow” when I heard that. Does it freak you out the influence you had? I’m watching kids riding skateboards everyday and it makes me so happy. Kids in Hawaii and California come up to me all the time and talk skating with me. And you’ve heard of the Smithsonian Institute? I’m in there for both skating and surfing… and I’m still alive! I was pretty shocked when they called me up and told me they wanted me to be in there. “You sure you got the right Larry Bertlemann?” It was cool. And if I had 5c for every Bert ever done, I’d be rich. Did Ben Aipa’s boards make what you were doing possible? Did his boards keep up with your imagination? That’s why we needed Ben. That’s why he had the swallowtail. Without that we would never have been able to do what we did. Then, after that, I started making my own boards and the progression continued. I remember working with him, and he made two boards – one the way he wanted, and one the way I wanted it! [Laughing] That was really funny. I spent hours and hours watching him shaping, learning, then I started out on my own.
“SURFING MAGAZINE RAN A PHOTO O F M E C AT C H I N G A N A R R O W F I R E D W I T H A 7 5 - P O U N D D R AW, M I D - A I R , NEXT TO MY FACE .” OPPOSITE: FROM THE ALA MO BOWL TO THE SUNSET BOWL, BERTLEMANN, BUTTONS AND LIDDELL MOVED THEIR ACT FROM TOWN TO COUNTRY ON THE NORTH SHORE. (AFRAME/MERKEL) ABOVE: WHATEVER LARRY IS LAYING DOWN HERE, YOU CAN BET THERE’S SOME FUNKY WAH-WAH IN THERE. (WILKINGS)
The Easy Steeze of
LARRY BERTLEMANN
The Easy Steeze of
LARRY BERTLEMANN
Well, see, I was living on First Avenue and Ben was shaping out of Greg Noll’s on First Avenue. Craig Sugihara was the glasser. But we left and went to Pearl City and started Town & Country, and it’s still going strong today.
racing motorcycles and racing cars. I done all sorts of stuff. You should write a book. I never finished school, so someone else might have to write it for me! [Laughs] They’d have to label it fiction, ’cause no one’s going to believe what I did! When I come from the Big Island, my Mum moved myself and my four sisters to Oahu when I was 11-and-a-half years old, and by the time I was 12 I was already off around the world surfing. I’ve been around the world 26 times and I haven’t paid a penny yet to do it. When I was a kid I sat there thinking, how do I get paid to go surfing and do what I love? So I had to bring the mainstream people in with me – the actors, the stars – and then it was easy for me to get airlines and cars. My dear Grandmother – bless her, she passed away – she’s like, “The best word we got is aloha. It means hello, goodbye, and I love you.” When I say “aloha” I see her, and that’s how she treated people. But every year my Grandma and Grandpa would travel around the world, but they’d never take me! I said, “Wait till I get older, I’m going! I don’t know how I’m
Tell me about the Larrial. It came from skateboarding. Getting forward and weighting and unweighting came from both skateboarding and martial arts, so you kick your feet up and let the board follow. I did my first one and I thought, wow, that was kinda easy. And I landed in the trough, not off the back like everyone else. Do you have a martial arts background? I do. Surfer or Surfing magazine ran a photo of me catching an arrow fired with a 75-pound draw, mid-air, next to my face. I was the first non-Chinese to study Lon Fasha, it’s part of Shaolin Kung Fu. That taught me the application of power, how to get around flat spots and where to put more weight down in turns. That’s how I got across all the flat spots in waves: weight, unweight. I had to teach myself. Then I was
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“ P E O P L E O N T H E B E A C H W O U L D B E S C R E A M I N G A N D H AV E T H E I R J AW S O N T H E G R O U N D S AY I N G , “ H O W C O M E Y O U D I D N ’ T W I N ? ” I ’ D S AY, “ D O N ’ T S P E A K T O M E , S P E A K T O T H E F I V E J U D G E S . ” M AY B E T H E Y ’ L L C AT C H U P O N E O F T H E S E Y E A R S . ” OPPOSITE TOP: WHEN HE GOT OUT OF THE SURF, LARRY WOULD SIMPLY DON THE RED SPRAY JACKET, HEAD DOWN TO THE ULUWATU BOWLS IN HONOLULU, AND TRANSFORM INTO THE WORLD’S COOLEST SKATER. BOTTOM: BERT WITH HIS EPONYMOUS CUTBACK. (WILKINGS)
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going to do it yet, but I’m going to do it!” I went to Machu Picchu when I was very young. I’ve seen all the wonders of the world, just because I wanted to see them and wanted to travel when I was young. We’re doing it the wrong way around: now you’ve got all the money to travel when you’re too old to travel. So you travel, but you can’t do anything! What was the reaction to the stuff you were doing? Were people taking it seriously or did they dismiss it as simply tricks? Floaters were a mistake to us because the rail wasn’t buried, and cutbacks were manoeuvres and the Larrials as long as they were in a straight line were considered fine. And the 360s, I was the first one to do them too. They were like, “How the hell do you something that was physically impossible for us to do?” And after everybody else could do it was when they started recognising us. I was like, “How the hell can you judge me when you’ve never seen anything I’ve done before?” So I wasn’t getting the points, but if you get the video of what I was doing back then and match it against what’s happening today, I think I could get a score. How did your act go in competition? Did the system recognise you? Not even close. It was really frustrating. I wasn’t prostituting myself to the five judges, I was going out there to surf for me and I was going out to surf for the public. I wasn’t winning contests but everybody was loving my surfing. Jim Jenks [OP founder] gave me so much money just to be me, which was really cool, so I didn’t have to win contests. It was frustrating for the first 20 minutes after a heat, then I’d be over it. The people on the
LARRY LARRY BERTLEMANN The Easy Steeze of
beach would be screaming and have their jaws on the ground saying, “How come you didn’t win?” I’d say, “Don’t speak to me, speak to the five judges.” Maybe they’ll catch up one of these years.
BERTLEMANN
Have you ever watched Dane Reynolds surf a heat? I have. I could see the progression moving, he can do stuff that hasn’t been done before… but it’s not finished yet. Not by a long shot. Some of them are pretty good, but it still stops at Kelly. Can you describe the relationship between yourself, Buttons and Mark? Ala Moana was our main spot, Kaisers, Waimea, Backdoor, V-Land, wherever the waves were, we were. And then the cameras would follow and everybody would paddle in. I remember on Maui at Honolua surfing with 20 people and I caught the first wave and they all paddle in, and I’m looking for the sharks. People are on the cliff yelling and screaming but it wasn’t for the sharks. They were watching us surf! But the first time I met them, I was a couple of years older and I’d already left school but they paid me to come back and teach elementary school English, and that’s where I met them. I was a student teacher. Right down the block is where we started surfing, surfing the Waikiki Wall every day after school and after that they just stuck with me. We went to Ala Moana and we’d get the boards from Mark’s house at Waikiki. It was just mutual respect. Dane [Kealoha] was my cousin. There were certain times of the year we’d stay at different people’s houses depending on where the surf was. They loved us. Me and Tally-ho Blears during the Makaha International, Thanksgiving, and wintertime, we’ be at Colonel Vincent’s house. Summertime we’re in town. Sometimes we were in
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Waimanalo at Michael’s house. We stayed everywhere and the parents just loved us. We didn’t need any money, they fed us and we just went surfing every day. It looked like fun. It was it really was. It still is actually. We had too much fun. If it wasn’t fun, it wasn’t worth doing. And we loved blowing peoples’ minds, showing them something they’d never seen before. That was the fun part, seeing them trying and falling, trying and falling, then saying, “It must be the Stinger and it must be the swallowtail, that’s their secret.” You guys were so heavily associated with waves like Ala Mo and V-Land, the hotdog waves, but what about the trophy waves on the North Shore? We surfed big Sunset and Pipe and everywhere else. In the beginning they’d call us “Townies” because we’d come out from town to surf the North Shore, then we came out and took it over! It’s funny. Did you surf much with Lopez? We surfed Ala Moana a lot with Gerry and Reno when we were real young. They were the guys out there, but I was the one dropping in on them because I couldn’t get outside yet. I used to call them “gula gulas” because of the little moustaches, that means the mucus that comes out of your nose. But they called me the “Anti-Gerry”. He had lines that went straight while I was all figure eights. He’s the best tuberider though. It sounds like an amazing time on the North Shore. It was because there was hardly anybody out. These days everybody’s out, along with their mums and dads and coaches and girlfriends. We were lucky to see one girl in the water in the old days.
“IF IT WASN’T FUN, IT WASN’T WORTH DOING.” TOP LEFT: THE AIPA STINGER KEPT PACE WITH LARRY’S IMAGINATION. BOTTOM LEFT: NO 360S HERE… BERT AT THE BAY. (WILKINGS) RIGHT: SKATER, SURFER, STYLE ICON, DJ AND GUITARIST. “CASTES IN THE... CASTLES IN THE.. HANG ON... CASTLES IN THE... SAND.” (MERKEL)
Seen Buttons lately? Just before I left to come here. We shot a photo; Mark, myself and Buttons. It must be like 15 years since we were last all together. The Three Amigos back together. I didn’t see much of him for a long time but I’ve seen a bit of him since. He calls me for these interviews we had to do, and he calls me out of the blue and I go, “Who’s this?” He goes, “Buttons!” I go, “What you calling me for?” He goes, “I’m just checking in.” I’ve gone, “Good man, good man.” I was actually shocked, but he’s doing really well. He’s in great shape. He’s quit the shit and he’s doing fine. What’s Mark doing these days? He was working as a security guard, but he’s just opened up a shop at Kailua now, still building boards. He’s doing really well with the shaping. We give each other tips and swap ideas that nobody else has.
The Easy Steeze of
LARRY LARRY BERTLEMANN
So you’re still shaping? When I was paralysed I couldn’t shape, and it was a really sad time me.Steeze But where Thefor Easy of I shape now is upstairs from a strip club. So I get boards to the guy who runs the strip club and all the girls come up and help me shape! [Laughing]
BERTLEMANN
What are you shaping? A wide range. When I went to China I taught them to make my boards, that swallowtail red-blue-white board. I shape noseriders, stand-up paddleboards. People are really wanting those. My skateboards are matching my surfboards though. Is surfing still free? Here’s something for you: before everything else, McDonalds had these little trays and we’d be out there bodysurfing on the plastic trays at Waikiki. Buttons would surf on them. We all did. Now the
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kids have money and they buy boards. We had no money so we had to surf whatever we could. I think looking back, then looking at kids today, they have all the toys but what they’re lacking is inventiveness. The only toys we had were toys we’d made ourselves from whatever we could find. We were more creative. Now they’ve got videos and games and the creativity is done for them. It’s like that in surfing too. They get pictures of themselves and pictures of Kelly and try to match them up. The creativity is gone. Are kids today told too much what good surfing should be? They have a whole lot more freedom in the water now, more than we did back then. All they’ve got to do is not copy anybody else, draw your own, different lines. Draw your own circles and let other people follow you.