“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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