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Riding Waves
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Title
Riding Waves
Series Title
Collection Guide (External)
Created Date
November 13th, 2019
Published Date
December 24th, 2019
Description
Steve Pezman, "Surfer's Journal" Founder, on surfing in northern and southern Orange County, the rise of the "surfing industry," and Dana Point's unique influence on surf culture through being a media center and a hub of technological innovation. Recorded at Dana Point Library.
Transcript
Orange County, compared to other regions of the world, generally has a comfortable water temp range of the high to mid-50's to the high 60's, low 70's, and the air here is perfect. It's one of the most habitable climates on the globe, so from that standpoint, that makes it very attractive. On the upper half of Orange County, it's sandbar waves for the most part, and in the lower part of Orange County, it's basically cobblestone reefs and sand accumulated onto those, but the causal bottom structure is different in the lower half than it is in the upper half, and one isn't better than the other, but they're just different, and different means variety, and that' a good thing.
The upper end attracted people from out of the County and elsewhere, Huntington Beach, that was like the magnet for all of the people that were coming down, wanting to go surfing, and wanting to discover it, find out what it was all about, see it, walk out in the pier, get infected by it, and it was all there and accessible.
Down on the southern and of the County were more coves, nooks and crannies, it was a little more secretive, and al lot of the people that have more formative roles in the sport ended up living down here because they were inclined to seek the aesthetic of looking down at the ocean from a hillside home, versus at the back wall of your neighbor from three lots off the beach.
This area here, Dana Point, ended up having kind of a unique role in the sport and culture of surfing, because this was a media center where surf magazines started. Surfer, the first magazine to last, started here, and then a number of others, like my magazine, and there have been a number of magazines that have come and gone. And surf movies, a lot of that juice originated from here, Bruce Brown, John Severson, were two of the major major majors. Bud Brown was from Costa Mesa but we'll include him in this area if we want, so three of the major surf film makers were from this area, and surf films really helped drive the popularity of the sport. Technology and the stuff that happened here and invented here that drove the sport and caused it to be like what it is. Surfboard foam was more or less invented here, fiberglass, all the things that sophisticated the sport, technologies that kind of helped it become more evolved came from this area for the most part, either were invented here or evolved here, and were perfected here, refined here. Orange County, Costa Mesa, that area was one of the centers of the surf clothing industry that really began to flourish in the 70's and the 80's ended up injecting a lot of commercial money into the sport which helped it have contests, that kind of money structure stuff, where you could surf for a living, you could make a living, riding waves.
Creators and Contributors
Creator:
Orange County Public Libraries
Interviewer: Enos, Lee
Interviewer: Murdy, Chad
Editor: Gilliom, Jon
Interviewee: Pezman, Steve
Interviewer: Enos, Lee
Interviewer: Murdy, Chad
Editor: Gilliom, Jon
Interviewee: Pezman, Steve
Subject Topic
Subject Entity
Genre
Spatial Coverage
Temporal Coverage
1960 to 2019
Language
Media Type
Format
mp4
Extent
1
File
Generation
Copy
Color or Black and White
Color
Silent or Sound
Sound
Copyright Statement
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This item may be used for non-commercial and educational purposes.
The opinions expressed in OC Stories do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of OC Public Libraries or its partners and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Images are courtesy of story tellers and affiliate organizations or used in accordance with fair use and Creative Commons.
Music and sound in accordance with fair use and Creative Commons [ http://creativecommons.org ].
Country of Creation
United States
Contributing Organization
Contributing Organization Contact Information
Email: ocstories@occr.ocgov.com
Phone: 714-566-3055
Phone: 714-566-3055
Organization Websites
Link to Internet Archive
Additional Technical Notes for Item
Original file was named, "OCDS PEZS 02.mp4". It was renamed to, corcl_000122_prsv.mp4.