The original Windansea Surf Club gave generously at the San Diego Blood Bank. It was a win-win. Five dollars a pint was the going rate, and less blood circulating through your body meant the alcohol hit faster and harder. So pull the needle, slap on a Band-Aid, grab your fiver, and drive straight to La Rancherita, a nearby buck-a-pitcher Mexican joint, where everybody indeed got quickly and comprehensively hammered.

That's the beach environment Butch van Artsdalen grew up in. That was the funny-crazy-stupid style that he first embraced, then embodied. Butch was the best high school athlete in the county, a three-sport letterman. But Windansea, in all its vulgar glory, drew him in for good. Even after he moved to Hawaii, he never really left Windansea.

For a few years, Butch kicked alcohol's ass, plain and simple. Maybe his best-ever day at Pipeline took place on New Year's Day, 1963, with his blood-alcohol level still way over in the red. John Peck told the night-before story in a 2011 

We were at a party at Bud Browne's Rocky Point beach house. Bud hated parties, so a bunch of us played a joke and threw a New Year's Eve bash at his place. We sent word all around the North Shore and everybody showed up: Dewey Weber, Buzzy Trent, the Calhoun sisters, Diffenderfer, Hynson. Weber bought cases of Black & White scotch and we proceeded to have a chug-a-lug-a-thon. It was loud, and it was wild. Dewey was cheering everyone on and Hynson went under the house and started setting off fireworks. Poor Bud was hiding in his little editing room and refused to come out; he was freaking, holding on to his films, trying to protect them.

We raged on and eventually the drinking contest came down to me and Butch, because everybody else had either quit or passed out. Butch had already been drinking beer all day, but he finished his bottle of scotch anyway. Then he goes over to the icebox, opens it, pulls out a beer. Turns around and suddenly goes completely still. Then he slowly pitches forward right onto his face. Candy Calhoun drags him into a corner and starts mothering him. Dewey is on the floor, barely coherent, slurring, "Well, that's it! I guess you won, John!" I slide onto the floor, crawl out the back door, fall off the porch, and roll down the lawn into oblivion. Just before I went totally unconscious, Buddy Boy Kaohe is out there pissing on me, laughing his head off. "You may have won, but I'm still standing and I'm pissing on you!"

Then Bud and Buzzy are holding me up, and Buzzy is going "Look what you've done, John! Look what you've done to yourself!" They pick me up and carried me to where I was staying and threw me on the bed.

Next thing I know someone is shaking me awake, saying "Butch is already out at the Pipeline! Come on, John!"

Three or four glory years followed for Butch. Then he dropped out of the spotlight. Worked as an occasionally heroic North Shore lifeguard, but mostly he drank until his liver turned to cheese, and died at 38.

Butch would have been 73 today. Just saying that sounds kind of ridiculous, though. Born with whatever predispositions he had, in that time and place, giving himself to the rough love of Windansea? The guy didn't have a chance.

RIP Butch. You walked on fire, and while it lasted it was the best show in surfing.

BUTCH VAN ARTSDALEN: LIGHT A FIRE AND BURN EVERYTHING

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