For 25 years now, give or take, the surfers I admire most are those who came to the sport early, loved it, still love it, but realized at some point that to build a life completely within surfing is basically retarded, and thus went further afield to create, experience, achieve. Bill Finnegan and Greg MacGillivray, for example. Joel de Rosnay. Jack Johnson and John Milius and, yes, Sean Penn. Surfers at heart, all of them. But smart enough to know that there's a world of difference between surfing being a great thing, a life-changing thing even, and surfing being the 

 thing. (No great mystery as to how I came to hold this belief. Twenty-five years ago, give or take, I quit a wonderful job at SURFER, went back to school, and began hustling books and articles to any non-surfing publisher who would take my call.)

So my favorite surfer this week? Mike Salisbury. As a young master of pen and ink during the Eisenhower years, Mike hung out with fellow surfer-artists Rick Griffin and John Van Hamersveld and was soon trading design work for gear (he did logos for G&S and Birdwell), and in 1962, aged 19, he became the SURFER art director. A plum job? Oh yes. But less plum than 

, all of which received the magic Salisbury "California Cool" touch over the next 15 years. "I made 

 look like a real magazine," Salisbury later said, "instead of something you rolled joints with." He photographed Andy Warhol, George Harrison, and Truman Capote. He branded Levis 501s to perfection. He told young Michael Jackson to wear just the one white glove, because both "would be a bit too Mickey Mouse." Michael nodded, whispered "thank you," and became the King of Pop. (To be fair, Salisbury also created Joe Camel, a child-baiting penis-nosed purveyor of cigarettes, but as Tom Curren once said, we all whore ourselves out to one degree or another.)

Salisbury never left the beach, personally or professionally, and in the '80s he gave 

 magazine a vibrant makeover and turned Gotcha into a flaming pyre of nihilistic beachwear cool.

What a remarkable career. And what a pleasure to hear how no-bullshit Salisbury himself is about what he's achieved. The son of a military family, Mike moved constantly as a kid, state to state, school to school. The "coolness" he would be celebrated for, he said, was nothing more than a survival mechanism. "I discovered you had to be cool to keep from being killed by the cool guys."

Straight talk. Another thing I look for in my heroes.

MIKE SALISBURY: "YOU HAD TO BE COOL TO KEEP FROM BEING KILLED BY THE COOL GUYS"

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