SUNDAY JOINT, 7-8-2018: STILL BUZZING ON WAYNE BARTHOLOMEW

Hey All,

Wayne Rabbit Muhammed Bugs Bartholomew was the subject of last week’s History of Surfing post, which you’ll find here. Rereading the transcript of the interview I did with Wayne in 1993 brought back some great memories. He and I had spent much of the weekend together at a PSAA contest in Santa Cruz, with the idea that we’d tape a few conversations during that time. Somehow it didn’t happen, and we ended up in an SFO restaurant with two hours left before his plane departed, and I rolled tape while Bugs went full Shakespeare. I recall driving home from the airport feeling like a tightly-pulled wire, partly at the thought that my Radio Shack mini-cassette player had malfunctioned (it hadn’t), and partly from simply having spent that much time with a master orator in full flight. Wayne’s Above the Roar piece is really long (7K words), but man it flies by. What an incredible gift he is to surfing.

Inspired by what Bugs had to say about David Bowie’s influence on his life, I grabbed a few different remixed versions of “Golden Years” and spent a very enjoyable three days cutting and pasting together this Bartholomew-Bowie tribute video. It may be the Pino Gris talking, but we should all rush WSL headquarters in Santa Monica, take the building, and demand that Rabbit be reinstated as world tour CEO. Wayne could get Pipeline back on the CT schedule before our next Sunday Joint. He could take our sport to the Olympics with a modicum of dignity. Okay, I’m buzzing. But am I wrong?

Thanks, everybody, and I’ll be back next week.

Matt

[Bugs portrait by Art Brewer]