Riding Giants
Riding Giants is the movie to see when u are spending the last few weeks of summer at a beach. The movie is the history of riding big waves. All the top surfers from the 50’s thru today. As each generation passes, every wave gets bigger as each generation seeks out the next big challenge.
The movie actually made me think about the Olympics. I grew up watching Marc Spitz and Olga Korbut and thought those achievements were beyond incredible. Now, the athletes performing today are doing stunts that were not even conveivable at that time.
The other surfer film, which we saw last summer, was Step Into Liquid. I actually preferred this film. U got to see surfers from all over the world with just an incredible passion for the sport.
One thing that I found missing from the Riding Giants or at least the questions that I had when leaving is what are these surfers doing today? The passion of these men and women are incredible. Each of put themselves in situations that are so dangerous yet exhilerating at the same time. Their passion about the sport, their personal focus and love for the sport is intoxicating. It is an impressive group. As always, the cream has risen to the top. What do these people do for income, are they married, do they have kids that they are teaching the same sort of passion to, how often do they still surf? To have that type of faith in yourself to go out and ride waves like that is so incredible that I am interested in how that drive shows up in another parts of their life.
Maybe I am the only person that feels that way, but I would love to get a book on the surfers that tell their whole life story.
Comments (Archived):
You should check out “Dogtown and Z-Boys” iF you haven’t. A great documentary about the surf/skateboard scene in Venice Beach in the seventies.
You should check out “Dogtown and Z-Boys” iF you haven’t. A great documentary about the surf/skateboard scene in Venice Beach in the seventies.
Joanne, hey — it’s McCorm.
Not up in NYC this week. Doing my thing from down here at the House, which is cool because it means I can get on the river and boat. Haven’t seen Riding Giants, but jut saw Step Into Liquid and LUVED it. To answer your “where are they now” question about the Riding Giants dudes, they’re probably out there still doing their old school thing and proably they’re shaking their heads at how easy today’s youngin’s have it and how they absolutely don’t appreciate what it was like back in the day. But even that doesn’t matter to them because old school surfers, like old school boaters, know that you may not be able to teach and old dog new tricks, but when the old dog is a big dog, he doesn’t need to learn new tricks.
OSBC
McCorm