WAIKIKI BEACHBOY by Grady Timmons 1989
required reading for any confusion will be stilled on the topic of what a beach boy is was and the reason why gratitude is not enough…ambrose…please
ambrose,
Is Grady Timmons’ Beachboy out-of-print?
Did you catch the Honolulu Star-Bulletin news last last Sunday about the Oldtime Waikiki Beachboy Celebration this Friday at Duke’s? It’s part of the Converse Hawaiian Open by Longboard Magazine on occasion of Duke Kahanamoku’s 114th birthday. Check it out:
http://starbulletin.com/2004/08/08/news/story7.html
There’s one new Beachboy Stand at Waikiki, just opened a week ago, run by Fletcher Miranda, a longtimer. And Clyde Aikau’s stand has moved toward Diamond Head. Tourists still get their kicks, and newbies like me still learn, somehow, to stand without a push-off. I know Waikiki gets a bad rap from all over, sometimes you can’t see the breaks for the line up, shoulder to shoulder, talk about choke. But it’s the Beachboys who keep it real for me.
Howzit Barbaree, I can’t believe how much money the beach boy’s have to pay for a spot on the beach. Looks like Clyde is paying almost $40,000.00 a month, that’s a lot of lessons and board rentals. Aloha, Kokua
Hi Ambrose,
How are the ‘uninformed’ supposed to read this book if it is out of print? Do you have a copy? If so please make it publicly available, as it is obviously a good idea for us to have access to the ‘required reading’.
Personally, I believe that the following books are recommended reading for beachboys and girls:
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‘Zen and the art of motor cycle maintenance’ by Robert Persig
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‘The world as will and representation’ by Arthur Schopenhauer
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‘The new cold molded boatbuilding book’ by Reuel B Parker
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‘Her Bak, Egyptian Initiate’ by Ischer Schwaller der Lubicz
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‘Sailing to win’ by John Whitmore
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‘The Diary of Mr Bean’ by Rowan Atkinson
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‘the Holy Bible’
Five out of these seven books are currently available
GO TO THE LIBRARY… PERHAPS BUY IT ONLINE AT AMAZON …MAYBE TRY E-BAY…I CANNOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR GETTING YOU THE BOOKS AND AS FAR AS ASSIGNMENT COMPETITION YOU WIN. nat young is not a beach boy nor is David Nuuhiwa.funny you should direct me to fixing a motorcycle and all the other valuable progressive reading list stuff of the 70’s and 80’s when I am only trying to clarify what a Beach Boy really is . It seems the term Beach Boy has been threatened to having its meaning erroded and difused to meaningless drivel .This is a refrence book. come to my house /store if you are nice and wash your hands I might let you read it but I certainly don’t deserve the tone of this response and consider it an afront.bless your knowledge and you simultaneous ignorance perhaps you are insecure about the depth and breadth of your surfing eperience at any rate I believe if you truly persevere you can find this valuable book …I bought one from the publisher the month it was released…i’ll bet you could get one from that blackburn guy that sells surf memorabillia… good luck with your surfing…ambrose…I really mean it
I am curious about how much of the seeming orderliness of the Waikiki line-ups is actually the result of the oldtime Beachboys being out there day after day giving lessons. I suspect that they keep the whole thing together, and keep everybody friendly, too. Anyway, there is something to marvel about. I never ever imagined that I would LIVE in Waikiki, but I am fast falling in love with this place. It’s real different from just visiting, or even coming over to hang out. Thanks, Ambrose, for turning this thread to the living legends. Amazingly the traditions are alive here, and maybe no place else, but a lot of their style goes with surfers worldwide…
wow bar , read your interests on the profile,… canoe stuff is likely to open you up to the baseline thread of where this surfing thing leads into …the canoe …other cross over boating stuff concious misses the sensitivity derived from surfing …like the swimming bottom rung foundation at the shorebreak and progression through the stages, paipo- longest board-ihen small smaller smallest and back to larger and larger until you reach voyaging canoe, breeds a humility and respect that is overlooked by the cross over attitude guys that have an overdeveloped narrow sense of self importance…,this can lead to missing the subtlties of high finesse surfing…the guy I met last saturday is designing a one mn sailing outrigger canoe and wow is he stoked…this is the guy that had quigg build the 40’ catamaran that inspired Cabell’s Hokolea, also built by Joe Quigg. and this guy’s sailpng backround is impressive yet he remains a Real resource seeming unfettered by all that stuff that turns one to less .odd that he was also deeply Influenced by the Waikiki Beach Boys… ambrose…In hawaiian the piko is how you are connected… and a serious connection to the lays about in the heart,of Waikiki… ambrose …and im not being geographial
Question: Why did the Hawaiians stop Voyaging?
Possible Answer: Because they started Surfing.
Reasoning: The Canoe came first. Landing the canoe is the origin of surfing.
One working definition of the so-called First Hawaiians could be they simply were the Pacific Islanders whose canoes travelled the farthest into the wind; they’re the Navigators who made it to this archipelego, instead of stopping short. And they made it back home again (back to Kahiko is “with the wind”) but they also knew how to return here. (Those four Pohaku at Waikiki Police Station, aren’t they some kind of Memorial? Beachboy Stand Mana, indeed!) Or, for that matter, I guess the Hawaiians went just about anywhere and everywhere they wanted to in the Pacific. They could and did sail into the wind!
But then, about 800 years ago (maybe 1,200), they stopped making the Voyages. Their ability to sail did not decline, but their desire to Voyage did. Till eventually, the art of navigating was lost. “Sailing” continued to evolve, but the art-form concentrated on the arrival instead of the destination. Canoe Voyaging BECAME surfing.
Whatta ya tink, ambrose?
Throw in the evolution of Hawaiin Sledding (Holua) and you got something: it’s not the destination anymore, it’s the thrill of the ride.
Tom Pohaku suggests sledding is origin of Hawaiian Surfing, and he may be exactly right. Ever notice how his sleds look like long skinny double hulls?
Surf breaks toward the Island not away from it. No need ever leave the Island except to find them better breaks.
Why does Buffalo include canoes in the Makaha Big Board Classic fest? (Actually, ALL the wave vehicles he can imagine are included, yeah. Like howzabout that Men’s Freestyle Event: is The Dead Coackaroach a compulsory maneuver like the double-jump in Figure Skating? I think so.)
And how cool is it that the Year 2004 “new event” was Beach Boy Style - stand up with paddle? Way cool.
Aside: What’s the relation between snowboarding and longboarding? Same as sledding & canoeing. Why longboard when shortboard’s the thrill? Why canoe when you can ride mountains?
Leap: So, Buffalo Keaulana’s boy, Brian, leaves the handles off a Tow-Surf Rescue Board and voila the Bully-Board is born, one surf vehicle big enough for Bruddah IZ - may he rest in peace, sincerely, God rest his soul)
wow machine gun fire hypothesis…cool reverie …Stone’s sled take is also interesting I’ll have to ruminate a little on these…Im reeling from a go out on the 12’er this morning…1/2 the size of yesterday but a delight …a session with the paddle really takes it out o’ ya …ambrose…reverse historical anaylisis.whoa daddy room for falling into some serious holes in the glacier
14 copies of the book on Amazon used(cheaper than new). An excellent book, we bought ours at the Waikiki Woolworths(RIP)
The perfect counterpoint to Grady Timmons book might be
“The Airconditioned Nightmare” by Henry Miller
An sad scathing view of inauthenticity and materialism in America society.
Rode my 11’ at Cowell’s today, laughed and had fun.
My son saw one of the surfschool teachers on the beach- the teacher said “your Dad sure is having a lot of fun out there”.
Ambrose, how about posting a quote or two from the book, just for those of us who are uninformed? I am interested, really. By the way the book ‘Sailing to win’ is a book about sporting psychology written by a Formula one race car driver!
Regards, Roy
PS Thanks for the invitation to visit, it is really very decent of you, but unfortunately I am not legally at liberty to leave NZ.
Sterling research scolarly Steiny.Simple yet startlingly simple likely to still the stress and strain of the serious sojourner and stimulate stellar strains of melodious enlightenment todays's stimulating song from the past: "relax your mind " by Jim kweskin and the jug band(by no means a representative Beach Boy selection)…all together now …relax your mind …relax your mind …take it easy …talke it in stride …you know you’ ve
got to relax yo mind(though poinient and uplifting in a positive manner)…ambrose…quote:{using divining method} A versitile musician who appeared on Arthur Godfrey’s radio and telivision broadcasts 'Splash sang falsetto and played ukulele…pg.91 A Beachboy Party-Melody and Magic on the Moana Pier
Hi Barbaree,
There are probably a number of reasons for not only Hawaiians, but all polynesians ceasing voyaging. Those reasons run from sociological to environmental causes. Maybe all of polynesia by some coincidence all decided to stop voyaging, or as a well informed American Professor of Chemistry at the Universty of Waikato (NZ) stated in the late seventies, there was a significant environmental change that affected voyagers. By calculating the ratio of Oxygen 18:Oxygen 16 he, and other scientists had been able to create a picture of the average temperatures of the world over hundreds if not thousands of years. Check google on oxygen ratios for the full noise. I am not sure of the details I heard this in 1976, at a guest lecture, but he was confident that a spike took place whereby the Pacific changed from a millpond to a maelstrom. Seems as if the heat pump effect between the equator and the more temperate zones, changed the conditions and his guess was that the traditional canoe technology, lashings, gunwales etc could not survive in the greater Pacific storms. As he said, no culture can continually send out it’s navigators, captains and crews, lose them and continue to retain the knowledge required to get back to the Cook islands, Tahiti or wherever those peoples traditionally voyaged to.
It has only been since the seventies that polynesians have been recreating traditional waka and started relearning the navigational and saling traditions. Maori, here in Aotearoa have lost the sailing skills, these are only promoted by local yacht clubs. My personal thoughts were that it would be great to find plans for sailing single outriggers to enable the ancient sailing skills to be revived. We have waka ama here which are the paddling outrigger canoes, but no sailing ones as yet. if there is a link to plans etc. could you please post it.
Na
Mr T
Mr T…
I think the Micronesians never yet lost the Navigators’ arts. When Nainoa and all finished the Hokulea, they had to find somebody to teach navigation (even though Nainoa’s first impulse to build the canoe came as a pull from sail-by-the-stars navigation). So, a Chuuk-born Micronesian, Mau Piailug, led the way. The Micronesians never stopped sailing, to this day it’s still best way to travel in those parts of the Pacific, I guess.
Check here for leads to Micronesian Canoes:
<a href="http://www.wamprogram.org/projects.htm">www.wamprogram.org/projects.htm</a>
why play mumbly peg when you can work save 'money and go to dizzkneeland?..high mindedness about the collective ‘decision’ to stop voyaging…It was easier to watch some guy with these metal apparatus tell you which way to go and just have fun steering the big BIG sail craft,The ceremony so structured so controled and restricted was no fun and the other stuff over the fence was real shiny and new…any shortcomings in the euro system could be subtroverted without drawing attention .conscription of polynesian sailors/surfers was common as with others conscripted by the english navy,one of the sore spots wih the colonists I miht add.Any good captain knows what a good sailor is and recruits the best avaiable Helmsman as well as all other posts were filled quickly after Euros JUMPED SHIP these sailors alone could decimate the voyaging sailor pool availiable for traditional polynesian voyaging venues …went surfing?.. nice thought but the apparent slack laid back lifestyle of the polynesians/ hawaiians is a myth.The fact that the brits and euros work latitude lent their internal cronometers to work the middle of the day and the topical lattitude islanders mid day resting.the euros diluded themselves into believing the kanaka were lazy were non productive to serve their hidden agendas of "helping ’ to up lift these alternative cultures to a more productive state was a front for the eventual exploitation of natural resources for a profit in europe and introducing trade goods into the local economies that had contented themselves with inter-island trade for centuries… hawaiians work very hard Maori work very hard all polynesian archipeligos have harsh conditions on occasion ,post hurricane trauma drove survivors to voyage or starve and or be enslaved in order to eat.
The collapse of the Kauai Island infrastructure was a blow to our entire daily life but the conviences were nothing compared with the fact that there were NO LEAVES LEFT ON ANY TREES no lettuce no papayas coconuts all over the ground is great for three days but when they are a fortnight old they are sour and ugly .The introduction of storeable food stuffs also eliminated the need to voyage...ambrose...just a few thoughts
Question One: Why did the Hawaiians stop Voyaging?
(As if there is one or any answer, yeah?)
Ridiculous idea, of course: Hawaiians stopped Voyaging so they could Surf?! But there is some ring of possibility in that. Self-sufficiency of the Hawaiian chain is partial explanation.
Question Two (a bigger question): Why did the Polynesians start Voyaging?
Lots of good answers: from finding food, shelter, safety after Typhoon wipeout, to the need to know where those streams of land-birds are flying in from (guess they never did retrace kolea - golden plover - all the way back to nesting-grounds in Arctic Circle, but I bet they tried). Sometimes, maybe often, whole villages had to evacuate atolls, with hope for return after reasons subside.
These ponderings always lead me to deeper respect for those advanced Island civilizations, and tossing around possible explanations almost always hooks me up with some pretty interesting folks.
Swalocks got me to thinking about board shapes and rock-sleds… nice little leap. Guess it’s one ocean, many dots, lines of wave-, wind-, current-, swell-, civilization-connected.
Grady Timmons alive and well…
The author is presenting a slide show tomorrow (Sat, Aug 21, 10am) at Waikiki Moana Surfrider on Duke Paoa Kahanamoku as part of the weekend festivities celebrating The Duke’s birthday (including the Converse Hawaiian Open Longboard Competition, Longboard Magazine). Hawaiian Longboard Federation is also displaying a collection of Tom Pohaku’s historic reproductions of wooden boards at Outrigger Waikiki.
ask him if we get a sequel or a prequel? Histericly yours…ambrose…another cultural orphan in quest of an alternative serrogate history…p.s. oh yea how bout pictures of Chuck Yara…
so how was it? didja make it?..ambrose…makes me wanna look up grady on google
Missed Grady Timmons last Saturday, change of schedule & I had a church meeting (happens a lot). But I found his EMail (works at The Nature Conservancy) and he wrote back immediately with this information about possible reprint of Waikiki Beachboy:
"As to your… question, my publisher has indicated he he wants to republish my book but he hasn’t given me a time frame yet. The book will be updated only to correct typos and factual errors but not to bring it up to date. It’s a period piece, primarily from 1900 to statehood.
However, I am in contact with a documentary film producer from Los Angeles who is currently working on a film on the beachboys, and he does plan to include the modern era. That project is just beginning so it could be a while before it’s completed.
Thanks again for your interest,
Best, Grady"
And, I was able to order a used copy through Amazon ($22 for one shipped from Hawaii). So, thanks, Ambrose, for the tip!