Selected Works of Nonfiction
Pat Malo in a drainer.
USA Bodysurfing Contest Ignites Olympic Dreams at Steamer Lane
Good Times Weekly, April 4, 2023
“The salty old-timer remembers when all surfers were bodysurfers. Before leashes transformed surfboards into flotation devices. Before the crowds and the bad vibes and the meth-addled surf tribes. Before the creation of the surf industry and the contests designed to move surf-industry products. Before, even, the bodysurfer’s curse faded from memory.”
The Life and Art of Santa Cruz Iconoclast Casey Sonnabend
Good Times Weekly, April 12, 2022
“Casey Sonnabend’s name might sound familiar. You’ve seen his work. He might even be a genuinely important American artist. Yet, outside of certain lofty circles, he’s totally unknown. And that’s by design. Like a prankster bullfighter, the longtime Santa Cruz resident has dramatically sidestepped success for 65 years. And in a world where metrics are tied to everything, the 88-year-old still refuses to be counted or labeled.”
Casey Sonnabend.
Photo: SLV Steve/Steve Kuehl
Anxiety, Courage and Adrenaline Inside Firefighter Academy
Good Times Weekly, January 18, 2022
In the wake of the 2020 CZU August Lightning Complex Fire, which destroyed 1,490 structures, consumed 86,509 acres and killed one civilian, Lompico resident Ryan Masters volunteered to be a firefighter for the Zayante Fire Protection District. Expecting to “maybe help clear brush or something,” the 48-year-old writer was instead enrolled in a five-month paramilitary boot camp—the 2021 Santa Cruz County Fire Fighter Academy.
TSJ 26-5
Skin of the Ocean: Notes from tHe 2017 Pipeline Bodysurfing Contest
The Surfers Journal, 26-5
“Roughly 700 voluntary muscles are attached to the bones of the human skeletal system, like the rigging of some wildly complex sailboat. Consequently, bodysurfers don’t ride waves so much as captain flesh and bone. After he won the 2017 Pipeline Bodysurfing Contest in perfect head-to-overhead conditions, Mike Stewart was asked why he devoted so much time to such a practice. He thought for a moment then replied, “Because you are the planing surface. It’s up to you to create the shape.”
What Lies Beneath: Bodysurfing in the key of Heavy
The Surfers Journal, 26-5
“I have seven freshly broken ribs, a broken scapula, a punctured lung and a small fracture in my neck. I am deep beneath the surface, wallowing in The Cauldron, a chunk of dark, pitted reef associated with the wave called Maverick’s. I am in shock. My brain wheezes in my skull like a deformed bubble of air—one last, tenuous grasp of consciousness to get me back to the surface.”
