“Stay cool. Take care of your brother. Leave the localism scene behind and expand! At the end of the day, surfing is supposed to be fun. That’s all.”
Does anyone out there remember Joey Buran? The California Kid hopped over a wave wall like a Mexican jumping bean on a betel nut. He had a shape for threading pipes that was not to be trifled with.
Joey is the 1984 Pipe Master – one of only two Californians to wear that badge, the other being Machado. He is also a former world number seven, ranking ahead of Curren in 1983.
Joey’s book “Beyond the Dream” will be published in early September.
It’s equal parts blunt confession, ambition and heartache, all told from the perspective of Peter Pan and Mad Magazine. There’s a benevolent simplicity to Joey’s memoir. He makes little distinction between reader and writer, no underlined declaration that he won the Pipe trophy and you didn’t, as if we could lift the trophy ourselves if we surfed as diligently as he did.
His book contains valuable treasures, such as the day he won Pipeline.
He spent his short life determined and obsessed with winning. On the day off, a strong field of surf gods was in the water: Carroll (Tom, not Nick), Occy, Derek Ho and Rabbit Bartholomew were all in the final. Few gave Joey even the slightest chance of winning.
The skies were ominous grey with north-facing final sets and liquid guillotines decapitating masters. Joey’s patience and experience brought out the fickle west-facing smaller insiders. He was as surprised as the others when the final results were called over the beachfront speakers. He describes his jubilation and sense of accomplishment.
But he also describes feelings of emptiness and listlessness when he held his trophy in his hands for only a few minutes and was then confronted with the question: “What now?”
In a revenge scene by Beowulf’s mother Grendel, he tells of the day he went to cash his check for winning the 1978 Cali Pro and the $3,000 check bounced. The event’s sponsor ran off with the money. Joey’s mom tracked the guy down and forced him to pay for her baby in shameful installments.
He tells how he founded and ran the Professional Surfing Association of America. This was the country’s first national professional tour, which he considered his first failure as he was unable to attract the sponsors he wanted. Running the tour led to an “emotional breakdown” and left Joey alone in his dreary, dimly lit studio apartment on the outskirts of LA.
One night he sat alone and washed down a whole bottle of paracetamol with a shot of alcohol. It was his first and last suicide attempt. His sister visited him in hospital and suggested that he might want to meet her at church when he was better.
He did it.
And the rest, as they say at BeachGrit, is history. Joey now inspires others through his teachings about Jay-Z Christ.
Wanting to know more and interested in the details, I spoke to Joey on the phone from a fifth-floor apartment on the Upper West Side while he was in Carlsbad preparing for a late Saturday sermon.
His voice is captivating and tangible.
I hope we can connect with our shared Catholic faith, but am quickly turned away when the rooster crows three times. Joey speculates on why he turned away from the ancient Romans: “It felt like Jesus was out of reach in a stained glass window.”
We talk about the day at Pipeline.
“OK, so, you know there are these basketball courts in NYC where the real ballers play, the semi-pros? The guys who got injured or lost their scholarships? (The ones with the spectators crowded around the fence, poking and grabbing at holes with their fingers). You don’t just WALK on that court and start playing. You have to EARN that court. You have to play on those obscure courts. The ones with shards of broken beer bottles and rims with no nets. With guys who shrug their elbows for no reason. THEN you get to graduate after putting in your time….. Well, that’s Pipeline.
“I was out there on the days when few people bothered because they thought it wasn’t worth it. Those big, close north wave days. I didn’t care. I was out there. I remember one day like that. Tommy Carroll came up to me on the beach and said, ‘Man, you’re crazy.’ But I didn’t care. I wanted to be out there. I wanted to win this event no matter what. After all that time in the water on those bad days, I felt like I had a cheat code, like I knew things they didn’t. And in the end, I knew that wave. And it helped me win the contest that day.”
After reading the book, I feel like it was more than just his skills that got him through.
“Yes, I had talent, just like everyone else. But it was more grit, raw determination and laser focus. And if I was out there with you, you better show it.”
We talk about his decision to give up surfing and his move to JC.
“You know, in surfing, I was always looking for validation, a trophy, a competition win, a ranking. And once you got it, you moved on to the next thing. Always behind. I recently started taking Spanish classes. I got my certificate. But you never stop learning Spanish. That’s what it is like when you serve Christ. You never stop. And you fail and you succeed every day. But you keep trying and you strive and you get better with the failures and the successes. I try every day to inspire people to get better through Christ. That’s what I’m trying to do with the book.”
He tells me.
“The other day I went to my wife. I asked her, ‘Can I wash your feet like Jesus washed his disciples’ feet?’ Her answer: ‘Why don’t you try washing the dishes first?'”
And this is from an old interview with Fred Van Dyke and I think it’s pretty insightful about the kind of guy Joey Buran is.
“Stay cool. Take care of your brother. Leave the localism scene behind and expand! At the end of the day, surfing is supposed to be fun. That’s all.”