Tom Curren and the Gonz are on the same trip

[Spent]

Total oddballs. Idiot savants? Probably incapable of functioning in society if they weren't masters of their craft. Likely on the autistic spectrum. Watching them age is amazing and keeps me jazzed (I never use the word 'Jazzed') They've done it all and so now its weird boards and strange fashion choices. I don't know if the modern era could really birth a genuine TC or Gonz. So thankful these were the two that inspired my generation.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcIF0Wgcd8c TC on a modified skimboard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbD9ga3fbDA Gonz getting arty

[Spent]

TC at his best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ri5urWCwWM

Gonz at his best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gizM-PuVnY0

[smithgrind]

Stay jazzed, mi hermano. It’s one thing we can hold on to on our own terms.

[smithgrind]

Gonz on a surfboard would be more strange than Curren on a skateboard, I think...

[Spent]

[Major Lazer]

Thank god Gonz dont surf. Legit.

[Spent]

He does now. And he kick flips bicycles. The medium is almost irrelevant. Paint brush, pen, skateboard or bike. Gonz is onto something deeper.

[Major Lazer]

Bummer.

[Howly Wolf]

Zzz

[Major Lazer]

I think they are both at the point where they are not going to learn to many new tricks and obv not going to be able to keep up with the current progression, so why not have fun and get weird given they can afford to. Gonz is getting paid by Adidas and Super now apparently which is great. I mean how many long right hand point waves has Curren surfed in his life. Why not surf a modified skimboard to make things more interesting.

Foulweather spotting at the 2.56 mark in the Gonz vid?

[Spent]

I wish. I saw Gonz once.... It was one of my greatest skate days ever. I was jamming around Manhattan and ended up at the Brooklyn Banks to see Gonz trying Body Varial wall rides to fakie on the pillar. Unreal. I went to take his photo but I got a little nervous..... There's more to that story but yeah, not me...

[Spent]

If I remember correctly, Gonz kind of disappeared in the 90's? He was always in the background, but there wasn't much new footage floating around, if any, and you couldn't just google his video parts. The first time I saw him skate was uncredited footage of that famous b/s boardlide along that massive flat rail and then down the kink. Don't know how, but in that moment I knew it was the Gonz. It was the style, the feel, the moment (and prob the footage quality too)-- just recognized the soul of skateboarding incarnate...

yeah he moved to Paris in the 90s and went under the radar for a bit. but his come back was pretty special. I think that rail is Video Days, as posted above. As a kid I was not really a Gonz fan but by the mid-90s I realized who necessary he was ....

Always loved this clip. Gonz is basically an old school clown... like NYC should pay him to just roam the streets of NYC as a performance artist....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=020-mq4QvDc

Here's 90s Gonz doing everything the way you wanted to do it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozwYf4AdhI8

[Spent]

Back to TC

Jbay, Sabbath, perfection. Curren doesn't looked to get tubed. Tubes look for Curren to break over.


https://vimeo.com/103559900

[Howly Wolf]

Zzz

[Spent]

TC is surfings GOAT IMO.

At his peak he went AWOL and essentially gave up contests and forgo logos on his boards. Seeking out obscure waves. There are also many stories of waves seeking out to be ridden by Tom Curren not the other way around.

He really helped usher in more sensible board shapes in the 90s also. When everyone was trying to grovel on 6'1" x17" rocketed out glass slippers, TC was rediscovering the fish.

But for me, its the way he links turns. No one links turns in such a fluid way as Curren. Before or since.

https://vimeo.com/26300820 Surfing a twin keel, way before the interest in retro boards reemerged.

I liken him to Gonz, like I said in the first post, because it seems they both would be incapable of functioning in the modern world without their chosen craft. They can't communicate with words. They communicate with their surfing/ skateboarding and they've communicated more than their peers through their chosen medium. Genius, basically. There's more than a little magic going on.

https://www.surfer.com/features/mythology-tom-curren/ Pretty rad collection of Curren anecdotes.