The Ben From Brazil

Latest Update: October 14, 2006

By Ben Marcus

14:28 RIO TIME SATURDAY OCTOBER 14, 2006 RUBRO CAFÉ BARRA DESIGN MALL

I went surfing, sort of. Woke up this morning and jumped in the car with Rodrigo Monarch who lives in Ipanema and collects surfboards from mid-sixties to mid-seventies. We put three boards on the car and headed south, I think all along Barra Beach which is like 18 kilometers long. It’s a nice beach with a lagoon on the other side of the road. Rio is pretty spread out when it wants to be. The beach is nice and there are little kiosks every couple hundred yards and there are a zillion surfers, everywhere.

Prainhia means “little beach” and it reminds me of Waimea Bay. The road comes down and there is a park backed by big jungly cliffs. There are showers and its all pretty nice.

Rosaldo had an 8’ 2” gun which I knew wasn’t going to be enough but there was a hippie guy there who rented boards. He had lived in Santa Cruz in the 90s and apparently tried to paint his house Brazilian colors and they kicked him out. I gave him a copy of WET and gave DVD and copies of WET to other people so they will speak well of me.

I rented a previously broken longboard for R$40 and paddled out up the middle, in the channel. The board paddled okay but still felt small, but anything is going to feel small compared to that 10’ 6” tanker of mine.

The surf was kind of high tide beach break and there were a lot of people in the water so I just stayed out of harm’s way and paddled around and came in. I talked with one guy who is interested in surf history and talked to the hippie guy and then Rodrigo and Roslado came in and now we are at the mall.

Apparently I am going to be on Brazilian TV again and tomorrow someone from Brazilian Elle is going to talk to me.

Just got an email from Geology Judith, a woman who bodysurfs Ocean Beach.

Bom Dia back at you both!  what are you doing in Brazil, in a shopping mall?

Judith

Apparently Matt Warshaw introduced her to Rosaldo when he was there and they know each other. I emailed her hello from Rosaldo and she emailed back, so I sent this:

Judith
   I am down here some kind of surfing cultural arts festival thing that Rosaldo is involved in. i am going to give a talk about How the World Changed Surfing and How Surfing Changed the World.

   Rio is nice. There is a very long beach here with a ton of beachbreaks where a woman bodysurfer would feel right at home.

    Rosaldo says hello.

    We are at the shopping mall again.

     See attached for yesterday's adventure.

     Ben

This morning as we were getting packed for the surf, I sent this email to Kelly Slater.

Subject: congratulatiorians and 10% to shaun

   Champ

  From Brazil, Rosaldo Cavalcanti says congratulations on #8. 
 
  And I agree. 
 
  I am here for some surf culture festival. 
 
  Brazil is nice. Ever been to Porcao? 
 
    I brought Rosaldo a copy of Bootleg XXX - which he already knows word
for word, song by song, turn to turn. 
 
    Watching it we both agree that Shaun Tomson was thoroughly modern
then, 30 years ahead of his time. 
 
    We also thought that it might be nice if you gave Shaun 10% of
everything you earn, because, well, you know. 
 
  Ben 

What I meant by that is there is a lot of Shaun Tomson in Kelly’s style, on land and in the water.

Last night I bought Rosaldo a DVD player for his birthday and we managed to hook it up despite substances and watched a copy of one of the bootleg movies. Rosaldo knew it chapter and verse but this was a really clean copy of the movie because I had dubbed it from the Beta, and Rosaldo said it was his best birthday present.

Rosaldo’s Internet was down last night so I fell asleep watching CNN World and BBC World.

A TV crew just showed up so it looks like I am going to be on again. I brought my Armani jacket and keep scoring points with it because the Brazilians all like the cut.

I just picked it off the rack when I first got to LA so I would have something nice to wear when I sat at the Viceroy and worked.

Tomorrow we are going to be a big soccer game, Flamenco against a team from Sao Paulo, so that will be fun.

I am videoing all this and might have Robert cut something together to Seu Jorge or something. Video cameras are kind of limited but we shall see what I come up with.

I just had a smoked salmon sandwich with lettuce and a café mokka and it was nice. Now we are arguing over which movie had the best soundtrack: Five Summer Stories or Bootleg X

Rosaldo said we have to get out of here quick because his wife made a nice big cod for dinner and if we are late, we are dead.

Okay caught up with the blog for now. On Sunday I might drive around.

13:38 SHOPPING MALL

Rico de Souza is here, an old friend of Jeff Divine’s and Art Brewers who traveled with them in the 70s. Nice guy. I am glad I copied all those DVD because there are a lot of guys from the 60s and 70s around, the guys who were all kind of Brazilian pioneers to Hawaii and Pipe and all that.

They are nice people. Brazilians have European manners and it’s nice.

They are all getting excited about this speech I am supposed to give on Monday.

I ain’t sweating it at all because I have so much surf history in my head you could show me a photo of Edith Piaf or Chairman Mao and I would be able to tie it to surf history.
 

20:44 SATURDAY THE 14TH OF OCTOBER, 2006            

Back at the mall, talking to R. He is a publisher here in Brazil and wants to get into books and other things to feed this growing market of surfers in Brazil and South America which seems to be booming to me. I saw hundreds of surfers, just today, just on one 20-mile stretch of coast outside of Rio. Rosaldo and Rodrigo say that all of Brazil and all of South America is like that.

We talked about translating existing books into Porkandcheese: Surfing and the Meaning of Life, the History of the Surfboard book.

I am at the mall to test the audio visual system for the presentation I am supposed to give on Monday. The theme is How Surfing Changed the World, and How the World Changed surfing. I was going to do it as a Powerpoint using all the photos I have collected on my computer for the various books I have done.

But I don’t have PowerPoint software so I am going to show Surfando Antes Dos Anos 50 and talk in between and over that.

R wants me to do it more ambitiously in Sao Paulo, because they are going to be at a museum there. And I could do that. If I take all the historic footage I have now and the bootlegs and photos and music I could cut together a pretty good multi-media presentation that I could never show in America because of rights, but I could get away with it down here.

It would be fun actually, to do a complete history of surfing as an audio visual presentation. I don’t know if I will be able to do it in the time I will have after I get back and when I have to return to Sao Paulo, but it could be worth a go and it could apply elsewhere.

R is back. Time to talk some more and send this.

Oh after leaving the mall this afternoon we went to Rosaldo’s and had a really nice cod dish his wife Carol prepared. Then I crashed out and worked a bit.

Tomorrow we are going to a futbol game and I think I am going to spend one day with Rodrigo around Ipanema.

And then home