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South Bay Author Unveils Surfing's Global Reach

Michael Scott Moore talks about his quest to follow the roots of surf culture around the world, chronicled in his new book "Sweetness and Blood."

The surfing term a "wave of consequence" describes a life-threatening wave. The bold few that dare to chase these liquid giants come to find that whether or not their day in the water is a success or failure, this kind of wave will change them forever. 

South Bay native and author Michael Scott Moore found his own wave of consequence while living in Germany. This wave led him on a journey around the globe in search of answers to surfing's origins, visiting countries most would consider strange to possess a surf scene. 

Moore traveled from Cuba to Gaza to Japan, chronicling the adventurous travels in his book, Sweetness and BloodHow surfing spread from Hawaii and California to the rest of the world with some unexpected results.

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In an exclusive interview, Moore spoke with Patch about the book's conception, his memories of surfing locally, and how he came to possess what is most likely the only hand-carved African surfboard on the European continent. 

Patch: Could you elaborate on how "Sweetness and Blood" came to be?

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Michael Scott Moore: I never really had it in mind to write a surf book … It came about while I was living in Germany without knowing there was any kind of surfing culture, [and] somebody told me about surfing in Munich... I went down and checked it out, and I was surprised to find out how serious they were, and I mean they were good. And I realized there was a history to the surf culture in Germany.

I also realized there was an interesting story about how it was started, it was not completely unlike how it was started in California with George Freeth coming out of Hawaii. So I looked into it [and] I realized there was a travel book that could be written.   

Patch: You spotlight the South Bay in your opening chapter. Were you aware of the deep surfing roots in the beach cities from living here? Or did you learn through research and interviews?

Moore: I was aware of George Freeth … Body Glove and Dale Velzy and Mike Purpus told me a great deal. I learned a lot through basic research, and after talking to Mike I deliberately cast that history chapter as South Bay centric. 

In the case of the South Bay, and America in general, I learned, only after looking into it deeply, how much influence both had. What really surprised me when I first started thinking about the book was to learn that modern surfing is an American invention. 

Not entirely, you can't be cut and dry about it, but the extent to which that's true is true enough that you can build a book around it … The whole story is that Los Angeles in the 1940s and '50s was a tinkerer's town.

It was a manufacturing city. There was so much aerospace there that a lot of hobbyists wanted to experiment with forming these boards that would work well in the water. That's the story in a nutshell, and that's the part I wasn't entirely aware of when I started the book.

Patch: Any special memories of surfing in the South Bay?

Moore: One year, in where you crest the hill at Gould Avenue in Hermosa, the waves looked pretty prominent and big. I thought, "Gosh I have never seen them that big, but they look pretty nice." There was one other person in the water and he said, "Do you know what you are doing?" 

I was about 18 years old, and I was like, "No." I didn't tell him, but the answer was no. Those were 15-foot waves. That was such a big day that nobody else in the South Bay was out. 

Patch: What's your favorite surf spot in the South Bay?

Moore: The Manhattan Pier. My friend lived on 26th Street, so we went there; the waves are serious. That's the most fun.

Patch: For most of your book you rarely make note of the actual waves surfed, just the culture. Was this on purpose or were the waves you encountered simply underwhelming?

Moore: That was actually on purpose; I didn't want to bore people with just a description of surfing over and over. In the meantime, somebody actually complained about that in The Economist

I didn't want to write the typical surf book that went on and on about how the nice waves were or how flat the waves were … I deliberately sought out to not give a surfer's description of what the waves were like. It's certainly not supposed to be a surfing guide.  

Patch: Now as you ventured outside of California, how did you go about picking which countries you would travel to?

Moore: How surfing arrived there had to be interesting; otherwise I wasn't going to spend time in the country because there wasn't any historical material to deal with.  I would have loved to go to China or India, but the stories in those cases weren't really interesting. 

In China, a pro surfer went there in order to surf China, and that was inherently not interesting because it didn't tell anything about the natural progression of surfing or western pop culture. 

Once I found a country with a big story then I thought, well is there a real surf scene? Are there surfers that you can talk to? Or, are they basically tourists that are going there renting a board on the beach because it's going to be good? And that was kind of the case in India, so I had to drop India from the list. 

I had France on the list, but then the more time I spent in Europe, I realized, everybody knows about France. For the same reasons, I didn't write about Australia or Mexico.

Patch: In England you traveled to Cornwall and surfed the Severn River on what is known as a tidal bore. Can you speak about what surfing that wave was like?

Moore: That was terrific fun, and what surprised me about the Severn bore wave was, the first [thing] you think is, here comes the wave, I'll ride it for a little while and then catch it again. It's not very difficult to ride. It doesn't go fast and the river is broad so you can get on it anywhere.   

I figured I would get a nice long ride, but I fell off and thought, "Oh well, that's the last wave that's going to come through here for 12 hours." 

I got out and realized that all of the other people who fell off were getting in their cars to get ahead of [the wave]. You can actually drive along the Severn River faster than the wave goes along. So I got in my car and drove downriver and caught the wave again.

Patch: You traveled to some remote locations all over the world; did you ever get burned out during your quest?

Moore: Well, it wasn't fun all of the time. It was actually quite a bit of work. It was also not glamorous travel because it was surf travel and was traveling like a bum. But the worst part, and this was strange, was every time I set out to go someplace I had serious depression and it wasn't clear why. At times I thought [that] I'm not prepared to write about this place, I don't know what I'm doing, or I wouldn't be going to this place if not for the book and what the hell am I getting myself into? [But] that went away after a day. Once I was there, all the nerves were silent. 

Patch: Were there any trips that you particularly enjoyed?

Moore: I'd like to go back to Indonesia because it's so far away. The first trip I took was there and I found it to be so interesting. 

Patch: While in Sao Tome, Africa you traded your modern shortboard to a local boy for his hand-carved African "tabua." Do you still have the board?

Moore: I have it hanging in my apartment. I might have the only hand-carved African surfboard in the continent of Europe.

Patch: Were there any stories that didn't make the book?

There is one story I dropped out about Morocco. It was interesting to write about, but in the end it didn't make the book. It was [about] one of the best spots I found in Morocco, but you had to climb down a cliff [to get there], and I really got lost. I finally made it down and I had an hour to myself with some great surf in a really beautiful location. 

Patch: Along with that story, you didn't mention sharks in the book. How did you manage to avoid the topic of sharks in a surf book? 

Moore: I didn't see any sharks in my travels, but I was absolutely ready to write about sharks. I thought about writing about sharks the way Bill Bryson writes about bears in A Walk in the Woods. Sharks are a great topic for me, but I have a love-hate relationship with them. I think they are completely terrifying.  

Patch: Are there any remote locations left in the world for surfing to reach?

Moore: The Indian Ocean is probably loaded with beaches that haven't been surfed yet, and the Indian Ocean gets terrific waves. 

The last frontier is obviously Somalia. It has one of the longest coastlines in the African continent and almost certainly has good waves. It's just a matter of having to contend with pirates. 

Patch: In the book's beginning, you described discovering the surf culture in Munich in the following way: "Finding this scene made me wonder whether the migration of surfing from the Pacific to the four corners of the earth is good or bad."  Upon the books completion did you get your answer?

Moore: It's a mixed legacy, which is the meaning of the title. I still don't think it's an entirely good thing, but it's also not as bad as I thought. Some of the values that it carries with it, aside from all of the pop nonsense, include independence and looking out for yourself. That was very surprising that those things turned out to be universal.

 Moore will be signing copies of his book "Sweetness and Blood" at the Borders bookstore in Torrance at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 28.

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