i am in the middle of cleaning and cleaning my house. throwing away so many things because i realize that i don’t need much anymore. kind of a good feeling throwing things away, even the memories. hard to get rid of, but it will always be an image in my mind. there were 2 cover shots that had a big impact on my career. thought i’d take a photo before putting them in the trash.
in 1993, i was a nobody in japan. i didn’t know too many people, and nobody knew me. i’d pull up to heavy localized surf spots and get harassed all the time. but i didn’t give up trying to surf some of the best waves in japan. i kept on going back and going back until i was accepted. this one particular day on July 26, 1993, i pulled up to this spot. there was a huge typhoon right outside of the bay, it was raining, stormy, huge, dangerous, and nobody out. that’s exactly what i lived for. i paddled out and caught one of the greatest waves of my life. the rest is history. when this cover shot on Surfing Life came out, my surfing career started. nobody could pronounce or spell my name but i didn’t care. it was my first mark in japan and the start of my japanese surfing career. thank you Fujisawa-san for standing in the rain to take these photos, and thank you to Surfing Life for giving this foreigner a chance.
another big impact on my life was this. i was called to do a modeling job. i wasn’t a model to begin with and i had no idea what i was getting myself into. we shot around the whole island with photographers, coordinators, reflectors, stylists, make up artists, and many staff from japan. it was pretty embarrassing as a lot of my friends seen me that day. i felt like an idiot standing by these 2 beautiful girls. Malia Jones is a super famous model, and so was Kumiko. i was so nervous and felt foolish, but when i got my paycheck at the end of the day, i was a happy man. stand between 2 beautiful girls all day long and get paid? are you serious? thank you Manabu Nomoto for taking the photos, and thank you to SOS Street magazine for using such an amateur.
and because of all the media in japan these past 24 years, i can live out my dream of being a surfer! thank you to all of you who supported me throughout the years. mahalo from hawaii!
