Life of Brine by Phil Jarratt

Author:Phil Jarratt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Hardie Grant
Published: 2017-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

When I first started reading Surfer magazine in the mid-’60s, my favourite features were always the road trips undertaken by cartoonist Rick Griffin and photographer Ron Stoner, related as a series of increasingly desperate telegrams between the travellers and their long-suffering boss back at the office, editor Patrick McNulty. I could see the same dynamic developing between Pithers, Cooney and myself, except that I had no intention of staying in the office and missing all the fun. Realising that the blue FJ didn’t have many miles left in it, Albe Falzon had allowed me to spend $1000 on a company car. I’d bought a near-new, ex-Fire Brigade shiny red Holden station wagon. The first road trip for the Tracks fire truck was the 1975 Rip Curl Bells Beach Pro.

We took off for Bells in the afternoon and drove through the night, one sleeping in the back, one driving and one opening the beers and lighting the ciggies and joints. We listened to the new ABC rock radio station, 2JJ, at full volume, which killed any hope of conversation, so I didn’t share the news that Tony Edwards and I had just signed on to present the new station’s morning surf report, me playing straight man to Tony’s Captain Goodvibes persona. Frank already thought I was a wanker; this news would only have confirmed his view.

Steve Cooney and I had already become friends, but when Frank was around, Cooney became a ‘Mini Me’, laughing at Frank’s jokes (which were usually pretty funny) and taking his side against mine. When we arrived at our Torquay rental house, Frank took the best bedroom and spread his shit liberally around the place, camera bags and tripods in doorways. His rationale for claiming alpha male status was that he’d been at the magazine the longest. My rationale for equal billing was that I was the fucking editor! There were going to be tears.

The waves were good at Bells that year, and although I was outclassed by almost everyone in the water, I paddled out with Cooney and enjoyed some good sessions at Winki Pop, the fast, steep right-hander down the line from the Bells bowl. Frank never surfed with us. Although he would paddle out on a canvas surf mat to take photos in any conditions, he seemed to think normal surfing was beneath him.

We were clearly heading for a dust-up. If I asked him to take a portrait shot of a particular surfer or a mood shot for something I was writing, he would snarl at me as though this was a calculated insult. One morning on the Bells cliff-top I retaliated with an angry, ‘I’m not asking you, I’m telling you!’

He nodded a couple of times, placed his camera gear on the ground slowly and deliberately, then turned around and took a swing at me. At school an older but smaller guy called Roy Norris had taken a set against me, and used to lie in wait outside Darrell Eastlake’s surf shop. He was angry and he was quick, but he never laid a fist on me because I was quicker.

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