Searching for Tom Curren (1997)

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When I was 13, my family moved from New Orleans, Louisiana to Huntington Beach, California. I’d never lived in a surf city before, let alone THE surf city. When I got to Huntington during the summer of ’84, the OP Pro surfing competition was at its apex of splendor and every local’s favorite was undoubtedly Tom Curren.

In the face of the plastic 80’s, California’s Tom Curren presented himself as an iconoclast soul surfer and did it very well, enough to win World Championships and universal respect. Searching for Tom Curren weaves introspective interview outtakes within a 35-minute web of Curren brilliantly surfing remote breaks across the globe. The video does a superb job capturing Curren’s cosmic cool, that balanced mixture of laid-back intensity that feeds Curren’s natural charm.

Maybe you’ve got to be a surfing nut to really enjoy this video. Then again, there’s a beauty to there being not just one but two Galaxy 500 songs on its soundtrack. But really, the way that Curren so effortlessly carves waves, building incredible speed then stopping on a pivot to reposition his board, then building speed again, transcends mere sport into the realm of advanced artistic expression. Yes, I realize that sounds mad corny…but I swear the rides speak for themselves.