Did Psychedelics Enhance Outdoor Adventure? Jock Sutherland Has Unfinished Business at 77

Ageless Athlete - Jock Sutherland
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[00:00:00] 

Kush: jock, and I always like to start with this question, which is, where are you right now and what did you have for breakfast this morning?

Well, 

Jock: what did I have for breakfast? Not too much, but I had enough, uh, a friend of mine who was raised in Japan, he is Armenian and his father was head of the Associated Press in Moscow. his wife made a wonderful, here's my breakfast.

So she, Ko Soan made a wonder.

She's a, she's a wonderful cook and she makes, um, a wonderful big bread, very dense, but not too, too dense. it's a sourdough loaf with, uh, goji berries and, walnuts in there. So it's a goji berry, walnut sourdough toast that I, I cut up into a thick slice and I had my friends marmalade and she lives down the street.

. She used to write for the. Vogue, the English, uh, [00:01:00] version of, of Vogue. Her name is Lady Catherine St. Germaine. And her, her husband was a, a Lord of Parliament, I gave her some sour oranges and so she made a wonderful marmalade. So I have my ACOs, uh, cogi berry walnut sourdough toast with, some nice, grassfed butter and some, some of lady Catherine's Marmite.

So I have ACOs bread with Lady Catherine's Marmite that 

Kush: sounds 

Jock: very substantial, but that 

Kush: sounds delicious. Sounds like you are properly, uh, fortified Well for this conversation. And, and where are you right now, Jocko? 

Jock: I'm in my living room. I'm, uh, I'm renting, uh, a flat above. The, the garage of a, an old friend of mine who was here in Hawaii, a contractor k but he, came from North Carolina, came over to Hawaii years ago, 40, 50 years ago as a fireman for 25 years or so, and built this [00:02:00] wonderful house above Wia Valley.

So I'm looking out over, say five miles of ridges stretching up towards the, the highlands of, of the middle of the islands, which are not that high, you know, less, maybe a thousand feet if that. But, uh, also, I'm looking, I can look across slowly to the west for there's another, there's two mountain ranges on Oahu and, uh, the far mountain range gets less water, but.

That's important for mangoes to grow, not to have too much water. And a friend of mine, uh, I helped him, purchase, um, a 50 acre plot where the, he has 650 mango trees as well, as well as other fruit. And so he, he is, he is been able to take mangoes to the market a couple of weeks ago, like, um, thousands of pounds of mangoes, and they're giving them $4 a pound.

And, and so I take some of those mangoes and I dry them. So maybe we can send you some dried mangoes. As a matter of fact, oh my 

Kush: goodness. [00:03:00] 

Jock: I have, one mango that maybe I'll send you a picture of. It's like three pounds. Another friend of mine. So what I've done over the past 40 years, I've been roofing for 50 years, and what I, what I've done is to curry fit curry.

You like the way the word curry gets? They said, they said, a friend of mine from the Bay Area, friend of Peter's of mine, he gave me the, the, he gave us this book called The New, new Thing about Jim Clark. It's about the change in the business attitude in America from, uh, a solid proven blue chip stock like IBM to, if you had a good idea to Silicon Valley.

So the change, say 30 years ago from, New York to San Francisco , and the difference in, in that, uh, change in economy. , , so sounds like 

Kush: you have a, you have a great view from where you are. 

Jock: A nice place. It's, it's, it's only about a thousand square feet, but it's, it's all I need and, and.[00:04:00] 

Pia wants me to try to rent out a house down the street. Oh, so, so what I was talking about was being able to curry favor. See, that was, that was the thing about this book, talking about Silicon Valley, is that the smell in the air back in the eighties was of Curry because of all the Indian engineers that Right.

But, um, it was about this guy, Jim Clark, who was tired of working for, um, a big company and he was, they were coming up with all the ideas and making the, the heads of the company all the money. So he broke away with a couple of his Indian engineers and they were responsible for two or $3 billion start startups, like Hellscape and, and companies like that.

But it's a very interesting book because it, it talks about the, the change in American economy. But for me, I've been lucky enough. Because I was raised here since 1952 [00:05:00] to be able to, in my working trade, I don't like to charge people too much money because most of my customers are budgetarily constrained.

And so I, I give them a, a, a deal most of the time, especially if they have fruit trees that I see they're not keeping up on, you know, banana, avocado, mango, whatever. And so I have probably 20 or 30 people who. don't mind my asking to come over during fruit season to be able to get some of their extra food.

I picked for, I picked some of their fruit for them. Say if I, it involves climbing a mango tree or an avocado tree, because I'm still kind of a monkey. Even at 76 years old, I'll be 77 in a couple months, which is a, a nice age to have reached the, in, in the Japanese, uh, culture supposedly. So, but I'm, I'm very lucky to be able to have this wet network of kind of a bartering system.

I'll bring them, 

Kush: yeah. 

Jock: Pick the pot, bring them [00:06:00] some fresh fish or whatever I have, and then they let me have some of their, their fruit or they give me like martini. They give me some of their products, but, so it's, it's a community thing. Right. And, and I 

Kush: love it. And, and Jock, um, 

Jock: go ahead. Excuse 

Kush: me. Yeah.

This, This paints such a vivid image of your. Life that you have created and the network and the community that you have developed over the years living in Wahoo. I believe that, uh, 

Jock: contributes to long term. Some 

Kush: people, yeah. And some people call you the, uh, you know, this, this one man fruit distributor of the island.

And I can see how that, uh, reputation came into being. But seriously, you know, I, I think this, talk to something deeper as well about life on the North Shore, about community, about self-sufficiency, [00:07:00] and do you think what you have there today, do you think it still retains what you saw when you first moved there and you were growing up looking out for each other?

Jock: Well, back then it was so much. A natural part of the community because, um, there was a lot less crime and a lot less population, and it was a plantation community. And so, it was, it was a working, very much a working community. when I was growing up, the, the people that I was friends with were from the various cultures that, that had worked for the, the sugar plantation out here as well as the, uh, higher up, the higher up elevations was pineapple down here where we are below, say 500, 600 feet was, uh, sugar cane.

And I grew up with the, the sons and daughters of, of the manager. [00:08:00] Echelon of, of the, of the plantation. uh, they were in the minority, very, very small minority. Mostly it was the people that whose moms and dads, mostly dads worked for the plantation. So there, and, and at that time in the sixties, it was mostly, uh, Japanese people.

Most of my class in my high school, classes were Japanese, say 16 or 17 kids out of 25 were Japanese. And then the demographics changed radically over the past, over the next 50 years. And so, because the plantation shut down almost 30 years ago, so now there's more, much, many more Filipinos and a lot less Japanese and more of us Caucasian people.

But um, back then, everybody worked together and there was no, there was no. cultural difference or, or ethnic differences between us because we were all, you know, in the same boat as it were. And, and because my dad was a fisherman and my mom [00:09:00] taught swimming here in the, in the community that we were regarded as okay people, but my dad was mostly out the sea.

It was my mom that was doing the raising of us, four kids mostly. if, if we weren't home, say by supper time, mom would just go, ah, you know, they're down the street at so-and-so's house, you know, and nobody locked her doors. And so it was a very much a, a social network. Um. not, not that tight knit, but, you know, because there wasn't any, the, the plantation for, in, in some ways was regarded as oppressive because of the low wages.

And then when, uh, in the mid sixties, early sixties, the plantation unionized, then the people that owned the plantation, didn't like that of course, because they didn't wanna have to pay the extra wages. And so they moved the plantation to either Southeast Asia or to Central America. And so that will, that caused the plantation to close down.

[00:10:00] But we are trying here in Hawaii to get more, uh, agricultural diversification because it's a very great growing area. It's just that there's a lot. Sure. There's, there's, there's still, there's cronyism and, uh, nepotism and as there is in most other countries and societies, you know, very rare. Do you have, it all works out very well.

But, one bright spot in my life, you know, maybe not so much my life, but in, in the economy of, US here in Hawaii as well as in California, and the whole world is, um, that is the efforts of Yvonne Art with Patagonia. Oh, know if you've heard of his book. Uh, let My People Go Surfing. 

Kush: I have, uh, read the book.

Jock: You read it? 

Kush: Yeah. 

Jock: And had a great book As, and other, other country, other, other businesses in our country are going, 

Hmm, [00:11:00] 

Jock: gee, you know, your childcare, this works. You know, this seems to have worked for you. This seems so, there's a lot of other countries that are following suit and Sure. Mom was a, a personal friend of Snar and she was sponsored by Patagonia for a while, but, uh oh.

And we have a nice Patagonia shop here, and they just opened a new one last year in Hava. And so there, the people, the employees there, I see 'em out in the water surfing. And so, and they, they give me friends and family deal, and I go over there and I pick them, you know, various, various treats in my dried bananas or dried mangoes or, uh, a friend of mine, a mix these, this, this, he has a juice company called Govinda, and he makes like a, a ginger rush juice, you know, that, uh, has got lemon and lime in there and, and ginger.

But, I try to curry favor with the people at Patagonia so that they don't mind seeing me coming. And they, they spot me a little bit of s [00:12:00] swag. Uh, there, there'll be some food products that are like, like almost gonna be out of data. And a couple years ago when I was gonna go paddle the Molokai channel, um, they, uh, the manager there, uh, Hiro me, gave me, uh, Food products, you know, beans, dried beans, soup or jerky and some stuff like that. And, um, because it, it was gonna be out of date pretty soon and, and they were gonna, you know, have to get rid. Sure. 

Kush: Jacque sounds like, yeah. Sounds like the, uh, the community, uh, spirit of looking after each other and supporting each other is still pretty much alive despite tourism, despite modernism.

I want to go a little bit deeper into your childhood and the little bit that I've read. It sounds like it, it felt like something out of a Jack London novel, [00:13:00] uh, summers with, I guess the hermit of Kalala and then living off the land, swimming and, and catching your own food. You know what, uh. Really stuck with me when I was reading was something your mom, Aubrey did, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but apparently she drew up this list of things 

right, right.

That 

Kush: every child should be able to do by a certain age and she's stuck it on the wall. And if it's okay with you, I'm gonna read this list I have out loud. Go ahead. Clean a fish and dress a chicken. Write a business letter applies or put a fixture on an electric 

Jock: cord fixture. Yes. 

Kush: Operate a sewing machine.

And mend. Yeah, sorry. Operate a sewing machine and mend your own clothes. Handle [00:14:00] a boat safely and competently. Save someone. Drowning using 

Jock: available, available 

Kush: equipment. 

Jock: Right. 

Kush: Read at a 10th grade level, listen to an adult talk with interest and empathy and then dance with any age. 

Jock: Right? 

Kush: So yeah. Is this list correct?

Jock: Yes. That was one of the original lists. I can tell by the language that's in there because it evolved, um, to more than like 25 things, but that sounds like it could be one of the original lists. 

Kush: Did you actually learn all of these scale most, 

Jock: mostly, yeah. let's see, another one that might not that that.

It doesn't sound like it was in there, was to use public transportation to get across a strange city [00:15:00] and balance the family finances, balance a checkbook for a month. You know, cook a simple meal. Build a fire. Okay. Yeah. All those things are, are, they're practical things that without which, and two thirds of those things nowadays, high school, 90% of high school graduates are not gonna be able to do, which is not necessarily sad, it's just that they are going to have a, a harder time.

I mean, you can, you can graduate from high school and go to college and have your job in the city and be fine, but the, the moral world is a much bigger place, you know, and you need to have a sense of curiosity and a sense of, sense of wonder about the natural world as well as the manufactured and the social one.

Kush: Yeah. It's so fascinating. And even like Hawaii back in the day was different in many ways than the rest of the world and the rest of [00:16:00] the mainland. But your upbringing seems to happen more distinct yet. Can you maybe speak to 

Jock: the difference, the time? 

Kush: Yeah. The time and maybe this unique way in which your mom, this inspirational maybe, um, trailblazing figure 

Jock: raise you Sure.

She, because she was raised herself, her mother was an outdoors woman and she was raised, with a lot of time in the mountains behind Los Angeles n near, lake Arrowhead, Barton Flat, Sansio. So her mom was an outdoors woman, and so, uh, she spent time in a cabin that didn't have running water [00:17:00] or, or electricity.

And you, you learn to build your own fires. For her, that was a key part, even when she came to Hawaii, was having a fireplace even down by the ocean. And we lived up in the mountains for a while, and so we kids, all of us kids learned how to chop wood and lay a fire and, you know, make simple meals. And we didn't have much money, but the, the creature comforts be because of the way she raised us.

you, we had to learn to make our own meals from a young age and my younger sister. Because all of us kids learn how to cook with my younger sister Annie, two years my younger, went to France and, and took a cord blue class, and then she came back and was cooking at the Culinary Institute of America.

Uh, she went through their course and, and they liked her so much. They had her stay on as part of the staff. And then, uh, Ethel Kennedy, [00:18:00] asked her to come work for her. But so we learned how to be not, not necessarily just self-sufficient, but also have a sense of curiosity. And because she was A-U-C-L-A graduate.

Reading was very important. Of course, there was no television back then, which meant that we, we, it was either the mountains or the ocean or music or reading that involved us, uh, as well as projects around the house. So it, it was a practical upbringing, but not un intellectual. We, we were taught that, you know, having a mind that was capable of grasping several intricacies about your surroundings or other people was, uh, of ultimate importance.

And so that is a, a very big thing for people nowadays to have a sense of empathy as well as. You know, um, when you're going to a different country to do some research, you know, to try to understand [00:19:00] the other culture so that you're not depending on them to hat or to you, you know, as an American or as a, as a, as a white person as it were.

Because there, there's so much other, there are so many other cultures and, peoples around the world and as, as well as history. And she was an anthropologist too. She liked her sense of what had gone before. And so for us kids, it was very important to be able to not only have a sense of curiosity, but have a sense of capability about how to speak intelligently, speak with empathy, you know, converse with empathy and have a sense of initiative about, you know, seeing what needs to be done.

And, and just maybe, um, be aware of, of an a small, aspect of, of a relationship that it was tweaked or looked at differently or perhaps contributed to or enlarge [00:20:00] that, that, that that relationship would blossom instead of being, instead of lying dormant. And so, yeah, I guess it's a combination of, an intellectual development as well as, um, a an underlying a, a spiritual, sense of necessity that that gave us kids such a, a good upbringing because it was not only the ocean and the mountains, but it also was music and reading and, and the entire rest of the world.

Kush: I, I love that Jacque. And the other thing that I gleaned from this is, yes, she. Asked you to master a lot of the, uh, let's say the, the tangible life skills and then also the arts and sciences, but maybe at an even deeper level, she instilled this innate sense of curiosity, 

Jock: right. Way important. Yes, 

Kush: way important.

And it's funny, like even when we [00:21:00] were, uh, catching up before we started recording, you know, you were asking me all these questions about my upbringing and it was flattering. And I, I just felt that like, you, you, and forgive me, but even at 77, you still have the same, maybe at least you have the zest for learning and wanting to explore and, and see new places.

it seems like you took that sense of curiosity in all kinds of directions. I want to take us into that era that defined you and so many surfers actually, you have defined that era and it seemed that you brought that curiosity to, to the waves. And taking a step back, I have been fascinated by pipeline since I started surfing about 15 years ago.

I think at some point, you know, when I was maybe early in my surfing, I, I had this, uh, [00:22:00] bucket list thing to surf pipeline one day. Oh, 

oh. And then, 

Kush: and then, you know, and then I started watching the contest and I started seeing the lineups and I'm like, you know what, uh, maybe I should be content with just going to the North shore and, and, and watching the contest.

I mean, even then that would be something else Many of the people listening are not necessarily surfers and pipeline is such a mythical wave, and you were discovering surfing at Pipeline as a pioneer. So maybe just to start off with Jock, what makes Pipeline so special?

Jock: Probably because of the, the speed with which it stands up off the reef cush and also the ability. Or the, the shape of the wave offers you a chance to be able to get in the tube. But we weren't riding in the tube all that [00:23:00] much back. Mostly it was a, oftentimes it would be an accident we'd get in the tube because the wave was so fast it would run past you kind of a thing.

But, uh, nowadays it's, it's still possible to get some waves out there, uh, especially if you know the break as well as I and some other people do. Although the people from my era are not over here so much. There may be only one other person, Herbie Fletcher, who used to surf it with Jerry Lopez and me, comes over and I talked with him a couple years ago and he said, well, my shoulders.

Kind of bummed, you know, you're gonna have to take care of it, you know, for us. But, uh, it, it, it's, it's a special way because of its of its beauty. It can be a friendly place, but it can also be very, most of the time it's not so friendly most of the time, 80, 90% of the time, it's not necessarily mean. But, uh, you know, as in a lot of things, it seems to have its own [00:24:00] personality.

And if you. Get carried away with your own ability if you have, too high opinion of your own ability there. Let's say that it has a, it has a, a, a tendency to wanna act, um, not necessarily capriciously, but, a as a, a lesson giving, you know, to you as it were. But, so if you ever come to the North Shore and there's a decent little northwest well running, you should come serve Chacos because you can get tubes there and it's, um, the, the lineup is more open.

So there's, the crowd factor is, is way, way less. And, and it, and, um, the, the crowd's a lot, a lot friendlier and it's a good, it's a good preparation for pipe, but, I don't wanna compare Jocko's two pipeline, but, uh, there's some ways that can be, you know, when the way Benzo little has a little Northwell on it, that it can be that much.

It can be very similar to Pipeline. there's a, [00:25:00] a fellow from Chile, Ramon Navarro that I saw get a four or five second tube bride there and at tacos. At tacos, yes. Wow. Beautiful wave. I didn't think he was gonna make it and sure came out the end, but just, he, he's very capable guy and he just happened to get just the right wave.

And so sometimes I, I feel that the way the ocean has, uh, almost a mind of its own and then it will bring, yeah, you deserve it. Or an extra special wave. 

Kush: No, Ramona is a, is obviously, you know, he's a world class surfer, right. So maybe it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be too shocking. And of course, you know, if I, if I make it over to, Wahoo and to Jockos, I mean, I could not hope for a.

A better guide if you happen to be around to help, help, uh, understand the lay of the wave. but Jacque, take us to that time. You know, like people have been surfing in Hawaii for like centuries, right? 

Jock: Right. But 

Kush: pipeline, [00:26:00] pipeline was still this, maybe this exotic, uh, impossible dream. when you were looking at that wave, were people already trying to surf that wave?

What gave you the impetus to want to try and find your feet? Bye fine 

seeing it in movies probably in 1962 or three, but also hearing of it and having some friends of mine from town, because I didn't have a car back then that wouldn't have for another three or four years. And, uh, they would come out and, and gimme a ride up there.

Jock: And with the old boards, it's, it's, it was a very steep learning curve. And with the old boards it was hard to ride. But if you would take off on an angle, there were several techniques that you could, you could use. But for me it was what spurred me onto gold Ride Pipeline was probably watching Butch Van Art [00:27:00] Dalen.

Movies, you know, like from 1962 or three, and I started surfing at say 64, although friends of mine have said they took me up there in 63 when I was 13 years old or so, or, or maybe even earlier. But, uh, it was, uh, the movies and, and hearsay and, going up there with some friends that were of my age and, and just trying it out.

And so, I would say a combination of things co course that led me to, to go and try it out. And, um, you know, after, say two or two or three times of trying and, and wiping out most of the time that I learned how to paddle, wave choice, paddle earlier, you know, get to your feet very quickly, try not to go too straight down, because the boards back then didn't have much rocker.

And so the boards were not letting themselves to being able to ride pipeline very easily. 

Kush: I can't imagine jock, like trying to, like, just looking [00:28:00] at some of the footage you guys have of like riding pipeline with like those, those long boats. 

Jock: Yeah. 

Kush: You know, no rocker and the wave is so steep and it hollows down so quickly.

Like I have taken out, uh, I'm a very midling surfer, but yeah, I mean, just even at Ocean Beach in San Francisco on waves, you know, much less consequential trying to 

Jock: surf. Yeah. Ocean Beach can be very consequential, can 

Kush: be. No, again, I'm not there on the biggest days, but you know, that wave can jack up. I can get so steep and yeah, it's, it's like a lifetime of work to master how to drop into a wave, even with like the perfect board and the perfect rocker.

You were doing that and you, you know, you were, you were like pioneering that and. How were some of the first early sessions? Like how scary was it for you? you were obviously an intrepid kid, but even for you, like it must have been maybe just [00:29:00] a little bit daunting to go out there and try to 

Jock: Yeah, because it was much faster than, other than most of the other ways that I had ridden up to that time.

I think I had ridden Sunset Beach bef maybe before that, I, I was only 13, 14 years old or so, maybe 15. it, it was, it was pretty scary. And it could have been disheartening, you know, if, you know you got hidden by your board or you bounce off the bottom on one of your first days out there.

But luckily for me, I had. Enough background, enough time in the water so that I figured out pretty quickly, you know, okay, you know, if I'm not gonna be get to my feet quick enough, or if I'm not gonna have the right angle, then I'm gonna be wasting my time or I'm gonna get hurt. So, um, I was able to learn, thank goodness, quickly enough, and, and my peer group, people like Jimmy Lucas and, and Eric Span, Kiki span, the guys from town, they were good surfers already that, uh, we were all like [00:30:00] 15, 16 years old.

And there's one guy that was slightly older and he could drive because he, uh, the rest of us were too young to have licenses. And so, um, it, it was just a matter of, of, of being able to put in the time and be able to get up there and, and, uh, in the meantime surf, Chuns and, and Lon Kay and, and places down there where I was, 

Kush: You were, yes, you were an accomplished surfer, but pipeline is just so much faster and steeper and obviously scarier. take us, take us to some of those moments, jock, like some of those, you know, like those early days when you were like battling out and trying to drop into one of those like colossal, uh, uh, bowls.

how did it feel to be there at that moment? You know, with, with the wind, with the wave beneath you, with your heart are going like, it's, [00:31:00] yeah, like, would love to, love to kinda hear it from your words. 

Jock: Well, at first it was, it was pretty scary. And we just tried to do our best not to get hurt and try to learn a little bit.

But then after a while, I'd say a year or two, then it became much easier to try to not necessarily play with the ways, but to, get further back in, get as close as we could be more comfortable, to the point where we were having fun instead of just, you know, holding our, you know, holding our butts, uh, as it, as it were.

the, the learning curve, although pretty steep once you got over the, the early difficulties, it became, um, more, uh, uh, a matter of, of timing and picking the right wave and having, uh, having your friends out there push, pushing you so that you would try to do more. risky things on the way, but um, there was still times [00:32:00] when everybody else would be too tired and you'd have to go out by yourself and then be six feet and perfect.

But, um, the, the really big days didn't come until, say I was 16, 17 years old and I, and I had better equipment, but in the early days, probably lasted about a year or a year and a half. And then the material, the, the boards got better. And then our, our ability, 'cause we got stronger and we got more adept, we got a little bit more able to see the waves coming before they got to the point where we wanted to take off on them.

Kush: How were you preparing yourself? I mean, I'm guessing you were obviously surfing all the time. 

Jock: Were 

Kush: there any other, like modalities that you were tapping into even back in those days? Like with 

Jock: diving, I don't 

Kush: know, exercise or, or diet or, 

Jock: yeah, skin diving was one that we do during the summer and also going up in the mountains, [00:33:00] you know, to not necessarily just harvest fruit, but to go hiking.

Mom would take us on the, uh, along with the Trail and mountain club, uh, over here. At first we thought, oh, when you're seven or eight years old, oh, this is gonna be boring. You know, this is gonna be, uh, this is not gonna be fun. And then after a while we were like, oh boy, we're going hiking again. You know?

So your attitude changes once you get exposed and once you have the right tools and the right preparation given to you by an adult who is, is wise in the ways of where you're gonna go and, and not to let you get too carried away with your juvenile sense of disappointment and having to do something that you don't wanna do, you think is not gonna be fine.

It turns out to be great. 

Kush: Yeah. Interesting segue about your mom again, like your, your mom was breaking barriers in all her own ways with her adventures. How did she take on to your surfing [00:34:00] obsession and maybe in particular trying to surf, uh, pipeline? Well, 

Jock: I think. I don't, she wasn't there with me during the early days of Surfing Pipeline.

I think she maybe had seen a couple of pictures in the, in the movie. She didn't come to too many surf movies, so I don't think she watched me too many times. maybe at some surf contest, the early Duke contest in 19 60, 66, maybe it was the first contest that she saw of me, but there was other smaller contests.

And so she knew that I liked surfing and she, did not discourage my surfing so much except when it interfered with my schooling and which it actually did at, at one time because I wasn't applying myself. And so she had to hire a tutor for me because my mathematics, uh, classes were not going so well because I wasn't putting in the time.[00:35:00] 

So I was. Lazier. I was too juvenile in my attitude about, um, about how valuable school was to, I was to, what's the word for when, when someone is, is um, I'm searching for a word that is, is like juvenile. But anyways, so yeah, I was like, 

Kush: like rebellious maybe. 

Jock: And yeah, um, not necessarily rebellious because mom could be a, she realized early on that she was gonna have to be the authoritarian, the disciplinarian.

um, she would have to wield the belt if I transgressed too much. You know, she, I, I had to take my punishment from her and she was a strong woman, so she wasn't afraid to, to dish it out. And at, at one time, I had been. Cutting school. I'd been ditching school, and I got caught and she told me to go [00:36:00] get my surfboard and then go get the ax for chopping the firewood.

And she told me to chop my surfboard in half. And so I, uh, no, no, no. She, so she grabbed the ax outta my hand and she proceeded to chop the surfboard herself, which 

Kush: Wow. Oh my gosh. 

Jock: This was about 15 years old. I don't think 16 yet. But I, I learned a lesson that way. But she, she said that it didn't really matter because Dick Brewer made me a new surfboard in the next couple weeks.

So I, I was, I was back in the, in the swing of things, but she, she was very disciplinary. But because surfing was a, a big part of my life, probably because my father was a surfer in the, in the late thirties and forties, and he had, he was from the early days of the. Heavy redwood or redwood balsa surfboards with no sks on them, 14 feet.

And, uh, my son has a picture [00:37:00] of, of those, of those old boards. And so I'll send you a picture of that. But, so it was in my DNA, but also he probably, he, he made me a, a, a redwood board, no balsa board, when I was 13 or or so, that I learned on a very, uh, rudimentary board with no rocker, just belly. And so it was like a PPO board and then he glue a piece on, so the whole board was like seven feet long or so, but it was very, very tough for me to ride, which is good because you learn, you know, very early days.

But, My mom did not discourage the surfing, but she just wanted it not to become the DoAll and end all because there was, there were more important things in life, like, uh, education and learning a trade and, and being, recognizant of, of, um, dancing and the arts as well as sciences. The sciences were very important.

I wanted to be a marine pilot [00:38:00] when I grew up. 

Kush: Yes. Your mom certainly had high expectations of you, just like maybe most moms would, but maybe her expectations were in some ways even, 

Jock: sure. Deeper 

Kush: and, and, and, and wider. I mean, like she wanted you to master all of these different, 

Jock: competencies. She was a linguist too.

I mean, her, her degree from UCLA was in foreign studies, but she realized when she got into the education, department for, for the army she was at, at Trip Hospital, and then at Schofield helping, um, GIS get night classes and credits from the university that, uh, her degree in foreign studies was not gonna be applicable for what she wanted to do.

So she went back to school when she was in her forties to get her master's degree, to change her, to change her degree, which is very admirable for an older person to sit. Incredible. 

Kush: Incredible. Yeah. [00:39:00] Uh, one other, uh, small tangent from those early days, both growing up with that household and your mom and also surfing pipeline, if you open to talking about it, I.

Was reading that you attempted to surf pipeline, if you know where my question is going under the influence of, acid? 

Jock: No. That, that was, that was a fabrication. Even though by that time I had already not experimented, but I had tried, acid, and surfing and I found it to be pleasurable as long as.

You have the proper environment with which to start off your day. Paul McCartney was given acid by John Lennon only it was late in the day. And, and that's not something you wanna do because you're, you, [00:40:00] it's, it's your normal sleep time, but then you're, you're all fired up. And so, it was not, not easy for, for Paul to, to cope with that.

But, um, he, uh, I have a great book of his, if you ever have a chance, uh, it was put up by McCartney Publishing. It was, uh, it's 1500 of Sir Paul's songs and all the backstories. So it's a twin volume. You're probably, you're probably familiar with the Oxford English dictionary, the OED and the, and the, the two set, the big old, the magnifying glass on it and everything.

So, oh yeah. Linda Eastman, who, who was American. His, his ex-wife, her nephew was a surfer. And I met a friend of mine in Australia, the other friend in Australia, Jack McCoy, uh, surf film, surf film guy. He said to Hugh Eastman, Hey Hugh, uh, you should check out my friend when you're going back to Hawaii and, and, and have, have [00:41:00] supper with him.

And so we did, and about a month later, this big big book comes and it was, part of it, it, it was the 1500 of, of Sir Paul Sir Paul songs. But, uh, so the, the acid, the surfing on acid, I don't, I don't think I ever surf pipeline on acid because. you'd like to be open when you're on acid, just like any other, consciousness, expanding material, whether it be a a, a runner's high or a surfer's high, or, uh, using chemicals of mushrooms or even a good strong cup of coffee say, you know, to alter your, your consciousness.

But some, oftentimes you don't need any of these things. There was an interesting program that my girlfriend, Pia, and I saw about 10 years, maybe 15 years ago, called Fierce Grace about, uh, Baba Ramdas [00:42:00] was Timothy. Timothy Leary's sidekick, herb Alpert. And he is in India and he had brought a bunch of acid with him and he's on his way to see a guru.

And the night before he is gonna go see the, the guru. The swami, he is thinking about his mom, you know, and, you know, worried about, or concerned about her feeling for her. And the next day when he, he's got the, these hits of acid, you know, 10 hits of acid or 20 hits of acid or something. And he comes to see the guru and the guru is saying, tells him You were thinking about your mom last night, weren't you?

So he, the guru was very Ian. And, and Herb Alvar is going, oh, how'd you know? And, and, and the guru says, do you have something for me? And so. Alpert gives him the acid and, and he takes like all 10 hits. [00:43:00] Right. You know, but there's no change in, in his attitude in, in the movie, it shows him, you know, looking, you know, oh no, what have I done to my friend, the guru?

But there's no change. There's no change in the guru's consciousness because he was already there as it were, you know, he was already connected with the rest of the universe. But it's a great movie because it, it sure, it show, it talks about the background of, of Herb Alpert in the early days in, in Harvard, maybe in the early sixties or so.

But, uh, I was lucky enough to have, good people to prepare. The, the beginning of the day, we, we would take her acid, my friends, my young friends, guy friends, and, I would take acid early in the morning and then we'd go up in the mountains and we'd run around the mountains, you know, for half the day.

And then we'd come back down and then go surfing. And so that was the good way to be able to have, an asset experience [00:44:00] that involves surfing would be to have, a good prepar preparation for, um, you don't wanna do it, say in a car going somewhere when have an, because the acid will, open your mind to the wonderfulness of the natural world.

But, so you don't wanna have. The constriction or, the impediment, you know, the obstruction of, being in a place that's, not so, not so natural like a car or being in a situation where there are bad feelings. You know, you wanna try to have everything be, potentially expanding of your own loving ability as, as a human being that that's connected with the rest of the, of the world, the human world as well as a natural world.

Kush: I'm, I am not admitting on ever having, uh, 

Jock: you don't have to, 

Kush: but I would say that the idea of I idea [00:45:00] driving an automobile, you know, in this country feels, uh, dangerous enough. Dangerous, I mean, yeah. Like it sounds Yeah. Doing, doing, driving on asset, if anything. If there's anything to me that feels more dangerous than trying to serve pipeline on asset, it's probably trying to drive on an American highway on asset.

I don't see that happening, 

Jock: no. For me. Well, but, but mountain climbing, say if it was not too difficult of a climb, you could probably do it. And as well as if you are familiar with the route and you were confident enough, but still, you know, because. Because if, if there was anything else in this, in what you did, you know, the previous day or that that day, or if someone else felt that you had wronged them, if there was any detractions or possible [00:46:00] dangers, in, in, in the atmosphere or in, in, it doesn't have to be in your own interpretation, maybe there's something outside of you that would, would come and a affect your, not necessarily.

You know, 

Kush: the thing with climbing that I am a little bit nervous about is because you have to make these sort of, it can be high, it can be very safe, but it can also be high risk if done incorrectly. Like if you mess up the, the knot, 

right? And 

Kush: if you mess up, like the way you clip. The, uh, the safety gear as you're going up, however, I am certainly you have gotten me intrigued on trying to surf, you know, more humble waves, you know, waves of, of lesser consequence, maybe like your, I don't know, like some of those rollers that white Kiki or similar.

Right, right. Uh, it's not that. Anyway, we'll have to, we'll have to come back. jock, you have triggered my imagination. jock. Moving on. I mean, one part of your journey, which I'm very curious about is [00:47:00] you quickly rose to the ranks and you were at the top of the pyramid as a surfer.

You were the number one in the world according to popular rankings. Right. And it seems like you chalked it all and you enlisted in the army. And that's not something most people, definitely not most surfers would do. And is that again, like you exercising your insatiable appetite for curiosity, was it something different and deeper?

Jock: It was, uh, a combination of things. 'cause it, it could have been a, a, a disappointment of frustration with the way schooling was going because, just like when I was in high school, when I was in junior community college, that I wasn't applying myself to the difficult classes like, [00:48:00] um, higher mathematics and, and physics as I should have to be able to get to the point where I could, get myself on the right track to get a degree in say, marine biology because, um, there was opportunities, potential opportunities for me.

With the people, say at Sea Life Park or in the university? The university, the Institute of Geophysics there, where there were some friends, older friends that were also surfers, like Ricky Grigg. But, um, because I was also, not that happy with surfing a contest, maybe I was, I was probably too impressed with what, uh, reputation in the surfing world had brought to that point.

I could even make a little money off of it, but mostly I was in it for, for, for fun and for recreation. And maybe [00:49:00] when I became, there was expectations of me, you know, to be in, be in contests. And, uh, when, you know, I started seeing more of myself in surfing magazines then. There was a sense of, okay, you know, there's a, there's an image here that apparently I have to live up to.

But, for me, because my mom worked for the Army and because my dad was in the Coast Guard and because a lot of the friends, a lot of the people that I knew, not only in the North Shore but on Oahu, were connected with the military, I didn't feel it was unfamiliar territory, but I knew that Vietnam at that time was not perhaps a, a good thing to be in.

But I, I probably felt that I could maybe, change things from within. But, maybe I just felt that it was another, a job to go to because I was not tired of school, but I wasn't doing so well in school. And so in [00:50:00] late 1969, when I was like, say. Uh, towards the end of my second year in community college, I had spent some time on Maui over at college, over there at the community college.

But I felt that, well, you know, contests are, are are fun, but, maybe there's too many expectations of me. But one I looked at, what my dad had done and what my mom had done. The military wasn't that unfamiliar to me, and it didn't seem to be that it was going to be that risky. I didn't, I didn't, in retrospect think things out too, too well as far as the potential for when I went would go to Vietnam that I would be killed.

And also it wasn't a very good thing for our country to be in as almost all wars are, and especially one like that. And, and even consequently, our intervention in, in Afghanistan, we were there for 20 years [00:51:00] and we were always saying, you know, we're their, their army is doing well, you know, we're doing well, we're on the verge of success.

When in reality it was a, a big theater and the people just wanted to get more, more money. And it wasn't a very realistic thing. We were not, the people over there knew that we wanted to try to help them get more fresh water, more electricity, and improve their infrastructure in their lives.

But the way that the bureaucracy on both sides was working, it was like doomed from the start almost. But, uh, so it's, it's, it's a tragic thing for mankind to, continue to do. You know, we haven't learned from history, but before I joined the military coach, there was. In the, in the surfing world, people from Don James' era and my dad's era.

it was regarded as an honorable thing to do. And, things of course during the, from 1955 to 65 things, things changed [00:52:00] a lot as far as attitudes towards the military. But because I've been raised with the, families of military people, I, I was, I felt I was familiar with the military enough, and plus, I had become comfortable with, with using weapons, you know, to go hunting and stuff like that.

So I figured, well, you know, if I go down to Vietnam, then I'll be okay down there. And I thought, you know, I was too, I, I was very idealistic and I wasn't thinking very clearly about what could have happened. As a matter of fact, what looked like was going to happen in the ear in early 1970 was that they were training me as.

Being a telephone pole climber, a field wire repairman. And so if I had gone to Vietnam as a field wire repairman, there's a very good chance that I would have gotten killed, uh, climbing up a telephone pole, trying to repair wires that had got gotten cut by our, by our enemies, as it were. But, so I'm very lucky because a friend of mine who was [00:53:00] a surfer was in the cranial affairs branch there at where I was taking basic Frank SANEs from San Joaquin Valley.

And he was able to, with help of his, his boss, change my orders from being a, a field wire repairman to being a company clerk at Presidio of Monterey Language School there in Pacific Grove in Monterey. So Frank probably saved my life and sure. Lucky for me that that things turned out that way. But, uh, otherwise, uh, I did have a chance 20 years later to meet the fellow that I had shared a punk with in basic training, a Japanese fellow named Ernie Vota from ia.

And I saw him at a, at a contest, a paddle race in Waikiki. And I'm going, Ernie, God, hey, you know? And turns out that a lot of guys that were in our basic unit were in, went to infantry and went down to Vietnam and got killed. So in retrospect, it would not have been a good thing for me. It, it. [00:54:00] It would've been a lot easier for me not to have joined the military, to have thought a little bit more about potential consequences and to, perhaps if I was not able to handle school that well, to take a couple of gap years and to go and work, work in a trade, which is what I did when I got out of the military.

I had a lot of friends working in the roofing trade and they said, Hey, come, come work roofing with us. And at that time, I could have maybe gone to Sea Life Park to work, you know, as a, janitor, as a pole scrubber, as an animal feeder or whatever, and, uh, didn't do that. So I was very fortunate and I seem to have had a couple of almost predestined breaks in my life, you know, good fortunes, you know, and it could have had something to do with having been raised by a, a loving, capable woman, you know, who.

Created good karma for us, if you will, for all of us four kids. you know, most of us turned out okay, but we have our, [00:55:00] we have our, our weaknesses. Uh, my brother and my two sisters and I all have our weaknesses, but we are, we're doing okay at this point. I'm, I'm the actual black sheep of the family because I never graduated from college, and so I'm the only guy, so I'm the dummy in the family, although I will, play Scrabble with any of them for money if they want.

But anyways, so it, it's, it's fortunate for me that I was raised in a small community, so I had the good values of a small community and I had the good values of, Of parents that, that had talents and, and they imbued me with a sense of value for those talents and, and for, being communicative to people in my community and, and, and being able to go fishing.

And we used some of my dad's fishing gear from when he was a fisherman in California here, here in Hawaii. that, that was valuable for me because being able to, uh, get your own food, grow your own [00:56:00] food, or go out and catch your own food are, are very important things. And my two sons. Can do it to, to a limited extent.

My older son works at a restaurant in town. He's risen through the ranks, uh, over the past 30 years. So from being a dishwasher now he's manager of a, of a restaurant in town called Nico's. He was manager of Ruth Chris Steakhouse and, and Roy's restaurant for a while. So he's okay. And my younger guy who was National amateur Champion, he was like 18 years old as a surfer and as a accomplished aerial, competitor.

He, he helps me roofing and he and I are gonna go to Mexico next week, which is gonna be great. But anyways, 

Kush: yeah, no, I wanna talk to you about your Mexico trip in a second. Um, thanks for sharing some of that background with some of those decisions that you made. Right. Including the one two Army, army, army, army.

Right. And of course, you know, you, you have made [00:57:00] some dramatic pivots. You know, you left surfing at the top. You joined the army, you came back and you kind of stepped away from surfing and you pursued this different line of business. If you think back jock, like what did maybe some of those pivots teach you about, about identity, about what it means to be successful?

Jock: Well, I think it was part and parcel of the way I was raised Kush, because the world is a, is a great place to live in. Although it's, it's a harsh place, oftentimes it can be a very rewarding and joyful place to be in and, and for me, if there's one thing I learned in life, it's that the human experience is a good experience and that when bad things happen, that that's oftentimes.

That what the media concentrates on, because bad things [00:58:00] are, are unusual basically because the only experience should be a good experience. But by, making these changes, uh, it's just maybe part of, part of my life that was not necessarily, uh, I'm not too big of a believer in destiny, although I believe in the connectedness of the universe.

say people like Alan Watts that he wrote the book called Joyous Cosmology. And, there's, there's wonderful rewards to, to be had out there, uh, with, with your fellow human beings and with the, with the natural world, which we are not doing too well with preserving right now, but I'm, I'm lucky to have been able to.

Have made bad decisions and come out of them. Okay. Learn from them. And that's, I think, due mostly to my upbringing and to the people that I grew up with. But as far as the surfing, as far as being at [00:59:00] the top of surfing, oftentimes I look back and I, and I, I knew early on when I first started getting my picture and, and a couple surfing magazine.

Oh, that's great. But the community is, is more important than surfing as, as a job. This, this actually is important to touch on here that, that I could have made surfing my life, but because if you. Make surfing a, a business, that means that you'd be out in the water thinking, well, I need to sell my product and so therefore I need to tell people that I'm out in the water, but nevermind the other guy's product.

Buy my, you know, so because surfing I already realized since I was, you know, 15, 16 years old, that was something I really loved, but I wasn't willing to make this, the, sacrifices, put the time in, say, in schooling so I could get a degree so that I could have a good job so that I could, be able to continue to surf, but yet still make some money.

You know, I could have made money at surfing. [01:00:00] Nowadays there's people like Tommy Carroll and Tommy Car that can make money off of surfing without surfing the contest. and I was with a couple of companies that I was making money from. At, at the time in the, in the sixties. But, it wasn't anathema to me to make money, but it wasn't something that I wanted to do for my life.

Uh, and I figured that that was something that I knew intrinsically by the time, late 19 68, 69 came, I wasn't suffering from ou in the surfing world, so to speak, because mm-hmm. It was great because there's no leashes back then. So people were helping still sense of, in contest sense of sportsmanship.

If somebody lost their board, you tried to go help 'em, you didn't go, oh, you know, nevermind. I'm glad he wiped out. That kind of thing. There wasn't a doggy dog kind of an attitude, which oftentimes in surf contests nowadays, you see so much. I know some of these guys who are [01:01:00] involved in the contest and, and I also know people like, Cole Christensen who are mostly free surfers and they have their own families.

And so they, who they, who are my son's ages or younger, like Mark Healy, they realized from what I come, and so because they have their own talents, I'm an admirer of theirs and they are, are somewhat an admirer of my longevity and my sense of happiness with having, uh, a trade as well as being able to have time to surf with my kids and, and with, with them, you know, the rest of the surfing community.

So it, it appears that I've done okay. I've gotten over a few bumps in my life, but, um, it, it's, it's something that I feel that, I could have done, become part of the, the surfing world as a life, but that it, it wouldn't have worked out well for me [01:02:00] because of the, not non humanitarian parts of, of being sure as, as a commercial aspect.

But anyways, 

Kush: do you think that, if your mom was to come down and learn about what you have accomplished, jock, she would be proud of you 

Jock: for the most part, but there's still big questions and I feel that she is, part of my, my world still, in, in a tangible manner. Um, stars for one thing, I have a, a personal belief that.

That our, our ancestors as, as do many cultures in the world that our ancestors are not necess. They're, they're gone in their physical shape, but they're, they're there in the trees or the wind or the stars, and that you can still contact them because I think mom felt that time is, is, is fluid and that there was [01:03:00] some

incident in the past that you wanted to go back and relive or do you want to go back and fix or change that you actually could almost do it by treating time as a pole and diving in and swimming back to that time in the past and, being able to relive it, reenact, reenact it, or re-experience it.

So I think that like many cultures in the world, Japanese culture, maybe the. Indian culture, uh, most, most other cultures in the world besides modern Western cultures, believe that there's very much a, a sense of your ancestors being with you. Uh, and, even in a very physical sense, people that, uh, in a moment of duress or inspiration, all of a sudden you have this talent or this ability that you weren't trained to do, but maybe people that were two or three or four or many generations before you had the ability to do.

And all of a sudden you [01:04:00] have that ability to do that. And, and why should it be strange? 

Kush: Sure. Or do you think Jock, that, I mean from all accounts, you know, you have had this life, well, richly, deeply lived, but is there something. Is this things still, still unfinished for you? Something you're still learning or choosing?

Yes. 

Jock: Right, because it's, it's very true that the saying that you more, that the more you know, the more you know you don't know. So, so if, if to, to, to be able to, like, there's a lot of people and you hear about it a lot. They, they've worked for 30, 40 years at some, some job like a, a physically trying job like construction, you know, being a carpenter or, or electrician, plumber, whatever, what have you.

An engineer even. And you get to retire and then, so you want to do what you're gonna do, but, but yet, because [01:05:00] of the big change in the energy in your life. Three or four years later, you die. I, I like to feel that there's a lot that I haven't accomplished yet, and there's a lot of things with my two sons that I, I've not done yet.

And so there's a, a sense of, of unfinished business with both my sons as well as myself. And I'm, I'm glad I'm on good terms with my ex-girlfriend who was a plumbing contractor and a horse woman and a musician. and my ex-wife, luckily we're on, on good terms with her. And so, uh, it's, it's nice still to have a cushion there to be able to wanna continue to strive and to, accomplish things that are, as yet not accomplished, not finished.

And so I've got a lot of work to do and, and. Uh, some people say have told me, you know, probably 10, 20 people over the past three, four [01:06:00] years that they said. You're not still on the roof, are you, John? I go, can I hang my head a little bit? Oh, well, yes I am. But there's, there's people, well, like my mom, you know, I say, well, my mom was paddling, you know, Alaska when she was in her, in her eighties, and, you know, so why should I, you know, stop roofing.

But on, on the other hand, my girlfriend's going to get up. My girlfriend's brothers were telling me, get off the roof. And I can under, you know, I've actually made some money by analysis and consultation like that. But, uh, there's light stuff that I can do, like coatings and I don't have to be climbing on a-frames.

But, uh, it's like to be able. To do that stuff. I just need to do, keep the, keep the body in shape by doing more biking. And there's a foundation class that I go to, it's kind of like a, a Ong kind of a shiatsu class. And, and it teaches, you know, it's, it's, it's stretching class. and so I've been going to that for the past four or five weeks and it's, and I feel better the next day.

And so, [01:07:00] I look at, at people that I admire that are of my age or slightly younger, that are in very good shape. And my girlfriend, goes to a workout at the Wyoming and she walks like two or three times a week, couple of miles on the beach down there in the Holy Shores. And so she very wants me to, she pretty much wants me to continue to go to these classes.

She's happy that I'm going to these classes, but I need to be able to, I, I joined the YMCA up here, so I need to be able to, to do weights so that my body can be, uh, in, in good enough shape to. Like her parents were, were in their nineties when they passed away a couple years ago, and they would be hiking because they were German Jewish people.

And so they, they liked outdoors and, and they would, they would go for trips to Switzerland and to Germany and, dad would bike, the dad was a physicist and mom was an artist. They were both Berkeley graduate, the dad actually taught at Berkeley. So they were very intelligent people. And my mom, when she met them, [01:08:00] my girlfriend's parents, she was going, hi, these, these are, these are great people.

I don't have to talk down to them. So it's nice coming from and being surrounded by people that, and a lot of PAs, friends are doctors, you know, the husband and white team are radiologists and rheumatologists, and so she has very intelligent, very artistic friends. And so it's. It very much behooves me to wanna maintain some sense of Sure.

Equity and enthusiasm for continuing to learn and to continuing to develop as a human being. 

Kush: Beautiful Jock, you are outliving or out surfing many of the people you started out with. Mm-hmm. You're still out there surfing, right? That's 

Jock: And you pointed Yes. That, excuse me, that, that have said he's older than I am and he surfs better than I am.

I can, you know, they're upset [01:09:00] 

Kush: and, uh, you know Yeah, exactly like you are. You are surfing better than people, a lot younger than you. Yeah. And you pointed to a couple of things already. you know, you are still getting after it and you obviously. I guess this zest for learning and curiosity, it seems like that has also been so important to you.

Hopefully. Anything else you can point to Jock? It could be around, sleep, maybe something else about your diet, maybe supplements that have helped you. 

Jock: Yeah, yeah. And the improvements there, not only in my sleep habits, like getting more sleep, like not eating too late, say and, and, um, doing stretching in the morning.

Uh, there's some small Qigong exercises that a friend of mine who is a kung fu guy, has taught me as well as, there's, there's isometrics that, uh, [01:10:00] a physical therapist friend of p as in mine, a nice gal, Stephanie Hoffman, who's also a surfer, have, have taught me. And so there's all these things that.

are, are important to be able to maintain a, a sense of, of physical flexibility and physical liveliness that I need, need to continue to follow. But there's also, um, things that are being discovered like, a friend of mine, he used to work for the World Surfing League, uh, a few years ago named Sean Wingate.

His wife is Thai, and her friends in Thailand, set him up less than two years ago with these ancient Thai herbs that are wonderful. non-drug, although, you know that their effect is, is like drugs there, They're like, say Ozempic or something like that. They're, they're anti-inflammatory. They're analgesic, they help stimulate the nerve endings of your connective tissue where there's not much circulation [01:11:00] like your ligaments, cartilage, tendons, muscles.

And so for me, since I started taking them my pop-up, you know, to get on the, on the board to get stand to your feet standing, which is very important, and which causes a lot of older surfers not to be able to surf anymore because their knees are, are hindering them, you know, either from lack of exercise or whatever injury.

Uh, and these, these herbs, they're called ancient tire herbs. I'll send you the blurb that I have of them. Uh, but. It, there's probably 120, 150 people coaching here on the North Shore that are taking them. And there's pe 90, 95% of the people that had shoulder problems, knee problems, back problems, uh, that are, have gotten relief.

Three of my friends, including this fellow Sean, who had sciatica, he has taken, but he has also had back operations. And I [01:12:00] just saw Tommy Carroll's brother Nick up here, because he was attending about a month ago. The services, the memorial services for Clyde I Cal, who just passed away about two months ago.

And I said, oh, Nick, you know, how's, how's your brother Tommy? And oh, he is got some nerve, this and that. And so I sent Nick back with a, a package of these herbs, about a month supply of these herbs. And so, Sean Windage just showed me a. A little blurb that Tommy had sent him saying, showing him the package that Nick had given him.

And so there's Wayne Lynch who has, so I'm, I'm becoming somewhat of a, a therapist in my old age as well as trying to take care of myself. There's these people that go, oh wow. You know, like even in a couple of hours, we don't have a quick segue here, we don't have a complete lab breakdown of these, these herbs yet.

But, but because they are being used by so many people, if you don't drink a lot of [01:13:00] fluids with them, you can get cramps. 'cause they'll dehydrate you. So, like last night I had a good cramp in my, my left calf and I don't dehydrate nearly enough. But these herbs are a big help. And do you have any little aches and pains?

How old are you coach? Like 45, 50. Is that a I am 

Kush: 47. I'm 47. Oh, good guess then. Yeah, you, you, you, you guessed great and, great, let's say astute question because honestly, that's part of the reason why I, I, I began this podcast because I, I started getting hit by aches and pains and frozen shoulders and all, all kinds of things, in my lower forties.

And that's why I was looking for answers. And . So, yeah, I, I absolutely have those things. And good. I, I'm open to trying almost, almost anything to, uh, before I have to go under the knife, 

Jock: so to speak.

I will send you a picture of the, of the, the, [01:14:00] the dr of, uh, the, of the drug list of what the drugs do and, and, and a synopsis.

So it's a list of the drugs, some, the scientific, uh, names for them. And, Because 90% of the people that have been taking 95% have been taking them. Like Pia said, it didn't do anything for her, but, and, and her rheumatologist and radiologist friends that her, one of her best friends that goes to high school say, we've seen these things come down all, you know, come up all the time.

You know, were people, you know, they, there's miraculous things that happen, but, um, you know, oftentimes there's like steroids in them or something like that. But because these are from Thailand and they're ancient high herbs, that you think, okay, you like to think, you know, that they're, they're, they're non.

Addictive, you know, and they're non-invasive. But, uh, a friend of mine who used to work on Baywatch, he was a captain of the lifeguards in Los Angeles. He had some [01:15:00] heart issues and he took, he took my list, the listing of the, the breaking down of the, of, of the elements in there and what they do to as pharmacists.

And they, and he said, well, you know, they will tend to deplete the enzymes in your liver a little bit if you, if you take that, that, but for people that are healthy and like me, you know, surfers, roofers, whatever, they would be fine. But for him in particular, although my friend Sean knows that I have people that are skeptics and we need to have, an analysis.

And he hasn't been able to get the analysis from the people there in Northern Thailand. But he says. That. as far as the guy is concerned, you know, he wants to make a business out of it because he's seen that it can help a lot of people and some people in just a couple of hours.

You know, like three or four hours after they take 'em, they have relief and Wow. So [01:16:00] I can see what it helped did to my son and how it helped me and how other people, just as, just two nights ago I had a fellow, a friend that was a bartender that said he had sciatica and I gave him two little packs and he's gonna call me up right afterwards.

'cause he wants a couple of months supply and it's like, it's like $2 a day if you're taking two packs a day. I only take one for maintenance. And that seems to be helping me. I notice a little bit and for a lot of people, if they stop taking them, some of the symptoms comes back. So you, you have to figure, okay, these herbs are a help, but you need to augment them.

Uh. Conscientiously with your, your regular, isometrics, your, your exercise, your workout, your, your program, your surfing, your swimming, diving, whatever else you do, you need to not depend on them. As in most things, you know, you take, you can take Yes, yes. But anyway, I will send you a small pack of these [01:17:00] and then we will see, jock. You know, one thing about you that I love, you know, when we were chatting and just earlier in the conversation, you were, uh, sharing a little bit about your upcoming trip to Mexico. Mexico to surf. Right. Right. And I I, I just love that because you know, you have been surfing for 

60 years, so many decades.

Kush: Yeah. And you have surfed all kinds of waves. I can still feel you light up as you think about this trip coming up. So what is it about, this adventure that is still so exciting to you? 

Jock: Yeah, it's, it's knowing that as opposed to 50 years ago, that. We have the ability, my friend Roger Hines, who is an old time shaper, along with my friend Dennis Cho, who are gonna be my host there, you can predict the surf almost two weeks out, two weeks away.

And so for [01:18:00] the past 10, 15 days, he's been looking at the surf forecast. And now it appears that at the end of next week when we first get there, it's gonna be five or six feet, maybe bigger. And so there's three, yeah, there's three points. So Gavin has a little fish that he's gonna surf, and I have a almost eight foot board that I will be surfing.

That's, uh, that's basically a hybrid board. that's, that's what I ride mostly. Now it's a board that paddles easy, turns easy, but goes fast and, and can handle three foot waves as well as. 10 waves. And so I'm gonna have a, I'm hoping to have a good time, but, Gavin and I are, are both in pretty good shape, but both of us have our stiffnesses, uh, he, he is still not in movies.

Well, like, he has a, maybe a torn [01:19:00] labrum. So I gotta talk to him this morning here in a few minutes and see what we can do in the next week or so. You know, have him swim more and, and maybe work a little less. and I've been promising him a surf trip for the past 10, eight or 10 years since my mom's house sold.

And, we came into a little bit of money. she never had that much money 'cause she was a working woman. Right. And my dad did not give us too much. Um, dad, you're, you're a good guy and all, but, but you didn't help out too much. But, I love you dad, but. You know, like a lot of guys, he had his own agenda.

He was a very accomplished guy. He, you know, was a, a, a decent surfer, and my older sister said he was a good dancer and he ended up getting his unlimited master's papers, which meant that he could pilot, he could captain any ship in the ocean, but he had his own agenda. And, I, I found out. 10 years ago that he was abusive.

I used to idolize him, basically, [01:20:00] right? Because he was a surfer and he knew a lot of the guys that were pioneers that took me under their wing when I first started surfing big, bigger ways like Buzzy Trent and Jose Angel and, and, and the California guys. He knew as well. And, and he also knew the local Hawaiian guys like George Downing, Wally Fo and I got to meet the Duke.

And so I'll have to get a picture of my shaking hands with the Duke when I won his surf contest when he was still alive in 19 60, 67, which was, which is great. And, uh, there are various things that I'm very happy there I was able to experience in life that I can look back on with pride, but so. Dad didn't, you know, give us much money when I was growing up, but because of our ability to, my ability to fish was helpful because I could bring home food for the family.

Sometimes it was rice and beans if, if I didn't bring some fish home. 

Kush: I wanna make sure I ask one of the last questions, and I know you have to get on. [01:21:00] you know, many people who are listening to this podcast, you are still excited about your upcoming trip to Mexico to serve Scorpion Bay you're still out there, you're still charging.

I wanna ask you this question. So if someone came to you and said, jock, I think I am too old to start something new. 

Jock: Right? What would you say to them? I tell them I have very stock responses because I hear it a lot. Oh, it's too hard for me to learn to survey.

Can you ride a bicycle? I say, can you dance? You know, well then you can surf. Can you stand on one leg here? Show me standing on one leg. So I encourage these people to start off slowly. Nowadays, they have great soft top boards. The Costco boards that are $150, they're, they, they don't hurt, you know, if they hit you, but they paddle easily.

And so I tell these people, no, you can learn to surf. Or if you think you're too old, well maybe, you know, if you need personal assistance, my son and I can, you know, take you to a spot where there's [01:22:00] little teeny rollers on the other side of the island. There's places like Waikiki, they're not crowded. And so we, we can teach you.

and the surf, the surf learning business, uh, is, is very, very prolific nowadays, but luckily for us that like to surf and we hate to see 25 people paddling on it once on their learning boards, that if it surf is over three or four feet, then they're not out there. Anyways, so what do I say to people that are, saying to me that, oh, I'm too old.

I can't learn this, I can't learn that. I say, no, it's possible. You can't here, just do a couple of exercises. Like I think Jack Ang, you know, he, he was telling somebody who was sitting a reporter, you know, oh, you know, I, I don't know if I can still learn to exercise. And Jack says, yes, you can right now.

Stand up outta your chair. Okay, sit back down. Stand up outta your chair. You know, so you can, you just start and you wake your work your way in. And if you're a narrow body of water, swimming is wonderful [01:23:00] for the, the neutral gravity, the stretching. There's almost anything, nothing that surf, that swimming can't help as far as recuperating.

But for you, I'm going to send you some of these. We can call 'em drugs, but they're not drugs. They're herbs. Yeah. 

Kush: I'm excited to 

Jock: Oh yeah. Buy these herbs. 

Kush: Yeah. So. Jock, uh, just maybe, uh, last question for you. 

Jock: Okay. 

Kush: imagine uh, there's a billboard, uh, somewhere on a major road in Hawaii, maybe, maybe highway 83, and there's a billboard on that.

And you could leave any message for people to read as they're driving down. Wahoo. What would that message say? 

Jock: On Oahu, say if they allowed billboards. 

Kush: Oh, right. Good point. Good point. Yes. Okay. Okay. In an imaginary world, in an imaginary world, if they did allow [01:24:00] billboards, yes. 

Jock: There, there's signage. Or a hundred years ago, the, the wives of some of the important people in town said, we don't want billboards over here.

And so they pressured their husbands to enact legislation that we would never have billboards in Hawaii. , I would some say something that would, that would be very much like, what was it?

Um. Bobby Ferry's, um, advice, you know, don't worry, be happy. But, I would say, Rachel Carson wrote this wonderful book. It was mostly about raising her grand nephew, and it was called a Sense of Wonder. So I would say be curious, be Capable, something like that. But I, I would say, read Yvo Rena's book, let My People Go Surfing, you know?

There we go. He, as a businessman and, and as a family man and as a surfer and a mountain climber, there's a great book that I saw when I was with Pia waiting at the ferry building, getting ready to go back [01:25:00] to, Berkeley to, for, to her friend's house and. It was called Surfing and Climbing in California in the fifties, and I had a couple great shots for Yosemite guys, but, uh, I a great picture of Yvonne Sard when he was a young man, but I, I, I gave beautiful at Patagonia.

But anyways, it was very good to to have talk with you. K. And thank you so much.