Six Feet to Fit
by Ken McKnight
posted 2003-05-28
The beach at Malibu is simply a scene and is as bizarre as it is alluring. There is nowhere like it on the face of the earth. Where else could you have Aldous Huxley meets Stanley Kubrick meets Jack Nicholson and goes surfing with Peter Lawford and John Milius. Even the Beaver and Captain America are there. It's Midnight Cowboy meets Cowgirl in the Sand, drinking mai-tais and beer with Annette and Frankie while watching Woodstock from the bar on the pier. We were all kissing the sky and waving goodbye to the end of the innocent sixties. It wasn't ugly to us but it might have been to others.
Photo by David Lloyd
In those magical days it wasn't uncommon to surf Malibu on any sultry summer morning, stumble across PCH to the Malibu Inn and Diner, and share breakfast with Keith Richards, or Carly Simon, or Dennis Hopper, while two booths over the latest bikini babes fresh from the all night Santa Monica party are trying to come to grips with reality while listening to the Malibu Chamber of Commerce directors spouting off over an early morning libation. There was a myriad of realtors, lawyers, actors, directors, singers, and writers that constantly frequented the place. It was a cacophony of creative talent and spiritual leaders all in one spot at one time. It was real and it was real bizarre.
I remember a famous wannabe surfer/actor jumping onto the dinette stools during a crowded breakfast, bursting into a full chorus of "Born Free," before settling back into his pancakes very casually. Two people clapped for his performance the rest of the regulars just went back to their meals, it was that kind of place. Or the time Jack Lemmon was in front of us buying a Jumbo Jack at the drive thru in his super BMW, or even talking surf with Robert Blake as he walked along the sand. The Stones lived down the beach for a summer and you could hear the music. Dylan made a home there, as did Kristofferson. All the pretty people ended up at Malibu. It was the California Lifestyle taken to the nth degree. The draw was immense with the homes, the weather, the money, and for us, the surf.
Photo by David Lloyd
On the beach it was a classic brew of characters and values all sharing the same blanket. This was the place where a lot of the California lifestyle hype began and you could watch rock stars to sport stars mingle innocently with aerospace engineers, painters, housewives, and students all out for a day at the beach. Throw in a couple hundred a sundry surfers and shazam! The realtors credo "Welcome to Malibu, Now go home!"
There were many insiders that surfed the point well at the beginning of the short board era. Dora, Weber, Carson, and Fain were the older more established riders. But the younger, brasher kids were taking over and not so quietly. Laying down tremendous tracks along the point was Angie Reno, Mike Stevenson, Glen Kennedy, J. Riddle, Robbie Dick, Jeff Ho, Wayne Miyata, Richard "Moto" Coughlin, Mike Grassley, Ralf Aurness, Marty Peach, Steve Boyum, and many more. There were even those that came from other areas that ripped, like Dru Harrison, Tiger Makin, and Mike Purpose.
And then there was the Liddle League probably the most noticeable of the lot in the crowded lineup. Collectively, the group worked at Greg Liddle's factory and shop in the Valley, and they surfed together daily, making the run over the hill to test the latest ideas that often sported drying hot coats, or still powdery sand jobs Surfing daily from Santa Monica to the Ranch, the boys were super smooth surf freaks in a straight-line, pivotal surf world. They knew it and they let it out. Their casual styling fit perfectly into the Malibu lines and were a direct Neolithic throwback to the Kivlin, Dora, Edwards years when smooth was cool and emulated. These guys were the real "Roots of Cool." They came as a group of round board rebels, and enjoyed the waves and the camaraderie, sliding down surfings timeline and being just as smooth as those that showed them the prophetic way. But now they were going at flank speed!
Photo courtesy of Kirk Putnam
Flash of Liddle...
The shaper and architect of the round board era at Malibu was Liddle. Soulful and stylishly smooth in his surfing, Greg taught us all how to surf Malibu the correct way. A very private man, Greg is honest beyond words and remains a true surf enigma to this day. He guards his privacy like the gates to the Hollister Ranch.
"Pick a spot down the line," he use to say, "and aim for it. Do it again and again and before long you will be doing 20-yard bottom turns at full speed."
Mentored by the best at Malibu in the 50's and 60's, Liddle learned to surf quickly and embodied the true essence of the surf lifestyle. He was incredibly smooth and you hardly knew he was out in the lineup as the more animated surfers garnered most of the attention. Greg just got the job done and then some. He was the model by which everyone looked up to for years by just letting his surfing speak for him, not his flamboyance. This was not the norm at a spot well known for its lineage of colorful characters. But all was not Zen bliss for Greg. He was thrust into the spotlight rather suddenly when a very prestigious two page, full color spread of him nose riding a beautiful lime green wall, appeared in the center fold of Surfer Magazines prestigious 1965 Malibu issue. This magazine featured a very svelte' Tom Morey on the cover in a classic full trim pose. The shot of Liddle made him famous in the fast growing world of Surfing. Something he didn't want or ask for.
Photo courtesy of Kilgore Bojorquez
Dubbed the "Liddle League" by non-believers, this group of underground surfers and artists cared little of the surf media driven sponsorship, contests, or acclaim of the times. Instead they immersed themselves completely in going as fast as possible at one single spot, Malibu. But it was Liddle who noticed the changes in board designs more than anyone and he had a fair hand with a planner and was soon hard at it shaping boards that worked for him and his friends.
Greg first learned of the displacement hull designs when he watched George Greenough at Rincon on his Spoon. It was George who was in the process of changing surfing forever with two of his own ideas. His fin designs were modeled after a blue fin tuna, and his revolutionary, displacement hull spoon designed kneeboards, the ones with the flexible tails. George's MO was simple: make a shorter board to stand or kneel on that turned faster, tighter, went to trim easier, and maneuvered better. Something that was under your feet and you didn't have to move around on. For the gnome-like Greenough this was a normal way of life. For the rest of the California surf world it was a quantum leap into the fiery pit of change. It wasn't until Greenough showed his inventiveness to his Australian friends, Nat Young , Bob McTavish, Chris Brock, and Ted Spencer that all hell broke loose. They unknowingly filtered ideas out that were to become mainstay ideas for Peter Drouyn, Wayne Lynch and Michael Peterson to work around. Who did what first is not important and it may never be known. What was important is that the Australians were so far ahead of the rest of us it wasn't even funny. But now, thanks to George's basic ideas and the Aussies talent, some "animalistic tracks" were laid for Liddle to work off of. He did a good job.
