Journey
Swirling In Rio
"The capoeira kids loved the camera. They hammed and huddled and flipped." - Jamie Brisick
The year was 1999. The city was Rio de Janeiro. The afternoon was bright and humid. I rented a bike in Leme and peddled south along the beachfront, that wavy-patterned promenade that’s almost as iconically Rio as Sugarloaf or the Christ statue.
I passed rollerblading girls in dental floss bikinis and shirtless, leathery old men in Speedos, socks, and shoes who ran in short steps, almost shuffling. I watched a barefoot kid in red shorts run with a soccer ball balanced on his head. I marveled at a woman in a white gown who danced across the sand in a Woodstock-on-three-hits-of-acid sort of way. She was old and maybe homeless. On cue she looked my way. Her eyes were intense, like she’d peered over some cosmic abyss.
For fun, I S-turned with the lines of the curvy mosaic, the bike riding version of that kids’ game of not stepping on the cracks in the sidewalk. It felt like riding a wave.
The promenade was designed by the Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, who revolutionized the garden aesthetic.Burle Marx was one of the first people to call for the conservation of Brazil’s rainforests. He labored to identify and cultivate Brazil’s understudied tropical undergrowth (he discovered nearly 50 species), framing indigenous plants in arrangements that gave them new significance.
I peddled past kiosks selling fresh coconut water with tall and thin straws poking out of their hacked-off tops. I smelled that succulent Rio beach specialty: fried cheese on a stick. I heard the whine of the chainsaw that severed my connection to God, country, and family, which is a melodramatic way of saying I forgot myself, I felt intoxicatingly free.
I came across these capoeira kids in the southern corner of Leblon. Presiding over us was Dois Irmãos, that spectacular granite rock mountain that is the backdrop for so many sexy Rio beach photos. By this time a bright haze had covered the sun. The ocean smelled briny and vaguely septic. The capoeira kids loved the camera. They hammed and huddled and flipped. I wish I could tell you that I nailed this image on the first take, but in fact it took four or five.
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Jamie Brisick is a writer, photographer, and director. He surfed on the ASP world tour from 1986 to 1991. He has since documented surf culture extensively. His books include Becoming Westerly: Surf Champion Peter Drouyn’s Transformation into Westerly Windina, Roman & Williams: Things We Made, We Approach Our Martinis With Such High Expectations, Have Board, Will Travel: The Definitive History of Surf, Skate, and Snow, and The Eighties at Echo Beach. His writings and photographs have appeared in The Surfer’s Journal, The New York Times, and The Guardian. He was the editor of Surfing magazine from 1998-2000, and is presently the global editor of Huck. In 2008 he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship. He lives in Los Angeles. For more of his work check out jamiebrisick.com & @jamiebrisick
In Misheard Song Lyrics
Brisick as a young stoked Grom.
"I was 21, on the pro tour, an aspiring superman of the Rocky Balboa variety when the record Instinct by Iggy Pop came out in 1988." - Jamie Brisick
There are the ones that mean nothing: Say I’d like to know where / You got the lotion, or Like a virgin / Kissed for the 31st time. And then there are the ones that seem tailored to suit the job at hand—and redirect lives.
I was 21, on the pro tour, an aspiring Superman of the Rocky Balboa variety when the record Instinct by Iggy Pop came out in 1988. Like pro surfers today, we used music to amp ourselves up before heats. Iggy had always been useful in this regard, starting with Raw Power and evolving into Blah Blah Blah. This was music that could make your blood boil, inspire you to leap tall buildings.
“Instinct”, the title track, did exactly that. Not only in the momentum and urgency of the music, but in the lyrics—
Standing on the borderline
Between joy and reason
Tending carefully my fire
Waiting for my season
And then the chorus—
Instinct keeps me running
Running like a deer
Instinct keeps me running
Running through the grinning shadows
And then, later in the song, the big one—
Get me out I can’t accept
A second-rate life story
My season, far as I was concerned, was the event I was competing in: the 1989 Gunston 500, held at Dairy Beach in Durban. And that second-rate life story? That was the shitty, miserable life I’d be stuck with if I did not make my pro surfing dreams come true.
I listened to “Instinct” before my first heat, the round of 48. It worked. And then, like any good superstitious athlete, I listened to it before the next round, and the next round, and the next. Suddenly I was in the semi-finals.
Brad Gerlach, my opponent, was a monster of a competitive surfer. Not only was his ocean knowledge ace and his top turn mighty, but he was insanely fit—windmill arms, a million waves a minute. I tried not to think about this as I stretched in my hotel room, “Instinct” blaring through my mustard yellow Walkman. In the elevator on the ride down, I stared at myself in the mirror. I wore my teal blue and orange Rip Curl spring suit, but it may as well have been a satin robe. My cheekbones were warrior-like. My muscles were ripped. My 6’4” Spyder Murphy six-channel gleamed.
The beach was packed with spectators. The sun blazed. The air smelled of brine and Coppertone. I did a kind of shadow box/hip swivel/yoga stretch at water’s edge. I paddled out with fire blazing from my nostrils. I banged the lip many times.
I lost.
But that’s not the point of this story. The point is that ten years later I would discover that I may have misheard those galvanizing lyrics about Get me out I can’t accept a second-rate life story. According to several websites I went to, it’s actually Let me out I can’t accept a CERTAIN READ life story. According to another couple, it’s Let me out I can’t accept a second RED LIGHT story. Only one presents the lyrics as I heard them. I have not seen Iggy to verify. But this is what we do in a life: we alter, we amend, we turn mere coincidences into giant fateful moments, we insert messages into song lyrics in order to slay dragons.
Listen To Instinct Here
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Jamie Brisick is a writer, photographer, and director. He surfed on the ASP world tour from 1986 to 1991. He has since documented surf culture extensively. His books include Becoming Westerly: Surf Champion Peter Drouyn’s Transformation into Westerly Windina, Roman & Williams: Things We Made, We Approach Our Martinis With Such High Expectations, Have Board, Will Travel: The Definitive History of Surf, Skate, and Snow, and The Eighties at Echo Beach. His writings and photographs have appeared in The Surfer’s Journal, The New York Times, and The Guardian. He was the editor of Surfing magazine from 1998-2000, and is presently the global editor of Huck. In 2008 he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship. He lives in Los Angeles. For more of his work check out http://jamiebrisick.com & @jamiebrisick