Editor’s Note: “Scrapbook” is a limited series from The Inertia’s Sam George, in which the longtime surf scribe draws from a vast trove of personal stories and photos to present a collection of entertaining tales that, while spanning decades of his surfing life, are easily relatable to any of us who’ve joined him in that pursuit.
The limousine appeared to be long enough. Well, that was at least one major challenge out of the way. The first of many I was going to encounter on my day spent with actor Gary Busey, known to most surfers of a certain age, their kids, and grandkids as “Leroy the Masochist,” one of the three main characters in director John Milius’ 1978 epic fail-turned-cult classic surf movie Big Wednesday. Or, perhaps as Angelo Pappas in Busey’s second surf cult hit, 1991’s Point Break.
It was 2011, and I was mid-production on a feature documentary titled Hollywood Don’t Surf, examining 50 years of Hollywood’s futile attempts to make a decent, surf-themed feature movie, the saga of Big Wednesday comprising the film’s second act and narrative thru-line. Naturally, input from the film’s director, cinematographer, actors and stunt surfers would be essential, and so reflecting my multi-hyphenate production responsibilities, including writer-director, assistant producer, researcher, motor pool, craft services and best boy, I set about reaching out to Big Wednesday’s cast and crew to set up formal, composed interviews.
My success rate startled even me. Milius, action cinematographer Greg MacGillivray, screenwriter Denny Aaberg, actors William Katt, Lee Purcell, Robert Englund, and Rick Dano, surfers Peter Townend, Ian Cairns and Gerry Lopez — even Hollywood legends Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino — all were more than happy to sit down and talk about their Big Wednesday experiences. The only two characters I had trouble connecting with were lead actor Jan Michael Vincent, who, following a decades-long, alcohol-fueled career death spiral, was completely M.I.A., and Gary Busey…who was somewhere else entirely.
Following a 1988 motorcycle accident, in which he suffered a fractured skull and serious traumatic brain injury, Busey, once Oscar-nominated for his role in 1978’s The Buddy Holly Story, had of late become the stuff of lurid tabloid headlines, consistently exhibiting erratic behavior characterized, even euphemistically, by “…poor impulse control, off-the-cuff speech and often bizarre and offensive statements.” The real sad part is that apparently nobody thought to associate his aberrant behavior with what would later be revealed as permanent brain damage. Only that, as one family member stated, “…the accident just turned his personality up to 11.”
This was the Gary Busey who, after stumbling the path through a labyrinth of semi-associates, former managers, bar band members and frustrated publicists, I had eventually arranged a phone call with. A cold call, I might add.
“Who is this?” That’s exactly how he answered the phone, in exactly the same voice I’d heard in films like A Star Is Born, Big Wednesday, Lethal Weapon and Point Break. I tentatively explained who I was, what I was doing, and what I wanted. Where was this proposed interview to take place, was what he wanted to know. I told him we’d be conducting the interview in Malibu.
“Who else have you interviewed there?” he asked.
I told him we’d spoken with John Milius, Billy Katt, Denny Aaberg, Rick Dano and, as a very special guest, “Beach Party” star Frankie Avalon.
“Did any of them get limos?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Limos. Did any of them ride to Malibu in limos.”
“Actually, no,” I said. “Maybe a town car, or two.”
“No way,” he said. “No town car. I’m gonna need a limo. Standard length, 18 to 22 feet. Make it 22.”
“Twenty-two feet,” I said. “Sure, you got it.”
“Fantastic,” he said, dropping what up to this point had been a brusquely skeptical tone. “How about I bring one of my Big Wednesday surfboards?”
My first thought being how to fit a 9’6″ longboard into the interior of a 22-foot limo.
“Hey,” I said. “That would be great.”
“All right!” he boomed. “Be here at nine. I can’t leave before then.”
Turned out Busey was living in a one-bedroom Santa Monica apartment, the building located right on the beach, its west-facing windows looking directly down on the sand-side Ocean Front boardwalk — prime Southern California real estate, only 18 miles east of my Malibu home. This was going to make my job easier — or so I thought. I got to work, arranging the camera crew and catering, then called a number of Beverly Hills limo companies, looking for a 22-foot version. Didn’t want to take any chances.
Morning was bright and clear when at 8:45 I pulled my pickup into the Vicente Terrace cul-du-sac, parking in a loading zone next to Busey’s apartment building. Minutes later a sleek, shiny black limousine steered in behind me. An older, uniformed, Middle Eastern driver got out and without any sort of greeting stood next to the passenger door, arms crossed in front of his chest. I didn’t ask how long his limo was — it looked huge to me — but just smiled and told him I’d be back in a couple minutes with the client.
The building had a formidable front lobby door, with a resident’s entry keypad. I located Busey’s apartment number (no name) and gave it a buzz. Busey picked up,
“C’mon up.” he said.
I reconnoitered the three flights of stairs, figuring that on the way down they’d be easier than trying to fit a longboard in the elevator. Walked down a rather dingy hallway and stood before the appointed apartment’s door. Heard a TV turned up loud inside. Took a calming breath, then knocked. Once, twice. Three times. The door flung open. He was there.
“C’mon in,” said Busey.
My first impression was “over stuffed,” as if furniture from a much larger place had been crammed into a much smaller space. Clutter, messy kitchen, huge TV, and full-on Gary Busey, wearing what could’ve been his street clothes, but might’ve been pajamas.
“C’mon,” he barked in his mid-Texas accent, gesturing toward a big couch. “Sit down, sit down.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But, uh, we really have to get going. I have the limo waiting downstairs. Full length.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Busey said, plopping down on the couch. “Not until my show’s over. We got 15 minutes left.”
I looked up at the TV. ABC’s “Wife Swap,” mid-episode, volume on high.
“This one’s great,” he said. “This one wife, the one with the migraine bun, she’s all about equality, and her husband, you know, he’s fine with that. The other one, the one with all the hair, she’s proud to be a trophy wife, and her husband likes it like that. He’s the boss.”
“Got it,” I said, fidgeting on the couch.
“But see, they call this wife swap, but the problem is always the husbands. Every time. In this episode, it’s the male chauvinist. He thinks he has it all worked out, doesn’t even know that he’s the problem.”
“You seem to have both couple’s troubles all worked out,” I said.
“The key to a good marriage is simple,” he said. “You know what the word simple stands for? It’s “See It Manifesting Precious Loving Energy.”
I had to think about that for a moment before the lightbulb went on.
“The acronym,” I said. “Yeah, I get it.”
What I didn’t know then, but would soon learn, was that Busey’s current life view was articulated mostly through colorfully constructed acronyms. This spelled trouble for me — if this was the case, was an interview even worth the time and effort, let alone the cost of the limo?
Busey suddenly jumped up to his feet.
“What are you doing?” he said, as if it was me who suggested we sit down to watch Wife Swap. “Look at the time. Let’s get going!”
I shook my head and grabbed the longboard.
A few minutes later:
“No,” Busey said, scoping out the limo, hands on his hips. “Uh-uh, this is all wrong.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “It’s a full 22 feet. Just like you asked.”
He turned on me, leveling a crooked smile that contained two too many teeth.
“I ask you,” he said. “What self-respecting surfer would drive up PCH to Malibu in a vehicle like this? Seriously.”
The limo driver, his patience already taxed to the limit, actually turned away, to keep from swearing, I guess. It was all I could do not to throw up my hands in exasperation. Between this and Wife Swap, Busey had me pretty off-balance.
“What kind of car you got?” he asked.
“Toyota pickup.”
“That’s our ride,” he said, beaming. “Boards in the back, two guys in the cab, that’s how real surfers get to Malibu. Not in this thing. Lose the limo and go get your truck.”
I’d call the drive up the coast to Malibu with Gary (I was calling him Gary by this point — we had shared Wife Swap after all) memorable, except that his half-hour monologue was delivered in such staccato style that actual topics would later be hard to recall. He did mention his photographic memory. And a lot of acronyms were peppered into his rapid-fire pontifications. “Now” meant “No Other Way.” “Sober” meant “Son Of a Bitch, Everything’s Real.”. “Hope” meant “Heavenly Offerings Prevail Eternally.” Oh, and let’s not forget “Fart,” which, by his translation, stood for “Feeling A Rectal Transmission.” I needn’t go into why that particular one came up.
I’ve driven from Malibu to Los Cabo’s Eastern Cape in Baja, over 1,200 miles one-way. This trip seemed longer.
Funny thing, though. Once we got to Paradise Cove and set up our shot, sitting Gary down in the shadow of the pier, mic-ed up, with the camera rolling, a very different Gary Busey presented himself. Funny, focused, with sharp recollections and fantastic anecdotes, delivered on cue, with no acronyms, I might add. Like the one explaining how he got cast in Big Wednesday.
“I got a call from John Milius,” he recalled with a grin. “Who asked if I’d come in and see about a movie called Big Wednesday. So, curious, I went in, and Milius tells me that he wants me to do this surf movie. And I said, “Surf? What’s that?” And he says, “You know, surfing. On a surfboard. You ride waves.” And I say, “Oh my God, that’s what the movie’s about? Surfing?” And he says yeah. So, I said okay, and I walked up to him and got right in his face, and said, “John, I’m from Texas and Oklahoma. I played football. That is a collision sport. This surfing thing is for sissy boys. Ho-hoh!”
Yeah, stuff like that. It was a great interview. He was great. But interestingly, as soon as we turned the camera off, well, it was as if the mental discipline required to perform this way had exhausted him. He almost immediately became subdued, all that manic energy having leaked away as if from a punctured balloon. There would be no acronyms bandied about on a quiet drive back to Santa Monica. Not much conversation at all, except when several times he asked me if I thought he had done well in the interview. I assured him that he had.
We pulled back into the cul-du-sac right around sunset. It seemed like a year ago that I’d first parked here, and to be honest, I felt that I’d had my fill of Busey-wrangling. I left the engine running.
“Well, thanks Gary,” I said. “Can’t tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time…”
“Whoa, whoa, what’s your hurry,” he said, startling me by leaning over and turning off the engine. Then he sat back and looked out over the beach and boardwalk.
“Is there any better place for people-watching,” he said. And I thought, “Oh my god, how long is this going to take?”
“I mean, look at all these different human beings,” he said, gesturing with an open hand at the throngs of people strolling by. He was right about that. Pretty girls on rollerblades, a school of Japanese tourists, tattooed bros on skateboards, properly-attired joggers, sketchy Venice denizens on rusty beach cruisers, a young Latino family, their two little kid’s faces ice cream-smeared; in the warm hues of a Western Edge sunset, it really was a colorful parade.
“All these different humans,” Gary continued. “And yet we’re all the same.”
Hmm, quiet a reflection. Not what I was expecting. He went on.
“Different, but each with one heart.”
“That’s true,” I said, and rather lamely.
“One heart,” he said, still watching the boardwalk’s passing show. “And two lungs. And two kidneys. And two eyes. And a liver, and a spleen, and pancreas. All of us the same…at least in God’s eyes.”
Me thinking, “This really is a different Gary Busey sitting here next to me.”
But just then a trio of Hasidic Jews strolled into view, their black long coats, gartels, hats, beards and peyot sidelocks contrasting sharply with the otherwise colorful boardwalk procession. Gary looked their way, shaking his head ruefully.
“There they go,” he said. “The guys who killed Jesus.”
Oh, he was back.
“But you know what they say,” he continued, eyes still on the three Talmud scholars. “To err is human, to forgive is divine. And you know what ‘forgive’ stands for?”
I smiled, took the keys out of the ignition, settled back in my seat, and said, “No, Gary. What does forgive stand for?”
Truth was, forget the 22-foot limo. Sitting there at the end of a long day it occurred to me that what Gary Busey needed more than anything else was just someone to sit and talk with. And that that someone was going to be me. Because you know truth stands for, don’t you? At least according to Gary. It means “Taking Real Understanding To Heart.”
