Northern California surfers have the rare privilege of meeting Gerry Lopez this weekend. The ultimate style master will be in Marin County and Santa Cruz to promote his new book, Surf Is Where You Find It, a collection of Lopez' best memories from a glorious career.

Lopez will be at the Book Passage in Corte Madera (51 Tamal Vista Blvd.) at 7:00 P.M. Friday 5/2, and the UC Santa Cruz Media Theater at 7:00 P.M. on Saturday 5/3. If you have any appreciation of surfing history and Lopez' lofty status among the greats, you might want to set aside some time.

This is a man who needs no introduction, but for those who need a refresher course, Lopez forever changed surfing with his stylish, courageous surfing at max-size Pipeline in the early 70s. People had surfed Pipe before, but none of them like Lopez, who fairly danced with the waves and was so confident in his ability, he appeared to be nothing short of casual in his approach. Tube-riding was in its infancy back then; it was widely believed that you didn't want to get inside the beast--not with a nasty coral reef looming below--unless you knew you could make the wave. Lopez, Rory Russell, Jackie Dunn, Mike Armstrong and others came to realize that the tube can be the safest place in a close-out situation, so just pull in and go for it. All great surfers employ that strategy today, but back then, it was a revelation. In the days when surf films played in convention centers and high-school auditoriums, complete with primal hooting and thick clouds of marijuana smoke, everyone waited for the Lopez-at-Pipeline sequence that invariably closed out the film.

Lopez eventually grew weary of the Pipeline crowds and moved to Maui, where he surfed in relative isolation for years, and while he made the occasional trip back to Pipeline, he was more interested in tropical ventures. He and Peter McCabe were two of the first surfers to ride the fabled G-Land (Java), and Lopez' performances were nothing short of phenomenal in a long, tubing left he found even more satisfying than Pipeline. Some 20 years ago, he and his wife moved to Bend, Oregon, about a four-hour drive from the coast. He had fallen in love with snowboarding, and that remains his primary winter activity, although he tends to show up at all the right surf spots at all the right times. He has a classy, expansive shaping room in Bend, and among other projects, he has been a primary shaper of Laird Hamilton's tow-in boards.

Aside from his singular resume, Lopez is a fine storyteller--both in person and in print. It's safe to say that Surf Is Where You Find It will be a treasure in any surfer's library. We should all be fortunate for the chance to meet the man in person.

For further information on the Corte Madera book signing, call 415-927-0960, ext. 239. For the Santa Cruz event, call 831-459-4070.

Special thanks from SurfPulse to Bruce Jenkins for this contribution.

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