Phil Jarratt’s tenure as Tracks editor between 1975-1978 put him at the epicentre of surf culture during a period of dramatic evolution. Phil was uniquely positioned to observe and document the genesis of professional surfing, the rise of the surfing industry and the counter-culture purists who continued to rail against both. In this new column Phil reflects on the colourful characters, farcical adventures and timeless moments from his career as a writer and surf industry figure.
A few years back film-maker, longboarder, arts savant and bon vivant Takuji Masuda flew me to Hawaii to film me wandering around the grounds of what used to be the Kuilima Resort Hotel on Kahuku Point, trying to look pensive and nostalgic (perhaps) for the good old days. Later, we spent hours at Jack Johnson’s home studio near Log Cabins while I read parts of my January 1977 profile of Bunker Spreckels into a microphone.
This was pretty weird shit, considering I hadn’t really thought much about my brief interface with Bunker for decades, and from what I’ve seen of the rough cuts of Tak’s yet-to-be released Bunker 77 dramatic documentary, much of my brilliant moodiness ended up on the cutting room floor anyway, but hey, it was a free ticket and I was intrigued by Tak’s near-obsessive interest in a man who accomplished very little in his life and was dead not long after my friend Tak was born. But Takuji Masuda was by no means the only surf culture vulture to have become besotted with the short and murky life of Clark Gable’s stepson and heir to the Spreckels sugar fortune.
I have to say I wasn’t a member of the Bunker fan club when I arrived on the North Shore to cover that turbulent pro season in November 1976, but I had certainly heard about him, courtesy of Surfer Magazine’s coverage of his adventures in Africa with Art Brewer and Rory Russell, and some late night storytelling by a couple of surfing’s more dubious characters. The word was that Bunker, this trust fund kid who at 27 was just a few months older than me, was seriously bent, but likeable. “He’s your kind of guy,” Rory Russell told me when I said I wanted an introduction.
If he was my kind of guy, he was better at it than I was, I thought as I watched Bunker sitting on the roof of his Mercedes Sports parked overlooking Sunset, fondling a gorgeous, long-legged woman in a brown one-piece. While the Pro Class Trials proceeded out in a lumpy mid-sized west swell – Bunker had already been eliminated – the girl stroked his goatee while he blew cigarette smoke in her face and ashed on his bonnet. How cool!
I took a deep breath, sidled up and introduced my- self. He was a bit aloof and monosyllabic at first, but he eventually slid down to ground level, offered a limp handshake (a bit sweaty as I recall) and invited me to visit him at his luxurious cabana the following afternoon. As it turned out, I ran into him earlier than that, when I paddled out for a session at the dribbly righthander adjacent to the hotel pool, a wave of dubious quality but fewer people. Then and now, Kuilima Point is the North Shore’s C-minus soft option if you’re not good enough or can’t be bothered doing battle along the Kodak Coast.
As it turned out, Bunker and his buddy Tony Alva, the pro skater, were out there for another reason. They were too drug-fucked to move more than a few hundred metres from the cabana. I said hello but they ignored me. Alva was doing a reasonable impression of Bertleman’s skatey moves, while Bunker blew every set wave and spent a lot of time cursing. You could tell they were both good surfers having a very bad day. When I showed up at the cabana a few hours later, the gorgeous girlfriend was sprawled on a day bed downstairs, smoking a cigarette in a dainty holder, which she pointed in the direction of the stairs. As I started upstairs, Tony Alva came bounding down, pumped my hand and told me Tracks was his favourite surf magazine. There seemed to be no recall of our encounter in the surf.
Upstairs Bunker sat in the middle of his man cave fondling a dildo. He wore a silk head scarf, a Thai silk bathrobe and a pair of martial arts pants with the string drawn tight over a soft little gut. All around him were surfboards, workout weights and sex toys. “The whole male thing,” he explained.
Over the next few hours, and into the next few days I was drawn into the spider web world of the self-stated “master of divine decadence”. It had its pleasurable moments but it was all too weird for a kid from Wollongong. I helped play out The Player’s slightly sicko fantasies in print, while trying to distance myself from where he was going with it, because it was only ever going to end in tears.
The last time I saw Bunker was at the bar of the Kuilima in early December. We drank a few Cuba Libres, punctuated by The Player getting called out by a drunken surfer. Bunker didn’t hit him, he excused himself and returned with the security manager of the hotel, who removed the offending pisshead. As the guy was strong-armed out, Bunker leaned in and whispered, “Next time I’ll have to hurt you.”
A month later Bunker Spreckels was dead.
