Australian surfers love an out-of-control rebel. Particularly if they surf exceedingly well. We admire their free spirited, devil-may-care approach to life; both in the water and on the land. They do things in their own way, on their own time, and by their own rules, and are often motivated by a raging fire that burns deep within their damaged psyche. Initially, they’re driven to prove themselves, but ultimately, they’re driven to destroy themselves. It’s not pretty, but we can’t look away.
It’s a rare and fascinating flame that draws them in. Predictably, there’s an ever-ending supply of sycophantic acolytes who willingly keep that fire well stoked. I should know, I’m their biggest fan. I’ve known only a few of them, but those few I’ve known well. It’s from these close friendships that I’ve formed the ‘Dark Lineage’ theory and provide first-hand accounts of what I witnessed.
Michael ‘MP’ Peterson
It would be impossible to overstate the legend of Michael Peterson in Australian surfing. When my older brothers and I started riding fibreglass surfboards in1973, he was regarded by us as the best surfer that had ever lived. In a country that idolised sporting heroes, MP was recognised as the best so far in the fledgling sport. No-one could have imagined what would become of him over the next decade, particularly since we had such a limited understanding of mental illness back then. His childhood friend and 1976World Champ, Peter Townend, described him as: “Miki Dora, James Dean and Marlon Brando, all rolled into one.” To say he was charismatic is an understatement. But he was much more than that. MP was the surfer who drew our attention to the occasionally sublime connection between madness, creativity, and ultimately, true greatness.
He grew up in Coolangatta, Queensland, along with his little brother Tommy and younger sisters Dorothy and Denise. They were raised by their single mother, Joan, who peeled prawns and worked in kitchens for a living. Joan couldn’t afford to buy her sons surfboards, so Michael and Tommy retrieved lost and dinged up boards that had washed onto the rocks at Greenmount Point and took them home and repaired them. As members of the Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Clubs, the boys used to sneak even better surfboards from where surfers left them during the week at the surf club.
In late ‘67, like many other surfers up and down the coast, the boys unwittingly placed themselves right at the centre of the shortboard revolution. They were stripping the fibreglass off old ‘tanks’ and reshaping them as 7’, 6’, 5’ and even four-footers. I talked to their close friend, Kerry Gill about a 4’3” surfboard the brothers had made him, and he told me: “It was one of the best boards I ever had.”
Michael won the first of three Queensland State Titles in 1971. In ‘72 he won the first of two Australian National Titles. In‘73 he won the first of three Bells Beach contests. In 1974 he won the inaugural Coke Surf about at Fairy Bower, pocketing $3000. It was the most money a surfer had ever won at the time. My older brothers, John, Greg and I, caught the Manly ferry over to watch the event and I clearly remember the God-like presence of MP as he dominated the event. Everyone went quiet when he took off on a wave and spoke about him in hushed and reverential tones.
Michael appeared in many surfing movies and on the covers of a lot of surfing magazines. Apparently, he couldn’t cope with film premieres, as he didn’t like being the centre of attention. In interviews he often spoke cryptically, and his mercurial tendencies made him a difficult figure to deal with. Meanwhile, his star turn in ‘Morning of the Earth’ (1972) consolidated his reputation as the fastest man to ever ride a surfboard.
MP’s jagged and somewhat frantic surfing style was appropriated from Nat Young, who had dominated the sport in the decade prior to Michael’s ascendance. Nat surfed with an elegance that Michael didn’t bother adopting. But like Nat, he often timed his bottom turns with a wood-chopper motion of the hands, and flicked his head up to look at where he was going. Fascinatingly, the progenitor of this seeming affectation was none other than the legendary Bobby Brown.
In 1975 Michael shaped his ‘secret weapon’, which only added to the enigma. Known variously as the ‘Moon rocket’ or ‘Fang tail’, it was a 6’6”, 6-channel, triple flyer. The channels and flyers were deeper and more dramatic than anyone had ever seen, a complete nightmare to glass. All those sixes in a row made me wonder whether he’d sold his soul to the devil, the mark of the beast. Michael also revolutionised the bottom curve in the board she shaped for himself. By placing one foot in front of, and behind, the rocker in the middle, he could both accelerate ands tall. He admitted to an interviewer: “It feels like I’m cheating.” Michael went to Hawaii three times and his performances there only reinforced his status. During a surf movie premiere at the Manly Silver Screen in 1976, the audience, of which I was a member, screamed with delight at his attack of a big wave at Sunset Beach. In a surfing magazine, accompanying a fantastic colour photograph of him going right on a big wave at Pipeline, (Backdoor was not yet considered surfable at size,) was his answer to the question: “Why did you go right?” – “They wouldn’t let me go left…”He was also quoted as saying: “I don’t know why I have a lot of these problems; I try to be like everybody else, but it’s hard.
In 1977, my brother John returned home from a trip up the coast with Super 8 footage of Michael Peterson’s last win. It was the first Stubbies contest, held at Burleigh Heads. It was also the first time surfers had competed ‘man-on-man’ in two person heats. Michael not only had a reputation as the fastest surfer, but also the quickest paddler in surfing. He was also known to mess with the minds of his opponents, by arriving late for his heat or final. The general consensus at the time was that surfing ‘one-on-one’ with him would be intimidating. My brothers and I must have watched that film a thou-sand times, projected against the wall of a darkened bedroom. Cheyne Horan got us to show him it over and over so that he could study how Michael sped up and slowed down in the tube. In Australia, Michael was recognised as the first surfer to break the 10-second tube ride. Some of his barrels at big Kirra in the early 70s were reportedly even longer. He once said: “My favourite place is inside the tube, no-one can see me in there.”
Michael Peterson dropped out of sight after his Stubbies win. He lived for a while in Angourie and the last time I saw him surf was in 1978. My brother, Greg, and I were watching big, stormy surf at Angourie Point, when a banged up old white panel van pulled up in the otherwise empty carpark. We only caught glimpses of him as he quickly changed into his wetsuit and disappeared down the sandy track toward the surf. Greg rushed home to fetch his stills camera and longest lens. What followed was one of those moments you only usually hear about. I felt like the little kid watching the final shootout in the cowboy movie Shane. But the only people out in the surf were Michael Peterson and his demons. We’d seen some of the best surfers in Australia ride big Angourie Point by then, but no-one had ever done so with such utter contempt. He literally stomped his name all over the place, free-falling out of the lip, going square off the bottom, and then smacking the lip so hard it sounded like he broke its jaw. After he got out of the surf, he quickly stripped off his black long-arm-springsuit, pulled on his old, ripped jeans and dark blue skivvy with holes in it, put on his trademark Aviator Ray Ban mirror glasses, and sped off, barefooted and with wet hair. It was as if we’d witnessed a mythical animal, like Bigfoot. On our way home I felt privileged. I said: “He was over 100metres away and we heard his board smack the lip.” Greg answered: “I know.” Developing and printing the shots from that session in our darkroom back at home in Sydney, I felt like we were superimposed into history
Stories of Michael’s drug use spread, and soon we heard that he was snorting heroin with a Yamba guy who was appropriately nick-named ‘Animal’. (Not to be confused with Nat Young, who was sometimes referred to as ‘The Animal’.) Apparently,Michael’s excessive drug use exacerbated his pre-existing, but undiagnosed, mental illness. We’d heard that he’d gone mad and was even accusing friends of plotting against him. Years later, when Tracks photographer Frank Pithers was asked by Jolyon Hoff, in his documentary Searching for Michael Peterson: “Did the drugs cause his schizophrenia, or did he take the drugs to self medicate?” he answered comically:“Nobody ever said that ‘since little Johnny’s been on drugs, he’s got his life completely together’. Nobody’s ever said that.”
In the early evening of August 9, 1983, Michael was sleeping in his car just south of Brisbane. He was awakened by the sirens of passing police cars. He panicked and sped off; unaware the police were going in the opposite direction to him. Soon, there were 20 police cars chasing Michael, and it wasn’t in his imagination. As the high-speed chase crisscrossed the entire city of Brisbane, Michael ran red lights and even mounted the footpath in an effort to evade capture. Another 15 police cars set up a blockade on Story Bridge where he was finally apprehended. The chase became a captivating chapter in Australian surf history and was often embellished. Some versions of the story insisted he was carrying a handgun and told police he was working for the CIA. One had it that he said: “You can’t arrest me, I’m working for the Queen of England!” We loved it.
Michael went to court and was sent to the notoriously tough Boggo Road jail. His car, the now infamous ‘Falcon’, was sent to the wreckers. Michael’s mother, Joan, lobbied the local state MP, the justice minister, and the minister in charge of prisons, until he was re-evaluated as mentally unstable and sent to the Wacol Prison Hospital on Christmas day of 1983.
Eventually, he was released into the care of his mother, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and successfully medicated. Due to the antipsychotic drugs, he was prescribed, he ballooned to over twice his previous weight. One blessing was that he considered the voices in his head as: “Friendly.” When interviewed by Sean Doherty for his biography, almost 20 years after he’d last ridden a wave, he said: “I haven’t given it away! Who told you that? Is that what’s getting around?”
Michael Peterson died of a heart attack on March 29, 2012. He was 59. Testimony to his legend is the occasionally heard Australian colloquialism: “He went full MP.” Referring to a great surfer going wildly off the rails.
