LUMBERYARD LOGS: The price of activism

When our pro surfer columnist, James Pribram, decided to launch himself into the universe as an “Eco-Warrior” about a year ago, he expected to fight for cleaner oceans and to protect endangered surf spots and all that good stuff.

He didn’t expect to be chased out of Japan or fired by one of his sponsors, but that’s what he says has happened.

But it’s all good.

I’m fascinated by someone who can claim to be a “pro” anything — but especially in a solitary sport like surfing. There aren’t any organized teams for surfers; there’s no spring training or major news conferences.

What does a “pro” surfer do, besides go out and ride waves that would swamp a cruise ship?

After spending some time around James, you learn that it’s not so much about what they do, it’s more about what they wear while they do it.

Apparently once you attain the level of “pro,” companies that make equipment associated with these sports will pay you to use their products. It makes them look good and sells an image.

So when I met James this week to talk about his Eco-Warrior saga, he was wearing sponsor duds — an XS T-shirt and Ocean Minded flip-flops. I don’t know what brand his sunglasses were, but they were cool.

James, who is 37, grew up in Laguna Beach and resembles a low-key Ryan Seacrest. He doesn’t raise his voice, even when he’s excited about something. He’s one of these laid-back surfer types who starts every conversation with “how’s it goin’?” He signs his columns, “Peace.”

You’ll rarely find James bad-mouthing anybody — except big corporations that pollute or alter wave patterns that disrupt his surf. OK, he recently denounced “thuggery” in surfing on his radio show, which may have put him on somebody’s list.

But apparently it was his international quest, funded by local firm XS Energy drinks, to document efforts to seek out and stop polluters and wave-killers around the world, that has landed him on a list of possible eco-terrorists.

Different locales

All last year, James filed his columns from all sorts of exotic locales, from a tiny Internet cafe in Chile to a swank hotel in New York City. In between, he even stopped to surf the Great Lakes. It’s been fun having a globe-trotting (make that globe-surfing) columnist in our paper.

Along the way, he’s addressed Parliament, met with public officials and environmentalists from different countries, and gotten his feet wet — pun intended — in the murky waters of environmental politics.

He capped off the year in December by being awarded one of surfing’s highest honors, the John Kelly Award, in Hawaii, the holy land of surf culture. That was the crest of the wave, so to speak.

Then the wave started to break.

Killing bay ceremony

Just as his round-the-world tour was winding up last fall, he was asked to join in a peaceful ceremony to honor the memories of thousands of dolphins and whales who are killed for food every year in the notorious “killing bay” near Osaka, Japan.

Surfers have a special place in their hearts for their fellow mammals of the sea, even more than the rest of us do, and so this was an irresistible offer.

James was one of a number of pro surfers and surfing celebs who conducted a paddle-out ceremony — a traditional Hawaiian memorial — in waters that would be bloodied the very next day as Japanese fishermen plied their trade.

Paddle-out peaceful

The day of the paddle-out was peaceful, even though it was very emotional, James recalls. Permission had been granted for the event, which was billed not so much a protest as a memorial. And there was to be no killing in the killing bay that day under the agreement.

Tensions were high, however, James says; at one point he was confronted by a man who screamed into his face.

Then, after learning that a pod of about 30 pilot whales had been herded into the bay late that night, the organizers decided to return the next day.

That protest was broadcast around the world, showing actress Hayden Panettiere along with other angry and sobbing protesters in a violent sea-going confrontation.

James wasn’t present for the confrontational protest. He had been left behind because he was already under surveillance, and had been ever since coming to Japan.

James believes his hotel phone was tapped, his luggage searched, and he was pretty sure he was being followed.

Group flees, hides

After the second protest, the group fled, fearing they would be arrested. James recalls the group splitting up, hiding in stairwells and finally getting to the airport, where they could have easily been stopped but weren’t.

James came home shaken and not sure what, or if, he should talk or write about it. The Eco-Warrior theme had become all too real.

“Japan changed something” in the world of surfing sponsorships, he says. Rumors began to circulate that activist surfers were being black-balled by corporate sponsors.

Adding fuel to this fire were accusations that Japanese mafia, or Yakuza, had strong-armed surf shop employees as they hunted for the killing bay activists. Scary stuff.

Now the other shoe would drop.

Fired by sponsor

After Japan, James didn’t receive his monthly salary from Ocean Minded, one of his sponsors. After a few months, James contacted the firm’s owner, who finally confirmed what James had already surmised: he had been fired. The reason? “You’re too controversial.”

The Japanese trip and comments made on his radio show — that “thuggery has no place in surfing,” after a report about a surfer having broken another’s jaw in a brawl — were the reasons cited.

There’s an irony here. Photos of James from the first killing bay protest began circulating. In an article on the incident in Men’s Journal, he noted, he’s wearing an Ocean Minded wetsuit and carrying an Ocean Minded surfboard.

The company certainly got its brand name and products out there, but apparently not with the message they wanted to be conveyed.

Ocean Minded’s Gary Ward didn’t respond to my request to talk about the sponsorship issue.

Now, though, James is riding another wave, and this one is on its way up.

He’s in negotiations for a TV show based on footage from his Eco-Warrior exploits.

He’s got an agent and a publicist, but he’s still the laid-back Laguna surfer he always was.

“I have no regrets,” he said in his typical low-key way. “If the company feels I’m too controversial, they’re entitled to their opinion. I stand up for what I believe in.”

You could say that James and his former sponsor are now riding different waves.

CINDY FRAZIER is city editor of the Coastline Pilot. She can be reached at [email protected]