Rider Profile/filmmaker: Scott Carter
California
Winter 2006
What is a day in the life of Scotty Carter like?
Well, my brain never relaxes. I am a strange one and I am definitely a people person, but I also like my silence and peace. I live in Orange County, which I would call white-yuppie land, which is full of money and egos that need to get checked. This is why I surf.
May I jump on a plane and please free my brain. There is just so much more out there. Be careful putting faith into an edit. Try to not zombify your soul into the box. Break free from the disease and set your soul free. Don't believe the hype. Television and print media never showcase reality. They are moneymakers whom deliver only what sells. I am an editor I know the power behind the machine. It's all just an edit. Imagine the editors at the news stations. They are actually playing the roll of coloring everything into the bored American brains. It’s not truth or reality, but many believe it to be truth so they judge their belief system on what comes out of an electrical box called a television.
That is why I surf.
We are oh so very lucky to have mans last frontier, the ocean, as our platform to build our belief systems. But be careful as well because within the sea man still paddles with people who carry the disease with them. All that anger, frustration and selfish egos will unknowingly disrupt the silence that the ocean delivers.
Ok, now that is just the first thought in my brain, which took four seconds to envision and 10 minutes to write. You see even I am editing and then this version may get edited even more when it leaves my computer and is received into the other end. Ok I am a freak. Mike Stewart calls me a mad scientist with the worst case of ADD he has ever seen. How’s the movie making business?
I make movies and there is just so much power behind it all. What will I film and edit is to make an impact. This is my daily work, but it truly is difficult to make a living and feed myself through this chosen medium of work. Who knows I may just move to a place similar to Tahiti and just spearfish and eat them and drink real water from the rivers that have no diseases. I just need to convince my fiancé to go with me and have faith in a roots full journey outside the box we live in.
Do you have any sponsors?
Vortex and Locked In
Do you compete or did you?
No I had a shit load of money back then from an inheritance, so I never needed to get paid to ride a wave. I just supported those who did need it through making films of them surfing. Well at least the riders, who were pushing the dance to the next level, like Chad Barba and Paul Roach. They were my best friends and they loved to rip and nobody back then knew who they were. Capturing them surfing on film to me was my addiction. I loved coming back and watching a good wave ridden well. Still to this day nobody rides like either of them. Unique styles unique personalities that many have tried to duplicate, but never even close.
How have you seen bodyboarding change over time?
Has it changed? That's a good question. New faces, bigger balls and less soul. The best guys right now are the Australians. I love those fuckers. They have soul and extremely large balls and they also have the waves to do it on. Like if California’s coast was similar to say west Australia the sport would be so fucking gnarly. Everything goes huge when Hollywood sees it, like surfing did. Bodyboarding will only be a pool toy in a sea that resembles a pool. You know, but to me bodyboarding is the only sport that is not connected to coolness. It's the last thing that looks cool. Perfect more soul.
What is your opinion on bodyboarding right now?
The guys with the balls and the skill to fly high hold the flag. It's up to people like me to capture those moments on film, but honestly someone new will have to come into the picture to carry that. As I do not know the sports future, nor do I believe it has a chance like surfing has. It's just not cool and cool sells. If you want to be cool be a pro surfer. If you want to be a soul surfer bodyboard.
Where is your favorite place to surf?
Fiji and Tahiti. Cloudbreak or Teahupoo. But my balls shrink up after 10 foot. And well 20 footers scare me. Any Laguna Beach shore break-wedging wave is like Disneyland to me. But it only comes out to play like two times a month, but when it does nobody's around, but a few friends and that's where it’s at.
I like wedge too. What a wave. Still nothing out there rides like the wedge, my friend will kill me for saying this, but if there were a bodyboard contest during a big south swell, the wedge would deliver the platform for bodyboarding to become a legitimate sport. And maybe companies like Billabong, Quicksilver, Volcom, Lost and O'neil would sponsor bodyboarders.
Volcom actually makes pro surfers sign a contract promising that they will not ride a bodyboard because they are afraid it would tarnish the image of their company. So sad isn’t it. How many bodyboarders buy and use their products? I have a Rip curl wetsuit and an O'neil, so does like 250,000 other bodyboarders. It's unbelievable. It's a form of prejudice. Bodyboarders surf better
What’s funny is my friend Joe Grodzen and I have been riding surfboards a lot. I can actually say we can ride better than many of the surfers in the water and the surfers that suck the most hate on bodyboarders the most. And if we paddle out to a lineup of surfers with our surfboards we command respect and receive it, but if we paddle out on our bodyboards there is just nothing there. Surfers have no respect whatsoever. Yeah, take those guys to Teahupoo with Mike (Stewart) and the ozzies and see who is running and hiding. Nearly 99 percent of all surfers will be sitting in the boat watching and the men will be riding the beasts while the children scream and whine.
