Rob Machado The Zen master returns
When Rob Machado stepped down from the podiums, he retained his title as the master of Zen. With a new film, new focus and new place in the spotlight, can the barefoot drifter maintain his soul surfer vibe?
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“Rob! Tell us where we are!”
“We’re in Virginia Beach!”
“What’s going on?!”
“A nor’easter! It’s like a hurricane — but gnarlier!”
The first half of Rob Machado’s yelling gets drowned in a blast of wind. The second half slammed in a van door. But Taylor Steele, at the ready with camera in hand, catches it all. He jumps in the van and joins Rob in the back, alongside a board bag, guitar and crumpled Clash T-shirt. Up front, two Hurley coordinators hit the gas for a full day of surf shop signings. Outside, driving rain and gale-force winds send trash cans tumbling down the street. Rob, however, simply bends with the flow. Cruising. From place to place. Situation to situation. Much like his latest movie, The Drifter. Except instead of camping across Sumatra, he’s hitting hotels from Florida to New Jersey. And instead of riding waves alone, he’s packing rooms and signing posters to promote his new film. But he seems to be enjoying it nonetheless.
“Part of the movie’s point is to branch out and shake up your surroundings,” he reasons. “Besides, when you’re doing six-hour rides with a guy you grew up with, it’s actually pretty fun.”
Part documentary, part instant replay, The Drifter is more than just a chance for Machado to “branch out” — it heralds his return to the surf spotlight after nearly a decade of semi-hibernation. Once ranked second in the world, Rob stopped competing for titles in 2002 to build a comfortable home life with his wife and two daughters, going on random photo trips and maintaining unheard of popularity in such a fair-weather sport. From 1995 to 2008, fans kept Machado locked in among Surfer Poll’s Top Ten. Meanwhile, close friend Taylor Steele — once just a teenager with handy-cam and access to the planet’s best surfers — built his production house, Poor Specimen, into the biggest name in surf videos, churning out amped-up shred fests and cooler, more artistic displays. It was while filming clips for one of the former — Stranger than Fiction — that Taylor and Rob decided they should make one of the latter.
“The whole concept originated from watching Rob surf Uluwatu,” says Taylor. “It was a nice sunset kind of day and Rob’s surfing had this timeless seventies feel. We said, ‘Let’s put him in some perfect waves and have some magic moments.’ So that was the seed. Then, after four months, Rob showed us his journal and we were like, ‘Whoa, there’s some heavy stuff here!’ So from there we thought, ‘If we’re going to do this, let’s make it a documentary — film him interacting with people as we follow along from place to place.’”
Hence The Drifter — a journey where Rob heads off into uncharted Indonesia, intentionally losing himself to find himself, tackling the end of his competitive career and finding solace by surfing when he pleases. The irony? In order to promote this tale of a man rejecting the trappings of surf stardom, Rob must now willingly strap them all back on for a promotional tour through far less sexy locations. Besides a star-studded NYC premiere, Rob’s traipsed up from Florida to a North Carolina college town. The one thing both missions have in common? Steele’s along for the ride — filming every second of it.
“Here, check it out…”
Taylor replays the clip for Rob, who watches and smiles as a pair of errant locks fall across his eyes. No matter how many times his pal hits record, Rob and his trademark afro look totally unfazed. Part of it is the thirty-six-year-old’s comfort with Taylor and his camera (they’ve known each other since Machado was twelve). And part of it is a serene confidence that transcends the lens. In a world where marketing gimmicks and branding actively sell fantasy as reality, Rob’s found himself at the crux of a series of Zen riddles: when a soul surfer sells an image does he also sell his soul? And once for sale, will the public still want to buy it?
For the full interview check out HUCK#019, out now.
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Rob Machado (text) by Matt Walker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Comments (6)
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Were you at St. Timothy's on Easter?
If not, you have a twin out there.