Aesthetics: J Brother

I think J Brother was a recently graduated water polo guy from Pepperdine when I met him. I called him JB then, as I do now. At that precise moment, he was on the third-story lanai at Herbie Fletcher and Gerry Lopez’s Pipe house, manning a tripod, racking focus (well, the JDM prosumer Canon L2 Hi8 was sort of doing that for him), panning back and forth from the Wakita Bowl to the mainframe Banzai scrum line. His new pal Joel Tudor, then 17 or so, was out, and he wasn’t wasting this catbird POV.

Though 15 years my junior, we hit it off. Indeed, that whole little squad was tight. Guy Motil—a kind and striving Surfer and Breakout photo alum whose appetite exceeded the crab bucket at the mainstream monthlies—was there. He’d just founded his Longboard Quarterly and had bought my ticket. JB and I surfed Lani’s, smoked trees, and rapped during car rides about shared tastes. He came off as respectful and mature for his age. I, assigned jester at birth, worked at keeping our crew entertained. 

The largesse of Kamakura surfer Takuji Masuda (JB’s fellow Pepperdiner) had us living beyond our station at the top dead center of North Shore life. The longboard posse was fledgling but girded by the presence of young locals like Lance Ho‘okano, Rusty Keaulana, and Zane Aikau. The interplay between the Hawaiians and the visiting haoles was mostly amenable, with the islanders straddling the line between haughty and aloha-rich. JB fit in with both seamlessly. As I discovered, he himself was a multigenerational kama‘āina from Maui whose Japanese American grandfather on his mother’s side was the first Eagle Scout west of the Mississippi. JB had ridden his first waves on a mat at the Valley Isle’s Kamaole Beach. 

From that trip I remember his manners, wry wit, and hungry eye. But mostly I remember his style: put-together. Low-key, but always with sartorial grace notes. Totally unique, his sensibilities tracked a bin dive through ’50s surf, vintage Ivy, rocksteady, and an off-handed touch of French new wave. He peacocked in such a way that you felt it more than you saw it. Subtle. Way more “collected” than “bought.”

That effect still runs across his life and his work like a throughwire. His slim filmography is why most of us know him at all. If you’re not a Malibu or Honolua insider (he rips on everything from self-shaped 5’6″s to Takayama step decks), you probably recognize the “J Brother” imprimatur from Adrift, the mid-’90s amuse-bouche that came out of nowhere and sort of blew everyone out. If you haven’t yet, go watch it. 

Clocking in at 24 minutes, it quietly dropped like a short-run art-house exercise squat in the middle of the Momentum era. Surf videos at that point were smash-pow, quick-cut, and marked with the same harsh, soap-opera lighting that gave ESPN’s “Hot Summer Nights” the shelf life of backdated kefir. (Jack McCoy excepted. That maestro only shot film.) They also were accompanied by the sort of punk-lite that grated on anyone who was there for Gen One outfits like Dead Boys and the Germs. The era was defined by the industrious and well-connected Taylor Steele, who obliterated retail-sales records as a matter of course. These were action/froth manuals, up-to-the-moment documents dead set on recording the advent of airs, reverses, and the odd shuv-it. 

Adrift was…something else. Strangely sophisticated for the time, it had the sort of thoughtful, vibey attention to detail that seemed to cite late-career Antonioni as much as it did Bud Browne. 

The soundtrack ranged from Mozart to instrumental funk/groove works from the Beastie Boys to Erroll Garner. It also introduced Joel Tudor at the moment he went from local club-contest boy phenom to international style locus. Adrift’s deer-slug impact can’t be overlooked in that regard.

Afterward, JB eased into what might best be described as the life of the hidden surfer. Bearing no real outward-facing markers of his raison, the Long Beach native is free today to pursue the study of his passions unjudged: art (Man Ray, Pangborn, Rockwell, Kubrick, O’Keeffe). Pop (Batman, ’90s fashion photography). 

Reflective study of his favorite wave riders (Wayne-O Cochran, Donald Takayama, Koa Kapu, Armin Brown, Allen Sarlo). Indulgence of internal combustion (Japanese supermotos, Vespas). Haunting of LA thrift stores (curried down to the absolute ichiban—secret Japanese-owned outlets with racks of vintage Nakamichi hi-fi, Gibson guitars, and new old-stock Atari). Most of these waypoints are well referenced in the surrounding spreads. 

His home is overstuffed with art and keepsakes, both self-made and gathered. The Californian beach cottage blends studio, museum, and bodega: racks of motorcycle helmets. Stacks of surfboards (20? 40?). First-edition, estate-sale Ian Fleming and Ernest Hemingway. Small mixed-media dioramas of his own design. 

The kitchen is lightly stocked. A healthy sort, he says, “I’m O positive. Like a caveman. The oldest blood type. So no dairy, no wheat. Organic everything. Intermittent fasting from dinner to dinner. During the day, I drink greens in a mud-water concoction. I’m basically a freegan. Plus Japanese rice, of course.” He sends me a photo of a blood-rare flank steak on a bed of grain.

A talented still photographer, he’s hung a few favored works in the halls, and his new Leica lies on a stack of paperwork and notes. After a hiatus, he’s jumping back in for personal reasons.

Surf movie-wise? Tired of the “Too short!” critiques of his hungry fan base, he released Longer two decades ago. Since then, he’s shot, cataloged, and mothballed resonant clips of Clay Marzo, Kelly Slater, and Tosh Tudor. Most likely never to be seen. 

His life is avian, migrating each year from Summer California to Winter Maui. His sustenance seems to come from surfing, shaping, hobbies, and the overwatch of his cherished mother. Wrapping up this precis, I’m suddenly reminded of the first time I received a session-tracking screenshot. His wrist device had recorded an afternoon of southern hemi Malibu. The display looked like a hurricane path prediction overlay, describing some 12 miles of surfing and paddling. The result looked busy and complex but peacefully static.

[Feature image: Still life at Chez Brother: pop, childhood things, stuff I can’t part with—from signed gifts to rocks from Malibu to a Cheyne Horan fin. Photo by J Brother]

All photos by or courtesy of J Brother, unless otherwise credited.