Bunker Spreckles III

Scenes from a life. A Nordic überman rests a rifle over his shoulder, tight, high-waisted flares hugging his hips, his bare chest smooth and spartan, eyes hidden behind black aviators. The Teuton’s right hand clasps the rifled horn of a slain antelope. A blond kid kissed by sun and sea hugs a mutant hard-railed disc-like surfboard, stares at the lens with those aviator eyes, graces the cover of Art Brewer’s photographic opus.An Elvis-style sideburned and quiffed geezer in low-necked spacey surfing t-shirt skateboards through a European city square. He rocks a skin-tight, pearl white set of flares, and though he is ignored by most of the crowd in the background, a few grannies gasp agog. The skateboarder’s face, meanwhile, remains deadly dread. An apparently whacked-out, moustached smoker stares at the lens in a hotel room somewhere, in another pair of flares, this time made of light, stitched leather. He sits on a broken mirror, and there’s a bullwhip and an accordion in the foreground. A quiver of odd surf vehicles is splayed out in the traditional manner; the spokes of a wheel, the centre of which is a leopard skin rug. A camp, smoking jacket-wearing individual stands at a rakish angle to the camera beneath tall palm trees. His wrists are limp, his expression slightly amused. His eyes stare with that same intimacy.You Are Bunker Spreckels.You were born heir to a Maui sugar fortune and inheritor of a legacy intertwined with Hawaiian culture. Your great oligarch grandfather defended Hawaiian independence in the face of colonial and missionary pressure. And, friend to the Hawaiian royal line, you are regarded as a reincarnation of a prince by the old Kahunas who still hold you and your family in reverence. You are taught arcane rituals, schooled in ways unknown to other haoles. You are an anointed one. You play at Waikiki and private breaks in California and become a highly skilled surfer, continually sipping nectar from the silver spoon that is your birthright.In 1955, when you’re still just a kid, your mother marries Clark Gable. Your profile shoots into the stratosphere. You are taught to hunt in Africa. You swan in the Hollywood limelight between surfs up the coast at Malibu and trips back to your homeland. At some point you’re truly off the rails. People blame the free-wheeling crew up at the ‘Bu. You find a freedom there from your lineage. No one cares who you are, it’s how you hold yourself and how you surf that matter.Miki Dora himself names you the Genetic Space Child. You venture into realms unknown, sprinkled with psychedelics, anchored in pioneer trips to obscure surf destinations. In those dangerous seasons you are a member of the rank and file of the revolution, returning to the North Shore to design and ride a panoply of obscure wave-riding craft. Most are stubby, snub nosed, down railed. The latter design feature is particularly credited to you and your approach. You re-invent the vision of what it means to ride waves, and it is rumoured that at one point you own more surfboards than anyone else on the planet. Prone, kneeling, stinkbug and straight-legged, you throw out the style sheet and cast each ride in a new vernacular. You are among the pioneers of Backdoor Pipe.Not long after you retired to obscurity, away from the gaze of surf magazines, you finally claim your inheritance. You go hard. The world is your chalice. And you drink. You travel. You party. You dress up in mad costumes. A team of writers, artists, photographers and filmmakers are charged with documenting your existence. You become ‘The Player’. Your pioneering reality show is, as the cliché goes, stranger than any fiction. The Player begins to stand like a colossus over the remnants of your previous life. Bunker Spreckels seems only to exist in the reflection at which you stare. You become a mediated being. You die, at the age of 27, in a hotel room in Paris. The coroner reports that it was of natural causes. Some say you overdosed. The truth may never be known. Every now and then, your name appears in the surf media. Google ‘Bunker’ and you get this:“After persisting rumours that the entrance to Hell was located in an obscure industrial park in Compton California, our investigative reporter ventured into the vicinity to verify the rumours. After an exhaustive search, Paul’s car ran out of gas just after sunset in the general vicinity of the suspect industrial area. Several hours later while searching on foot he found Rotten Robbie’s gas station on East Compton and South Atlantic Avenues. In the process of purchasing a quart of gas in an Old English 800 bottle ($2.36 per gallon), the gas station attendant ‘Anthony Bunker Spreckels III’ confirmed that in fact Paul had found an entrance to Hell. Bunker told him ‘all cut-rate gas stations with bulletproof gas are in fact entrances to Hell’. Further questioning revealed that the devil’s name is G. W. Bush. Bush was appointed after an unconventional election in purgatory. He said, ‘The idea here is to make sure Hell is well funded through gasoline sales.’ Apparently attendants are chosen based on an individual’s character and are considered top rate jobs in Hell. Mr Spreckels went on to state ‘Yeah, the perks are pretty good, I can sometimes trade gas for a dime bag or some pot when the accountant, Jim Morrison, is doing the books. We split the stuff and then get high in the bathroom. Sometimes I get a surf report from geeks on their way home to Chino. Sometimes I can even surf at the Santa Ana jetties after heavy rain.’ Paul asked about who we would find in Hell when we get there? Bunker’s response was surprising: ‘We got every pope including their wives and families down here; in fact there are quite a few men of the cloth showing up lately. The devil is pissed and giving these guys hell because these church guys are trying to take all the credit.’ Of critical importance to the governments of all countries is the issue of ‘recruitment development’ for Hell. Political insiders say that there is increased funding for this. When asked directly about this Mr Spreckels was forthcoming. ‘We have recruiters everywhere; in fact our push now is centred on the entertainment and surfing industries. We find that in these areas our effectiveness is most efficient both financially and in the number of individuals ready for the plunge.’”You are the patron saint of surf culture’s caste of mavericks. You are Bunker Spreckels.