There’s something funny about working in retail, isn’t there? 

Everyone has this mad idea that working retail is worth looking down on because it’s the most, ‘another room to exist in before you die,’ sort of situation. Which it is because that’s what everything is. You log into three separate backend systems, check your email, and have a Teams meeting on mute during your day. In one room, you're submitting a deck. In another room, you know how to properly fold a pair of pants and have an extensive knowledge of counting change while taking tax in account. Is one really more dignified than the other?

Tell me, right now, what would you do if someone walked up to your desk at mad o’clock right before you were about to leave asking for a very specific product your company sold? Imagine a 35-plus-year-old, tight-faced man called ‘Austin’ in skinny jeans, a flat brim, and a denim jacket asking you to, ‘See if it’s in the back.’ What would you do? And then what would you do if you came back and he said he actually wants something else, so you go back and grab that, thanks, and then they just leave without getting anything altogether? I reckon I’d go feral. There’s just something about having to deal with real people who look at you like you were freshly dredged from a pond multiple times a day that makes you want to just start violently scratching everything around you. 

It's like they say: inside you, there are two wolves. One wolf is battered with repetition and the grind after grind after grind of waking up and commuting in, day after day after day. But the actions that wolf makes are very rarely actually difficult. Still: some dumbfuck other wolf above your pay bracket keeps forgetting simple stuff like, ‘Why am I not seeing the email attachment?’ Or, ‘Why are things so static? Why are we doing (describes thing that wolf just held a pack meeting for a few days before stressing how the other wolves need to do something that wolf just had only just seen on their phone on the way to work a few days earlier and it had a million likes because it's a post from a luxury car company but that wolf just doesn't understand why that sort of creative isn't translating to the packs’ small, local business)?’ The other wolf in you worked as a barista for four years and knows how to diffuse an argument with all the professionalism of a Cold War interpreter.

Micky Clarke works in retail. You can find him behind the register at the Chapter 11 store in Ventura most days. He's also a professional surfer, a great person, and someone who has made this site more than a few times, and all for good reasons. With the Chapter 11 store moving from Point A to a very near Point B here soon, we thought we'd call him up to get a rundown on things. Everything on who's the best on the embroidery machine, how Dane is as a manager, and more. Oh, and there are talks of an upcoming Haydenshapes movie (it's coming!) and other California surf nonsense in there as well. Cha-ching…

Micky! What’s up sir.

You know, just at the store.

Oh, right, and who are we shopping for? 

Oh, no, no, no, I’m working at the Chapter 11 store.

Right, so not buying. Selling, actually.

Yes, I’m the vendor this time. 

You're the man of the hour. 

Yeah, giving it a nice, deep clean right now actually.

No, no no no, no. No. How's everything up north then? Life in Ventura all sunshine and rainbows per usual?

I mean, it's a little on the depressing side, just considering how much rain we've had and how little the sandbars have actually formed from all that.

Is that right? According to Instagram Ventura has been nothing but pumping for months now. 

It's so easy to make it look like Ventura’s pumping. Anytime… yeah, I don’t know, but anytime we get a swell obviously the point breaks are super fun. But, like, everywhere, I swear, in the last year or two has been like slowly, slowly eroding (laughs).

It almost seems like, I don't know, but usually we’ll get a big storm and it’d eat the sand away. And then we would have some rain and the rivers and the runoff and everything would kind of rejuvenate it. But, between this winter and last winter, we had a significant amount of rainfall. A lot of big storms brought, like, big surf obviously but didn’t bring a lot else with it. And now everything’s just eroded and guttered. Like, all the point breaks and beach breaks. Obviously, spots still have their moments. But it just seems like between all that we haven't had any south swell through the summer to bring back sand and have gone through a rough period for sure. Some gloomy days.

That recent bit swell was particularly crazy though. I remember driving down from the Central Coast when it was hitting and I was coming down those mountains on the backend of Santa Barbara and I could see the whole coastline and it just looked like there were waves peaking out by Catalina. 

It was massive, yeah. I just wish there is more structure to all of it. It seems like it's either not big enough or too big now. 

The two choices always are flat or scary. You made it out on there, though! At least I saw one shot of you wrangling just a diabolical looking left.

Dude, I actually blew that wave (laughs). I was going too fast and I tried to slow down and I just as I punched my butt to the water I lost my balance.

Oof, that had to be a fun swim afterward. Did you brave it out right out front for that session or where did you go that was semi-holding it?

No, no. That was down at Oxnard shores. When it gets that big out there, I mean, honestly, like, the bigger it gets at those beaches it just breaks further and further and further out.

I mean fuck me that paddle can be brutal as is how’d it go on that day?

There was a point between I was like halfway out and I was like, okay, there's a lull. I can either put my head down and paddle as hard as I can right now and hope I don't get caught, or I can turn around and go in. And I genuinely felt like if I were to commit and paddle really hard and I was, like, really out of breath. Like, if I did get caught by one of the waves… These are not good vibes that I’m feeling from this.

And just with the way things work you just know you’re going to make it out, be gassed, and then immediately see a cleanup set blocking out the horizon.

Seriously. Luckily I made it out and it was it was chill vibes. And being out there, honestly, I didn't feel that big, and I know I got bigger. As the morning went on, I knew it got a lot bigger. But I saw that frame grab and I was like, oh, the fuck? (laughs).

And you braved the toxic Pacific for the firing surf but 60,000 gallons of sewage per second recently too, yeah? It was actually mind blowing how good it was, at least down here (ED: interviewer lives in LA, which is not a premier surf destination. There are plenty of other distractions, however).

Yeah, we had some windows. But it seems like the last few spells we had you just had to work so hard to find the spot to surf. And then at that point it felt like you're just overthinking it. You should just commit to the first spot you see, or something. And, I don't know, it's like, two-or-three hour sessions to have like one decent wave to show for it.

That and the water quality is way more than very suspect. 

Oh yeah with the water quality and you’re doing it over and over again, every storm, you’re like, okay, at some point I'm gonna get some sort of fucking bacterial infection.

Neti pots and doubling the charcoal pill intake at least takes the fear out of my mind. 

Yeah… just snort some soap water in the shower.

Anything on the books to get out of here for a bit? Saw you weren't in Hawaii so sure you're itching for it.

I've got plans this year to go to South Africa. I want to stay with Shane Sykes. Somehow I’ve never been.

Neither have I. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that someone needs to just give me $100,000 so I can really sort of travel, surf, and vibe for a year. I reckon that would fix a lot of my problems. Basically just be on the same program that old magazines and news outlets used to run. Here’s a bunch of money, now go somewhere exotic and come back with something that’s way over word count but somewhat interesting. That’s doable still, right? 

(Laughs) Yeah… but, I guess that's sort of the highlight so far. I think May is probably around the time I'll get over there and, until then, I mean, other than South Africa, I definitely want to get back to Chile and I really want to get back to Australia. So, yeah, the three spots are South Africa, Australia, and Chile.

Full Southern Hemi roundabout. When did you hit Chile last? That’s always been the bucket list destination. 

The year before last year. We only went, like, we got a two way ticket. We're supposed to be there for like ten days but we end up coming home after the fifth or sixth day because the forecast just went down the drain. But it was crazy because we got a lot of footage from only three actual days of surfing. Realistically, we just got one swell that just kept giving. Nico Vargas was, like, “This isn’t even that good? But yeah, there’s swell.” And I surfed eight and a half hours straight one day. It was crazy. It was the best and the worst.

Certainly feels great in the moment but you’re just so toast afterward. Like, too tired to even eat or anything and you start spiraling.

Yeah, and after the third or fourth hour you're like… I should probably go in. And then you’re just thinking that for the next four hours after that.

Just one more good one, just one more good one.

Like, looking at the beach and thinking, “Is Hunter over it yet?"

Speaking of filming, apparently there’s a new Haydenshapes film on the way apparently? Tell me a bit about that.

So, it's funny you bring that up because I actually just found that out myself.

Oh

I don't know any details about it, honestly. Other than Hayden really wants to do a surf trip or a surf film. I don't know exactly who is included. I mean, I imagine essentially, like, the whole team?

A proper surf flick is always welcome.

If I'm correct, I believe he wants to do something around a two year project. And, you know, in Indo, South Africa, Chile, and all sorts of spots like that. I’ve yet to really sit down and talk to him about all that stuff but, yeah. 

I think it was after the Australia trip that I went on to finish releasing my board and I was talking about it towards the end of it, like, all of us were like, shoot, we could just really work on doing an actual proper movie. Something that might drag out for a couple of years and see what happens.

Get the Chapter 11 feel to it. A proper team grind.

The most dysfunctional team ever, if you want to call it a team. At Octo we’re trying to do something too, like a full team surf movie. So, yeah, we’ll see how that comes together.

Well, I surfed my Cohort with an Octo pad today so sucking up to you a bit. You’re playing to the audience here, for sure. How you been keeping your time otherwise? Just fooling around Ventura?

A lot of store work, honestly. We're just making t-shirts and embroidering and making hats.

You find yourself navigating the embroidery machine often? I’ve seen that thing in the store it’s an absolute beast.

Not all the time, but more often than I used to. When we first got the machine I was way too intimidated by the tiny little strings and the needles. So, I've conquered my fear. I've definitely worked on it quite a bit more now and made some hats, made some t-shirts, made some hoodies. But, I like screen printing a lot more. Although the ink gets everywhere, and so fast. 

So yeah, I mean, other than surfing, definitely been kind of trying to make a bunch of stuff at the store and get some drops ready. We want to do another premiere soon too, for sure, and get some life into the store again. We’ve got an Emma Wood video dropping. It’s 20-minutes and just Emma Wood so maybe that? 

Feel like that’s perfectly on brand, no?

Yeah, it’s pretty cool for how shitty that wave. A movie, or, a video, of surfing just that wave is pretty funny.

Hey man I’ve never had a bad time at Emma Wood.

Even when you don't get a good wave you don’t have a bad session. But, yeah, I’ve definitely been making much more of an emphasis to be in the store and be more hands on stuff. Because sometimes I get lost in surfing and sometimes I get lost in just store work and now I've got both worlds colliding right now.

It is really rad to see everyone on the Chapter 11 crew really puts in the hours and works the store and gets their elbows dirty and whatnot. Who’s chief embroiderer? Who has the most delicate hands. I feel like it’s Jake.

I'd say it's between Eithan and Jake. But honestly, I’d say Dane might take the cake in getting it on and wrestling the machine and making sure it's actually working. 

Realistically, the machine does a lot of the work when it's running correctly. Like, all you do is click start and load it up. The annoying part is just digitising the graphic and making sure it's not too big and then, you know, you make one and you embroider it and it doesn't look good and then you change it and then you do it again until it looks good. We're like, okay, we're gonna have to take like a whole month of working on this. 

All right, boys, we got to bump the price on this one by, like, another 30 or 40 dollars. Labour costs are just out of control these days.

Net worth.

Scared money don’t make money. So you around for the foreseeable then? 

I'm hoping to get a Puerto Rico trip going just after this weekend!

Oh, you're going somewhere soon then! Right on, okay. 

Looks like we're gonna have a fun well this weekend for up here, to, but… The best day or month of surf in California is the average day in Australia or wherever else. Get on a plane and go a thousand for the best California day ever, really. 

Yeah, getting really stoked out on a regular Tuesday lunch surf would be really nice. 

Oh, great, 30 minutes? Right, I'm gonna go get barreled.

Must be nice. Must be really, really nice. 

I say it all the time, but California is not the place for a surfer. Yet somehow the industry lives here. 

And that’s why we love it. Thanks Micky! 

Yeah dude!