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Don Redondo, as serialized in The Surfer’s Path magazine
Don Redondo Lives! In 1968, the University of California Press published The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, the Ph.D. thesis of a brilliant young student named Carlos Castañeda. The book chronicled the meetings of Castañeda with a Yaqui Indian shaman named Don Juan Matus, who lived in Mexico’s Sonora Desert. The meetings occurred over several years and involved the use of certain plants, substances, and rituals to achieve alternative views of reality. Castañeda became Don Juan’s apprentice and chronicled their encounters in a series of books (A Separate Reality, Journey to Ixtlan, Tales of Power, etc.) that gained immense popularity in the psychedelic and post-psychedelic eras of American and global alternative culture. In 1975, Drew Kampion encountered a very similar story within the surfing world. Kampion was Contributing Editor to Surfing magazine when he met a young man named Careless Constipeda, a chronic student at Los Angeles Valley College, who’d been working on his Associate of Arts degree (a two-year program) for several years. Constipeda was studying the mind-altering characteristics of surfing and the effects of waves on a person’s idea of reality. He too had met a guru, a Malibu beach bum named Don Redondo, who taught him about surfing, surf culture, and other strange and wonderful things. Several stories chronicling Constipeda’s encounters with Don Redondo appeared in Surfing in the 1970s, along with a regular column titled “Ask Don,” in which the surf guru himself answered reader’s questions. Subsequently, an additional story, entitled “Don Redondo Goes Surfing with Bob Dylan” appeared in The Whole Ocean Catalog in the 1980s. Tom Threinen, who illustrated those early Don Redondo stories, has joined author Drew Kampion in recreating these characters (and others!) and their stories (and more!) for The Surfer’s Path magazine in hopes that new readers will be, if not enlightened, at least amused by them. To follow the adventures of Don and Careless, consider a subscription: www.surferspath.com In the words of Don Redondo: “Don’t be a cheapscrape, Careless! Pony up t’ da salsa bar!”
Be bold, T-off with Don!
Rosa's Cantina T-Shirt (ash gray)
"Wanna know" T-Shirt (white)
Be buzzed, get mugged with Don!
"Waterman" Mug
© Drew Kampion, 2006 |
