DORA LIVES: The Authorized Story of Miki Dora

While dog sitting for my friend Derek a few weeks ago, I spotted a copy of DORA LIVES: The Authorized Story of Miki Dora in the bathroom while I was, well, you know... Now I know my fair share about Miki Dora, a gentleman also known as "Da Cat," or the guy that made Malibu (in)famous. But this book shed a whole new light on one of the most iconic surfers... ever. "When he didn't like the commercial direction of the sport he helped define, he turned his back on the beach, wandered the world, served time in jail, and, finally in 2002, suffering from pancreatic cancer returned to his father's house in Montecito to die at age 67."

To define Dora is to define sand slipping through your fingers. Something that seemed so solid, so real, and yet can quickly escape to where it originated. With a healthy disdain for "modern" surf culture, Miki Dora was, in my opinion, one of the few that escaped The Great Sellout of the 1970's. This book, albeit read briefly while using Derek's well-equipped Water Closet, helped me better understand someone I've known only through images. "Transcribed interviews with Dora and texts by former Surfer magazine editor Drew Kampion... are combined with nearly 100 photos and stills from photographers, filmmakers, and Dora's personal albums." Does this book do Dora justice? No, I don't think anything could. But it certainly allows us to see another side, one that wasn't commercialized, cut, pasted and promoted.

DORA LIVES is available on Amazon.

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