Taj just released a rad little video online. It has waves in it that remind me of why I fell in love with Taj’s surfing. I can remember being a teenager and watching Sabotaj on VHS with my buddies. None of us had ever been to Australia. We had never even left Santa Cruz really. But Taj’s surfing and the cinematography in that movie stunned me. That clear water. The perfect waves right off the beach. No longer was Steamer Lane the best wave in the world.

Fast forward 10 years and I’m on a remote Indonesian island with Taj and he’s doing the same exact thing he was doing on my television. Only this time I’m the one in the water taking photos.

Jump another 6 years and I’m watching him on a computer screen in a house in San Francisco with Yago Dora and Andrew Doheny. I look over and their eyes are wide open. And then I realize that Taj will always have that effect on people. It doesn’t matter where you watch him from. VHS. iPhone. Computer. Live. And it doesn’t matter what decade it is either. 90’s. 00’s. 10’s. I just can’t wait to see what he comes out with in the 20’s. —Nate Lawrence