Let’s go back…
We figure it all started with surfing. We learned to surf together, spending more time at the beach than we did anywhere else. Surfing is the funnest, lonely sport you can do with others and we all came together looking to catch some waves. Time went by and we realized that we were friends, that we knew one another pretty well. Great friendships happened.
The beach is where we learned about the value of style, guts and commitment. It became clear who the good surfers in the group were, surfing never lies to you. We lived among the waves and played our roles in the real world. The beach was just a microcosm of that big world. There was self confidence and self doubt. Pride, fights, pain and glory. There were girls. We were heroes and fools all in the same day. We came of age together and through the years we have become men together. It’s harder to spend a whole day surfing now that we have families and jobs, and rightly so. But let’s be clear about one thing; the fellas can still throw down when it’s required. The little kid in us will come out when we all get together. The dynamic is unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
Boracho Boyz represents a million wonderful memories and millions of laughs. There’s the straight-up blood, sweat & tears in it all, too. Forty-plus years of friendships will do that. The most difficult thing to do with Boracho Boyz is to explain what it is to everyone else. We have tried to put it down in some visual sense here for you and if you don’t quite get it, we’re sorry. We’ll keep trying.
Some of our hang tags over the years
Yes, we printed our first shirt in the garage in 1989. It was The Original Stack artwork. Back then we didn’t name it, but that’s what we call it now. We printed that one because it was the only art we had. We started selling those soon after and we even made a hang tag so we could tell our story. It read in its original form as follows:
The Story
Back in the Spring of ‘88 a group of surfers from Santa Barbara headed down to Ensenada, Mexico for a weekend of sun, surf and cerveza. It was there that a little gray Mexican man first called the boys what you know them as today. It caught on immediately and the Boracho Boyz were born. Since then they have become living legends and are still together in Santa Barbara. That’s a true story. The legend part we kinda threw in there, but it’s a true story.
The Name
The townspeople informed us that borracho literally meant “drunk.” Well, we didn’t want to be known back home as “The Drunk Boys,” so we changed the spelling and made up our own definition. We dropped the second ‘R’ so we wouldn’t have to roll our tongues and we think our definition is a little better too. BORACHO (bo-ra’-cho), having a blast doing anything you do, at any time, at any age, with no regrets. That’s true Boracho style. Thanks for buying our product, The Boracho Boyz of Santa Barbara.
In 1991 as our lineup grew and the Boracho Boyz brand solidified, we introduced a revised version of our hang tag that shipped with our first run of the now-classic graphic, No Prize. No Bullshit. Just Surfing.That hang tag read in its original form as follows:
You do not become Boracho, it becomes you. It becomes you when it becomes one with the soul. There are no points of reference–no guidelines–just having a blast doing anything you do, at any time, at any age. That’s true Boracho style.
It all started in the Spring of ‘88 when a group of surfers from Santa Barbara headed down to Ensenada, Mexico for a weekend of sun, surf and cerveza. It was there that a little gray Mexican man first called the boys what you know them as today. It caught on immediately and the Boracho Boyz were born. Since then they have become living legends and are still together in Santa Barbara. That’s a true story. The legend part we kinda threw in there, but it’s a true story.
But let’s go back a bit farther…
The origin story of Boracho Boyz is hard to track down. We gave it a name in ‘88, but it was real before that. There’s always more to it and we’re going to introduce you to our creative director Joey Dominguez, aka Joeha, aka Joey D, to let him tell his side of things.
“It’s important for me to establish that I am only here as the voice of an entity that I have been lucky enough to be a part of. I learned my role pretty early and I’ve sort of been the journalist that has followed the band. The photographer in the trenches, or the board caddy with a front-row seat to some of the best surfing I’ve ever seen. My contribution to this movement is that I am just the artist recording what’s around me.
I have tried to be the conversion device that takes something special for a few and present it to the many in a way that does honor and respect to something of such importance. I figured that the best I can do is be honest in my lines and stay true to the people around me. The Boyz can smell bullshit a mile away and everything I create will pass through them at some point so it better hold water or they will let me know, and I love that about us. No bullshit. If anything, my voice is visual and my lines say what they need to say.
For me, It could be said that it began when my brothers and I watched my dad do cheater fives through the pilings at San Bar in the 70’s while we were floating in the desolate lineup on boogie boards.
Or was it learning to get rolled in the shorebreak at Goleta Beach without dying, back when there was one-hundred yards of scorching sand between the water and the grass. It didn’t take long for the sense of urgency to set in as you felt the emerging heat of lava sand. The grass was oh so nice on the feet after running the gauntlet.
It could be the ‘R’ Beach days in junior high when myself, Mark Georgio, Jimmy Shaw and Larry Lenninger were stealing lawn mowers for the wheels so we could build surfboard trailers for our bikes that would tow our boards. They were made out of wood we would find in the creek and somehow we would get them to work and it made riding to the beach so much easier.
Or was it in junior high on the YMCA surf trip to San Diego that over the course of a week would introduce us to surf spots of lore like Malibu, Leo Carillo, Swamis, Trestles and San Onofre. Where as fate would prove, I crossed paths with Bobby Jacobsen. Bobby would become a lifelong friend and ultimately introduce me to characters of the likes of Scott Leon and Jan Martinez, who would also become lifelong friends.
Did it start in the winter of ‘82 as we watched Curren surf San Bar from the roof of my dad’s house on Yananoli Street? Or was it the twenty-foot day at Rincon of that same winter when we realized that big waves were a real thing and you’d better have your shit together if you venture out there. I remember two things about that day: one, how lucky I was that I didn’t drown on that set. And two, how lucky I was to be able to watch Shaun Thompson surf it.
Or was it the smells? Surfing has smells. Like my first wetsuit, an O‘neill Animal Skin longsleeve shorty and the first bar of Sex Wax. Or fixing my first ding and the sweet smell of sanded fiberglass and resin, and the sublime scent of a hot batch going off?
Or was it the first time I paid attention and watched the sea turn from summer to winter, as the sand disappeared and the water got heavy. Early mornings putting on a cold wetsuit that didn’t have time to dry from the evening sesh the night before.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was all in my mind as I flipped through the pages of the holy documents of Surfer and Surfing magazine. Names like Art Brewer and Warren Bolster creating indelible images of Hawaii for us groms to live out in the two-foot beach break of Sands on a cold Goleta morning?
Or was it the surf movies? Ahh, the surf movies. The first surf movie I remember seeing was Five Summer Stories when it played at the Arlington Theater. My dad took my brother Bob and I because Mike was too little. Shit, I was only five or six! I have few memories of that night because I was so young. I do remember all the hooting and cheering and my dad saying, “He’s the best surfer in the world.” Of course, he was talking about Jerry Lopez.
Or was it the first time making out with a girl after a day of surfing and having my sinuses drain out all over her as we kissed? That’s when you know you are having a good day; ending an epic day of surfing with a hot girl you met on the beach.
It could very well be living in the Volkswagen van on the north shore of Kauai with Matt McCoy and Jim Campbell from ‘89 to ‘92. We surfed a lot. More than I had ever surfed. I rode the wave of my life at Rambo’s on an eight-foot day and nobody was there to see it. I feel like I became a man there. Learning to surf for real, for the first time in my life.
I guess it really doesn’t matter. When it’s all said and done we are here now. Survivors of the near drownings, the epic barrels, the heartbreak of flat days, the sting of a wetsuit rash that won’t go away because you can’t stop surfing, and the right of passage of being put in your place by the older locals. We’re here because we love more than the wave. We love the path it’s taken us on, with all the hold downs and laughs that a life of surfing brings. We love it all and we are who we are because of it.
So, where did it all start? You tell me. This is just my version. You should ask the other guys for their take on all this. I’m sure they have some good stories.”
~ Joe D
This was written in a booth at the 20th Street Cafe in Denver, Colorado 11:00 am April 22, 2024
