“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Walt Whitman may well be describing the human condition in the above quote; each of us can harbour multiple standpoints, we can formulate conflicting theories, and some of can even foster multiple personalities. We’re complex beings.

Yet it’s the case that we don’t often tell complex stories about each other. The narrative arc, the hero’s journey, the three-act structure, none of these storytelling devices allow for more than a linear retelling of our lives. The contradictions remain buried, the secret garden remains so, and our ‘multitude’ becomes singular.

Keith Paull achieved a lot in surfing: he became Australian champ, knocking off Nat and Midget in the process, he had moderate biz success here and in the States, and through the 60s and early 70s he lived a healthy life devoted to surfing, yet the lasting image is surprisingly shallow: drug victim. His earlier feats have been reduced to footnotes compared to the cautionary tale his life had become.

To bring shape and context to Keith Paull’s life it was gonna take a willful historian, one who had the means to draw in many points of view and render Paull’s life from multiple angles, and this is what Gold Coast author Chris Gudenswager does.

“Keith Paull was a real gentleman. He looked you in the eye when he spoke to you and had fine manners. As an American, manners mattered as they are drilled into you from a young age, opening a lady’s car door, light her cigarette, things of that nature. KP had style - unlike most of the rough Aussies of the time and he was always very polite and well dressed.”
-Jack McCoy

“I really liked Keith Paull. I thought in those years that his application, his dedication, his discipline was phenomenal. He ate really well, staying ultra-healthy and had such a great attitude. He was a great-role model for us kids and that’s an important thing to say back in that period.”
-Wayne Lynch

“Keith always had mental issues it seemed to me and others who knew him. He got into drugs and that was the worst thing he could’ve possibly done. The worst thing, given his mental issues before that. I don’t know if he was schizophrenic or what, but there were definitely some issues there in the early days”.
-Gordon Merchant

“Prior to this, Keith had fk’n done mushrooms or some acid or some of Pete Tracker’s dynamite fk’n hash joints. Tracker was the sander at Keith Paull Surfboards, and would you believe, out of everybody, it was Mick [MP] that sensed it first. He said; ‘Tom, something’s wrong with Keith, he’s acting a bit weird and I don’t fk’n like it!”

“I said to him, ‘you can talk, fk’n takes one to know one - the pot calling the fk’n kettle black there mate!”

“You’re worried about Keith while I’m fk’n worried about you!”
-Tommy Peterson

“Coming from Hawaii, I knew what an acid-cat looked like and that’s where I suspected Keith was at when I saw him that day. A lot of the tribe were experimenting with LSD and Magic Mushrooms and the experience affected different people in different ways.”
-Jack McCoy

In ‘Smooth/Radical’, Gudenswager expands the public perception of Keith Paull, allowing the people who knew Paull to speak of their times with him, not just during the radical fall from grace, but of the person he was prior to being reduced to a mere parable. What he finds is a person who lived large - in the Whitman sense - and whose legacy tells us nothing of the person he once was. It takes a book like this to explain it.

'Smooth/Radical: The Keith Paull Story' is available online now