Hang in there epac - my best friend who had the single hip replacement surgery just after you hasn’t been back to teach his auto shop and wood shop class this whole semester but is going back after Christmas/new years!
Meaning in retrospect, the new generations of surfing masses, in general, owning little self respect thus showing no respect toward others. Examples of this are everywhere these days, from the line up in the surf to the line up on the roads. There are of coarse exceptions to the rule, thank god.
I was surfing a long hollow point break in Ventura yesterday and it was packed.Decided to go out anyway since it was SURF and beautiful weather.Got a few 200 yd rides and walked back up the point.Then just sat and had alot of nothing with leroy’s and barney’s spazzing and falling on take off . Then, this guy starts talking to me and he was older, riding ,an egg.He mentions style and I am kinda half listening and nod and then I notice HE’S REALLY TALKING TO ME.Very cool guy I start realizing, and then he takes off a really ,really good wave and has the best style I have seen IN A VERY LONG TIME! It really made my day! The guy just flew down the line on an egg wit his hand skimming the lip and SUPER SMOOOOOOOTH !!! The guy was a great surfer ,a bit older maybe , but a very, very ,good surfer and he just blended into the crowd and I doubt many people even noticed.
Meaning in retrospect, the new generations of surfing masses, in general, owning little self respect thus showing no respect toward others. Examples of this are everywhere these days, from the line up in the surf to the line up on the roads
Another interesting vein to follow here - although I might flip it this way. Rather than masses with no self respect, perhaps they simply way way too much pride/ego/arrogance…too much self respect? Too many soccerbaby participation trophies? Too much trash culture from the media? Journalism without journalistic values?
Talk about delusions.
Epac, ever see a person so soulful and deep into the glories of Mother Ocean they simply saunter with calculated obliviousness across old PCH, expecting all traffic to slow or stop for them and their (insert brand name here) board…to the glories of 2 foot Mondos? Hee hee hee…
Could have been Matt Miller or his sidekick the poolman (Kirk Putnam) They, at a minimum, fit your description of “older”
Roger
This is another interesting thought, Roger. However, Anybody who has spent any time at Malibu would almost genetically be incapable of sauntering across the old PCH at Mondos oblivious to traffic, so I rather doubt it. It’s probably a good thing you can’t drink on most beaches these days though; certainly for me.
Since this seems to be the thread which is going to haunt me for today, I would also offer on top of earlier comments that perhaps some of current delusions are as much a result of unwarranted feelings of entitlement as they are of excessive self respect/ego. As in “I have a $700 surfboard, a $400 wetsuit, a $30 leash, and an SUV/Hummer/Volvo/full size truck, therefore traffic should stop for me in and out of the water”. I sometimes think the geocentric view of the universe must be getting taught at school…
There’s a fine line between unconcern and disrespect. If you genuinely don’t care what others think doesn’t it increase the possibility that you will offend them, but then again you wouldn’t care about that because you don’t care what other people think. Also do you have so little regard for the judgement of your peers that their input is considered totally valueless?
Or are you just sprouting some recycled minor philosopher?
I miss my grandma too…This happened some years ago, but I think it fits in right about here - I went to the hospital to see her and the doctor told me that she had decided to pull her own plug? She was quite the old girl. She had traveled the entire world and her favorite job was she would play the Hammond organ in the theater when the silents became talkies. So any way I screwed up my courage and sniff-sniff went in to say goodbye to her. In the room up on the overhead TV was playing “The Endless Summer” and Grandma said to me before she passed, “I finally see why you love surfing so much!” Pass it on…
Nice story daddio. Your Grandma is an example of the generous and non-egocentric way of living in the world. She gave you a gift, and you had the smarts to realize it. Thanks for paying it forward. The most affable surfers I have met, the ones who are open to helping me learn, seem to be people who have received similar gifts, and are aware of their responsibility to give something back. Happy Holidays.
But if knowledge is nothing more than the results and conclusions of experiments and hypothesis formed from the effort of quantifying and recording the processes derived from short term memories, where’s the freekin magic? What of the native Americans oral tradition, the telling of knowledge from elders to the next generation? Let’s practice around the fire here for awhile before the Buffalo hunt, sonny, I think those critters might take your life if’n ya don’t listen to my memories of the hunt and let me scratch out some strategies on the walls of this cave. What about the elder shaman who couples his past memories with a more mature understanding of the entire of his (or her) life experience to give a prognostication for the future that will benefit the tribe? What about the elder artist or poet that finally has something to say beyond the constant white noise mass complaint that hums through the universe? I admit it’s a tight rope balancing act peopled with mostly clowns and charlatans, but if you didn’t listen in wide eyed interest to your father gloss over his go-outs at Killer Dana or the camaraderie of the old crew or how great his old surfboards used to be, what would be the point in doing the same old same old again? Hmmmm… Part of the magic is in the crystal ball itself… If you let the next generation see the trick - if they get a clear glimpse of the crystal ball you’ve lost them. That wave was a triple overhead death drop dry suck ragged sea urchin encrusted dry rock reef screaming down-the-line hissing behemoth from hell!!! And I’m lucky that I SURVIVED so I could do some more freelance brain surgery!!!
I sat in the locker room after football practice one fine spring afternoon and heard “are you experienced” Jimi Hendrix on one of those crappy little record players and my reality/delusions slowly came undone - the next year I wasn’t a football jock - I were a surfer.
Daddio, Nice to hear I’m not the only one. Surfed as a kid, all school sports through HS. Football got me through college and took me to Italy - but it also kept me angry. Found surfing again and I’m much happier for it. In regards to this thread, I’m sure there were aggro meatheads way back when, same as today. Crowds too. That stuff tends to get lost in the nostalgia sometimes. There are plenty of people who surf because they love it, not because it’s now mainstream. That hasn’t been lost, you just need to look a little harder to find it. P
Maybe they have more choices but how can they make the right choice if their research is done through the magazines like you and I did? Could you look through a current magazine and tell me how to start surfing?
Maybe what we really lost is that when the articles were written for Surfer (60s-70s) they were about travel, fiction and design forums. Now they are Quicksilver in Indo, Billabong hits the Azores, Chemistry Surfboards re-invents the shortboard revolution! Bert said that you need to do an infomercial and throw in some coin NOT just write an article about design to get published.
…But I do like Swaylocks.
Surfer’s Journal seems to be bucking the trend. Latest ish has Greenough in it narrating a photo sequence of his and an article (don’t have it on hand) describing the beauty of building a board for a friend.
It’s about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, then learning to recycle the bathwater, and teaching the child to do the same. If continuity is a delusion, then I’d rather be ‘still crazy after all these years.’ So, if you know of anyone who has a vintage longboard, say 10’6" or thereabouts, and they just can’t stand to have it around anymore because it’s part of an old delusion, I, being happily nuts, will relieve them of their mental burden.
