When was the last time you saw a cowboy? Or a beatnik for that matter?
I have been pondering what it means to me to be a surfer.
I started surfing 43 years ago.
In newport beach, Ca.
The late 70’s saw the introduction of the international “surf brand” and the commercializing of surfing.
In the early 80’s the surfing scene in the OC was the template for what the publications were pushing. Most of the surfwear companies and mags were based in the OC so it was just easy to use what was readily at hand…
Australia was still somewhat of an exotic destination and places like Indo were ultra extreme.
Fiji and Tahiti were just big question marks (for most of us)
It was an exciting time.
Especially in Newport.
But even as kids we felt something uncomfortable and incomprehensible.
There was a sense that things were changing.
That thing was “money”.
Mainstream surfing took the bait, the hook, the line and the sinker.
Big deal, right?
Surfing just evolved into what it is now.
But did it?
This may come as a shock to younger surfers but surfing wasnt just about riding a wave.
It was about so much more.
It was a philosophy of simplicity, purity, naturalism, art and individual expression.
Let me ask you this: When was the last great breakthrough in board design?
Early generations saw so much evolution from huge redwood or koa planks to balsa to foam and fiberglass, to the boards shrinking, to greenough and his ultra advanced craft to the fish to the twinny to the thruster and a whole bunch of cool stuff in the mix…
But many of those iterations were from the culture of surfing pushing its own philospohical boundaries into new places of mental and spiritual explortion that resulted in the need for changes in equipment.
Its been cool to see the resurgence of retro boards and style but that is really just a commentary on hw bored or sad many are to see that the thruster and surfing have plateau’d and they needed something new but there wasnt anything so they went backwards cuz there wasnt any forward.
Some might say the foil boards are the next evolution but its really not. Once you are on foil the size and shape of the platform above really doesnt matter.
So getting back to my original question…
Cowboys are cool, and its fun to see them in parades and what not but by and large cowboys don’t exist anymore.
The environment and culture to support them vanished.
Same for the beatniks who were actually a major component of the beginning of the surf culture.
They were hip and cool and made major contributions to many subcultures.
But theyre all gone.
As with the cowboy, their environment went away and them with it.
And here I am at 51 and I am that old guy that is saying “things arenet how they used to be”.
And its true.
For lots of things.
Surfing included.
But is it fair to say that surfing is dead?
I dont know.
But what I do know is that before the surf companies got their way people viewd surfing much different.
Thats a hard fact!
Sliding down a wave on some kind of plank or whatnot was just a visible manifestation of somehing much bigger, much deeper.
Its that something that I havent seen in a very long time.
Even when I travel internationally I see the whats been sold to us by the surfbrand companies.
The boards, the clothes, the gestures and lingo etc etc…
Nothing original or expressive of a particular culture or place.
This saddens me.
Riding a fish or alia or hotcurl or whatever wont bring it back because it was never just about the board.
Thanks for letting me vent:-)
-aquafiend (aka @stokefarmer)