yeah ben nice one
heres to the forever young
Ungrateful Bros…and the infamous Bro deal!!
yet another story that leaves us wondering why we do this for a living,
Last year my best mate in LA pestered me for months to make him a new board. Finally I relented and agreed to do him a 6’2 on the condition he get 4 more orders together to make it worthwhile. A batch of 5; a days work, worth getting dirty for. So ive got one day spare on a 5 week trip to California. I ring up a friend who has a bay arrange the date and satisfied rule number one no deposit no shape.
The day comes around I pick up the 5 blanks at noon ( didnt know the blank shop didnt open till 12)1 for my mate 2 for his brother and 2 for Dan, also close friends and get to work. By 6 the fresh batch of shapes are ready to glass so we go over the laminate placement and after a listening to my mate whine all afternoon about how hard up everyone was I agreed to give him and his mates a deal on the $325 I was charging them. 50 bucks off pretty much bare bones but I didnt need fins just plugs so I would still make $50 on each shape and feel good to help out my bros.
So the time come to dish out the money and as soon as i had it in my hands this guy ( you know the type who just cant shut up ) starts to tell me what a deal he just got yeh man I just got my board for FREE, I said what do you mean? He replied “I’m not going to tell them you just gave em a deal man and i cut a deal from the glass shop for another $15 off each I’ll just let them think they paid $325 and get my stick for feee”, he then walked over to the airbrush guy chuckling to himself and muttering about something about being able to afford a $100 paint job.
The same guy rang this morning and asked me to shape him a board I said no problems $675…hey man I could get an Al for that. Go buy one then, was my reply.
41 years for me this coming summer. You captured it perfectly. A bad day on the water beats the living feces out of a good day doing almost anything else. I spent 4 years away from the sea in the eighties. In spite of the fact that I had a lot of good things going on for myself during that time, there was something sorely missing from my life. I don’t even really need to surf well (and some might say that’s fortunate 
I just need to be out there…
-Samiam