Aesthetically Speaking

I surfed with an ape today.  Shaved headed, intense, grimly glaring down the waves and everyone around him.  I’m guessing he thought he was pretty radical, but he surfed like an ape.  Squat, bow-legged stance, both arms dangling from sloped shoulders, arms bent down at the elbow, hands curled as if gripping an invisible tree branch.  Worst of all, he hopped up and down on his board like a happy, perhaps orgasmic ape, all the while his board maintaining a straight line trim.  Ape. 

 I surfed with whole cult of happy people today.  Smiling, chatting as they stood on long, wide, thick barges, holding long paddles in their hands, all clustered together like a log-jam on a river, right at the main peak…a veritable island of carbon, styro, and epoxy…and white teeth.  They took all the best waves, their amoebic mass scattering off in various directions, paddles waving at the air like one winged insects, boards teetering off kilter as they struggled to keep in trim.  Often falling awkwardly, like drunkards off a curb, their barges fluttering shoreward with the whitewater, threatening to club and maim children on boogie boards in the shorebreak.  After the sets would pass, they would all paddle back to the lineup, to cluster again like metal filings around a magnet…right at the main peak.  Smiling always.  They seemed to be enjoying themselves.

 I surfed with a good surfer.  Strong paddler, even on quad shortboard, he weaved around the floating detritus of epoxy, styro, and carbon, snagging some of the best set waves right out from under their noses.  Up and riding, he had all the current moves; Whap! Thwacka! Thwacka! Whap!  He tore the mushy walls to shreds; spray flew.  Heads turned.  Ooohs, ahhhs, were uttered.  He too smiled, a little smugly I think, as he paddled back to the lineup.  Yet for me, he seemed to make it all seem like a lot of work, like he was trying too hard.  Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m old school, I like grace, flow, and carve, maybe a little longboard footwork; I don’t find it aesthetic, all those snaps and squiggles.  Pumping, pumping, thwacka whacka, pumping, pumping, whappa whappa…pumping, pumping, pumping…yeeeeahhh, big air (well, a foot or two off the lip anyway,) to fakie, to…well to flopping down in the whitewater…as the wave reels on…sans ripper…  Don’t get it; old school, okay, old fart, whatever…not aesthetic…MHO

 I surfed with a GoPro, vid kid.  His cam, anchored to the nose of his funboard, pointed back…to him.  He wore a baseball cap, I guess his trademark for the vids.  Maybe he considers it cool, a bit of a tweak…ha, ha, I’m so cool I wear a ball cap when I surf; that means I don’t fall off, much.  The kid caught a lot of waves.  Didn’t seem to notice or care that anybody might be behind him.  He even dropped in on me a couple of times; looked back, and went anyway.  Then he had the audacity to call me off a wave I was considering…little shit; I been surfing this break since before your Mommy and Daddy popped their first zit, kid.  You haven’t earned the right to call me off a wave, you haven’t paid your dues, you, you, you whippersnapper, you.  You and your stupid GoPro…go straight to You Tube when you get home.  Jeepers, I see a lot of these cams on boards these days, always on the nose, always pointed back at the surfer.  As if the surfer is the thing, not the wave.  As if we all want to see your distorted big feet in the foreground, and your pointy head up there in the blue sky.  GoPro…go f…yourself.  Please.

 I surfed with an old local.  Guy’s been around even longer than me.  He pioneered this spot, wayyy back.  He fought the fight, years ago, to have this spot designated as a surfing area, wayyyy back.  He’s always been kind of an enforcer, when it comes to letting people who are not surfers, on surfboards, know that they have no business being out at this spot.  Today I saw him yell at a bunch of boogie boarding kids in the shorebreak when they jumped, enmasse in front of him on his first wave.  They scattered, quickly.  Scary when some old guy is yelling at you…and you’re only ten years old.  Later, he yelled at one of the SUPers.  Joined in, like the second man in, in a hockey brawl, when the ape started complaining that the SUPer had messed up his ride.  The old local shouted the SUPer down when the guy pleaded his case.  Funny thing is, even though the SUP guy was huge and imposing, heavily muscled…and tanned, and the guy yelling at him was an old gray haired guy in his seventies, the SUPer moved down the beach.  Score one for the old local.  Irony though, this old local used to be one of the most prolific and unrepentant drop in artists at this spot.  Wave etiquette never applied to him.  He was not well liked then…hell, he was hated really.  But now he’s the venerated old local.  And he is a nice guy, now; old locals he used to burn now consider him a friend.  I even forgave him all his past sins.  Heck, longevity counts for something and he’s synonymous with this break, after all.  Ya gotta respect that.  Doesn’t change the fact that he used to be the biggest dick in the water.

 I surfed with a clueless kook from Quebec today.  I’ve seen him out in the lineup all summer.  I’ve seen him drop straight into wave after wave all summer, almost every time, directly in front of someone who is up and riding.  I’ve tried to avoid him all summer but today, I was victim to his cluelessness.  Today he pulled his patented maneuver directly in front of me.  There was a collision.  A flash of his orange board.  A thunk.  A swirl of bubbles and his arms and legs in various contorted positions.  When he popped up, eyes agog…I snapped.  I yelled at him.  Told him he has to start looking before he goes.  He mouthed a protest, proclaimed his innocence.  I cut him short.  Reiterated, “YOU HAVE TO LOOK!”  I hated myself, even as I was yelling.  It takes a lot for me to snap, it really does.  But c’mon, dude, if you were driving on the highway, they woulda taken your license away a long, long time ago.  You cannot be so clueless; it’s dangerous to me and everyone else you cut off all summer.  I didn’t want to yell at him, but somebody had to.  And so I snapped.  If it counts for anything, I felt bad afterwards.  He was just a beginner.  And there was a bit of a language barrier; his English was not good and I know even less French.  I was not a very good American ambassador for this Canadian tourist today.  I felt especially bad because another surfer, who’d witnessed the whole thing, tag-teamed the Canadian, in support of me.  The poor guy moved down the beach and I didn’t see him again for the rest of the session.  I’ll never forget his eyes, his bewildered, apologetic eyes, so blue, so beautifully blue in the filming water on his face…even as I yelled at him.

 Today was just a typical summer weekend day at my local spot.  I call it a zoo day.  Every imaginable animal was out in the water today.  Even an ape.  And even though I caught my share of waves, even though I managed to weave my way around the two chatting girls on longboards and then bottom turn around the overturned SUP in front of me, and catch that one really really good set wave, and even though I rode it all the way to the beach and another girl on a SUP, paddling back out, hooted at my ride, it was not an especially enjoyable session. 

 I’m torn.  I wrote in an earlier essay how the enjoyment I get out of surfing is directly proportional to my own attitude and perspective.  But then there are days like today that really test me.  I remember when surfing used to be about style and grace.  A time when respect and deference to skill and experience mattered.  When you had to earn your place out in the lineup and wait your turn.  When surfers rode the wave more than the board; when you learned to read the wave and take what it offered, not impose your own contrived repertoire of moves on each and every wave you caught.  When it wasn’t merely about catching the highest number of waves you could, but surfing each wave to the best of your ability.  I understand, and I do truly believe that everyone has a right to enjoy what the ocean and surfing have to offer.  And I know that that is different for each and every surfer.  And I believe that every form of surf vehicle, from SUP, to shortboard, to longboard, to handplane, to boogie, to paipo, to alaia, to mat, to one’s own body…are valid and worthy of a place in the water.  But the lineup shouldn’t be a zoo, a circus, or some sort of Mad Max, post apocalypse free-for-all.  We’re not apes, we’re surfers.  We’re supposed to be better than this day that I surfed…

Memories

Memories

Spent the morning looking at some old pictures.  The pictures  weren’t mine but somebody elses.  I found the pics on Ralph Fatello’s web page, under the archive section.  Ralph is a local legend in NH surfing.  I don’t know Ralph personally but I know OF him.  Besides being a dedicated chronicler of almost everything related with surfing in the Granite State, Ralph is a defender and proponent of surfing and especially, the surfers he knows and loves.  Ohana is important to Ralph, that much I know is obvious given his deeds.  A few years back, Ralph set out on a mission to surf every day for a complete calendar year, in honor of his dad, Gus, who’d passed away.  Surfing every day is not an easy feat by any means, let alone in New England.  Think of all the crummy, miserable rainy, windy days that might pass by in a single year.  Think of the cold and the blizzards.  For a surfer, think of all the interminably long flat spells when it’s not even worth paddling out…Ralph did.  And he caught some waves for Gus.  Every. Day.  365 days in a row.  Ralph garnered some notoriety for his mission, but it wasn’t for himself that he surfed; it was for Gus, and all those who suffered Gus’ affliction.  And then, a few years later, Ralph did it again.  A little girl, Molly, was sick.  She fought the fight.  But in the end, her illness was too strong for a 5 year old.  So Ralph, pulled out the board and surfed another 365 days in a year…for Molly. 

Though I’ve surfed NH many times over the years, I never really fit in there.  During the late seventies and early eighties when I was attending (surfing more than attending!) classes at UNH and living with my parents in Durham, it was an easy shoot over the back roads to Hampton, N. Hampton, and Rye.  I surfed The Wall, Straw’s Point, Lucky’s, Rye-on-the-Rocks, and Fox Hill Point.  One of my earlier blog entries is actually the tale of the day I almost drowned at Fox Hill.   I loved surfing the waves in NH; there is some incredible quality there.  But I never felt I fit in.  In those days, the water seemed to be a much more aggressive place.  Ironically, though it was far less crowded than today, it wasn’t an easy place to catch a wave to yourself.  And the crew was especially tight knit, and scowled a lot at outsiders.  They all seemed to know each other and they all had nicknames.  I felt out of place even though in those days I sported my own “Live Free Or Die” license plate.  I’ll never forget the day I was out at the Rocks…it was solid double overhead and Kevin Grondin (THE local legend in NH) was owning all the best set waves.  But there were plenty of leftovers to go around.  Yet most of my waves were smaller inbetweeners or shoulders I paddled into after someone else had wiped out.  It wasn’t that I was fearful, I was at my surfing prime in those days and full of confidence.  But I wasn’t a local and the locals kept boxing me in and outmaneuvering me into position.  Frustrated, I figured I’d fix their wagon and kept inching ever closer over to the main takeoff peak.  Until finally I was in position, a set came and I was the deepest one in the slot. I actually took off a little behind the peak, but was completely confident I could “backdoor” the section and show those bastards that I COULD surf, and could actually surf better than most of them!  And the drop was amazing, and I squared off the bottom with a hard turn, and shot out onto the wall as an avalanche of whitewater blasted down just behind me.  It was shaping up to be my best wave of the year until…until some big, burly bastard dropped in on me.  This particular, big burly bastard was ALWAYS out there at the Rocks when I surfed.  He had one of those Fu Manchu, walrus looking mustaches and he was the best scowler out there.  Well, so Mr. Fat Walrus not only drops in on MY wave, after all the work and maneuvering I’d put in to just catch myself it, but Mr. Fat Walrus actually turns to see me having the actual audacity to ride, BEHIND him…and then, swings his forearm back, catching me right across the chest, knocking me off my board, and I get annihilated while he continues riding MY wave!

After I graduated, married, and started my own family, I moved to Maine, back to where my family used to summer and where I’d first started surfing.  I’ve rarely surfed NH in the years since.  Usually I would find myself making the drive only when the waves were too big and washed out during a Nor’easter.  The points and reefs seemed to smooth out what was often “washing machine” conditions at my local Maine spots.  I’ve watched NH get more and more crowded over the years as well.  Some days at The Wall I can count over 200 surfers.  Tooooo crowded for me.  The pace, the crowds, the locals are more user friendly to my tastes in Maine.  It’s not that I have anything against NH surfing; I actually still have many fond memories of surfing there.  And who knows, if I’d battled it out a little longer, maybe I too might have been accepted into the fold there.  But I don’t like to battle.  I like to surf, pure and simple.  New Hampshire and Maine, though bordering neighbors, are each unique and special in their own ways.  They both engender a distinct vibe in the water.  I still feel a strong connection to NH but I feel more at peace in Maine.  C’est la vie…

So Maine is my home now, for better and for worse.  I started surfing here, and it’s where I love to surf best.  Looking at Ralph’s pictures today though, stirred a lot of memories.  Not of specifically NH or Maine though, but of the old times…the old crew.  In that way, the memories, my memories, Ralph’s memories, and all of us who surf New England, are not really so different.  Ralph’s pics looked a lot like the pics I have in my own archives, both actually printed negatives in my albums, and imprinted images in my mind that will always be with me.  I remember my old crew too:  Lucas Merrow, John Saulnier, Mark Sullivan, my brothers, Pat, and Tim.  And the Qgunquit locals, both past and present: Crow, Dick Lovell, Ronnie Freeman, Peter Clayton, John Clancy, Brian Aromando, Billy and Rachael Ryan, Laura Breen Brogan, the Lorusso brothers, Billy Woodard, Dave and Neco Evans, Mark Reynolds, Joe Boutin, Doc George…a lot of faces and names I can’t even remember right now…and even old Fearless Fred…  God, so much fun we had in and out of the water, on epic, and even not so epic days.  All of it special.  Missing the ones who I no longer see out in the water…missing already the ones who I see all the time.  I’ve said it before and it bears repeating: I love everyone I’ve met, and have yet to meet in my life, even the ones I cannot stand and don’t even like…because all of them, all of you, are the characters that make up the story of my life.  And as Ralph knows, it’s the characters that truly matter…family, friends…Ohana…the memories are what we take with us as we journey forward… 

Keep paddling, Ralph… and all you other bitches and bastards too…and even to old Mr. Fat Walrus I say: Aloha!     

I Used To Be Cynical

I used to be cynical with my surfing.  I’ve been doing it a long time now and it’s not what it used to be. 

When I started, surfing was unique and special.  Not a lot of people did it, certainly not a lot of people around here in Maine and New England.  I remember driving down the road and upon seeing another car with a board on the roof, instead of flashing them a “Hey Brah,” shaka with our thumbs and pinkies wiggling, meant to signify: “Yeah, I’m a surfer too, and ain’t we groovy people to be surfers and all that?” we used to just give a thumbs up or down, meant to signify: “The surf is good, or bad,” from wherever we were coming from.  There was no attending pearly toothed smile either; we were both on a mission: find surf…and it was not so much about living the groovy lifestyle, but riding waves. 

We wore ratty wetsuits, not slick rubber from environmentally conscious companies like Patagonia.  Our boards were bruised and dinged and crudely patched with highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, rather than hewn from agave, glassed with hemp, and resined with pine sap.  We ate cholesterol boosting cheeseburgers and gloppy milkshakes from McDonald’s, not veggie wraps and acai and blueberry smoothies, and the Styrofoam containers and paper wrappers they came in were strewn and littered about the interiors of our cars, not toted in reusable bags to recycling centers.  We surfed mostly alone, and sought out secluded breaks where we could be alone with our thoughts.  We didn’t travel in packs and assemble at “events” with colorful banners and tents announcing: “Here, right here!  This is where all the groovy people are hanging today!  Come join us so you can be groovy too!” With the attending pearly toothed smiles of all involved. 

Our eyes were perpetually slitted, the corners crusted with salt, our hair, nappy and tangled with the odd bit of ocean detritus and seaweed, our lips, burned and chapped and rarely cracking to smile in acknowledgement of that hot wave we’d just shredded.  It was all about being cool and nonchalant…we were bitchin, we knew it, it just wasn’t cool to let on that we knew it.

Over the decades, I’ve watched surfing go through cycles of popularity.  When I started in the 70’s, only a fringe smattering were into it around Maine & NH where I live.  Then in the neon ‘80’s a few people thought it was hip and cool and all went out and bought checker board pattern boards and day-glo wetsuits.  They faded within a few years when they found out just hard surfing is, and how cold and miserable the conditions are around here; definitely not hip, definitely not cool.  There was another brief surge during the Kelly/Baywatch days in the ‘90’s, but again, the SoCal, sun and tan images being marketed by the west coast did not match the reality of a 35 degree water, sleeting drizzle day in March around here.  So about 10 years ago when this latest trend of influxing wannabes started infiltrating the lineup, I figured it was only a matter of time before they too wakened to the harsh realities of being a New England surfer.  But two things conspired against this wave being extinguished. 

#1, the wetsuits of today are so much, wayyyy better than the old days.  Supple rubber allows a lot more flexibility, even in the thicker winter suits, so it’s not so much like trying to surf in a Michelin Man cocoon.  And they are WARMER!!!  Sealed and taped seams used to only be features of 5mil winter suits, due to the restrictive features of a sealed and taped suit.  Sealed and taped means no leaks, no icy trickles shuddering you into paroxysms of hypothermia.  But the new methods and compounds of sealing and taping now allows even 3 mil summer suits to enjoy the no leak properties.  Hence, all those wimpy Sammies and Sallies who used to cringe at the very thought of cold water immersion in the Gulf of Maine, are now frolicking and smiling and splashing about without regard.

#2, the sad reality is that surfing has gone mainstream.  You see it everywhere, on billboards and magazine ads, tv, Hollywood, everywhere espousing the cool hipness of surfing, of being a surfer.  Jeepers, yesterday I was out riding really fun waist high peelers on my hull when the drone of a small plane overhead caused me to look up.  And there was a huge banner trailing the little plane, threatening to put it into stall speed in the steady offshore winds, and on this banner was a bikini babe, pimping some new energy drink.  And what was that bikini babe holding under her arm but a pointy nosed shortboard!  Oy vey!  Surfboard as prop for some marketing yahoo.  Let me tell ya, there is no way in HELL, I will ever buy that drink!

So I got grumpy.  Effin kooks!  Effin Montrealers!  Effin Massholes!  Effin wannabes!  Cluttering up MY lineup, getting in MY way, cluelessly taking off on closeouts, cutting off my rides, riding logs and funboards and SUPS!!!  I got cynical.  Surly.  Surfing ceased being the fun and bitchin thing it used to be in my life when I was a young grom.          

I paddled out because I HAD to sometimes.  I paddled out with all the mindset of one of the last few of Custer’s soldiers on the Little Bighorn, stalwart against the hordes, making my stand, fighting to the death…

But something has happened in the last coupla years.  Surfing, for me, has started to be fun again.  I smile and talk to other surfers out in the water.  I urge some of them into waves.  I don’t get angry when they drop in on me.  Like when I was just starting out, it doesn’t matter so much the quality of the waves; I just go out and surf, and usually, even on the crummiest, crumbly day, I’ll catch at least one ride that puts a smile on my face.

I don’t know what precipitated this change.  But I recognize it is a change of attitude mostly, of perception.  And as such, I realize that the fun and fulfillment I get out of surfing has always been under my own control.  I suspect that it is because my life has changed, so dramatically over the last few years.  I used to surf, mostly as an escape.  In the water used to be the only place I could get away from all the BS that was bringing me down, holding me back, smothering the life spark from me…  But I’m not looking for escape anymore.  I fixed most of my land problems and that has made all the difference.  I enjoy life now.  I’ve changed my attitude and perceptions and now the hordes of new surfers who used to frustrate me, who did not allow me to escape in the water…all these newbies, I realize, are not now, nor never were, the problem. 

Gerry Lopez said: “You can’t put fences around life.  Things change.  Nothing ever stays the same.  All you gotta do is keep paddling.  Simple!”  And my Dad used to say much the same thing, that it’s the people who cannot adapt to the changes in their life that suffer.  And that used to be me.  I suffered.  But it was always under my own control.  I had to adapt.

So I did.  And now I smile.  And when I see the smiles of the newer surfers, I remember…they’re no different from me when I was starting out.  Surfing is the bitchinest thing on this planet.  And any surfer, new or crusty, young or old, KNOWS that.  So when they/we/I smile, and giggle and ramble about that last ride or the awesome session we just had…we’re just expressing the STOKE that is bubbling out of us.  I can’t begrudge any new grom that; surfing is not mine alone.  And the thing of it is, simply by changing my attitude, surfing has become new for me all over again.  And I’m having the time of my life.  Cuz like my old friend Dick used to say: “I’m a surfer; I’m a hip girl with a groovy lifestyle!”  Well, actually Dick wasn’t a girl…but you know what I mean…