It is the grandest place not on earth.
Riding the tube is the highest of all surfing
arts. Unlike airs, gouges, ungainly luggage and
fibreglass, it alone belongs to surfing. There is no tube on the
sidewalk or in the mountains.
The tube is not the oldest of all surfing arts. Ancient
Hawaiians did not duck underneath the lip, they only slid down the
face. But it was a Hawaiian, in the 1970s, who made the barrel
look so so beautiful. His name was Gerry Lopez and he stood,
shielded from the sun and from spectators and from all but his own
introspection.
He stood with loose limbs and flair borne of subtlety. He went
very deep in thunderous barrels but always looked graceful and
without worry or fear. Gerry Lopez made the barrel the highest of
all surfing arts.
Other magnificent tube riders, following in Gerry’s wake, have
been Tom Curren, Andy Irons and his brother Bruce, Jamie O’Brien,
Rob Machado, Josh Kerr, Matt Archbold, Bruno Santos and Koa
Smith. They have made the tube a sort of second home and the
nuances with which they trim, the slight movements that take them
deeper and deeper are beautiful to witness.
Being inside the tube feels like all time has stopped. The first
experience, inside, the surfer feels a rush of adrenalized
fear. He feels that he is defying God’s natural order and
should not be allowed to be where he is. He is between sheets of
water, breathing his own air, but otherwise part of the sea. He
feels that the lip will, at any moment, hit him in the head or the
walls will crush him altogether for defying God’s natural
order. But he must persevere. He must trust that the barrel
will stay open and do what it does, which is to roll like a freight
train, unless he is surfing closeout beachbreaks and then he will
be crushed for his defiance.
And the first experience, inside, the surfer has very bad form.
His legs are spread too wide. His arms move in small circles,
pointed in odd directions. He leans too much toward the wall of the
wave. He thinks, maybe, that he looks like Gerry Lopez but in
reality he looks like a spasm. With time, however, the surfer
becomes comfortable and the tube becomes the only place he wants to
be. He is hungry for it with a hunger that never wanes. He can
never get enough.
And so he listens to music that inspires him to get more tubes.
He listens to anything by Icelandic supergroup Sigur Ros. Their
ethereal sound gives him peace, unblock his chakras and allow him
to flow. He eats a macrobiotic diet filled with steamed
vegetables that is dull, not spicy, but, again, his chakras remain
unblocked. He lives in a Hawaiian-style white plantation home and
plants pineapple in the front yard and grows zucchini, which he
steams.
He decorates his walls with expressionist art of a certain
flow-ey, colorful bent. It puts his mind in the mood to be both
surreal and rubber. He refuses to watch film and only goes to the
theater and only watches Russian ballet. Tears fill his eyes when
Russian ballerinas perform Peter and the Wolf.
His mind warps so thoroughly that the barrel ceases to feel
strange and it becomes the only place where he feels
natural. Western society marginalizes this obsessed man but he
does not care. He spends more and more time in eastern places, like
Bali, and odd places, like Hawaii.
He hums Sigur Ros tunes in these places and the locals cannot
differentiate between these melodies and the melodies of Justin
Bieber. He is home. He is free.
