Incoherent and incomprehensible!
On my best days I am not very bright. I have a brain that muddles through days organizing the various inputs 7 to 10 times slower than the average man. When I was seventeen I had a part-time job bussing tables at a faux fancy hotel/restaurant named The Red Lion. I wore my black pants, white shirt, black apron with some pride and worked as diligently as I could. Trying my best.
After two weeks the manager pulled me aside and said, “Everyone else here is in 5th gear and you seem to be stuck in 2nd.” I imagine it was just a pep talk but it enraged me and that night, after closing, I returned with my black pants, white shirt, black apron bundled in a brown paper bag inscribed with the words, “Get bent!”
Now, some two decades later, I have realized the manager was right. I am stuck in 2nd gear and would you like to read a man stuck in 2nd gear ramble incoherently about the books that give him great bursts?
I think yes. I think yes you would. I had the great pleasure of chatting with surfing’s preeminent journalist. The man who broke the kook-gate scandal wide open. We are forever in Billy Wilson’s debt and we spoke the other day about great books. Here are two:
‘EITHER/OR’ BY SØREN KIERKEGAARD
“I love some Kierkegaard! I’m too dumb to know anything about him but I love just to stare at his words. I did a semester abroad at Oxford and didn’t read any of the books I was assigned, and instead I discovered Albert Camus. I thought I was the first person in the world ever to read Camus, and Camus talked a bunch about Kierkegaard, so I followed the rabbit trail to him.
“His idea of the absurd — and I don’t know if I ever understood it correctly — always made me smile. I thought that somehow he was plotting a big joke in philosophy, though I doubt that he was. And truly the most absurd, Sisyphean thing a man can do is surf.
“Either/Or is written from two different perspectives — it’s about looking at life aesthetically versus looking at life morally, and how we’re going to judge the value in life. I’m an aesthete over an ethicist every day of the week!
‘THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES’ BY JOSEPH CAMPBELL
“I wrote the pitch [for Cocaine + Surfing] as a total lark, and when it was actually time to write it, I was like, ‘There’s no book here! It’s just two words!’ So I was really struggling.
“One of my least favourite ever pieces of writing is The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. I always hated the concept — it just always seemed so obvious and ham-fisted. Of course a lot of books have this arc with a hero and his journey — why make it all weird and metaphysical? So every chapter of Cocaine + Surfing is a chapter from the ‘hero’s journey’ with me as the hero, on the hero’s journey, in search of cocaine and surfing.
I’m curious, did you chew some of the khat leaves while in Yemen? I see your 3 amigos have giant chaws in, looking mean like John Kruk. Does one swallow the juice, does it make you high like cocaine, and want more?
How long does it take for a man permanently stuck in 2nd gear to actually write a book, much less read one (I guess two in this instance)?
Dumb little ol’ me went to Oxford and reads continental philosophy. Yeah that’s some total fucking moron stuff right there.
I read a lot this summer, 6 or 8 books, which is weird because usually I take a break from reading in summer. Some dry stuff about neuroscience and intelligence and ethics. Then as you were inspired by Camus to Kirk., I was inspired by the below Epic Rap Battle of History to read an overly long and disorganized but interesting revisionist history of the Zulu Nation. Goddamn did Shaka put a lot of sharp sticks up a lot of asses and watch ’em wiggle. And the balls on them God-confident Boers. Glad I know something about SA’s colonial past, was totally clueless to that history.
Read your book Chas, enjoyable enough, and maybe pulling the cord and the mower sputtering but never fully turning over is the point. That’s Chinatown?
Dumbest thing I read was Crazy Rich Asians – pure television page turner but also a fun peek into a culture I have zero connection with. Much focus on high fashion and elite life – you’d probably enjoy those parts.
https://youtu.be/oOm_2dGzqp0
This is tall order reading for most surfers. Joseph Cambell is a Mason Scotish Rite like Manly Hall.. them masons love to keep secrets… being a ruling group for the tribe comes with lots of lies… stories throigh history of lies… that is why they are called a secret societies.
All about getting $$$$$
Apparently lots of conspiracy websites (Alex jones etc) are essentially fronts for selling snake oil ‘dietary supplements’ to gullible fools who’ll believe anything their tin-foil-hat-heroes tell them.
Careful Bushy. Don’t lose your pension!
Liked the busboy story. I can relate. But it seems like a slow news day piece.
Lochie Leanord: Human Torpedo
“I wrote the pitch and then I sat down to write it and there was nothing there” This is like, my whole life right here.
Hmm, Waugh, Black Mischief, never read. Adds to list.
Time to get a job, Jen. I’m hiring.
Chas, could you be undiagnosed ADHD?
I done got it. Youth: the hyper part, in adulthood: attention deficit.
Poor executive function, poor memory etc, easily distracted.
Out of curiosity, when you were on your CBD pen, could you concentrate better? I’m genuinely curious.
Considering this revelation Chas, when will you be assembling the field trip to Yemen?
Cool thing bro, this time we can rent boards through Fanning’s sponsor Vacaco. Something like that, I’m sure they’ll have an office next to Enterprise Rent a Car.
Moore too the pint if youse cunt reed or rite your mentuly shallengd
can anyone explain “ham-fisted”.
I have had to many nasty digital virus’ to risk googling it.
It’s when the person serving you at the deli counter has random bits of processed meat seemingly welded to their skin from all their parma-serving exertions.
Or at least that’s what they tell you.
“ham-fisted” is that god-awful backhand stance required by the barrel sections at Surf Ranch.
Worst NOFX cover band ever….
Beachgrit, where aging surfers go to brag about their literacy conquests. And I use the term surfers loosely.
Not as loosely as you use the term “literacy”.
I literally read every literature I read.
That’s why I love you wincy.
True.
I have read A LOT of books. The problem is I have no memory. So I end up reading the same stuff going ‘well that was shit’ or ‘best ever’. Gets a bit weird. My partner: how many times you gunna read that. Me: huh i just got it.
The scientific mind must always scrutinize
Thesis: DA’s mind is well pickled.
Scalpel please!
Like most of us here ( I imagine ) Camus grew up as a sun drenched coastal dweller and it’s possible that we feel this in his thoughts and words . Surfing ,a truly absurd Life, most certainly feels at home with the Myth of Sisyphus. Who has not felt the absurd joy after riding a wave or letting the stone roll down the hill even though condemned by the gods to push shit up hill for eternity ?
I’ll bravely admit I’ve never read Camus or Kierkegaard.
Camus, yes; Kierkawhatsit, no.
yeah, forget that leap of faith, philosophical suicide shit. accept the absurdity and die a happy death
I was having a bad hair day for about 18 months in the early 90s ( broke elbow ,couldn’t surf , 20kg + , girlfriend left and I left god……… ) and Camus helped me untangle the knots .
Wunnerful. I’ll check’m out.
Go kafka. Funny shit
at least he knows that his ideas are dumb
Okay…do I gotta be the one to state the obvious?
That saying someone is a mentally challenged surf journalist is being redundant?
(I kid, Chas…I kid.)