What have you ever done with your life?
I spoke with one of my literary heroes on the
phone last week. Daniel Duane, author of Caught
Inside, How to Cook Like a Man, Lighting Out etc. is working on a
piece for the New York Times, I believe, about women and big wave
surfing. It was a great pleasure to chat and to once again kick big
wave surfing’s tires and do it with someone as knowledgeable
he.
Big wave surfing is like exotic pornography to me. Like very
extreme BDSM or furry fandom or psychrophilia. I understand the
most basic component, the sex act itself, but other than that am
completely lost.
I have vacillated wildly over the years, thinking that big wave
surfing is the only broadly consumable sector of our game. That the
average Joe or Josie can instantly understand both the daring and
skill of big wave surfing without the need for Joe Turpel to
explain what “scores in the excellent range” mean. Thinking that
big wave surfing is completely unmarketable in the same ways that
dog maulings and avalanches are unmarketable. Average Joe and
Average Josie look, mouths agape even, but would never pay money to
look.
Part of the problem, I thought while chatting with Dan, is the
new inflatable lifevests. Oh I don’t doubt that they are a
technological marvel and savers of many many many lives but, to me,
it feels as if the very extreme BDSM has spilled out of the dungeon
and into the public square. I don’t like the way they make me
feel.
Maybe that is why I appreciate Waimea, big Pipeline and
Mavericks all the more. Waves that brave men and women ride nude,
like normal, or in simple wetsuits.
Mavericks had its opening ceremony the other day. It has finally
been freed from lawsuit and argument, I think, and is set to put on
a show. Let us turn to the San Francisco
Chronicle for more.
Beforehand, as surfers and photographers gathered on the
beach, Mavericks legend Jeff Clark offered some words in prayer.
Clark, who pioneered the break in the mid-1970s, had decided to
step aside from the contest after years of financial woes and
political infighting, but recently changed his mind.
“I brought this dragon to the world,” said Clark, 61, who
surfed Mavericks by himself for 15 years before he could get anyone
to join him. “For all the stuff that goes on, it comes down to the
time in the ocean with this band of big-wave brothers and sisters.
That’s what it’s really all about. What’s remembered are the waves,
and the friendships.”
Doesn’t that make you jealous? I suppose we are this band of
small-wave brothers and sisters though and for that I am
grateful.
