A short self-examination you can do at home…
Who can forget Dane Reynolds’ effortless sweep of everything bad from last week? According to Reynolds, cities are soulless voids, Kelly Slater is too serious about a bat-and-ball game, the WSL’s Instagram exploits surfing and so on.
Dane is a great champion and while he isn’t surfing’s golden pet anymore, his opinions on surf do cut heavily.
Toward the end of his little short, he defines a kook as this:
“I hate…kooks. And I don’t mean that, it has to do with your level of surfing. I define ‘kook’ as a lack of awareness, someone who is utterly unaware of their surroundings, unaware if they’re cutting in line or being obnoxious or annoying people around them. That’s a kook.”
This definition is an overhead smash, I think.
And it made me consider other behaviours that define a surfer as a high-level kook.
These include:
- Still arguing the point that rotations must be counted exactly as per the geometric scale. Air 360s instead of 540s, 810s instead of 720s. If the science of climate change is settled, as is common opinion, we can now say the same for airs.
- Examining the judges sheets at a local boardriders’ event and claiming your threes should be three-fives etc.
- Behaving as if the world has suddenly fallen off its axis if a beginner tumbles off his board near you.
- You say there are surfers at your local beach better than guys (and girls) on the WCT and that a surf industry conspiracy keeps ’em out of the spotlight.
- Going leashless on a crowded day. “I never fall off.”
- Turning sessions at remote reefs into some sort of WQS heat, paddling for everything, sighing at people missing waves, grunting etc.
- Like the princess and the pea, you say you can feel even minute differences in your surfboard.
- An obsession with personal surf shots.
- You self-identify as a “surfer”.
- You refuse to travel anywhere unless there’s a coastline with rideable waves
Are you a high-level kook?
1. Riding a hi-perf shortboard on a tiny, gutless day.
Full on Guilty: sighing at people missing waves, obsession with personal surf shots
Partial Guilty: refuse to travel anywhere unless there’s a coastline with rideable waves – I WENT TO YELLOWSTONE THIS YEAR – I’m improving
You forgot the poo-stance-high-performance-kook! He sure does a lot of maneuvers…
Bought a Sci-Fi
Middle aged men talking loudly across the line up about last time they where in Indo…
Guilty
other “are you a high level ……?” I would like to see would include hippy, hipster and wsl executive.
Dane’s definition is the only proper one. If you have shit spatial awareness, you are a kook.
9) Having the conundrum of introducing myself as a 24/7 stay at home dad or a SURFER ?
And henceforth shall I be named Kooky McKooks
1. you engage in a quiz named “are you a high level kook?”.
(number 6 is a good one)
In an otherwise marvellous list, you’ve forgotten Name Drops.
Are you outing yourself here?
ha ha like I care!
Don’t get shirty with me young man.
Yes sir (mutters to self, cuts small hole in desk)
Glory?
Who’s name gets dropped the most, you think? You know where I’m going with this.
OK
Name drop defined by use of first name/casually employed, ie “Robert Slater” in second sentence etc
1. Kelly = uberkook yet too predictable
2. Laird = similar level of predictable uberkook
3. JJF = yeah right
4. Unnamed heavy North Shore local inside scoop = fucken idiot superkook
5. JOB = Sad!
6. Any other world champ = desperate third level uberkook
I hear your butch little bro’s name tossed around everywhere. Man of people or nostalgia thing? And why name dropping Jamie sad?
Self deprecation or flagellation?
honestly, I couldn’t give a shit. All the people I wish I knew are dead.
Wears surf clothing brands at work, rocks a tide watch always, says “brah” and isn’t from Hawaii, has a surfing picture of themselves as their social media profile picture (most likely a bogging, slow, and ill-timed front side turn on a shit wave), refers to snow as “pow pow”, screams YEW! to get attention in the water, and the best one ever……has a solo shot camera thing that follows them around while they flounder in 2′ gutless beach break waves in North County.
if it wasn’t for the north county bit I could have sworn you knew my brother in-law
fuck, that guy you just described just irritated the shit out of me, haha.
He irks me to no end. But most of it is probably self-loathing and regret. I keep asking for a tide watch but my better half would rather give me socks and ties. FML….
It wasn’t gutless 2 ft – it was punchy 3-4 I swear!
5. if im longboarding and 9. and 10. damn it does that qualify?
you automatically qualify if you need to ask. welcome onboard.
I am obviously merely a kook, not a high-level one.
I score Nul Points on that one.
Bad luck CB. Me too, although the record may show I have been guilty of 3 and 6 in the past. That probably just makes me a standard kook but a high-level cuntard.
12/ Owning one of these, though to my credit, it was a gift. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Is this one of those nudity shaming devices?
Yes, unless teamed with the poncho. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
I LOVE my wetsuit changing mat. If I forget it at home I’ll usually grump about it my whole session, making me regress even further into misdemeanour 6.
I got one of those as a Christmas present and was stoked. I used it every day. I assumed it was some kind of foldable Frisbee, the dogs love it but it wore out pretty quickly. no wonder the bloke at the pet store had no clue what I was on about when I tried to get new one.
Living at a surf shop I was gifted one of these from Billabong around 2007 . They say a picture tells a thousand words then being slowly swallowed by a black hole would aptly describe the company’s financial trajectory and final resting place since they released this product leading them away from the light ?
garrett mcnamara tells anderson copper, to come on in the waters warm. that should be cringeworthy
I proudly do all of these things.
Got me only on 2. damn it! In my defence the judges at localboardriders events generally are wives that don’t surf or old timey mal riders.
Offer them gifts . Sparkling wine for the wives and voltaren cream for the aging arthritic malfunctioners. Treat surfing’s subjective judging process like the democratic process and you’ll be Club Champion and President in no time ?
I’ve already been both which is possibly even more so why I only get 3’s now?
You reap what you sow . You could declare yourself emperor and re-educate the judging masses under your rule .
Rule no 1 . All Emperor Dooma’s wave willed be deemed excellent surfing and he will be scored nothing less than an 8 !
Rule no 2 . If Emperor finds himself in a combo situation the score needed will be given to him even if it is a 20 for a single wave…………..
at my last competition, they had some old dude adding up the scores, he was a complete mess; it was chaos.
Did the chaos lead to your triumph or tragedy ?
I won shortboard for my age division in 2015 and 2016. In 2017, I asked the guy adding the scores “who made it out” of my heat (the top two surfers out of four advance). I was certain my friend and I advanced but he said the other two guys advanced, but then I glanced at the sheets and my friend and I had much better scores. I made him fix our heat results but then I was thinking “this fucking guy probably messed up the whole competition.” He was sooo lost. So, we did the final, and my friend got 1st. Although he is a better surfer than me, I still question that win because I know for certain I beat him in the prior heat (I saw the scores). The only consolation was that my gf won the longboard and shortboard. I’ll get those crowns back next year! haha. Thanks for listening.
Game of Thrones ?
Maybe in 2016 and 17, I was the mad king . . . and now I’m Danaeris Targaryen, plotting to get my throne back . . . or am I Jon Snow, walking around like a bastard, ignorant to the fact that I’m the rightful 2018 king?
Damn James, you’re deep.
Death to the usurper ( Except if it’s your mate ) ! Celebrate every win with great gusto ( especially your girlfriends and mates ) as one never knows when the magic run may run out of gas .Dress and ride like a king .Bright Boards and Wetsuit will let the peasants know who is up and riding in Red . Winners are grinners so you can take the piss out of the MP impersonators with the black wetsuits and sticker-less white boards . Suggest to the mathematically challenged club man another role as BBQ man ,Guardian of the sacred Esky or Video bloke and if all this fails there is software now available for clubs which apparently does the heat draw and tabulates results ( surfcomp app ) .
Continuous cycle through very similar looking/measuring top line high performance boards
That’s gold know a few of these lol
Guilty. Fuck France was good.
where did you score?(not to detailed)
I am referring to France and not the quiz.
Hossegor region, didn’t have to go anywhere really. I could have but I was heavily under the influence of food.
surf, eat, beer, surf, eat, glass of wine, maybe surf, wine, eat, wine, wine, sleep repeat.
Mate. Best ever. You wouldn’t believe it if I elaborated.