Listen: “You are a better surfer* than VAL hero Laird Hamilton and, truly miraculously, so am I!”

Get laid tonight!

I don’t have many occasions to feel good about my surfing ability. I know who I am, what I am, not that it robs any pleasure, any joy,  I feel at bogging a roundhouse cutback. At doing a “floater” going “backside.”

Zero disillusionment. Full transparency. Still, pure joy.

And today that joy was enhanced by the realization that I likely surf* better than the great Laird Hamilton.

You do too, since you surf* better than me.

And let me explain.

Laird Hamilton is the name that pops into every fringe-surfer, non-surfer’s mind when they hear the word “surf”, no?

The Maui now Malibu legend cemented his position in the VAL and/or VAL-adjacent hierarchy decades ago.

He is who your grandma thinks about when she thinks about a “surfer.”

He is who hangs on the World Surf League’s new CEO and Lord Commander’s office wall.

He is a saint.

And you surf* better.

I surf* better.

Don’t believe?

When was the last time you saw Laird Hamilton paddle himself into a wave on any respectable surf craft?

30 years ago?

Never?

That’s right. Laird is perpetual Waterperson of the Year (apologies to Dirk Ziff), inventor of modern day SUPping, hydrofoil, strapped tow-in master but…

…if the ice bath frozen cro-magnon paddled out to your lineup, with his own arms, on a surfboard*, you’d smash him.

No?

He hasn’t put his toes in that sorta wax in forever. Since losing to Rick Kane.

For sure. He only does weird surfing shit plus longboarding. He’d have no idea how to even pump down a straight line.

No?

Listen and then tell me how we wouldn’t smash that cro-magnon in a surf-off.

*surf, surfboard, surfing all refer to the real stuff. Some sort of shortboard paddled with arms.

Also, if you listen to podcast I say Justin Timberlake and Jessica Beal were at Sugarfish. In real life it was Brian Austin Green and Meghan Fox but you can certainly understand my confusion.