"The Surf Don reckons wave riding was perfected by Taylor Knox at Trestles in ‘98. Anything that came after that is just gristle on the bone."
Yesterday, Charlie Smith sketched for us his outline of the Modern Surfer.
He is, wrote Smith, repressed, flaccid.
Youthful, yes. But domiciled by the invisible shackles of an information-saturated world.
Content to never break free.
And one that, maybe, cut this writer deep.
But, that’s beside the point.
Because Modern Surfer is only one side of the canvas. We must also inspect the other.
The Yin to the Modern Surfer’s Yang.
The Surf Don.
Named after the classic literary figure Don Quixote. The Surf Don is an idealistic crusader always looking for a fight, and an opportunity to prove just how right he is.
The Surf Don has risen through life, absorbed everything thrown at him, and came out tops.
No handouts. No favours.
The world is his, and there ain’t any tilted beanie or windmill that’s gonna tell him otherwise.
Want to know more?
The Surf Don works a trade, and has been doing so for the last thirty years. His appointments are timed around surfing, he only ever responds to phone calls (generally 3-5 business days later) and he charges like he’s suing for reparations.
The Surf Don looks at any feeble bodied, feminine cocksucker that doesn’t earn a living with his hands lower than he would Ando, or AOC.
The Surf Don is divorced, and if he’s not he should be.
The Surf Don has a long relationship with a local shaper and can’t believe what cocksuckers will pay for those goddamned Oriental pop-outs.
The Surf Don has been recycling through the same three board quiver for the last decade. Every few years he gives a silent, knowing nod to his shaper and an extra 1/4 inch is added to the thickness and width on his next order. But this is never openly discussed.
The Surf Don reckons wave riding was perfected by Taylor Knox at Trestles in ‘98. Anything that came after that is just gristle on the bone.
The Surf Don says his stiff style is all about economy of movement, but you probably wouldn’t understand. Cocksucker.
Anyway, you’ll never see the Surf Don in the water as he only frequents solitary banks and ledges. He don’t move with no crowds.
The Surf Don still dismisses thirty-four year olds as ‘groms.’
The Surf Don doesn’t say you should have been here yesterday. The Surf Don says you shouldn’t be here at all.
The Surf Don hates the WSL and everything it stands for, and wishes those lousy cocksuckers would fuck off and let somebody smart run the show. Like the Surf Don.
The Surf Don spends any spare time not surfing or working doing blokey things, like building retaining walls for friends and unknowingly reading alt-right media.
The Surf Don enjoys parking in liberal elitist cocksucker’s 2007 Prius hatchbacks with his late model F250 truck.
The Surf Don would live off grid if he could, and compensates for the fact by buying portioned cadavers direct from a butcher to store in his three commercial freezers ( eg “One deer leg thanks, Buck”).
The Surf Don is financially conservative, a self-labelled libertarian that would discover he’s an anarcho-capitalist if he ever looked it up.
The Surf Don buys an upgraded version of the same flannelette hoodie every two or three years.
The Surf Don reckons music peaked with the Foo Fighters’ 1999 album There is Nothing Left to Lose.
The Surf Don only drinks domestic and/or Mexican beers, which he enjoys with the odd hot one down by the beach with a few of his Don buddies.
Or, alternatively, he’s been off the booze ever since (insert drunken event that probably would have involved the cops if he didn’t have some “good people around him” here).
The Surf Don actively decries social media and all those who use it, yet spends most waking hours rotating between his Disqus and LinkedIn profiles.
(He had to get rid of Facebook after the ex caught him sexting a Russian bot)
What did I miss?
funny stuff Surf Ads… well done amigo.
You just described so many people I know and I fit many of the stereotypes myself. Especially the unspoken adding of volume… wink wink “you know what to do”…..
What about the surf dons first born son who he didn’t bother to teach to surf and now is rudderless with no idols, but with his second son he says he’s gonna defo “bring him under his wing” this time. Yep fuck yeah for sure…..it’s on.
And there’s a 23 year age gap between first and second son.
Surf don fixes his own fucking dings
And he/she only went to lemoore cuz of some corporate schmooze by a “venture capitalist that’s kinda interested in my startup”
The Surf Don was going to give you that last wave, but wasn’t sure if you were gonna go, so just went anyway.
If you mention Dora around here –Daniel Duane– (Super Val), who was intimidated as a young Val (and possibly emotionally scarred for life), by the ‘words’ on the steps to the beach which said–“Kooks go Home,–is going to accuse you of being racist…………
The Surf Don looks and talks like Alex Jones with a neck tattoo (and thinks that’s super punk).
The Surf Don is afraid bringing bags to the grocery store will make him look unmanly.*
*True story: https://www.scientificameri…
Excellent reading surfaids!
You forgot his once a year holiday to a deserted break in Indo that he never talks about , just disappear for two weeks every year and return with a tan that he no longer goes on since he caught malaria.
And the fact he might own two or three or even four phones.
Colour coded so he knows which g/f is ringing and he doesn’t get the names wrong anymore
Imagine living in a country with great waves.
Imagine working a 5 day week for a year and saving for a flight of 1.5 hours to a special wave that is in your country.
Then Taylor is there getting filmed and your significance goes out the window and you spend 4 days of swell fighting for scraps with this douche all the while feeling like you’re in some heat and you’ve just wasted your years savings.
At least the craft beer tasted good .
Solid seventy percent
The Surf Don waxes poetic about the good ole days when you could assault pre-teens in public.
The Surf Don calls you a pussy when you suggest that maybe smacking random people’s kids isn’t the best idea.
The Surf Don calls you a pussy cause you don’t have any extra nug.
The Surf Don calls you a pussy a lot.
The Surf Don says that SUPing is “gay”.
The Surf Don still uses “gay” like that but the Surf Don has a gay cousin so it’s ok.
The Surf Don is fuckin pissed he can’t get in the water this swell cause his knee/shoulder/sciatica/ear infection has been acting up again.
The Surf Don can’t remember what injury he told you last time but it doesn’t matter cause you’re a pussy for not burning all the blow-ins anyways.
The Surf Don is drunk at noon.
The Surf Don barks at a girl on a jog.
The Surf Don says she had to have been 18.
The Surf Don used to get so much ass back in the day that you wouldn’t believe it.
The Surf Don is right about that.
The Surf Don chucks you a beer when you get out of the water.
The Surf Don’s not that bad.
The Surf Don uses the time he gave you that one beer to bum beers off you for the rest of his life.
Impressive.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen any Surf Donesque behaviour here at BG…
(No one here has Dunning Kruger syndrome either)
P.S. The Foo Fighters are nothing but a girlie pop band
P.P.S. plug in fins are for kooky beginners, real blokes only ride glass-ons
since, I once wrote that I would have “Tilted at Windmills” written on my grave stone I dont think I can deny the charge.
Surf Don definitely does not like the FF – generic alt rock. Surf Don loves Metallica but only the first two albums.
And the Garage Days EP
Does the Surf Don don a goatee?
Flavour saver until 2004 when he went the bald chicken look and shaved both the facial hair and the dome.
….Nice piece SurfsAds!.
And the surf was always better, bigger, cleaner with no one out……not just yesterday, but whenever the Dons surfed.
Thruout all of surfing history no doubt…
(cept for those pesky logjams)
Ancient Surfers think Modern Surfer is a sissy, and the Surf Don a buffoon. We really don’t give a fuck about our image or fashion… too busy just enjoying life.
Back in 1988, Surf Don had a framing job and would drink a sixer by noon everyday until he shot a 16 penny nail through his hand and jobbed the system for permanent disability. Didn’t stop him from surfing or working under the table cash jobs nor going off on tirades about people on welfare. Also, never stopped saying “bitchin” and is jealous kids revived “rad” instead of bitchin.
Haha, and whilst on perma-disability decries ‘them damn socialists wanna turn us into Venezuela’, while sucking on that pseudo-socialist teat.
Also speaks relatively good indo and is saving for a dragon fruit farm.
The surf Don might be me!!! Got to add , the surf Don hates backpackers and surf moms , I just drink cheap beer though
Tugun. My mate calls it tewgs. I correct him, it’s tugs.
We called it Tuggin. Got some good waves back in the day at Flat Rock. I think the groynes to the south smoothed out the sand flow and made it all a bit straighter. And more crowded…
Yeah fuck it’s crowded now. Close to the M1 I spose..
ha ha you missed the annual Surf Don surf trip, with the same boat guy in the Ments. The Surf Don thinks he is close with the boat guy. They share the core value. But the boat guy never gives him a cut rate.
Boat guy is a chapter unto himself. The sort of self preservation that would put an African dictator to shame.
Terry Smith, Crescent Heads… best skipper in the Ments.
He would be an awesome interview.
Isn’t every skipper in the ments the best skipper in the ments?
Terry stood out for me…. 62 (at the time) and jaded as fuck, but when he pulled out his dahlberg off the nets, I was jumping off with him. Dude got us into empty Maca’s… in my book, that was legend. But essentially yes, anyone dumping you into perfect surf is very cool. I was the oldest guest on that charter by 20 years, but Terry was older than me so while the kids partied, we had quiet talk listening to the wind. Fuck yeah Surf Ads… imagine how good it is now!
NC you are the biggest Surf Don on here.
The Leemore surfer?
Surfing peaked in the eighties and the foo fighters are bubblegum pop
Hmm. you might be on to something..