Come for Warshaw’s sizzling prose; stay and save
surf culture from the Great VAL replacement…
I’ll begin this story with an obscenity: the surf
historian Matt Warshaw, sixty years old, earns twenty-five thousand
dollars a year as the custodian of the sport’s entire
media catalogue.
Ain’t it crazy?
Earlier today I asked Warshaw, if he ever dreamed that, one day,
he’d be earning the majestic sum of twenty-five thousand dollars a
year.
Warshaw, whose brow is marked by a thousand anxieties, is,
necessarily I think, good humoured about his modest stipend.
“Last week I was trying to figure out if I’m earning more now,
at 60, then when I was a 25-year-old sub-editor at SURFER,” he
said. “Same pay in terms of dollars, but adjust for cost of living
and I’m way down in 2020. That’s okay. Jeff Bezos pays (wife) Jodi,
she lets me do EOS, I take our kid to all his
orthodontic appointments, and let’s call it even.”
Now, seeking funds to expand the reach of the Encyclopedia of
Surfing, he’s asking for a little help.
The EOS 2020 fundraiser is 100% dedicated to raising money
to buy more work hours. The site should be growing faster. Just
look at the Surfboards
section. Seven boards posted so far. There should be
100 on there by now, and more added weekly.
The Contest
section is way behind too, and I know a lot of
you aren’t into competition but if you open those pages you will
find some amazing little time capsules. (Try the 1959 Makaha
Championships, and don’t forget to hit play on the video
clip.)
Finally, there is a staggering amount of material—magazines,
books, movies, video, photos, and more—that needs to be collected,
digitized, archived, and databased. This is a project unto itself.
Ultimately, in fact, it is the most important part of the EOS
mission. A huge number of surf movies and videos are yet digitized,
for example, and will vanish forever if we don’t grab ’em. SURFER
and Surfing magazines, and dozens of other titles, have not yet
been scanned. This is the tedious but incredibly necessary work
that will continue long after I hit “send” on my final Joint, and
the more we get done now, the better.
So let’s raise 30K. EOS needs another pair of hands. Two
pair would be even better. I’d like a small raise, too, if I’m
being honest.
Here is
a shameless feel-good EOS clip designed to trigger the
credit-card extension reflex.
Donate here.
Subscriber or buy a gift
sub here.
When I asked Warshaw what satisfaction the site gave him, he
said,
“It’s like moving into a house and figuring out where all the
furniture and art goes. You like doing that or you don’t. I
love it. Although I don’t expect anybody to understand how or why
the job is as satisfying as it is. My first date with Jodi, we
were walking to Cafe Claude
for lunch and I was going on and on about databasing, as I’d gotten
on top of Filemaker Pro, which means you’ve defeated the First
Boss in the surf history game. We got past that very awkward
moment, had lunch, and got married.”
Thirty bucks a year to subscribe.
Terrific value.
