A serious discussion.
Can I be truly open and honest with you? I am a sarcastic, snarky man, there I said it. I am sarcastic and snarky and think I’m funny and think being too serious is such a bore.
And it was in this normal state of being that I stumbled across the BBC piece Pride Month: ‘I pretended to be straight to learn how to surf’
“Huh?” I thought, probably sarcastically and snarky. “Pretended to be straight to learn to surf?”
I immediately clicked and read the story of British man, and founder of the Queer Surf Club, Frazer Riely learning to surf in Morocco where not surfing, but state laws, prohibited homosexuality.
Continuing, I learned how the experience was not enjoyable how he “was worrying about whether I was cheering camply or coming across as effeminate when I was falling off the board. My experience of learning to surf was of hiding my true identity, and I never wanted another queer person to feel like that.”
“Huh,” I thought, toned down and introspective, then reached his impression of the broader surf community.
“There are incredible individuals out there who are welcoming and inclusive. But the issue with surf culture is that there’s a very singular, homogenous story on what it is to be a surfer, from how you surf to riding shortboards to what you wear. That image is generally cis-gendered, straight white men who are athletic and able-bodied – and that narrative has perpetuated surf culture since conception, almost. Now, I truly believe we’re on the cusp of changing. Surfers are waking up and looking around them and seeing who is present and who isn’t.”
I’ll continue to be truly and openly honest. I was moved.
A question for you, now.
Is surfing, or the public perception of surfing, an outdated cultural relic that should be dashed on the same rocks that brought low “whites-only” country clubs or is identity, as primary lens with which to view everything, not always the most useful?
Here’s one more.
What if we, altogether, learned how to stop worrying and love the bomb?
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I don’t know why but it seems like the time period around 1989 was such a good year but like you are saying your’e waking up and trying to figure out how to get to work and pay rent. No time to think about much else. Everything was so alive. Pre cell phones and home computers for the most part. Movies were sick back then, Berlin Wall came crashing down. Got off work and was watching the World Series battle of the bay when the earthquake hit up here. TV picture blacked out and then reappeared only to see mayhem and the Bay Bridge collapsing.
Still not sure how I feel about the affect of cell phones and if they are good or bad.
Nah, we’ve just had all these conversations before
Hi Buzzy!
Yes. allies welcomed. As I wrote, QSC are lovely people.
184 comments and no-one’s mentioned Buzzy Trent with his famous quote: “I think all big wave riders are latent homosexuals”.
You two should get a room
decraprio is a real bad actor. cringe worthy
don’t, as ol VS makes out he is military and loves fantasizing about being a killer…..where he’s killed people in Kandahar…..pretty funny actually as I think you could be right that he’s a kid sitting at home with his G I Joe dolls!
Power bottom turns?
Look at that cute dog!
The Avengers with the late, great James Wilsey on bass.
Involuntary servitude is different than slavery. California, today, saves $100 Million per year using prison labor. You don’t hear many yelling that California is a slave practicing State now do you?
aren’t the prisons in the USA run privately as business’s?
It’s public/private mix. The private prisons are awarded government contracts, resulting in savings ($$) to government versus public prison.
There wasn’t much pushback until Obama, who went after ICE detention facilities. Once he targeted those facilities, then you had States targeting private prisons that house the State’s inmates. My personal opinion is that the Blue States don’t give two shits about private prisons housing the State’s inmates as much as they dislike ICE detention facilities that run in their States. That is more in line with their open border policies.
So in California..do the prisons charge the State for slave prison labor?
No.
So Shawshank Redemption!
actually surfing has got a lot worse now , living on a bygone era ‘s history of adrenalin junkies and living on the edge , to now people like Otto ..
The strangest thing happened to me the other day. I walked past a bunch of metal heads and fuck me if they weren’t, to a man and perhaps a woman, all wearing black and sporting all kinds of piercings and long hair and shit. Then I turned the corner and, fuck me pickledy, I saw a bunch of basketballers wearing high top Nikes and singlets emblazoned with names from NBA players. It was the darndest sight.
Then I got to the beach and saw a rabble of surfers wearing boardies and thongs and shitty old t-shirts, some with names like Quicksilver on them. Except Chas. He was wearing a pink button-up and slim slacks.
What a sociologically, culturally, anthropologically wondrous thing it was to see people who enjoy the same pastimes wearing similar things and acting in similar ways. Fascinating.
Then, lo and behold, I was informed that I belonged to some kind of homogeneous cult because of my likeness to others who like the same thing I like, by a gay man traveling in a Muslim country who felt he had to fake his gayness and not live his truth. Due, he said, to the homogeneity of my cult. His truth. Lived truth. My cult. So exclusive? I felt confused. Big confused. So I went out and bought a RVCA t-shirt and all was well.
This story is
The Gayest Of All Time.
Like most I fancy myself as being sufficiently handy in the kitchen but then I made the mistake of buying a 26’ blade (really dunno why other than a chef in a pub I worked in had one) and immediately sliced off the entire nail of my left hand’s index finger. Not once! But twice! The second cut happening almost immediately upon getting a nail back. End result is that I’m sticking with 20’ and not overestimating my abilities.
I bet your labia protrudes way out when you wear a wetsuit!
gee is that a fetish or a fantasy?
I’m so gay!!!
looking back on those times and I was living in poverty sharing a house with five other skaters and surfers doing shipping and receiving for a skate company, Having Pat Duffey passed out on my living room floor at fourteen years old. Watching my roommate Noah Salasnek move to Truckeee and become one of the best snowboarders in the world.
Didn’t seem memorable at the time
I guess they must have started up again later. The UC berkely radio station kept saying “some jock” fell down and sued, which is kinda true. He was from Marin county and swam for SF state. just a typical white suburb dude that goes to shows.
I don’t agree with what he did. didn’t know him that well