East Side Surfblog

Famous blog

I really try to hide from current popular culture. I find there are very few things going on now that make me glad I know about them. Take this whole Sandra Bullock/Jesse James thing. Like I care or am surprised that some scuzzball would cheat on some rich babe who’s out of his league. On the surface of it, that doesn’t even penetrate my natural defense mechanisms.

But this whole drawn-out public viewing has the insidious ability to creep into my consciousness. It’s happened so many times that it’s now formulaic. And, being your full-service Surfblogger, I’ve broken it down so that you, too, can live like the rich and famous.

Just pick one from each column and have a ball:

Step 1 □  Lie   □  Do drugs   □  Cheat   □  Fondle   □  Drink   □  Wreck a car □  Batter your spouse □  Expose yourself □  Stop eating

Step 2 □  Lose your sponsors □  Get photographed □  Get blackmailed □  Get arrested □  Get fat   □  Run   □  Have a baby   □  Sell the story □  Get a divorce

Step 3 □  Apologize to your fans □  Go to rehab □  Cry in public □  Blame your parents □  Blame the media □  Seek counseling □  Hire a personal trainer □  Perform a public service □  Move to an extradition-free country

Step 4 □  Do it again □  Do it again □  Do it again □  Do it again □  Do it again □  Do it again □  Do it again   □  Do it again □  Do it again

If being famous is too much work, then I hope you got some waves. The surf last weekend was puny, even by S.C. standards, but just about everyone I talked to was surfing it anyway as a tune-up for what was on the way. We started getting a pulse on Monday, and by Tuesday night we had lumps of water that could actually be identified as waves.

If, like me, you got hung up at work Tuesday night, you probably were pleasantly surprised to find the wind lay down between storms, and it was almost glassy just before dark. The current was murder, though. Not really sure if I went surfing or walking on the beach with a surfboard. But it must have been something better than nothing, because it even pulled Vinnie off of injured reserve and back into the lineup, torqued knee and all.

He was still being philosophical, though, because later that night he posed an interesting “If a tree falls in the woods” question: If the surf is really flat and nobody is out, but I go out and ride it, does that now make the surf rideable? And if I ride it every day, doesn’t that make the surf here always rideable? And wouldn’t we just need to document the fact that at least one guy out of all of us here went each day to lay claim to always having rideable surf?

Isn’t pain medication a wonderful thing? I just hope he doesn’t run out of it anytime soon. With four columns of activities to choose from, there’ll be hell to pay.

Philosoblog

Blogson2 and I went to the Jammer last night to see Tim Curran show his latest surf flick. The movie was pretty cool and was the usual footage of perfect waves we’ll never ride and guys pulling moves we’ll never do. Why else would we spend 10 bucks each to get in, right? Plus, it’s a traditional gathering of the tribe, and pretty much any excuse will do to get me together with the bros. The added benefit being that the Jammer still makes the best burger on the beach, and every once in a while ya just have to go over there and drop in on the full-on, close-out cholesterol bomb. And if you can do that, watch a surf movie and talk story with the boys, it doesn’t get much better. Except, possibly if there was some surf, but I’m just dreaming now.

A missing member of the tribal elders was Vinnie, who blew out his knee the day before yesterday surfing the mini-swell we had. Bro: I tried to stand up for you and tell the story of it as an epic struggle of man versus sea — Thor Heyerdahl in the Kon-Tiki, Ahab and the Great White Whale, Greg Noll at Waimea — but the boys already had a couple of beers in them by the time I got to the telling of it; and the general consensus was that you were a dork for getting hurt in small surf, and all the sympathy went to Mrs. Vinnie, who is now condemned to putting up with you until you can surf again. It’s a cruel world. What does it all mean?

In fact, what is the meaning of meaning? I recently read an interesting treatise on what makes a person a philosopher. One of the interesting points was a comparison of what it meant to be a lawyer versus a philosopher in ancient Greece. It seems that the ancient Greek court system allowed a very short and precisely defined amount of time for arguments to be made, and therefore lawyers were people who had a very limited amount of time and for whom time was money. Philosophers, on the other hand, had nothing but time. So to be a philosopher, one had to have loads of time, and — time being money — eschew those things which money can buy in favor of more thoughtful pursuits.

And this has nothing to do with surfing, right? Au contraire, mon frere. Because to be a surfer around here, you will need loads of time. This past week was a perfect example. It was pretty much as flat as it can get most of the time. And that is really no different than the rest of the time. So basically, there is hardly ever any surf at any time. And, therefore, if you are going to get any surf, you have to have the time to go when it’s time; which doesn’t happen very many times. Frankly, if you are going to surf, you have to be ready to go at any time and at all times. Who has the time? Philosophers and Vinnie.

Now, medieval philosophers liked to debate the root cause of man’s actions in terms of will versus intellect. The so-called voluntarists adhered to the theory that actions were governed by the will, and the intellectualists argued that people were motivated by their intellect. This debate about what the intellect thinks or the will does catches Vinnie right in the middle, because he knew darn well there wasn’t going to be any real surf and he went anyway. So now he is on the bench contemplating the philosophical conundrum of will versus intellect until his knee heals. And he will have a lot to think about. The swell model shows a pretty big swell heading our way on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. I’m kinda with the boys on this — we’d better pool some money and start sending Mrs. Vinnie a crapload of flowers. She’s gonna need ’em.

Neander blog

I just read that scientists have made significant progress in defining the Neanderthal genome. This appears to be significant to people who are trying to find out why Neanderthals became extinct and satisfy the arguments over whether they died out or mated with modern humans and just blended in.

And you can bet there’s a bunch of people with cushy research jobs who are just dying to spend the next 20 years of their tenure “investigating.” This may shock you, and put a bunch of those people out of a job, but I can prove Neanderthals still walk among us.

I rest my case.

So, since I have unequivocally proven that their lineage still exists, I think the more significant scientific quest should be to quit mapping the Neanderthal past and start worrying about the Neanderthal future. Because I seem to remember a genetics class I had in which the combination and recombination of genes is a random activity governed by something called statistics.

Now, this is all I remember because I think I had a hangover; so I’ve recruited Andy because he is a whiz at all sorts of things, and the two of us have formed a sort of scientific/affirmative action team to guard your future. Plus, we can save the nation a bunch of money. We don’t need any stinking research grants, just the Internet and a bunch of coffee.

So our point is, we had better quit ignoring these Neanderthal dudes and start taking some action, because they are probably breeding all over the place with all kinds of consequences we are left to deal with.

 

Like politics

And that’s just if the Neanderthals keep their genes to themselves.

Here’s what happens when they mix with normal humans.

Just thinking about sports

So take action. Stop Neanderthal mating now.

Your future

You can thank us later.

Mother's blog

I’d like to extend birthday wishes and many happy returns of the day to my dearest Mrs. Blog and apologize for that birthday many decades ago when I gave you a skateboard instead of something you really wanted — although it was a Z-Flex and is probably worth a fortune now on E-Bay.

Last week, I was really kvetching about the lack of surf just to kvetch, but King Neptune must have heard me and took mercy upon us, because it was actually pretty fun last weekend. So I guess I can take credit for it. You can thank me later.

As I have said many times before, surf conditions for ESA contests are usually icky, but we actually had pretty good weather and waves for the whole thing. I just have to figure out why I suddenly stink at longboard. Or is it that I have always stunk at longboard and the judges have just been kinder to me in the past? Either way, I have a lot of work to do to get back in the running. But that’s what makes competitive surfing so much fun. There’s always a bunch of guys happy to completely annihilate you.

Also, this week, I am absolutely horrified by what is happening in the Gulf. The ecosystem is so fragile and the creatures so delicate that they just have to be touched by that gunk to be killed. When you think of the bottlenose dolphins, birds, oyster beds and shrimp and stuff like that, it’s just a horror and my heart is bleeding for the whole coast. I want my wind farm and I want it now. We have to wean ourselves away from this madness.

As for the weekend surf forecast, there will probably be something to ride depending on your level of desperation, but my advice is to spend Mother’s Day properly engaged in Mother’s Day and save your fun pass for when you really need it. Although, if you have children, this is a great day to take them to the beach and teach them how to surf. Because if you word it correctly, you can go surfing with the kids and it falls under the category of “child care.” How clever is that?