East Side Surfblog

Big blog

I think it would be really cool if there is such a thing as Bigfoot. Because that would mean that there has to be more than one of them. I hope there’s a whole passel of Bigfoots. (Bigfeet? Bigfeets?) Anyway, I can see them all chinchilla chillin’ around the crusty campsite crib after a hard day of crunching through the woods, leaving big Bigfoot footprints in the muck. Roasting up a big ol’ buffalo or giraffe or whatever Bigfeets eat, belting back bevies of bosky Bigfootbräu and yukking it up about how big Bigfoot footprints freak out all those little hairless dudes running around the forests looking for them.

But then I read some scientist somewhere debunking the whole Bigfoot thing by saying that the human mind is hardwired to perceive human forms regardless of whether they really exist or not and that all the sightings have probably been bears walking on their hind legs or whatever and some sort of correlation to the instances of people seeing religious figures in pizza crusts and the like.

Which really bums me out on several levels, not the least of which being the realization that this scientist dude is being paid to think about why I think about Bigfeets. And all this time I’ve been doing it for free. What a rip-off. If only my guidance counselor in high school had sat me down and said, “Dude, forget all that other stuff. You can get paid to think about Bigfoot. And if you’re really good, you can make major bucks thinking about why other people think about it.”

I’d be set. Probably even have some time left over to squeeze in a surf or two.

Because, even without remuneration, I’m willing to see all kinds of things that aren’t really there — like waves. I’ve been looking at the IOP my whole life and have repeatedly seen surf when you know darn good and well there isn’t any. Take last Sunday, for instance. Was that surf or did we all just paddle out into some really frothy wind? I know Wiggs and Dano and all those boys had a time, but they’re kiteboarders and therefore already of questionable judgment. I hate the wind. It musses up my comb-over.

Monday after work was slightly better. The wind had a strange angle to it that almost made the troughs and the wave faces glassy. But man, was it still windy. I decided not to paddle against it for a while, looked at my watch and the rip took me down two blocks in less than five minutes. Yessiree, there’s nothing better than walking back down the beach for five blocks with a 30 mph wind blowing sand into your teeth. Plus, I forgot to wear my Doc’s Pro Plugs, and without them I feel like the cover of my favorite King Crimson album.

But I still think I saw waves.

Might as well get used to it, though. Because those SW slop chop sessions are about all we get, and it looks as though there is another one on the way for this weekend. And I’ll take that over flat any day. Plus it will keep the kite crew off the streets for another week. If those guys get bored, no telling what will happen.

And, on another bright note, Vinnie never goes walking in the woods; which is good, because the Bigfeet would probably capture him and make him their King. That would go completely to his head and he’d be lording it over us forever. Plus, poor Mrs. Vinnie would probably get stuck cleaning up all the broken furniture after the big Bigfoot coronation party.

Relief blog

Oh, sweet relief. As you have probably noticed, there hasn’t been a lot of surfing going on in this blog for a while. I had resigned myself to being marooned tantalizingly close to a cold, flat ocean forever, where the absence of surf distills boredom into drifting insanity. Perhaps I would end up amusing myself by collecting jars of fingernail clippings or shaving the neighbor’s cat and using the fur to make a macrame flowerpot hanger.

Last week, I had my head down in the corporate weeds until Vinnie called and said it looked to him as if there would be a nice swell pushing its way down to those heathens in Florida — which I observed is a complete waste because they get all the surf anyway and don’t deserve it. So Vinnie volunteered to go Spanish House and at least get in the way, if not actually ride some himself. I haven’t heard from him since, so he may still be down there or was captured somewhere and held without bond.

I checked it a couple of times over the weekend and it was almost surfable. Using summer standards, it was definitely on the scale, but having to struggle in and out of wetsuits made it a definite maybe. But I really thought I screwed up late on Sunday. I had sort of written the day off as a no-go and moved on to other things. The temperature had finally gotten to the point where the poor, neglected Tiki Bar no longer needed to be neglected, so I was making up for lost time with a mai tai, Martin Denny and a nice piece of charred mammal flesh sputtering on the grill when I realized that the wind had switched. I live close enough to the beach to hear the surf when it’s big and the wind is blowing just right — which I realized I could right then. But I had already over-committed myself domestically, figured I was a complete dork for missing it and had to settle for the none-too-unpleasant sound of Tune from Rangoon and a second mai tai.

But if you scampered out after work on Monday, like I did, you found that the swell held throughout the day and was quite rideable in the waist to chest zone. Thank-yous to Burbo for the text and to daylight saving time. Of course, being a working stiff, I missed the best of it because the tide was maxed by the time I got there. The real hero stuff came as the tide was coming off low around lunchtime, and the news I heard over the coconut telegraph was that P.K., D-Wood, Dano F. and a few other intrepids paddled SUPs over the inlet with shortboards in tow and caught an epic session out on the third bar.

But I never really kick myself for not trying to run and catch a surf during lunch. For some reason I always get hungry around 12 o’clock. Maybe that’s why they call it lunchtime. So, unawares of any surfing going on, I rolled over to Skoogies (I can only hope Mrs. Blog doesn’t read this because she’ll have me on lettuce and the treadmill for a week) and am standing there trying not to pass out from hypoglycemia when I notice that the lady in front of me is keeping the line from moving by asking questions at the counter. Now, I never pay attention to what people are saying to each other. It is inevitably disappointing. But I do have some special radar that picks up insanity wherever it is and beams it directly into my head — for comparative purposes. So, like the John Candy character, Barf, in Spaceballs, my ear lifted up when I heard the next question.

Lady: “What comes on a slaw dog?”

Surfblogger doing Arnold Horshack: Ooh! Ooh! Mr. Kotter, I know! I know! It’s COLESLAW!!

Skoogie Guy being diplomatic: “We can put anything on it you like.”

Lady: “Well ... sound of sand in gears ... what do most people get?”

Surfblogger: Anchovies. Everybody knows that anchovies come on a slaw dog. Except, of course, in the Loire valley, where the French eschew anchovies in favor of mayonnaise and wild truffles hunted by specially trained pigs.

Skoogie Guy: “I have some customers who add onions and mustard.”

Surfblogger: Let’s forget the slaw and put chili on it. Then you can actually eat a chili dog, but tell everybody you had a slaw dog. It’ll be our naughty little secret.

Lady: “I don’t really like onions. Do you have any relish?”

Surfblogger: Good god, Madam! What kind of exotic condiments do you think this establishment purveys? They could lose one of their Michelin stars over this. Why, you’ll prod Skoogie himself out of the walk-in freezer and send him scouring the globe to procure such a delicacy. Relish, indeed!

Skoogie Guy: “Yes, ma’am. We have relish and sauerkraut, too.”

Surfblogger: A-ha! I knew the Germans would find their way into this. Those crafty Huns have just been waiting for such an excuse to invade South Carolina. What with their crappy weather and lust for real estate, we’ll have hordes of those pointy-helmeted devils trampling jack-booted over us in no time. Sound the alarm! Man the parapets! Boil some oil!

Lady: “Well ... I think I’ll have just a regular hot dog with ketchup and mustard. And could you put some coleslaw on it?”

The neighbor’s cat is getting used to skinning it and my fingernail collection is coming along just fine, thank you.