Surfing Ruined My Life

Im a pretty mellow dude in the water these days, sure I can be somewhat scrappy and if its fun a super frother, but overall compared to how I was five years ago Im a kitten.  I try and keep to myself and get whatever waves come to me.  This being the case when an incident such as the proceeding story happens I find myself quite dumfounded over the whole scene.  Every time I reflect on said situation I lose a little more respect for surfers in general, the state of modern surf society on a whole and adds to my utter disgust of California.

At one time surfing was a brotherhood and in many places it still is.  A hierarchy used exist among her devoted few.  There was an unwritten set of rules, a heavily enforced code of ethics.  There was a certain camaraderie in knowing that you shared something as remarkable as riding moving masses of water with another.  Not these days.  These days its all about water proof ipods, video clips, stickers on one’s board, wave gluttony, burning, snaking, image and the almighty dollar.  That is just about enough of my foolish divination and onto my tale of another surfing misadventure.

Yesterday afternoon (10/12) I was lucky enough to get out of work an hour earlier then usual and with near still wind and solid combo swell in the water it was a very celebrated affair.  I began cruising south with the intention to surf anywhere besides Rincon considering the frustrating morning session I endured there (see Surflog for details on that session).  Passing by Rincon it was inconsistent and far more crowded then I wanted to deal with and that is an observation made from doing the look back of death on the 101 at 65 miles an hour.

I headed to Pitas to see if there was a wave beginning to materialize there with the steadily dropping tide.  As I was ruling out the hit or miss point I got a call from my buddy Ryan down in Ventura claiming Hollywood by the Sea to be chest to head, glassy and fun A-frame peaks up and down the beach.  Hollywood is one of those places that can give you an epic session or a royal class A skunking.  Luckily for me Ryan is the best source I have for surfing south of Rincon and every time he calls Hollywood I score.

As I was leaving Pitas I ran into Lindsay who was on her way to Rincon after a somewhat fun session at Emma Wood.  When I told her my plans it did not take more then a second to park her car and jump in with me.  I don’t know if I had heavy foot syndrome from too much stoke but I made remarkable time.  Sure enough upon pulling up it was as good as Ryan had described if not better.

There were just killable peaks as far as you could see north and south from the beach with maybe 10-15 guys spread out.  If there were three to four guys to a peak it was a lot and plenty of empty ones as well.  Some of the insiders even barreled a little bit.  The first hour was magical just a bunch of surfers hooting and hollering and having the best time ever, a sight rarely shared by everyone in a California line up.

Lindsay and I were kind of sitting this peak to the south on the inside all to ourselves when I hear this guy paddling out start screaming “Go back to Ventura, get the fuck out of here, this is not New Jetty, its Oxnard”.  I did not think this person was talking to me in particular because first off the line up was empty and I was surfing by myself and number two Im from Santa Barbara.  As this was going down a serious set began to roll in and it was one of the best lefts I had seen all day.

I immediately scratched to the outside and put myself in perfect position for the wave.  As Im paddling into it the mother fucker I described above swung around right next to me for an uncalled for spiteful burn.  Observing the situation I dropped way in front of the wave into a long bottom turn to avoid getting run over.  Dude ended up eating shit anyhow and I got three turns and an attempted corrupt flip off the close out, leaving me easily 75 to 100 yards down the beach.

I paddle back out and I see this angry dude come paddling at me full bore. I have been in these situations plenty of times before and assumed things were going to get ugly, but I had at least five people two of which are bigger guys who I knew would get my back if it went to blows on the beach although I was hoping it would not come to that.  This irate person paddles right up to me and stabs me in the chest with the nose of his board.

Then yells at me to take my “stupid long hair, J7 surfboard, tell Jason Fiest he can suck his dick and go home”.  After which he took a swing at my face with the nose of his board, which I blocked with my own board taking a small pressure dent in the process.  Then he says “this is not New Jetty brah, keep your shit in Ventura where it belongs and took a swing at my head with his fist.

I dodged that one too and luckily a wave came right after and I jumped on it and surfed it left as far down the beach as I could to get away.  Unfortunately this guy was driven and paddled at me again.  This time my friend Ryan, who is a big dude got in the middle and broke the thing up and then the rest of the line up took my side of the controversy and after a few more words he wisely left.

Turns out the 411 on him was that he lost his job and with that his health plan enabling him not to get his psyche medication for his bi-polar disorder and he was getting evicted from his apartment, which happened to be right across the street from where I was surfing.  This guy saw me paddle out and came out with the intention to fuck me up.  Maybe he thought I was the boogieman or something?  All I know is that his eyes were all gnarly looking when he was getting into it with me.

On another note he has been holding this grudge against me for paddling around him at New Jetty a year ago in a session I cant even recall.  Im not really a paddler.  If I paddle around someone it is because they are not sitting deep enough, are missing good waves or are just a line up buoy.   You east coasters might not understand what that is (unless they have infiltrated your lineups as well), but a buoy is some one who paddles out, does not catch any waves, mostly getting in the way but sometimes serving as good line up markers.  In California they are in no short supply.

Whatever the case this dude was willing to kill me over however miniscule this incident was that took place more then a year ago that I can’t even recall.   Upon his departure things went back to normal and everyone resumed having a decent session but for me there was a lingering bad taste on the whole thing.  Towards dark we all got out of the water together.

When we got to the parking lot guess who was waiting there all changed, accompanied by his dog?  That’s right psycho boy.  He starts yelling never come back here again at me and his dog was barking.  Then Ryan was able to distract him with some neutral conversation, remember the guy was bipolar.  At that cue Lindsay and I booked it to my car jumped in with our suits still on and got the fuck out of there.

The surf was fun but you can bet your ass it was not worth getting shanked over.  Just when I was complaining about how my life was getting boring its more of the same courtesy of another California head case.  I know there is better place to live then this and when I find it I will be the first to let you know.

***If you like blogs like this I update my surf  log section miniature blogs of every surf session I partake in.

Here is a picture of some silly scallions to represent then many faces of Bipolar disorder.