I don't surf

I got the day off

a Good Friday indeed!

my stoke levels topped off

from last nights show

only to find

the swell(s) had waned to the point

of it being painful

to watch

Fortune has smiled upon me however

and I have other things to do

(18 individual string changes later hilarity ensues)

On my walk

From the car park to the sand

I fell instep with a young man

and his coach/father/mentor/sponsor

and the conversation

although I hesitate to call it that

it was really more of a pre game

locker room talk

complete with clipboard

and X and O diagrams

went something like this

"...make sure to get enough speed, a couple of pumps if you have to, so that when you hit the lip and start your rotation you make it all the way around and stick the landing...

if you don't make the landing the judges won't give you any points..."

now I grew up in The OC, the epicenter of

big ass corporate surf culture

and I have grown complacent

you might even say "comfortably numb"

to the fact

that they are growing

blond haired, blue eyed boys

in test tubes

to feed the needs of

the advertisers

in ER and ING.

But still I was deeply saddened

that the "surf experience"

I so dearly love

had been reduced

to a quest for "points"

until the realization hit me

(or maybe it was my morning coffee)

that it doesn't matter

to me

in my small personal universe

Because

I don't surf

I ride a MAT!

Photo  by Ken "official photographer of the revolution" Samuels