Down South Perspective

By Allan Weisbecker

I’ve traveled a bit, lived here and there; I’m currently living far Down South, at the end of the road at the bottom of Central America, within sight of a very long left point. But I’m East Coast. Someone asks me my home break I don’t mind telling them Ditch Plains, Montauk, NY.

Caught my first wave at Ditch in 1965; and so forth.

Lived in Southern California in the early 80’s; surfed Malibu now and then. Hadn’t been back there for a dozen years, more. Went out to that coast again recently for a few days on movie business having to do with a book I wrote. Brought my longboard (a Will Allison 9-oh), figuring to squeeze in some surfs between meetings.

It’d been long enough since my last Malibu go-out that I forgot what to expect. (They say the memory is the first to go.) “Perfect longboard wave” is pretty much what I showed up with, mentally. Other than that it was more or less like I was seeing it for the first time. I did expect crowds, of course, so I figured I’d be in the water at first light. Did just that on this particular summer Sunday. Chest high, very occasionally head high, but low water, a bit sectiony, a bit inconsistent. Still a classic little wave. Hey, Malibu. The Bu.

By the time it was light enough to really see there were 20 or so guys scattered around; then, soon, 30; then 40.

I was toweling off at 7 AM, reflecting on my session, staring out at the line-up, wanting to make sure that it really had gone like I was thinking it had. I mean, maybe being in the thick of it had skewed my perspective… maybe I’d missed the big picture…

Nope. No perspective skewing, no big picture missing.

Here’s the way it had gone at Malibu: In an hour and a half I’d caught about a dozen waves, not counting a couple semi-aborts. I never once took a wave someone else had caught outside of me, or even stroked into behind me; someone did the latter I let him have it. In short, I conducted myself properly. (I must confess that I do a pretty good Stan Laurel-hey-what-I-do?-idiot-face when I paddle around somebody.)

Put it this way: I didn’t have the I’ve-Been-Surfing-This-Break-Since-Your-Father-Was-A-Pimply-Kid, Kid attitude I’ve been known to affect on Summer Sunday mornings at Ditch Plains.

Of my dozen legitimate waves, I was dropped in on… I think 10 times. (Often it was two, even three drop-ins stacked up in front of me.) My first wave — when it was still all but dark, now ­ I had to myself, and my last, due to the two goofballs who dropped in having crossed sticks and fallen all over each other. The rest, forget it, always someone ahead of me, guys who I clearly and without-malice-aforethought had out-positioned.

So what, right? I was a new guy and all that, and this is Malibu and so forth. Nah. Not like that, not what you’re thinking. It wasn’t aggro or cut-throat or localed-out; it wasn’t any pecking order crap. All these assholes were just dropping in and fucking me up like it was the way you’re supposed to do things. Everybody was doing it to everybody, no problem. The vibes were… what’s that word they use out there a lot? Mellow. No yelling (except from me; I yelled once), no whistling, no stinkeyes, no fistfights, no nothing. Let’s all just ride these waves together, kids! Let’s log jam it up out here, rail to rail with no room for anyone to do anything, let alone the guy who caught the peak and who’s doomed to straighten off every time, what with the low water and the waves being sectiony and all.

Here’s a recollection: I’m tearing along this crisp shoulder-high wall, right up there on the nose, this guy drops right the fuck in. No way he didn’t see me. (This was when I yelled.) I have to back-peddle or run right over him. So I back-peddle, wait for him to do something, get on with it, at least. (At Ditch, I would have him run down and let the chips fall where they may.) Well, he doesn’t do anything, doesn’t get on with it, just sort of flummoxes while his synapses hang-fire, so we both get freight-trained a little way down the line. I would have made that section, the whole wave, mostly on the nose, no question.

But here’s my point, the good part: We’re paddling back out and he nods and grins at me like we’ve just shared some sort of cool, intimate guy moment. It was surreal.

This sort of thing was happening all around me. Every wave, basically.

Back where I come from, back at Montauk, Nueva Jork ­ this is what I was thinking here ­ this bullshit wouldn’t work at all. No matter how crowded it got. No. Huh-uh. Some guy snakes you like that where I come from he either gives you an Alpha Male Whaddya-Gonna-Do-About-It? stinkeye or beats cheeks out of the lineup in fear and/or embarrassment. No. Do a move like that back East, you don’t follow up with some slack-jawed, vacant-eyed, dumbass Fer Shrrr, Dewd grin.

All right, point strongly enough made.

Slightly different subject now.

I’m on the beach ­ up by my car on PCH actually ­ watching this Geek Circus until maybe 8 AM. Forty, fifty out now, minimum; it’s so mobbed I’m estimating via groups of ten. I’m watching, I’m watching, trying to figure if this other thing I’m thinking is right…

…it was right.

Listen: With the exception of this kid, 15-16, with a young-Tudor kinda look to him, I was the best surfer in the water. (By the way: I’m fifty-fucking-four years old, fellas.) I know what you’re thinking. Lotta guys don’t know if they’re any good or not, so best to keep your trap shut about it. Right? I mean, who am I to make this claim? Summer Sunday morning, Malibu and here we go with this old guy from New York making this claim. Sounds like maybe I’m subjecting you to a surf-jive Senior Moment here.

Listen: when God set up the rock reef at Malibu point, he had the noseride in mind. It’s the name of the game there. It’s what the wave asks for; it’s what it wants, demands even. Am I right or not? Even if you’ve only seen the old movies, classic Dora, Webber, Edwards, Carson; Da Boys: I’m right, right?

That said: I was in the water for an hour and a half and watched for another hour, and, apart from this hot kid, no one else was noseriding his longboard. No one. (It was essentially all longboarders; the shortboarders were up at Third Point.) Of the dozen legitimate waves I rode, I found myself on the nose on all but one (not counting a crowd-induced too-late take-off that I blew). This is my way of being objective about this. I may not be the most stylish guy in the water, but I’m up there on the tip, cross-stepping to get there (shuffle up there and it don’t count, bruddah), on this summer Sunday morning at Malibu and no one else is, except this Tudor-esque kid.

That’s that, in my view. I’ll take the trophy, Men’s Division right on up to Legends; the kid gets Junior Men’s and Open.

Hey: You’re out at the Bu on a longboard, boy, put your toes on the tip, hang some meat. Otherwise: fold your tent, get a tri-fin funboard, drive up to goddamn Zuma or County Line. Whatever. But do something other than prematurely terminate my goddamn noseride with your rude presence on my wave.

Oughta be a goddamn ordinance or referendum or theme salad bar or whatever they have out there.

One more thing and I’ll shut up. I’m sitting by my car and the sun is just clearing the hills, burning through the shit in molecular suspension in the air, and I’m thinking that if I could bring a half dozen of my Montauk buds here, these meatheads’d see some longboarding… Wait. I gotta bring God into it one more time… assuming God appeared coughing and sputtering from behind the goddamn smog or Marine Air Layer or whatever that shit suspended in the air is and boomed at the 40, 50 assholes: “Hey, a guy from New York has a wave and he steps to the nose, watch and maybe learn something — don’t fucking drop in!”… Assuming that…

Wait… Never mind what’d happen if six of my Montauk surfbuddies paddled out at Malibu and God appeared. Here’s my real point (as it was said twice in one of my movie biz meetings, let’s cut to the chase):

We got better surfers (in every sense of the concept) back at this little fishing village on the end of Long Island, New York, than they got at goddamn Malibu, California. Yeah, Malibu, The Bu, the very seat of West Coast surfing.

No question about it.

East Coast. We’re all right. Close-out beach breaks, flat spells, snow on the beach, oiled-up, gold chain-wearing Guidos with jet skis, whatever. [1]

Yeah. Frrrr shrrrr, dewd.

1 That Tudor-esque kid. Bet if you asked him, he’d have been from New Jersey or someplace.

Epilogue

The swell stayed around and being a glutton for you-know-what I returned to The Bu Monday through Wednesday… Still 40 out by 7, but a different weekday vibe. Way better crew ­ nosework prevailing — an arrogant, steely-eyed bunch, altogether nastier than Sunday. Drop-ins had the correct mean-spirited local attitude, which was comforting ­ this I can deal with, I was thinking. By Wednesday I was getting some room, waves to myself; even a nod, grunt or raised eyebrow here and there. All was right again; the natural order and so forth.

Truth is, though, in the pound-for-pound, per capita sense, I still figure we got better surfers back at Montauk.

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