"No Country for Cold Men"

As told to Mr. Matt George(Top 5 surf journo of all time) by a "local."

[Mendocino]

Population: 25,000 kilos

Elevation: High

[Pt Arena, CA]

He is a surfer. He is 40-years-old. He has worn a beard for 40 of those years, along with a worn Pendleton shirt under a dark blue down vest. In his white pick-up truck, at all times, he carries a beat-up 7'4'', a tattered wetsuite, a hoe, a shovel, three five-gallon buckets, two sacks of manure and a loaded gun. On this day he arrives a little earlier than usual. Aboot 3 pm.

He parks his car by the hoist and strolls onto the pier to check the surf. He does this everyday. Every day, even though lately he's been wondering why. He see the surf is six feet again - both the channel and the point. He guesses that means he'll have to go surfing again. "After all isn't that what I live for." He looks at the point and sees a former friend in the line-up. This reminds him of his work - the work that caused the falling-out of him and his friends. The work that also made his wife take the kid and split. The work that put him in jail once. The work that he's begun to despise for the first time.

This line of thought bums him out, so he looks around once, suspiciously, and the unbuckles his belt. He unzips the hidden pouch on the back of his belt and pulls out a thumb sized joint. He looks around again and sparks it up. The sweet familiar dizziness sweeps up behind his ear. Time slows down for the millionth time.

He looks to the surf again as a set moves through. Some kid in a bright orange wetsuite drops in and starts hacking at the face. He looks on in distaste. "Shucks," he thinks to himself, "what do these disco kids know aboot surfing? Shucks, man all they do is wiggle around like a bunch of spastics...Hell these punks don't even smoke anymore what the heck do they know, the little shoots."

It's a thought he's tired of. It's old and useless. "All that locals only crap," he thinks....

He tries, for the first time in a long time, to think of something nice, but nothing comes to mind. Only the shoot he's been putting-up with.

 

The cops and their heat seeking helicopters. The busts. The pay-offs. The (dope) a-holes moving in. The rip-offs between friends, the deer that have been eating his outdoor gardens and the dogs of his that don't do anything aboot it. The big business yuppy types who are taking over the business showing-up in suits for Chrissakes., organizing the farmers into some kind of union. The god darn paranioa. The god darn surf.

There. He'd finally admitted it. The god darn surf. The whole reason he got into this lifestyle in the first place. Twenty years ago it was all so righteous. He and his freinds dropping out, scamming an easy life, screaming for easy street. Plenty bud, plenty surf....

But now he was bored with it. Stupid with it. Sick with it.

He takes another deep drag and thinks back. He wonders why it is so painful to think back these days. He blames the surf. Surfing like a woman he once knew had disappointed him. Like old smoke the high had worn off. He felt old. Bitter. Stupid. He admitted it to himself again just to be sure, his desire to surf was just aboot gone. And here he had gone and based his whole life on it. Dedicated his whole life to surfing and being an a-hole local, and growing his damn weed so he could do it over and over again, day after day.

 

But that was pretty much gone now. "Heck," he thought, " I haven't even talked to my dad in 10 years. And all of this for what? The smoke? The waves? Was this what I was supposed to end up with? Is this what my life is?"

He isn't even looking at the surf now. He is looking down off the pier into the water. Even the water seems colder these days. He takes a last drag and throws the roach in the water. He turns and walks back to his truck. He pulls his grimy wetsuite out the back of his truck and starts to turn it inside-out. He strips down and sits in his front seat to pull his wetsuite on. Then he stops.

On a whim. he reaches under his seat and pulls out his gun(this section dedicated to Pump). A black Barretta 9mm. He weighs it in his hand. It feels heavier than it ever has. For a long moment it makes him feel...peaceful. He puts the gun back and then just sits back in his seat, wetsuite half on. He stares out through his dirty windshield at nothing.

(Matt George, Surfer, The Long Road Home)

 

Thanks, Zero. Actually my absence has more to do with the trucked-up status of my home computer and less to do with any substance, employment or other tragedies. I love being on the internet when I'm loaded.

 

Never went. Ha, actually that was the impetus of my departure from work.

I emailed my boss telling him I might need the upcoming Monday off. I also emailed the dude who makes our schedules telling him to keep that Monday light as I wouldn't be there, maybe.

Well, my "boss" didn't catch my email but saw the one the schedule dude sent to him regarding the scenario. So, this made my "boss" think that I was "disrespecting" his "authority," which led to him finally going after me.

That Monday in question was supposed to be spent in Delaware, but it just never happened.

DPSUP, the story ends there. We'll never know.

LBCREW, I got old surf mags, man, and I periodically go through them. Interesting seeing the dudes who had a moment of surf fame and were never heard from again. The old companies that are no longer with us, and all of that stuff. But those were the glory days of the mags, fer sure, dudes.

 

Would Slater have been Slater if Shane Herring, Jason Buttenshaw(or whatever) and Nicky Wood stuck around?

SS I'll give you four Boogie Board mags. I only have eight left.

Dudes where's my Break Out mags? Anyone remember that one? Any of you California Republic(Grizzly Bear) types?

 

Well you need something to remind you of Lanson Ronquillio and Seamus Mercado down the road.

 

Never really thought aboot it, DP.

Maybe he became a big grower for the soon-to-be legal medical stuff.

Maybe he embraced the new Oxycontin(remember this was published many moons ago)

Maybe he took his scratch and moved to another surf locale. Like, Hawaii !!

Maybe he's still the same.

You always won, everytime you placed a bet
You're still damn good, no one's gotten to you yet
Everytime they were sure they had you caught
You were quicker than they thought
You'd just turn your back and walk
You always said, the cards would never do you wrong
The trick you said was never play the game too long
A gambler's share, the only risk that you would take
The only loss you could forsake
The only bluff you couldn't fake

And you're still the same
I caught up with you yesterday
Moving game to game
No one standing in your way
Turning on the charm
Long enough to get you by
You're still the same
You still aim high

There you stood, everybody watched you play
I just turned and walked away
I had nothing left to say