Adam Karon akaron@media.ucla.edu
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You shuffle around campus in your Reef flip-flops and Billabong
shirt. Your hair is carefully sculpted into a chaotic mess, and
every other word spewing from your mouth is
“dude.”
You might fool a Cornhusker from Nebraska, but you do not fool
us. You are not a surfer, you are living a lie.
My roommate is learning to surf, and it is proving to be a lot
more difficult than he ever imagined.
For a kid who grew up water-skiing and wakeboarding, surfing
should come naturally, right? Wrong. While he might fit the role on
campus with his Volcom hat and Hawaiian Island Creations shirt, he
couldn’t look more out of place on the waves. From his
brutally pale skin to his flapping arms and drowned-rat appearance,
it is clear this kid did not grow up on the beach.
But he is not alone here at UCLA. Californians love to dress the
surfer lifestyle, but few actually live out this fashion fantasy.
Every mall has a Pacific Sunwear, and half our campus is adorned
with a puka shell necklace or wrap-around sunglasses. Most people
wear O’Neill shirts without knowing that Jack O’Neill
is recognized as the pioneer of the ever-important wetsuit. Chances
are your surfing experience is probably limited to finding the best
free Internet porn sites.
The first thing other Americans ask when they meet a Californian
is, “Do you surf?” The second is, “Do you know
Pamela Anderson, can I meet her?” It does not matter if you
are from Manhattan Beach or Modesto, the topic of conversation will
inevitably fall on the ocean, the waves and eventually
“Baywatch.”
The cool part of living here is that those from out-of-state
will believe anything when it comes to surfing. You might as well
have some fun. Tell them you charged Pipeline and Waimea and they
probably won’t understand that those spots are actually in
Hawaii. Let them know that though you see sharks by the hundreds,
you have not been afraid since killing your fourth of the year by
choking it with your leash.
One of my friends recently told an inebriated acquaintance from
New York that out here we “surf to class.” He believed
her even though she has never been up on a board in her life and
rarely goes to class anyway.
A prime example of surf-posing is a buddy of mine from
Huntington Beach. He gets so fired up arguing over whether his
hometown or Santa Cruz is the real “Surf City” that one
can only understand every fifth word shooting from his gigantic
mouth. He’ll claw and fight and bitch and moan about the
wonders of HB, all the while wearing flower-print board shorts and
Arnette sunglasses.
He does not surf.
Even worse, he is a “sponger” (boogie-boarder),
someone who merely gets in the way of surfers. Perhaps his hometown
could be called “Sponge City?”
Does he ever grow tired of living a lie? Do you? Do you wish to
find out if there really is anything glorious behind surfing? Or do
you just think Patrick Swayze looked super-cute in “Point
Break” and want to meet a good-looking, tango-dancing,
bank-robbing surf-rat?
You might laugh at the description of my roommate’s
surfing expeditions, but at least he is giving it a shot. After 21
years in California, he decided that he might as well live up to
the image. He’ll be the first to tell you it is no walk on
the beach.
Six a.m. comes awfully early, especially during spring quarter.
But that is when one must rise to beat traffic and hit the beach
before the wind picks up.
You think you might get girls or guys just by surfing?
People who paddle out that early put on their best
“someone just stole my Cheerios” face, and the last
thing they want is to have a nice chat. Besides, most women you
meet while surfing will scratch your eyes out for a better wave
before running you over.
All things considered, my roommate is learning quickly, both how
to surf and how hard the sport can be. His arms are so tired after
just one hour that he has trouble lugging his gigantic biology
books to class. The polluted L.A. County water made him sick just a
week before the MCAT, and he found out the hard way that storm surf
is stronger than humans.
For all the trouble, he should find comfort in the fact that he
took the California surfer image one step further. At least he is
trying.
Besides, it’s not his fault he still has trouble catching
waves after two weeks on the job. He probably just has a really bad
teacher ““ me.