Thunderpussy
I listen to a lot of podcasts, it keeps me mildly sane in the mind numbing arena of making surfboards, I’ve sanded and sprayed thousands of boards, and as times it is a monotonous and tedious job. Podcasts changed my life, my work-life that is, I highly recommend them to anyone that has a job they can chuck earphones in, zone out and listen to interesting stuff that sure beats the monotony of the 12th repeated pop song on ‘The Edge’. One of the pods I listen to is part of the Death Squad comedy line-up called ‘Thunderpussy’. The premise is simple, stand-up comedians get thrown a subject and have to perform an improvised comedic spiel on the subject straight off the cuff. For this story, I wrote down three unrelated subjects to try write a ‘surf’ ‘spiel’ around, they were; Facebook, Bruce Lee and Porky’s the movie. All three were mentioned in my daily pod listening. Yep a weird concept, but I can promise no clichéd sunsets, soy lattes at the local bakery, nor a low flying ironic hipster albatross with 8,000 instagram followers...I’m writing about a four foot swell that lasted five hours... Bruce Lee once said “defeat is a state of mind; no one will be defeated unless the loss is accepted as a reality.” Sitting solemnly in cars all down the East Coast were hordes of surfer who had travelled from far and wide waiting for a swell that was ‘talked up’, talked about and over-frothed on. Cell phone data usage from checking and re-checking favourite swell sites would have been off the charts. They, the surf forecasting sites, said it was coming after all. They don’t lie. Unfortunately Cyclone Ian was like the mate that owes ya a fifty, spot on pay day.... all the promises in the world then goes missing. The total cost of petrol spent alone would possibly have topped five figures from all the hapless and hopeless swell chasers. Add to that those who used a day in lieu or cheekily chalked up a ‘sick day’ from work. You also had to feel sorry for those that bolted from the Nationals and had to endure that tediously long drive from Gisborne to the Bay of Plenty. Like a Bruce Lee one-inch punch to the gut (and wallet) the loss and pain had to be accepted as a reality. One of the best quotes I read on Facebook was “the social media storm was bigger than the storm itself.....fizzzzer!” Somewhere in the South Pacific, a worn out and drunk Cyclone Ian was heard quoting Brucey Lee into his tenth rum, “I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in my world to live up to mine”. The bored waitress behind the bar threw a Lee-ism back at him, “sorrows are our best educator. A man can see further through a tear than a telescope”, she then added, “Get a move on there’s a bunch of angry surfers at the Mount boat ramp looking for you”.
A week later another puff of swell was predicted. It had a window of goodness the size of the peeping hole in the changing room of 1982’s ‘Porky’s’ the movie. After such a below average summer, my camera had beer-goggles on for anything that moved. Apparently when writing stories for surf mags you are not supposed to talk from a photographer’s perspective. You are expected to wax-on, wax off about other people involved in the day of shooting. Fark them, they were only surfing, I was bleeding. I think everything has been thrown out the window with the advent of Facebook. Venting is where it’s at. Sharing one’s life’s little intricacies with the world is expected. Detested yes, but shared nonetheless.
“you could announce to the world that you’d face planted into a reef and got coral ‘Aids’ and someone would give you a thumbs up ‘like’.”
I stood on a rusty metal stake this day; I probably should have got a tetanus shot. I did it while frolicking through sand dunes for an angle. I gave myself a thumbs down, if I took a photo of my bloodied foot and shared it on FB and Instagram I would have got a bunch of likes and thumbs up. The same would have happened if I’d said my dog had a case of narcolepsy and Tourette’s syndrome (which he may actually have). Go figure. Seriously you could announce to the world that you’d face planted into a reef and got coral ‘Aids’ and someone would give you a thumbs up ‘like’. Where’s the world at? I guess that’s what you do if you’re sitting at the Mount boat ramp bored, angry and taking arty selfies with ‘Albert the Albatross’ to send to the surf sites along with your credit card details for a refund on petty costs. “All I need is a watermelon and two jelly donuts”...