Ask Carroll

[Nick Carroll]

Nick, I wear skinny jeans. Without fail, whether at 5am in the dark or post-surf, doesn't matter, every time I pull them on with stuff (wallet, keys) in the pockets, the pockets end up twisted inside so that I then have to awkwardly twist them around the right way, or extricate the stuck stuff and then fix the pocket and put it back in. Why do my jeans do this? It's like the buttered toast thing. They can't ever go on the right way.

Clearly you are too fat.

Looks like "relaxed fit" will be the go from now on.

Either that or dare I suggest you don't put anything in the pockets. Skinny cut jeans are not designed for carrying personal items. Wear a jacket and insert items there.

[PeepeelaPew]

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[DucksNuts]

Nick, within surf culture, what is the behaviour/aspect that you 'love' the most, and the behaviour/aspect that you 'hate' the most?

'Culture' being those behaviours and rituals that are learnt and passed on, acquired, malleable, etc. through generations and are recognisably, although not limited to, the surfing community's.

[Nick Carroll]

Wow good question.

Love and hate are powerful words. I guess I generally have a love/hate relationship with what you might call the heedlessness of surfing - the way it causes you to forget everything else to just go and catch waves and carry on like idiots.

At its best that feeling is the heart of surfing, carefree and kid-like, I know I feel it pretty much every surf I go for and it's the thing I most like seeing in other surfers, a really good relaxed sense of play.

At its worst it leads to some really weird shit, selfishness, childish aggression, teenage behaviour among adults, I can sympathise with all that but I don't like it.

I sometimes wonder if that central heedless sort of feeling is why surfing has clicked so completely with Australians, we're mostly a pretty kid-like sort of nation, you might even define boganism as grown-ups acting like children, which sorta fits a lot of popular Australian pastimes.

Personally I love all the long term friendships I have made through surfing, which seem to rekindle so easily via the simple act of paddling out.

But I am bored to near-coma status by older surfers who think they know it all and have some sort of fixed idea about surfing which they think kids, or whomever, can't possibly understand. Tedious! Surfing is about movement. Not stasis.

[alakaboo]

What's happened to Steph Gilmore?

[Skipper]

Came across this yesterday. Kinda obvious, but maybe reinforces that 'elusive thang' we continually try to articulate when discussing cultural/ behavioural aspects of surfing.
I think it makes redundant Winton's oft quoted- by me anyway- description of it being beautiful and pointless.
After all, we are all addicted to something in some form or other, and by this very definition, the ultimate high comes from the unexpected and indeterminate.

http://www.theinertia.com/surf/why-surf ... addictive/

[Nick Carroll]

Skip I think you want to keep Tim's line in context, he was describing surfing in a world of hard inarticulate working men who were relentlessly practical in every other aspect of their lives. They were always fixing things or doing jobs of some kind or other. In that context, surfing was the only thing they did that wasn't work.

Btw there's something I really dislike on the cultural front, attempts to intellectualise surfing, they are pretty much all complete nonsense.

[Skipper]

I completely agree with your distaste for intellectualising surfing.
That's why I like the simplicity of seeing it as just this beautiful - in terms of the physical movements - addictive healthy pastime. All the bullshit around it - justifications/chest beating/generational antagonisms etc....can go and suck ...what's 'is name's balls.
Although I'm still fond of Steven ?? (name escapes me) 's book West of Jesus.... Not so much an intellectual investigation as a spiritual one...
I still believe in a spiritual essence to it, surfing that is, in the context of the power and beauty of the ocean and our relationship with it. Something that's not strictly conditional on being a surfer either just anyone who lives and longs for being in amongst it.

The Winton quote just seemed rebukable?? to the Inertia article, although I see exactly now where its relevance lies after you've refreshed my memory about its context within the novel.

[Beanpole]

I kind of like all the pretentious bullsh*tting. It helps if they can string a sentence together. One of the other great things about surfing is its ability to create a platform for people to delude themselves like cementals mate. From such simple things as wave size to the guy flailing his upper body around aggressively and going in a straight line to fat guys on SUPs its all a barrel of laughs I reckon.

Being in a country with time for leisure activities is a luxury in itself. Really take your point there Nick about qualifying Tim Winton's quote. Theres a world of difference between what he's describing and the relationship most of us Sydney Softies have with surfing.

[eel]

Nick following on from your last question, do you see a difference in the Australian Surfer Psyche as compared to say the American Surfer Psyche or other places?

[Nick Carroll]

Not nearly as much of a difference as many would think.

For a start, a lot of people say "American" when what they really mean is "Californian".

It's also super easy from a distance to mix up the surfer psyche with the apparent outer garments of a surf culture. Lots of American surfers I know, for instance, have extremely odd ideas about Australian surfers as a result of many years of stuff about "aggro Aussies", beer drinking capacities, etc etc.

In fact at the core level of going surfing, that play aspect, the bonding with friends etc etc, I think there is bugger all difference. Like I've got bunches of mates at Lowers and at Salt Creek, and Cape Hatteras for that matter, and I'd be bloody hard pressed to tell any differences between their essential feelings about surfing and the feelings of my mates at Newport.

I do not however think it is as simple as "aww yeah, surfers are all the same under the skin" or "one tribe" or whatever cheesy homily one might care to dream up. Just that the surf cultures in those places have evolved over a similar time scale among people of similar socioeconomic backgrounds, seeing themselves with a shared overarching history. In other places, where surfing has come to people under very different circumstances etc, they might have very different feelings and cultural attachments. Like I read about the Russians etc in Bali and think my experience of surfing and theirs might as well be happening on different planets.

[Nick Carroll]

What's happened to Steph Gilmore?

Fcuk that's a question! I'm not sure what ya mean. Like why did she do that ad? Or why she isn't winning the world title?

[Nick Carroll]

Back in my academic days, a dweeby colleague of mine took a 10-day beginners' "surfing course" up the coast somewhere and came back like with mind fully blown, like Charlton Heston coming down from the mountain in The Ten Commandments. On the strength of this experience, he wrote a paper about surfing which got published in some bullshit sociology/cultural studies journal. Oedipus, Icarus, Freud, Lacan, the gang was all there. He even talked about getting barrelled and surfing massive waves. I wish I'd kept a copy of it

Fcuken exactly.

Live it, don't bullshit about it. Well, do both, but not just the second.

[alakaboo]

The latter. Seems out of sorts, and it doesn't look to be all physical.

[Nick Carroll]

Hmm I dunno.

I would just be guessing here but I would reckon Steph might be in a difficult place personally at the moment. She's not a simple person at all, she thinks about things quite deeply and there's some major changes occurring around her at present; Quiksilver is changing dramatically and has just tried to put her in a pretty weird box, which in a way she's not entirely averse to (she's never been that 'Happy Gilmore' cliche and is constantly finding ways of getting beyond that), but is not the space she was in as the Quik Woman. Lisa Andersen is her heroine, also not a simple person but a pretty tough one. She wants to find ways to grow but is somewhat trapped by the needs of the moment. Like a lot of deep slow thinkers, she may look a little bit out of sorts at times while she sorts things out in her head, but as such people do, once she does get things sorted out in her head, she will produce more Gilmore Gold.

[PeepeelaPew]

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[Natho]

Brand G just won Molokai again BTW

[alakaboo]

Cheers. Was sort of meaning just in terms of competing, given I've got no idea what she is like in real life and wouldn't presume to from her branding, but the broader explanation of things was appreciated.