Kookocracy

[bombora]

Here's specific; down DY a few weeks ago and a eurokook paddles out with rashie OVER steamer. WTF? My only guess; he has been fed a diet of vidoes featuring pro surf comps and thinks that's the way all the pros always "dress' for the surf. Seen same thing several times before this winter.

No2: The classical sit way out the back, right in front of the pack, and paddle for EVERY wave in a set, head down and warms flalling, and pull off at the very last minute on EVERY wave because the two foot death drop is simply too confronting. Then do the same thing on the very next set. Then get all antsy when you are politely (I had gotten out of bed on the right side for a change) told that this is behavious guaranteed to get others a little annoyed.
Many many of the older newcomers to surfing have an immense sense of entitlement _ "I am a very well paid professional, a master of the universe trader even, I paid for my lessons, forked out for the board, wettie, racks etc _ and I DEMAND waves even if I can hardly stand up. It is my right!
Aaaaaaargh!

[insomniac]

having to explain the meaning of offshore to a mate owning two shortboards.

[moreorless]

Hint: don't generalise. Find some specific instance!

Hard to believe but you do see people going right on lefts and left on rights. They just seem to have decided before they actually catch the wave that that's the direction they're heading, irrespective of the what the wave is doing. Or perhaps they can only go one way.

Must be the same mindset as the people who decide that they are going to catch this wave no matter what's happening on the inside. Total tunnel vision as they madly, obliviously paddle their hearts out.

Same with those who bob around on the inside considerately creating an obstacle course for those up riding or a mine-field of loose boards for those padding out when a set hits and the boards get tossed.

So how is it in your neck of the woods?

Are there more beginners in the water now, or more surfers generally, or is Dave Parmenter (and maybe Nick) just getting old and crotchetty?

It's defintely getting worse north of the Bridge. Dave Parmenter (and maybe Nick) are just getting old and wise.

[Girlgrom]

The rashie over the steamer is a trick to keep you warmer especially when your seams and zips are staring to split. The warmest way to have a wettie is to actually have the warm water next to your skin instead of between a rashie under your steamer.

Bombora, on really cold days I wear a long sleeve rashie over a steamer, found it to be a discovery from surfing more and discovering those little tricks to keep you in the water longer, rather than a display of kookism.

[Grooter]

Knobheads in the car park squawking into mobiles to their mates about how it's '6 - 8 foot and pumping' and you should 'get down here now!' This behaviour was outta control in the Winki (Vic) car park on Saturday after swellnet had been calling 8 foot waves for the previous 2 days. It was 4 - 5 foot and a human carpet. Fair dinkum, if you're at the beach and it's decent, why get on the blower and broadcast it to others who are too lazy/lame to check it themselves. Safety in numbers maybe?

Saturday was a fizzer on the Flinders Westernport side. Got to the Gunnery and Meanos about 10.30am and it was a bloody washing machine, wind was howling and the waves were barely 3 foot high.

Headed back up round the bay, Shoreham was packed and small, Pt Leo wasn't too bad so I stayed there for a few hours. Had to wait nearly 15 mins for a set to come through but when it did it was pretty good (4 - 6ft) Still pretty windy but manageable.

I think we all got our hopes up too much on Saturday :?

[dammit__01]

At South Steyne there was a guy with a custom warner who strugles to stand up. He would paddle for everywave then pull off afraid from the drop (it was like a 2 foot day). after a while i get sick of this and coast along the wave watching him to see if he pulls off again, and he does, so i get the wave have a nice ride paddle back out to meet this guy giving me a spray from dropping in on him . splah water here splash water there in the end he doesnt change his ways and results in everyone "dropping in" on him till he tells his mate this place is full of kooks who dont know what there doing lets leave.

[smw1]

How about sitting out back on a mini or a hybrid with the whole nose pointing upwards out the water like a guided missile?

[mudguts]

kneeboarder dropping in on every one being a tool. mate says buddy, you gotta look around, youve dropped in on like 10 dudes.

reply: how am i supposed to do that while i am lying down?

omfg!!!

I thought you cant be fucken serious, but he was.

[Chong]

Kuta Reef, Bali in September '99 - amongst the pack of 35 or more people is a Japanese Boogie boarder wearing a steamer and swimming goggles. I'm not sure of his reasoning for either choice but he must have been absolutely cooking in the 25 degree water.

[Hawkeye]

Late-teens chick bails board without looking in front of 5-foot set 25m further out, gets washed into me. Board connects with bridge of my nose.

Semi-stunned, and sporting bloody hole in face, I forget where I've parked my car. I wander aimlessly for a few minutes before clubby grabs me and cleans wound.

By the time he's finished I remember where said car is parked and take myself off to doctor to see if stitches are needed. Answer is yes, but wound edges are too messy.

Miss epic surf for rest of week and colleagues joke about me watching teenage girls instead of where I was going.

[Nick Carroll]

Are there more beginners in the water now, or more surfers generally, or is Dave Parmenter (and maybe Nick) just getting old and crotchetty?

Ha ha ha ha! Parmenter was old and crotchety before he was born, but ME? I am fresh as the dew on the couch-grass on a spring fricken morning.

Yet there be no avoiding the Boom as a powerful agent of change in the sport of surfing. The BBoom is thoroughly documented worldwide and can be traced through actual statistics: numbers of surf schools, numbers of students at those schools, numbers of surf craft sold worldwide between 1999-2004 as opposed to 1994-98, the difference in sales of all surf equipment hardgoods through the same periods, the numbers of ding repair shops springing up in major surfing regions over the past decade...man, it goes on and on.

What these little notations pick up is the way in which the BB has flattened out the expectations surfers place on themselves and each other -- how thanks to the Boom, we're ALL surfers now!! all in the same Groovy Group, no matter what our levels of skill, experience, knowledge etc. And how these things pop up as reminders of that.

Here is an unkind example of the Kookocracy: Aquabumps.

A generation ago, I worked at a surf mag called Tracks, it was owned by a British bloke called Phillip Mason. Although he never paid for any trips anywhere, Phillip was still constantly freaking out about the idea that Tracks needed to cover surfing in places like Hawaii. "Look at cricket!" he'd mutter. "Some of the greatest cricket photographers never leave the Sydney Cricket Ground!! Can't you just send somebody down to Bondi Beach? They can sit there and take all the surfing photographs we need!" Eventually we gave up punching him in the head, and accepted that he would never get why Simon Anderson at Pipe mattered more than a weekend warrior narrowly missing a member of ITN in Bondage's southern corner.

Now there is a photographer -- Eugene Tan -- who pretty much does that: shoots mostly not very good surfers at Bondi Beach. And for this he has gained considerable fame, and status among the groovy semi-young media outlets of Sydney. As far as they know, Eugene IS the master photographer of the sport of surfing...and he IS recording surfing, but mostly surfing being done in not very good waves by card carrying members of the Kookocracy. And it's all cool! It's FINE!! It works! It's even become a business for him.

It's a contrast to the saturation coverage of surf star trips to flawless mega-barrels, hey. Maybe that's why it works. In a way the Kookocracy is a backlash against surf stardom.

[Hound]

Living around Manly I get to see it all, the upside down board on roof always makes me smile, you might as well have huge billboard on the roof exclaiming "I have no idea what I'm doing"!!!

The ones I love down the beach, and I have some classic video footage of better examples, are;

running down the beach with leash on but flailing, with the inevitable trip up in front of everyone..

Walking along leash trailing in sand, like it's attached to an invisible dog..

Lame ass warm ups, you can see that the surf lessons have spent the time on the beach showing stretches, that are done for one second on each arm, swung around a little then done, that's it!! lovely (have some footage of a guy in Portugal doing the worse warm up ever, and his rashie (obviously comp jersey) over his wettie, double whammy!!)

Washing feet in a little bucket you brought to the beach before getting into the car (Surfer Mag had an article a couple of years back about the boom in surf accessories and stuff people now take to the beach, like change mats(aren't these just for babies with nappies?), coat hangers, wash buckets etc) the back of my car has a total of board, sock, towel, wettie, plastic box for said wettie, wax, comb and spare fins (geez actually thats quite a lot, $hit I'm a kook!)

[surfin39]

Hint: don't generalise. Find some specific instance!

Specific instance :

Car arrives at car park,
emerges a guy holding a decaffe skim latte and friande,
he notices that the car park is packed so instantly assumes the surf is on and immediately starts texting mates although it is two foot on the inconsistent sets,
removes a board from the roof (fins down of course), applies massive layers of wax whether needed or not,
mates arrive and it's high fives all around, 15 minutes later the lattes and friandes are consumed and the 'crew' proceeds towards the most crowded peak having to walk past a few perfectly good uncrowded spots,
then... it's time to stretch, a solid five minute workout should do it (sometimes it gets really scary and they help each other out with the leg stretches)
then on very oversized boards and wearing steamers on a warm spring day, a strange thrashing like motion that resembles paddling starts and like baby turtles making their first struggling steps towards the ocean the crew slowly, one by one make it out and take position amongst their kind,
then starts the sound that just makes me want to chew my leg off.... woooooh, wooooh everytime one of the crew paddle for a wave (remember it's two foot on the sets).
I then sware under my breath, take the next wave in and wonder why I even bother paddling out in anything under 4', or when it's over 20 degrees in the water.

I trust this is specific enough, not that I'm bitter about this sort of thing...

[collnarra]

The existence of a surf shop, 6 Oz Board Store, devoted to flogging retro designs as if they were some sort of gift from our ancestors. (Is it a coincidence that it's at Bondi?)

The existence of entire internet forums (surfer mag, swaylocks) devoted to discussing and extolling the virtues of slab-like keel fishes, bonzers and other assorted surfing detritus again, as if they were some sort of inspired wisdom handed down from our surfing ancestors

The constant bleating of internet forum people about how "we're all equal, man," and being told to "smile a little." As far as I am concerned, hippies can go and get farked.

(Nick - was there really a surf mag called tracks? Or is that a tip o' the hat to the kookocracy?)

[Shaunm]

Back to surfing Freshie cause the family like it on a Sunday morning and my 10 year old is learning.

The learners give you funny looks as you glide along the wave as if to say "Why aren't you going straight so I can ride it too?"

Cactus, I know this discussion has been had before but I've got to disagree with you. The rail shape on my mal makes it much easier to carry fins out and I don't get any wax rubbing on my side. Maybe we should add "Using the wrong wax so it rubs off your board when you carry it."

Can relate to the Freshie thing but on a Saturday morning. A few older blokes I've come to know there and I came up with (well mostly me) have a group of 4 take turns in who's wave is it usually one of the middle two. The other 2 lead off early very wide and slow as to block - no more straight ahead jobs! This is not done to people who can surf just when people are sitting 20m in front of you and pulling off each wave or paddling through the break and tombstoning or belly riding through until it breaks then getting up when its foam. It's rude I know but so is their attempting to take off when you've already started like 30m back

[bonusbeats]

saying the same thing time and time again

Yeah but sheesh it's no fun when the boogers don't bite. Where are they all...? I guess seeing as how today's about 1.5 ft they're probably all at the beach goin ORF.

Either that or they've held a secret meeting and decided to ignore me & redirect their energies at constructive things like perfecting drop knee stylee.

Thank god for "booger555" who keeps sending me PMs wanting to fight me

i think you've got it the wrong way around. the lidders are baiting you.

and you're jumping out of the water and into the boat before we've even started throwing burley over the side.

[hamish]

Maybe reading old buggers lamenting the passing of the good old days is an example? The attacks on Uge and Six Ounce are beyond the pale and as they are both friends I feel obliged to weigh in. As far as I know Uge has never made any claim to being the "master photographer of the sport of surfing", Nick. His site exists, as it says, to photograph what's going on at Bondi and I'm sorry but some of that is bad surfing.
Ever been to Six Ounce? There are all sorts of surfboards there trying to inject some humour into a past time that is now dominated by conservative types isn't a crime.

[mudguts]

at nulla every morning with out fail, usually at the alley, there is the same bunch of old buggars checking out the surf. funny i very rarely see em in the water, esp if there are waves. but when they are out there it annoys the shit out of me. there are a couple of notorious pests ( at least to me) that i really dont enjoy seeing out in the surf. but good on em i spose. there is plenty of beach so i just go somewhere else.

surfing to me is an escape, to relax and forget about shit like work, yarn with your mates and get a buzz out of a few gooduns. but in summer i can leave the water pissed off, which defeats the whole purpose.