Surf Nation

'Wade on the loose, seen surfing, on a shortboard' - says Pangloss

My Dear Doctor

It is with considerable regret that I write to inform you that the Patient Alex Wade ('Wade') last night escaped from The Facility. 

Wade was at large for some time. He returned at the midnight hour, having fled The Only Facility at approximately 6.42 p.m. Upon his return, this is what he said:

"You can stuff your Stupid Facility. I got some good waves tonight and realise that I can still surf. Go back home to your Other Facility - the one that no one ever sees!"

I was able, in the short time available before Wade starting ranting uncontrollably about falling standards in parquet flooring, to ascertain that he had indeed caught some waves at Another Facility with a certain Essex Tyler. However, Mr Skewjack (for it is all but he) had this to say:

"Yeah, Alex was in the water with me at Spot H. Quite punchy. One of his sons was there, too. I think it was the one who's just come out of retirement. We had a few waves. Alex was riding one of Sam Bleakley's old boards, a 7"6' I reckon. He dropped in on me on a nice right, but I'd rather he had it than me. I think he needed it more."

At this point, Wade returned to The Same Facility from which I now write these words. My dear Doctor, you would not believe the trouble he caused! He said, after eating all the tsatziki and devouring every last Ginseng-filled drop of cocaine-infested Pomegranate juice, that our time was nigh. Then, without further ado, he leapt upon his Swiss Ball. As I write these words to you, he is rocking back and forth, intoning, with a soft intonation, an atonal intonation and smiling with the look of a 43-year-old who can do anything, except all the things he can no longer do.

It is almost as if he is from Yet Another Facility, Somewhere In Cadiz, Perhaps The Genoves Park, Where The Caged Birds Almost Sing.

With kind regards

Professor Pangloss.

Surfer and Surfing in Bankruptcy Filing

Regular readers will be aware that Alex Wade is currently unavailable, having been locked up for the foreseeable future. In his stead, I, Professor Pangloss, will maintain his surf blog as best I can.

Here, for starters, is news of the bankruptcy of Surfer and Surfing magazines. That sounds pretty drastic, but all is not lost: Source Interlink, the magazines' publisher, has filed for Chapter 11 "prepackaged" bankruptcy. In other words, it's business as usual as the company restructures its capital and pays off creditors an agreed sum.

But for how long? According to this story on Surfers Village, Source Interlink has assets ranging from $1 million to $10 million, but it also has liabilities in excess of $1 billion, with some 50,000 - 100,000 creditors. As a professor of psychiatry, I am no mathematician, but I cannot but fear that even the most radical 30-day prepackaged restructuring may not be enough to preserve Surfer and Surfing.

Moreover, what happens in America soon happens on our shores. Here's hoping that the UK surf industry weathers this rather immense, but less-than-perfect storm.

PS: Alex Wade's condition has worsened. He now blames the world recession on elephants. "They're big, and they trample over everything, and they just don't care," he says. The image is a snapshot of his room, and shows the extent of his decline. Who, in their right mind, positions an old copy of Surfer next to a 4KG medicine ball and a 6"11'? With a Swiss ball in the background?

News from the Treatment Room

My Dear Doctor,

Re: The Patient AW

I write regarding the Patient Alex Wade (hereinafter, 'Wade'). As you recall, Wade was admitted here yesterday after a series of self-destructive and bizarre acts which culminated in the incident with the paper hat.

Regrettably, it is proving all but impossible to reach even a preliminary diagnosis of Wade's problems. His behaviour is obstructive, anti-social and, at times, violent. Last night, he stood on his head in his cell - a nice cell, one of the best we have - and ranted about how his world had turned upside down. He repeated, again and again, that usually on Tuesday evenings he plays football. This strikes me as an absurd contention, but do you know if, at some stage in his life, he did in fact play the game? I ask not because I expect this to be a fruitful line of enquiry but more so that we can eliminate the wheat from the chaff.

Another of Wade's oft-repeated statements is that surfing is 'the Sport of Kings'. He says that he never had any pretensions to the throne, but that nor does he believe in a feudal society. In his words: "All I ever wanted to do was ride waves, but I've lost the tiny ability I once had. I bottled it at head high PK the other day when surfing with Maui Surf Report. I just didn't fancy hitting the sandbank head first and breaking my neck." This, as you will agree, sounds innocent enough, but the Royalty Delusion cannot be anything other than profoundly worrying.

This morning, Wade has been ranting about not being able to rant. He refers, of course, to his surf blog, which has seen a variety of distressing indicators of insanity over the last few days. It is my view that Wade should not be allowed near his surf blog for the foreseeable future, lest he does himself and others any more damage. The key thing, at this juncture, is to try to calm him down and restore the slim sense of order that he may have once had.

As I write this, I am scrutinising Wade. He is in his cell, but I can see him via the special glass that they use in films and which we installed last year. He has written some graffiti on the blackboard, something about how good Waveriders is and how much he'd like to be allowed out to watch The Present. He is standing on the desk, moving back and forth as if on a CoolBoard, and, from just the last 24 hours or thereabouts in which I have observed him, I know what willl happen next. He will fall off the table and start ranting.

I hope to be in touch soon with a formal report.

Yours,
Professor Herman Humbert Conrad Pangloss.

PS Wade's wife gave me this photograph in which her husband is seen sparring with an Azeri boxer. Wade was younger then. Sadly Wade has no recollection of ever having been in Azerbaijan, still less sparring with Agassi Mamedov (for it is he).

This Blog Is In Therapy

Stop Press.

We regret to announce that reports of Alex Wade's return to sanity were exaggerated. Late last night he was caught wandering the lanes of St Levan, ranting about the good old days when top shelf magazines were innocent. Restraining devices were deployed but Wade, showing the ingenuity for which he is renowned, used a magnifying glass to melt them and escaped into the wilderness. Somewhere near Carn Euny, he stood on an ancient piece of granite formerly used for the ritual beheading of chickens and ranted about the poor spelling in a history essay by one of his sons.

"It's an outrage!" he thundered into the disconsolate night. "Doesn't anyone know how to spell antediluvian any more? What is wrong with the kids of today?"

Helicopters swooped but Wade, showing the ingenuity for which he is currently locked up, hurled a rock at them and escaped into the forest. He found a leyline and followed it to the studio at the top of his garden. Pausing only to admire the handiwork of Jonty Henshall, he scurried indoors and proceeded to post on this blog a rant about modern day pornography which had absolutely no connection at all with surfing. This follows a spate of ill-advised posts in which Wade has ranted about everything from Facebook to formica.

Here in his padded cell, Wade appears to be responding to therapy. We removed his latest misconceived rant and he thanked us for it. He asked if he could have special privileges, such as humous, tzatziki and a bobble hat, but we refused. Instead, we are insisting that he undergoes a period of intense pyschotherapy, for there is clearly something very wrong with him. We cannot say whether his woes stem from residual former lawyer's guilt, a severe case of writer's block or the extraordinary rage he feels at seeming to have recently slid back so many notches in surfing ability that the seals at his local break have taken to congregating to watch him flounder in the grip of ever-lasting futility, shaking their whiskers in hysterical merriment as Wade persists in trying to surf waves in the opposite direction to that in which they are travelling, i.e. out to sea. "It's the future of surfing," he avers, adding "everything else has been done. I've got to try something radical, I've got to change our perception of what surfing is and can be."

Wade is currently watching Greg Martin in a Crystal Disco. At least, that's who he thinks he's watching.

Pictured by David Short: Someone who says he is Alex Wade. If you see him, take evasive action. He is liable to rant.

Bells Beach 10, Critics 3.5, Alex Wade 0

It's been another week in which I realise that there is no time for anything (please skip immediately to the 6th par where the asterisk appears). The older you get, the busier life is. On top of that, my surfing has been sh**e. It was never world class in the first place but it's taken a serious dive lately. I don't know why - maybe it's backache, maybe it's age, maybe it's a dominant lack of ability - but I've been having a rubbish time of it.

The decline actually began in Costa Rica, but with a few good waves there under my belt I thought it was a blip. It isn't. If I get a nice, 3-6ft + peeling wave, I can surf it reasonably well. But it has to have enough momentum to make me pop up instantly. If it's smaller, or slack, I'm kooking it like an all-time kook of the kooks. I even dropped in on Jill Pierre yesterday on Darren's 10"2' Cosmic Glide. Carnage was somehow averted, Darren's act of kindness in lending me his board (he took pity on me as I struggled on my 7"6' in tiny, slack Sennen) merging with Jill's overall good karma and meaning that, miraculously, no harm was done.

But this is not good (Jill, I'm sorry). I don't drop in on people, unless they're Harry or one of his mates. And I've had good sessions in the last year or so. Good, pumping, 6ft and over, surfing-quite-well-if-not-shredding sessions. What is going on?

Maybe - just maybe - this is because, post-Costa Rica, I've opted to shortboard on English waves where, just a couple of months ago, I was (usually) longboarding. Or riding a shortboard tailor-made by Jonty Henshall for West Penwith. In fact, the evidence, with my ex-lawyer's hat on, is incontrovertible.

I must revive the longboard and/or the Jonty board. I am kidding myself if I think I'll be having fun on anything short, slick and light because, as my sons take peculiar delight in pointing out, I am TOO OLD.

* (That is an asterisk) Thank the Lord for guest posts. What Mark Tyers has to say is actually interesting, as opposed to my ramblings. Read on, my friends, read on.

Even before the world’s top male competitive surfers arrived in the Bells Beach Surfing Reserve to compete in the 38^th running of the Rip Curl Pro, the discontent amongst the competitors with the long-running contest was more than merely audible.  It was at an all time high.

For starters, whilst Mick Fanning, Kelly Slater and many of the competitors opted to be diplomatic about the normally fat and non-hollow Bells waves, others were far less restrained.  Bobby Martinez simply blurted out; “Bell is a shitty wave” (Surfline) whilst one reporter (Stab mag’s consistently stellar Jed Smith) even went so far as to write an article enquiring “whether there is room on the dream tour in 2009 for a wave that actively thwarts the technical ability and creative flare of some our top athletes?”

Then Round One, which saw the reintroduction of the ASP sudden-death system, happened in less than decent conditions.  Josh Kerr landed the only air of the entire contest (a reverse), before being promptly knocked out by super-veteran Mick Campbell in a low scoring affair.  A struggling Dane Reynolds and 14 other competitors who had journeyed half-way across Australia (and in some cases the world) soon joined him by the wayside.  A thoroughly downtrodden and un-philisophical Tom Whittaker confided to Surfing “I just think it’s shitty for f—kin’ everything”, whilst contest director and two-time world Champ Damien Hardman pointed out that “You don’t see any of the top guys the first day. If you’re an event sponsor or the public, you want to see the top guys.”

And then the Southern Ocean refused to cooperate for 7 days straight, allowing the remaining 18 competitors ample time to wax lyrical about the British Isles like conditions, and the other trying aspects of the marathon like contest.  They pointed out that whilst the waves often looked easy to ride, the sometimes strong winds (recorded up to 48 mph offshore during round 2) and currents made maintaining position in the take-off zone hard and riding even harder.   And they painted a boot-camp esque picture of there schedule, pointing out how everyday they had to get up early (5.30am in Timmy Reyes case) in order to be ready for the possible resumption of the contest.  When asked about the challenges faced by the competitors, Ex-Santa Cruz CT’er turned surf coach Chris Gallagher mused rhetorically;“How do you stay psyched? How do you know when to start stretching, when to warm down, when to start preparing?”

And yet as the contest entered the eighth day of its waiting period, all these criticisms were suddenly rendered mute, drowned out by the roar of a 4-8 foot pulse of solid southern ocean energy and the accompanying drama and spectacle which the Bells constest has become famous for.

Rising star and wildcard Owen “Ozzie” Wright took down a 5’10” Merrick riding-Kelly Slater after dispatching Dane Reynolds in the first round.  Hawaiian powerhouse and Full-English-breakfast-lover Kekoa Bascaloa continued to be the standout amongst this year’s crop of tour rookies, eventually losing to Adam Robertson in the quarters.  And Jordy Smith and Mick Fanning maintained their fine form and competitive momentum of the last three months, consistently producing full-rail power carves, snaps and floaters of such exceptional power, timing, volume and raw-unashamed-beauty that the judges had no choice but to reward them with a showdown in the quarter-finals where the big South African triumphed by a whisker.

The final itself was a fitting climax to a contest whose uniquely long-list of winners (only the Pipeline Masters has been running longer) reads like a whose-who of competive surfing.  It featured a surfing Goliath, played by a near unstoppable Joel-“smooth-as-silk”-Parkinson, triumphing over a plucky David, in the form of the first Victorian local to ever make the final (trials winner Adam Robertson).  As Shane Dorian famously declared upon triumphing in 1999; “No kook has ever won Bells!”  And with the 38^th Bells contest done and dusted, rung by the current holder of The Vans Triple Crown contest and whose lead on top of the WCT ratings is threatening to become unassailable, it remains as meaningful and relevant a tribute to this uniquely demanding examination of surfing ability as there ever could be.

Photo-credits in order of appearence

Bells beach Line-up- http://www.flickr.com/photos/haildesign/3443443614/in/set-72157615916655814/

Mick Fanning cutback (note the sea full of white-horses behind) http://www.flickr.com/photos/twobigpaws/3450247276/

Ozzie Wright carve http://www.flickr.com/photos/nelsoneb/3443992428/

Of Reef Girls and Art

Here I am again after a hectic few days in which Karen's show took place, some friends came, went and conquered, I enjoyed a spot of surfboat rowing and even got a few conventional, if slack and crumbly, waves. Thanks very much, on behalf of Karen, to all who attended Essex Tyler's gallery last Friday night for what was a great night with a real buzz. The girl did good, as Sir Alex Ferguson might have put it, if he were in charge of a football team full of the fairer sex, which he isn't, and isn't likely to be, but then again they say that truth is stranger than fiction and I should know, being cursed to support a ridiculous club like QPR, currently without a manager yet again because, yet again, they've sacked the last one (that's nine in two years, if memory serves. Absurd).

One attendee at Karen's show was the admirable Ben Cook. Check this link out to see his interview in the current issue of Huck. I rather like his take on the Reef Girls, and I suspect Beach Bum might, too.

PS. I don't miss the warm, super consistent, pumping surf of Costa Rica at all. Honest.

Karen Wade at the Tyler Gallery

Here's a must-see show. It's a must-write one, too, because if I don't mention it I'll get the silent treatment combined with a thousand yard stare, conducted loudly and within a very small space. So, without further ado...

My wife, Karen Wade, has a show of new work at Essex Tyler's gallery in Mousehole, starting tonight. The truth about Karen is that she hates any form of publicity and that she'd far rather I wasn't writing anything at all about her work here. As the arts editor of Cornwall Today, I've met a lot of artists and she is far from alone is sharing this total disinclination to play the PR game. She wants her work to speak for itself, and that's that. I feel the same way about my writing - my serious writing, that is (What's that? Do you do any? Ed.) - and have grown profoundly disenchanted with the way in which so many of today's writers indulge more in the dubious practice of self-promotion than such tedious activities as learning how to craft a meaningful plot or creating a fluent paragraph, still less thinking through the reason why they write in the first place.

Artists, on the other hand, seem to have remained immune from this trend. I can think of a couple who aren't shy about coming forward - and fair play to them - but for the most part artists are people whose deeply rooted sense of integrity ensures that they simply cannot understand why on earth anyone would be interested in their opinions on anything other than their work (and even then, they rarely like talking about it). As I say, there are exceptions, and an awful lot of them belong to the Brit Art mob (anyone for Tracey Emin?), but, as a rule, artists are not prone to wasting words.

In this case, then, it falls to me to pen a few thoughts. Why am I doing this, if Karen doesn't even want me to say anything? Because, biased as I am and yet retaining the lawyerly objectivity which was once mine, her work is exceptionally good. It has a deeply meditative and sculptural quality, as well as an immaculate understanding of line, colour and tone. Not a brush stroke is wasted, and the influence of Cornwall, both up county near Charlestown, where Karen grew up, and here in West Penwith where we now live, is abundantly evident. But better yet, Karen isn't afraid to embrace the legacy of St Ives modernism. A lot of painters in Cornwall are terrified of it, and I've lost count of the number of times I've heard people say that abstract art with its roots in 1950s modernism has "been done", that "there's nothing left to say anymore", or, the crassest of all these crass comments, that anyone working in this area cannot but be "derivative".

Nonsense. What a painter like Karen is doing is moving the language of modernism on, in her own, unique way. All art, like all writing, is ultimately intertextual, and it takes the stamp of individuality to make it sing. I think Karen's work has that stamp but yes, I'm biased. If you come along to Essex's gallery in Mousehole over the next couple of weeks you can make your own mind up. The show's called Along the Granite Path.

Wanted: Room with a View, Surf and Solitude

Here is an ad in hope rather than expectation:

WANTED: Writer requires accommodation for one month. Must be proximate to good, consistent surf whether in a cold, hot or lukewarm place. All mod cons not essential, but Wi-Fi access and the usual facilities would be good. Solitude is essential because this particular writer realises that he will never finish his book unless he absents himself from everything and anyone, except for the sea. Please email alex@alexwade.com with any suggestions.

Picture of an elderly surfer's derriere courtesy of www.matosfilms.com. Reef Girls, look out!

A little more from Costa Rica

We've been back in England for a couple of days now, and discombobulation has been evident, especially, perhaps surprisingly given that she doesn't surf, in Karen. Discombobulation is one of my favourite words, so I thought I'd throw it in casually, as if it's the kind of word that you hear at the bus stop, or in the line up, or at the opera, or even among Gordon Brown's PR team. But it's probably not that kind of word, so what I'm really trying to say is that returning to a cold country after the exotica of Costa Rica can engender the post-holiday blues.

However, last night Harry and I got some great waves at big, clean Sennen. Ok, it wasn't quite like the image of Playa Grande, but it was good, and if I was to have to live anywhere in the UK, which I do, it'd be in Cornwall, which I do, so all is far from lost. On top of that, it was good to turn up for footy after surfing and even score the odd goal.

Of UK surf news, I learn from Emma that Endless Summer Media are the purchasers of longest-running UK surf mag Wavelength, with the Cornwall arm of law firm Foot Anstey handling the legal work for Wavelength's former owners; that issue 14 of Huck is on the stands; and that Tom Anderson's new book, Chasing Dean, will be with us on 1 June.

But discombobulated as I am, my thoughts turn, with the ineluctability of a Joycean sentence (What? Ed.) to Costa Rica. We had a great time at Una Ola and I can't say I'd mind if I was still there now. I mentioned in a recent post the photography of local shredder Marcelo Matos, and his images, appearing here, show what a class destination Costa Rica is for a surf trip (as well as Lola the pig, of Avellanos). I omitted to mention the diverse range of people we met at Una Ola, from single, travelling surfers of expert and beginner level to families and an interesting bunch of dudes from Florida, Chris, Barry and Troy. All three surf, and Barry is the president of FARM Club Inc, a collective which hasn't got much time for rap music. They're pictured in the last shot, with Ricardo, who rips, and Justen of Una Ola, to the far and second right, respectively.

From Costa Rica to M&S

Thanks to Neil Watson for appraising me of the mainstream's latest embrace of surfing - a surfboard competition by venerable British institution Marks & Spencer. As Neil writes:

It's official then, British surfing is no longer the slightly anarchic, subversive subculture it once was.

 

The seal of acceptability has been set by that arbiter of all things safe and middle class, Marks and Spencer, who propose giving away fifty surfboards as prizes in a competition for under-sixteens.

 

Will this latest attempt to cash in on surfing's "cool" image encourage yet more groms into crowded lineups - or are the purveyors of sensible knickers not sufficiently "down with the kids"?

 

At least quality-conscious Marks & Sparks have done the decent thing - the boards will be custom-made by Will Eastham's Surfboards U.K in Newquay.

Meanwhile, I find myself immune from jet-lag following our Costa Rican sojourn but waiting for Harry (pictured at Playa Grande thanks to Marcelo Matos) to wake up. When he does, we're heading for some waves. It's sunny and there's some swell, though I reckon the cold might come as a shock.