There are other worlds beyond this one.
Maybe we've asked too much of surfing. Maybe we're asking the wrong questions.
Surfing in 2009. Photo: Will Adler
The cool kids are focusing on the past. Groping at our velvia roots, trying to reconstruct surfing's age of innocence. Groms on retro boards, re-imagining the romantic moments that preceded their conception. Viewing life through celluloid instead of pixels.
It's a process akin to re-virginizing whores.
They're looking back because something about "surfing" today just doesn't feel right. The magic has been drained out, leaving a pale corpse. As the body decomposes, and the stench sinks in, it becomes harder and harder to ignore. Whether you're a bitter walrus in the lineup, a cynical PostSurf bastard on a laptop, or a Luddite surf hipster on an alaia.
As a rule, I prescribe to the belief that it's not healthy to live in the past. A pretty girl told me once that nostalgia can be a fatal disease. I've rarely received better advice.
But lately the present bores me. I've been clicking through the dank pages of online surf culture and I've been feeling... nothing.
So I've looked back. I've been wading through old archives of "the bible of our sport." Searching for that innocence we once knew.
This is what I found:
Before PostSurf, there was Surf Post. Before the internet gave forums to faceless complainers, iconoclasts wrote letters. They put pen to paper, stamp to envelope, spelled out their grievances, and sent them off to a higher power - the editor of Surfer Magazine.
A handful of letters were published each month. The rest were discarded. Sometimes I wonder about all those abandoned letters, and the altered version of surf history that might emerge if you could somehow assemble all those forsaken pedestrian words.
Of those that were published, this letter resonated.
"The current rage in your magazine appear to be nostalgia, the good old days, the lives of those great watermen of yesteryear, and how surfing has changed from a genuine thrill to a continuum of phases and fads on a commercial battleground... I feel it's time for SURFER to take its share of the blame. Your influence in the surfing world and in the changes it has undergone are fantastic. You were and are now completely free to make the rules, set the styles, elevate whoever you want to the limelight, and to advertise the most voluminous pile of faddy crap I've ever seen... How many people really 'go surfin' anymore? Isn't it really something else now?"
The author of the letter was Will Batemen, and the year was 1977.
Modern complaints.
COMMENT of the WEEK: Yes, More TurtleGate.
Comment of the Week goes to L'Estranger, who has fit another piece of the TurtleGate puzzle snugly into place.
says: August 24, 2009 at 3:19 pm
“Mother always likes to wear turtle pins, for instance.” - Reverend Sun Myung Moon
Hmmm . . . This may be the best find yet:
1) Reverend Moon’s mother fancies wearing turtle pins.
2) Followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon are referred to as “Moonies.”
3) Andrew Mooney is hardly a variation on “Moonies”
If the Moonies are indeed behind TurtleGate, I may be in very great danger indeed. Oh, the irony: readers worry about Da Hui, Da Wolfpak, or Da Brazillians snuffing out my meaningless existence.
In reality, these cabals are but children at play compared to the Moonies.
For those of you who don't know, is a cult leader of terrifying power and influence, notorious for performing mass weddings and founding and bankrolling the conservative-leaning . Reverend Moon is what Sean Collins may one day become if we are not ever vigilant.
How does Andrew Mooney, hard-charging Aussie turtle molester, fit in to all this?
Frankly, I fear he may be the White Heung-Jin Moon - continuous channel of Reverend Moon's deceased second son. This is a terrifying prospect indeed, considering the reign of terror attributed to the last continuous channel of Heung-Jin Moon - a Zimbabwaen known as the Black Heung-Jin Moon.
The explains:
The second son of Hak Ja Han and Moon, , died from injuries suffered in a car crash in December 1983. Moon ascribed great importance to his son's death, and Heung-Jin Moon is officially regarded to be the "king of the spirits" in , and is now said to be conducting seminars in heaven for departed souls.
For several years church members "" his spirit, and in 1987-8 a member who became known as "the " was accepted by Moon and his family as Heung Jin Moon's continuous channel, and toured the world giving speeches, getting confessions, and subjecting some members to beatings.
Long-time member Damian Anderson reports seeing him "knock people's heads together, hit them viciously with a baseball bat, smack them around the head, punch them, and handcuff them with golden handcuffs"
Nansook Hong recounts: "No one outside the was immune from the beatings. Soon the mistresses he acquired were so numerous and the beatings he administered so severe that members began to complain. He beat —a man in his sixties—so badly that he was hospitalized for a week in Georgetown Hospital."
Pray for me, PostSurf readers. These forces of darkness are not far behind, seeking to silence my voice before I uncover the true nefarious secrets of TurtleGate.