Home
| Photo
Index | Misc
Destined to be a classic,
many thanks to for letting me borrow his beautiful
prose !
Be sure to check out
his Surfing Web Site here.
If you follow Bob's ritual carefully, it's a guarantee of surf (use only under extreme conditions).
Man has it
been flat. I've been praying for surf for so long, I can't
remember when
I started. But Huey, the Great Kahuna, our Absentee
Surfgod is
404. Not logged on. Off surfing somewhere else, in some other
hemisphere.
Or so I thought.
But then late
last night as I was hunkered down at my surfshrine,
melting surfwax
onto small totem surfboards, making arcane symbols in
the mixed
beach sand of a thousand surfspots in the sacred surf brazier,
and chanting
the sacred surf invocation in my best ancient Hawaiian, our
Surfgod sent
me a sign. As I lay prostrate in my boardshorts before the
poster of
'Endless Summer' illuminated by blacklight, my beloved old
flipflops
by my side (as Foon once taught us to pray), the smoke from
the coconut
oil incense began wafting skyward in mysterious, roping
spirals. Tiny
lines started peeling around the circumference of the
mystic bowl
of seawater upon which I focused my mental energy.
The room began
to tremble and quake. The candles flickered. A grand,
surferly presence
suffused the room with green and golden light. I knew
that I was
in the presence of Huey, known as the Great Kahuna to me.
So I offered
my best Surf Invocation.
Thus spake I , most reverently and earnestly:
"Mysterious
and grand spirit of the surf, giver and taker-away of
righteous
waves, we delight in the gifts of the sea with which you now
and again
grace us. Most excellently potent one, you are surely The
Big Kahuna
to us, your faithful, gathered here on your blessed shore
where we sing
your praises and celebrate your beneficence.
Exceedingly
gnarly and powerful Sovereign of Surf, your most dedicated
and humble
servant, Surfer Bob, invokes your presence and beseeches you
to hear my
plea. Please send big, beautiful, potent surf to stoke the Bejeezus out
of those who
honor you and patiently await your gifts. May your noble
countenance
smile upon us and light up our coastline with clean, macking
corduroy swellage.
Oh Kahuna of
Surpassing Size if it's not too much trouble, also give us
offshore winds
and favorable tides, that your glory may be maximized. If
you could
go so far, make it big enough to soundly thump and discomfit
the unfaithful
fashion biscuits, discourteous surfers, and kooky buoyheads
who remember
you not and defile your gifts by cluttering your lineups,
burning the
faithful, dinging their boards and bumming their trips.
Most magnanimous
and generous creator of bodacious breakers, please
reward the
faithful who honor your memory, speaking well of you even
when with
downcast spirits we must grovel in weak and dinky slop for
endless months
as you sometimes decree. Fill our hearts anew with joy
and inspire
us to sing your praises with the fresh and fervent stoke of the
freshly barreled.
Anoint us with salt water even unto our sinus passages,
that our streaming
noses may join our tongues in offering testimony to
your power
and glory. Make our boards fly at hull speed across your
turquoise
curtains. Invite us to linger in your liquid chambers. Stoke us
out of our
gourds with your grace and strength, for you are great and
glorious and
we seriously dig surfing your waves.
These things
we humbly and most respectfully request of you, for we are
your most
stoked, faithful and addled servants."
Then I waited,
with bowed head and open heart, for the Great Kahuna,
Huey the Surfgod
to reply. And it came to pass that the sand began to
rearrange
itself into patterns resembling Australian aboriginal
pixilated
renderings of ancient hawaiian petroglyphs. And the smoke
coiled behind
me like the foam ball chasing me out of a gaping barrel.
And the golden
light brightened, as does the sun when seen through the
paper thin
lip of a peeling wave. And lo, Noble Huey did speak. His
reply to me
was simple and curt. In a low and sonorous voice that shook
the foundations
of my surfshack, Huey said,
"No."
And the smokey
foam ball broke over me and the room spun, and I fell
down. When
I came up, the candles were out and the spell was broken. And
it was still
flat.
Grovel on friends. We're still waiting.
Aloha,
Surf Pilgrim
Bob
