Coolness; Ambiguity, Hyperbole, or indulgent fallacy?
I think you're looking way too deep into things, CB.
Interesting li'l essay Camboboog. Fact is....and it is fact...surfing hasn't been cool for thirty years. Just ask Peter Bowes. Not since surfers trained, abstained, spoke to the media, kept scrapbooks, and kept jobs, did surfing lose its coolness. And not just uncool but tres uncool, or monolinguistically, #notcool.
Cool surfers exist in isolation...just ask Peter Bowes...but as a movement, subculture, or *gulp*, sport, surfing is right up there with hog-calling. Thank you Dave Parmenter, who is very cool by the way.
And getting the names of surfspots and surfers mixed up? That is very cool, Camboboog. Well done. Unless you were unaware that Roka Puta is a place not a person and mixed it up accidentally. That would be tres uncool.
Or as you and I know it, #notcool.
....of course some of us were lucky enough to reach maturity during that brief moment when surfing, having broken free of its association with the narrow minded militaristic minons of the SLSC, was yet to be taken over by its own breed of greed is good Gordon Gecko wannabes........cool? Only for a moment, but it was a pretty fine moment!
I got a kid sister, 17, finished school last year ... surfing is 'cool' according to her, whereas 3-5 years ago it was nowhere near the top of the cache tree.
So given we're all blokes aged 30+, I think it's likely we're all a similar period of time behind reading the youth market accurately. Surfing potentially bottomed out a few years back but its taken til now for it to filter up ... and by the time we think its 'back', it'll already have been surpassed in coolness by something else is my theory.
And yes I know this wasn't a debate about the youth market but few 'cool' movements are initiated by middle aged dudes. Copied or conceived by them occasionally, but rarely led.
Two other things come to mind Camboboog:
- Agree with Ben, analysis paralysis mate
- And is it really that important anyway?
Cheers,
Mick
Cue Abe Simpson: "I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me."
strweth, lot of external baggage there.
Be yourself, enjoy the waves, enjoy the ocean.
Surfing 2014 is like music, you can play whatever you want . It IS really cool, and always will be. If you lost the magic, it's probably your own fault.
Mexicans are cool, lucky I never seen this when I was a kid...?
sidthefish wrote:Surfing 2014 is like music, you can play whatever you want . It IS really cool, and always will be. If you lost the magic, it's probably your own fault.
Very nicely put!
@thermalben
I will take your comment as a compliment. Extrapolation of ideas is like a massage for grey matter.
@stunet
Peter Bowes is the coolest surf break I know, Uber cool. (My keyboard prohibited me from putting the umlaut on the U, tres uncool, I know.)
@mickj
Correct, it's not about teen coolness. The prose, other than a build up of lint, was not even about me. The hint is in the title, the lead is in the quote 'as surfing would contemplate in first person prose'.
@sidthefish
Sid, my paraphyletic ectothermic friend, please read the bit again and realise that the baggage is not mine, but surfing's own. The baggage part that you allude to was written as a soliloquy from the perspective of surfing being an entity.
Sid, it sounds like you and I have the right idea. Do what makes you happy, And don't worry too much.
There are a few other hidden meanings, but labeling them would further detract from individual reader's subjective connotation.
@blindboy
You do indeed describe a time of coolness. For me, the coolest part of surfing that has been lost is the unplanned surf trip. Hop in a car with a few mates, 2 months off, no idea what the wind/swell/tides are doing. Wake up early every day looking which way the leaves on the trees are blowing to gauge where might be offshore. Rock up to a break with no expectations and score it pumping. That was #cool
@camboboog, you should be a journalist, writer or something to technical to explain to the simple man.
My apologies I left you out @wellymon
Nothing will ever surpass the coolness of a bandana wearing Mexican sticky taping explosives to the end of a sledge hammer, eventually smashing the hammer and narrowly avoiding it removing some if his body parts.
The simple things are often the most amusing.
@wellymon
I just put down ideas that may or may not be interesting. Let's leave the journalism and writing to the professionals. The enjoyment of exploring ideas is a pastime, but for some so is watching celebrities walking down stained carpet. Ho Hum.
No apologies needed camboboog, U lost me completely with your first post, but you got the real intellects in my eyes interested, eg, Ben, Stu, BB, Sid the Fish and MickJ.
I'm a pretty straight forward bloke and am still learning various words and grammer, SN and my Mac Book Pro have helped for sure. Following SN forums is the most reading I have ever done since year 12 (in Oz terms....!) Sorry Stu, I will have to read some of your best 7 books in the future, then I might be able to understand your guys top quality grammer........
Even my wife is impressed with some words that I pull out of my mouth sometimes.
Anyways caboboog where does that name derive from...?
The link I put on with the crazy young Mexicans...? I just got showed that 5 minutes before I read your post, The only thing I saw was cool------not that exploding FW on the end of a sledgie is cool darn right fucking dangerous.
:)
P.S Ideas are great in my opinion, who cares if they are not interesting , life evolves from ideas.
BlindBoy do you know or have you surfed with Tony Geyer..? back in the 70's, he lived with MP a lot, I met him in the Swan Pub in Perth the other day.....? Pretty out there stories for sure.
Tony is from the Seaview River Board Riders Club .....?
Ben you would know "SRBR"...
Welly, it's the Seaview Road Boardriders, not River (usually referred to as the Roaders). I know them very well.
ah so Cambo. Guess surfing can't avoid Pop Culture anymore, but that's cool, the act remains as pure as ever if you let it be that for you. A lot of the other stuff is just white noise really, methinks.
... just got home after a 60 hr week on niteshift, about to jump in the shower, then drive a few hours down the coast. Looks like not much swell, but prolly the choicest weekend weather so far this year for this stretch of coast. I'll find me a few sliders somewhere, or put the ocean SUP to sea, or do some aquatic astronaut snorkel sucking, dunno, don't care, it's gunna be sweet as.
I fully froth on ocean anything these days, more than ever.
Plus a few coldies & hotties at Hotel California... you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.
Enjoy, always, ain't life grand ?
ps. Welly, sledgehammer fireworks looks like a blast, but not as spectacular as when we blow the saws at work.
The name doesn't ring a bell welly so I suspect not. I never spent a lot of time on the Gold Coast or hung out with MP though I was lucky enough to see a fair amount of his surfing.
being cool is being American, who is not this little black feller
Rather than a mid life crisis I think the entity known as "surfing" has a mild mental health problem.
Like all things that age the reflections that come as mortality starts to stalk your everyday, fear grows and the dread of having not produced a , gasp, legacy roils the senses........
There are certainly delusions and more than enough paranoia so I'm going to suggest schizophrenia.
Perhaps schizoid personality disorder if it's going to take the meds.
Surfing is Cool, always has been cool and like a lot of things that are cool, there will always be un-cool people trying to be cool!
@Welly, that would be Tony 'kid dynamo' Geyer from S.R.B.R. a bricklayer with a near toothless smile ?
That was him Udo, had a interesting conversation with him a few days ago in the pub.
Few MP stories, SA in the late 70's etc.
Surfing is considered by some as being so cool its uncool. I preferred it when surfing was considered a self indulgent waste of time and surfies were all low life hippie bludgers to be avoided at all costs, yep they were the good old days.
Your right non-local.surfing is,was,and will always be cool.the second coolest thing in the world is playing basketball.it's like dancing.Just putting it out there...
I was cool once. Then I put a jumper on. But then I was too hot so I took my jumper off and put on a long sleeve T-shirt. Somebody said that I looked cool in my long sleeve T-Shirt and I said I was. But then the sun went down and I was cold. So I put on a jacket and once again somebody said that that's a cool looking jacket. I said you'd think so but it was actually fleecy lined so was quite warm.
Tony 'Bonehead' Geyer ripped. Top chap and a funny bastard too. He was quite an athlete on the old Torquay trampolines next to the pub as well.
@ stupid, yeah thats funny mate.
I'm in perth at the mo, he wasn't at his local tonight, but yeah.
He hasn't surfed for 20 years, but still looks at the surf dvds playing in the pub whilst looking at the hot skimpy bar girls....?
Next time I C him will ask about the Tramp next to the pub....?
maybe it is P & D....? My mate has tryed ...?To get him out surfing
welly .
best you get out of the pub and get your arse to Rotto tomorrow ... could be good . shame about the LWE.
Southey, gee it looks good for Rotto. Its a long weekend though so be pretty busy.....Strickos be on, Catherdrals?
Is it cool or uncool to go surfing and not put it on Facebook?
If you go surfing and no one takes a photo or raves on about it online did it really happen?
Hmmm... "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Att/ Stunet -http://weknowmemes.com/2011/11/i-used-to-be-with-it-itll-happen-to-you/ :)
Hilarious!
Cheers Welly.
It is also not widely known that Mr Geyer invented and withdrew funds from the first ATM in Tullamarine airport in 1979 returning from the Aussie Schoolboys.
Funniest thing I have ever seen in my life!
a few options Mick . :-)
crowds are annoying , especially when there are a heap of boat wakes around .
Sheepdog wrote:Hmmm... "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Hey sheepdog, you might hear a tree fall, you might think its a tree it could be a Yowie snapping a branch for territory navigation....?
Watch out tho could be a widow maker as well.
Sheepdog yeah it makes a sound for sure, if your there to listen.
Q
southey wrote:welly .
best you get out of the pub and get your arse to Rotto tomorrow ... could be good . shame about the LWE.
Tryed to get to Rotto with my mate but had to help his mate move house........?
Pretty windy in the morning, went north to some stupid cowded fat wave miles north, wow eyeopener..
Looked at Rotto this arvo big heat haze, which I think was probably fuck all wind out there...?
Must have to say SN forecasted Yancep ways was shoulder hieght and spot on. Good work SN.
Late night, Wellymon? No surf this morning in your neck of the woods? ;)
Poor surfing, it has hit mid life crisis. Balding, retrospective, and a little bit unsure. An insight into the surfing conundrum, as surfing would contemplate In first person prose;
The word 'cool' has become an uncomfortable soliloquy to me. How can I be cool if there are other uncool people doing it? Do I want to be cool if being cool is no longer what I perceived to be an indemnic individual attribute that only I possess? Do, in fact, my questions about being cool make me no longer a cool person? Why does everything seem less impressive, and ultimately less cool? What is the essence of coolness? Why, when I try to create coolness, does someone doubt my intentions of portraying what should be cool?
This little snippet was derived from a #hashtag. It was suggesting that tow surfing is not cool. #notcool. Apparently Roka Puta didn't get the memo.
Apparently no one has got the memo. FindIng strikingly bright purple lint built up in my belly button was much more interesting and 'cool' than the fact anyone had the yawningness to post that they 'went for a surf' today on social media. The fact that I don't wear purple clothes added to the complexity. The feat of surfing by Roka was amazing, but the insecurity of it's reporting was nothing short of appeasing the nay Sayers. Don't get me wrong, I detect a strong hint of sarcasm in the #notcool, but detest the fact it even needed to be present.
Surfing is in fact suffering from the most irreparable of damage, a cancer if you may. That cancer is the self important wanting of respect. What ever happened to not giving a sh#t... THAT was cool.