LONE WOLFING, TUE 25AUG2015

Loc: El Porto, 45^th Street

Time: 0815-0945

Conditions: 1-2 Occasional 3 FT, inconsistent, crowded

Board: Motorboat Too

     I’d like to go to my usual local break, but as I pass 45^th Street, I notice an open parking spot on Highland Ave. I keep driving. No, I’m not surfing Porto today. I’m gonna surf where I know at least half the lineup, where I’m welcomed. Against my will, I hook a U-turn and head back to that open spot.

     I haven’t been surfing as long as most of the regulars who surf Porto, but I have a right to reflect and recall my own past experience here. There was a time when I’d pride myself in securing a metered parking spot, way back in the day when I was surfing with friends who fell out of love with surfing years ago. If I would have kept my attendance consistent here, I think I’d qualify as a local, but I don’t.

     Lone wolfing . . . it’s the conscious decision when you decide to surf somewhere you’ll be casted as an outsider, away from the confines of your usual comfortable spot. Every once in a while this isn’t such a bad call. You get to be anonymous. Nobody knows you, you don’t know anybody. If you surf like shit, people will just think you’re a kook. If you have a good session, then you’re the unsuspecting sleeper, everyone’s favorite.

     Well, I doubt my session’s gonna go that well because it’s fucking tiny. A thick voluptuous chick is playing on the inside, blonde hair but looks Hispanic, possibly South American. She’s wearing a black bikini top with bottoms that are thick around the waist but ram up her anus like a G. She swims out to the lineup and lingers around three fun boarders who are all speaking Spanish.

     Four other Asian chicks are out on longboards, too. Wow. Yeah. This is summer in the South Bay. After Blue Crush came out, Rick A. calls the chick surfers crushies, but who gives a shit. . .

     Doing my lone wolf thing, I try. I scratch. Meh. I do get a few short rides to begin with. I actually get one racy left where I make a section with a floater and get vertical on the finishing floater. Feels good and aggressive for a small day. But after that wave, fuckin’ A., it’s hard to get another one like it.

     The crowd’s no joke. The school kids aren’t the ones crowding the lineup but adults. Are this many people unemployed and barely working part time like I am? Either that or a gang of people have Tuesdays off.

     One guy looks like a young Hedo Turkoglu, but he has dirty blond hair and a soul patch like a billy goat. He’s one of the few idiots like myself trying to surf this shit on a shortboard. We trade off on waves. I make the effort to share; if I catch one I let him take the next.

     Some long hair Russell Brand looking dude paddles out on a shortboard with a noob chick. He’s teaching her how to surf. I swear, the best wave of the morning comes through, a left. It’s perfect and shouldery. Russell paddle battles with Hedo until Hedo backs off. My dumb ass is on the shoulder, slightly scratching, hoping that one of them fails. Hedo backs off, and the look on Russell’s face is so fucking intense. Man . . . Lone Wolf all the way. I think we found our sleeper. He’s on a fish. I don’t watch his ride, but I hear the swish of spray get thrown out the back. Fucker.

     When he returns, he says to the chick, “Man! Whenever I’m going for a wave I can’t help it. I go for it like I’m in Bali!”

     Hate to break it to you, guy, but Bali is played out and fucking crowded. It’s cheap. Nowadays you’ll probably meet more people who have been to Bali than fucking Mexico.

     The whole session while I’m catching meager rides with nowhere to go, I have to hear them talk.

     “I know what you mean,” says the chick. Later, she asks him if she should be riding something smaller like the fish he’s on. Mind you, she’s on a foamie.

     “You can,” he says. “But it might be a little frustrating for you.”

     Hedo turns to me unexpectedly and says, “It’s actually pretty fun!”

     What the hell? I’m thinking. I thought we were all supposed to be lone wolfing it?

     “Yeah,” I say. “Probably would help to have a little more volume.”

     “Nah!” He grabs the nose of his shortboard. “You can either turn or you can’t!”

     I blow my nose.

     “You got something right here,” he says, pointing to the left corner of his mouth.

     I touch my face and look at my hand. There’s a big slimy booger.

     The session’s a short one. It’s the deal I made with myself. If it’s small or crummy, I’m only surfing for an hour, hour and a half tops.

     Driving back, I recount the lone-wolf session. Heh . . . not dramatic at all. That one wave I had, that was it. Hedo was cool, Russell annoying, and I was the kook. Kook with a fucking huge ass booger on my face.