This morning Bob America lurched over to my place for a surf session despite the rough fermentation of the night before. He had downed two Negro Modelos, two glasses of an Australian pinot, a glass of bubbly and two pints of Guinness, best he could remember. The libations had stayed till morning and were now engaged in negotiations as explosive as the Iraqi Parliament’s, and it probably wouldn’t help to subject them to a couple hours of violent bobbing up and down in the Pacific. But Bob showed up anyway.
Bob is a rock n’ roll hero but hasn’t caught a wave in two years. I pulled out my 9’6” Softop, which I keep as a loaner for friends, and on the drive to Ocean Beach he ranted about the jackass antics of our local senator, Dianne Feinstein. Bob is always good for fervently poetic observations on politics and culture, such as Phil Collins, whom he recently described as “a touring piece of saffron that sang monkey songs from a schooner.”
From the cliffs above Ocean Beach we could see the break was in a playful and mellow mood. I paddled straight out for a ride; Bob floated about in the shallows for a while, marinating.
Twenty minutes or so later he mustered the mojo to stroke out through the whitewater to the real waves, and there he sat, staring toward the open ocean for what seemed like a long time. I wondered if I’d see no rock n’ roll at all today.
I caught a grand slow roller and, surprise, there was Bob, catapulting in toward shore right next to me. We got buried together. That was Bob’s Wave #1. Near the end of the session came Wave #2.
I saw Bob spring to his feet, watched his board planing straight for where I floated; he bailed, kindly, because if he hadn’t I might be writing this account for you minus my scalp.
Perhaps three seconds of ride time in a two-hour session. Afterward, while drying himself off with a red, white and blue towel, Bob America declared himself satisfied.
“When you ride a wave, it’s good as sex, and as good as playing rock n’ roll music. So if I can just set my sights on those three things, my life would be fulfilled,” he said.
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