Sitting on Top of the World And Looking for Quarters

Tori Patterson

Special to the Mirror

   When Brian Wilson sang "catch a wave and you’re sitting on top of the world," I believed him.

   Surfing, the most ephemeral of the water sports, is an art. Catching a fortune of water that will break and go bust is but a minimum requirement. Once a wave is caught, one can expect to sit on top of the world for less time than the brain needs to send the message that the ride is over. Staying on top of the world is a different pursuit.

   Surfers, male and female, novice and pro, all match their individual talent with an individual wave. Waves, while not as celebrated as snowflakes, qualify as runners-up in their uniqueness. One would think that the pursuit of mastery over the wave is an ancient sport. But I’ve looked carefully at the ancient Grecian urns at the Getty. I saw a lot of randy soft porn stuff, boats and grapes, water and seafaring images, couples dating. NO surfing.

   Everyone surfs these days. Some surf the net, others the channel, some even the ocean itself. Does anybody care where the metaphor of surfing came from? Did the metaphor of surfing now so prevalent in world culture really start in Huntington Beach somewhere on the beaches north and south of the Huntington Pier? And will someone make a shrine out of a the garage of some sixteen year-old boy, who years ago kept himself busy with fiberglass, resin and a sander? Will tourists come to see that garage and read the plaque: "Herein lies the first authentic, original surfer garage and site of the official beginning of the Surfing Metaphor 1972?" Or will it be 1967, or 1978?.

   It’s no accident that surfing was popularized through the abstraction of music. Brian Wilson really did know what he was singing about even if that music now seems hopelessly naive. The Beach Boys made albums about nice guys who rebel by going to the beach and courting lovely girls in bikinis. An oxymoron only possible in a culture that pours milk over optimism and eats it morning after morning (available now in high fiber). Surfers and musicians are similar. They’re often not particularly articulate, and they can seem a bit ‘floaty’ or dreamy. But when Americans began their love affair with sand and sun, waves and boards, chicks and babes, proof of that love through competition wasn’t far behind

   Watching a Pro Surfing Championship is like asking a wave to tell you what just happened. The wave knows a lot but isn’t talking. The ones talking are sun-baked judges scoring each ride as they talk through hand-held loudspeakers in a wonderful elliptical slang that is pretty on the ear like Portuguese. Some of the spectators are there to watch pro surfing championships, but some are just beach going families who happened to throw their towel down on the day of the competition.

   Taxpayers, so far, are not under pressure to replace out of date beaches with luxury boxes and stadium seating. Beaches are still "free." I saw no actual waves sponsored by any product or service. In fact, on the day I went to watch the former O P Pro, now renamed the Gotcha! Pro, a subset of the Panasonic Shockwear Beach Games, a subset of the US Open of Championship Surfing, not to be confused with the HB (Huntington Beach) Surfing Championship, I couldn’t find the event.

   In my search for the surfing championship, I spent a good deal of time finding parking, only to realize that I came with too few quarters for the bottomless parking meters. I am a solid, stolid Angeleno in Huntington Beach, for God’s sake, yet I felt like the country mouse at the big, big, big Circus. My savior turned out to be a man in uniform, the uniform of a man in the employ of Taco Bell at PCH and Ninth Street, Huntington Beach. .

   I was subjected to a recitation of the Huntington Beach municipal parking code by another employee of the above mentioned Taco Bell. Quarters, quarters everywhere but not a drop to drink. ( I can see a brimming cash drawer full of quarters) Quarters to park and quarters to pee, if you don’t have quarters, you don’t have squat. Then a young man working behind the counter squaring a Gorditas and Burrito sale in progress next to me, reached into his own pocket and handed me 1/20 of his salary. "Take it, please."

   Take it, please? Hearing the words "take it" is surprising enough, but "take it please" trips some dormant chord of gratitude. At the very moment, the thought bubble over my head reads, "Take this wave and shove it." but when he hands me the quarter I feel as lucky as Charlie Bucket in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." I have a golden ticket! I hand him my non useable coins, two dimes and a nickel, HE WON’T TAKE THEM. I pull out a dollar. NO, HE WON’T TAKE THAT EITHER. I am so flummoxed I want to touch the hand of a saint and I press my fingers over his hand which is poised over a touchpad full of Taco Bell menu icons. "Thanks." I drift out on to the crowded sidewalk full of gleaming beach pandemonium a changed person. Yes, this is a terrible, terrible pun I know, but I mean I am a changed person as in I saw water turned into wine and handed to me.

   The staircase at Ninth street and PCH leads you to the beach. It’s a steep incline, so the staircase has a rail. There are people, crowds everywhere, but I seem to be the only person who needs to use the stair case. A teenage boy wearing white inline skates is practicing a move whose physics are so complicated and dangerous that I clench my hand in trepidation. He is calmly riding on the side of the wall and then leaping over to hook the metal rail with his skates. He rides to the bottom and then seeing me steps to the side and waits for me to pass. He smiles as if to say, I’m working this move out. I don’t have it down yet.

   Surfing and Extreme Sports are about making use of public spaces. We may gate and secure our homes but public space is still a first amendment beat even if what you have to say is non verbal.

   I finally get my feet into the sand and then into the wet sand of the lapping shore. Air horns sound time for a set of competing surfers who come out of the water wearing colored T-shirts over their wetsuits to distinguish them from non competition surfers in the water. Some are smiling, others are shaking their heads. I have about 53 minutes left on my parking meter. The second it expires, a ticket will appear. I settle in to watch practitioners of the ephemeral arts. A female rider catches a wave and demonstrates -- if she wants to be a finalist-- 50% old school and 50% new. Her ride seems long and her footwork is interesting. I guess she sat on top of the world.

   For the next 50 or so minutes, I will, too. Panasonic Shockwave Beach Games through Aug. 1. Huntington Pier. Open to everyone. Bring Quarters.