the virtues of surfing

Sep 05 2002

Out with Mr. Noodle tonight and he starts in about the virtues of surfing. He mentions the salvation of my soul and the true path; he claims I should move to the beach and learn to surf. And, so I'm trying to be all reasonable, placating him with “yeah, I totally should.” But, the Noodle doesn't stand for it. He waves his arm kindly demanding my silence and tells me that men of action have little faith, and commands me to act. I look at Mrs. Noodle puzzled, she shrugs and responds “you know it.”

That scene may not have actually occurred, but if I claim that it did I might get mentioned over at Noodledom.

The actual scene is a sparsely lit parking lot at the drive-in movie theatre where we caught a double feature of Blue Crush and Austen Powers. If you haven't been to the drive-in, it's a mass of spooky uneven parking lots where strange people come to ignore the movie and do appropriately strange things in and around their cars. Then they cruise around the parking lot scrubbing the frames of their tricked out Oldsmobiles on the humps that span the lot as if they are taking a victory lap for whatever illicit activity they just performed in a pseudo-public place. Only the insane pull out coolers of beer, chairs and a radio and watch the movie. That's what we did.

Now, Blue Crush might not have been the best movie I've seen lately but it reminded me that I want to learn to surf. During all the years that I skated, I always hoped to get the opportunity to learn, and now that I'm old and decrepit falling into the water seems somewhat less painful than falling on concrete. Anyone out there want to teach me to surf? What? No takers?