A paragraph today

Ed Asner looked handsome and aged in a simple tuxedo, his 82 year-old frame reinforced by a mahogany colored cane. But his wit remains nimble, unharmed by time, very much like the Santa he played in the movie Elf. An almost jumbo-tron screen with a cartoon face in the left corner hovered high behind him on the stage at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Eyes squinting and subtle sweat beading from the lights above, Asner introduced the audience to a video clip of Will Ferrell, who that night was awarded the fourteenth Mark Twain Prize for Humor (and was, as Ferrell would later note, the eleventh Caucasian recipient). Then he introduced them to Tim Meadows, also there to honor Ferrell. Meadows and Ferrell fortified a late 1990s cast of Saturday Night Live that preceded an era of pedestrian comedy on the 36 year-old show. Meadows too emerged with dapper flare: a black tux, his white shirt collar corralled by a black Windsor knot, thick-rimmed glasses and a less-salt-more-pepper goatee divided attention drawn to his face. The mostly middle-aged crowd--dressed in attire saved for evening affairs at the Kennedy Center--brought its brief applause to an end. "Wow...I know what you're thinking," Meadows deadpanned. "What's Don Cheadle doing here?"

Costa Rica from the road

We went to Costa Rica. Got back last night. We roamed the coastline for a week looking for surf around Playa Tamarindo, a beach town that succeeds, if you want it to, in making turistas de Norte Americanos feel comfortable in southern Central America. At the northwestern perch of the country, Tamarindo occupies Costa Rica’s westernmost point along the Pacific, on a peninsula that hooks downward like the trigger of a hand-grenade. The volume of rain that falls during October should simply rinse away the mountainsides. Approaching from beyond—from the valleys and offshore—dark, bulbous clouds empty like watering cans until they are on top of you, rain pelting you with the force of a garden hose in close proximity. The sea turns murky, especially near the rivermouths, where sand and sediment and surely varying quantities of sewage from upriver color the near shore waters a suspicious brown. But the fields where the bulls gnaw grass, and the jungles where the monkeys swing and the furtive big cats hunt—the roots that keep the mountainside in tact—grow into a deep, hydrated green for miles. Now is the wet season; the local guide Flash—a stoner whose nickname derived solely from his Caucasian features—says you knew that before you came, so no complain, man, we surf.

This part of Costa Rica, known unendearingly as Tamagringo, owns a visible influence of western tourism. You probably knew that before you came. A hundred yards from our base at Witch’s Rock Surf Camp, a tiny strip mall houses an HSBC branch, the England-based global banking giant, and a neon Subway sign glows where Jared sought a slimmer self through five dollar footlongs. English is as much of a second language there as Spanish is here—although not formally recognized, public notices often serve warnings in both tongues. All over town, cheeseburgers “as big as your head” don’t taste like authenticity. Lots of light skinned folks travel here to try surfing, search for better waves than they find at home, or to drink on top of a different bar stool. Other parts of the world could be less familiar to Americans.

But one only needs to take to the roads to find elements of life that are steadfastly un-American. Tamarindo is about an hour drive from Liberia airport, an easier arrival alternative than San Jose. (The Freds, a father/son duo from San Clemente, California, drove five hours from San Jose around landslides and over washed out roads.) Double yellow lines, pedestrian right-of-way, dog leash laws and the police that enforce them in the States inflict no similar version of civil order on the roads of Costa Rica. Vans packed with tourists, luggage and surfboard bags strapped to the roof, regard the confines of opposite lane traffic as nonexistent. Shitty Kia 4x4s and dented Toyota sedans with jet black tinted windows pass parades of rusting dual-axle flatbed trucks and whining scooters at 100 kilometers an hour as oncoming traffic grows larger with speed. Stopped school buses solicit no more than a slight tapping of the brakes—an otherwise costly offense in the first world. Soaked locals exert as much ownership of the road as drivers—shoulders as we know them are nowhere to be found. A parent shuttles his child wearing no helmet on the top tube of a bicycle past an aging ranch hand smoking a cigarette, teaching his horse to Spanish step on the side of the road. Pedestrians walk the edge of the macadam, umbrellas open, moving for no vehicles. Dogs crisscross the freeway during lulls in traffic, trudging through ankle-deep mud in the roadside trenches, seeming to have evolved enough to dodge death like Frogger at the arcade. But vultures drift above, wings spread as wide as a human is tall, waiting for a misstep. In the States, there is a hierarchy to the roads: bikes yield to humans and cars yield to both, and law enforcement is quick to remind you. But Costa Ricans enjoy less structure; rather, pedestrian, cyclist, driver, chicken, and dog demand their piece of the pavement equally.

This minor absence of regulation feels freeing from a New York City life chaperoned by cops wielding rifles, clearly delineated bus lanes, signs, crosswalk signals, orange tollbooth cones, so many, many signs. It reminds you that beings can, at times, function without menial ordinances. Left to their own devices, cars will pass others safely despite painted lines, students will reach school on time, dogs will learn not to become road kill, and surfing instructors will only fall asleep after smoking herb.

Surf as I surf

Back in 2009-2010, pro surfer Fred Patacchia and his friend Andrew Oliver set out to create a website that would give a more authentic take on pro surfing on the top Association of Surfing Professionals' world tour.

They were great at it. Patacchia had access--he was a competitor who dealt with the same travel and contest and sponsorship bullshit everyone else did--and provided a unique perspective that only a surfer on tour could. He and Oliver had morphed in different type of media, one that the surfers trusted and enjoyed talking to.

But it costs some jingle. And when Patacchia and Oliver chose to scuttle INS dot com, they left a lot of surf fans jonesing for more. It made sense. The demands of creating web content and the costs to do so on an a regular basis grew too much, Patacchia said so when I interviewed him once.

They produced some unbelievably candid and insightful videos--from Joel Parkinson's recollection on the 2009 season that he dominated only to bust his ankle between events and to lose the world championship at the final contest of the year in Hawaii to his boy Mick Fanning, to interviews of surfer and shapers that hadn't been given much thought, Patacchia and Oliver shared their connection to the realm of elite competitive surfing.

They have nearly 200 videos still posted on their Vimeo page that will eat an entire day's worth of productivity. But the most useful video they ever posted is called "J Bay Round One Perspectives." It's under five minutes long, from 2010 at South Africa's annual ASP contest. The details they extract from the late Andy Irons, two-time world champ Mick Fanning, and recently ASP-estranged back-sider Bobby Martinez are the type of knowledge NFL coaches couldn't dream of receiving from their Sunday opponents. On screen they carve through overhead-plus Jeffreys Bay point break waves, and on the voice-over they open-up on heat strategy, wave and board selection, style, and wind.

And you get to learn from it.

Insurfnews.com - J Bay Round One Perspectives from Andrew Oliver on Vimeo.