With a streak of sunscreen running down the bridge of their nose and a hemp bracelet given to them by a childhood sweetheart, surfing, and thus, surfers, have taken the summer Olympics by storm. Oddly, it’s all happening in an even year. So much for consistency. It’s no wonder they rely on a board.
Many followers of the games are enthused now that a new sport has been added to the ledger. Not me though. Surfing, when done on the sea, requires a strange brew of skill, stupidity, and dumb luck – emphasis on dumb. Plus, the athletes aren’t the ones who create the waves, what produces the environment to surf in the first place. Whether you believe it has to do with our moon’s sordid relationship with tides or the fickleness of Poseidon, one thing is clear. It has very little to do with the sunbaked surfer climbing aboard his sheet of fiberglass to catch some serious air. These cowabunga cowboys aren’t the makers of their own destiny – they rely on others to do so.
But where’s the fresh set of medals to hang proudly around Poseidon’s trident? Where’s the official Olympic plaque headed to the Sea of Tranquility on a space vessel? Not happening. We’re lauding the surfers, the least interesting part of this dynamic struggle between man, nature, and the gods.
The other glaring issue, as blinding as the sun’s reflection in a pair of newly minted shades, is that surfing as we know it, isn’t even the most interesting type of surfing.
There’s couch surfing. The practice of living beyond your means through leeching off friends and strangers alike. It requires a flexible back, fungible bank account, and a soul devoid of shame. If that doesn’t describe an athlete, what does?
Car surfing is a low IQ, high intensity workout that requires neither auto insurance nor a driver’s license. The wherewithal to climb onto someone’s hood for an open-air cruise is the only thing standing between you and asphalt.
Yet a single type of surfing stands well above everything that came before it. Channel surfing. For a brief, idyllic time in the late 90s, channel surfing, more than even typing, showed a person’s manual dexterity and digital manipulation. Channel surfing surged as our national pastime during this period of sudden prosperity, reaching its creative zenith during the ascendancy of satellite dishes and cable television. The end of history proved to be the beginning of relaxation. To think, an entire generation of children raised on Netflix and Hulu have no idea what it took to channel surf. They will never know what it’s like to turn on the TV with no idea of what to watch and yet, find an 80s bildungsroman or an obscure game show in need of an audience. Today, they go into evening knowing exactly what they are going to watch. It’s the difference between the painful repetition of stand-up comedy and the high-wire intensity of improv.
If I turned on my TV and saw an arena full of sweat-stained popcorn-chomping channel surfers holding onto a universal remote like a pilot toggles his trusty joystick, I can guarantee you one thing – I’m not changing the channel anytime soon.
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