Just Another Circus

As most of you know, the circus came to town last week for the Rip Curl Search ASP contest.  It was a great event in that San Francisco provided sun and Ocean Beach provided clean offshore waves, both anomalies for much of the year.  Kelly won his 11^th world title twice in one week, the first time prematurely due to an ASP scoring oversight and the second time officially after becoming the uncontested points leader.  This should make for an interesting Triple Crown in Hawaii as competitors will either go all out with nothing to lose or just phone it in with nothing to gain. 

Regardless, the Bay Area surf scene has returned to normal, kind of.  While the ASP circus has left town, filming has begun in earnest for the upcoming Jay Moriarty story, “Of Men and Mavericks.”  Starring Gerard Butler as Frosty Hesson, Jay’s big wave tutor, Johnny Weston as Jay, and the beautiful Elisabeth Shue as Jay's mom(?!), movie crews have been filming scenes in Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay, Pacifica and spots in between on the Peninsula.   If you’ve followed Maverick’s for awhile, you know this story well.  If not, think of it this way: Frosty was like Yoda to Jay’s Luke Skywalker.  I'm talking zen master.  Hopefully the finished product will be more like In God’s Hands and less Point Break. 

Until October of next year, I’ll be cautiously optimistic.  There just haven’t been a lot of good surfing movies made.  The better ones have been documentaries like The Endless Summer and Riding Giants.  I won’t pile on because I suppose anyone can find fault with a movie’s depiction of a sub-culture.  I for example love Big Wednesday but realize full well that it’s cliché and hokey.  On the bright side, as surfers we get to watch surfing movies and say, “I’ve surfed there!”  That’s pretty cool. 

Regardless, I hope “Of Men and Mavericks” does justice to Frosty, Jay and his family, the Maverick’s crew, and of course, those beautiful boards they ride out there.  I hope not to see scenes of Maverick’s chargers on 9-oh longboards or 6’4” thrusters or something in between.  I don’t know who they’ve hired to advise on these matters (is there a Jeff Clark in the house?), but do I hope the Hollywoods heed his or her counsel.  Until next time, may your waves be head high and glassy.