Funny sh!t
Southern California: Paradise Lost
Perhaps this isn’t a myth, especially if you surf in Southern California, but Southern California isn’t what its all cracked up to be. Although the water is generally pleasant and warm, and the weather is always around 72 degrees, the Southern California beach paradise myth ends there.
Now, I want to say from the very beginning that Southern California will always have a special place in my heart since it is the place that I spent so many of my formative delinquent years, but I feel like I just need to tell it like it is. And to tell it like it is, I am going to just quote directly from The Stormrider Guide North America because I couldn’t say it better myself if I tried:
“…It’s a vastly overpopulated concrete jungle pulsing with rampant development, traffic jams, opulent malldoms, and an ever-thickening swarm of surfers…The beaches of Southern California can be a dry sauna stuffed with millions of people, a carnival set appointed with imported desert sand and tired palm trees, sweaty policemen and self-important volleyball squads, uptight and overworked lifeguards, clueless tourist hordes, ageless surgically-reconstructed women, screaming children, skate punks and muscle people, suffocating smog and a concrete river system, endless parking meters, spotless SUVs, intense signage, homeless bums, homeless moms and homeless kids, fast-food trash blowing through trashed ecosystems, toxic bonfires, cigarette butts, broken glass, shit, urine, and stormdrains heading out to sea, airplanes, traffic helicopters, men with shopping carts collecting aluminum cans in the parking lot, and greasy suntan lotion smeared all over everything.”
That sums it up pretty well.
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LA and parts of SD are like that, but secret spots and mid-tide, 45-minute barrel sessions with one or two guys still abound. Pull your head out.
Bobby Flay,
I have two points in response to your comment:
1) Perhaps the pronouncement I made is a little harsh and a little over-simplified. Yes, I agree that there are times when you can have breaks to yourself.
2) You make some great food. I love watching you on the Food Network.
I live in Santa Barbara, pretty much the same. Over crowded breaks.
But gotta disagree with the ‘warm water’ part, Half of the year requires a 4/3, and that’s when the waves are the best (when the water gets cold) here. To be honest, I wanna move somewhere I can be nice and toasty for 4 hour + sessions in a 3/2, that would make me happy, I’m not begging for tropical boardshort paradise. Besides, I’ve grown use to wearing a wetsuit…
Well, said…I still miss it!
a lot of that’s true…. but you can avoid all the bad stuff by hitting dawn patrol and getting out of the water by noon. Water temp is pretty cool most of the year too, all things considered So Cal is not a bad place if you like surfing.
thats the world for ya. Thats everywhere in the US