SHARK?

It’s been a busy year for shark attacks in Sydney. First, a navy diver is mauled by a large bull shark in Sydney Harbour while—get this—doing an “anti-terrorism training exercise.” The following day, the husband of a pregnant wife gets a good chunk of his arm bit off by a Great White while surfing the ever-popular South Bondi. On the way to the hospital, thinking he’s a goner, he instructs the surfer who rescued him to, “Tell Lisa that I love her.” He survives. Two weeks later, a fifteen-year-old kid is hit while surfing North Avalon with his father, losing a chunk of his leg and a whole lot of blood.

I got to experience the aftermath of this one morning at South Bondi. I’m straddling my borrowed 6’3” Warner thruster, marveling at the transparency of the turquoise water, when an overhead wave appears. Our cluster strokes out to meet it when suddenly a large, dark, unidentified corpus streaks across the looming swell then quickly disappears.

A wonderful moment follows. The two-dozen of us break into groups. There’s the terrified beginners who immediately spin around and stroke for shore, mewling hysterically about giant fins. There’s the calm and graceful bikini-clad girl, who politely asks her neighbors if it was indeed a shark. There’s the three or four stone-faced locals, who show not the slightest hint of fear, in fact huddle together as if preparing to take on whatever beast. And then there’s the rest of us, confused, quietly shit-scared, in a kind of limbo.

Throwing a shark into one’s immediate vicinity is a great litmus test. Primal fears surface. True colors come out. Some years back, a renowned surf photographer was shooting Teahupoo from a dinghy, his longtime girlfriend at his side, when suddenly a massive set came. In that terrifying moment when the heaving wave was about to swallow the boat he did not gallantly protect his girl, but rather dove for the bottom. Last I heard they were no longer together.

In the late ‘80s, my tourmates and I played a game called “Faces of Death,” in which we’d zap around beach towns in France, Spain, Portugal, and Australia pulling massive, screaming handbrake slides as close as possible to unsuspecting pedestrians, which drew some magnificent facial expressions as well as a few dives into nearby bushes. Once we pulled one on Top 16-ranked Dave Parmenter, who was notorious for his Clint Eastwood-like demeanor. Dave barely flinched. From this simulated near-death experience we concluded that he was the Real Deal.

I did not ponder these things as I bobbed in the waters of Bondi Beach, but rather sat with my feet on my board so as to eliminate dangling limbs. I scanned the depths and listened to my heartbeat, which sounded vaguely like the theme song from Jaws. And then finally the beast emerged, this time breaking the surface and doing a dolphin-like dart across a looming swell, revealing flaps and flippers and a shiny brown torso, a seal not a shark, thank god, and all went back to normal at Bondi.

BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HANDSOME MEN (or, Derek Rielly Talks About Sydney)

Derek Rielly is handsome, whip smart, and currently topping my “Men I’ll Sleep With When I Come Out Of The Closet” list. He’s also the founder of Stab, by far the most X-rated surf magazine in history. In my quest to get up to speed on 21^st century Sydney (as opposed to my dated, nostalgia-tinged version), I interviewed him after a sunny, offshore, double-overhead session at South Bronte. He wore a white headband, white vee-neck tee, Louis Vutton high-cut shorts, and snowy white tube socks pulled up to his knees. He resembled a late-‘70s Bjorn Borg with an Oscar Wilde wit. At one point he whipped out a ping-pong paddle.

Define Sydney’s personality, character, etc.

Like most joints, walk a few hundred metres down the road and you’ve gone from gold-rimmed, red lens aviator, sunshine yellow with vintage belt, electric blue RL Black Label shirt with epaulets and two breast pocket boat shoe-wearing gorgeousness to black polar fleece hoodies and tracksuit pants far too short and far too big. But, if we must generalise, Sydney is a shallow city where making it big is everything. There is no design consciousness or anything world-class except its fabulous harbor and northern peninsula.

Tell us about the tall poppy syndrome.

It exists only in the imagination. You get famous, you make a little money, and you start to get paranoid about who’s your real pals and who’s in it for the connection or to shower under your money. Are the famous above criticism?

Best and worst things about Sydney?

The architecture is ghastly. Wartime and pre-war shanties and morose apartment blocks abutting astonishingly ordinary high-rises and developer Meriton’s crude attempts at dense housing. That said, I do understand the basic concept of the psychology of taste and realise beautiful Sydneysiders may wish to commune with their ugly side. The weather is fabulous. The women are all-time. The drugs are expensive. The food is great, and great in the quality-produce kinda way, not in the Michelin Hat kinda way, but that’s here as well. The waves are varied, but rarely of excellent quality.

Anything else that might help the foreign surfer better understand Australia?

If you want to understand Australia, you can apply the usual template over it, i.e., big cities are inclusive and exciting while the outer areas are insular and dull. But, it’s these dull places where you’ll find good waves. Australians like to fight and root at night. If we can’t get a root we get furious. Livid, even. And then we fight.

BOOKWORM

#mce_temp_url#

PS: Michael Silverblatt recommends:

—David Foster Wallace

—Joan Didion

—William H. Gass

—Marilynne Robinson

—John Barth

—Donald Barthelme

—Jorie Graham

—John Ashbery

—Thomas Pynchon

—Nicole Krauss

—Junot Diaz

—Annie Proulx

For More Bookworm visit: http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw

TWELVE GLORIOUS DAYS IN SYDNEY (And Five Beautiful Bastards)

Andrew Farrell lives in South Bondi. He’s a Series Producer of a TV show called “Deadly Women,” which makes his life quite interesting. When he’s not lapping up the surf and sunshine, he’s researching gruesome murders committed by women. 

Andrew is one of many colorful characters I imbibed red wine with during my 12 glorious days in Sydney. Below are a few more –

Jay Harrison is a photog/expat Kiwi who, after a decade or so run in NYC, moved to Bronte, where he lives with his delightful ladyfriend, Alise. I stayed on their couch. Ate their muesli. Drank their wine. And felt very grateful for their hospitality. I also watched Jay pull into a heaving barrel at South Bronte.

Then there’s the eternally smiling and charismatic Derek Rielly, lover of fine womens and prolific writer for Stab. I asked him to describe Sydney’s civic character. Here’s what he said:  ”What a multi-faceted question this is. Like most joints, walk a few hundred meters down the road and you’ve gone from gold-rimmed, red lens aviator, sunshine yellow with vintage belt, electric blue RL Black Label shirt with epaulets and two breast pocket boat shoe-wearing gorgeousness to black polar fleece hoodies and tracksuit pants far too short and far too big. But, if we must generalize, Sydney is a shallow city where making it big is everything. There is no design consciousness or anything world-class except its fabulous harbor and northern peninsula.”

Aside from being a handsome bastard with a swift cutback, Kane Skenner is a fashion photographer and collector of rare/out-of-print books. The boards in the background are all his, as is the moody storm-over-sea photo, which he shot from a panoramic perch over Whale Beach, Kane’s former home and occassional stomping ground.

Jack McCoy is hard at work on a film that traces surfing’s roots, though not so much the stuff available via google, wikipedia, etc, but the lesser known, “oral history” version. I saw bits and pieces when I stayed in his Avalon studio. It looks to be something magnificent.

The above beautiful bastards helped make my 12 days in Sydney unforgettable, and I feel lucky to call them friends.