Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

That definitely goes into the bon mots collection!
  

    
And yet when you hit a place like Cuba, the truth seems as weird as
anything you could make up. The bureaucratic hassles -- not to mention
the ideological ones -- the surfers in your Cuban chapter go through
are amazing. Is there any justification for that? Are they secretly, in
the context of the broader Cuban context, right-wingers?
  

    
Yes, they're suspected America-lovers. Cuba's planned economy doesn't
provide for surfboards or almost anything to make them, so there's a
club in Havana that accepts donations from surfers around the world.
The president of the club also happens to be the island's best shaper,
so he can build new boards out of whatever broken stuff they get. But
when these guys first started to surf in the 90s, the government
arrested a few on the suspicion that they wanted to paddle their boards
to Florida.
  

    
What's your suspicion, though? Since (I assume) you don't have the
political/cultural agenda the Cubans have. 

And how'd you get in, anyway, gringo?
  

    
Well, most of them would paddle to America if they could. They're
rebels within their own system, like surfers everywhere. They're "right
wing" in Cuba, sure, but in the Havana Surf Club it's still free
equipment for everyone, and the best loot for the best surfers -- "From
each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." I
pointed out to the president that they ran their outfit like a bunch of
commies. 
  

    
Oh, and I traveled to Cuba on my German passport. I have dual
citizenship, and the whole point of living in Berlin is to make use of
the EU passport. Getting to Cuba was the culmination of that little
personal project. Though in retrospect I don't know how legal it was.
  

    
So, Mike, it's our last day here, and there'll be another interview
coming up any moment. 

Got any last things you'd like to say to the readers (besides "buy my
books," but you can find a subtle way to say that, too)? 

Of course, we can keep this going as long as there's interest, so if
anyone reading hasn't asked a question they want to ask, do so now, or
submit one to inkwell at well dot com and I'll post it immediately.
  

    
Thanks for the interview Ed! And please do buy the book. Here's the
official page on my site, though the new paperback version has a
different cover --

http://radiofreemike.com/nonfiction/sweetness-and-blood
  

    
I'm so sorry to be late; Life intruded.  I regret missing this.

Your book is a fine piece of work, Mr. Moore.  The first spark I got
was on, what, like page 2, when you identified Redondo Beach as a
"glamour-resistant suburb of Los Angeles".  Nailed it!  I always knew
that.  Never articulated the thought into words though.

I grew up in the Westside of Long Beach from 1957 through 1970, and
the major cultural underlayments for a teenager in that spot at that
time was the Lions Dragstrip, Big Ed Daddy Roth, and the surfing
culture (such as it was).  Ironically: the LB beach was a mere pond,
tamed to flatness by the breakwater built to tame the waves either for
(take your pick) the oil drilling platforms within sight of downtown,
or to enhance the Port harbor commerce.

In any case it ruined the beach for any kind of surf action or even
appreciation, so if a Long Beach kid wanted to get to the waves, it had
to be a road trip to Newport or Huntington Beach, and for a kid sans
wheels (me) the culture became somewhat mythical.

But not glossy/fake mythical like those lousy Annette & Frankie
movies, or the later "World Championship" "competition" circuses the TV
people eventually came to realize they could exploit at the 
Huntington Beach Pier (George Freeth redux)... but the surf culture was
real in its simplicity and honesty, even for a kid who hovered around
the borders of it.

What I'm trying to say is, thanks for writing that book.  You kept it
real, and in the process explained the value of the art.  Nicely done.
  

    
Thanks Mike, and thanks for the post!
  

    
For those stimulated by Michael's excellent work, there are some more
histories of surfing to check out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/opinion/08fri4.html
  

    
Great discussion,. I have been reading and loving the book, and didn't get 
the reminder email that the discussion was starting, so I missed it. 
Dammit. Really my own fault, though. I could have written down the dates.
  

    <scribbled by castle Thu 28 Jul 11 22:18>
  

    
??
  

    

oops.
  

    <scribbled by captward Sun 22 Jan 12 08:30>
  

    
As some of you know, shortly after being a guest here on Inkwell,
Michael was captured by Somali pirates and held for ransom for 2 ½
years. He recently did a TEDx talk about it, and it'ss worth the 13
or so minutes you'll invest in it:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqz49-rYRMk&feature=youtu.be>
  

    
thanks for recommending that, Ed.