When Trying to be Cool goes Wrong: Cardiff-by-the-Sea Surf Statue a Total Bust
To nobody’s surprise, a $120,000 bronze attempt to honor the surfing community was a failure. In Cardiff, Ca on July 22nd, a commissioned statue by the Cardiff Botanical Society entitled “Magic Carpet Ride” was unveiled. Since that time, a bunch of criticism has been raised from the surfing community.
If you are a surfer, you may be able to see right away why it might get criticism: He is scrawny, and his pose is off. Without knowing from Matthew Antichevich (the statues’ creator), it would be hard to know what the surfer is doing. According to him, the surfer is doing a “floater”. Doesn’t look like it to me. Last time I did a floater which was Saturday, my back definitely wasn’t that straight and my arms so bird-like. It looks more like a beginner trying to keep his balance. But if that was the case, he wouldn’t be getting spray from his measly turns. Not to mention, he looks a little whimpy. Which is why some pranksters took it up themselves to dress him up one day in a pink bikini top, skirt, and lucha lubre mask (see the pic at the bottom of this post). Apparantly Matthew, the creator of the statue has surfing experience himself. If that was the case, would he really name the statue “magic carpet ride”?
I don’t think it’s the statue itself however that caused the criticism. Matt Warshaw, the author of the “Encyclopedia of Surfing”, said:
“When outsiders try, more often than not, they get it wrong. And if they do get it right, surfers are too cool to even see it.”
He added that in this case it was a “misfire” because it didn’t accurately show a true surfing move. A Cardiff local and writer Chris Ahrens, mentioned how surfing is becoming overly popular as it is, with surf spots being overran by rookies. He also said:
“Our identity is being ripped off,” Ahrens said. “Surfing has become big business. They’ve taken our words, our styles.”
I can see where he is coming from, as most surfers are trying to slow the explosing of surfing popularity to protect the population of their home break. We don’t want to see statues erected to celebrate the sport of surfing; we don’t want more parking lots paved to near our favorite spots. We want clean beaches; we want the environment to stay entact; we want our good waves in our favorite spots to stay good. Surfers are probably mostly upset at the fact that they paid $120,000 for that piece of crap metal. They could have done a mass cleaning of the Cardiff water; or a huge beach sweep of pollution; or maybe use that money to stop companies along the coast from putting pollutants into the water. I am sure there are even better ideas I didn’t quickly think of.
With many good wave spots becoming super crowded and many surfers feeling “under siege”, a statue like this just adds fuel to the fire. As the Union Tribune reported, Surfer Magazine a few months ago had a pole asking readers what they thought about a new HBO series called “John From Cincinnati,” 15% said “Hollywood should leave surfing and surfers, alone – forever.” We are tired of movies like Point Break and Blue Crush which don’t depict the surfing scene at it’s core, and try to capitalize on the “glamor” of surfing.
Now that the statue is up, Hansens Surfboards is going to try and help clean up the mess. On his blog, Josh Hansen said:
“I am optimistic that with some effort from all parties involved we might be able to do something to fix the statue. Don’t quote me on this, but if there is any chance of a fix we will be involved.” I guess I am quoting him on it, but it will be interesting to see what that fix might be, beside melting it down. There is talk about turning it around and having it face the water as well.
If you want to hear what more local surfers are saying about this statue, check out Surfer Mags Report.
And, if you feel like getting pissed off, read this guys lame rebuttle to the article.
Well, no matter what, some surfers had a field day with it:
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Posted by Patrick on Monday, August 13th, 2007 in Surfing.
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August 13th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Even though he isn’t dead, I think if you are going to have a Statue in Cardiff it should be of Machado. That Statue is seriously lame.
August 14th, 2007 at 10:10 am
i call him “Jazz Hands” and he makes me cringe/laugh everytime i drive by. our friends were the now-famous culprits for the outfit, i don’t think they had any idea the level of attention the prank would get.
while i disagree with you that having any surf statue is bad, i wholeheartedly DO agree this is an embarrassment. i’m with Cbin, a statue of Machado mid-slash would have been way cooler AND a tribute to someone who has given so much to the Community of Cardiff…
September 16th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Nice article and some terrific suggestions on how the money could have been better spent!
October 19th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
lol ryder, “jazz hands.” ‘Magic carpet carpet ride?’ dude looks like he’s doin the dance of the seven vails. Its too bad the locals werent able to be involved in the final design process….obviously the proposel of this design would have been a ‘veto!’ in a heartbeat. I do agree that $120,000 could have been better spent helping clean the enviornment surrounding the beaches. However, do we really need that kind of money to help clean a beach? When was the last time you got your ass up before work or after a session in the water, got a trash bag and filled it with the trash left on the beach? Think if everyone did that once a week or bi-monthly, what our beaches would look like. Imagine the impression tourists would get seeing people (not in orange vests) cleaning the beach. They might think twice before leaving their trash in the sand. Instead of bitching about some peice of unfourtunate metal, we should focus on what really matters, what can really make a difference in our community. Just a thought.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I agree with the other posts; I can’t figure out what the statue is doing. It looks like he’s about to eat it on a backside bottom turn, but that doesn’t explain the spray.
One thing’s for sure, if the artist was trying to feminize our society even further, he succeeded. What’s better than showing an effiminate surfer with an outstretched pinky finger? Magic Carpet Ride? How about Brokeback Bottom Turn?
March 31st, 2008 at 9:41 pm
[...] been a little more than 8 months since the statue was first unveiled. To this day I still have a hard time figuring out how in the world anyone ever authorized putting [...]
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