JOHN MEL... THE UNOFFICIAL CAPTIAN OF TEAM MEATHEAD

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JOHN MEL... THE UNOFFICIAL CAPTIAN OF TEAM MEATHEAD

Post by eqKneelo »

JOHN MEL: The Unofficial Captain Of Team Meathead.

I had never won anything.
It was almost comical, actually. Every year at the KSUSA Santa Cruz contest I would buy 100 Raffle tickets for $100, and then sit and watch guys who had purchased one ticket, or in the case of Wayne Kopit, thirteen hundred tickets, win every prize over the course of the 3-day weekend.
-Not once was my name called.
-Not once did I get to walk up to the stage and collect a bag of surf-loot.
-I hate Wayne Kopit… (OK, OK… Not really… but it’s fun to say it ;-))

So I was quite startled when, on night 2 of last years contest, MC John Mel called my number and I got to walk up and collect a prize. Not only that, but it turned out I had won a beautiful piece of art built by Bob Welch.
The piece, a metal Fish sculpture sprayed an awesome metallic blue, was not only going to look great in my house, it would easily go for $300 in some La Jolla art gallery… so in a sense, I had made up for the last 3 years of futility.
I was stoked.

When I sat back down at my barstool, Don Harris (a.k.a. “TheKneeloPimp”) came up to congratulate me. He then let me in a little secrete.
“Just so you know, that was hysterical to watch. John Mel has had his eye on that thing ALL week. He and Kim collect fish-art, and it was the only thing he wanted to win. When he handed it to you, the expression on his face was priceless…. You’d have thought he was handing over one of his grandkids.”

I thanked Don, finished my beer, picked up the fish, walked over and handed it to John… I walked home happy that night, although still fully aware I had made another deposit on a debt I will never repay.

The Beginning

Kneeboarding in Nor Cal was a lonely gig.

It was the 1980’s and the sport of surfing was going through its first big commercial renaissance. The magazines were filled with colorful pictures of colorful characters wearing colorful wetsuits and riding colorful machines… and it in no way resembled anything in my world.
When I’d look up from my Surfer Mag and stare out the rain soaked windshield at the small hardcore crew surfing Kelly’s Cove at Ocean Beach, I felt as though I was somehow the butt of a practical joke.
-Where was the fun I saw in the OP ads?
-Where was the glamour I saw in the Town and Country ads? -Where was the tropical adventure promised in every Rip Curl/Quiksilver/Billabong ad?
-And why are these two guys in the van next to me giving me stink-eye? I haven’t even suited up yet.
And I live here!!!

Now, my grievances were not with the surf…. There is no place in the world I’d rather be than Northern California in the Fall. And it was not that there were no other kneelos around… Tim Pierce and Bill Hickey and Mark Vann and a dedicated crew of others OWNED the place. From VFW’s to Sloat to Fort Point to the sickest days at Deadmans, these guys were absolute chargers. In fact, it was because of these guys I started kneeriding… no one was doing what these guys were doing. Period.
They, however, has no interest in me.
I was too young (seventeen) too big (6’4”, 220lbs) too collegiate (I was playing Rugby at CAL) too stoked (I wanted to talk about kneeboarding and kneeboards all the time) and I didn’t care what color my wetsuit was (Major Norcal faux paux.)…. So in their eyes, I was pretty much a nightmare.
And it wasn’t just that they ignored me…. No, no, no… my mere presence seemed to exhaust them.
They did not want talk to me, or say hi to me, or look at me… in fact, the only time the Sickest Kneelo Charger in SF ever acknowledged me was to stare me down after I hooted at an epic tube ride of his.
(He then proceeded to make fun of my wetsuit -black with an orange panel- to all of his friends… as if I wasn’t sitting right there.)
Good times.

So, this was my surf lifestyle. Surfing great waves, super stoked, but surrounded by The Legion Of Doom.
It was getting old.
I needed a change… I needed an inspiration.
What I needed…. was a friend…a kneeboard friend… Someone I could share ALL my Stoke with… someone who was committed… Someone who was “living the dream.”

And for his sins, I got John Mel.

FREELINE DESIGN

I had known of John way before I met him… but then again, everyone knew him. John was a legend. If you asked anyone at any surf shop about kneeboarding (which I did… over and over and over), everyone had the same answer:
“John Mel at Freeline Design is the man. No one else in Northern California come close.”
When I was 16 years old I drove down to Santa Cruz and purchased my first kneeboard at Freeline… an unfortunate used 5’5” California Style, shaped by “No Dice” with a Caveman on the nose.
It was a piece of crap.
So, a year later I called the shop, spoke to THE MAN himself, and ordered a new board… it changed my life.
Suddenly I had a board that did everything I wanted, and a lot I couldn’t even imagine. I was getting better by the minuet… Floaters, Off the Lips, even airs. I would hit anything that moved. I was… ripping. :wink:
Now the truth is, I was probably just a legend in my own mind…however, I must have been doing something right, because this was about the time John encouraged me to start entering contests!!! :)
To be honest, he probably just wanted me to focus my energy on something besides his new and used board rack (Picking the boards up, putting them back, picking the boards up, putting them back, picking the boards up…) but the fact is, it was awesome. In the 1980’s there was a vibrant Kneelo contest scene. The WSA, NSSA, or USSF had a contest almost every weekend, and every other month there were State Invitational.
Suddenly, I not only had something to look forward to, but once a month I could meet other kneelos, test my skills, and travel up and down the State surfing. It was too cool. And I was perfectly content.

It was at this point that John made a huge mistake.

John had a couple of other kneelos he had been sponsoring… giving them boards at cost because they were doing well on the WSA circuit. (One rider, “Hank The Hammer”, won the West Coast Championship one year, I think). I had just returned from a WSA State Invitational in Ventura, a contest where his son Peter and I both won our divisions and it was an especially sweet victory for me because I had edged out Barry Baker for the first time ever. (Barry had been on an absolute tear… this 2nd place would be the only contest he didn’t win in well over a year.) So John, obviously caught up in the moment and not thinking clearly, said “Well Ed, I guess we ought to put you on Team Freeline. Get the same deal as Hank, wetsuits at wholesale and boards at cost.”:shock:

The world literally shifted on its axis.

You see, this changed everything: No longer was I some big knucklehead Frat Boy schlepping around California surfing silly little contests. Noooooooooooo. I was now a “sponsored” surfer competing on The Kneeboard Circuit. Kneeboarding had become a sort of professional endeavor. It became… my career.
And John Mel aged at least 20 years because of it.

You see, now everything became extremely important. Every blank, every fin, fin-box, fin-system, fin-placement, every glass job, every type of cloth, every tail/rail/concave/channel/nose/width
…I mean everything. Everything needed to be discussed, compared, contrasted, dissected, and re-evaluated. It was vital, it was necessary… and I haven’t even gotten to the shaping appointments yet!!!


Yep…. That’s right… shaping appointments. I mean, COME ON… a board-order could no longer be a phone call. John and I couldn’t just run over to the Factory at lunch. That was for amateurs. Do you think they just “build something that works”
over a NASA? Of course not … and a kneeboard was just as complex as a space shuttle (in my mind).
It takes time… it takes planning… it takes… an evening.

Now there is a possibility John enjoyed these evenings. He was so patient, and so engaged; I don’t think he could have been faking it. No one tells John Mel what to do, so if he was over it, I think he would have told me: “Shut-up, get lost, you’ll get whatever board I shape you and like it.”
And trust me when I say, I pushed his limits.
You see, since these appointments became such a big deal, they became events. What do I mean by this? Well, they were so important, so exciting, they were the perfect occasion to bring a girl to… You heard me:
Date Nights at the Freeline Factory!
I don’t know how many co-eds I paraded through that factory… all dolled up, sticking to anything they touched, ruining their best little shoes… but it was a lot. Yet John didn’t seem to mind… and he never lost his patience.
In fact, there was only one time he ever lost his patience. We had just finished shaping my blank, it was very late, and just before I left, I handed him a drawing of my airbrush (Just the rails) and the Freeline logo placement. (Remember that this was the label-whore 80’s, and that a lot of the guys I surfed against had more than a few sponsors, so they had quite a few laminates on their boards… and I didn’t want to be left out.)
The conversation went something like this:

Ed
“Thanks John. I think this board is going to rip. I’ll call
You in…”

JOHN
“What’s this?”


ED
“The airbrush an logo placement”.

JOHN
“You got twelve logos here.”

ED
“Yeah.”

JOHN
“You can’t have twelve.”

ED
“Why?”

JOHN
“You can have five.”


ED
“ But?”

JOHN
“You can have five.”

ED
(Confused)
“They all fit.”

JOHN
“I don’t care if they fit. You can have 5 Freeline logos… and you can’t have that one!”

John was pointing to the 6” x 36” FREELINE sprawling across the bottom of the board.

ED
“Why? You put it on Charlie’s board.”

JOHN
“ I put it on Charlie’s Windsurfer!

ED
“How about Nine?

JOHN
“ Goodnight, Ed.”

And that was that.

(Until, of course, I picked up my board and sure enough, John had squeezed in 9 logos… including the FREELINE across the bottom.):-)

SANTA CRUZ 2007

Surfing is a solitary sport. Everyone who enters the Ocean does so alone, no matter how many people he paddles out with… or whether or not he has a jersey on. It is this aspect, rather unique to surfing, which makes us strong individuals. It makes us “cool” or “core” or “counter-culture” or “chargers” or ”recluses” or any number of labels that describe The Surf Life.
It gives us our identity.
I think most of you reading this will agree that surfing has had a dramatic impact on your life. I think it’s safe to say, most of us would not even recognize ourselves if we took surfing out of our lives.
But what many of us forget to remember is that we all had someone who was extremely important early on in our surfing life. Someone who you traveled with, you dawn patrolled with, you traded surf theory or surf lore and surf stoke with, the only guy who would paddle out on the big days and make you come with him, or paddle in and back you up when you were squaring off with some bully, the guy you looked up to, or you tried to live up to, or pushed you, or just made you never forget what was important:
That surfing is life.
When I look around, I can’t help but see a number of obvious examples:
Don had Bob, Jack had Chris, Mark had Danny, Barry had Fred, Lee had Bud, Simon had Novo, Hart had Crozier, and so on and so forth.
For me, it was John Mel.
It was the fact that this surf legend… this world renown surfer/shaper with a World Renown Surf Shop and Surf-Star son… would take the time out of his busy life to talk Kneeboarding with a Kook Kid from Berkeley… and the fact that those conversations, as insignificant as they probably were to John, changed the course of my life.
I have been on a 25 year, 20 Country Surf Adventure to this point… I define myself as “a surfer” in the truest sense of the words… and it all started on 41st Avenue.
Thanks John.

So here’s what I propose:
This week… this historic week in our Sport… where ever you are in the world, take the time out to think about that one person. Before the horns sound and the heats begin and the trophies are handed out, take a second and pick up a phone or buy a beer or make a donation or say a prayer of remembrance for the one soul who got you here… the one guy who kept you on the path… the one person who gave you a gift that is too great for words.
Take a moment to realize how lucky we all are.
And be thankful… because at the end of the day… all the beer, prayers, and Blue Metal Fishes in the world won’t be enough.
Some debts are just too great to repay.
EQ
Last edited by eqKneelo on Tue Jan 09, 2007 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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DarcyM
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Post by DarcyM »

Very cool, EQ.
8)
+1 :D
dm

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Post by Man O' War »

Ed, thanks for that masterpiece.
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Post by KAVA »

what no zombies to fight off?? Inspiring piece of literature
"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air… "
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
6'1", dean cleary tri, 6'0 Flashpoint tri, 5'9 chuck dent (epoxy quad), 9' velzy (single fin triple stringer)
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Post by jadams3 »

Great writing EQ......inspirational for sure.....

I'll take this moment to thank Bob Schiff, aka SFKneelo, for the stoke and inspiration to take up KB'ing after a decade of standup surfing......and thanks for the old Balestar hand-me-downs to get me started......and for the surf trips to Mex & Hawaii.....and for the 6am phone calls to surf 2' blown-out, victory at sea days in Del Mar......and the New Year's Day 6' Trestles perfection session several years ago.....beating the hangover crew into the lineup wasn't luck, rather good cocktail management the night before.......thanks for the tips and passing on the essence of kneeboarding......Good luck in Santa Cruz this coming week Roberto and to all the competitors for that matter..... 8)
Aloha.......JA
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Post by Jon Manss »

EQ way cool. Thanks for a great story about one of my mentors as well looking forward to seeing you soon.
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Post by Big Fred »

Ed, you have inspired me just like Barry, Tom b, Gregl , Wayne, Shouey,Mike f, Tom linn and the list could go on forever. when we were in contests back in the 80's traveling up and down the coast (about 3 weeks every month) had an impact on me being a surfer and having the support of you and everybody i surfed against and met along the way. i can remember going up to santa cruz for a wsa contest meeting john for the first time around "86" and thinking, i hope i surf like that when i get that old. i will buy you and john a beer and catch up on old times. i will be leaving for santa cruz in about 12hr and ready to surf!!
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Post by JohnS »

...
Last edited by JohnS on Sun Jan 27, 2008 6:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
SFKneelo

Post by SFKneelo »

Amen, Brother Ed!

Mahalo, Brother John! See ya Thursday! BTW, it's tough NOT to respond to your thoughts without thoroughly incriminating myself! ;-) What happens in...

I, like Ed, bow humbly to my good fortune and those that kindled it in pursuing this passion. I can't thank you all enough.

That said, I'm packing now, and can't wait to get out the door tomorrow!

I've clipped this response several times. There are so many to thank...

Other thoughts that were clipped...

1. Bill Lerner. 1978. World Champ and/or US Champ? Remember a SurferMag or SurfingMag article about a 3.8 or 4.0 student from UCSD around then... anyone recognize, and even better, can post?

2. Jack Beresford... 'nuff said! (for now...)

3. Ed: Left out Mr. Martinez. Expect some heckling! ;-)

Anyhow, that was a really great post and thanks for thowing it out there!

One thing that the last 7 years have taught is that there are a lot of you that I wish I met much sooner!
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Post by ScottMac »

..
Last edited by ScottMac on Fri Apr 03, 2009 7:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Quit your day job...

Post by Don »

Ed,

You can quit your day job. Surf by day, write by night.

This post is what KSUSA is all about.

Love it.

Cheers,

Don
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mel

Post by gene west »

EQ......wonderful post, felt like my mom just read me great bedtime story...gave me that same warm fuzzy feeling.......thanks!!!!
geno
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Post by DYdamo »

EQ,
Now come here and give me some good old "Aussie man love",(NO TOUCHING AT ALL!!!!!!!.DON"T EVEN THINK "BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN")that almost made me cry
There are too many people to mention to thank,dead or alive.
Every-one has a Mentor in some shape or form
I'm interested in apathy
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Post by WayneK »

NICE Sentiment, Ed. I love you too :lol:
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Post by rooster »

killer post :cry: pass the tissues :lol:
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