Friday, June 29, 2018

Santa Cruz Noir, blogging the book. Day 7, "Wheels of Justice" by Jon Bailiff

(To learn more about my "blogging the book" challenge to myself, go HERE.)

I surf Steamer Lane. It's my home break, not yours. You're not Westside Santa Cruz born and raised. Steamer's is not for you. Go back to the Valley or Cowell's or even Pacifica. We will not be tolerating any university inclusivity-diversity bullshit from outsider kooks, queers and mud people. Stay behind the railing and watch.

When I flew down to L.A. for the Skylight Books event for Santa Cruz Noir a couple of weeks ago, I happened to have a shuttle driver who was a true Santa Cruz local, though not a Westside local. H was born and raised in Boulder Creek, which is up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Growing up, he would go down to both Eastside and  Westside beaches to surf, and have to earn his right to be at each place, which included a few beatdowns in the parking lot afterwards. 

Jon Bailiff is not a local. As he says in the author's bio in the back of the book, he's only lived in Santa Cruz for thirty years. So I feel that I should perhaps explain that the rant of his rage-filled screw-up of a narrator is not autobiographical. It's more along the lines of what he's witnessed and experienced of the territorial skirmishes that accompany surfing in Santa Cruz. When asked why he has decided to write about this guy, he thought about it and then said, "One word--"Payback."

The shuttle driver, who seemed like a reasonable enough sort of man at this point in his life, said that things had gotten mellower in the Santa Cruz surfing scene in recent years. But he wasn't too happy with the influx of people from Silicon Valley hitting the waves with their expensive boards. "I think maybe we've been a little too nice to them," he said. "Yeah,  just a little too nice."

Audible sample of Jon Bailiff's "Wheels of Justice" (read by the author) can be found HERE.






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