Let's leave room for debate, the but the rise and fall of Dr. Gary Fairmont R. Filosa II is my pick for surf history's all-time weirdest episode. On the surface, Filosa, originally from Vermont and very much a nonsurfer, was a competition organizer and Olympics proponent. What he really wanted, through, was to be the gatekeeper for all of organized surfing, and to that end he would lie, wheedle, and threaten, and do so with great determination and ingenuity—for much of the late '70s, Filosa had the American surfing establishment tied up in knots. You can read his EOS page 

, and yes what Filosa did to surfing in the '70s is a salty microscopic version of what Donald Trump is doing to America in the '10s, and again yes that says more about surfing and America than it does about Filosa and Trump.

The Surfer's Almanac, released in 1977, was a further attempt by Filosa, then 46, to position himself as surfing's one great authority. It is an amazing and singular volume, not just as a surfing artifact, but for any work purporting to be overarching and definitive. (The book's back cover says it is "the only international guide to surfing . . . an indispensable reference for surfing enthusiasts.") On one hand, Almanac is even-toned and confident in its voice, and logically organized with chapters on surf history, equipment, learn-to-surf basics, safety, surf breaks, and a glossary. Much of the material, furthermore, is sourced from reputable writers. But Filosa regularly, and without breaking stride, pulls facts and names and events right out of thin air. SURFER magazine, reviewing Almanac, called it a "cornucopia of misinformation and inaccuracies," and I recently paged through the book to refresh my memory as to just how weird it got. Working from the front of the book, with page numbers in parenthesis, here are some examples:

(12) "The most difficult maneuver in surfing today, the three-dimensional 360-degree turn, was surely performed by ancient surfers of the Kingdom of Hawaii."

(67) "Fort Point, San Francisco Bay, is polluted and infested with roving Navy gunboats equipped to sink surfers, so be cautious."

(77) "Rincon del Mar breaks year-round, and there are three ridable points: Rincon Uno, Rincon Dos, and Rincon Tres. 

 is the most crowded, [with] machine-like perfect waves. 

 is a reef .33 miles offshore, working only when the swells are 15 feet or better.”

(81-82) "There are three points to surf at Malibu. Simmons Point, named for the inventor of the modern 

 surfboard, [where] even small waves can give good rides. At Velzy Point, the waves are bigger, faster, hollower, but shorter. Surfriders Point has right slides so fast off the northernmost point that they are ridden only rarely."

(83) "Venice Beach, a sport where the rich and the kooks are battling for supremacy, has no ridable surf and is strictly a swimming beach."

(87) "The American Surfing Association has asked Governor [Jerry] Brown of California to designate the area extending from Bolsa Chica to Huntington Beach Pier as the Duke Kahanamoku State Surfing Beach. Presently called by surfers Kahanamoku Kliffs, it provides easy peaks 50 to 75 yards offshore."

(93) "The outer reef north of San Clemente Pier is The Duke."

(94) "The landform upon which the waves break [at Lower Trestles] is Freeth Point."

(94) "There are three different kinds of surf at San Onofre: 

, named for Dr. Barney Wilkes, first president of the San Onofre Surf Club; Miller Insides, named for Dutch Miller, chief of lifeguards in the city of Long Beach; and Duke Point."

(98) "Because of its many isolated areas, there is some nude surfing and sunbathing in Torrey Pines Beach State Park, but the southernmost tip of the Park, known as Blacks Beach, is the only legally sanctioned nude beach in all of the 50 states. The lifeguards at Blacks are not nude, and they watch surfers; but Blacks is not a place to surf alone, not only because of the waves but because of the heavy gay scene—both male and female—so go with surfing buddies or not at all."

(119) "Ten years ago [1967], the North Shore of Oahu was seldom used; only Robert Simmons surfed there."

(145) "Angourie carries more juice than the waves at Crescent Head. Most Aussies ignore it because of the difficult access."

(177) "There is a movement within the American Surfing Association to separate surfing competitions into two events: functional surfing and freestyle surfing: the former is a presentation of the classic movements in surfing; the later, a gymnastic exhibition using a Simmons board."

All terms and phrases below are from "The Surfer's International Lexicon," found at the back of The Surfer's Almanac.

 a perfectly symmetrical surfboard with a slightly pointed tip at each end, so that a skeg can be attached at either end without changing ridability

 riding on the nose of the board with one foot and both arms stretched forward (French)

 an okay object or situation, but nothing special

 a board designed for traveling in one direction

WHEN THE WEIRD TURN PRO: READINGS FROM "THE SURFER'S ALMANAC," BY GARY FILOSA

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