SUNDAY JOINT, 3-15-2020: DAVE PARMENTER, CLINT EASTWOOD, FREE EOS SUBSCRIPTIONS

Hey All,

Yesterday’s COVID-related EOS post begins like this: “Let’s take the positive view and say that humans will not only survive another hundred years but that our future selves will have enough food, shelter and free time to continue sifting our collective historical past, and that one of these sifters will develop an interest in surfing.”

And somehow ends up here:

I will continue to pull frivolity from our viral pandemic, in keeping with a whistle-past-the-graveyard response that, surprise surprise, is already the default setting for surfers and meme-creators alike. On the other hand, there is no whistling away the fact that COVID-19 has literally hit home in Seattle. All public schools here closed last week, meaning that in addition to being CEO of the world’s leading nonprofit surf history and cultural preservation website, I’m now a full-time stay-at-home Dad. Expect more typos and misplaced, commas, in other words.

In exchange for you guys cutting me some slack, I make this offer: if anybody out there in EOS-land takes enough of a hit during the impending economic plunge that your subscription becomes a burden, let me know and I’ll pick up the cost until things get better. Social distancing means we are all going to have more time alone with our computers and phones. Between refreshing CNN Live Updates and watching our stock portfolios contract like a hot panful of Shrinky Dinks, we might as well kill time together on EOS. So hit me up. You guys rallied and kept EOS going when we were on the brink. I’m glad to carry anyone who needs it from now till vaccine day.

And if there is no vaccine and the shit really goes south, track down Dave Parmenter. Dave, like me, is coming up hard on 60, but he is rugged and resourceful and cult-worthy, and you want to be in his tribe during the New Dark Ages, even if it means pretending you admire—nay, worship—Clint Eastwood and Indiana Jones. But don’t take my word for it. Click here for a Nick Carroll rhapsody on Parmenter’s abiding lone-wolf appeal. Better yet, click here for a good long first-person drought from Dave’s own laptop, about his trip to Christmas Island with Yvon Chouinard and Rell Sunn. (And for a quick reminder that novel coronavirus isn’t even in the Top 10 of all-time global scares, click here to see what the Christmas Island experience was like during the Cold War.) Finally, while the footage in this new clip of Dave only hints at how good of a surfer he is, it does pair nicely with Ennio Morricone.

Thanks for reading, everybody. And to go out on a high note, remember that surfing, in these tense and unsettled times, is practically a life-saving act. Barring some kind of open-mouth collision with another surfer, riding waves is the safest thing this side of trail running through the Falklands. In other words, we just became half as selfish and twice as righteous.

Matt

PS: Thanks to Lance Slabbert and Matt George for the pix. The incredible O’Neill factory cartoon is by Jim Phillips.