SUNDAY JOINT, 7-28-2024: MOONSHOTS FOR EVERYONE!

Hey All,

Probably the first thing I did on my first day at SURFER, January 1985, the new junior associate editor, was plug in my pea-green IBM Selectric II, power up, hit the "return" key a few times and whisper, "Tick-tock, Jarratt—here I come." Six months later I got a Leading Edge word processor, a year after that I traded up to a Mac SE, and that was it, Team Apple all the way, and never a problem with any of the, I'll take a guess here, 15 or so Macs I've owned . . . right up until two weeks ago. That's when I noticed a few tightly clustered vertical lines, mostly red, on the right side of the screen. The fan was running more often than usual, too, and last weekend I could not export from Lightroom to desktop. A more responsible surf-history nonprofit CEO would have at that point booked a slot at the Genius Bar. I am not that CEO. I kept working, noticed a few more red lines, looked away, let it ride—and on Tuesday things went dark.

Black Screen of Death.

I want to blame CrowdStrike—except these fingers do not and never have danced with Microsoft OS. No, this one's on me. (Apple never even crossed my mind in terms of blame; that's how Mac-pilled I am after 35 years.) Anyway, the machine did not fully brick. Power up and it still chimes, like an old friend calling from the other room. But no screen action, even with an external monitor, and I'll finish this dog-ate-my-homework excuse by saying I'm out $4,000 for the new ride, but it has not arrived yet, and I'm tapping this out on a sticky-keyed laptop I shelved eight years ago, with the password reminder being "dead cat," which thank God was enough to get me logged in; my memory, like my newly departed computer, is not exporting like it used to. (Sorry, hackers: "dead cat" is not Miki Dora, try again.)

Today's Joint was going to be a tight 1,000 words on Hawaii's Michael Ho, a surfer mostly recognized for his titanium-grade durability but who has also cloaked himself in mystery—a rare and attractive quality in our tell-all hyper-exposed age. If my new Mac arrives in time and I can scrape my files, libraries, apps, folders and whatnot from the old hard drive, or figure out what cloud my backup is on, I will deliver that Joint next Sunday.

Meanwhile, let us all raise our rubber chickens in salute to Ned Eckert, better known as JJ Moon, the man at the center of the world's best, or at least longest-running, surf gag. Eckert was a keg-shaped Orange County high school football coach and weekend surfer with a broad "What, Me Worry?" face and a throw-rug of hair across his chest and shoulders. Miki Dora, Corky Carroll, Joey Cabell, and Mickey Muñoz were all on friendly terms with Eckert—he was sharp, funny, and friendly; a guy you'd beeline for when you walked into the bar—and as a kind of performance art prank it was decided that they would make him over into a surf media personality. The premise was simple. A chunky gap-toothed guy in nylon competition-striped trunks proclaims himself to be the world's best surfer (so good he could hang eleven) and the actual best surfers all go along with it.

This was early 1965. The joke got traction. SURFER interviewed Moon, Surfing gave him a regular column, and in the summer of 1966 Life jumped onboard with a profile titled "Is JJ Moon Really King of the Surf?" Amazingly, Eckert and his well-placed friends kept the gag rolling for three years. In fact, Moon was still getting SURFER Poll write-in votes all the way into the 1990s.

What makes the joke even better is that Eckert was in fact a superb athlete who led the Chapman Panthers basketball team to the NCAA Division II finals in 1960, and set a made-free throws record that year (114) that stands to this day. So he looked like Alfred E. Neuman, played like Bob Cousy, and partied like Dean Martin. Not to spoil the joke here, but this seems like the right time to mention that while JJ Moon was a buffoon in the water (below, top), Ned Eckert—not surprisingly, given who he surfed with—rode very well (below, bottom).

Eckert died last month, at age 87. There used to be a bar in Newport Beach where you could order a "JJ Moonshot" cocktail, and it is the biggest Hail Mary I've ever thrown here, but does anybody remember how to make it?

RIP, Ned, and thanks for the laughs.

Matt

PS: Hello, beautiful. Arrived just after lunch today. Gold medal for UPS expedited shipping!

[Miki Dora photo by LeRoy Grannis. Moon wipeout photo by Ron Stoner]