perfidy

"Yes, You Can Surf In Cleveland", I was informed in an article from today's New York Times, forwarded by my friend Bill.

In December, as temperatures dip into the 20s, Cleveland surfers have Lake Erie almost entirely to themselves.

No shit? ([wik] technically, not an appropriate exclamation on my part - see below)

I didn't initially know how to take this article - it could have come out of the Onion, for crying out loud. The only difference, of course, is that, emanating from the NY Times, it's all true.

“Surfing Lake Erie is basically disgusting,” said Bill Weeber, known as Mongo, 44.

Almost everything in Lake Erie is basically disgusting, but it's all made palatable by the fact that today's Lake Erie is like bottled water compared to what it used to be. Also, I wonder if Mr. Weeber got his nickname from Mongo the Retard, in Blazing Saddles, but that's really a side issue.

“I was so excited I could barely sleep last night,” said Mr. Ditzenberger, 35, who quit his job as a lawyer in August to spend more time surfing and to film a documentary about Cleveland’s surf community.

Being a lawyer must really suck, if one could quit doing it in favor of filming a documentary about Cleveland surfing. Or "Cleveland's surf community", whatever the hell that is.

To reach the lake, surfers drag their boards across snowdrifts and beaches littered with used condoms and syringes, Mr. Ditzenberger said. The most popular surf spot is Edgewater State Park. It is nicknamed Sewer Pipe because, after heavy rains, a nearby water treatment plant regularly discharges untreated waste into Lake Erie.

Used condoms and syringes? That's the Cleveland beachfront I remember. Intentionally surfing through untreated sewage? Even the couple of mildly moronic Clevelanders with whom I went to college weren't that goofy. And the many more normal Clevelanders of my acquaintance would think this story's focus as silly as I do.

“Everybody surfs in California, which waters down the experience,” said Mr. Rooney, who grew up surfing in Orange County, Calif., before moving to Cleveland three years ago to work in his family’s real estate business. “Being here takes me back to that feeling of discovery that the founding fathers of surfing experienced.”

Yeah, dude, surfing in Orange County, I'd bet it was really hard to find bowling-ball sized ice chunks, condoms, syringes, poo, and pee to surf through.

The founding fathers of surfing would be so proud.

Oh, and in case you can't make yourself click on the NYT link, because you don't want to register at the site, here's the picture that accompanied the article:

To their credit, they do look like surfing ninjas. And no syringes, condoms, or bodily waste appears to have gotten stuck to them, at least not at the time the picture was taken.

[wik] Someone needs to contact the guys who do those Bud Light "Real Men of Genius" radio spots, eh?