KOOK LOVE

An essay from the late, Bruce Stephens

There he was, right beside the Coast Highway. The Cardiff Kook was bedecked for Easter with a rough cross held in place with hair ties and a crown of thorns fashioned from Bougainvillea. I’m not talking about a particular homeless person or an eccentric artist. I am of course talking about the bronze statue of a young surfer that stands atop a stone base at the intersection of Highway 101 and Chesterfield. The statue, installed a couple of summers ago, is titled “Magic Carpet Ride” and has earned the derision of surfers since the day it was unveiled. Almost immediately it became known as “the Kook”, and almost immediately, was adorned with a creative mix of clothing.

I must say that when word got around about a statue of a surfer going up, the local surf community was abuzz. There were surf statues in Santa Cruz and Huntington Beach, and we all thought how cool it would be to have our own. Thus the profound puzzlement and disappointment when the Kook was unveiled was no surprise. We thought we had been disrespected, or at least punked.

You see, I have a special relationship with the Cardiff Kook. Being known as a surf poet, I was asked to recite a poem at the unveiling, and I was excited and honored. That is, until a friend emailed be a link to the Leucadia Blog that had a picture of the statue. Ouch. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be seen, much less heard, in front of such a thing. But I kept my word and swallowed my pride and (somewhat halfheartedly) stood and delivered. I wanted to celebrate the arts and surf culture, to revel in community spirit and pride. Instead I slunk away.

So you see why I cannot help but ponder the Kook. In fact, I have invested considerable time cogitating on this particular hunk of bronze, much to the dismay (and yawns) of some associates. And maybe you have seen the bumper stickers demanding “Remove the Kook!”

But what is a kook, I ask you, but a nascent surfer? Which mean even the best surfer was once a kook, once passed through the hopeful, budding stage of “kookness”. So when other statues depict surfers at their most athletic and graceful, ours depicts a beginner at his first stumbling turn, which is in and of itself a powerful moment in the life of a surfer. Once I had cleared this up in my mind, and once I saw how creatively some in the community surreptitiously adorned him, I began to embrace the idea of the Kook.

I have always had soft spot in my heart for interactive, mutable art: song, dance, poetry, etc.; especially that which is temporary and contemporary. A statue by nature is static, “cast in stone” so to speak. So when I see the Kook dressed and otherwise adorned, it seems to make a transition from a fixed art form to something much more alive. The adorned Kook is folk art, really, and shows a certain vitality of the community. A number of times over the last couple of years my day has been brightened by seeing the Kook with a new costume or seasonally appropriate hat. This does the first job of art – to bring joy or insight to the beholder.

So like the old saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. We are, at least for the time being, stuck with the Kook. So I say let’s embrace him, this embryonic surfer. Let’s decorate him for every occasion. Let us revel in his goofy grin, for he is a kook, our kook, the one and only Cardiff Kook. Don’t you feel better now?