Endless Session Day 315: I Just Call Him Mike
Mike Frank, doing the Mike Frank. Photo by David Olive
At places I frequent, I always have a favorite local surfer — a character that illustrates stoke in and out of the water and carves their lines with passion, zest, and flow. At Malibu it’s Ben Thompson. Hermosa is undoubtedly the guru himself, Frank Paine. Ventura? Mermaid goddess Taylor Nelson. At Doheny, my fab friend Mike Frank takes the salty cake.
I’ve never, ever in my life witnessed a more expressive surfer — there’s no one I’ve seen do even once what Frank seems to do on every long wave. Unconcerned with showing off and for pure boundless love of the ocean, he’ll turn and face the wave, stand on one foot, do a powerful drop knee turn, walk up to the nose and curl all 10 toes over while one hand is up and one is on his hip. He’ll then switch stance and maybe just sit down on the board if he feels like it, staring through the wave next to him, or maybe he’s looking down at his always-colored toenails with painted pawprints, representative of his fierce love of animals and keeping dogs out of shelters.
Photo by David Olive
Boris calls him the Fred Astaire of surfing. Some people call him the shark, with a slight bite in the water when the safety of others, especially his friends, is compromised by inattentive or careless boardriders. I’ve always known him as kind and a badass surfer, so I just call him Mike, because I’ve never seen anything or anyone like him.
Photo by David Olive
With the huge filling south swell, the water was teeming with hungry frothers. I arrived around 7, only having been home from Santa Cruz to sleep for 5 hours before my trip to Doheny. I’ve been staying with others and living out of a backpack for a week, and I really don’t mind it. Even could get used to it.
From 7 until 3, I surfed, only pausing for refuels with coffee and kettle corn. On the beach I said goodbye to Mike with a big hug, and watched as he toted his big green log to his custom army painted van chock full of his handcrafted skateboards and synthetic grass lining the floor (he gave me some for my subie as floormats – feels soooo good on your feet). By 3:30, feeling sticky from the salt and sweat and face quite chapped from the beating sun and sharp wind, I gave up. I don’t know if I left anything in me for tomorrow, and it’s supposed to be even bigger.
The last one in on the knees, because after 6 hours sometimes your legs don’t work. Photo by David Olive