the lennox gromfest, and lunch.
Can we have a word here .. ?
Contests are admirable inventions, particularly for the youth. Imagine ten youngsters running for the line, flat out, and only distinguished by their colours. The Reds, Blues, Greens and Pinks.
That of course was in about 1959 when everybody’s shaved head looked the same, now we have had the Rusty Gromfest at Lennox Head, they too are showing signs of wanting to abandon the sinking ship.
This was an annual event. Lotta hair. Two tents, some old pro bunting – a large sound delivery system, and a couple of the world’s worst callers on air all day. These two boys get very excited when some kid in a coloured singlet catches a wave. Very LOUD.
Dave and Chris. That’ll do them for names, dave and chris; I feel I know them intimately after hearing them get excited all through lunch. Lunch on the verandah of the local pub, the verandah that overlooks the beach, overlooks the tents.
Today the menu is snapper pie with bug-tails and king prawns in bechamel source, or lobster money*, perhaps seared salmon on kikyu grass with nettled ‘jus. First grade tucker. Wine by the bucket. A tranquil lunch by the Pacific, overlooking the beach – which is 7 miles long by the way. Seven miles ..!
Yet they are here, dave and chris and their festival of surf, both howling into their microphones with unrestrained hysteria as some half-formed child zombies his board up to the lip of a wave all gone to flop – these kids are good, well they’re ok – some of them. Maybe the winner.
– meanwhile these two blokes are behaving like someone watching whales mating – which we admit is a big event and one hard to book ahead – or like this.
Imagine the coliseum, Rome, that was a competition where everybody lost – and the tiger has just taken the martyr’s head between it’s jaws and given it a savage and tearing shake – and you lift two idiots out of that howling crowd and put them into the tent at Lennox..
Imagine that.
They also play music.
All day. Loud music.
Why does anybody continue to play loud music when no-one’s dancing ..?
Of course the sound system itself is a hand-down from the Tavarua competition ten years ago, the comp when the judges stand got creamed by a set wave and all the kit took a swim in the lagoon. Well they fixed the electrics up and here it all is, fuzzing in and out of range and volume like a dead man’s karaoke party. Justin Beiber sounds like Ray Charles on those amps, how’s that for background. No wonder so many kids lost their heats. They should blame dave and chris, they brought their own collection of Top 1,000 Hits to the event.
Is there no criteria for choosing who holds the mike? What guy has the job of scheduling NiggaGangsta rap for a bunch of kids out surfing at 9.am – while I’m eating lunch.
* I like it without the r
header pic by dylan o’donnell 2010
petebowes.com 
I’m told that Croyde Surf Club perform in front of a string quartet but they will insist on playing some of the Fab Fours ditties. Standards have slipped.