Community Corner
Corky Smith's Last Paddleout Was @ Brooks Street, Noon On June 1, 2024
Corky's Final Trip To The Outside Reef Followed By A Celebration of Life At The Dirty Bird (Photos Courtesy Of Tracy Sizemore Photography)
Bruddah Corky Paddles Out For One Last ALOHA
"We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it ." Charles Bukowski
This is the 5th and concluding column dedicated to my 52-year friend who passed away on January 21, 2024. A well-attended paddleout allowed our Laguna Beach Tribe, his "Ohana," some time to acknowledge and honor his significance to our local culture, let his family feel the love.
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This is the way our Ohana (family) bury our kahunas, our exalted leaders and legendary icons, our heroes. He was all that and more to us. As John Lennon wrote in "Tomorrow Never Knows," he "surrendered to the Void and played the game of Existence to the end..... of the beginning, of the beginning......"
Kahunas aren't born that way, they're not "totally bogus, wannabe poseurs," they have to earn that lofty sobriquet. The Tribe's vox populi decides who is crowned, who merits that place in the sun, pretenders disallowed.
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Much mahalos to all of our watermen and waterwomen who were able to attend in person or wrote to me, expressed their sorrow but couldn't be there, asked to be kept apprised as to "if & when" I wrote this final good-bye as I promised our community.
It says a lot about a man when so many showed props and gratitude for having shared part of their journey with him, a lot found the time out of their own lives to participate or observe his final paddleout.
Must be 20 years ago since I wrote a column I titled "Two Tribes." He loved it. Basically, I divided Laguna into the "above PCH" and "below PCH" crowds, into 2 decidedly different, distinct social entities.
The ones "above" never even dip their toes into the Pacific, you could run a holograph of it outside their ocean view windows for all they care. All they care about is if their property values continue to trend up.
Those of us "below," well, we immerse ourselves in the ocean, returning in baptism, called at a molecular level to migrate into the place from whence we emerged as a life form as often as we can. Egalitarian, all are equal, all welcome as One: As long as beach etiquette and the infamous "Surfer's Code" (Thank you Saun Thompson) is followed.
With both of his sons Erik and Kurt there, it was Erik who spread his father's ashes out in the place he felt most at home, that favorite reef, and led the prayer circle. Not sure if he got choked up emotionally, I certainly did in January of 1981, but then too I was the only family member or friend on a boatful of strangers back when.
It did feel odd, I couldn't help but reflect on this quinessentially German man, my personal memories of him----a man of few words but who passed along his ethics, his core values via his actions and his deeds that spoke volumes.
Yes, over 40 years ago I spread my own father's ashes (Hermann Fritz Bütow) out in the Catalina Channel. He was an immigrant, a tugboat captain and veteran ocean swimmer, born a coastal boy fighting those strong, cold South Atlantic currents in Swakopmund, then colonial German South-West Africa (now Namibia).
He taught me and my 3 half-brothers how to body surf when we were very very young groms (5 or 6)...much to my Mom's chagrin and alarm I should add.
We got "indoctrinated about the capriciousness of the sea, ordained in trial by fire," mostly at "R.A.T. Beach" (Right After Torrance---Redondo Beach), where my Dad's love of Nature shined. Those experiences 70 years ago were deeply imprinted, imbued us with an appreciation and respect for the capricious sea's powerful embrace.
I hope that Erik found joy and had positive, prayerful meditation out there with his dad's bros and peers, for ours are not sullen, depressing ceremonies but celebrations. Did he go through his memory banks, look around himself while bobbing, ponder who or what his father was to this Laguna Tribe?
As readers can tell, my father is the hero of my story, my mentor. I'll never be half the man that he was. I was always somewhat awestruck by his life's accomplishments, that's what ran through my head that day.
Note: I created a slideshow, a greatly reduced, captioned mini-version of Tracy Sizemore's most excellent visual archive of the venue. Mine is at the top of this column in case you missed it.
It's only a sample, hope I identified and spelled everybody's name correctly? Kudos also to Tracy who was gracious enough to help me on a few names, some I hadn't set eyes on in years.
For the whole enchilada taken that day by him , here's the linkage, note the arrow in the upper right hand corner for advanced browsing:
https://lightroom.adobe.com/shares/5a683a35c017439190dbb89a0c449d72
I've also included at the bottom of this posting the 4 previous columns I wrote as a courtesy. If you didn't read them already, I placed them in chronological order, as published (both online and in printed editions).
They're my humble homage, my contribution to his immediate and extended family, as long as someone remembers his name and the internet lives, he will too.
Anyone who actually knew him must have realized that he was a very complex man, meant, represented and communicated different things to each of us---so I'm not going to boast and claim that it's my duty to culminate, to tally or add up the elements of his life and editorialize.
To paraphrase Aristotle, his life was a sum that was greater than its parts. He was old school unique, I'll just leave it at that. I still haven't fully accepted his passing.
Every Friday, I try to go to the Clean Water Now box at the post office downtown, I expect to run into larger-than-life him, catch up. The two of us, grumpy old men sitting in his Hummer, wondering wtf happened to the Laguna that we knew.
He loved Laguna fiercely, with a devotion few ever feel for a time, a place, with funky So Cal surf character newbies have no clue about......I know he loved Tom Morey's ukulele playing at Oak as did I and many others down there for sunsets.
And I would be remiss if I didn't single out 2 attendees, superlative Next Gen artists in their own right: Sean Hunter Brown and Casey Parlette. I met them a long, long time ago, and having morphed into their second careers, are deservedly excelling.
Water brothers from a different Mother, both "grok in fullness" and are able to articulate, i.e., explain their respective media and passions to paleolithic, petroglyphic, knuckle-dragging doodlers like myself!
If memory serves, Sean was a landscape designer specializing as a consulting native arborist, Casey a LB lifeguard who majored in Anthropology at UCLA. Both are now at the Festival of The Arts----Sean captures the vibe of ocean environs (above and below the waterline) in his incredibly visionary, stunning photographic pieces that are sensual, that bypass your brain, that you literally FEEL.
Casey's multi-media wildlife sculptures are in wood, metal and stone, or a combo thereof---a lot from"found or scrap material," and are truly quintessential Laguna. No small irony that he and his wife Gina (also a LB Lifeguard I knew in her former incarnation) named their son Brooks, maybe as in the world famous surf spot? Oh, and their younger son's name is Koa, as in koa wood.
By Casey's video, "Sea to Sculpt," it looks like as my German father did for me, he is providing his son a sacred reverence, instilling a holy sense of purpose and spiritual significance regarding marine ecosystems, including the conservation of pinnacle/apex predators like sharks. https://caseyparlette.com/
Also staunchly committed to habitat protection and conservation, "Liquid Laguna Sean" IMO, is the "Yoda Of The Green Room." https://www.instagram.com/liquidlaguna/?hl=en
Here's an insightful interview with him from when he was at the Sawdust circa 2012, and unless I'm mistaken, both men are self-taught regarding their respective media? https://watch.pbsreno.org/video/real-orange-waves-through-lens-surfer/
If you get a chance, check out their work at the FOA this summer, I certainly intend to.
Perhaps it's fitting that I leave you with a reminder about Corky's second most favorite place, the Hawaiian Islands, and of course who else but Bruddah Iz's seamless, coupling renditions of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and "What A Wonderful Life?"
I've included a link to an interview he once gave about his music, how he felt about the ocean, his land and his own mortality he revealed in interviews which I'm sure resonated with Corky.
Tap the internet link below his picture and then you'll be taken home by Bruddah (Da Buddha) Israel
To Learn More About Brudda Iz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bACmCagxzV8
My Previous Columns In Chronological Order:
