The Adventures of Surfer-Dude

Posted on March 25, 2014 by Robert Ringer

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So many wannabes manage to grab their fifteen minutes of fame, only to quickly (and mercifully) disappear from the public eye.  But not so with San Diego Surfer-Dude (real name Jason Greenslate) who, thanks to the desperate-for-content news media, seems determined to stay in the public eye for as long as the welfare state is willing to support his lifestyle.

To his delight, a number of reporters and news anchors have covered the adventures of Surfer-Dude over the past year or so in an apparent effort to stir up thoughts of euthanasia amongst those who still believe in the quaint notion of working for a living.  The media seems to be enamored by a beach bum who brags about buying lobster and sushi with his food stamp allotment.  I guess they believe it proves that redistribution-of-wealth policies do, in fact, work quite well for those on the receiving end of things.

In a recent episode of Surfer-Dude, The O’Reilly Factor sent all-American boy Jesse Watters to visit with the twenty-nine-year-old unemployed surfer and chat with him about his life and his prospects for the future.

It was quite a contrast in styles — the well-groomed Watters, sporting a clean-cut, short-hair look, and Surfer-Dude, featuring scraggly locks flowing down past his shoulders, cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth, tank-top shirt, black ball cap worn in the classic in-your-face backward position, sunglasses, and a vocabulary you would expect of any surfer-dude worthy of his scruffy image.

Everything Watters asked Surfer-Dude brought forth a river of banal words and phrases such as “chicks,” “booze,” “cool,” “hey, man,” etc.  A paragon of intellectualism he is not.  But Surfer-Dude insists he’s a serious musical artiste and full-fledged member of a cool little band with the heartwarming moniker “Rattlife.”

When Watters asked him how much money he expected to make in his music career, Surfer-Dude responded, “Millions and millions of dollars, man.”  In fact, he thinks it will happen so quickly that he’ll be off food stamps within a month.  His positive mental attitude is enough to send a tingle up Chris Matthews’s leg.

But don’t laugh.  When you consider all the publicity the media has given him and pair that up with the cesspool culture that dominates a large part of American society, it’s not out of the question that Surfer-Dude could join the ranks of so many other crude, untalented, young miscreants who have become rich and famous simply by being outrageous.

I realize that a lot of intelligent, hardworking Americans who bathe regularly get upset when they see vile stuff like this, but do guys like Surfer-Dude really signal the death of Western values?  Short of America’s apathetically allowing itself to slide all the way to communism, I think not.  I believe that quality — in products, music, art, and people — will never be relegated to the trash bin of anachronisms and that hard work, knowledge, and sound morals will always find a way to rise to the top.

Zig Ziglar once made an interesting comment in a talk he invited me to in the late eighties.  He said that in America, a person is free to dye his hair pink, wear an earring in his nose, cover his neck with the most outrageous tattoos imaginable, and inject the F word into every sentence.  “But,” said Zig, “employers are also free not to hire him.”

And that’s the reason I wrote this article.  It’s for those who sometimes second-guess themselves and start wondering if their efforts to be well groomed and conduct themselves in a gracious, civil, professional manner will actually pay off.  The answer is a resounding YES!  Though a surfer-dude type occasionally finds a way to slink in under the “non-music music” door and make it big, it shouldn’t be your concern.

Why?  Because the success or failure of the surfer-dudes of the world has no effect whatsoever on your success.  There’s no denying that raunchy clowns like Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, and Kanye West enjoy a brain dead audience of millions worldwide, but it doesn’t prevent clean-cut, seriously talented young people like David Garrett, Josh Groban, and Il Volo from making it big.

If you haven’t yet been infected by the sloth culture of surfer-dudeism, don’t be intimidated.  Stay your course.  There are millions of us out here who still appreciate high quality — and are willing to pay for it.  

Robert Ringer

Robert Ringer is an American icon whose unique insights into life have helped millions of readers worldwide. He is also the author of two New York Times #1 bestselling books, both of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time.