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MIKE "SIPPY" SIPRUT
Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild
creature that the Lord God had made. – GENESIS
: 3
Snake 1 : a long-bodied limbless crawling reptile
: serpent 2 : a treacherous person 3 : Mike Siprut
– (snaky adj.)
El Porto - 7:10 a.m. September 23, 2000. You could
hear the screaming from a hundred and fifty yards
away. I heard screams like that once when I was
a kid – some guy across the street was beating
the shit out of his wife. I was unfolding my paper
and taking a sip off my coffee when I saw these
waves stacking up on the horizon. Turns out that
a nice southern hemisphere swell, that originated
somewhere near Tahiti, just made landfall the night
before. No one caught the first wave, but when the
second wave approached there was this guy who just
free fell from the top of the wave, made it to the
bottom and turned, when all of a sudden this other
surfer began to free fall down the same wave directly
in front of him. I remember that wave. The guy in
front just drops in fully extended and doesn’t
even look back and sends the other guy tumbling.
The next thing you know the first guy is screaming
at the top of his lungs: “F#@k You! F#@k you
you piece of s%#t! What the do you think your doing!
I’m sick of it!” Silence…….
“What? You want to F#@k around? Come on!!
I’ll kick your ass right now!” Anyway,
that was Johnie…, he was mad because Mike
Siprut snaked him.
I met Mike Siprut when I was thirteen, Mike was
the only kid I knew that had a mustache in the eighth
grade. Mike and I had a common interest at the time
and that was surfing. It turns out there where others
who shared this interest and before long we were
two guys in a pack of groms that spent our days
surfing such spots as Toe’s, Dockweiler and
the beach breaks between Grand, and El Porto.
Mike Siprut, now living in Marina Del Rey, California
and married to a hot blooded latina half his age,
eventually turned into “Sippy”. No one
would have ever guessed that that nice thirteen
year old kid with the mustache would turn into one
of the most aggressive, ruthless, heartless and
self-centered surfers known to man. Owner of multiple
rental properties in the Marina Del Rey area, Sippy,
an industrious, cost conscious man, makes a comfortable
living in the auto sales (buying and selling used
cars) and brokerage business, which at first glance
might not be apparent. You see, Sippy, who at one
time owned five Motorola pagers (that he used simultaneously)
, drives this paint peeling, burgundy colored Dodge
minivan that’s equipped with a black quadriplegic
lift gate. You never see Sippy using the lift gate
but when you ask him about it he responds, “
Bro, this thing’s killer!”
The vehicle isn’t hard to miss; if the surf
is good you will see this merlot colored monolith
parked in the morning darkness at what ever surf
spot is breaking the best. I’ve heard first
hand from experienced surfers that just the sight
of this vehicle, the Sip wagon, perched with all
it’s glory in the amber light of the morning
sun, is enough to take the stoke right out of a
morning dawn patrol. It turns out that because Sippy
surfs goofy it’s the other goofy footer’s
in the area that sink to the deepest low when they
realize it is he, Sippy, that has made it into the
water before they have.
Pound for pound, one hundred and forty to be exact,
Sippy is one of south bay’s best big wave
chargers. Sip developed his surf nads by surfing
such Southern California breaks as Oxnard’s
Silver Strand (North Lot), Point Hueneme, El Porto
and Outside Indicator’s in Palos Verdes. I
remember a seventeen foot day [California scale
(faces)] at Indicator’s when Sip on his 9’0’
got stuck on the inside of a clean up set and tried
to punch the first wave, he took the gas and came
to the surface to find his cherished green rhino
broken clean across the middle.
Tiring of local California surf spots, Sippy decided
to take year long explorations of the southern pacific
coast of mainland Mexico, whereupon he was introduced
to the oceans power of such places as Pasqualies,
Rio Nexpa and the now infamous Puerto Escondido.
It’s my firm belief that it was at this period
in his life that the true serpent living within
the intestines of Michael Siprut began to grow and
swallow up the last remaining comprehension of surf
etiquette left in his head.
So here we are, full circle, three hundred and sixty
degrees and Sippy, taking on the responsibilities
of life, is now content surfing and burning people
on the biggest and best days at the spots right
here in South Bay. I have to admit, I kind of take
a painful pleasure in watching Sippy burn me. When
that perfect second wave of the set comes right
to me and all I have to do is just turn around and
with barely a stroke I’m in the wave and there,
on my left, without even a glance over his shoulder,
dropping in, with his legs spread wide and hands
straight up in the air, is Sippy, like he has done
to me so many times before, burning me. As I watch
him trying to find the power to get in front of
the lip, the lip that only three seconds earlier
was rightfully mine, I can’t help but wonder
what kind of drippy thoughts are going through that
very Sipish mind. Sure, I can scream at him like
a mental patient so the guy drinking coffee up on
the strand can hear me or I can just make the best
of an irritating situation and ride high, wait for
the Sippy cutback and then take back from that eighth
grade kid with the mustache what was mine from the
start.
story by Eric Pemberton & animation by Michael
Durand
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