Photo: Ryan & Dan

 

In This Issue

That’s it. I’ve had it. 

I'm gonna do whatever I have to do, sell whatever I have to sell, and I’m getting that friggin’ Lasik surgery. My long-impaired vision has finally degenerated to the point of becoming a dreadful liability. Never mind the Class A-Corrective Lenses restriction on my driver’s license. Never mind the ogre I almost let take me home from the bar a few weeks ago. No, my nearsightedness is hindering me in the worst way possible: It’s hurting my surfing.

Let me explain: This January, while on vacation visiting friends and family in North Carolina, I was having a go at a rather brutal north swell in Rodanthe. All the regulars were out — salty Outer Banks tubesmiths, hot VB pros... hell, even local photog Mickey “2M” McCarthy was posted up on the dune, snapping away at the carnage. Now these were the kind of waves I frothed over as a kid — thick, brown, spitting lefts. And I was getting handled like a Polish sausage during the 4:00 am shift at Denny’s. It probably didn’t help being stuck with a 5-mil wetsuit instead of the recommended 4/3. (To which Brad Harrell asked, “Hey Pruett, why are you wearing three 3/2’s?”) And the 5’8” stumpy-butt squashtail I attempted to sideslip into these freakishly square barrels wasn’t doing me much better. (To which my buddy Ryan Rhodes, a bodyboarder, kicked his flippers past me ribbing a Beavis And Butthead laugh: “Heh heh, you look stupid.”) He was right. Airdrop after airdrop, splaying after splaying, cartwheel after cartwheel, I was a complete non-factor in the lineup. To make matters worse, each time I surfaced from another wipeout, the eternally cheery 2M gave me a thumbs-up from the beach. Yeah, did ya get that, Mick?

Sure, it was freezing. Of course, I was undergunned and overdressed. And yeah, maybe one out of 100 waves were makeable that day. But none of those factors did I choose as my ultimate rationalization. It was myopia, pure and simple. That’s what lies at the root of all that’s wrong in my surfing life. Right? I mean, how many times have I heard Ben Bourgeois say how much better he surfs after getting the Lasik zap? How he can see so much further down the line. How he’s no longer blowing sections. Realizing this, I came back to Florida with the same shitty vision, but a fresh perspective. I also returned to something cooler than the 43-degree water in Rodanthe: Ryan Clapper and Dan Putnam, ESM’s new Art Directors. 

In the seven years I’ve been here, I’ve seen a lot of employees walk through the doors of Eastern Surf Magazine. Some ruled. Others, not so much. But as soon as Ryan and Dan settled into the back office of the Art Department, it was as if the AC unit suddenly pumped a refreshing air of levity into each of the rooms at 321 Ocean Avenue. This collection of pages you hold in your hands is the first issue Ryan and Dan have helped make. It not only signals their official inauguration as magazine designers, but the ignition of a bold new direction for the publication itself. I can say that, because over the last few weeks, I’ve picked up on a few things.

For one thing, they’re talented. They wouldn’t have been hired if they weren’t. Not only was management impressed with their resumes and design samples, but also with the fact that Dan and Ryan are the visionaries behind Gulfster.com — the most comprehensive and popular surfing website serving Florida’s Gulf Coast and Panhandle, which the duo have maintained since 2002. Just as important as photos and words are to ESM’s success, a captivating layout design is also imperative. As a writing colleague once pointed out to me: “Your words don’t matter one bit if the mag doesn’t look good enough to pick up.”

They’re fun, too. At their first (working) Surf Expo this January, by day Ryan and Dan were affable, approachable, and eager to please. By night they were bonding with the staff, knocking back beers, and pulling chicks. Plus, they’re surfers. You might think that doesn’t have much to do with the job, but it does. When you’re producing anything for a certain sect of people, and you happen to also be one of those people, it shows in your work. The results are almost always a mere byproduct of one’s passion. Being Gulf spawn required to relocate to Florida’s east coast, well, Ryan and Dan act like they’ve hit the mother lode every time they take the three-minute walk from the office to the beach. Any chance they get, they’re checking the cams on Surfguru.com or 2ndlight.com, wondering when the next swell’s gonna march up to Brevard’s beaches. Hopeful. Optimistic. Stoked.

But the kicker, the real reason we’re all so thrilled to have Ryan and Dan on the team, is the fact that they work hard. While the rest of the ESM staff was on vacation (around the same time I was getting rolled like a stromboli in Rodanthe), these dudes were busting their asses. Mocking up five, six, seven stellar versions of potential future covershots. Getting our server dialed. Tailoring and upgrading existing programs. Installing their own work flow. Laying the groundwork for everything you see here. And despite any illusions you might have about what we do, make no mistake — this can be very difficult, very tedious work. We don’t have a bunch of fancy-pants copy editors or I.T. support here. We’re basically ten people. So once it came time for Ryan and Dan to “en-Gulf” themselves in the deadline process, they simply put their big boy pants on, listened, learned, and responded. In fact, they weren’t just prepared for the pressure — they thrived on it. Through all the hours of corrupt files, computer bugs, and other unforeseen circumstances that tend to rear an ugly head at rather inopportune moments — in this case, the first round of editorial corrections, always the bitch of the bunch — Ryan and Dan closed the book. In fact, as I write this, Dan’s grinning like a little Hermes, talking about how he’s actually looking forward to the press run tomorrow.

With all the image and information-exchanging, research-gathering, and story-relaying that goes on in-house — sometimes working at a surf magazine is a lot like planning a big party that you don’t even get to go to. Having Dan Putnam and Ryan Clapper in here makes these office walls seem less obtrusive, less restricting. They make it seem like there is no party to plan for. This is the party.

I won’t even attempt to go into what they bring to the table technically, because frankly, I’m not all that bright. But I know a good thing when I see it. Even without the Lasik. 

By Matt Pruett