Neil Young & The Surfer

[Nushra MohamedKhan]

So, before the government shut down our Rabbit Eared Idiot Box we
would catch an hour or  two of programs on the Tube each week. We
caught this program on American Masters PBS.

The early years stuff was interesting and the Manson stuff a bit
strange, as Neil looks, at times, as mad as Charlie.

As a surfer it's abit odd that I never gave much of a listen to surf
music. And, the surf culture of California always did seem strange to
us Easterners; all that Elvis and Brady Bunch Mad Mad Mad World under
the Big W just seemed un-cool and fake. Surf culture was, and I think
it still is to a certain extent, a cowboy culture, a man alone at sea.
What surfers share is a certain calm and cool that boarders on the
religious, unspoken for the most part.

Neil Young
Don't Be Denied

A resolutely private artist who seldom looks back, Neil Young has
never before unfolded his career on camera. With unprecedented access
to one of the world’s renowned music legends, American Masters
presents Neil Young: Don’t Be Denied--the film explores how Young’s
unbending dedication to the muse has created an awe-inspiring body of
work and bruised a few egos along the way.


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/neil-young/dont-be-denied/1152/

A Poem by Judith Wright

The Surfer

He thrust his joy against the weight of the sea;
climbed through, slid under those long banks of
foam—-
(hawthorn hedges in spring, thorns in the face stinging).
How his brown strength drove through the hollow and coil
of green-through weirs of water!
Muscle of arm thrust down long muscle of water;
and swimming so, went out of sight
where mortal, masterful, frail, the gulls went wheeling
in air as he in water, with delight.

Turn home, the sun goes down; swimmer, turn home.
Last leaf of gold vanishes from the sea-curve.
Take the big roller’s shoulder, speed and serve;
come to the long beach home like a gull diving.

For on the sand the grey-wolf sea lies, snarling,
cold twilight wind splits the waves’ hair and shows
the bones they worry in their wolf-teeth. O, wind blows
and sea crouches on sand, fawning and mouthing;
drops there and snatches again, drops and again snatches
its broken toys, its whitened pebbles and shells.