Johnny Versus the Lake

photo by robby staebler

Last week I was drinking some beers with my dad. It was a great day to be alive in Lakewood, Ohio. He had just gotten back from a medical center in Westlake and I am assuming his physician told him to get drunk immediately. So I'm sipping a very nice local ale when the phone rings. It's Johnny Santosuossa. And I figure he's calling because Kurt and I just filmed a segment where he works, and he wants to make sure we make him look alright. After all, dozens of people will be seeing this movie.

Or, he could just be calling because he puts in way too many hours a week at his restaurant and he is just plain sick. He probably wants to vent or something. Actually filming him at the restaurant was a point of contention at first. He was not down with the idea of being seen at work while he was feeling so negative about it. He's been missing out on a lot of waves this past year and he didn't want to be remembered at the place that was stealing his life from him. But he assured me that this was going to change.

Johnny was amped. Over excited. Aggro. He called to put me on notice that he was back. He said "Ya know Scotty there's this photo contest in TransWorld Mag. F- this stupid lake...I'm going to pull off some kind of sick maneuver on a wave that's amazing...it's gonna put your movie on the map. People will see that pic and when they find out it's in Ohio they'll be floored!"
He really said that.
Oh kay....

Now I can assure you, if this was anyone else saying this I'd be cracking up. But this is Johnny Santosuossa, and I didn't mention that he is by far the best surfer I've ever seen in my entire life. I mean it, he's a freak of nature. A Florida native who can do ridiculous things in the water, even on our smallish waves he can just rip things up. And now he is coming after the lake with a vengeance.

I mean it, he was actually sounding pissed off. He was going to take on the lake.

I promised him somebody would be there to capture whatever it was he was talking about. Either me, Kurt, Jamie, the Coast Guard or whoever would follow him and help win this contest that I'd never heard of. Sure it's crazy, but lets look at this closely.

The lake is 10,000 years old. Johnny is in his 30's. The lake is known to be cold, abusive, moody and prone to sudden violence. Johnny is a nice guy who sometimes hates his restaurant. Lake Erie has thousands of shipwrecks on the record. Johnny sometimes listens to records. The lake is 1.277 x 10^24 gallons. Johnny is a maybe 165 soak and wet. Erie is a Native American word. Santosuossa is Native Italian and difficult to spell. But i digress.

Here's the main thing, Johnny has earned some major league street cred living in Hawaii and surfing some real big waves. In fact, I'll bet that he's surfed waves far bigger than anything our shallow Lake Erie is even mathematically capable of dishing out.

Now you won't catch me bad mouthing the lake. The lake can, has and will again slap me around pretty hard. I'm afraid of it, and I don't want any part of its cold and choppy revenge. Stay tuned. Johnny is aiming to take on the lake this winter, and I don't know about you, but my money is on Johnny.
-Scott


Meet Johnny: Johnny Versus the Lake from Kurt P Vincent on Vimeo.