I was sitting there, reflecting back on how stupid the Four Loko Challenge was. Then I started laughing out loud for a good two seconds before I caught myself, realizing that I probably looked crazy. How could the thought of something so trivial bring me such a hit of pleasure?
Then things got serious. Woah… how many times had I been legitimately stoked while surfing terrible conditions and participating in this absurd challenge? I’m not sure, but enough for me to reconsider how to seek out a good stoke.
Until now, I thought my best bet was to get the best wave possible in perfect conditions. A deep barrel, a clean turn, a wave caught from the outside all the way in – surefire stoke igniters. Have I misunderstood why and how surfing brings me so much pleasure?
Surfing with The Bros
First it was college, then jobs, now wives, kids, and new hobbies (mostly golf – ugh); there’s always some ‘real life’ responsibility or interest competing for my friend’s time; but I still have a few buddies I can rely on for a good grovel session when I’m back in town.
Frank “The Tank” McStevans is almost always down. We’ve been surfing together on and off since childhood and I know I can count on him for a good grovel. He’ll drive 30 minutes across town at 5am if the forecast looks decent. If it looks terrible… he’s still down to paddle out but I may have to meet him half way. And usually one or two buddies from his crew join in so I know at least we’ll have some good banter and a few laughs out in the water even if the waves are bunk.
Frank’s the ringleader of his crew, at least from what I can tell and definitely when it comes to surfing. I credit him with starting the “Four Loko Challenge” but, he’s more of the inspiration for it rather than the instigator behind it.
The rules of the challenge are simple:
- You must land a 360 degree floater.
- It must be provable via valid witness or film.
The reward: The surf buddy you’re with has to pound a Four Loko in the parking lot.
What’s a 360 floater?
It’s a worthless trick just for show – providing no value for staying in the pocket or harnessing the energy of the wave. To accomplish it, you have to start a turn off the lip like a snap, but instead of bringing the board back around and continuing down the wave, you shift your weight toward the nose of the board, release the fins – tail now facing the beach, and spin the opposite direction, back the way you came. When pulled off, it looks like a backwards snap – but because you lose all your speed and are turning away from your momentum, it’s much slower.
Even if you pull it off as gracefully as possible, it’s the end of the wave – so it’s typically reserved for the final closeout section… or, even better – with a bit of speed after a wave closes out, using the whitewater as a ramp.
This trick’s evolution is a bit fuzzy to me, but I think it went something like this:
- There were about six of us out at a beach break – a big crew for us these days – so we were feeding off each other’s energy.
- The waves weren’t special – waste to chest high and consistent enough for there to be plenty of waves amongst us.
- As per usual, there was a running sarcastic commentary about each other’s surfing – exaggerating the ‘buckets of water’ being thrown and takeoffs that were ‘totally blown’.
- Frank’s cousin kept attempting the 360 – where he got the inspiration for it, I still don’t know.
- We all mocked him by trying to land it – the ultimate flex – pull off someone else’s trick before they could.
- Then… Frank’s crew took the spirit of the trick to a whole new level.
What’s a Four Loko?
It was an “alcoholic energy drink” when it debuted in 2005. Its notorious formulation combined alcohol with stimulants like caffeine, taurine, and guarana – basically a cheap version of vodka red bull in a can. It’s dangerous mix led to numerous incidents of blackouts, alcohol poisoning, and even death. Facing widespread bans from states and colleges, and a warning from the FDA, Four Loko was reformulated in 2010 to remove the caffeine and other stimulants, effectively “downgrading” it from its controversial, original version.
They now have a wide variety of flavors, most of which are borderline undrinkable. It’s essentially the last thing anyone wants to drink, let alone chug, but its legendary history still holds some weight – at least as an inside joke for us.
How did this odd drink become featured in Frank’s challenge?
This evolution is a bit clearer: Frank made a simple bet with Marty.
Marty knows how to enjoy life. He’s the kind of guy that breaks out a lounge chair and cracks a cold beer in the parking lot after a session while everyone else is scurrying to get their clothes on and make it to work on time. Seemingly just to prove the point, he’d sometimes pull a beer from the electric cooler he kept in the back of his truck, and crack it as early as 7am after a dawn patrol session.
While Frank is a big fan of beer on weekends, letting loose as good as any of us at concerts and baseball games, during the working week, he’s straight laced. A good kid. Risk averse. While he knows there’s almost no chance that someone at work would find out he had a beer before arriving… or even that they would care at all… he won’t take the chance.
We all know this about Frank and love to push his boundaries. Offering Frank a beer at 7am, knowing full well he will decline, then insisting he have one… always draws a laugh and never seems to get old.
What is this weird pleasure we get from trying to convince Frank to break character?
- Do we want to coax out his ‘fun side’ a little more, believing it’s in his interest?
- Do we simply want him to stick around for just a few more minutes, before we all have to go back to our boring lives?
- Does a bit of teasing help build up camaraderie amongst the bros?
- Or is it just that the more people who join in on beers at 7am, the less guilty we feel about our own decisions?
One day, while drinking a beer in the parking lot after a session, Marty had an idea. He had a good idea, “Frank, if I pull off the 360 then you have to drink a beer with me after the session.”
“Ohhhh Frank!” The rest of us chimed in, sarcastically blowing the bet out of proportion.
“You won’t!” Someone teased.
Frank laughed at our ridiculousness, but possibly also liked the spirit of the bet. Although conservative in nature, Frank liked to bet and was a bit of a hustler. He was always searching for deals on surfboards – first off Craigslist, then on Offer Up once that came around. He kept his finger on the pulse of the platform. When new boards popped up he’d make a quick offer, “$200 cash, I can pick it up today” he’d propose for a board listed for $400.
Most sellers would scoff at the low-ball offer. Then when the board went unsold after a week or two, Frank would follow up. He knew if the board was still up, the seller wasn’t getting many offers, and probably just wanted to offload it. Most people told him to kick rocks, but his success rate wasn’t bad. It seemed like whenever we surfed he had a different board and it always came with a story about how he had bought at a steep discount. A week later he’d flip it to make a hundred bucks.
Frank also knew full well that denying the proposition would make it way worse. We’d all be ragging him way harder after every session hyping up the bet.
“Well… if I land it first, then you gotta pound a Steel Reserve” Frank retorted.
The Steel Reserve is another alcoholic beverage that holds just as much, if not more legendary status amongst our crew.
Steel Reserve is a “high-gravity” malt liquor. This brewing term has to do with how much sugar is the in wort before yeast is added to start the brewing process. The wort is the unfermented liquid made from grains like barley, which contains the sugars the yeast will consume – alcohol being the byproduct of this process. “High Gravity” means there’s a high sugar content in the wort which translates to high alcohol content in the end product. But the term is mostly used for marketing in an attempt to communicate a beverage’s high alcohol content without being too direct.
Other popular malt beverages using similar techniques to deliver a beer-like taste with high alcohol content at a low price include:
- Old English (AKA OE)
- Mickey’s
- King Cobra
- Hurricane
- Colt 45
All of these sold in the infamous 40oz size.
In Oceanside, back when we were too young to drink legally, you could buy a Steel Reserve tallboy (16oz) for $0.99 at the drugstore near where we used to hang out and surf. I had my older brother’s expired license which gave me the confidence to buy small amounts of booze at the Rite Aid where they rarely asked me for ID and when then did just took a passing glance.
For one dollar each, we could have a thrilling evening. Despite the disgusting taste, the tallboy was just a third more volume than a typical can of beer so we could get it down quickly. We really just needed to get through the first half anyways, which we powered through out of peer pressure and excitement. After the first half, a good buzz would kick in and we could polish off the rest.
The biggest thrill came 5-10 minutes after the last sip when we’d be thoroughly smashed. Overcome with a feeling elation radiating from the stomach outward, we’d laugh and goof around with a new level of immaturity, before the full gravity of our decision really hit us.
On our first few ventures, before building up a tolerance and learning to take the second half of the can a bit slower, we’d be hit with the spins and inevitably at least one of us would yack up our dinner.
Now, older, smarter, and somewhat more refined, no one dared to drink a Steel Reserve. We respected its strength and admired the memories it fueled, but couldn’t stomach the taste or handle the devastating hangover it now delivered.
Pounding one in the morning was guaranteed to ruin the rest of your day, possibly also the next.
Frank’s raise to Marty’s proposal was too good to let go, and there were too many people there to let either of them live it down. The challenge was born…
I found out later, possibly a year or two later, that although a few had come close, no one had landed the 360 yet. And the ante had been upped once again. Now the punishment was a Four Loko.
To make matters worse, since the challenge had been upped to the Four Loko level, Frank and Marty each kept a can of Four Loko USA (sour white cherry flavor) in their cars… heating up and cooling down, and aging in all the wrong ways.
With stakes this high, even terrible conditions provided the foundation for a fun session.
Anytime we were all together and the waves were below average, we’d spend hours messing around, trying to pull off the 360 and make sure one of the other guys saw it. The bet somehow, accidentally, brought out a grom-like playfulness in us. We’d be out there – a bunch of grown men – laughing, joking, and praying we wouldn’t be the one to have to pound the Four Loko.
Coming back home last year from a long surf safari I was pleased to learn that Frank had finally pulled off the useless 360, Marty had undeniably seen it, and had to pound the 3-year-old sour white cherry Four Loko.