Doo Dah Surf Day! Brings Costumed Surfers To Sunset

Sister Surf blesses the crowd.

Costumes were judged by a celebrity panel that included the Steve Hillenburg, the creator of SpongeBob Squarepants, author and performer Charles Phoenix and John Rabe the host of Off-Ramp on NPR station 89.3 KPCC. “First prize, ‘the DooDahsomest’ was awarded to a man named Steve who patched together a wetsuit and painted it,” said Michael Uhlenkott, referring to a getup that could only be called “The Wetsuit of Many Colors,” which was worn by Steve McCambridge. “My three, Neo-Pop Neoprene outfits were made from scraps stolen out of the Body Glove dumpster at their old location in Hermosa,” McCambridge said. “One of my comic suits, with the shark drawing on my right chest, can be seen briefly in the 1990 movie Men At Work where Charlie Sheen plays a garbageman who wants surf. In 200 the Body Glove family members & I met at their "Dive N Surf" store, and Mr. Ron Meistrell autographed my 1990 suit made of his stuff. He also gave me permission to go to his new factory location to get more, newer tech wetsuit scraps.”

A longtime local surfer at Sunset, the win had special meaning to McCambridge. “This is a victory I cherish since my dad just died May 10, 2007. He taught me to surf on Cape Cod in the sixties. He also taught me to draw, two things directly part of this event, along with good fellowship/vibes and humor. I've surfed ‘Sunsets’ for 16 years, and on February 2, 1995, I rode my personal largest wave there, about a 23' face. I also had my 1981 Honda Accord stolen while surfing there on a sunny Sunday afternoon in March of 1996.”

The “DooDud” award for Worst Costume award went to the guy dressed as an oil slick, who turned out to be a Neurology resident who also learned to surf in Massachusetts. “The idea for the costume hit me like a bolt of lightning,” Tarlov said. “I wanted to be as shocking as I could. The plastic table cloth that makes up the oil sludge comes from Party City. All the plastic animals that are caught in the oil slick come from a 99 cent store. Unfortunately, I could not find any endangered species, except a plastic great white shark to put in the sludge. I would have been willing to use a piece of road kill or a dead seagull to make the oil sludge more realistic. I was gonna say this but I think I will strike it from the record. It also occurred to me that instead of dressing up as an oil spill, I could actually be an oil spill if I carried some gas cans and dumped motor oil or gasoline in the water. But the Surfrider Foundation probably wouldn't like that."

Second place is still to be decided, and anyone can go online to look at all the costumes and vote for “The DooDahers Choice” at www.DooDahsurf.com.

Muscle Man gets ready to wrestle with the waves.