WOK THE PARTY - How to make it as a pro surfer without actually surfing - By Andy Davis

While working on the final edit of this piece you’re reading, my Facebook makes that pinging sound that someone wants to chat. I look down to see Warwick Wright’s name with the number 1 in a little red speech bubble next to it. Click.

Warwick Wright: Andy dude!

Andy Davis: Sup Wok. Writing up your interview now.

Warwick Wright: Got to tell you one thing. Use it, don’t use it. My chick just left me for Mark Boucher.

Andy Davis: WTF. I thought she was your special lady.

Warwick Wright: Ja, I thought so too.

Andy Davis: What happened?

Warwick Wright: Well I broke up with her. A week later she’s with Boucher.

Andy Davis: Blind one. Why did you break it off?

Warwick Wright: I got over it and wasn’t treating it right. Then I tried to make it right and she said no. Ha ha.

Andy Davis: And Boucher’s such a douche…

Warwick Wright: I’m not angry I got dumped, the amount of shit I did and got away with in my 5 year relationship… good on her for making a good choice. I was a bad boyfriend.

Andy Davis: Can I quote you on that?

Warwick Wright: Ja, you can, but not the cheating. I was naughty.

Andy Davis: Come on now, your mom owns a handjob shop!

Warwick Wright: OK fuckit, just don’t want women to read it and never want to touch me after. Do it in a good way.

And with that he rings off to let me get back to my work. Manna from heaven for a journo looking for an appropriate intro.

But that’s how conversations with Warwick ‘Wok’ Wright tend to go. Disarmingly candid, arresting and kind of sleazy but always fun. It’s easy to see why his site iamwok.com gets so many hits. Love him or hate him, the guy’s a walking soundbite with barely a trace of self-consciousness. A Fuzzy Navel cocktail among the usual banal brew of surf politics. It may sound absurd, but after a long stint reaching the dead end of the competitive grind, Wok’s busy carving a career in surfing out of his personality more than his prowess at pushing a piece of fibreglass around with his feet. In fact, put that way, it doesn’t sound absurd at all.

Read the full outrageous interview by Andy Davis in the new issue of Zigzag 36.2, on sale now.