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Location: Blogs Sean O'Brien's Blog |
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| Posted by: Sean Obrien |
2/5/2008 |
It was a few years ago at SIMA Surf Summit 8. I had stepped out onto the street outside Squid Roe in Cabo San Lucas and found myself alone. It was very late. I had been drinking. I wasn’t really sure where I was going.
As I made my way down the street with exaggerated goose steps, it dawned on me that I had suddenly found myself swimming over very deep water. I paused and looked around and suddenly the noisy streets seemed very foreign and home a long way away. I tried to pull myself together, to stand a little straighter, to walk with more purpose, but every silhouette in every alley took on a menace that I had never noticed before.
We are blessed as an industry. The very concept we have of there being “an industry” proves the point. Together we are like some relentless fun machine, some unstoppable, grinning bubble of laughs. How many times have you looked around the room, seen all the familiar faces having fun, and thought to yourself, “I’m safe.” After all, if something really started to go south, there are literally dozens of people you could turn towards for help. Friends.
At least that’s what I thought. Sadly, that bubble of safety that I’ve always felt has been burst with the terrible news of Dane Chandler Williams’ death.
No one yet knows what happened between when Williams was last seen at 2:00 a.m. on Saturday and when his body was discovered Monday night in an alley in City Heights. Unfortunately, the whole story may never be known. We all know this though, it’s a tragedy that no parent or friend or loved one should be forced to endure.
The whole thing has made me examine some of my own past nights a little closer. I didn’t come up with any great pearls of wisdom, except maybe this: given what we’ve all probably seen over the years, isn’t it recklessly fortunate that things don’t go tragically wrong more often? If so, what do we do with that bit of information? How can we look after each other better? How can we make sure that we don’t see headlines like these again.
Or have I been fooling myself all along? Is that industry bubble, that safe sphere of invulnerability, all in my head?
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Re: The Bubble Bursts |
By guilt-stricken? on
2/5/2008 |
| that same night i was fortunate to get a ride up to my hotel instead of walking home, but i never once felt unsafe. a city girl in san diego - even when i was walking home boozed up at 2AM, "what possibly could happen?" i thought. i didn't know dane, but i feel connected to him. because of the bubble. i wish we could have stopped what happened. how did no one see him? so many of us were there! why did it have to take his life for us to take better care of each other all those nights of good times? because you know we will now. |
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Re: The Bubble Bursts |
By DOOG on
2/7/2008 |
| My prays go out to his freinds & family. I also have to look at myself and some of the bad dissions I have made in the past. This ASR I walked to my hotel everynight drunk and alone. I stayed at the Marriot next to the convention center. At that time I felt safe. now looking back, the long dark sidewalk alone the train tracks could be a dangerous spot. We should think twice. |
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