A few years back, some people in and around San Diego commissioned a sculpture of a surfer called the “Magic Carpet Ride”.
It’s been rather controversial amongst the surfers, who felt that the statue, “short of the macho image they thought their sport should project.”
As a result of this, it has been a target of of some pranks since it was unveiled in 2007.
This is, of course not particularly surprising, when you juxtapose a statue and a sub-culture that prides itself on being unconventional:
Ever since, the statue, known locally — and derisively — by local surfers as the “Cardiff Kook,” has routinely been dressed in different costumes by snarky locals. At various times, the statue of a young male surfer has been adorned with a ballerina’s tutu and luche libre wrestler’s mask, a woman’s bikini and other costumes, most recently a tennis outfit with racket.
That being said, about a month ago, some prankster has entered realm of the masters of the art.
He, and his minions, got jiggy late one night with some serious paper mâché. They encased the statue in the maw of a large Great White Shark,* creating the illusion of his being swallowed up by a gargantuan selachian.
This is up there in the “one for the ages” category, up there with Davidson HS senior Kyle Garchar, who got the fans from Darby high school to spell out “we suck” at the Darby-Davidson football game.
Brilliant, just brilliant.
*Actually, it might be big enough for C. Megalodon. That’s one big mofo.
Even better was that for the week preceeding the appearance of the shark, a large shark fin made its way across PCH. Each night the prankster moved the fin closer to the "Kook". You can smaller versions of the fin circling the base of the statue.