Charlie Don't Surf

'86 Occy

2009-08-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

This week we're seeing the second (that's right, the SECOND) swell of the summer.

The first was a couple of weeks ago, the big mack daddy tropical south that had every spot in Orange County going cuckoo. The Colonel was also going a bit cuckoo, but, alas, his insanity involved lugging a 70 pound backpack over various Yosemite backcountry ridges in search of secret lakes, not secret spots.

July 25th, 2009 - The Wedge

July 25th, 2009 - 11,000 feet above the Wedge

So, for all intensive purposes, this is the Colonel's first swell of the summer. It's been fun and we've had waves for close to a week now. Today, which was supposed to be the beginning of the end, we saw much bigger waves than expected...and some totally unexpected drama, which we'll save for the next post.

Anyhow, yesterday was a beautiful day, the water was still pushing 70, the air was hot, and the waves were shoulder high and super fun. So, in the spirit of keeping all the recent praising of heroes past going (see the last post, heavy on the Curren-is-God fever which still infects many of us thirtysomethings) the Colonel decided to pay tribute to the other Surf God of the 80's, Sir Mark "Rrrrrripping, Rocky!" Occhilupo.

And how does one pay tribute to the Italian Stallion from Down Underbite? Why, with flourescent 1986 missile popsicle butt hugger Billabong trunks, of course.

Like this...
For those of you who weren't there, these were the mid-80's equivalent of the Andy Irons "Rising Sun" (or is it "Rising Son?") boardshorts. If you were a good surfer and over the age of 21, you didn't own a pair. But if you were that magic 16 year old demographic, these blinding boardies were practically standard issue.

So when I saw them reissued last summer in the midst of this 80's retro nostalgia fest that's all the rage with post-emo surf hipsters adorned in crap plastic sunglasses that only homeless people wore back in '89 because gas stations and baseball games used to GIVE them away, well, the Colonel couldn't resist.

And yet, when shown to the wife, they elicited such unbridled laughter, that they quickly found themselves in a drawer, tags and retro Billabong sticker still firmly attached. (My wife, who is my exact same age and is as much a child of the 80's as I am, harbors no such illusions that any retro display is anything other than a desperate attempt to recapture lost youth at the expense of maturity, dignity, and any sort of fashion sense not shared by an 8th grader.)

So jump ahead to yesterday. The sun was shining, the waves were fun, the water was warm, and the Colonel said, "Fuck it." Out came the missile pops, in went a 36 year-old never-was, and do you know what the aforementioned wife said?

"Hey, I like those trunks!"

"What a minute. I bought these last summer and you laughed for like two weeks. I thought you hated them."

"Maybe it's the weight you lost," she replied. "Or that you have a good tan. Or maybe I'm just used to the retro 80's thing now."

But I know she's full of shit. She's got a thing for Occy and she's finally coming clean. But I can deal with that. Occy is the shit. And all I can do is wear his shorts.

The Colonel says, "Alex, come jump in with us."

Curren Vs. Occy

2009-07-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

The Colonel got a request from a friend yesterday:

Colonel-

There's been a lot of news swirling around in recent weeks but one story I feel warrants your input: Occy vs. Curren at J-Bay next week.

Who's your money on?

That’s a tough one, but definitely worth exploring a bit. The Colonel is a child of the 80's and remembers calling the ASP toll-free recording over 20 years ago to find out if Curren had clinched his 2nd world title, and then calling all his PA surf buddies with the good news.

So with that bias acknowledged up front, let's dig in.

Occy clearly has the competitive edge because he’s been competing professionally almost nonstop since he came out of retirement in the 90’s. He hangs out with all the top ASP guys half his age, with twice his repertoire, but you’d never pick him out as “the old one”. Occy seems ageless.

Now, some argue that Occy and Curren are equally gifted surfers and that your favorite is just a matter of aesthetic preference (“smooth vs. radical”). I have always completely disagreed with that assessment. Curren is clearly the more gifted. He’s the Magic Johnson to Occy’s scrappy, hard-working, sometimes even ugly-to-watch Larry Bird. That's not to diss Occy. After all, Larry Bird has almost as many National Championship rings as Magic. But what came naturally to Curren, Occy acquired with determination and the enthusiasm of a dozen 10-year olds.

And while Occy may love J-Bay, let's be honest, it’s Curren’s spot. It’s like Rincon on steroids. There isn't a wave on Earth that's better suited to Curren’s smooth, fluid, graceful style. It’s also an incredibly complex wave that plays right in to Curren’s amazing natural wave knowledge. Sure, Occy knows the wave inside and out from experience, but Curren feels it. It’s pure instinct for him.

Plus, as cool and spacey as Curren appears, we all know he’s a competitive animal, too. Occy is equally competitive, but also emotional. Curren is the ice man. He’s the Ivan Lendl, the Roger Federer. And while sometimes the scrappy, sweat-drenched underdogs like Rafael Nadal prevail, I don't think that's going to be the case at J-Bay next month. I think Occy will be more like Andy Roddick.

It will be close as hell and both guys will surf like World Champions. But like the 2009 Wimbledon champ said, "Unfortunately, someone has to win."

The Colonel says, “Curren defeats Occy.”

Note: If you want a taste of what we're in store for, flashback to 1986 for one of the greatest Curren/Occy heats of all time...

Easy Now

2009-03-02T16:16:00.000-08:00

Scary times. Really fucking scary times. But probably the best time to be reminded of why we surf in the first place.

"My whole life is this escape. My whole life is this wave. I drop in, set the whole thing up, pull off a bottom turn, pull up into it...and shoot for my life...going for broke, man. And behind me, all the shit goes over my back. The screaming parents, teachers, police, priests, politicians, kneeboarders, windsurfers...they’re all going over the falls head first into the reef. Head first into the fucking reef. And I’m shooting for my life. And when it starts to close out I pull out through the bottom, out to the back, and I pick off another one and do the same goddamn thing."
-- Miki Dora, 1989

The Colonel says, "At ease. Really".

Andy Irons, Master Of Whine

2009-01-07T15:27:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm a bit late on this one, but it needs calling out...

Andy Irons did his first "real" interview a few months ago. It basically consisted of the former 3x World Champ basically blowing his fuse for 20 minutes.

You can read it here.

During his rant, which didn't really touch on any of the specifics of his competitive fall from glory, he complained rather passionately about the surf media and all the lies and slander they've printed about him over the past couple of years, not to mention all the shit us "internet bloggers" were talking about him.

At the prompting of the interviewer, he actually compared his life-under-a-lens to that of Kobe Bryant and other professional athletes.

If this were a movie, that would have been the point where I sprayed Starbucks out of my mouth.

Quick note to Andy: The backup catcher for the Toronto Blue Jays gets ten times the media scrutiny that you do.

Professional surfers are the most non-criticized athletes on the fucking planet. Period. Which is bad enough...because listening to and reading the surf media, which is just the PR arm of the surf industry, is boring and repetitive. But having to listen to professional surfers actually complain that they're the targets of critical, mean spirited journalists, is...fuck...I don't even have a word for it.

It's idiotic.

It's inane.

It's so fucking delusional and pathetic it makes me want to tie them up with leashes, stuff them in boardbags and bury them in the desert (sorry, Gator, didn't mean to steal your idea).

Andy, do you have any clue what happens to real professional athletes who have spectacular competitive flameouts amidst endless rumors of alcohol and drug abuse?

First off, the don't stay rumors for very long. They become FACTS. Legions of reporters and journalists start sifting through your trash and calling your cousins on the phone in Kauai and showing up at your father's job and interviewing your 3rd grade teachers. Every time you leave a strip joint or a bar or a westside plate lunch stand, a half dozen photos get snapped. You wind up on the cover of Sports Illustrated with headlines like "Wipeout!". You have 7 page exposes written about you in the LA Times and Vanity Fair with photos of you in mid-yawn, looking bloated and hungover, and that nasty white clag in the corner of your mouth.

The only professional surfer in history who has gotten even a taste of true sports celebrity is Kelly Slater, and even Slater, the NINE TIME WORLD CHAMPION, is still more well known outside of surfing as the guy who had a bit part in Baywatch and once dated Pam Anderson. He's not even C-list. At red carpet events they tell Kelly to get out of the way so they can get a shot of Andy Dick.

Know this, Andy Irons: the entire surfing industry is on your side. You're good for the sport and you're good for sales. When I met with the head of marketing for Hurley while back, he couldn't stop talking about how many pairs of "rising sun" boardshorts you had sold for Billabong. They are the best selling boardshorts EVER.

So quit your fucking whining. When you've got Evan Slater drilling you about hookers and blow and your wife is telling Chris Mauro about what a distant limpdick you've become and how she's going to dump you for Derek Jeter, you may complain.

Until then, you are a professional surfer who gets paid very well to travel around the world and ride waves. You are part of a billion dollar industry, with virtually no independent media outlets, that provides you with more privacy and less criticism than in any sport in America.

Have a Bintang and a smile and shut the fuck up.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

How Much For That Hole In The Wetsuit?

2009-01-06T15:50:00.000-08:00

Funny how there is absolutely zero unbiased information available about ANY surfing related product.

Ever thought about that?

I mean, surf gear is not cheap. It's not Formula One racing, but it's not soccer either. The average board is $500 and the average wetsuit is probably $250+. Toss in leashes, traction pads, wax, board bags, racks, and you can easily plunk down a cool grand before you've even touched saltwater.

It's especially weird when you realize you can read professional, unbiased reviews of tennis rackets, running shoes, golf clubs, crampons, movies, tacos, wine, even toys. There are literally dozens of websites and magazine that scrutinize, evaluate, and rate every six dollar Star Wars action figure that Hasbro spits out every month.

So why is surfing exempt? Why do we, as surfers, plunk down hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, every year on expensive, high performance sporting goods with nothing more than a "It's killer, bro" from a zit-faced 17 year-old surf shop employee who's probably flunking social studies?

It's fucking retarded. WE'RE retarded. I'M retarded.

To either prove my point or to fight back against it, or both, I bought an O'Neill PsychoFreak yesterday. On the off chance you didn't commit last Fall's Surfer Magazine "2008 Wetsuit Guide" (AKA a 22 page advertorial written by the wetsuit companies themselves) to memory, the PsychoFreak is the mainstream surf industry's first $500+ wetsuit.

Psycho Freaky Expensive

Why is it $500?

Well, it's full of holes. Literally. Some R&D genius at O'Neill decided that if you took neoprene rubber and carved a bazillion little divots in it, you'd have a wetsuit with a bazillion little air pockets sandwiched inside. Or as they call it, "Air Insulated XDS Neoprene". The air pockets, in turn, make the wetsuit lighter and warmer.

A Bazillion Pockets Of Warmth

Okay. I guess. Sounds, um, sort of plausible. I think. Maybe.

But I was intrigued. I couldn't get it out of my head. It was either the most brilliant innovation in 50 years of wetsuit design, or the biggest marketing gimmick since the same company released the first $300+ wetsuit back in the late 80's, the short-lived "Animal", which primarily consisted of their highest end wetsuit at the time with a bunch of Darth Vader panels glued on.

Luke, I Am, Like, Your Father, Bro

Now, I did not actually spend $500 on my holy wetsuit. Thanks to the economy, Jack's Surfboards is having a 30% off sale on all wetsuits, so I successfully got my bad self all freaky and psycho-y for the bargain price of $350...about the cost of a decent higher end suit. A pittance, really, for the honor of becoming the first David Horowitz of the surfing world.

But let's cut to the chase: is the PsychoFreak warmer and lighter than O'Neill's next most expensive suit, the Psycho II? And if so, is it a buck fifty warmer and lighter?

(And before I answer that, just savor for a minute the sad fact that NO ONE has asked this question before. There are FIVE mainstream surf magazines in America alone.)

The short answer is, big surprise, no.

It's a great suit, don't get me wrong. O'Neill, to their credit, make fantastic wetsuits. They're incredibly warm and flexible and they don't disintegrate into wet toilet paper after six months like Rip Curls (another media-ignored topic we'll address later).

Yes, the PsychoFreak 3.5 is a tad lighter than my Psycho II 2/3. And it might be like one degree warmer.

But is the PsychoFreak suited for "frigid" conditions as their website claims? Are holes in the rubber really another "Revolution Courtesy of Area 52?" (Area 52 being O'Neill's not-so-humble euphemism for 6 guys in a shop carving up neoprene swatches.) Is it a wetsuit "ready for the harshest of conditions?" And is it worth five HUNDRED recession era American dollars?

Kind of. No. Kind of. Definitely not.

And sadly, you heard it here first.

The Colonel says, "I am not an Animal."

Liar Liar

2008-12-05T14:51:00.001-08:00

Remember when the Colonel claimed he'd never surf Salt Creek again?

Well, that bastard fucking LIED.

He paddled out yesterday, and it was okay. He saw an old college fried, Scott Finn, out in the water, which was nice. But then he had to listen to some retarded high school kid scream at everyone for an hour, and that made his ears hurt. (The Colonel did, however, shove the aforementioned retarded high school kid out of the way when the little shit faked going right on an obvious left, and scored a nice little left while squeezing a "Fuck, bro!" out of said fucktard.)

So TODAY, thinking he might be on a Salt Creek upswing, The Colonel disregarded all of Kenny's good advice about knowing when to hold, fold, walk, and run, and instead threw the dice again.

In return, The Colonel got to enjoy two solid hours of ridiculous high tide dumpers on the sand, which is fun if you're from Laguna and love skimboarding, but sucks if you're fat and slow and actually interested in standing up and riding waves.

The Colonel says, "No can hear, got sand in my ear."

Behind The Black Curtain

2008-12-02T20:57:00.001-08:00

The Antman doesn't send out many photos these days.

A few weeks ago though, he sent out this shot of Black's in San Diego. It's an amazing image.

Black Beach, 2008

I'm not sure if it's a better photo than this one though. Kind of a tough call.

Black's Beach, 1992

The Colonel says, "At least we've got our trunks on."

From The Archives Vol. II

2008-08-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

"Before you turn around, you've spent maybe 20, 25, 30 thousand dollars on a movie."
-- Jack Horner

The Colonel (this one, not the one from the aforementioned film) has been on a bit of an 80's kick lately. But I think it's time to move into the 90's, when pink went black and surf movies went straight to video.

Okay, that's not entirely true.

Surf FILMS turned into VIDEOS as early as, well, the early 80's. We talked about Off The Wall II the other day and that was one of the first straight-t0-video surf flicks, and that was all the way back in 1984.

But I mean, really, how many people were actually buying surf movies in the 80's? I just pulled out some old issues of Surfing from 1986 and there were a few ads for surf movies on videotape, but they ranged in price from $70 (new releases) to $40 (bargain clearance). And those are 1986 dollars. That's over a hundred bucks in 2008 caish for friggin' Son Of The Last Surf Movie.

Kind of a rip.

The first video I remember that a significant number of surfers went out and actually purchased, was Billabong's Filthy Habits...right around '88/'89.

Which bring us to the 90's. For those of you old enough to remember, there was ONE video that really blew open the home video market for surf movies. In 1991 you either owned Kelly Slater In Black & White...or your roommate did.

But it was Taylor Steele, arch-nemesis of Surfer movie critic, Ben Marcus, and the undisputed king of 90's surf porn, who really turned the surf video "industry" into an Industry.

When the Colonel was living at 5010 Saratoga in OB in the spring of 1994, he and his roommates used to watch Momentum II over and over again in an effort to up the stoke level in between bong loads before yet another slop session at Av's.

This was my favorite segment.

So I was pretty stoked a couple of years later when, as an Arts & Entertainment writer for the Daily Aztec, I got the assignment to interview the king of surf porn for a front page article.

I hung around with Steele for a couple of days, went to his house, had lunch at Pipes in Cardiff, lurked at his "office" which was actually an extra room tucked in the back of some screenprinting shop, and even did a photoshoot of him surfing with his good buddy, Rob Machado. Kind of a "the director and his muse share a wave" sort of thing...not a bad bit of creative direction for a 5th year state college kid.

I even pulled in the Ant Man, back when he was still doing fraternity parties for Cal Candids and almost 10 years before he became a staff photographer for Surfer Magazine, to do the shoot.

Hey Rob, try not to be a dick, okay?

That's better. Thanks.

A few weeks later I got to stroll around the SDSU campus and see copies of my front page article strewn about, fluttering across the pavement like newsprint tumbleweeds, and getting stuffed behind and beneath every chair and desk on campus.

It was a proud moment.

The Colonel says, "At ease...but from the beach. And no slo-mo."

Who Are You?

2008-07-15T17:16:00.000-07:00

Clay Marzo has been bugging me for a couple of years now.

No, not the fact that his surfing makes me feel like I'm 80 years old, arthritic, and slower than Benjie Molina after lunch. He just LOOKS like someone...someone I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out.

Finally, while ripping the CDs lingering at the bottom of the alphabet that I never got around to ripping 5 years ago, I figured it out.

Now, I'm pretty sure The Who never toured Hawaii back in the late 80's, but, well...I'm just saying.

They've got that "high performance" thing in common, too.

Pete Townshend, one of the underrated aerial pioneers.

Clay Marzo doing his version of "the windmill"

The Colonel says, "You better, you bet."

Off The Wall II

2008-07-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

This is the first real surf movie I ever saw.

Lunch time, fall 1987, Outside Wave Club, Palo Alto High School.

I remember walking into the darkened classroom a few minutes late, letting my eyes adjust from the sunlight, and pulling focus on the grainiest, grungiest looking movie I'd ever seen...or heard. It didn't help that the tape sucked or that the VCR had tracking problems. It was dark and the ocean looked scary. 180 degrees from the Sunkist commercial I was expecting.

This was a CALIFORNIA surf movie. There was Tom Curren - but just a wetsuit-clad silhouette really - doing a big backside re-entry. It was gouge-like and aggressive. There was grit and grain and the music sounded like it was recorded in a garage.

Even the name: Off The Wall II. I thought, "Is there an Off The Wall ONE?"

I envisioned the first movie to be even grungier...even more hardcore. Like SO hardcore the video tapes just disintegrated after a single viewing. Maybe it wasn't even on video...just old reel-to-reels that REAL surfers watched in secret basements filled with old boards and chicks in bikinis sprinkled with shaping dust.

Somehow I even took the corny claymation as something kind of mysterious and dark-artsy. Who knew real surfers worked with clay? What other talents did they have?

Were we even supposed to be watching it? Was this really for the eyes of 14 year-old valley boys with crappy boards and middle-class intellectual parents sick of driving us over the hill to the beach?

I mean, shit, did the FBI warning at the beginning say anything about kooks?

Our 40 minute lunch period flew by and the tape was stopped. Jeff Parry, the senior who had started the club, promised he'd bring it back the following week. But he forgot or we couldn't get the VCR working again or it simply disintegrated into beach sand and kelp bits. We never did see the second half.

So I was pretty excited to find it on DVD 20 years later. I picked it up at Huntington Surf & Sport, raced home, cleared my wife and kids out of the living room, cracked a beer, and, fresh from a late afternoon session at the pier in HB, prepared to watch it with the eyes of a peer, a surfer with 20+ years credentials.

I was a little disappointed. While not exactly 1080p HD, it was hardly the dark, blurry hardcore document I remembered. The garage band soundtrack had been replaced in most segments with Devo and Men At Work. The claymation bits looked more like after-school art projects and less like the dark handiwork of the Lost Boys in their Santa Carla cliffside batcave.

About halfway through I actually got bored watching Ward Coffey flap his way through another lurching off-the-lip and wandered off.

Then something funny happened. A week later I tried to play it again and it didn't work. The disc, which I'd only touched once, was hopelessly corrupted.

Weird.

So I bought another one, this time at a surf shop in San Clemente...a legit hardcore shop off of Pico in the warehouse district. No sign. No t-shirts. Just blanks, boards, resin, and a shelf of videos.

Guess what? Didn't work. Corrupted. Scratched. Who knows?

Which is when the paranoia started to creep in. Maybe 20 years isn't enough. Maybe I'm still not THIS TALL in order to ride this roller coaster. Maybe I should still be heeding that FBI anti-kook warning.

And somehow, the movie knows.

The Colonel says, "Fuck it, we're hanging out anyway."

The Performers

2008-06-17T19:33:00.001-07:00

You want tight trunks? You got it.

This is one of my all time favorite surf movies. Long out of print, I thought I'd never see it again.

Released in 1984, Quiksilver's "The Performers" documents the '83/'84 winter on the North Shore. And its got everything you want in a mid-80's surf movie:

1. Kong...with board logo and everything
2. Super cheesy narration
3. A killer soundtrack (Pink Floyd and Talking Heads...are you kidding me?)
4. Bad motion graphics
5. Killer board graphics
6. New wave boardshorts
7. Endless footage of guys dropping in at Sunset

But what I love most about old 80's surf movies is that the performance level was still pre-New School. The Colonel will never ever boost a frontside 360 air, but give him a few weeks and he just might pull a backside under-the-lip snap at Rocky Point.

He'll make some flippy floppy, too.

The Colonel says, "Everybody, GET IN LINE."

...And Salt Creek Was Wiped From The Earth

2008-06-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

Fuck.

Fuckin' fuckity fuck fuck. What the FUCK am I doing here???

That's what the Colonel says to himself quite often when lugging his fat ass out of the water at Salt Creek.

Ah, Salt Creek...AKA, The Playground, The Zoo, The Pickle Family Circus, Detention, 8th Period, Jail Bait Beach, and, my personal favorite:

The-Most-Frustrating-Goat-Rope-Of-A-Surf-Spot-In-All-Of-Orange-County

WHY? Why do I keep going there?

Stupid question. I know why.

It's 5 minutes from my office. The location is beautiful. The water makes Waikiki look like Huntington Beach after a flood and during a red tide. The parking is plentiful and easy. It stays glassy all day. And it's a ridiculously fun wave - rippable with tubes.

But the drawbacks...oh lord, the drawbacks. Three of the worst drawbacks you can imagine:

1. Crowded. 2. Crowded. 3. Crowded.

But not just crowded...every spot around here is crowded..it's the WHO (not the HOW MANY). Quick demographic breakdown for the unfamiliar:

If you're under the age of 19 and compete in the NSSA, you surf Salt Creek every day.

If you attend high school within 100 miles, you surf Salt Creek every day.

If you attend junior high school within 100 miles, your mom drops you off so you can surf Salt Creek every day.

If you ride a boogie board and live south of Marin County and west of Coors Field, you drag your nuts at Salt Creek every day.

If you know a guy who knows a guy who knew a guy who once talked to Pat O'Connell in line at Wahoo's Fish Taco, you surf Salt Creek every day.

If you ARE Pat O'Connell, you surf Salt Creek every day.

If you are a grumpy old fuck on a giant board who is unfazed by air-boosting preteens and still think Salt Creek is some kind of secret spot, you surf Salt Creek every day.

If you are a Japanese trust-funder with enough photos of Lowers to fill a half dozen Hello Kitty shoeboxes, you now surf Salt Creek every day.

And that's just the WHO. Should I even get started on the HOW?

Today I paddled for a nice little left, inside of a 16 year-old blonde boy with giant buck teeth (possibly a Gudaskas? Dunno. Hard to keep track. They're kind of the Menudo of surfing) He promptly dropped in going right and as soon as I pulled back, re-directed left. It was the oldest trick in the book and he had it polished to perfection. Such ease. Such grace. Such laughter by his buddies as I sat on my board looking vaguely confused and retarded.

But that's Salt Creek, where you will...fairly often...feel confused and retarded.

The problem is that once in a while you will get Salt Creek GOOD and UNCROWDED.

You'll show up on some random Tuesday. The sun will be shining. It won't be blackballed. There will be peaks stringing the entire length of the beach. Pat will be off filming Drive-Thru-Somalia. Pat's entourage will be at home, re-framing their highlighted Winner's Circle tearouts from 1987. Grumpy guy will be camped out at the Point. It'll just be you, some drywaller from Laguna Niguel, a Japanese boogie boarder, and a crazy bodysurfing meth addict with a McDonald's tray.

You'll catch peak after peak. You'll go left and get barreled. You'll go right and get as vertical as your mediocre talent will allow you. You'll do four to the shore. You'll walk up to the showers past the entire cast of The Hills, convinced that Salt Creek is the greatest surf spot on God's Blue Earth.

But it's all just a set up. The car's a lemon. That chick is just messing with you. It's really a real-estate seminar.

Just like that, WHAM! The beach gets blackballed right as team Hurleybong paddles out. Now instead of 30 guys sharing 5 peaks, you've got 50 guys jockeying for 2 peaks. 48 of them rip. One is Ringo on a longboard, "just happy to be here, lads." And one is you. Bucky drops right and then goes left. Your 6'2" suddenly feels 4'2".

You are going to catch FUCK ALL while tails and fins go flying all around. Team NSSA will literally be paddling circles around you. The 1987 Winner's Circle boys will be showering you with 250 pound fish carves. Pat will smile and say hi...because he's nice...and let you watch him get the best wave of every set.

And you will limp in like the confused retard that you are. You will coil up you leash and want to stick it between your legs because that's where your tail would be if you had one.

You'll trudge past the girls from The Hills and realize they were laughing at you all along.

The elementary school kids will heckle you at the showers. Their mom will give you that, "Rough day, hon?" half smile even though she knows you're really a homeless pedophile with a van and a bag full of candy and puppies.

And as you plod up the hill, you'll look back over your shoulder and swear that you'll never surf in this fucking circus tent ever again.

But you will.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

From The Archives Vol. I

2008-01-04T14:50:00.000-08:00

The Colonel realized on New Year's Day that, as of last Fall, he'd been surfing for 21 years.

Compared to most of his friends, who started surfing when they were like 7, that's actually not very long. It is, however, long enough that knee-high slop at T-Street doesn't exactly get the bowels rumbling.

Now this doesn't mean the Colonel lost his Yater Spoon to a Navy patrol boat or that he isn't regularly freezing his ass off this Norcal water that somehow found its way down to Trestles last month. It just means that huffing and puffing into backed-off bumps at Cottons doesn't exactly make for riveting surf reports.

Which means it's time to reach back into the old archives (as Weird Old Uncle Frank used to say) and talk story...

DISCLAIMER: The Colonel is a good guy. The Colonel has a wife and three kids. He likes puppies and old people. He donates to good causes, protested the start of the war in Iraq, and supports the Giants year in and year out despite being, on average, as old as he is. He was, however, a teenage boy at one point who did a lot of dumb shit. He was a 20-something young man who did a lot of dumb shit. The Colonel doesn't believe in revisionist history though. And these stories, even if they reflect the behaviors of an idiotic adolescent wearing Croakies and Frogskins and UGGS all at the same time, are pretty funny. So please, when you see the Colonel out at Middles, don't snake him because of past trespasses. It's ancient history and he has long since paid his dues...with interest. Plus, the Colonel surfs pretty fast for a fat guy in a little suit, and might just run you over.

So without further ado...

Way back in the Year Of Our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred And Ninety, when I was a senior in high school, I hung out with two different groups of surfers. One group thought of themselves as soul surfers, which was a trendy concept at the time...a sort of backlash to the iridium-Oakley-Blade-wearing, day-glo, floating-over-the-barrel, air-launching Ritchie Collins types who were so popular in 1990.

The other group, well, they wore iridium Oakley Blades, sported a lot of day-glo, liked to float over the barrel, and tried admirably to launch the aforementioned airs.

There were things about both groups that I liked. The soul guys were better conversationalists, which was nice when stuck in Hwy 17 traffic. The day-glo guys were funnier and more obnoxious which, truth be told, was also nice when stuck in traffic.

One thing I really liked about the day-glo boys was that they weren't picky about waves. The soul boys, who could spend an entire day driving back and forth between Pleasure Point and Steamer Lane in search of acceptable conditions, sometimes liked to talk about surfing a bit more than they actually liked to do it. The day-glo boys, well, fuck that. They had chicks to rig, fights to get into, classes to cut, and rap CDs to shoplift. They were busy and didn't have time to discuss the finer points of squash tails or whether or not surfing was a sport or a way of life.

So, when it came time to paddle out and boost those coveted 2-inch airs, Santa Cruz, which had better waves but was a hour drive from Shallow Alto, was rarely an option. Especially on a school day. Why not just huck our shit in the car, zip over the hill to Half Moon Bay, pull into a few closeout beachbreak barrels, steal some candy bars from the 7-11, and be back in time to take a shower and go fuck one of the cute sophomores who just broke up with her boyfriend?

Hey, sign me up.

And that's what we did in 1990 (minus the sophomore part, which I involuntarily substituted with the proverbial-but-nonetheless-accurate magazine under the mattress.)

So, (and this is important, so pay attention) a big part of the drive to Half Moon Bay in those days was a key stretch along Sand Hill Road. And for some reason, Sand Hill, which in 2008 is better known for its proliferation of big money Silicon Valley Venture Capital firms than its link to Hwy 92 and the ocean, was also a popular road with cyclists.

Considering I've never ridden anything other than a Huffy dirt bike, a paper route 10-speed, and a beach cruiser, I, to this day, have no idea why. But there they were, every day. Flying along with the cars, black padded butts in the air as we drove uphill, teardropped helmeted heads crouched over the handlebars as we drove downhill.

There and back, every day of the week, men and women, powering away on expensive bicycles like smooth-legged Hell's Angels.

Now, remember earlier when I mentioned that the day-glo boys were obnoxious and how that could be a nice thing when stuck in traffic? Good, because that becomes the main crux of our story here.

The fact is, when I say the day-glo boys were obnoxious, I mean OBNOXIOUS. Take a minute and think about teenagers and all the things that terrify you about them. Think about yelling from car windows. Think about bare asses and empty beer cans and driving too fast and all the other universal behaviors that should have every 17 year-old boy locked up in a cage until he's 22.

That was us. Really, it was them. Call it the "3rd Personality Phenomenon" or whatever, but when we were together, it was us.

Which means that a 40 year-old Palo Alto hippie with with a beard, Apple stock options, a $4,000 bike, a skintight yellow jersey, and a rear-view mirror jutting off the side of his Bell bicycle helmet, was nothing more than a source of entertainment.

We yelled at them. We horfed sunflower seed shells as we drove by. We blasted Public Enemy and Metallica at full volume with every window open. We stuck our asses out the windows and farted.

It was an endless source of amusement during an otherwise incredibly boring drive.

We discussed hurling an entire plate of AM/PM nachos out the window with extra cheese sauce and chili. But we were broke and usually hungry after a surf, so that never panned out. We discussed high-speed pissing but that sounded potentially messy. We even discussed the finer points of stealing a fanny pack from around someone's waist at 30 MPH, but that combination of finesse and danger freaked even us out.

Then one day it simply happened.

We were headed home, 3 of us squashed in my 1968 Karmann Ghia with boards strapped to the roof (NOT a cool car amongst the day-glo crew, but it was a gift from my Grandfather who was convinced it was a collector's item, and we couldn't always take Richie's* Vanilla Ice convertible Mustang 5.0, so someone else had to drive once in a while). And there, up ahead, was big, round, beautiful, shiny ass.

In reality it was the backside of a spandex-laden female, powering her way up a long incline with her head down and her butt up. And what a butt it was.

"Pull over, dude!" Richie screamed.

"Yeah, dude," Christian yelled over the sound of the roof rack straps humming and vibrating like the Spruce Goose on takeoff. "Let's slap that chick on the ass!"

Ever seen that Simpsons scene where Principal Skinner bends over to pick up "a shiny penny", wiggling his derriere in the air as Bart tries to will his slingshot back into his pocket, ultimately giving in to fate after Skinner's butt cheeks actually start to talk and encourage Bart to take a shot?

It was kind of like that.

Before I could think better of it (and let's be honest, had I actually been given a chance to think better of it, I would not have), I pulled the dark green Ghia up alongside the woman, Richie reached out the passenger window, slapped her flat on the ass, and yelled in his distinctive semi-inland patois of Jeff Spicoli and Flava Flav, "Keep up the good work, baby!"

And off into the sunset we drove, cackling all the way back to Embarcadero Road.

Now jump ahead a few weeks. Maybe even a month or two.

I've forgotten all about the big butt. I'm down in Big Sur with the soul surfers. We've just spent the weekend camping at Sand Dollar, surfing Willow Creek, smoking pot, and listening to Allen's brand-new Robert Johnson box set, which I hated even more than I hated Zeppelin (in a rare bit of cliquey consistency, my R.E.M. and U2 tapes were not allowed to be seen or heard amongst the soul surfer OR the day-glo crew).

As per usual, we planned to stop at my grandparents' house in Carmel on the way home for showers and possibly a free lunch at the tennis club. Also as per usual, I called home from a pay phone at a gas station in Pacific Valley. But in an odd twist, I did NOT get my Dad's usually happy voice on the other end. Instead, I got a combination of fear and stone cold seriousness.

I didn't even get a greeting or any questions about sharks.

"Hey Dad."

"Where are you?"

"Uh, Pacific Valley."

"Have you been to Carmel yet?"

"Uh, no."

"Have you seen your Grandparents yet?"

"Uh, not yet...we were just about to stop by."

"DON'T."

"Huh?"

"Do NOT go to your Grandparents' house."

"Why?"

"Your Grandfather wants your head on a platter. He is PISSED."

"WHY? What the hell did I do?"

"Did you slap some woman on the ass from your car?"

OH SHIT. Cue slow-but-fast horrific revelation that something bad you've done has just caught up with you, blindsided you from behind a tree, and has your balls in a vise...all before you've even had a chance to so much as think of an excuse.

How the fuck did she find us? Why the fuck did she call my grandparents? Am I going to jail?

"Um..."

"Did you SLAP some WOMAN on the ASS while driving your GRANDFATHER'S CAR?"

Oh fuuuuuuuuuck. Now cue slow-but-fast horrific revelation that just because your Grandfather gave you a car, didn't mean that he changed the title on it and that if someone looked up the license plate number in a moment of ass-slapped fury, they'd get ol' Sydney on the phone instead of stupid ol' you.

"You picked the wrong woman to slap on the ass, buddy. You hit a lawyer with a chip on her shoulder, and she memorized your license plate number, called the police, and the Portola Valley Sheriff's department just called up your Grandfather and accused him of assault."

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

"And if he sees you right now, he's going to take away your car, then kill you."

And then it just slipped out of my mouth.

"I didn't do it."

In full, Bart Simpson, non-ironic glory, I just said it. Matter of fact. Not a quiver. Not a hum or a haw.

"Richie said he knew the girl and asked me to pull over. I pulled over and he slapped her on the ass and told her to keep up the good work. He laughed and we drove away. That's it."

"We obviously he DIDN'T know that girl."

"Obviously."

"Okay, well lay low. Don't even slow down in Carmel. Just come home."

"No prob."

"I'll call your Grandfather and try to explain what happened."

That's all it took. I didn't do it.

My Old Man called his Old Man, explained my fish story, which he then passed on to the Sheriff, who then passed it on to the angry lawyer. She cooled off...maybe went for a bike ride or something...and that was that.

After passing my close call along to the day-glo crew, I did, however, ensure that Richie was now slapping every chick at school on the ass and cackling his new catchphrase in full Flava Spicoli glory.

Keep up the good work, Baby!

So help me, it became the catchphrase of the Spring of '91.

The Colonel says, "We were teenagers once...and stupid."

*Again, names have been changed to protect the not-at-all-innocent-but-all-grown-up-and-long-since-repaid-their-debts-to-society-via-karma.

Johnny Bench From Cincinnati

2007-08-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

Finally, we can get back to a world where there's only one John from Cincinnati, and that's Hall of Famer, and the greatest defensive catcher of all time, Johnny Bench.

John from Cincinnati, the sacrificial slot-filler from Sopranos-less HBO, has been cancelled.

Not to rub anyone's face in it, but in the immortal words of Gerry Lopez's little da Hui lackey in North Shore, "Beat it, haole buddy, dis is OUR wave."

I'm sorry to Steve Hawk and Keala and Dibi and Herbie and little Greyson, but that show sucked. And the reason it sucked was because of the surfing theme.

The fact is, surf culture just doesn't translate well onto the big or the silver screen, outside of the documentary format (and even then it's usually just masturbatory surf porn with the occasional hint of cleverness).

John From Cincinnati had some great actors but they were all wasted talent as they fumbled along with impossible to replicate surf-infused dialogue that came across as contrived sounding as any bullshit spewed out by the Windansea crew and later regurgitated for eternity in the Pumphouse Gang.

It's too bad because the premise was cool, minus the surfing: a funky border town populated with colorful characters and lovable burnouts, visited by a Christ-esque drifter with magical powers.

But listening to Rebecca De Mornay* chewing scenery with near-hysterical rants about missed heats and lucrative surf sponsorships gone bad...ugh, it just made you cringe.

The one bit of irony I enjoyed was the criticism of poor little mini-Fletcher's acting ability. His glazed-eyed Shaun Yost actually looked and behaved like most seaside preteen groms with better-than-average contest results - monotoned, slack-jawed, and generally soft-spoken (out of the water anyway). I thought he was dead on.

Anyhow, adios JfromC. It was a good effort. But if you want great television, look to HBO's rival, Showtime, for Californication. No surfing. Just some of the funniest scenes I've ever seen, as recently-divorced David Duchovny battles writer's block by fucking every married woman in LA. Hands down the best pilot I've ever seen.

The Colonel says, "Agent Mulder who?"

* Thanks to my boy Vince for pointing out that it was Rebecca De Mornay and not Roseanna Arquette. Those two might as well be Mary Kate and Ashley as far as the Colonel is concerned.

Giraffes, Tiki Monsters, & Oompa Loompas

2007-08-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

Surf journalism is one of the lowest forms of journalism, or even writing for that matter. It ranges from smoke-to-colon-blowing fan mail to shameless corporate marketing disguised as reporting.

(Hey, I may be a corporate shill, but nothing I get paid to write pretends to be anything other than a grammatically incorrect sales pitch.)

Anyhow, one nice slice of irony related to surfing's embarrassingly endemic (i.e. "inbred") culture, is that every once in a while some decent surf writing appears in print. And it's almost always by the pen of a non-surfer, or at least a non-ex-pro surfer, which in surfing's cousin-fucking bro/brah network, is right up there with a bobsled team from Jamaica.

Anyhow, today's bit of outsider art comes from Cintra Wilson, a regular Salon columnist, and via Matt Warshaw's very decent collection of surfing called, "Zero Break." In 1999 Wilson attended the Lacanau Pro in France (and the Pipe Masters in 2000) and wrote up what are still the funniest, most dead-on descriptions of pro surfers anyone will ever have the pleasure of reading.

If you will...

Ken Bradshaw & Layne Beachley
"Bradshaw seems to have built Layne Beachley, his much younger girlfriend, out of the refuse of his own frustrated ambitions. He coaches the living shit out of her. She is his creature; they walk around the beach smug and tan like the Tom & Nicole of the watersports set, and he shapes her surfboards with obnoxiously classified measurements and she publicly gushes over him whenever she wins anything and its all kind of grimy."

Andy Irons
"Andy has a knack for showing up on videos half drunk and talking in an especially depraved-sounding Hawaiian patois -- a nearly unintelligible melange of surfer dude-isms and mangled English -- and coming off like a real parking lot alky with a big foam head. But on the positive side, he's a really exciting surfer with the kind of brute animal energy that makes your blood pay attention. You can find Andy on the last page of the latest issue of Surfer, charging the tube holding a can of Bintang Pilsner, with his eyes rolling half up into his head, looking red, bloated and poisoned like fat Elvis."

Megan Abubo
"Megan Abubo had a quietly bratty manner and big Walkman earmuffs on her head, and dressed way down in shapeless casuals like a sullen teenage raver, looking like she needed to be grounded or spanked or something."

Brock Little
"Brock Little looked like a piece of animated driftwood. He'd been absolutely chiseled by the teeth of the ocean, physically and spiritually -- he had the look of somebody who's died six or seven times already and is now a project of voodoo scientists, running on some whole other ghost chemical. All the blood in his body has been removed and replaced with concentrated adrenaline and a clear, high-octane bionic fluid made from denatured testosterone and the distilled essences of his dead friends, which makes him beautiful and creepy to look upon."

Pro Surfers
"A vast majority of surfers are built like sea turtles -- short as hell. Most of the women are barely over 5 feet; many of the men are barely over 5-5 with wide torsos and really short legs and arms with wide hands like flippers, and long, rubbery spines that seem to have too many vertebrae, like the Ingres Odalisque. Extremely low center of gravity. The Brazilian pros are practically Oompa Loompas - they weigh little more than the chicks, and it does nothing but magical things for their wave ability."

"There are the odd bullheaded tantrum-throwers like Hawaiian tiki monster Sunny Garcia, who had a couple of colorful shit-fits and poked some guy in the chest while we were there, but for the most part, all the petty parts of surfers' brains seem blasted away by the overpowering waters and they have the weird, gentle majesty of giraffes or monks."

You can read the Lacanau Pro article here and the Pipe Masters article here. You will laugh until you spew Primo beer from your nose.

Surf jounalists, hear me now and believe me later (thank you Hans, thank you Franz): your writing is girlie-man shit and not one of you has ever written a thing that wasn't corporate co-opted cheerleading crap. You write for trade magazines that aren't even as even-handed as trade magazines.

You are also a bunch of pansies. Before you even finish reading this you should pull your free Hurley boardshorts up your ass as hard as you can - a well-deserved wedgie which would have hurt a lot more back when you were stuffed in nylon Katins.

Cintra, you rule. Daniel Duane? You rule, too. Weisbecker? Rules.

The rest of you? Get back to work. Isn't your "wetsuit guide" almost due?

Oh, Side

2007-08-03T15:20:00.000-07:00

Oside this morning. Small, crumbly, crappy. Very disappointing.

Normally the Colonel reserves the drive through Pendleton for big swells, but it's summer and sometimes you just gotta rally with the SD crew any way you can.

Now I'm back in Dana Point at the new office, which, I gotta say, is just fucking epic.

We're across the street from the Dana Point harbor. There's a sushi place next door, a bakery, a sandwich place, and bluffs on both sides of our little complex. Did I mention we have rocks inside? We do.

Since I'm going down this little rathole anyway, here's another shot. Then we can go back to complaining about the waves in the land of baby parents.

Speaking of which, the baby parents were out in full force today. The Colonel tries not to get weirded out by 18 year-old enlisted boys and their tiny tykes, but especially nowadays, it's hard not to stare a bit. I mean, I've been surfing the harbor and eating breakfast at that same Denny's for 15 years now. And the Denny's is, and always has been, ground zero for high school graduation->wedding->bootcamp->delivery room couples and their offspring. I guess I'm just finally old enough that they really look like children to me now.

Pity? I don't think so. They usually seem as happy as any other couple with a baby or two in tow. But yeah, maybe there's a little pity mixed with the fascination that makes it hard to stop watching them as we eat. Then again, maybe it's the his and hers matching tattoos, which seems to be growing in popularity.

BUT ANYHOW...

So yes, waves were crap today. Should have brought a fish or a log, but I had higher expectations.

Meanwhile, surfing in San Clemente these past few weeks has been an interesting experience. It's definitely a different beast than HB. Completely different actually.

HB is big. Big beaches, big lineups, big parking lots. It's very spread out (unless you're surfing the pier, which is kind of like a big mosh pit that smells like hamburgers). San Clemente is compact...most of the beaches are crammed up against cliffs and bluffs...which is actually nice. I mean, it's not Laguna, but the beaches are semi-pretty and have some natural characteristics. Unlike HB which is urban surfing at its most urban. Think Miami with brownish water and more trash on the beach.

The other big difference is the blackball factor. Almost every beach in SC is partially blackballed during the summer. And the fact is, it has to be. The same topography that created the bluffs also causes the beaches to drop off fairly dramatically into the ocean. That translates into waves that break very close to shore and creates a close encounter situation with swimmers that would be unmanageable without the blackball. It sucks but it's necessary.

Besides, it's not like they blackball the entire beach. North Beach, T-Street, State Beach...there's always a surfing stretch within walking distance.

And yes, the vibe is also very different in South County. Hardcore Huntington is Hardcore Huntington. Even away from the pier there's an attitude and a vibe that's just a bit this side of unpleasant. San Clemente is simply mellower. It looks mellower and it is. The cliffs are soft and rounded, the style of the city is more fluid and relaxed, and the water is prettier and warmer. The boys and girls in the water reflect that.

Not surprisingly, I haven't surfed Trestles once. Fact is, you could live on Christianitos Road and Trestles would STILL be a complete hassle to surf. The walk in, the waiting for waves, the changing on the beach, the walk back...it's a half day commitment, minimum. All that for the most crowded wave in California? Well, I was going to say "pass" with a self-satisfied smirk on my face. But I just couldn't get it out.

Despite all the hassle, Trestles is one of the best waves I've ever surfed. One head-high wave can turn the walk and the wait into loose change.

The Colonel says, "I'll be back."

5th Tour, 2nd Theater

2007-07-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

5th tour of duty, 2nd theater of operations. Reporting for duty.

The Colonel has been restationed in San Clemente. Which is kind of like getting pulled out of Iraq and sent to Italy.

The waves are better. The ocean is warmer. The people are nicer. The sand is cleaner. The water is bluer (is that even a word?)

Don't worry though. I'm sure I'll find plenty to complain about. Have you seen John From Cincinnati. I think I hate that show, but I'm not positive.

Stay tuned.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Fridge For Sale...Slight Kelp Problem

2007-04-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

Love it or hate it, Huntington Beach has very dirty beaches. Not only is it almost always covered in trash, but the water is filled with trash, too.

I don't know where it ranks on the pollution scale (which has nothing to do with trash and everything to do with dangerous bacteria, which apparently are totally unrelated), but if there was a beach ranking that calculated primarily empty Doritos bags, we'd be off the charts.

Today was actually a beautiful day. Crystal clear, warm, light winds, fun sized waves, deep blue water color, and more trash than I've ever seen. My favorite is when the trash gets tangled up with the kelp and you get these sort of semi-organic Homer Simpson outsider art installations floating in the lineup.

Anyhow, while I was sloshing about in Orange County's very own offshore landfill, I remembered the grandaddy of all floating Doritos bags which washed ashore about a year ago in the shape of a full sized refrigerator. Not kidding.

It was mid-afternoon, pretty warm, sloppy windswell, not many guys out...and suddenly I notice what looks like a capsized boat floating outside. I paddle up to it. Nope. Fridge. Floating. In the lineup.

Over the next few minutes the fridge slowly but surely made its way into the impact zone where it suddenly became the biggest rock in HB history, waves bouncing off like mortar rounds. And the scariest part is that it was 80% submerged, iceberg style, and there were these creepy looking pipes poking up out of the water (I'm not sure what they're called, but take a look at the back of your fridge and you'll see what I'm talking about).

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your viewpoint) no boogie boarders got mowed over or crushed by this mammoth-sized Kenmoore flotsam during its brief trip through the inside, and the next thing I knew there was a crowd at the water's edge. The fridge had finally beached itself and people were looking at it like Free Willy had just bodysurfed into HB for a quick tattoo.

The lifeguards showed up and roped it off, which I thought was hilarious because the time to do something was when it was plowing through the impact zone looking for sun-blinded boogie boarders to plant in the sandbar.

Nice work guys, you didn't see the fucking FRIDGE in the water for the past HALF HOUR?

Later an entire gurney washed up with a patient still in it, frantically pushing the nurse and morphine buttons and wondering how the hell he'd managed to wet himself so badly and why the hot chicks on Baywatch had suddenly been replaced with fat Riverside girls eating Doritos.

Actually no. But after the fridge incident I went home, so who am I to say it didn't happen?

The Colonel says, "At ease."

HB Memories - Part I

2007-04-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

My route.

Talk about a creature of habit. For 4 years now I've taken the same route to the beach on my bike. And it wasn't randomly chosen either.

When we first moved here we noticed a couple of things.

1. The sidewalks are erratic, to say the least. When the houses started popping up in our neighborhood over a hundred years ago, there were no sidewalks at all. Think Carmel-By-The-Sea. But over the past 30 years or so, people have been tearing down houses, rebuilding, and adding sidewalks to the front of their homes. So now, we have this Winchester Mystery House of sidewalks that dead end, and even sometimes appear for 3 feet in between two lawns.

2. Some blocks are pretty, some are hideous. Most beach towns are weird that way, but "Old Town" Huntington is particularly bi-polar. You have brand new stucco mini-beach mansions sitting next to dilapidated 80 year-old bungalows sitting next to elegant plantation style homes sitting next to $300 a month 4-to-a-bedroom crack houses. Some blocks have more of one, some have more of another.

So after about a month of living here and taking our newborn on walks to the beach, we finally figured out a route that 1. had the most sidewalks and 2. was the nicest to look at.

Which means that for 4 years now the Colonel has exited his garage on his bike, turned right on Joliet, crossed Delaware like Frogger with a surfboard, turned left on Huntington, turned right on Franklin, smiled at the dirtbags buying Bud talls at Steve's Liquors at 11 AM, smiled at the firemen washing their trucks, smiled at the slightly more affluent dirtbags smoking upstairs on the patio of the Shorehouse, waited at the light on the corner of Main St. while people eating outside made comments to each other like, "Ooh, honey, look! He's got a rack on his bike for his surfboard" and "Now THAT'S the life," wrapped to the left on 6th St., smiled at the bocci ball players on the grass, summed up the wind conditions coming down 6th with the first glimpse of the ocean, weaved my way through a deadly cannonball run of people trying to find parking, smiled at the dirtbags at Java Beach (home of the worst coffee in America as well as the worst collection of used surfboards I've ever seen), waited at the corner of PCH, witnessing near crashes and pure unmitigated beach traffic confusion, coasted down the hill into the 6th St. parking lot, dodging people, dogs, kids on skateboards, and very very confused Dads driving massive Suburbans and trying to figure out whether to turn right or left, turned right onto the boardwalk amidst rollerbladers, bums, and retards squeezed into Lance Armstrong outfits trying to look less fat on $5,000 road bikes made for skinny people, and then FINALLY, skidded to a halt in front of my favorite bike racks, two rusted-to-shit poles, bent and drilled into the ground for God-knows-what original purpose.

And then, after all that, I'd go surfing. Which is a whole other story.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Adios HB

2007-04-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

After 4 years in Huntington Beach, the Colonel is being restationed.

San Clemente. And yes, go ahead and heckle. Talega.

For those of you that know, just skip ahead to the "comments" section and do your worst. For those of you that don't, Talega is a planned community that covers pretty much all of southeast San Clemente. It's a MASSIVE development. Thousands of homes spread over 3,500 acres and subdivided into about 30 different neighborhoods.

And, yes, it's full on Wisteria Lane, or Agrestic, or Stepford, or any other suburban parody you care to throw out there. Essentially middle class "luxury" homes filled with 30-something parents, SUVs, and toddlers named Connor and Madison (maybe a few more tramp stamps and Rainbow sandals than you'd find in a similar neighborhood in Ohio, but I'm not kidding myself...it's the same deal).

So are we looking at a whole new era in the blogtastic world of Charlie Don't Surf? Could be. We'll just have to see.

So, goodbye 6th St. Goodbye pier. Goodbye 345 days of rideable surf. Goodbye Christian Republican surfer skinhead tattoo artists. Goodbye 3 AM noise complaint hotline on speed dial. Goodbye Normitas, the slowest Mexican takeout on the planet (but also one of the best). Goodbye Duke's. Goodbye US Open. Goodbye fucking paintball tournament on the beach. Goodbye rusty, sandy Electra cruiser bike covered in melted surf wax. Goodbye HSS. Goodbye Jack's. Goodbye 8 miles of dirty, trash-covered beaches. Goodbye offshore oil drilling.

Hello Trestles. Hello Pedro's Tacos. Hello Rip Curl. Hello T-Street. Hello clean beaches. Hello blue water. Hello San-O with my log and my kids. Hello parking passes. And most importantly, hello suburban cul-de-sac packed to the rafters with kids and bikes and dogs.

And let's not forget to say hello to HB nostalgia. For as much as this town drives me insane, The Colonel has some pretty great memories from the past 4 years. The surfing alone was more than worth the price of admission.

So stay tuned for memory lane. And after that, stay tuned for tales from a new town.

The Colonel says, "Ah, HB. Those were the days."

And Now For Something Completely Different

2006-10-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

The Colonel has about 50 posts written in his head for Charlie Don't Surf.

However, I think it's about time he came clean and admitted what he's been afraid to admit for a while now:

The Colonel is a little bored with writing about surfing.

The Colonel has ranted and raved here for 2 years. He hasn't even come close to updating every day, but since a lot of the posts have been anywhere from 5-10 pages a pop, I'd say Charlie Don't Surf has more than filled its quota of "call it like I see it, cut through the bullshit, honest talk about surfing, surf culture, and assholes who yell at people even when it's beautiful and perfect."

With that said, The Colonel is taking a break. You'll still find him in the water anywhere from OB to OB, but in general he'll be continuing to carve out his own little niche of mediocrity 6 blocks north of the HB pier.

So without further ado, allow me to redirect your attention here...

fissionhole.blogspot.com

The Colonel says, "At ease."

There's A War Going On

2006-07-11T08:22:00.000-07:00

Note from the Colonel: I don't usually retract things I write in this blog, given the whole stream-of-conciousness diary-esque nature of these things. But someone called me out on the following post, and it turns out they were absolutely right. I'll leave the rant as-is for posterity, but check out the comments below it for a follow-up reality check (the first two comments anyway...the latter two are just typical point/counter-point ramblings from Akroyd and Curtain).

Last night I saw Pearl Jam at the Forum in LA.

At the beginning of the 3rd encore (yes, in true 70's arena rock fashion, they came back for THREE encore sets) Eddie Vedder announced that a percentage of the ticket sales were going to a very special charity. He then went on to talk about this "place a little bit south of here", a place they call Trestles, and how all these "people with a lot of money want to put a toll road right through the middle of unspoiled California nature that's a part of surfing history."

And my very first thought was, "Uh, Eddie, there's a war going on."

I don't mean to sound like an Orange County surfer who doesn't give a shit, but Jesus-fucking-Christ, there's a WAR GOING ON.

Does anyone else feel this way? I mean, 10 years ago I might have been a bit more concerned with the Trestles Toll Road. Times were good. American soldiers weren't getting shot and blown up daily, and shooting and blowing up other people in retaliation. 19 year-old Army Rangers weren't crawling through caves in Afghanistan looking for guys with beards and AK-47s. And we weren't all walking around in some semi-permanent, paranoid daze, images of giant fireballs and burned, screaming bodies falling 82 stories from the twin towers permanently charred into our collective consciousness.

But there's a war going on now.

I know that doesn't mean the Surfrider Foundation isn't important. And I know that the Trestles Toll Road is pretty lame. But if you were big rich rock star and you had the ear of millions of fans around the world and you wanted to make a difference, what would you do right now? What would you tell a sold out crowd at the Forum in LA?

Don't put a toll road through my favorite surf spot?

There's a WAR GOING ON. There's an ASSHOLE in the Oval Office who has been there for 6 FUCKING YEARS now. He has filled up the government with hundreds, if not thousands, of OTHER ASSHOLES. And in the past 6 years they have...I mean...um...

There's a war going on.

I don't want to turn this into some sort of political tirade. But fuckin' A, people, there's a war going on. There's global warming, an AIDS epidemic in Africa, a crazed, out-of-control administration that's tapping our phones, monitoring our Internet access, and marking up the Bill of Rights with a red pen like it's Little Larry Sellers' Social Studies homework (you're killing your father, Larry). We've got North Koreans testing intercontinental missiles, Iranians harboring terrorists, an oil crisis in the Middle East, and an entire 3rd World that's spewing enough pollutants into the air that pretty soon Hong Kong is going to be shrouded in fog circa Jack-the-Ripper London.

There's a war going on.

And last night, while a sold out crowd at the Forum pumped their fists and cheered and Eddie told us all how we could "make a difference", I shook my head and starred at my feet, embarrassed to be a surfer.

Totally '83

2006-06-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

The Colonel has nothing to rant about today, so Mr. Peabody and Sherman will be filling in for him while he thinks of something else to get pissed about.

"Mr. Peabody, where should we go today?"

"Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to 1983."

"Who's that, Mr. Peabody?"

"That's a young man posing for a surf magazine, Sherman."

"Wow, he looks like a dork, Mr. Peabody"

"Actually, Sherman, he was quite cool back in 1983. Notice the angled sleeves, the rolled pants...red, of course. And, well, the dog. A nice dog. Men in the early 80's, you see, were sensitive."

"Wow, Mr. Peabody. Are men sensitive now?"

"No, Sherman. Men are badass now. They wear black wetsuits and have lots of tattoos."

"Wow, who's that Mr. Peabody?"

"That, my boy, is Richard Schmidt?"

"Is he sensitive?"

"No, Sherman, but he does have white hair and a white mustache...which is mostly just weird. Then again, he's from Santa Cruz."

"I like his wetsuit, Mr. Peabody."

"Yes, Sherman. In 1983, everyone had colorful wetsuits. It was a colorful time. Richard, here, is actually rather subdued considering the colors young surfers were splashing about in in 1983."

"Wow, Mr. Peabody...what's THAT guy doing over there?"

"That, my boy, is a snowboarder, circa 1983."

"Is that like surfing?"

"A bit. Much like skateboarding was originally called 'sidewalk surfing', snowboarding was originally developed to replicate surfing in the snow."

"Wow, it looks like fun."

"It was, only I have I'm not sure how this lad keeps his back foot attached to the board. It appears to be black grip tape, much like a skateboard."

"Is he shredding, Mr. Peabody?"

"No, Sherman, not really. I think mostly he's trying to keep his back foot on the board. A bit silly, really."

"Who's that in the white and red wetsuit, Mr. Peabody?"

"That's Rockin' Fig, Sherman."

"Who's Rockin' Fig, Mr. Peabody?"

"His real name is Rick Fignetti, Sherman. He's a local Huntington Beach surfer. He also does the KROQ surf report on the radio."

"Does he do the KROQ surf report in the future?"

"As a matter of fact, he does, Sherman. He also runs a small surf shop next to El Ranchito on Main St. and writes a weekly column about surfing for the local newspaper."

"I like his wetsuit, Mr. Peabody."

"That's very nice, Sherman. Now what else do you see?"

"I see a lady, Mr. Peabody!"

"That's correct."

"Who is she, Mr. Peabody?"

"That's the Gotcha lady, Sherman."

"Who's the Gotcha lady, Mr. Peabody?"

"The Gotcha lady was a new wave icon used by the surf company, Gotcha, in 1983?"

"What's 'new wave' Mr. Peabody?"

"New Wave was a style of art and fashion and music that came out of the late 70's, Sherman. Many of the surf companies in 1983 adopted that style. Although for anyone that was truly hip, this look was a bit tired by then."

"I'm tired, Mr. Peabody. Can I take a nap?"

"You can take a nap in 2006. Now look around. See anything else?"

"Oh, I see a man surfing, Mr. Peabody."

"Do you notice anything in particular about that man surfing, Sherman."

"Is he surfing in the air?"

"That's correct. That's Kevin Reed surfing at Ano Nuevo, north of Santa Cruz in 1983."

"Do other men surf in the air in 1983, Mr. Peabody?"

"A few, but not many. Years later a handful of younger surfers took the credit for introducing 'air surfing', Sherman. But this young man, Kevin Reed, deserves much of the credit."

"What does he do now, Mr. Peabody?"

"I think he has a job, Sherman, and surfs on weekends."

"That sucks, Mr. Peabody."

"Quiet, you."

Hola, Eddy

2006-06-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

Who knows what a Coastal Eddy is? Raise your hand.

Yes, you. The kid eating the paste in the corner and picking his nose. Please stand and tell the class.

"Coastal eddys are basically just small low pressure systems that develop some nights out over the Pacific off the Southern California coast. This small low pressure system spins up moisture from out over the water eastward and onto our coastline. The result is usually a cloudy, breezy start to the upcoming day. BURP!"

Excellent. You may sit and resume picking and eating.

So, for the past week or so, we've had COASTAL EDDY CONDITIONS here in Orange County. In other words, every morning it's cloudy with light onshore winds.

Which kind of sucks.

BUT, we've also had waves. I don't think we've had a single day in over a week that hasn't served up at least a few head-high sets.

Which, as Carl the Assistant Groundskeeper said after being told by the Lama that upon his deathbed he'd receive total consciousness, is nice.

So what else is going on in HB?

In a lot of ways we've just sort of settled in to this kind of late Spring holding pattern. Decent (enough) waves, funky weather, warm (enough) water, and small (enough) crowds.

On Saturday morning, Dwyer Middle School was having their end-of-the-year surf team contest. It was fun watching the little groms splash around in the dumpy shorebreak, especially during the "air contest", during which ONE kid actually managed to coax his fins partially out of the water.

I'm actually not sure which was more entertaining for the handful of tourists on the beach - the 13 year-olds trying to get airborne in 3 foot shorebreak, or my 3 year-old son in his size 3T wetsuit, running to the water's edge, face planting, running back up the beach, face planting in hole I'd dug for him in the sand, and running back to the water (repeat 12-14 times until in need of juice and pretzels).

Oh, and BTW, Timmy Turner paddled out the other day for the first time since he got sick. Good for him. HB needs more surfers like TT - a worldly, creative, international ambassador, and not the usual tatted-up dirtbag or ex-con born-again (ok, he is a born again, but we'll let him slide since I don't think he spends his time in Indo trying to "convert the savages").

Big up to Dixon, a classic SD mate and a fixture at the South Mission Jetty. The skinny-legged one is getting hitched and some of the boys will be getting a few houses at Las Gaviotas in Baja this weekend. It has actually been a couple of years since the last Mex trip, so that should be fun.

The Colonel says, "Relajar, por favor."

Ahoy, Hoy

2006-06-06T16:15:00.000-07:00

I deleted that last post.

I hate when bloggers or columnists or webmasters do the whole "under construction" or "be back soon, promise!" thing and then, of course, the construction never finishes and they never do come back soon.

Which is exactly what I just did.

So, apologies for that. But the Colonel is back, so let's get back to business. So much has happened, surfing-wise, in the past 6 months that I'm not even sure where to start...

Right now there's still a solid swell pumping into Orange County. It's a little weird, little funky, little closed out, and a little bumpy, BUT...at least there are waves.

Saturday was funky and mixed up with HB's patented northbound current doing its Mississippi River impersonation. Sunday was slightly heavier - solid overhead - with more water moving around and nastier sets. Yesterday was the cleanest day so far, with clean A-frames but so much goddamn high tide water moving around that almost every set came complete with backwash speed bumps and bonus warbles.

The super warm weather and warm(er) water over the weekend also had unreal crowds at the beaches, which was actually kind of nice because the lack of parking favors the big families who show up early from Riverside. The weekend wave warriors show up, see the chaos, and splinter off in various directions. Then guys like me squeak through the crowds, park our bikes, paddle out at the pier through 50 obese teenagers in jean shorts and soaking wet size XXXL t-shirts, and then get any wave we want.

Sometimes membership, even in a concrete surf city metropolis like HB, has its privileges.

Christ, has it really been 6 months since I last posted? I can't get over that. Where did the time go?

As we all know, a few days after December 19th, 2005 (the date of the Colonel's last entry), that macking super swell slammed into the coast. On the 21st I walked out on the pier with a buddy and watched massive, glassy, double-overhead walls slam into the pilings and shake the pier like we were at Candlestick, October '89.

Which brings me to a familiar topic - the surf media. How many of you surfed that giant swell? Especially those first few days, when almost every spot from IB to OB was CLOSED THE FUCK OUT? I already know the answer. Not many of you.

I'll tell you who DID surf. Every professional surfer in Southern California showed up at Sandspit in Santa Barbara and crawled over each for photo ops in dirty, dredging, wedging tubes off the jetty. The sun hadn't even gone down and every surf media outlet in Orange County was posting that day's video of Curren and Dane Reynolds with ridiculous headlines like, "EPIC DAY OF SURF ROCKS SOCAL!"

Um, yeah. Epic day if you were Curren or Dane Reynolds at Sandspit.

Yeah, there were a few other spots happening...Black's, Swami's, and all the rest of the usual big wave winter suspects. But I mean, for the average guy, even the average guy who's a pretty good surfer, it was basically 3 weeks straight of closed out, unrideable beachbreaks.

Yes, even I eventually got off my ass and got into my car and went in search of more structured surf spots. In my case I went up to Ventura and surfed C-Street with my brother-in-law-to-be for 3 straight days. And I know that tons of people got tons of great waves at every point break you've ever heard of.

But the media...oh, the fucking surf media. Every day it was another inane headline - "Best December Ever!", "The Swell of the Decade!", "3 WEEKS OF PERFECT SURF!"

Which, I guess is all true if you're Chris Brown with a tow-board and a photographic entourage. But for the other 99% of us who surf, those 3 weeks amounted to a little bit of surfing and a lot of not surfing.

It just further illustrates how completely out of touch the former pros who run the mags are. I mean it's bad enough that they're "celebrators of the lifestyle" posing as journalists. But the "lifestyle" they celebrate isn't even in tune with the vast majority of their readers. It's really a celebration of the "surf industry lifestyle", where Sunny Garcia's white collar tax wipeout (thank you, Scotty Breauxman) is buried in a PR fluff piece, and yet another Volcom self-congratulatory circle jerk "party" warrants an entire page with photos and connect-the-bro-brah'isms. Toss in some meathead from Hawaii in linebacker pads towing in to a stunt wave and, hey bro, let's call it a great winter.

Wow. I just got pissed fast.

Guess the Colonel is back in action. Again.

At ease.

Closed for Christmas

2005-12-19T20:29:00.000-08:00

Wow, Huntington does NOT like a big NW swell.

Walls, walls, and more walls. Unless of course you're hugging the pier, can paddle like Michael Phelps, and don't mind wedging race tracks that smack into - and through - the pilings.

I tried today. I really did. I paddled out right in between the extra pilings that stick out further than the other ones, and literally paddled sideways while the outgoing tide sucked me out and the north current tried to sweep me down to Newport.

I got most of the way out, still within spitting distance of the barnacles. That is, until a set came smashing through and swatted me down about 4 blocks in half that many minutes.

Then, once I did make it to the outside, it was just one wedging closeout after another - some of them going so square that I'm convinced the entire 10 mile coastline of HB just had its sandbars completely reconfigured in a single afternoon.

Head high, sand-filled, brown and white, dredging suckouts.

Yuck.

And on top of all that, I made the unfathomably stupid decision to wear booties today.

What??? Where the hell do I live...Bodega Bay???

On each wave, as I got progressively more tired from nonstop current-fighting, I dragged my feet a little more. Which means each time I got to my feet - textured rubber fusing to freshly combed wax like an electromagnet - my front foot got closer and closer to the tail.

Taking off on my last wave, a freakishly perfect shoulder-high wave that had no business in today's sea of jackbooted thugs masquerading as waves, I was already spent. My legs felt like hundred-pound driftwood logs (probably not far off). I got as far as the mid-tail and stuck like glue. Too tired to fight it, I just flopped off the side and bodysurfed it almost the entire way in.

And before you get it in your head that this was some semi-stylish Tom Curren-esque way to end an awkward, exhausting session, let me just add this in:

As I bodysurfed this glassy, peeling right, my board was sort of permanently hung up in the lip, bouncing off the back of my head the entire way.

Not to worry. There's a macking double overhead swell hurtling its way across the Pacific, scheduled to make landfall by Wednesday.

The Colonel says, "Tether ball anyone?"

Some Kind of Monster

2005-12-12T16:37:00.000-08:00

"Surfer extremely familiar with his regular spot (as well as the other surfers who also frequent the same break) who develops a fairly serious fear of anyone new or irregular who might not recognize them as the well respected character they believe themselves to be and instead judge them by surfing ability alone, thereby levelling a playing field they believe should hold a noticeable home field advantage."

Old expression - new definition.

Usually we call it localism, but it's hard to call any popular mainstream spot localized anymore. Life has become too transparent...too photographed. We're too transient and there's simply too much information available to anyone who wants it.

So it's not really localism anymore. It's more, well, familiarity breeding contempt in an urban, overpopulated setting. Think Deliverance local vs. LA local.

But let's back up for a second.

The last few weeks have been an off again/on again hodgepodge of fairly decent waves. Unfortunately, a lot of the better days have been really good at the pier and really shitty anywhere else along the 10 mile stretch of Huntington Beach. Which means that I, and a lot of other guys, have had no choice but to join the fray north or southside of the pier.

And there hath entered the aforementioned contempt (to get all up in your Queen's English ass).

Lunada Bay is localized. Velzyland is localized. The HB Pier, like Steamer Lane or the South Mission Jetty, is a popular, wide-open-to-the-public, high visibility surf spot that happens to have a devoted crew of guys who surf the place every day and pretty much all know one another. A lot of them don't even live there.

It's familiarity. Or should we say, regularity?

The end result being a lot of attitudes, a lot of loud mouths, and a shitload of competition with the added catalyst of being watched by throngs of tourists lining the pier (a phenomenon closely related to Kodak Courage).

Here's a perfect example:

Yesterday, around 3 PM, it was low tide, head high, and closing out everywhere in HB except the pier, where you had perfect northside rights racing into the pilings. About 20 of us were fighting the current, dodging the closeouts, and maybe even trying to log in some tube time.

And, as per usual on a Sunday evening, anywhere from 30-100 people lined the pier, watching the surfers and waiting for the sun to set.

So I'm paddling back out after a fun little wave, and this guy on a longboard is dropping into a halfway decent set wave. He's a regular pier guy. I know this because whenever I check the posted photos from photogs who shoot the pier every day, he's always in at least one of them. He's fairly tall, in his 40's, and has a face and haircut a lot like the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket (now the host of Mail Call for you History Channel buffs). His head is also strangely shaped - a bit like Frankenstein - and he wears the ugliest, cheapest blue wetsuit you've ever seen and rides a giant black and white longboard.

So let's just call him Frank.

So Frank drops into this wave, and like all waves at the pier, there are probably 6 guys still paddling for it. This is the HB pier though, and that's pretty much typical. Regardless, Frank drops in and yells at the top of his lungs, "GET THE FUCK OFF THE SHOULDER!" as he screams down the face on his freaky log.

Faintly amused and semi-confused, I keep paddling back out. I mean, after all, this guy surfs the pier every day. I wonder what the big deal was on that wave.

Soon enough, Frank makes it back out and starts screaming at, well, everyone. It went something like this:

"Hey, John Stamford! Hey, Joe Rickford! Let's see what you've got! C'mon now! 99 percent of these fucking guys shouldn't even be out here! They're ALL KOOKS! Let's get it on!"

So the rest of us, we all start looking around at each other. Who's John Stamford? Who's Joe Rickford?* Am I part of that 99 percent that shouldn't be out here? Wait a minute, there aren't even 100 guys out here. That means NO ONE should be out here? Or are we overthinking this?

Some guys start laughing under their breath. Others just roll their eyes. And I SWEAR I saw one of his buddies (not sure if it was John Stamford or Joe Rickford), look at the rest of us with a positively embarrassed smile.

That's when it hit me. It's not that this guy is local. And it's not that he's going to beat anyone up. It's just that he surfs there every day, and is so used to being recognized by everyone in the water, that he freaks when suddenly he's outnumbered by guys who don't surf the pier every day.

In other words, he finds himself out of his element, even though it's geographically still his element, and is afraid that all these guys might simply view him as a weirdo with a uni-brow and a cheap wetsuit instead of the colorful regular his ego relies on.

Like Crash Davis told Nuke LaLoosh, "Your shower shoes have fungus on them. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you're a slob."

Frank's version of winning 20 in the show is spending 6 hours a day at the pier for a decade (or two). And without his boyz, he's just a slob with an '86 Toyota Tercel and fungus on his shower shoes.

So he freaks out and he yells. After all, he probably knows he's a bit of a freak and can't surf very well. Why not rant and rave to stack the wave odds back in your favor?

And while I partially felt sorry for him - his Frankenstein head, his shitty blue Toyota hatchback, his crappy wetsuit, and the fact that he probably belongs in the VA psych ward for a pre-existing mental condition that sprouted during a stint washing garbage cans at Fort Ord in the early 80's - he also kind of ruined everyone's session, which up until then had been pretty damn fun.

So that's it. Irritable, angry, frustrating fear - the urban face of localism.

Which, maybe isn't such a bad thing when you consider the way things used to be. After all, you can't beat people up anymore. You can't slash tires or spear people in the chest with your board, especially with a dozen HandiCams trained on your fists.

Instead, you scream and yell and do your best to cast a shitty vibe on everyone in the water. It's your spot, you surf there everyday, and while you can't stop people from paddling out, you can sure as hell have a boatload of contempt for the 99 percent of 20 guys out in the water and do your best to make them as miserable as you are.

And if that doesn't make any sense to you (the math or the concept), join the club.

And thanks to miles of closed-out beachbreak, I saw more of it today.

The Colonel says, "Pray for peaks."

UPDATE 6/16/08: So here we are 2 and a half years later, and these bumper stickers are starting to pop up all over Orange County. They read, "The Waterman Rips" and there's a URL at the bottom. Yup, that's him. And he's even crazier than I thought he was. Fooking nutter, as the Brits say.

* Names have been changed not for their protection, but because I can't remember them.

Slippery When Wet

2005-11-20T15:20:00.000-08:00

It's easy to forget how dangerous surfing is.

Actually, I take that back. It's not that it's easy to forget how dangerous surfing is. It's just that we tend to focus on the spectacularly dangerous aspects of surfing - the really scary, sexy dangers that seldom happen (the sharks, the reef at 'chopes, the kickboxing wolfpack) - and forget about the stupid little things that actually do happen.

Think plane crash vs. car crash.

And it's those stupid little accidents that we should be afraid of. Just ask Jesse Billauer.

On Friday I had a nice little reminder.

It was super low tide, and getting lower. Probably -.5, with another hour to go. I was surfing without a leash, which I do a lot when the waves are small. As a matter of fact, there was almost nothing about the session that was even slightly unusual. Except for the fact that, because the tide was still dropping so fast, there was a fairly steady (but slow) current pulling straight out to sea.

So I catch a little waist-high right, do a few pumps, and then as it starts to closeout, pop a little backside kickout. I timed it a little late though, and while my board made it over as the wave dumped on the inside, my balance was off and I fell backwards over the falls.

Not a big deal. Like I said, the waves were small.

I pop up and see my board about 20 feet away. I start after it, doing the casual waist-high hop n' splash. But I quickly notice that it's steadily moving back out towards the lineup and that I'm not catching up with it. So I start swimming...steadily at first, then panicked as a wave starts breaking on the outside and I realize my board is gonna go right up the face and right in the way of the guy now taking off.

Now I'm swimming like mad, closing the gap, but it's too late. The surfer sees my board, gives me a disgusted, filthy look, and pulls out the back just a few feet before colliding with this six foot piece of blue flotsam. Still desperate to get it back under my control, I make one last mad sprint for the tail when I realize I'm not going to catch it in time. It tracks up the face and gets caught perfectly in the lip.

To quote a million cheesy action flicks, suddenly the hunter has become the hunted.

I stick my arms out to try and "catch it", but mostly I'm just blocking. In a split-second, it comes down with the lip, hits both my hands, accordions my arms like they couldn't bench-press a Harry Potter book, and, deck first, just CRUSHES me in the side of the head. I mean, it clobbered me.

I came up, not only seeing stars and convinced my head had been split open like a watermelon, but with such a crazy ringing in my head that I was pretty sure my earplug had been knocked deep into my skull, and was now bouncing around in there like a rubber pinball.

I start doing the slap n' look, where you claw at the damaged area, pull your hand away and inspect your fingers for blood, and then repeat about 50 times.

Amazingly, no blood, no crushed skull, and my earplug is still sitting where it belongs.

I started having flashbacks of another lowtide session, 15 years ago, at Carmel Beach. I had just done a failed floater on a head-high wave into 3 feet of water. Me, the wave, and the board all combined into a perfectly symbiotic fusion of vertical energy and just imploded there on the sand. I popped up first and immediately looked around for my board. Like the dude sticking his face over the egg in Alien (ALWAYS a bad idea), I looked straight down and my board popped straight up, knocking me on my ass and opening up a nice two-inch split next to my eye.

Damn, surfing is dangerous. No two ways about it. Ruptured ear drums, nose gashes, fin slices, head whacks, neck-breaking sandbars, pier collisions, leash tangles...you name it.

30 foot Jaws? Ha. I survived 2-foot HB.

The Colonel says, "Let's be careful out there."

Surfing, Now New & Improved!

2005-11-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

In the nearly 20 years I've been surfing, right now is by far the best time to be a surfer.

That thought hit me like a Scott's Creek cleanup set about 5 minutes ago while I was sitting on my living room floor, drinking coffee, listening to the Sprout soundtrack, and sorting our magazine rack.

With piles of "haven't read yet and still plan to" (Sunset), "haven't read yet and know we're not going to, which is fine because it comes every week" (The Economist), "have read but want to keep anyway" (Wine Spectator), and "haven't read but still like looking at the pictures when I take a dump" (Surfer), last year's Photo Annual slipped off its appropriate stack and opened up to an image of a single fin retro board sailing through the air. Next to it was a shot of some guy at Malibu, riding the nose, taken from behind.

With Ray Barbee jangling in the background, I had an overpowering thought:

"Oh man, I wanna go for a surf."

Followed by:

"Shit, this really is the best time ever to be a surfer."

Why?

Because this is the first time (in my surfing lifetime anyway), that WE THE PEOPLE have broken free from the ranks of the bro/brah professionals.

Think about your surfing 10 years ago, or 20 years ago. What were you riding? How were you riding? What kinds of boards were they selling?

It was awful. It was so awful, we didn't even realize it at the time. When I bought my first board in the mid-80's, I had three choices:

- 6 foot tri-fin thruster
- 6 foot tri-fin thruster
- 6 foot tri-fin thruster

Okay, so there were a handful of boards in the "used" section that dated back from the 70's. A couple of pin tails and thick railed-experiments, hocked for a couple of twomps, and left in the darkest corners of every surf shop, banished to decades of dust and ridicule - permanent drydock.

I remember paddling out on that first board, a 6'0" G.M. Corocroft (big GMC logo on the deck, gleefully referred to as the "Gay Men's Club" by my junior high buddies). I'll never forget the feeling of horror as I attempted to paddle out at low tide, glassy, nearly flat Hook at the end of 41st St. in Santa Cruz (actually Capitola, but that's like calling San Francisco "Central California" - technically true, but head-scratching to the masses).

It was the most awkward I'd ever felt. Nothing like the 10' foam board I'd paddled out on in Lahaina Harbor a year earlier. That was instantly fun...it felt natural. This...what the fuck was this? It was like balancing on a tightrope. I kept slipping from one side to the other, sinking forwards then sinking backwards. Thank goodness it was basically flat because even the knee high rollers that ambled through were like torpedoes in the hull.

And trying to catch a wave? And then stand up? Are you kidding me?

It took me nearly A YEAR before I could consistently catch a wave, stand up, and ride it. Granted, I lived about 45 minutes from the beach and only got to surf twice a month or so. But still, I was paddling, catching waves, standing up and SURFING within probably 20 minutes during my foamboard lesson on Maui.

"Yeah," I'd justify to myself after a particularly humiliating session at Pleasure Point or Steamer Lane. "But that wasn't really surfing. That was a big foam beginners board. It wasn't a REAL surfboard."

Fuck me it wasn't a real surfboard. If anything, that used, six foot Gay Men's Club heap of shit wasn't a surfboard. Real surfboards allow you to ride waves - TO SURF. I'm not sure what I'd call my weekly sessions of falling on my ass at the Half Moon Bay jetty, but it sure wasn't surfing. Floundering, more like.

And you know what? 10 years ago, it was probably even worse. For me anyway, I'd finally learned how to ride those tiny 6 foot thrusters (more or less). But for a newcomer, wanting to learn to surf...shit, can you even imagine clambering onto one of those flip-nosed, all-rocker potato chips that were all the rage back then?

And that's pretty much all they sold. Yeah, the "longboarding rennaisance" was in full swing, but thanks to the surfing media and the narrow-minded attitude of most professional and influential surfers at the time, longboarding was compartmentalized, ridiculed, and wholly excluded. It wasn't "surfing"...it was "longboarding". Like windsurfing and boogieboarding, the loggers were told to start their own magazines and surf at their own spots. A different sport altogether, matey.

It is ASTONISHING looking back on it now. It's like living through the civil rights movement and then looking back 20 years later and going, "Holy fuck, we thought black people were a different species of human...what the hell were we thinking?"

Thank goodness, our evolution - our civil rights movement - did finally happen. Things finally changed. A couple of guys started riding fish as a summer novelty. Guys like Joel Tudor showed they weren't just one trick ponies, and could smack a lip as easily as they could dangle ten toes over. Then the retro boys like Donavan took their love for vintage clothing to the next logical step - vintage boards. And finally, FINALLY, the word got out, a few movies hit the circuit, and everything changed.

THIS IS IT, my friends.

This is the best time to be a surfer...EVER. It's all available to you. Whoever you are, however your genetic code shaped you, wherever you live, whatever your style, you have finally won the right to have as much fun as Andy Irons, Kelly Slater, or Tom Curren.

Beginner? Take your pick of foamboards, longboards, funboards, eggs, retro fish...whatever the hell suits your body and suits your local break.

Intermediate? Sure, take out the shortboard...only now you can buy a board that's actually suited to YOU. At first they called them "hybrids" but that was only because shapers didn't know what else to call them. In reality, these "hybrids" were the first genuinely custom boards these guys had ever made. You may have ordered a "custom" board back in '92, but really you just got Kelly's board with your name scrawled on it.

Advanced? Sky's the limit. No longer are you shackled to that shortboard, avoiding small, crappy days because you don't want to grovel in the slop and look like the kook that you know you aren't. Take out the log, ride the fish...hell, get on the damn surf mat or go for a body whomp. Arch your back and drag your hand. Dip your head and do a layback. Stand up straight and stick your fist up in the air with a mighty, "Schnell!"

Anything goes right now, so please, get out there and enjoy it. For the first time in most of our lifetimes, surfing belongs to us, the 99.9% of us who weren't born in Newport's "hottest hundred yards" and who didn't grow up a block from Anthony Ruffo's meth lab.

The inmates are running the asylum, bros.

The Colonel says, "Let's paddle."

Fear and Loathing in Big Sur - Part I

2005-10-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: The following story depicts grown men behaving rather boisterously. I've changed the names of the participants in case their wives, girlfriends, mothers, or bosses stumble upon this blog.

Surf trips are funny things.

Usually if a trip is jam packed with great waves and long, perfect sessions, you'll hear it referred to as "epic".

If a trip has lots of surfing, but nothing quite resembling all-time conditions, they'll call it an "interesting" trip.

If the waves never even showed up to play, and all the travelers did nothing but drink, heckle, and cause trouble, they'll call the trip, "fun".

Our trip to Big Sur last weekend falls in that funny, fish-shaped spot where all three circles overlap.

It started out pretty weak, bordering on a bum trip (which, by the way, in 20 years of surf trips, I can't recall a single one which I would have labeled with the infamous "bum trip" tag).

This was Friday the 14th, and a major NW swell was scheduled to start rolling down the coast all day long. But from HB through Rincon, it was dead flat. Only when we got to Morrow Bay at around 9 AM (we left my house at 5 AM), did the bumps start marching in. Unfortunately, massive high tides were bogging everything down, resulting in big, mushy closeouts and surging shorebreak.

So, no paddling out on the way up. Strike one.

We got to Pacific Valley around noon - it was a slow crawl, with lots of food, gas, and piss breaks (part of it was that we were in two cars and couldn't seem to combine any of our needs into a single stop, and the other part is that my good friend, Howie, has a bladder the size of a pregnant woman).

BTW, in case anyone is confused, Big Sur is actually a rather small area. The stretch of coastline commonly referred to as "Big Sur" is actually 90 miles of towns, unincorporated areas, and state beaches stretching between Carmel to the north and San Simeon to the south. Big Sur proper is simply the closest to Carmel and the most popular. Pacific Valley, 60 miles south of Carmel, is our favorite area. It's home to Sand Dollar Beach, Willow Creek - two fun, consistent, and very different surf spots - as well as Kirk Creek and Plaskett Creek, a pair of excellent campgrounds. It's also far enough south that it only gets a fraction of Big Sur's daytime visitors.

Anyhow, by the time we roll into the parking lot at Sand Dollar Beach, we're socked in fog. Standing at the top of cliff, shivering in our shorts, t-shirts, and Rainbows, we can hear thunderous activity out in the water (it's the kind of swell you can FEEL), but basically we can't see 20 feet in front of us. So we backtrack to Willow Creek, which breaks right in front of the parking lot, and it's completely out of control - closing out, massive cleanup sets, and more whitewater than the Snake River. And with a 5 foot plus high tide, it had that scary X factor commonly described by surfers as, "Dude, there's a lot of water moving around out there."

Strike two. Time to pitch a tent.

We roll into the Kirk Creek Campground. Now we've got another problem. We're expecting 10-12 guys from all over California (SF, SD, Ventura, OC...the full Golden State gamut). But thanks to no reservation policies, the instructions were basically, "Go to Kirk Creek and look for the Colonel's car." The problem is that we're arriving a lot later than expected and there are only two sites left...and they're right next to the campground host (i.e. "Mom and Dad"). So not only isn't there enough room for 6+ cars and 12 guys, but we tend to get a bit rowdy in the evenings and rousting next to the camp hosts isn't exactly going to be a copacetic situtation no matter how much room there is.

So what do we do? We decide to pitch our tents over at Plaskett Creek which has bigger campsites, more campsites, and campground hosts who reside nowhere near ANY of the sites. Plus, it looked empty as we passed by earlier.

Unfortunately, everyone is supposed to go to Kirk Creek and we've got no mobile phone service. None. So we have no way of telling anyone of our change in plans.

Convinced that Kirk Creek is the wrong choice regardless of our incommuincado state, we scrawl a message on a piece of cardboard, stick it on the message board near the entrance (camoflaged nicely amongst 30 million other messages and big glossy pictures of otters and rattlesnakes), and drive BACK to Plaskett Creek, which by now is also almost full.

Beyond frustrated, we pick the last two remaining spots, which aren't even next to each other, and decide to stick with our decision. Just for safe measure, Howie and I also drive the 5 miles down to the miniscule town of Gorda to use the payphone in case anyone is still within cell range. Of course, the phone is an antiquated hunk of shit, and after Howie makes his 10 minute call to his wife and kids ("Timmy, give the phone back to Mommy...Timmy, give the phone back to Mommy...Timmy? I said, give the phone back to Mommy. Timmy? Hello? Hello?"), it only works long enough to get through to one voicemail. We leave instructions to call the rest of the crew, convinced he won't even pick the message up until he's already on the road back home.

So, time to kick back and crack a Tecate, right?

Nope, before we can even throw down so much as a tarp, I have a typically pessamistic thought:

"Hey guys, what do you think the odds are of the boys showing up at Kirk Creek, thinking they're the first ones to arrive, setting up their gear, then going to the front entrance to pay, seeing our sign, and then driving down here to convince us to pack OUR shit up and go back to Kirk Creek?"

(Creating scenarios like this in my head, it's a gift, really.)

"Um, I don't know."

"Well," I continue. "I'll just bet that's what's going to happen. So I don't think we should set our shit up. AND I think we need to drive back over there every hour or so and see if those guys show up and happen to miss our sign."

So now we can't surf and we can't even set our stuff up and settle in for a nice quiet afternoon of drinking beers and playing backgammon.

Strike-fucking-three.

Frustrated, confused as to what to do, and bored out of our minds, we decide to grab a few beers out of the cooler and take Bigfoot's dog to the beach. Who knows, maybe we'll get a closer look at the waves and see something rideable.

The crappy day culminates when, halfway to the beach and in the middle of a big field, Bigfoot throws his scrappy little dog a frisbee, which sails over a barbed wire fence. The dog, very young and very excited, decides to try and jump through it.

It was like watching a car crash in slow motion. We're all screaming, "No, Spur! NOOOOOO...!!!" And for a split second, as the dog was sailing through the air, halfway through the fence, I actually thought he was going to make it.

He didn't.

He actually stopped on a dime...in mid-air...caught by the barbed wire.

Spur yelped and twisted and we screamed and ran, but not before he ripped himself free and limped off into the bushes.

I can honestly say it was one of the worst things I've ever seen. I just stopped, mouth open, frozen, afraid to see the ripped flaps of flesh gushing blood from the sides of this poor puppy.

But believe it or not, that exact moment was when this bum trip began to turn itself around.

Bigfoot had slipped through the fence, fished Spur out of the bushes (the dog, as freaked out as he was, had actually continued his quest for the frisbee), and was running his hands and eyes over every square inch of the dog's body.

"I don't believe it," he yelled to us. "There's not a scratch on him. Not a scratch!"

We ran over to see for ourselves. Spur was on his back, rubbing his back in the dirt. We poked and prodded him, grabbing his legs and rubbing his tummy. Sure enough, he was right - not a scratch

Apparently this dog was made out of kevlar.

Relieved beyond belief (in the few moments between the mis-timed jump and the all body inspection, I'd had visions of either spending the weekend sitting in some vet emergency room in Monterey or watching this shredded dog limp his way around the campfire for two days, dabbing his dirt-packed wounds with paper towels and tequila), we spent the next few hours actually enjoying ourselves on the beach.

Still fogged in, we even talked to a guy who had just gotten out of the water.

"Yeah, I just paddled out to see what was out there. I got about a hundred yards out, did about 50 duckdives, and the whitewater just kept getting bigger. I never even saw the waves breaking on the outside. I finally got a splitting ice cream headache and just turned around."

Happy we hadn't made the same mistake, we just hung out, throwing the frisbee for the invincible dog, climbing on the rocks, drinking our beers, hucking cabbage-sized kelp bulbs at each other, and enjoying a nice foggy, freezing day at the beach in Central Cal.

After getting back to the camp, we decided to unpack. With rain expected that weekend and giant blown-out storm surf everywhere we looked, we figured the chances of anyone showing up - at Plaskett or Kirk Creek - were slim to none anyway. We might as well get a fire going, get into the booze, and enjoy some winter style camping.

By 4:30 we had a kick-ass fire, were properly geared out in jackets and beanies, had the Sprout soundtrack playing, and were getting into the warm Guinness and Bushmills we'd had the foresight to bring (Tecate and Hornitos just didn't seem right for the ocassion). And by 5:30 we were grilling up bratwurst and a marinated pork loin, which is gross name, but tastes epic.

Then, as the winds of fortune continued to shift in our direction, the rest of the crew began to arrive.

First Breauxman, Lynch and Sector 9 showed up from SD along with two more dogs - a big fucking rotweiller and a chubby black lab.

Then Clubfoot and Crosby showed up (from the East and South Bay, respectively) with yet another dog - a skinny golden retriever - followed by Metro and the Croc from SF.

By midnight, we're in full swing. The fire is blazing and the boys are swilling, smoking, slurring, and filling the air with the stench of so much bullshit, you'd think we were downwind from the Harris Ranch.

Big Sur was ON.

No One Rides Twinnies in Hawaii

2005-10-12T12:02:00.000-07:00

Kauai, HB, Big Sur, new boards, leashes...where do I even begin?

Let's start with the Aloha State.

This was the 2nd year in a row I've taken the family to Hawaii. We rent a little bungalow on the beach near Poipu right across the street from "Baby Beach". The idea originally was to keep it all about the kids - no surfing. But last year, as I was sitting in a tide pool with my 1 1/2 year old son, watching him huck rocks and splash himself in the face, I noticed waves breaking about 200 yards west of us off the tip of the Lawa'i Beach House restaurant.

GOOD WAVES. Reeling barrels and perfect offshore conditions.

After 5 or 6 days of this, I gave my wife yet another of those pathetic puppy dog looks, she rolled her eyes, and said, "Oh my GOD, stop giving me those looks and go rent a board already!"

Stoked!

Well, kind of...

As most anyone reading this can attest to, renting a board - whether you've done it or not - does not hold a lot of appeal, for a variety of reasons. Even if the waves are firing.

First, surfboards are very personal things. There's a reason most of us get them custom shaped. Every board suits a different sized person, a different type of wave, and a different style of waveriding. The chances of finding the right board at a rental shop are about 20 to 1.

Second, even if you do find the right board, it's probably beat to shit. Rental boards are like rented horses. They look like crap, they don't respond terribly well, and they get treated badly.

Third, good surfers - or at least serious surfers anyway - don't rent boards. They BRING their boards with them in big expensive carrying cases with big expensive shipping charges. While you have to be a pretty damn good golfer to cart your clubs around in those giant kevlar tuba cases, even average surfers bring their own equipment. Which means that the very act of walking into a surf shop and saying, "Hi, I'd like to rent a board" is akin to stamping "KOOK" on your forehead.

So walking into the Aloha Surf Shop in Old Koloa Town, desperate to get some of the action I'd seen up the beach from our bungalow, I swallowed my pride and told the 40 something lady at the counter that I'd like to rent a board. And then followed it up with some of the most rambling, pathetic attempts to save face you've ever seen. Ellen Degeneres herself would have shaken her head and thought, "Kook."

"Hi, I'd like to rent a board."

"Ok, do you want lessons too?"

"Um, no thanks, I've actually been surfing for close to 20 years. This was, uh, supposed to be a family vacation...my wife and I, we've got a kid...he's 1 1/2...and uh, I wasn't going to bring boards. But then I saw how good the waves were and decided to come rent a board, which is, uh, kind of embarrassing."

"Where are you going to surf?"

"Um, not sure what it's called...we're staying at Baby Beach...you know, with the baby and all...and I saw some waves breaking near there. Looks really fun."

"Oh, that's dangerous. Acid Drops and PKs. My daughter surfs there every day."

"How old is your daughter?"

"She's 11...she's so good. She rips."

"Nice. Well, yeah, I can't wait to get out there."

"It's pretty dangerous. Maybe we get you some lessons...you go surf in Poipu? Mellow waves there. Good for learning."

"No, uh, like I said, I've been surfing since I was 13. We live in Huntington Beach."

"Where you surf in Huntington?"

"Uh, where? Um, kind of...well usually, kind of north of the pier...do you know Huntington?"

"My daughter, she surf at the pier. For contests, you know."

"Right, right...well, um, so I'd like to get that hybrid board out on the porch. That 7'0" right there. How much is that?"

"Oh, you want that board? How about this board instead? It's a shortboard."

"Um, yeah, it's kind of small and I might be too big for it, I think I'll go with that hybrid egg thing."

SQUINTY "YOU REALLY ARE A KOOK" LOOK

"Okay, if that's what you want. You sure you no want to look out back? We got some good boards out there. Pick any one you like."

"Um, okay, sure...I'll go take a look."

WANDER OUT BACK - FIND A COMPLETE QUIVER OF SOFT-TOPS

"Um, yeah, those are all soft-top boards."

"Yeah, good boards. Good for learning. My daughter learn to surf on those. She really good now."

"I'll just take that hybrid board."

"Ok, you be careful. Acid Drops and PKs only for good surfers. I don't want you to get hurt."

"Don't sweat it...I know what I'm doing. Promise."

An hour later I was sitting outside the lineup at PKs on my rented surfboard, and sure as shit did NOT know what I was doing.

The waves were even faster and juicier than I'd thought - overhead, high tide peaks jacking on the reef into reeling barrels. This so-I'd-thought hybrid was really just a badly designed "fun board" that had all the drawbacks of a longboard, a shortboard, and a pintail gun, with none of the benefits. Big fat nose, narrow tail...it was like someone had taken a 1960's era noserider, sawed off the nose and attached it to Gerry Lopez' 1976 Pipe gun. It didn't' paddle, it didn't catch waves, it didn't duck dive, and it sure as shit didn't turn.

After 45 minutes of flapping and clawing into any leftover that rolled my way, I finally locked into a slow-rolling mushburger that I hoped would reform on the inside. It didn't. And when I finally accepted defeat and started paddling back out, I ran smack into the set of the day, feathering and growling 20 feet in front of me.

crrrrrr-RACK!

This was like a bad Indo flashback. I didn't know whether to try and push through, turn turtle, or bail. Frozen with indecision, I tried some spastic hybrid of all 3 and just got fucking WHOMPED. Just drilled into the reef, feet first, with my right ankle taking the brunt of it on a rock custom designed by volcanic craftsmen to tear flesh and chip bone.

I came up gasping and holding my ankle, the rented "hybrid" finally revealing its true function: doing a remarkable job of tombstoning and anchoring me in the impact zone.

Two waves on the head and 10 minutes later I limped up onto the beach, inspected the so-deep-they're-white gashes on my feet and ankles, and walked back to our Baby Beach Bungalow, schooled, bleeding, and humiliated.

Okay, now that was last year. This year there would be no such kooking out. I was going to pack a board - "MY board, Alex" - and get some of that Hawaiian juice the proper way.

(BTW, for those who remember my last post, there was some confusion about airline board charges. American Airlines revised their board charge fees a few years ago. It's $80, each way, PER BOARD. Not per bag. They're very specific about that now. Even if you're a Platinum member. Fuckers.)

I also hedged my bet this year and brought along a friend (charging foreign waves is always better with a bro). Web and his wife - we all went to SDSU together - and their two kids, also the same age as our two kids, rented the bungalow next door.

The nice thing about Web is that he's a charger - tons of energy. He'll surf twice a day if he can, and this is on top of midnight diaper changes, 5 AM Barney videos, late night beers and game after game of Yahtzee on the porch. When we go on our yearly Mex trip, he never gives up. Never. He'll be in his chair, passing out, enough tequila and Pacifico to kill a day laborer, but he WON'T go to bed. Even with eyes shut and chair tipping dangerously back towards the cliff, you can give him a quick, "Web, what up?" and he'll raise his horns in the air and give you a solid, "YOOOOOUUUUU!" like he's hooting you into the pit at Pipe.

So Web and I surfed every day for almost a week. Acids Drops, Centers, PKs, even a dawn patrol jaunt up to 2 foot and mushy Pakala's.

All in all we scored pretty good waves. It was never quite the perfect juice I'd gotten hammered by the year before, but a few decent pits and a handful of big Hawaiian style turns.

The only thing we never quite got wired was the paddle out. The only surefire way to get out to any of the spots in front of the Lawa'i Beach House without dragging your knuckles on the reef, is to walk out on the rocks at the very tip, and time a jump into the water for a quick paddle to PK's.

For whatever reason, the pre-teens who completely dominate the inside at PK's have no problem with this maneuver. For those of us who don't walk on water though, it was a lot harder than it looked. Of the two times I tried it, I escaped both times without cheesegrating my fingers, but only once did I avoid dragging my fins over some underwater devil rock (leaving the leading edges of all three skegs bristling with scraped up fin fur).

The rest of the time we paddled out from somewhere inside the cove, and upon reaching the outside (or inside, depending on if you're a surfer or a snorkler) reef, touched bottom every time. Which, by the way, is 100% luck when it comes to flesh wounds. I drilled my digits into a handful of different rocks and coral heads and escaped with nothing but a scraped knuckle. Web, on the other hand, barely glanced his hand on the wrong barnacle, and got his finger opened up with surgical precision - a long and deep slash that was straight-up Ginsu.

Ironically enough, the urchin filled coral didn't have much effect on our surfing - it was pretty much just a paddling hassle. Then again, when a perfect wall lines up for you, mist blowing off the top with perfect offshore winds, the bottom could be lined with Iraqi mines and it'd still be hard to resist whacking the top or ducking under the lip.

I guess that's just the nature of surfing in the tropics.

Before I call it a day, a few random observations on Hawaii...

I still can't get used to the fact that Hawaii is a state. It feels like the 3rd world, with better roads and more pizza joints.

The "Island music"they play on the radio is pure unadulterated crap. The legit reggae is good (but tiresome after 2 weeks). It's the 70's and 80's pop songs they re-create with cheesy keyboards. Not sure what I'm talking about? Give this a whirl at your own risk http://tinyurl.com/7e6bo (but don't say I didn't warn ya).

Aloha is a marketing gimmick promoted by the department of tourism. Sorry, but it's true. There might be some genuine aloha that exists between locals, but how is that any different from any town where neighbors smile and look out for one another? The locals don't like the tourists. Period. The spirit of Aloha went out with Jack Lord's hair (assuming it ever really existed in the first place).

If you wear a "Grown Here, Not Flown Here" t-shirt you are a retard. Same goes for the "Allbline" t-shirts. Only Jim Anchower gets to wear that one (or possibly Jay & Silent Bob).

The kids in Kauai surf so naturally it's scary. After a session at Acid Drops, Web and I watched the groms tear up PK's. We saw some 8 year-old drop in backside, bottom turn, carve off the top, fade back into the whitewater while the wave reformed, then pull into the barrel - the wave knowledge of a 20 year surfer. It's the complete opposite of HB, where the kids stumble to their feet like Bambi on ice, flap their arms, then try to boost an air. All tricks, no fundamentals.

There is a contingent of young girls in Kauai who KILL IT. One of them is probably that lady's daughter from the surf shop. They're all about 10-14, look like little beauty queens, and can smack a lip like Jon-Jon. Easily the most impressive thing I saw during my stay (unless you include the man-sized logs my son was squeezing out several times a day during his potty training).

The food in Hawaii sucks. Even the chicken is imported from the mainland (and in Kauai you can't spit without hitting a wild rooster). And the closer you get to what the locals eat, the worse it gets. All you have to do is look in the shopping cart of any local at the market. Artificially flavored fruit drinks, Budweiser, pork ribs, chicken thighs, macaroni, and all sorts of pickled and gooey homegrown salad concoctions. Not surprising I guess coming from the biggest consumers of SPAM in the union. Blech.

Hawaii is almost painfully beautiful sometimes. One afternoon, we were playing in the lagoon part of Poipu Beach, right across from Brennecke's, and I looked west to see offshore a-frames breaking in a half dozen spots, palm trees blowing in the tradewinds, perfect sand beaches, a perfect blue sky dotted by a handful of puffy white clouds, all anchored by that water that looks straight out of a Corona ad. At that moment, the thought of going back to blown-out, sloppy, red tide HB was almost unbearable.

The Colonel says, "Mahalo."

Back Off, Ralph

2005-09-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

Lots o' waves lately.

Then again, you know what they say about real estate...and swells. Location, location, location.

On Saturday I hooked up with some of the SD boys and we sailed out to Ralph's. For those of you that don't know, Ralph's is an somewhat overrated "secret spot" off the southernmost tip of Point Loma. It's all government land out there, so it's only accessible by boat.

Anyhow, we thought we were brilliant, this being a large south swell and all. We figured the beachbreaks would be closed out, Sunset Cliffs would be small, and Ralph's would be epic and empty.

Instead, most of the beachbreaks I drove by at 6 AM Saturday morning looked epic, and Ralph's was knee to waist high and mushier than my 7 month-old daughter's food. We ended up surfing Dolphin Tanks, which is further out around the point. The biggest sets were maybe shoulder high, with left and right mushburgers. Toss in heaps of kelp, a dozen longboarders, ice cold water, and a whole crew of PWC joyriders criss-crossing up what were already warbly waves, and you have a pretty mediocre session.

Then again, it was sunny, the water was blue and clean, and surfing an inaccessible spot by boat is pretty friggin' cool, no matter how blah the waves are.

Our non-surfing friends might disagree though. As soon as we anchored, the boat started lurching on the swells wrapping around the point. In the 5 minutes it took me to suit up, wax my board, tie on my leash and hurl myself overboard, I was already on the verge of getting seasick.

As we surfed (and sat - it was super inconsistent on top of everything else), my friend Pete and I kept looking back at the boat, watching it rock up and down and back and forth. The thought of getting back on board turned what would probably have been a quick 45 minute surf into a solid 2 hour session.

Pete's friend from Boston spent the entire 2 hours throwing up off the stern.

"Sorry, bro, but the waves were epic!"

We dedicated the rest of the day to sailing, drinking, eating and sleeping...a fairly solid way to spend a beautiful day in late summer. The only drama came when we tried to make it into Mission Bay. Somehow when I lived there I never noticed that, even though it's a huge bay, there are no sail boats. There's a reason. The bridge that separates South Mission from North Mission, and is the entrance to the Bay, only has a 35' clearance. Our boat's mast was 48'. Pete figured this out somewhere between 10 and 8 feet from the bridge. Oops.

All in all it was, and continues to be, a pretty good swell. Not sure it deserved all the hype it got, but that's what happens when you have the shittiest summer in memory.

Today HB was solid head high, although the nearly 6 foot high tide bogged things down pretty good around noon. Of course that's when I surfed, but it was still fun. The red tide looks like it's here to stay. The winds have stayed light. By 1 PM it was still light offshore.

I promise I'll get around to diving into the whole leash thing. Taking the family to Kauai on Thursday for 2 weeks. With a little luck I'll get to it before then.

Speaking of which, the whole airline/board thing never ceases to infuriate me. American Airlines charges $80 per board, EACH WAY. How completely fucked is that? And it's not per bag either, it's per BOARD, which makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

Is a single board in a double board bag any more hassle for them than two boards? The maximum weight per board is 70 pounds, so it's obviously not a weight issue.

In the past I've actually had some semi-cool counter people ask me with a wink, "Just one board in the bag?" I've also had some luck bribing the curbside guys with a few twomps. But once you pack both boards, you need to accept the fact that you might be throwing down $320 to slide down some waves on your own sleds (and for some monkey to huck them around until they look like dimple-bottomed Bonzers from 1989).

The Colonel says, "Fight the power."

Love's Labor's Found

2005-09-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

Great Labor Day weekend for waves in HB.

Saturday through today (Tuesday afternoon), we've had clean, racy, waist to head-high waves. Which is especially impressive when you consider the 5-foot-plus high tides every day.

The water temp has dropped a bit down to the lower 60's, but the weather has been so hot and the water such a beautiful blue, I just can't bring myself to stuff into the comp.

The only real negative I can think of is that it's still pretty crowded. I figured it would be empty out there today, being the day after Labor Day and all, but it was pretty much shoulder to shoulder out there this morning.

That's okay though. Some of the schools still haven't started, especially the universities, and great weather, even in September, still brings out a lot of the flex-schedulers and late vacationers. And after this horrendous summer, I'm more than happy to share some good waves and great conditions.

I'm also excited because I get to roll down to SD this afternoon and pick up the first of my two new boards - a bright blue rocket fish, all shiny glossy with glassed on fins. With any luck I'll get to test drive it afterwards in Carlsbad with my buddy, Kebo.

Kebo is a classic SD guy. Grew up near La Jolla and has been surfing with his same childhood bros for 25 years. He married my wife's best friend from college, and now has her surfing too.

Funny story about the two of them: He's Asian and very dark. She's blonde and very white, but grew up in Kauai. They go to Hawaii to visit her family and paddle out one afternoon. Da boyz paddle up to Kebo and start talking pidgin'. He doesn't understand a word and looks at his wife, who starts going off in Pidgin'.

"Oh what, you tink cuz he's Asian he's local, brah? You doan' even know how haole he is. Talk to da girlfriend instead!"

I'd have paid a hundred bucks to see the looks on their faces. Full alternate universe in Kauai that day.

BTW, in my next post I think it's time we got into the whole leash thing. It's such a trend right now to go leashless, but unlike most surf trends, this one really has fairly serious implications about the way we surf and even the way we approach riding waves in the first place.

The Colonel says, "Stay tuned."

Feet Don't Fail Me Now

2005-09-02T17:07:00.000-07:00

Pretty good week of surf.

On Tuesday the red tide came back with a vengeance in HB. With Zero visibility, it was pure cup-o-tea out there. You couldn't even see your feet. Not that I or anyone else cared. With clean conditions and waist to head high peaks up and down the beach (and not a jellyfish to be found), it was pure fun in the sun. There were even some barrels to be had.

However, by Thursday, the water had gone back to blue/green and the surf was still fun sized. Toss in the warm(er) water and hot sunshine, and HB was somehow resembling paradise.

I surfed not once, not twice, by THREE times yesterday.

(To all my bros in the workplace, all I can say is, "Fuck off, I'm also broke".)

Anyhow, on one of my waves I dropped in with a fucked up stance - feet in the wrong places, pointing the wrong directions, everything just completely mis-aligned. By the time I wiggled my feet into their proper places, the wave had petered out and all I had time to do was snake my way into the inside for a final (and only) turn.

But it got me to thinking about some observations people have made over the years regarding waves and how we ride them.

OBSERVATION #1 - SOMETIMES STANDING STILL AND STARING AT YOUR FEET LIKE A RETARD CAN HAVE UNEXPECTED RESULTS

Once, when I was in high school, my friend Pete and I were surfing a little known beach break somewhere between Big Sur and Pacific Valley. We had spotted a lone guy tackling some rough-looking tubes and we decided to "bomb his zone" (as my old friend Nate used to say).

Not long after we paddled out, both Pete and the other guy paddled in. Not wanting to sit out there by myself with the Big Sur chapter of the Great White Society, I took the first decent looking set wave that came along, hoping to impress my friend and the random stranger sitting on the beach.

I dropped in, feet in the completely wrong spot but firmly glued to the deck of my board, booties and freshly combed wax fused together in a death-embrace worthy of Herbie Fletcher's wet traction dreams.

I had wanted to race ahead of the wave, doing swooping carves and eliciting wild hoots from the boys. Instead I stood hunched over, staring at my feet, trying to will them from their positions as the wave simply ferried me along like pimpled dayglo driftwood.

Bummed and embarrassed I walked up to my friend, smiled and nodded goodbye to the dude on the beach, and we trudged back to our car.

"That guy was impressed," Pete said to me.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, he said you surfed close to the pocket."

"Um, really?"

"Yeah, he said most guys don't have the balls to surf like that."

"Cool. I uh, yeah...I, um...yeah, that's just how I surf. In the pocket. Yup."

While I had been completely focused on uprooting my feet, I completely missed the fact that I had been stalling in the pocket of a semi-hollow freight train.

I charged that last wave, in spite of myself.

OBSERVATION #2 - SOMETIMES STANDING STILL AND STARING AT YOUR FEET LIKE A RETARD CAN RESULT IN LONGER RIDES THAN EXPECTED

Maybe a year or two later my Dad came down to the beach to watch me surf.

(BTW, quick digression: I think all of us owe our parents a big thanks for every time they have ever watched, photographed, or videotaped us surfing. Because, while AYSO soccer or pee-wee football might be kind of boring to watch, NOTHING is more boring than watching some 12 year-old paddle out in crowded, waist high slop, and sit through lulls, missed waves, cutoffs, and sneaker sets, only to catch a glimpse of him trimming for 3 seconds, cutting back, and then falling on his ass.)

Anyhow, after my session, the Old Man mentioned that he thought my last wave was great.

"Hey, your last wave was great, you got a really long ride."

I thought my last wave sucked. Weak turns, bad footing - I ended up just making my way to the inside and riding all the way to the shorebreak.

"Did you see the wave before it?"

"Was that the real short ride?"

"Yeah, I did a big turn and then a floater."

"Yeah, it was real short."

"But a great off-the-lip, don't you think?"

"I liked your last wave...real long, nice ride."

My initial thought was, "Old Man doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. This ain't the Endless Summer."

Then again, maybe he did know what the hell he was talking about.

OBSERVATION #3 - SOMETIMES STANDING STILL AND STARING AT YOUR FEET LIKE A RETARD CAN MAKE YOU RETHINK THE WAY YOU SURF

Over time I've thought about that comment a lot. Maybe I'm getting older and a bit slower, maybe spending a bit more time on my log, but I think the Old Man might have been on to something.

I look at the images in the surf mags of the closeups of the guy blasting his fins out the back, or the shot from the Taylor Steele film where all you see is the guy bottom turning and then boosting an air. That's it. Nothing else. Just buh-BAM. Pure money shot.

And when I look at that stuff, it does nothing for me. Nada. I don't feel a thing. No stoke. Not a twinge of excitement. Not even a fleeting desire to paddle out (I mean beyond what desire I might have already felt).

And yet I'll roll down to the beach on my bike and coast down the parking lot driveway at 6th and PCH and get that view of the entire northside of the pier all the way up to The Apartments. And there'll be some random guy on a fat hybrid dropping into a nice left. He'll do a little faded bottom turn, bank off the top, maybe lose his balance a bit and windmill his arms. But he'll recover, trim along the face, do another bottom turn, another top turn, dodge a few kids on the inside, race around a section, and then do an awkward little re-entry onto the sand.

And that, for some reason, THAT gets me stoked. That 40 year-old on the fat board with the long ride will have me thoroughly fired up.

So cheers to the Big Sur solo man who gave me my first lesson in longer, more critical, and less flamboyant waveriding. And cheers to my Old Man, who realized long before I even did, that long rides are one of surfing's sublime pleasures - both for the rider and for the viewer.

And before you accuse me - or them - of romanticizing a more boring style of surfing, a quick quote from bodysurfing legend and Pipe master, Mark Cunningham:

"Waves are a terrible thing to waste. I watch board surfers kick out early with their chest in the air. Waves are a precious resource and that wave will never be then again, so ride it for all it's worth."

In other words, stay in the pocket and ride that wave until there's nothing left.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Back in Session

2005-08-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

As I've said before, I used to dread Fall.

That first yellow leaf. The warm air with that slight crisp edge to it. The "Back to School" ads. I fucking hated it - all of it. The very thought of my summer ending and having to drag myself to school for another 9 months was torturous.

But things have changed. I haven't stepped into a classroom in 9 years. And as the school nightmares fade away a bit more every year, I begin to love Fall more and more with each passing summer.

This year, my excitement reached an all-time fervor. Thanks, in large part, to 3+ months of jellyfish, onshore wind, gray skies, tea-colored red tides, tourists, kids, and more flat spells than anyone can remember.

But today was the day. Today was the day we're putting all that behind us. Today, regardless of what the calendar says - or what the handful of grommets who have yet to start school say - today, is the first day of Fall.

Today the sun came up without a cloud in the sky. The air was warm and still. The water was, um...less brown. There were no jellyfish anywhere. The tourists were back on the job site in Riverside. The kids were back in school. And there was a solid swell to kick things off, in the form of crossed-up, head-high peaks.

I surfed for 2 solid hours. I paddled out a sluggish blob on a shortboard and paddled in a finely tuned athlete on a shredstick.

It was re-birth. It was baptismal. It was the end of the longest summer in history and the beginning of Fall. Glorious, wonderful, sweet heavenly Fall.

The Colonel says, "Halle-fucking-luja."

And Surfline Sez...

2005-08-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

Well, guess I'm not the only one exasperated by the horrendous conditions this summer.

The front page of Surfline.com today has a picture of a guy standing in chest deep water - brick reddish nasty tea colored - wearing a fullsuit, holding his board up in the air, and basically just looking at the camera, as whitecaps blow around him, his expression saying, "What the FUCK???"

The headline was, "Why Has This Summer Been So Bad In Socal?", and the accompanying article is pretty good:

http://www.surfline.com/community/whoknows/08_08_redtide.cfm

It tries to explain the red tides, the jellyfish, the lack of waves, the wind, the freezing cold water, and everything else that has made this summer suck. A few questions remained unanswered, but it's a worthwhile read anyway.

Anyhow, it sounds like we're all in the same boat.

The Colonel says, "Sinus infections blow."

Summertime Blues

2005-08-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

Is it time to throw in the towel? Call it a Summer and start waiting for Fall?

From a surfing perspective, that's kind of where I'm at right now. I mean, this has gotten pretty silly don't you think?

Months of wind and gray skies followed by weeks of red tide, cold water, and now this jellyfish situation...and they won't go away. All this on top of no waves.

Worst summer ever?

I'm not fully ready to eject yet, but my finger's on the button for sure.

And since we're on the topic, does anyone know anything concrete about red tides and allergies? The first major red tide we had about 2-3 months ago, which lasted weeks and weeks, didn't keep me out of the water. I'd read that, aside from HABs (Harmful Algae Blooms), which can cause a food poisoning of sorts when swallowed, red tides were harmless.

But not long after a few surfs in that nasty shit, I started wheezing and coughing. Like anything else, it cleared up. And after another week of horfing up nasty loogs, I felt better. And I didn't think anything of it - figured it was a coincidence.

So a week or two ago we get this second round of red tides along with some ice cold water (all the way down to 59 degrees). Figuring the cold water, if nothing else, would get rid of the jellyfish, I surfed. Big whoop.

But then, a few days later, I'm wheezing and coughing and have a sore throat again. Pretty amazing coincidence.

So I start poking around on the Web, which tends to be a terrible thing to do, especially with health matters, because suddenly the possible cause of every symptom known to man is scrolling across your screen and you become instantly paranoid that you and everyone you know is dying of breast cancer, prostate cancer, and some kind of rare African anteater disease that ultimately causes blindness, deafness, muteness, and puts you in a mechanized wheelchair where life can roll on in your own private hell.

But anyhow, I start coming across all these message boards where people are claiming that red tides are causing these allergic type reactions, most commonly with symptoms identical to mine - coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, sore throat, lung butter, etc.

So now there's either some kind of complete unawareness as to the potential harm of red tides, or we're all just a bunch of paranoid conspiracy freaks, with no medical evidence to back us up, convinced that our silicone breast implants are slowly killing us.

Any input on this would be greatly appreciated.

Now what else is going on?

The US Open, as part of the Bank of the West games, clogged the beaches in HB for yet another 9 days. The waves were so shitty that the chick who won the women's event beat a chick who DID NOT CATCH A SINGLE WAVE during the final.

Andy Irons and Rob Machado probably caught 6 waves between them during the men's final, and of those, probably 1 or 2 were even a carve above the average Brad Gerlach sidewinder lip bash during the 1986 Stubbies Pro, held in 6-inch Oceanside.

But, as always, wherever the announcers were, it was 6 foot glassy and perfect.

"OKAYYYY...we've got an EPIC FINAL for you guys...it's the WORLD CHAMP, ANDY I-RONS, taking on ROB MA-CHADOOOO. There's a SLIGHT BUMP on the water out there, but it's definitely NOT blown out, so expect an EPIC SHOWDOWN. So let's HEAR SOME NOIZE out there! OOOHHHH YEAAAHHHH!"

(You can read that in either Duff-Man's voice or in the voice of that giant talking pitcher of Kool-Aid who used to smash through walls in order to hydrate shaggy haired little leaguers back when I was a kid.)

Bottom line was that, without Machado's last second attempt to win the thing with a 7.3 wave with less than 10 seconds to go (he need a 7.7), it had to be one of the lamest contests ever.

I'll tell you what would have been cool...

"OKAAAYYY...we've got a PADDLE BATTLE out there. The WORLD CHAMP and ROB MACHA-DOOOO are both paddling for the priority bouy. They both duck dive through a small set and...WHAT'S THIS??? Andy Irons, THE WORLD CHAMP, has a GIANT JELLYFISH STUCK TO HIS FACE. OH MY GOD, folks, the champ is IN TROUBLE! UH-OH, and our boy from Cardiff has a jellyfish STUCK IN HIS AFRO!!!. This isn't good folks. Can we get the water patrol out there right now??? The water patrol is on their way. Look at that folks...Rush Randle, head of the US Open Water Patrol, has pulled the jellyfish off Andy Irons' face and is now...OH MY! He's now PEEING ON THE CHAMP'S FACE! In all my year's of pointless surf contest announcing, I've NEVER seen ANYTHING LIKE THIS! Better paddle hard, ROB MACHADO, because you and the 'fro are NEXT! Hope you've got some good shampoo at home!"

The Colonel says, "Pray for Fall."

You Jellin'?

2005-07-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

Finally, after months of cold, windy, gray weather, and weeks and weeks of nasty red tide, we turned a corner last week. Heat, sunshine, and beautiful blue water.

So, of course, every jellyfish in the Pacific decided to come ruin the party.

Yesterday was like nothing I'd ever seen. Dark brown spots, looking deceptively like kelp, could be seen dotting the face of every wave that broke. Between 6th St. and the pier there were literally hundreds of jellyfish drifting through the lineup.

I paddled out at around 3 PM. I'd spent the morning and afternoon on the bayside in Newport, letting my 2 year old run loose and wear himself out. I mostly just wanted to get wet, but it was kind of fun semi-blown-out conditions, with waist high peaks here and there. Plus, it was just so warm and pretty...a great day for just floating around.

I guess the jellyfish thought so too.

At first I thought it was just a couple of them I kept seeing over and over again. But then when the first set wave closed out over a few hundred feet, and you could see them dotting the entire face, that's when I wigged a bit. I was like a paranoid shark phobic floating over a school of great whites - feet in the air, quick pathetic dog paddles, head whipping back and forth, eyes bugged.

There's one right next to me...yow!...there's another one!

I couldn't even concentrate on the waves. And when it came time to duckdive I started doing these pathetic little push-thrus, images coursing through my mind of surfacing with a massive jellyfish splashed across my face like that nasty creature in Alien.

I tried to reassure myself that they were just small brown jellies...nothing like the big nasty ones you find at Sea World, or, Australia for that matter. So on my third wave, which was actually pretty fun, I'm skimming along, brown shapes appearing here and there out of the corners of my eye, and go sliding right past a huge clear jellyfish with purple stripes. It had to be 10 inches in diameter, with the full on train of jiggly jelly tentacles, and those crazy purple stripes.

Um, DONE.

Straightened out. Grabbed my rails. Bellyboarded straight through the masses of fools playing in the water. Got the fuck OUT.

You know that when there are so many jellyfish in the water that there are DIFFERENT FUCKING TYPES floating around, it's time to rack the board and go eat a corndog at the Orange County Fair.

The Colonel says, "Fried zucchini, please."

Force Quit

2005-07-20T17:16:00.000-07:00

Dwindling swell, accompanied by continuing crappy weather and morning winds.

Kind of an anticlimactic way to kick off this new era of freedom.

Today, though, the weather was finally nice. The sun came out, the wind never really made an appearance, and even though it was small and kind of backed-off, mushy, and high-tide all day, I had a great session.

A buddy stopped by on his way to see his new chick in LA, we grabbed the bikes, and trunked it leashless on the Northside for 2 hours. Glassy little peaks, warm(er) water - prolly 66 degrees - and hot sand on the beach. Not to mention more tramp stamps than I've ever seen in one afternoon. Plus I finally fixed the hole on the underside of my Sauritch hybrid, which rides like a fish but with better turns off the bottom (thank you Solarez, the lazy man's ding repair kit).

BTW, for the geeks out there, I am posting today's blog for the first time ever on a Mac. After 10 years as a venomous Mac hater (I started out on Macs when they introduced the damn things - R.I.P. Apple IIe - but rebelled in the mid-90's when they turned into unstable pieces of shit). I turned in my corporate-issued IBM laptop yesterday, walked into the Apple store and walked out $3600 poorer, but with a new 15" PowerBook G4 with a 1.67 Mhz processor, 1 gig of RAM, 100 gigs of storage, and all kinds of bells and whistles, including Final Cut and a drive that rips and burns DVDs.

Video clips for Charlie Don't Surf? Let's raise a Pacifico to that.

Anyhow, that was the good news. The bad news is that a lot of the compatibility issues between Mac stuff and PC stuff still exists and in less than an hour I managed to wipe my iPod clean of all music, corrupt my Seagate external hard drive with 10 years of backed-up data on it (including all of my music which took me MONTHS to rip), and strip all the contact info out of my phone courtesy of a very confused Bluetooth connection.

I'm staying positive though. The iPod needed to be reformatted for OS X anyway, the hard drive probably needed to be re-formatted or replaced anyway (and I'm optimistic some nice data recovery folks can retrieve the majority of the data), and 90% of my phone contacts were saved to the SIM card.

Plus it's warm, there's a swell on the way, and as soon as this homegrown troubleshooting gets too much, I'm going surfing.

The Colonel says, "Think different."

3rd Tour of Duty Begins

2005-07-14T00:04:00.000-07:00

Holy shit.

Just realized it was exactly a year ago that I started this blog.

Okay, so 40-some-odd-posts in 365 days doesn't exactly make this a legit web log. But I'd say some of my rants and ramblings go a bit beyond the usual "how many cigarettes I smoked today" Bridget Jones' Diary crap, so I'm gonna award The Colonel a few extra points and call it even.

What's really scary is that after two years we're still in Huntington Beach. We'll have to talk about that at some point.

Anyhow, here's to another summer, another year in Surf City. And here's to another year of, well, whatever this is.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Back in the Groove

2005-07-13T11:06:00.000-07:00

Surfing. It's like riding a bike - you never forget.

Yeah, well, I saw my 17-year old cousin get back on a bike after 4 years of being driven everywhere by her parents, and while she could technically ride the thing, it wasn't pretty.

That's how my last three sessions - my first back-to-back-to-back paddles since probably April - have been. Technically I can paddle out, catch waves, stand up and ride them. But after three months of meetings, conference calls, hotel rooms, room service, and countless hours stuffed in American Eagle commuter jets (even in seat 11A, which is the money seat), I'm a shadow of even the not-so-impressive-surfer I was last Spring.

Like Phil Lynott used to sing (Irish half-black lead singer for Thin Lizzy, with an afro, mustache and a single dangling earring...pure 70's style, cool as shit), I'm fighting my way back. But it's ugly.

You can gauge how ugly by just how quickly your style deteriorates. Surfers love to talk about style and who's got it and who doesn't, but one thing they never talk about it is how a good style requires a fairly high level of fitness.

Case in point: I've always prided myself on the fact that, while I'm no shredder, I don't flail and I don't flap. I paddle smooth, with wide, clean strokes, keep my feet together (or up, crossed in an X), and try to stay low, knees bent, when I'm up.

But after getting caught inside yesterday for 10 minutes on my log, I noticed something once I finally got back out. My legs wanted to separate and dangle off the sides of the tail, my hands kept slapping the surface as I paddled, and while I couldn't see it, I knew my face was beet-red. The antithesis of style and MO of every newbie kook in the water.

That's when I realized - style isn't just some genetic talent for looking good - like high cheekbones or great hair. It's a learned ability that takes significant physical exertion.

The human body wants to slouch. It wants to spread its legs and dangle them off the sides, because that's what gravity wants. It wants to semi-dog paddle with 90 degree bent elbows because that requires the least effort. It wants to bend at the waist. It wants to fall backwards off the tail instead of grabbing the rails and doing the stylish belly flop. And it wants to ditch the board and swim under instead of pushing a six foot flotation device underwater like some sort of extreme pushup.

To be stylish, you gotta be in shape.

Anyhow, so that's the plan over the next few months - get back in shape and put some style back in my surf. Trade the Admiral's Club card for a couple of new boards and some WD-40 on the bike chain. No more steak and martinis at the Brazen Head. Instead, fruit and veggies from the farmer's market. Bottom line: less Homer, more Laird (okay, I'll take Mick Lowe at this point, but a man's gotta have dreams), less cockroach-style, more soul carves.

Speaking of soul carves, I picked up a copy of Sprout yesterday (along with some Solarez, which is another story). I missed it when it played in HB, which happens a lot when you have two little kids, but had heard it was good. Plus, Ray Barbee, skater and musician and a friend of a friend, contributes a few songs to the soundtrack, which I also heard was good. Anyhow, right on both counts. Great flick, great soundtrack. It deserves a more in-depth review than that, but maybe tomorrow.

I'm tired and there's a swell picking up tonight.

The Colonel says, "Stylishly at ease."

Get a Job

2005-07-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

I did it.

I quit my job and put the "gone surfin'" sign on the door.

I'm Corky Carroll. I'm unemployed. I'm a sunglass rep. I'm a beach-muthafuckin'-bum.

Here's how it happened:

Not long after my last post in late April, I had "the talk" with my bosses up in SF.

"We're not getting enough out of you. We need you to handle a few more accounts. We need you to step up."

"Um, okay. Sure."

And lo and behold the next thing I knew 2 months had gone by, my bags were permanently packed, I practically had my own room at the Fairmont in SF, my surfboards were covered in dust, and my kids were calling the handyman, "Dad".

NOT what I had in mind when I took this gig.

So I did it. Last week, after much deliberation with my wife and some very candid, very scary evaluations of our finances, I pulled the trigger. I walked into my office at 111 Sutter St. in downtown San Francisco, and placed one copy of my resignation letter on the desk of the Managing Partner, one copy on the desk of the Executive Creative Director, and one copy on the desk of his counterpart, the Creative Director (why he doesn't get the big "E" in front of his title, I don't know).

And on this Friday I will officially enter the ranks of the unemployed.

I'm going to surf. I'm going to write. I'm going to play with my kids until my back gives out. I'm going to make dinner with my wife. I'm going to watch movies. I'm going to read books. And at some point, I'm going to explore every crazy business venture and harebrained idea I've tabled over the past 10 years.

Watch out, pier rats. There's a fat, unemployed, 32-year old back in the water. He's slow, he's out of shape, but he's got two new boards on the way and he's got a shitload of free time.

The Colonel says, "Surf's up, Corky."

The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks

2005-04-29T13:03:00.000-07:00

I'm going to admit something right now. All I ask is that you hold tight and keep reading. It's not as bad as you might think at first. Really.

Okay, here goes...

In college I was in a fraternity.

Still with me? You haven't shut your browser in disgust and purged your bookmarks of anything with "charlie," "surfs," or "colonel" in the title?

Thank you. Now here's why it wasn't what you think...

This was not your average San Diego State frat. There were no Dave Matthews baseball caps. No one did keg stands. We didn't have toga parties. And no one ever leaned out of a 2nd story window and yelled, "PARTEEEEE!" unless it was pure sarcasm.

We were a house of surfers. And not just a bunch of San Diego boys from Clairmont either. I'm talking a who's who of California rippers (one semester, sick of having no awards to display for prospective members - grades and traditional sports weren't really our forte' - one of the guys filled an entire room with his WSA and NSAA trophies).

Okay, and there were a few wannabes, like me...but hey, even our house needed a little variety.

And it's amazing, as I've gotten older the "Industry Notes" in Surfer Magazine has started to resemble an alumni newsletter. Various higher-ups at Volcom. Top reps at Hurley, Quiksilver & Sector 9. One of the hosts of Bluetorch and 54321. The original publisher of Swell.com and former publisher of Snowboarder. The list just seems to go on and on.

I'm starting to think my old fraternity was like the Skull and Bones of the surf industry. Even quintessential surfer post-sesh-grinds-staple, Wahoos Fish Tacos, was started by an old bro.

So why am I telling you this?

Because fraternities in general are usually filled with the kinds of guys I would never hang out with...and who would never be reading this blog. Over the years I've come to realize just how unique our organization was and what a cool twist on the whole frat thing it was. I mean, we had greek letters, did a whole initiation thing, hassled our pledges...but it was all done in our unique surfer way.

When I was a pledge, we kidnapped an older member (and current fixture at the South Mission Jetty) at 2 in the morning, made him drink two 40 oz. Mickey's, an entire jug of Gallo wine, stuck a blunt of killer weed in his mouth, and then covered him with sand and shaving cream. Where? Tied securely to the shack at Windansea. We tossed him a quarter and told him to watch out for the ghost of Butch Van Artsdalen.

That same semster, another older member kicked the door in during one of our pledge meetings. He was pissed and ready to get in someone's face. Why? Because someone had borrowed his new 6'2" Burke without asking and then put a buckle in the rail. (I got blamed, and hazed for the duration of the evening, and in return for my $150 in compensation, I got a slightly buckled Burke which I promptly snapped the next day at Baja Malibu.)

On Mondays, our weeky chapter meeting would always run short in the early Fall and late Spring, as every bro would sneak out the windows for a quick evening session before the sun went down.

Even our marquee party every semester, our "luau", which had co-eds from as far away as Santa Barbara rolling down for the event, was pure surf-culture. I can still think back to the view from the roof (where rows upon rows of bros would sit and heckle the kooks from the traditional frats who'd try to crash with their Gap button-down shirts and Timberland boots), and see the masses of Reyn Spooners and palm fronds and tan girls.

During the day, anyone who walked by the house could look up at any one of the 5 upstairs bedroom windows and see the walls bristling with rows and rows of boards, wetsuits hanging over every ledge.

I remember every Fall waiting to see which bro would get his shot on the rush poster, thereby laying claim to biggest ripper in the house...for a few months anyway.

And hey, we may have gotten our asses kicked in Inter-Fraternity Council football, but I don't think we ever lost an IFC Surfing title. Not once.

Granted, there were always a few straight guys in the house who looked at the surfing aspect of the fraternity as a hindrance.

"Straighten up," they'd say. "Why can't you guys live on campus instead of moving to South Mission? Why can't we bring in more football and baseball players instead of every 5'8" shrimp with a WSA jersey in his closet? And why do our grades always suck so bad? And for fuck's sake, QUIT SMOKING POT IN THE HOUSE!"

But we needed those guys, too. They kept the books, went to the IFC meetings, and most importantly, kept the National Headquarters from storming the house and beating everyone to death with pink Polo shirts. The best part though, was that most of them surfed, too. I remember one of the older guys would come back from his "one weekend a month" for the Army Reserve, with his high and tight military approved haircut, and hang up his combat boots, grab his board and paddle out as one of the boys.

In some respects I like to think of this as a bunch of surfers taking it to The Man. We entered the world of the soulless, backwards cap white boy, co-opted his fraternal organizational system, stole his women, and knocked him a few rungs down on the established social ladder.

Now, to be fair, one could easily make the case that this was more the case of the modern surfer conforming - the beach bum cleaning up his act, getting a haircut, moving out of his parents' house and becoming a lawyer. But I don't think so. The other houses hated us, except for the few that had a contingent of surfers as well - we'd hang with them. The sorority girls loved us, and yet so did the non-sorority girls. And, in a finale in the spirit of the blowout bash in Big Wednesday, we were finally kicked off campus after almost 50 years of bending, twisting, and breaking the rules.

Today, 10 years after the school attempted to scatter our sticks in the wind, we all still keep in touch. Well, not literally all of us. But via an extended network of emails, surf contests down in South Mission, summer camping in Mex, trips to Bali and elsewhere, we're a fairly tight group. There are probably very few of the 1200 or so brothers that I couldn't track down with a couple of emails or phone calls.

And while the National Headquarters of our organization would love to take the credit for providing the fraternal basis with which we forged our friendships, thereby lumping us in with date-raping dweebs from MIT to USC, they can't. For a significant percentage of us, surfing was the common bond that brought most of us together (whether it was 1969 or 1989), and it's what keeps us hanging out and staying in touch today.

So a big up to all the bros. As the last of us to enter the ranks now move steadily into our 30's, I'm thoroughly enjoying watching this group of former misfits, rippers, shredders, and hell-raisers, continue to live the surfing life as they enter middle-age and beyond.

And to the college boys who are currently resurrecting our house on the SDSU campus after a 10 year absence, I'll raise a cold 10 oz, thick-glassed, Baja-recycled Pacifico to you, too. I hope you succeed, and I hope you carry on the surfing tradition.

After all, we don't want any frat boys in our fraternity.

The Colonel says, "Load him".

Surfing...The Ads

2005-04-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

I'm in advertising. It's what I've done for a living for close to 10 years. I started out doing copywriting for the 2nd ever GRAMMY Awards webcast, way back in '96.

(BTW, for those of you that don't know - and after 10 years of cocktail party small talk, I know there are a lot of you - "copywriting" means "writing copy", not trademarking things, i.e. "copyrights". Oh, and "copy" simply means material, i.e. content, for an article, novel, or advertisement...basically it means "words". And here endeth the lesson.)

For the months leading up to the awards show, and then live from backstage, we streamed audio, video, content, and promotional Recording Academy ads to a worldwide audience, of which about 10 people were actually equipped to receive streaming media. Backed by Apple's now long defunct, "Macintosh Music Network", and hemorrhaging cash in a fit of first-mover frenzy, we were way, WAY too early.

From there my career zig-zagged through the entire cycle of the Dot Com daze, including a 6 1/2 year stint at Yahoo! as an in-house creative director, spewing out ad banners, print ads, and splash pages by the Webvan-full.

Today I'm at an old school, Big 5, Madison Avenue ad agency.

How old school? During the summer, everyone gets to leave at noon on Fridays...so the NY folks can beat the traffic to the Hamptons. Not kidding.

It's a fairly odd route for a former surfer-punk-rocker-cum-rock-critic who fell in with the GRAMMY Awards and learned how to write ad copy, but what the hell - it pays for the new boards.

Anyhow, if I haven't bored you to tears yet with this indulgent resume-lite retrospective, I thought today I'd walk through the pages of Surfing Magazine, one ad at a time. After all, the ads are half the fun in our favorite glorified trade magazines.

And, if we still have the chutzpah, maybe in a later post we'll tackle Surfer and then maybe even the Surfer's Journal, just to see how the rags stack up.

So, if you care to follow along, please have the June 2005 issue of Surfing (B&W cover with orange logo....the "Special 400th Issue Collector's Edition) at the ready.

Listos? Bien...

- O'neill (inside front cover). Pretty cool inside-looking-out shot of Timmy Reyes in the barrel at Backdoor. Not sure the point of the white sponge print on the upper right-hand side, or the illegible copy on the lower right - "Touches You". What the fuck does that mean?

- Reef. Fred Patacchia doing a sick...what the hell do you even call that? And does it even matter? After all, there's the chick's ass, but then again, a shadow of her former self. Big thumbs down to Reef. Your ads may have been pointless and sexist (as Nigel would say, "But what's wrong with being SEXY?"), but at least they were unique. You stood out. Now that you've scaled back the ass, and superimposed some HOT SURFING ACTION - um, in sepia tone, no less - you've simply conformed and now stand for nothing.

- 2nd Reef ad. This is better. Your new sandals have a pimped out material. First a cool close-up, then a nice clean shot of the "PIMPSLIDE". Clean, stylish presentation of a unique product with a unique, memorable name. Good job.

- Hurley. Ah, here we go...the current bread and butter of the surf industry. Ubiquitous sequence of guy (Pat O'Connell) in a barrel, and then a bunch of 10 years-too-late Volcom-esque, copycat, illegible scribbling. Pointless. Adds no street cred to Nike-owned megabrand. Lame.

- 2nd Hurley ad. A-ha! Redemption. Amazing, powerful pipe shot...pre-ejaculatory spit-out. Simple, sick. New logo, too.

- Billabong Pro Tahiti Contest. Pretty amazing 'Choaps shot of AI. Otherwise unremarkable spread. Logos, date, more bad sponge prints - this time gone Tahitian. Next time, let the image speak for itself and tell your art director to leave the tribal trim on the clipart CD where it belongs.

- 5 Pages Content

- Quiksilver. Ugh. Note to Quickie - if you're gonna promote the retro look, don't feature some peach-fuzzed little twerp who looks too young to drive a tractor. Show us the inspiration behind the retro, not the end result.

- 2nd Quiksilver ad. Same problem as before, this day-late-buck-short grasp at the retro bandwagon looks lifted straight from the McDonald's outtake bin. I'm not lovin' it.

- Rusty. Hmmmm...Kalani Chapman driving full bore down the reeling pipe stretch. Looks a bit like faux-content, with the white box and caption style copy. But I like it. Still a bit cluttered for my taste, but I like what they're attempting. Who he is->What he's doing it with->What's next?

- OP. I love these ads. OP has come back from the dead on the retro wave they helped invent in the first place. These WSJ-pencil-sketches-gone-psychedelic feel soulful and look fantastic. Their new tagline: "Original_Still" is simple and memorable. And Joel Tudor is the perfect spokesman.

- Globe...5 pages. "If One is Good, Two is Hobgood". Awful play on words and twins. Plus, twins are creepy. The Fiji contest ad on the 4th and 5th pages ia actually halfway decent, but the previous 3 pages discount Globe as overly enamored with their dynamic duo.

- XM. This ad may have actually been made using PowerPoint. Awful. The shot of the "who gives a shit" boardbag, circa 1994, with the "Now Available!" starburst is so lame it's almost funny.

- O'Neill. Horrendously ugly boardshorts. More sponge print. Tamayo Perry dropping into Pipe wearing, uh, different boardshorts. Zzzzz...

- RVCA Artist Network Program. Featuring a whole bunch of names, and some guy's scribbles from his Jr. High binder. Basquiat. NOT.

- Nixon. Oh man. Please, if you don't have your magazine out, go get it. If the death nell of sideways trucker hats hasn't yet rung, it just rang. I actually feel embarrassed for this woman. Interestingly enough, this is actually an ad for a watch/bracelet, featured at the bottom. Huh? Exactly.

- Rip Curl. Nice shot, but who cares? One nice subtle touch though is that the Rip Curl logo is at the exact same angle as the Rip Curl logo on Pancho Sullivan's board.

- Vans. Another shot. Another pointless trimming of doodles and "ripped edges". The only thing that elevates this ad is the closeup, "you are there" quality of the image. It actually makes a cluttered ad feel cleaner than it is.

- 2nd Vans ad. This one I like. Must be something with Joel Tudor. Stylish, leashless drop, and some fairly funky, colorful watercolor. This stands out.

- Cult. Just another fly-by-trend upstart brand trying desperately to not look uncool. The skull and bones sponge print on the upper right? Ooh. Hardcore, 4th grade art class style.

- Surf Diva. Um, not sure how to describe this ad other than there's just something creepy about those chicks. Like they might teach you to surf, then spout fangs and eat your brain.

- Ambiguous. "Okay, Russell, put on these hundred-dollar-a-pop retro-slob clothes and go stand next to something urban...okay, how about the storm drain? Great. Now don't laugh. I said, DON'T LAUGH!" Oh fuck it, tell the AD to add in a surf photo.

- DC. I always tell my clients, if you can, let your product speak for itself. This ad says, "DC is getting into the sandal game."Guess what? I think they'll sell. Nice work.

- Body Glove. Nothing has changed since the 80's. No matter how hard they try to be 'core, Body Glove will always be an outsider brand...even with Bruce Irons. Add this to an entire portfolio of sad attempts to be cool. The Variflex of wetsuits.

- ...Lost. I think ...Lost has done a fairly good job of carving out a unique niche with their sleazy cartoon style. Adding in the Wolf Pack smells a bit like overreaching, but who knows? The sheer randomness of this ad is a bit confusing though. I'd say stick with the cartoon bit. No one else has done it better.

- 5 pages of content

- Converse. The Chuck Taylor legends decided to target the surf demo a while back. Now they're going after the Frankenreiter subset. Personally I think CTs are iconic and shouldn't be fucked with, especially with anything as lame as hippie-endorsed-hemp. But it's kind of a cool design. I think a retro shot of Joey Ramone circa 1977 in his CTs would have been better, but I can enjoy this, too.

- Fuel TV. Slightly pervy take on the Yellow Submarine style. Too much damn copy though.

- Xcel. Not bad. The photo negative art direction has been done to death, but here for some reason it works. Justin Quirk stretching it out, combined with his spine-twisting air in the same suit is a nice, effective juxtaposition. Excel has taken their single best feature - flexibility - and supported it fairly well. The Dyson never loses suction, and Xcel suits are really flexible. Stick with it, guys.

- Dragon. Is it just me, or do all the pros in this ad look incredibly lame? I look at the cool factor here and I just ain't buying it. Impressive waste of an all-star cast.

- Fox. Racing brand still wants to go surfing. Nice cutback, Tyler, but who fucking cares?

- Life Rolls On. I'm bypassing this one.

- Addidas. Okay, now this is kind of clever. Traditional sports brand enters surf market. No explanation, just a bunch of retro-styled surf stickers, followed by "Hey Surfing, Happy 400th!". It might almost make you think Addidas has been around and sponsoring surf contests for decades. Very guerilla. And, I hate to say it, clearly the work of a professional agency. Thumbs up.

- Aaron Chang. One of the greatest surf photographers ever presents us with a 6-of-one, half-dozen-of-the-other shot of some guy. Toss in some more pointless scribbles and a pair of generic looking boardshorts, and you have a remarkable photographer turned middle-of-the-road trunks peddler. Sad, kind of.

- Ezekiel. Great use of color. Why they stuck in that Polaroid shot though I have no idea. Remove it and you have a clean, stylish ad. BTW, Ezekiel's co-opting of the California Bear was positively fucking brilliant.

- Town and Country. Big wave. Big whoop. Note to T&C: Want to resurrect your brand? Go back to your 80's roots. Bring back the bright pinks and greens and all the crazy little characters. No one ever did it better, and the kids would go absolutely apeshit over repro's of those old t-shirts.

- Anti-Drug. I'm frequently impressed with the sales guys who can go out and wrangle an advertiser like this. However, as far as just-say-no ads go, this one ain't bad. She's kind of cute, too.

-Alpine Stars. I guess these guys make trunks. And, um, I guess Makua Rothman wears said trunks. Okay.

- Monument. YAVRO - Yet Another Volcom RipOff.

- Truth. Truth Productions make very clever ads. I question the placement. I also question their effectiveness. This ad made me want to type in www.fairenough.com though, and for a print ad, that's pretty damn good.

- DaHui. I despise this brand. This ad is awful and embarrassing and, hopefully, spells the downward spiral of a company that's just a few thousand nautical miles removed from "Crips Clothing".

- The Game. Cluttered, baffling ad. Note to Gerr: Do a single ad each month devoted to one of the 5 teams. Show off the logo, the team colors, and include some trash talk to the other cities. Get some fans and develop some alliances and rivalries. Think Major League Baseball.

- Vestal Watch. Dude, I know Moses parted the Red Sea, but who the fuck parted your hair?

- Dakine. Guy surfing. Picture of traction top. For crying out loud, does the same Art Director work at every surf company? For a sport of individuals, we sure look like a bunch of clones.

- Dakine. Lisa Anderson throwing big spray. Boring, but nice to see a chick carving and I like her orange board.

- FCS. The fact that the fin companies have gotten the average Joe spending extra money on fins is a coup in itself. I like this ad because it shows Jamie O'Brien twisting into a nasty cutback, with a great quote from Jamie really selling the hell out of his fins. All in all it's a good, hard, compelling sell. Granted, 95% of us couldn't tell the difference between carbon-fiber and carbon-paper, but that's what I like about this. Dyson says, "Suction matters." FCS says, "Fins matter." And we believe them.

-Adio. Is there just a machine somewhere in Costa Mesa where you input your logo and a picture of your product and it spews out one of these ads?

- 48 pages content.

- Volcom. Vol-cum, Vol-com...who cares? The once innovators have stalled out while the rest of the world caught up and copied the shit out of them. Now just another face in the crowd. Inevitable really, and fairly amazing they held onto their street-cred as long as they did.

- 16 pages content.

- RVCA. More scribbling on first page...an encore from an earlier ad. Then Alex Knost hanging ten in a very clean, 60's style ad. Nice.

- SurfTech. A failed attempt at what Rusty managed to pull off fairly well in an earlier ad. Rockhold looks like a dweeb and Xanadu looks like he wants to buy you a beer in Hillcrest. Terrible logo (and name) to boot. This company is single-handedly keeping these amazing new board materials in the BZ Foam Board category. A shame.

- Sanuk. Hey, give these guys some credit for originality. These silly slapstick Photoshop jobs take the piss out of Donavan and always make me smile. That's huge.

- Gravity. I can just hear the product marketer going, "Look, can't we just add in the new line of boards down near the bottom of the page? We'll just bump the ad up by two inches. It won't compromise the integrity of the design at all. Promise, bro." Brilliant ad, horrifically compromised.

- Bink. "Fuel the Fire?" What a fucking tool. Whatever the fuck Bink is, they're lame.

- Channel Islands. When will they learn? No one wants to look at Kelly's face. He's stumbled his way through one too many talk shows and bad interviews. Remind us why he was/is the king. Only Curren maintains the mysto for a shot like this.

- Killer Dana. Hey, an old school shout out for a new school ad. We've got trunks, lot's of 'em! Come on down to www.killerdana.com for the biggest selection of boardshorts on the Web! Yee-haw!

- WRV. Nice drop. But still...so what? You've seen it once...

- Surf Prescriptions. Pathetic rip-off of the American Express campaign. And this ad doesn't even make any sense. At least if you're going to steal, put it to good use.

- Santa Cruz. Anthony Tashnick!!! Anthony Tashnick what??? For some reasons though, I like the little barnacles with the faces drawn on them. Pointless, but fun.

- Sharp Eye. Marcio Zouvi used to shape my boards back in the early/mid 90's. I guess he's still around although this ad hardly makes me want to call him back up. So Julian Mullins can balance a Sharp Eye on his finger. So what? Can he spin a football? Pick his nose? Hang a spoon?

- 7S. Great shot of a cool, fun looking retro board, offset by a terrible, generic headline, "Isn't it time for a new board?" How about, "Holy shit this thing is fun."

-Aerialite. Ha. Old school "sex sells", traditional print ad. Exploitive, clean, and effective. I even read the 8 point copy.

- Flojos. Another ad made with PowerPoint by a Jr. Art Director with 2 semesters of "Commercial Design" at OCC under his belt. Oh, and that font. The worst design elements from the 80's, with none of the retro gaudiness. Might as well bring back the white rubber criss-cross sandals and call it a day.

- Anarchy. Hey Shane, take our logo down to the print ad machine in Costa Mesa. Don't forget a picture of Lopez. No, not that one, the other one. Cory.

- Carve. When PhotoShop goes bad. 5 points for the effort though.

- Jack's Surfboard. Huh, what happened? Sorry, I slept right through this ad.

- Surfco. Terrible, awful design, but brilliant use of gory photos to support product effectiveness. Very clever and slightly ballsy. And you gotta love that name. Can't you just picture the late night infomercials? "Folks, don't you just hate it when you take a fin in the eye?"

- Peppers, Bully's, Silverfish, X-Trak, LX Polarized. Quite possibly the first...and last time you will seen any of these companies in print again. Bullys actually lists their email address...@pacbell.net Maybe they should open a store on Ebay while they're at it.

- No Fear. "Fear has killed more men than time." Oh, and it's an ad for watches. The red headed stepchild of surf brands is STILL HERE and STILL RUNNING TERRIBLE ADS. Gotta give the favorite brand of Riverside rednecks some credit for tenacity.

- Hurley. Wow, this tool almost makes the previous tool look less tool-like. Nikely continues its downward spiral into the inevitable rack at Target.

- Spy Optics. Cool logo, cool font, nice design...TERRIBLE picture of yet another awkward looking pro surfer with a horrendous Britpop coif.

- West. I like this ad. A pile of wetsuits, the name of their riders, and their logo. Simple, bold, colorful, and effective. Thumbs up.

- Von Zipper. I kind of like VZ's art director. Brian Pacheco looks real and stoked to be wearing his shades. The "off the page" copy has been done to death, but here it works. The whole ad feels authentic.

- Analog. Nice spread. Cool shot. Nice use of gray day. Great design. Bold, compelling headline that may or may not make any sense. I may just go to www.analogclothing.com to find out. And thus, they have succeeded.

- DVS. Only an unbelievably clean tube ride elevates this ad. That's one hell of a straight line he's drawing. Maybe it's cuz he wears DVS sandals? Probably not, but maybe...

- Volcom (Back Cover). Christ almighty, guys. Time for a new schtick. We've seen it.

Wow, okay. That was a bit of an endeavor. Kind of fun though, don't you think?

The Colonel says, "Good design goes to heaven. Bad design goes everywhere."

Wind Blows

2005-04-18T18:12:00.000-07:00

Grape soda rules.

Spring, on the other hand, is kind of lame. This spring especially has been cold and windy and kind of damp. It hasn't ever really gotten flat though, so we can add that to the grape soda side.

Last week we had a few interesting days of waves. Monday was the weirdest, which started out breezy and cold and gray - typical eddy conditions. But then, as it rolled into early afternoon, the S winds eased up, the water turned glassy, and a fairly juicy swell got a nice late grooming. By 4 PM there were perfect, bowling, overhead A-frames up and down the beach.

That's the good part. The bad part was that it was so criss-crossed and shifty that being in the right spot at the right time had way more to do with luck than anything else. The tide also started rolling in, which meant that, on top of warbly backwash, the waves were backing off a bit on the outside and then dumping on the inside. That can be tough when it's 6 feet.

If you did lock into one though, there were barrels and big turns to be had.

Friday did an even more dramatic turnaround. The wind blew all morning and by noon it was raining and just straight up ugly. Then after about an hour of drizzle, it stopped, the sun came out, the wind DIED, and a handful of us paddled out into clean, racy, shoulder-high waves.

Saturday it was more wind. Went out around noon just in time to grovel through crossed-up, blown-out shit at Magnolia St. I did however manage to backdoor the only decent sized set of the afternoon, fell, and just about blew my eardrum apart.

Note to self and 5 people who read this blog: Wear earplugs.

Yes, wear the sunblock, too. But unless you're already deaf or Pete Towsnend, wear the friggin' earplugs. I recommend Hearos, which look like skinny little blue mushrooms with 3 caps. They cost three bucks at any drugstore and they're completely waterproof. They also block out a lot of sound, which sucks if you're surfing with your buddies, but great if you're surrounded by babbling idiots at, oh I don't know...say, the PIER.

Few random what-have-you's before an early departure...

Congrats to my old friend, James Crush, who is THE hot shot in South Mish for another year. Crush hacked his way through the same slop the rest of us did this weekend. Only he did it with a bit more slash and style and in the process picked up his second win in Craig Beck's annual, "Who's the Hot Shot?" contest down in SD. Let's all dump a virtual Tecate on Gramps' lid.

My San Francisco Giants are currently leaving more men on base than the French army. It's always something. Last year it was the bullpen. This year it's the Ribbys. Or lack of.

A BIG up to Ryan Seelbach for being a top-3 finisher in his first heat of the Mavericks contest a while back. I got to watch it in HD yesterday and they showed NONE of his waves. They did show ONE of his waves from Round 2, but only because he dropped in on Skindog. Better watch out Seel-back, I hear Skinny's GNARLY.

My good friend and college roommate, Antman, just made the leap from roving SD indie surf photographer to Official Staff Photographer at Surfer Magazine. This means that whatever tiny chance I ever had of getting him to snap my picture in the water just officially blew out Chris Mauro's window. Oh well. Congrats anyway, bro.

Alright, that's enough of that. Before this love fest spins out of control and I start thanking Evan Slater for publishing my letter in Surfing this month (which, by the way, permanently cements my kook status for all eternity), I better make like a fly-by-trend surf company and Split.

Oh wait, I do have one fuckwit shoutout to make re: Jamie Tierney's college paper profile on Timmy Reyes in last month's Surfing. In trying to (somewhat accurately) profile little Timmy as the scrappy byproduct of trailer parks and pier hassle sessions, he pigeonholed HB as a gloomy, run-down, Flint, Michigan by the Pacific. And while I'll be the first to call this town out on its shortcomings, his polluted, blue-collar, "condoms floating in the water" generalizations in order to frame his subject and stick with the bit, were so far off base it's embarrassing. I hate the word sophomoric, but dude, if the trunks fit...

The Colonel says, "Go Giants."

Homey Don't Play That

2005-04-12T15:55:00.000-07:00

A little warmer today. But not much.

Waves remained at around waist-high, but a little more mixed up than yesterday with some south swell crossing up the leftover north, making for some fun peaks here and there.

Actually, today I did something I hadn't done in a long time - played in the shorebreak with the kids.

No, that doesn't mean I put on a t-shirt and flopped around in the water with 20 pale little porkers on a Pennsylvania youth group trip. I mean it was high tide and instead of lurking outside on my log, picking off mushy set waves, I grabbed my chippiest chip, left the leash at home, and sat 20 feet from the sand with the little rippers, picking off re-forms and trying to play surf star.

I'd say I was marginally successful. And even then only if you define "successful" by, "I didn't embarrass myself or kill anyone or even run over any of the fat Keystoners."

But I did learn something. Reform sessions, minus leash, are a kick-ass workout. You basically paddle around, chasing little peaks and wedges and dumping closeouts. There are heaps of waves because it's mixing up and breaking all over the place. 2 feet can make the difference between not catching a wave, catching a wave and getting pitched, and catching a wave and pulling into a tiny barrel and, for a split-second anyway, becoming the aforementioned surf star.

Plus, the waves are so small and dump so quick that you've got to be wound like a spring and yet loose as a rubber chicken. Getting into those things before they dump and managing a turn or lip bash is fucking HARD. And doing any of the above without losing your board, well that's pretty much magic.

By the way, in an effort to be magic, I've developed a highly intricate and skillful way for not losing my board when I surf without a leash. Basically what I do is straighten out, (pay close attention here because it's complicated and requires some very tricky reflexes), take a deep breath, and FALL ON MY BOARD and then WRESTLE IT LIKE A GREASED PIG.

Got that?

1. Straighten Out
2. Fall
3. Wrestle
4. Squeal like Ned Beatty

Anyhow, I rarely like to mess with perfection. But today, as I was walking back out after, inexplicably, another failed attempt to rassle my greased-up Chuck Dent, I saw a young lad do something rather clever.

The wave closed out, he straightened out, did a mini backside bottom turn, caught it in mid-air, and landed on his back in the whitewater with his board safely in his arms.

Awwww....

So I says to Mabel, I says, "Hey, I sure as heck-fire can do that." That's what I told Mabel, I did.

So sure enough on my next wave I pigdog a backdoor wedge (is anyone else noticing a swine-motif in this post? must be the all-pork plate lunch I had today from Hawaiian BBQ), get clipped by the lip, straighten out, and begin my little mini backside bottom turn. Only instead of the board arriving safely in my arms as I fall back into the embrace of a whitewater cushion, it does a pop-wheelie and shoots straight into the beach while I tumble ass-first into the white water and go for a spin.

D'oh. D'oh. Fucking D'oh.

After that, plus my surf rack disaster, I've come to the conclusion that I'm more Homer Simpson than Homer Simpson.

The good news is that I get to try again tomorrow.

Whoo-hoo!

The Colonel says, "Mmmmm....bacon."

Shake Yer Bootie

2005-04-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

It's friggin' cold right now.

The weather is great - warm, sunny, & pleasant. It's the water that's freezing. Newport clocked in at 51 degrees yesterday (that's cold, even for Norcal).

So, for the first time in over a year, I dusted off my booties and surfed two days in a row with rubber feet. It wasn't bad - the traction is great and you stay nice and toasty. But it wasn't all that good either.

For me anyway, the more rubber you have to wear while surfing just separates you that much more from the ocean, and that progressively detracts from the overall experience. Maybe a strange sentiment coming from a guy who, along with every other guy in Socal, is pretty much wrapped in some form of rubber or another (from 4/3 fulls to 2/1 tops) 10+ months of the year.

But there's just something about booties that crosses a line.

Guys from Hawaii or New Jersey would probably disagree in a big way that booties are some kind of neoprene line of demarcation, but think about it. We're talking about your FEET...the direct link between you and your surfboard. And when they're covered up, well, I don't want to get into the whole sex/condom thing, but you get the picture.

Even if you're wearing a fullsuit, there's just something about having bare feet the provides a key sense of interaction with what you're doing. It's like fingerless gloves (or crotchless panties, for that matter). The business bits are left exposed to, er, take care of business.

To be honest, I didn't notice it that much yesterday when the waves were decent sized and I was out on my fish. Similar to a shortboard, you're up and you're planted. Fucked up stance? Better luck next wave.

It was today, logging it, that I really noticed the difference. Crosstepping, cheating five, turning, trimming...your feet are so much more actively involved in the process (in the "dance", to get all Dave Parmenter on your ass) that booties really muffle the whole deal.

I think back to my trips to Indo and I recall that everytime I was out in the water and saw a white guy paddle by with bare feet (my friend Derrick did it the whole trip last spring), I felt a mixture of envy and shame. Shame because I felt like a puss for being afraid of a reef that ain't exactly Great Barrier-esque. And envy because he had the balls to do it, and was enjoying the true tropical experience: board, trunks...and that's it.

There was just something wrong about wearing rubber in the tropics.

(Then again, fear of one's own blood will conquer shame and envy on an Indo trip anyday. Especially after straightening out at Impossibles, doing the long jump off your board, and landing feet first in knee-deep water. I would've kissed my O'Neill Super Freaks...but that would have meant taking them off.)

Bottom line is that the less you have to wear while surfing, the better.

So this afternoon, I happily hung up my booties knowing that the wind hadn't blown hard in a few days, the upwelling had stopped, the swell had dropped, and that tomorrow would most likely be a bootie-free day.

Besides, I like having a bare ass white body, tan face, tan hands, and tan feet. It's the reverse Mickey Mouse look and the girls DIG IT.

K, few more ramblings before the sign-out...

The surf racks in my garage came tumbling down last week, along with half my boards.

Being the lazy Homer-fucking-Simpson that I am, I originally stuck the racks directly into the drywall using special self-screw drywall anchors that are supposed to carry up to 50 lbs a pop. I guess it didn't occur to me that I wasn't exactly hanging a picture and that I'd be yanking boards in and out on a daily basis, wiggling the screws back and forth, day in and day out.

The day it happened it was like that scene at the end of the Blues Brothers where they get out of the Bluesmobile after the all-night car chase, slam the door, and the entire thing falls apart. I literally touched one of the boards, and 4 or 5 of them, along with 3 or 4 of the racks, just came smashing down in one fell crunching swoop of drywall dust and fiberglass shards.

My 2 year old son thought it was hilarious. "Soofboard...BANG!"

So yesterday I finally got out my trusty stud-finder (although I still believe in the knock n' drill method) and redid the whole damn setup with some 8 inch deck screws.

The damage was done though - the worst victim being my 9'6" Dewey Weber log, which lost a fin and a chunk of the tail. It's now in the pile with the board with the hole on the bottom from the dipshit who couldn't get out of my way in time and decided to duck dive UNDER me instead...surfacing, tip first, right under my board.

The flipside to this is that I just ordered two new boards - a rocket fish and a new 6'6" - from Greg Sauritch down in San Diego. Greg has been shaping boards for me for years, and he's a classic guy. He's been making boards in North County for, like, 40 years now. He was Machado's original shaper and always has young SD rippers on his team before they get snapped up by the Merricks and Rustys of the world.

I don't usually plug people or things in this blog, but Greg is way overdue a mention http://www.sauritchsurfboards.com/

The Colonel says, "New boards rule."

10 Things I Hate About HB

2005-02-20T14:58:00.000-08:00

The rain is back.

Rain sucks.

Guess that means it's time to flip the coin and see what's on the other side of HB. So without further ado about nothing, here are 10 things I hate about Huntington Beach...

10. Cheesy bars. Don't get me wrong, I love a great bar. Every beach town should have one good Irish pub, one seedy dive with cheap, stiff drinks and dirty pool tables, and at least one cool surf-themed bar with non-stop surf videos and tank-topped chicks with bolt-ons pulling 24 oz. drafts. But HB is simply crammed with shitty, cheesy, smelly, bars - each one more packed with underage kooks, jail bait, and dirtbag bouncers than the next.

9. Paintball. The people who run "Surf City" are confused. On one hand, they're trying to upmarket a once run-down, blue collar beach town with nice hotels, boutiques, and family friendly events like the Woody Wagon car shows, the Kite takeover at 6th St., and the farmer's markets. But they're also willing to sellout the beach to anyone and any event with a checkbook. The annual paintball war at the pier is simply the worst thing on the beach I've ever seen. Hordes of rednecks from Riverside, driving out every local in the vicinity for 3 days straight, and then leaving the beach COVERED with HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of paintballs for weeks and weeks. Hideous. The council members who approved this should be tied up and shot with all the leftovers.

8. Food...Or Lack Of. We've got some of the worst restaurants in Orange County...and that's saying a LOT. Duke's is fun and tasty, and so is Chimayo, but both still reek of franchise. The Red Pearl Kitchen would be a 3rd tier nosh in LA or SF, but here it's our "hip", "stylish", top-ranked spot for overrated Asian fusion. Here's an idea...let's close half the bars on Main, and lure some good chefs away from LA and Laguna with discounted, prime locations.

7. That Damn Tree. I'm not sure what they're called. They might be Cork Oaks. They might be Flaxleaf Paperbarks. All I know is that there's one in front of my house and it's ugly as hell and rains down tiny, needle-sharp leaves all year long. I lost track of how many I pulled out of my son's feet last summer. I'm not the biggest fan of palm trees, but I'll take one any day over these filthy, scraggly, ouchy, glorified scrub brushes.

6. The Apartments. HB is a strange town in that there's virtually no beachfront property - every home is on the other side of PCH. Every home, that is, except for one old development of condominiums, right on the sand, lovingly referred to as, "The Apartments." Overpriced, run-down, rust-streaked white condos accented by dirty blue trim (and matching stained awnings), and completely encircled by disintegrating wrought iron bars (curved and spiked like a medieval prison), The Apartments actually make Main St. look semi-charming.

5. Helicopters. What the hell is it about HB and helicopters? 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it's like a scene from Blue-fucking-Thunder. If it's not some jackass flyboy cop buzzing the pier every hour, it's his buddy with the spotlight hovering over every house downtown, looking for a party to bust. I don't even want to know how much of our tax dollars goes to maintaining and operating these overpriced toys.

4. Contests. Hey, I love a good surf contest now and then. Almost 20 years ago I stood at the water's edge at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, and watched Mike Cruikshank charge 12 foot spitting barrels at the 1986 PSAA Vuarnet Pro-Am. It was a watershed moment in my surfing life. And I dig the US Open - an iconic event with an amazing history. But do we really need to have a contest...or two...or three...every damn weekend??? From Magnolia to Bolsa Chica, and everywhere in between, this place is like a Little League surf arena complex. Could they at least sell dogs and beer?

3. Onshore Wind. I never realized how good we had it down in San Diego or up in Santa Cruz. While we do get the occasional evening glassoff in HB, it's afternoon, onshore slop 80% of the time. And for us non-morning people, that's just straight-up cruel.

2. Sidewalks...Or Lack Of. I love old neighborhoods without sidewalks. Carmel By The Sea and Del Mar are just two of my favorites...a throwback to the days of rural beach life. But Downtown HB ain't exactly a sleepy little town, and pushing your kid's stroller or walking your dog on the side of the street while some 16 year-old retard in a raised Toyota Tacoma goes racing past you at 50 MPH, is enough to make you go gray. Indianapolis St....aptly named...might be the worst offender.

1. Skinheads. I don't know when or how it happened, but at some point, long ago, HB became a haven for skinheads, racists, and white supremacists. Back in the 80's it became enough of a problem that the Huntington Beach Police Department created an Anti-Skinhead Task Force. In the past few years, especially as the housing prices have gone through the roof and things have gone "upmarket", the Skinheads have become less and less prominent. But they ain't gone. Just last week I took my son to Lake Park over off Main St...a weekday congregation point for toddlers and stay-at-home-moms. There, my son played with another 2 year-old boy, whose father sat nearby. I'd seen him before - skinny guy with a buzz (so what? I've got a buzz, too). But this time he had on a wife-beater tee and, in addition to a tapestry of typical tattoos covering his arms and shoulders, was displaying a lovely softball sized Swastika on his arm. And as if that wasn't bad enough, my son, who's very fair and very blonde, ran past him. The guy's girlfriend, who was sitting next to him, remarked, "Boy, they don't get any blonder than that." He replied, "That's pure Norwegian gold, baby."

Huh? How about pure Polish Jew?

Fucking scumbag.

Well, there you have it. I live here and, believe it or not, I love it here. My last few posts are a testament to that. But, like I said, it's raining, and rain means no surf in HB. And no surf, well...you know what that means.

The Colonel says, "Here comes the sun."

10 Things I Love About HB

2005-02-16T23:03:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this blog is tasting decidedly less salty these days.

Don't worry, there will be a 10 Things I Hate About HB posted, er... post haste. Promise. And it won't be hard. Believe me.

Right now though I'm still coming down from a 4 hour session in perfect peaks this afternoon, preceded by an unbelievable evening glassoff session the day before, with the most explosive sunset I'd seen in a few weeks.

Plus, my wife and I just had a baby girl, which has me a little loopy right now. Kids'll do that to you.

So without further skidda-ma-do...

10 Things I Love About HB

10. Old beach bungalows. They're tearing them down as fast as they can score permits for skinny, tall, stucco, monster homes, but downtown HB still has tons of cool old houses built in the teens, 20's and 30's. Some of my favorites are on Huntington St. and Franklin, both part of my daily ride to the beach. The only thing better than some of the houses, are the amazing gardens and yards they accompany. A big up to the bungalow.

9. Ruby's on the pier. Where else can midday onshore wind make you practically cramp up with hunger pains, as bacon, fries, and patty melts come wafting through the lineup. They need a Surf-Thru window. Sorry, we reserve the right to refuse service to all spongers and pimply surf shop employees.

8. The clock. Right above Jack's is our Big Ben...a big old tower clock with bells on the half-hour. Anyone who ever asks you what time it is out in the water is either deaf and blind, or from Fountain Valley and doesn't know where to look.

7. Inside reforms. I don't know of any other spot that has as consistent an inside section as HB. So what if it spawned the Huntington Hop? Doing a few nice turns on the outside and then connecting into a slot on the inside and stepping off onto the sand positively kicks ass. Leashes? Who needs 'em?

6. Mann's Pierside. Surf movies on the big screen, all year long. 'Nuff said.

5. The Surfing Walk of Fame. Julia Roberts can eat her kids for all I care. My heroes are all embedded in the sidewalk on Main St. Curren, Lopez, Occhilupo...they're all here, every day, and we're adding more all the time.

4. Duke's. My SF friends are rolling their eyes. Yeah, it's a chain...the same company that owns Kimo's and a dozen other surf-themed restaurants. And yeah, the wine list sucks and they serve drinks in plastic cups during the US Open. But you know what? It's a great concept restaurant and it's the best location in the entire city (Chimayo's, underneath, is down too low and you can't see anything but the sand). And the food's pretty damn good.

3. Nine miles of beachbreak. It closes out on big south swells. It misses north swells. It gets mushy. The water gets dark and ugly and it blows out in the afternoon. But on days like today, we're talking NINE FUCKING MILES OF PERFECT PEAKS. Pick a parking spot...any spot will do...and split a peak with a few buddies. Repeat over and over until your arms fall off.

2. Main St. lights. There's just something so cool about sitting on your board out in the water, after the sun has set, and turning to see Main St. all lit up. It's the opposite of country surfing. You're where it's AT.

1. Sunsets. While Main St. lights up behind you, mother nature has a tendency to light up in front of you. HB may be a concrete jungle, but watching the sun slip behind Catalina is as soulful as any experience in surfing.

Okay, that's it. Enough of this love-in.

I jammed my knee at the park this morning, hanging from the monkey bars while watching my son climb UP the slide. He doesn't have a scratch on him, but my knee is swelling up like Danny Nichols' ego after another photoshoot at Bolsa Chica.

My foot got torn up out in the water today, and my nose is burned.

My brand new car has a flat tire. Neither my wife nor I have even looked at the growing stack of bills in 3 weeks. I'll be changing newborn diapers at 3 in the morning. And my son floated a biscuit in the bathtub this evening which I had to fish out with toilet paper while he laughed and threw Scuba Ernie at me.

Nope.

Still happy.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Positive Vibrations...Positively

2005-02-03T20:20:00.000-08:00

Amazing day.

Mid-70's, offshore wind all day long, dry as a bone, and still a little swell leftover.

Okay, it could have been bigger and a lot more consistent, but I'm not complaining. It was like summer, only better, because the wind blows onshore all summer long.

My regrets from yesterday spilled over into today, so I sacked up and paddled out southside. Lo and behold I had it almost all to myself. Most of the Lennys kept to the northside, and my only company to the south were a couple of local, mid-20's delinquents, sharing stories of, I think, either DUI or anger management classes...it was hard to tell. There were also a couple of teenagers yelling and going out of their way to be as obnoxious as possible, but they left after a half hour or so.

A couple of longboarders joined us for the last 45 minutes, but for a solid hour it was just me and the southside lefts.

Anyhow, I'm kind of putting off talking about what I actually wanted to mention today. Being a smarmy obeservationalist is kind of my MO, so diverting tends to require some warmup laps.

A family friend...a kid named Wylie, who's only 13...is going through treatment for brain cancer. I don't want to go into all the details, but suffice it to say that he's going through hell and so are his parents. Cancer, as most of you well know, is one of those diseases that is usually accompanied by treatment that seems almost worse than the illness itself.

So my cousin emailed me the other day and asked everyone to pray for Wylie, who's coming off a hellish week of infections and sickness brought on by a weakened immune system (if the cancer doesn't kill you, the chemo will). He also mentioned in the email that he knew some of us weren't religious, but that he was a great believer in energy...positive energy...and if we could flow some of that Wylie's way, his family would appreciate it.

Well, I'm not much for religion. Not at all, to be honest. But I am a big believer in energy...both positive and negative. Maybe I was a little too obsessed with Star Wars as a young grom, but the idea of an energy force flowing through all of us, through everything, makes a lot of sense to me. Be it mystical or scientific, I think that's one of the things that drew most of us to surfing in the first place. Off all the "natural" sports and activities, surfing is by far the most interactive...we're literally riding waves of natural energy. It's fairly mend-bending when you really stop and think about what we're doing.

Years ago my grandfather died and that night I paddled out at the River Jetties in Newport for an evening sunset session. I loved the idea that my grandfather's life force, or whatever you want to call it, had been returned to the giant pool of raw energy coursing around and over and under and through the planet (hell, the universe). And what greater bastion of raw energy is there than the ocean?

For an hour, while the sun set, I surfed beautiful, glassy waves - raw energy, of which my grandfather was now a part of.

If this sounds hokey to you, I wouldn't blame you. A while back I wrote a rather surly attack on Danny Nichols, so you might want to go back and re-read that...it's still pretty funny and there's not of shred of earnest philosophizing anywhere near it.

But for those of you that surf...and for those of you who have lost people you love...I know you get where I'm coming from, whether you're a participant in an organized religion or not.

So today, which really was a beautiful day, with some of the most amazing looking conditions you'll ever see anywhere, I passed along some positive energy to Wylie. When the sets rolled through, and the Santa Ana's blew their tops off into the sky, and the sun lit them up from behind like lime green Jolly Ranchers, well, I wish he could have seen them. I think they would have blown his mind.

I hope he gets better. I understand that it's going to be a rough road no matter what. I have my own children now so I'm not really capable of thinking about it too deeply.

Either way, right here, in this concrete jungle, right next to the most crowded pier in California, we surfers tapped into the ocean, just like we do every day. Only this time, we sent some good vibrations all the way to a Chicago suburb for a kid who's never surfed, who doesn't know us, but who's now an honorary HB waverider.

Wylie, when you get better...the chrome chopper bike and tattoo are on me.

The Colonel says, "Hang in there, bro."

Quality or Quantity

2005-02-02T23:33:00.000-08:00

When you live in an ultra crowded beach town, the dilemma of quality vs. quantity can become quite real.

Me? I've always opted for the latter...and been fairly comfortable with my choice. 95% of the time, the pier in HB is by far the best spot in town. It ranges from "slightly better shape than the sandbars at Magnolia" to "everywhere else sucks shit and the pier is all-time firing".

On the flipside, the pier is also one of the most competitive spots you'll ever surf...and I've surfed a lot of spots. The most common, and popular, wave at the pier is an a-frame peak on the northside, but it doesn't really matter. The same crew of guys will be on it, as well as its twin brother on the southside when it's happening.

The crew can roughly be broken into two groups - the Lennys and the kids.

The Lennys are the older guys - 30's and up - who pretty much dominate the place between 10 and 2. I'm not sure what most of them do for a living (seems like mostly construction) but whatever it is, it keeps them in the water pretty much whenever the waves are good. They remind me a lot of the South Mission Beach crew down in SD - not a ton of natural talent, but lots of water time, lots of aggression, and a whole lot of yip-yap.

I call them the Lennys because the main guy, who is ALWAYS out, is named Lenny. Lenny is sort of the archetypal...well, Lenny. Mid-late 30's, great shape, chiseled, long hair (circa early 90's) pulled back in a pony tail. Loves to talk. Has a kind of goofy wide-legged, arm-flapping style, but knows where to be and when, and can bash a mean lip once in a while. He's also the guy who knows EVERYONE out in the water.

The Kids on the other hand are the legit HB kids. I'm not sure how many of the Lennys are legit locals. I think a lot of them live elsewhere but have simply chosen HB as their daily spot du jour. Some are probably trannies. The Kids, on the other hand, all live in the area, and all rip. Some are NSSA, some are on the HB High School surf team, some live in Seal Beach, and some are just kids who live up the street with their single moms.

The Kids dominate the early mornings and late afternoons and tend to congregate on the inside where the reform bowls are, but you'll find them all over. They don't talk nearly as much as the Lennys (especially when the Lennys are out), but The Kids are the guys who are really killing it out there. Airs, tail slides, the whole deal.

On a crappy evening glassoff, when it's mostly just them out the water, they're typical high school kids. Tons of shit talking, tons of hassling each other (the random kooks, spongers, and transplants like myself are just kind of ignored...invisible, like we're not there).

The bottom line is that you have two distinct and two insanely competitive groups of surfers who hug the pier pretty much each and every day. They're so competitive that the HB Pier is the only spot I've ever surfed where every wave is claimed long before you even have a chance to paddle for it.

"I'll go left."

"I'm going right."

Huh? What happened? The second a wave...or even an in-betweener...rears it's head, BAM!, it's claimed. Some 17 year-old Kid is going right and some 34 year-old Lenny is going left, and you're just going to sit there and wonder how long it'd take to paddle up to The Cliffs.

So, a mighty long digression, but you see my dilemma. Perfect a-frames and inside bowls with Lenny & The Kids, or walled up, backing-off closeouts at 6th St. with just you, a skinhead kneeboarder and two Asian boogieboarders.

In the past I've usually chosen 6th St. Unless the pier was just unbelievable and everywhere else was just pure crap and the pier happened to be between shifts, with Lennys and Kids punching their cards on Main St., I've always opted for crummier waves, but more of them. Kind of like that joke about the two old Jewish women (stolen from Woody Allen):

"The restaurant was terrible...the food was just awful."

"I know, and such small portions."

But I think it's more than just quantity. In a very real sense (for me anyway) it's about quality too. It's about the quality of my water time and how I spend it.

My whole life is full of stress. Kid, pregnant wife, demanding advertising career with heaps of travel, house under constant construction, in-laws, bills, cell phone ringing off the fucking hook...hell, anyone reading this probably knows exactly what I'm talking about.

The point is, an hour or two in the water is supposed to be my fun time...my time to RELAX. And maybe crawling over 30 other guys and screaming out which direction you're going is fun for some surfers, but for me, like I said, I've got enough people to yell at - and to yell at me - on the land.

So yeah, I pull into a lot of closeouts. I sit around waiting a lot because the lulls are always longer where I surf. I get dropped into by a lot of kneeboarders. I dodge a lot of ditched longboards fresh from the rental rack at Java Jungle. But it's also quiet. No one is yelling, "Right...I said, RIGHT!!!" And no one is yelling, "Duuuuude, Lenny, that fucking bitch never called me back" in that weird, squeaky surfer/skater voice.

So there it is. My choice. Me decision to sacrifice wave quality for a different type of quality...a quality of solitude and the ability to pick almost any wave when they finally roll through.

But before any smugness sets in, I will admit this:

Today was offshore and head high. The Apartments looked fun, but the pier looked epic. The pier also looked really really crowded. So as per usual, I chose The Apartments at 6th St.

I dropped into a lot of closeouts, paddled for a lot of waves I couldn't catch, and then, right when I was ready to head in, I looked south just in time to see one of the pier rats drop into a reeling left, pull in, and get absolutely SLOTTED for probably 3-4 seconds and come swooping out with his arms raised.

We're talking quality.

The Colonel says, "Hey man, stick with the bit."

You Shouldn't Have Been Here Today

2005-01-31T17:10:00.000-08:00

Out in the water today I had an unpleasant thought.

"I just shouldn't be out here."

It wasn't big or heavy or even super crowded. It was just...I don't know...just wrong. Well, wrong for me anyway.

This has been a really weird winter in HB so far. Today was a perfect example. Usually, even if it's junky, it's fairly manageable. Peaks here, a few double-ups over there. Unless it's completely unrideable (which is almost never), I usually get it. I know what's going on and how to lock into a few good ones.

Today though...it was junky, windy, doubled-up, mushy, backing-off, dumping, and lots of other contradictory qualities (if you've surfed HB regularly over the past few months, you know what I'm talking about). And on top of everything else, the current was heavy and the waves were sweeping in from the north, breaking at 90 degree angles from the beach on the southside of the pier (the northside was full on dumping closeouts).

Your basic full-on hassle session.

Unless of course, you were one of the other 10 guys scrapping for waves with me. All of whom were just killing it.

This is the kicker...and essentially the reason I just threw up my hands and went in.

Obviously there is usually a heavy concentration of young guys who rip in HB, especially near the pier. But this was ridiculous. I'm not sure if it was the HB high school surf team or what, but probably 85% of the guys in the water this afternoon were just freakishly talented little shredders.

If the waves had been perfect, "Who cares?" You know what I mean? Some 17 year-old NSSA star drops in, hits it, smacks it, turns, stalls, pulls in, etc. Big deal. Because right after him, YOU drop in, hit it, smack it, turn, stall, pull in, etc. Maybe it's not as pretty, maybe your spray doesn't fan half the lineup, but who gives a shit? You're both surfing well and to the average bystander on the pier, you're interchangeable.

But crummy waves change all that.

These young guys out in the water today...fuck. I'm fighting the current, panting, feeling the burn, and looking every bit a 31-year old corpo softy pushing two hundy, wedged into his Ultimate Elasto (size: L) like pork in a sausage casing. And these high school kids are just floating above the water as they paddle, talking, looking around, moving effortlessly back towards the pier after every wave.

Watching them catch waves is even worse. I'm scratching...digging into these waves. That's the only way I can describe it. I literally felt like a dog digging in the sand - no dignity, shit flying out from between my legs, tongue hanging out. Just pathetic.

But not them. Nope. They pause from their conversation, flip around, take two strokes...and they're gone.

Poof.

Oh, but that's not even the half of it. What they do once they're up...that's what blew my mind the most.

They'd paddle into some backing-off, closing-out, blown-out, rippled, waist-high piece of shit, and then sort of coast along on their stomachs for just a second...then hop up with the grace of a gymnast. And no, their boards don't sink into the water like when I stand up. When I get up to my feet on a tiny, mushy wave, it's like a giant fat guy getting on a tricycle. Everything just sinks down and all forward momentum slows down to a crawl.

These guys...it's like Clark Griswald on his snow saucer with the "secret lubricant". They stand up, their boards planing across the water like Jesus, and suddenly they bottom turn and WHACK! They tear the absolute top off of a wave that had no top. And it's not like they're done either. I mean, once in a very rare while, I'll manage to get up on just the right spot of a crappy little wave, find a bit of speed hidden somewhere in my board posing as a Ford Fiesta stuck in the snow, and I'll get in a little smack or a turn. But then I'm REALLY done. No speed left whatsoever. My only momentum remaining is down into the water.

These fucking guys...they tear the top off the wave and then it's like they have MORE speed. Big cutback, big fan, and then a big re-entry as it finally dumps on the inside.

Anyhow, after about 30 minutes of participating in today's humiliating illustration of gross class-separation, I threw in the towel.

As an added indignity, I had to walk all the way back to my bike parked at 6th street, carrying my longboard up the beach directly against the wind. Then my chain fell off...not once...not twice...but THREE times on the way home.

I shouldn't have been out there.

It's an unpleasant thought, but sometimes it's just true. The big, perfect days are for everyone. Today was a day for the little HB rippers. This was their day.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

One Crazy Winter

2004-12-24T01:04:00.000-08:00

This has been a weird winter so far.

We've had a few good sized swells, as well as multiple days of warm weather and Santa Ana winds. But for a few reasons (like I said in my last post, I don't actually understand most of those reasons....and it appears I'm not alone http://www.surfline.com/community/whoknows/12_20_npac.cfm), only one or two days coalesced into great waves.

One of the main reasons, I think, has been these crazy tides we've been having. 6+ in the morning, dropping down to -2, and then back up again. I don't know exactly why, but extreme tide swings never seem to be a good thing.

The other reason, I guess, has something to do with "fetch" and maybe something called "shoaling"...fuck if I know. What I do know was that last weekend the pier was like waist high and the cliffs were like double overhead, which, unless you understand Sean Collins' article above, makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever.

Oh well.

Then, on Friday I paddled out at 6th St. I hadn't been out 5 minutes when I spun around to paddle for my first wave of the day, and there's some guy, paddling out right in front of me. I pull back so I don't run him over. He duck dives and comes up right below me, nose first, and spears the underside of my board.

Haven't even caught a wave yet and already I've got a 2 inch stab wound in my board.

I didn't yell or get mad or even give him a dirty look. It was just one of those things. I'd like to be mad and know that he's an idiot who fucked up and thrashed my board in the process. But I'm not sure what else he should have done. Ditched his board? That might've been even dumber.

Hard to admit, but it's true...it's just ONE OF THOSE THINGS. Goddamnit.

Another thing happened last week that's tied in nicely to this wacky winter. I was having lunch with my friend Christian. Christian is an ex pro surfer from Brazil who now works in sales for Yahoo!. He lives near San Francisco and still kills it almost daily at places like OB and Fort Point. He also surfs Mavericks.

Anyhow, we're having lunch - me, him, and an old childhood friend of mine who also surfs - and Christian starts talking about the guys at Mavs who really charge the place. Obviously Flea and Mel and those guys are great, but according to Christian, there's a handful of other guys who surf it just as well, if not even better.

"Who?" I ask.

"Well," he says. "The best guy out there is this guy Ryan Seelbach."

I look at my childhood friend, Dave, and do this wrinkled eyebrow thing.

"Yup," says Dave. "Same guy."

Um, okay.

See, Ryan Seelbach went to my high school. He was a senior when I was a freshman. He was 6'5", a football player, and had a pretty smokin' chick. He played in the Silicon Valley Classic, which is the Norcal version of the high school football All-Star game.

And, as far as I know, he did NOT surf.

At Palo Alto High School there were like 8 of us who surfed. We even had a club and everything, started by a guy in Ryan's class (who now runs the Pigeon Point lighthouse). Hell, we knew every guy in the whole damn city who surfed. And Seelbach wasn't one of them.

Just for shits and giggles, I looked him up in my freshman yearbook. He had this whole little senior write-up thing, where he wrote things like, "Pink Floyd!", "Palm Springs '86....party!" and "Football '85, '86, '87!" and, of course, to his girlfriend, "I love you."

Oh wait, down in the left-hand corner of the write-up, is a corny little scribble of a palm tree and the word, "Surfin'!" (written just like that).

And now this guy is THE GUY at Mavericks???

Guess what? Turns out Jeff Clark even invited him to the contest this year! Fuck me, have you seen the guys on the ALTERNATE LIST???

I guess I'm just in shock. And that's not even all of it.

Turns out ANOTHER guy from my high school is yet another one of the Mavs chargers. His name is Darius Brohymn* and was, I think, a year younger than Ryan. Mostly I just remember that he was a big, scary, psycho of a guy.

My main memory of Brohymn is from some party I was at when I was a sophomore. I walk out of the bathroom and two fists go flying crossfire in front of my face. It was Brohymn and this big black football player with a giant Kid n' Play skyscraper 'fro (this was 1988), Emmitt Cougler. I'm 5'11" and 190, but these two brutes were like clash of the fucking titans.

And let me just tell you - they DESTROYED this house. I remember the chick who lived there, screaming and crying and grabbing her face while these guys literally wrecked her home. I specifically remember an end table getting flipped over, a coffee table getting smashed, and the sliding glass door shattering.

Then, a bunch of other huge black guys jump in and break it up. But kind of not really. Mostly they just pulled their buddy back and told Brohymn that they were gonna ALL kick his ass.

So what did Brohymn do?

He runs outside as the chick is screaming and crying and calling the cops, with these guys hot on his tail, and fucking jumps on top of this car in the driveway and starts thumping his chest and screaming, "C'mon you MOTHERFUCKERS, bring it on, I'll KICK ALL YOUR FUCKING ASSES RIGHT NOW!!!"

And the next thing I know, the whole mob of giant black guys surround the car. He punches one, kicks another, hoots and hollers and jumps off the car, and the entire mob proceeds to chase him down the fucking street.

On Monday morning I seriously expected a school announcement that one of our classmates had been murdered in some sort of crazed reverse-lynching.

Nope.

There he was, sitting on the Senior Wall, laughing, talking...a couple of bruises on his face and maybe a piece of tape over his eyebrow.

So guess how Christian described Brohymn at Mavericks?

"Oh man, he's nuts...he'll paddle so deep...get drilled, come up, and then paddle out and charge another one."

Whoa.

The Colonel says, "Flea, watch your ass."

*Not his real name...at his request. Read the rest of this posting and you'll know why I happily complied.

Any Which Way But East

2004-12-21T23:43:00.000-08:00

Last week I spent some time over Santa Cruz.

Way over. Like 20,000 feet over. SFO was a bit backed up, so our pilot "held" by circling (what felt like) directly over Steamer Lane. It was crystal clear that day and, even at that height, you could see tiny dots and tiny white trails as the Westside crew mobbed every wave that wasn't slamming the cliff in its entirety. Then, in what was another first for me (and I've been flying to SF from OC every damn week for a year and a half now), we departed SFO on Wednesday and did what the pilot called a "Bay Tour". We essentially took off heading east and then flew north over the Bay, banked west directly over the city, and then finally began our trip southward by coming around the backside of Mavericks.

So over the course of two consecutive flights I got a very rare glimpse of two of the most famous waves on Earth. And one of the things I noticed was the swell direction, which was...um...coming straight from, er directly from...uh, the ocean. Yup, straight from the ocean.

Okay, look...I admit it. I don't understand the whole swell direction thing. Even there, with a perfect bird's eye view of the ocean, with swell lines wrapping into the Bay, I wasn't sure. I mean, it looked liked a north swell, but then again, I'm not sure exactly which way Santa Cruz faces. And come to think of it, I do recall flying over during the summer once in a private plane and seeing waves wrapping into the Bay...and it looked exactly the same. And I'm sure that was a south swell.

I remember in high school I had a couple of buddies that got really into the whole wave forecasting thing. They had books and guides and maps and even one of those radio things that had no stations - just an on/off button and a long antennae. You pushed the button and you heard some far-off sounding voice going, "17 foot swells every *crackle* 18 seconds and 47 *bleep* as recorded at buoy *crackle* four one niner."

I don't remember if they actually said "niner", but it was all gibberish to me. All I knew was that if you called 976-SURF they never said anything about seconds or buoys. They just said, "Steamer lane is 3-4 feet and Skindog is punching some valley in the parking lot." (Well, actually, they never mentioned the Skindog part, but they should have - that would have been great for us Palo Alto kids - "The Hook is 2-3 feet and Pleasure Point is ON FIRE and the entire Eastside crew is in the back of Marcel Soros' truck at 4-Mile, so get on it."

Anyhow, the 2-3 foot thing made sense to me. The tides...that made sense, too. Surfline says it's a 6 foot high tide and the waves are mushy and hitting the cliffs. They say it's a negative 2 foot low tide and there's shitloads of kelp and you'll have to step on several hundred squishy things before you make it to the lineup.

What can I say? I'm visual.

But those same buddies back in high school, they swore they understood the whole forecasting/directional thing. And to prove it, we were going to score all-time waves at this spot in Big Sur called The Big Sur Rivermouth.

Never heard of it? Ha.

See, according to our little book, the Big Sur Rivermouth is a killer secret spot that only breaks under the most specific conditions. It has to have the exact swell direction (and we're talking a specific range of degrees here...like, actual numbers), the exact size swell, and the exact number of seconds in between. Oh yeah, and the tide has to be just right, too.

Then, when all the stars align, and all this stuff comes together like the perfect storm, the Big Sur Rivermouth will bestow upon those fortunate and prepared and wise enough to learn its secrets, perfect reeling right handers that wrap into the bay like gifts from Sean Collins himself.

And so my friend Pete listened to his radio thing, and scoured his free tidebooks, and we waited. In the meantime we kept driving over the hill to Santa Cruz and kept surfing. We scored great waves, not-so-great waves, and everything in between. We surfed at high tide and dinged up our boards trying to clamber up the rocks at 38th St. We surfed at low tide and dinged up our boards trying to pull into that elusive left hand bowl at the Point. We surfed in freezing onshore wind. We surfed in freezing offshore wind. And we surfed, baking in our O'Neill ChillKillers on flat, hot, still afternoons with no wind whatsoever.

Then finally, one spring afternoon, we got the call. The stars had aligned. The tidebooks, boxy little radio things, swell directions, Surfline...they'd all coalesced into what was going to be PERFECT WAVES at the greatest secret spot in history - The Big Sur Rivermouth. And we were going to be on it.

Do I even have to continue? You know where this is going.

Of course, we drove all the way to Big Sur, slept on a freezing cold beach after a 20 minute hike through some forest, ate burned hot dogs on a stick, drank a 12-pack of Schaefer and smoked horrible, wet pot out of a pipe one of us probably stole from a Grateful Dead show at Frost Amphitheater, and woke up smelly and cold and sore all over. And, of course, the waves were knee-high and closed out and exactly what we could have scored on any semi-flat day at the Hook.

But Pete was undeterred. And we were undeterred in our faith in Pete. We were convinced that we, and only we, knew about a killer...and, now, admittedly fickle...spot, deep in the heart of Big Sur, and that it was only a miscalculation in surf forecasting that had delayed our inevitable fate of surfing perfect waves, all by ourselves.

"You know, dude," he'd say. "That last swell was a north coming in at 155 degrees. What the Rivermouth needs is a 145-150 degree swell...and at medium low tide."

And, like the desperate kooks we were, we'd nod our heads and say, "Yeah, 145...medium low...it'll be EPIC."

Swell after swell, season after season, we trekked in and out of that beach. More Schaefer, more hot dogs, more squawking little radio box, and more knee-high closeouts.

I don't remember at what point exactly we gave up on the ol' Big Sur Rivermouth...but I'll tell you this: it coincided exactly with my moment of Zen, when I decided that I had absolutely NO FUCKING CLUE as to how surf forecasting worked beyond "big waves expected this weekend".

And that was it. We graduated and moved to the beach. Some of us moved to Hawaii. Some of us moved to San Diego. Some of us moved to Santa Cruz.

And, like some guy that never learned to read, I've been living happily, although functionally forecast illiterate, ever since. And like that same guy, who has the bus routes memorized from experience, and knows by heart what's on the menu at his local restaurants, I can bullshit my way through it.

GUY: "This north could've used a little south...but it's mostly west windswell breaking it up."
ME: "Totally...but the pier looks good."
GUY: "I bet Lowers is firing, especially when the tide drops and that south moves in."
ME: "Totally...and hey, check out the pier."
GUY: "Check out Southside...too much water right now, but it's gonna be on this afternoon."
ME: "Totally...pier"

So, fifteen years and thousands of waves later, I'm still out there, and no more wiser than when I was 16 years old, sleeping on the beach, feet frozen, Oscar Meyer/Schaefer halitosis, wondering where our own personal Rincon was.

But you know what? I'm okay with that. So what if I can't tell my SW from my N/NW? So what if I surf that same damn beachbreak, day in and day out? So what if I think Sean Collins is some kind of crystal-balled, 3-card Monte, fortune-cookie scam artist?

8-10 foot, 14-16 second intervals, 135 degree W/NW crossed up with a 3-4 foot SW windswell?

The Colonel says, "Um...I'll be at the pier."

Danny's Song

2004-09-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

I think I had a run-in with Danny Nichols today.

Dan-O, in case you don't know, is the current Overall Men's Champion of the PSTA (or is it PTSA? ...PTA? ...fucking PETA?), which is similar to what used to be called the PSAA...AKA the "Bud Pro Tour" as it became known in the late 80's. Bottom line is that it's the current American pro tour. It's kind of a joke, but it's all we've got.

Anyhow, I'm not positive it was the young Nichols lad, although judging from his attitude, his stocky build, short jerry curl locks, and the fact that he's FROM Huntington, well, I'm pretty sure it was him.

It started like this:

Small, high tide, ankle to chest high, inconsistent day at the pier. Lot of people. Not a lot of waves. Lot of longboarders picking off the sets. Lot of shortboarders sitting inside riding the...well, the insiders.

I pick off a kind of middle wave (I've been marketing high-tech for too long...the term "middleware" just popped into my head), and I'm up and going before it even starts to break. Good day for a longboard...so, uh, I'm on a longboard.

Our chap the champ is inside and starts paddling...as a lot of the little rippers at the pier tend to do. They paddle for EVERYTHING, can seem to catch just about ANYTHING, and will pretty much cut you off unless you scream at them or run them over before they can stand up.

Well, Danny should know better and really doesn't need to be yelled at, so I just kept going, drew a high line...he kept paddling, couldn't really get into it, and I just plowed through him. The tip of his board actually hit me in the shin as I rolled on by.

Kind of hurt.

Whatever. It's HB. It happens every day. Granted, it's usually the beginners who just blindly keep paddling and force you to either put your hand on their shoulder and give them a gentle shove as you cruise by, or take evasive action and either run them over or cut back to avoid the full-on collision.

In this case, I'm guessing that ol' Danny doesn't like giving up waves to longboarders (especially longboarders he doesn't know...although if he was ever in town, he probably would know me).

So I paddle back out, bugged, but am used to this happening enough that I'm pretty much already over it. I paddle right past him, and within a couple of minutes pick off the next one that rolls through.

Up, and there's Daniel-san, on the shoulder again...although this time he's decided he actively doesn't like me and starts doing that sarcastic hooting thing, like, "YEAH!!! YOU RIP...GO, RIPPER, GO!!!" Although he doesn't actually use words, he just hoots as I try to walk the nose and fall.

Now I'm pissed. This is why surfing drives me nuts sometimes. How is it that this guy (who should know better) hits some guy while trying to cut him off, and then becomes so pissed, that he wants to heckle the guy he hit?

I mean, look...I understand fights and yelling sometimes. I really do. Last week during that amazing swell, I saw two guys about to take a set wave on the head as they were paddling out. The guy further out front ditches his board and it almost hits the guy behind him. They get all tangled up, start screaming at each other, it almost goes to blows (funny how it always "almost goes to blows"), and well, you can imagine the rest.

Point is, I get that. Random visitor ditches his board in front of local regular, and the screaming starts. Hey, I'd be pissed too. Granted, I usually take a more condescending "Hey man, you really need to hang on to your board" approach, but whatever.

So here I am, on the most ubiquitous fucking Wednesday morning, surfing tiny, weak waves, just to get wet in between conference calls and meetings, and I'm getting hit...then HECKLED...by the PSTA champ.

Welcome to HB, how the fuck do you do?

And before I can say anything, or "almost go to blows", he's gone. Just disappears.

So, I tried to not let it faze me. I just kept on surfing, enjoying the sunshine, enjoying the crystal clear water, enjoying the occasional waist high peak. But you know how it is...that shit sticks with you. It can ruin an entire session...sometimes your entire day.

Every few minutes I'd even look around...stare at the beach, looking for signs of him walking back up to his car, looking for him southside of the pier, looking north towards the apartments. And it was less that I wanted to get into it with him (although I kind of did, even though we're both about the same size...which is fairly big, and we'd probably do some nice mutual damage), as much as I wanted to figure out what kind of Pro Tour Champ would act like that.

Ten years ago I saw Mike Lambresi out at the Oside jetty. He was the 80's equivalent of Danny-boy. 2 time PSAA Champ...a really good surfer, and a good competitor, but with no real future on the ASP. It was cool though...he was still the Bud Pro Tour Champ and everyone out in the water knew it. It was kind of like having a celebrity out in the water. And he "behaved" like you'd expect the Bud Pro Tour Champ to behave. He smiled, said "what up" to everyone, talked to the few guys he knew, picked off a few set waves, and surfed like a champ.

In short, he was the complete opposite of the little Nichols boy today - grumpy, sour faced, snaking, heckling asshole.

Then again, "Slambresi" was a big time born again Christian. Evangelism is just part of the deal, so they tend to be more talkative than the average guy and are, in general, just pretty damn friendly. And at the same time, the PSAA was a much bigger deal than the PSTA. It was a legit American pro tour and was a real launching pad for the ASP. Shane Beschen, Chris Brown, Chris Frohoff and a whole slew of other pro surfers...who all did reasonably well on the ASP...all got their pro start on the PSAA. So being "the Champ" was a pretty big deal.

And with celebrity...and a certain amount of money...usually comes a slightly different attitude towards other surfers. Rob Machado is NOT going to snake you. And if he does, he'll smile on his way back out and probably let you have the next one.

So, Danny-boy, I'm going to forgive you. I'm going to blame society instead. You compete on a shitty pro tour and no one knows who the hell you are. You're a mediocre pro surfer, with no real future other than as a possible accessory or sunglass rep, and as the 2003 PSTA champ, you probably pulled down about as much as a first year "Manger-in-training" at Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

I'm sorry. Really. It's not your fault. Danny...listen to me. IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT.

It's not your fault.

Now let's hug and see if we can't get you into a few classes at Orange Coast Community College. Who knows, with a few years of hard work, some contest winnings from Bolsa Chica, we might be able to put this PSTA thing behind you and secure you a future you can be proud of.

Who knows, maybe, just maybe, we can get you an interview at Enterprise.

The Colonel says, "Free mid-size upgrade?"

Rubber in the Hood

2004-09-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

Howzit.

That's what dorky white guys from California used to say back in the 80's when they wanted to sound cool and Hawaiian. More recently they've said things like, "Shoots" and "Stoked" (but in that sort of Canadian goes Pidgin accent...so it's more like StOOOOOked). Whatever, it all sounds retarded.

Anyhow, BRAH...

Work has been completely insane and the waves have been really good - consistently good now for, jeeze, close to a month - so updating this thing has been tough. However, with any luck, I'll be laid off soon, cash out some stock options, dump some severance in the bank, and spend the next 6 months surfing every day, hanging out with my son, writing, and doing the odd freelance gig.

In the meantime though, a few random recollections, observations, frustrations, and random ramblings...

After a couple of weeks of insanely warm water - it actually got up to 73 degrees in HB early last week - it's starting to cool down. That means it's getting close to wetsuit time, which as it tends to do, got me thinking about the second most important tool in our collection of surf gear - the wetty (hey, look, now I'm Australian).

First off, does everyone check out the "wetsuit guide" in Surfer Magazine every year? Yeah, me too. Anyhow, on the off chance you don't know this, it's not actually a "guide". It's what's called in the publishing world an "Advertorial", which is essentially an advertisement disguised as editorial content.

Now, while most magazines display just enough honesty to label such crap with a tiny 8 point header and footer on each page that says, "Paid Advertisement", Surfer has never found itself beset by such notions of integrity.

Nope, this is just their yearly "Guide" to the latest models of stitched, glued, and molded rubber. And the only thing they write is the intro...and that's usually just a half-assed, half-page history of the wetsuit with a few rambling quotes by the ever crazier and more senile Jack O'neill. The rest is all supplied by the manufacturers. It's literally just 6 brochures, laid out as 12 pages of "content", pretty much identical to their "Design Forum", which is the same fucking thing only it's in every damn issue and features surfboards instead of wetsuits.

Just a head's up in case you wondered why every year after reading the "Wetsuit Guide" you had no more insight as to which suit to buy than you did beforehand.

Now, if Surfer or Surfing or any of the other magazines had any balls...or any journalistic integrity for that matter...they could actually put together a legitimate guide, which might actually be useful.

Imagine something like this for just a minute...

"The 2004 Rip Curl Ultimate Elasto was by far the stretchiest, softest, and most flexible suit we tried. It didn't seal out water nearly as well as the O'neill Psycho II, but it was more comfortable because the rubber tape they use is a bit more flexible, especially around the shoulders. The one clear drawback of the Elasto is its durability. Over the course of our 3 month test run, it began to crack, tear, and decompose much faster than the other 12 suits..."

See what I'm talking about? I mean, that would be a great fucking article. I hate trying on suits and, since I know what size I wear, I pretty much just buy the same damn thing every year, except when, every 5 years or so, some friend grabs me and screams about how he bought some new generation suit and how fucking warm and fucking soft and fucking stretchy it is, and then I go buy THAT suit every year for the next five years.

Not that my tried and true system doesn't work, but I for one think an unbiased, Consumer Reports style review of wetsuits each year would be very fucking cool...and very useful. And if Hurley doesn't like the fact that Ben Marcus called their suits "awkward fitting" and "strangely uncomfortable in the nutsack area thanks to overly thick stitching", well, tough shit. They can either suck it up and continue to shell out advertising dollars, or they can go buy ad space in Guns & Ammo.

Next order of business: wetsuit trends.

Out - longsleeve springsuits.
In - comps.
Also in - wearing fullsuits in the middle of summer.

So, the first two I get. Trends come, trends go, even with something as utilitarian and functional as a wetsuit, but whatever. The longsleeve spring - a throwback to the beavertail days - was the big trendy retro event of the mid-90's, along with the fish. Obviously that's lame-o now, and it's back to mid-80's shortsleeve fulls (also known as "comps", thanks to some clever marketing by the wetsuit makers about 20 years ago...it's a "competition" wetsuit which keeps you warm like a fullsuit, but has short arms so you can paddle for that priority buoy, bro, and that, like, got all the rippers buying them, bro, and that, like, in turn, got all the wannabes buying them because they too wanted to be seen as a COMPetitive level surfer, y'know).

But what the fuck is up with all the guys wearing fullsuits when the water is 69 degrees? There's a whole crew of guys who surf the pier every day, and every day, rain or shine, 59 degrees or 73 degrees, they're wearing fullsuits. Some of them are wearing comps, but they're all fullsuits.

Is this a "I'm hardcore and surf all day long and even if it's warm you'll eventually get cold so I wear full rubber so I can put in 7 hours of water time?"

Or is it a, "I'm hardcore and need to show off the all-black and show how unfazed I am by BAKING myself in black rubber at noon in the middle of summer, just like those homeboys in Oakland who used to walk around in July wearing giant Raiders parkas with the fur-lined hoods pulled up?"

When the water's warm the only reason I even wear my wetsuit top is for the afternoon wind chill, or because my wife isn't around to put sunblock on my back. Otherwise, I mean, c'mon...isn't skinning it in your trunks half the fun of summer in Socal? It's what makes us NOT NORCAL. It's getting back to your house with salt crusting all over your skin, with nothing to rinse off but your trunks. It's paddling twice as fast and lasting twice as long. It's later drops, crazier turns, easier duck dives...it's SURFING IN YOUR TRUNKS FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

I honestly don't get it, so somebody please help me out on this one. What am I missing?

Oh, and one more question - why are springsuits so uncool? Pretty much the exclusive domain of the longboarding weekend warrior since the early 90's, traditional springsuits - short arms, short legs - have been a total fashion faux pas in the water for about 10 years now.

I guess they just don't look that cool, but I think they're underrated and due for a comeback.

Now that we're on the subject, let's rattle of a few unwritten surf faux pas just for the hell of it...

- Wrapping one's leash around one's fins is NOT cool. Tossing it flippantly over the top rail and then grasping it in the same hand that's holding the bottom rail, well, THAT'S cool. As is untethering it altogether and carrying it separate from your board. I think this originated from really good surfers that had big quivers and might transfer a leash from board to board over the course of a day or several sessions.

- Surf racks on your car, unless you're in another country, are NOT cool. This is an old one, but has somehow managed to stick around for years. Doesn't matter if you drive a fucking Geo Metro...stick your stick in the car. It's what the cool guys who surf real good do. And if you have to put it on the roof, God forbid, don't strap it down nose forward. Even though some guy proved years ago that boards on the roof, deck down and nose forward, are the most aerodynamic and provide the best gas mileage...nope, stick 'em tail first and be cool.

- Paddling with chest puffed out and your back arched like a trained seal is cool. How the fuck this became cool is beyond me. Maybe because it's the exact opposite of beginners who paddle flopped on their boards like rag dolls, all four limbs dangling off the sides. "Hi, I'm little ripper man, and I shall paddle with my chest puffed out, craning my neck like a prairie dog, and looking nothing like the kook floating in the impact zone, facing sideways and looking tired and confused." Forget that its been proven that this back-arched, water polo style of paddling is only half as efficient as paddling while completely prone with your head down (imagine a swimmer, okay?), but it's also terrible for your spine.

Alrighty, that's enough for now. There's plenty more where those came from.

BTW, to end on a positive note, let me just quickly gush about the waves last week. Monday afternoon was hideous -big, overhead, blownout, sideways-breaking, heavy current, mixed up, junky, closed-out, ass-kicking crap. Then, Tuesday morning rolls around and it's head high, offshore, lined up, incredible shape without being too peaky, and warm. It was INCREDIBLE - some of the best conditions I've ever seen in HB, and I personally had one of the best sessions I've ever had. Tube after tube, turn after turn, wave after wave...just unreal. And, while it was only amazing that one day, it was still great the rest of the week.

It's why we surf. It was freedom, it was fun, it was exciting, it was challenging, it was "fuck the rest of the world, I'm in the ocean", it was amazing to look at it, amazing to be a part of, amazing to just be a surfer last week.

Even if your board was on the roof, your leash was wrapped around the fins, and you were in a springsuit.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

School is IN

2004-09-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

Today is a great day.

I used to dread the day after Labor Day...the end of Summer. I hated that pointless "3 day weekend", which means nothing to a kid on summer vacation. 3 days, 4 days, who give a shit? I'm on SUMMER VACATION. All Labor Day meant was that school started the next day.

If you even said the words, "Labor Day" to me in mid-January, I'd still get an instant knot in my stomach. It had that much baggage. The end of summer...the single worst day of the entire year, eclipsing even dentist appointments, shots, church, and visits to the old-folks home.

School. Ugh. It meant so many things...

Shorter days (sickening act of nature, with the end of Daylight Savings time a man-made extra kick in the balls).

Colder weather (OP cords disappearing like leaves on the trees).

Class pictures (the schoolyard covered in black plastic combs afterwards).

Homework (always started out easy, then WHAM!, bibliography time).

Soccer practice (twice a week).

Brand new corduroy pants (stiff as a board).

No more movies on weeknights. No more sleepovers. No more camping. No more day games at the 'Stick. No more beach. No more family vacations and $2 souvenirs. No more running loose, all day, every day, for 3 months.

Which is exactly why I love it now.

One day I'm sharing waist-high, blownout slop with every 6-18 year-old shredder and kook in Southern California, and the next, I've got a shoulder-high peak to myself, it's 85 degrees and glassy, and my bike is the only one in the rack.

And see, that's the cruelest part of the whole deal for kids. Because, see, it's STILL SUMMER. The weather is still hot, the days are still long, and yet kids are locked away from 8-3, five days a week.

Tee-hee.

TEE-FUCKING-HEE.

(I've been through it...13 years of forced education...5 years of voluntary...so I get to laugh now, see, I've EARNED that right.)

However, it's not all empty lineups and Santa Ana winds. With the power of Fall comes certain pitfalls. And I've got enough adult years under my belt to have learned a few things about surfing in the Fall, especially in a youth-dominated town like HB.

Allow me to share some of the basics...

1. Avoid the dawn patrol like the lineup was populated with fire-breathing sharks. Seriously. Every grom in HB seems to have their Krusty the Klown alarm clock set to "Sesh Before School" (and now that the let-it-be 70's look has completely infiltrated American youth fashion, they don't even need that extra 30 minutes to smear goop in their hair or peg their pants). Combine 300 groms with the pre-work crowd and you have HELL ON EARTH...at least near the pier, until 9 AM.

2. Remember in Better Off Dead when Lane Meyer is being chased by the paperboy, and is suddenly surrounded by like a hundred paperboys, all demanding their two dollars? That's what happens in HB at 3 PM. Get out of the water. Run. Run for your fucking life or find yourself surrounded by a hundred John-John Florences. Like Chief Brody said, "GET OUT OF THE WATER".

3. Learn the school schedule. Granted, there are like a million schools in the area, but get a basic feel for MINIMUM DAYS (you'll know it's one of them when, at 1 PM, you suddenly find yourself the only person in the water over 150 pounds), STAFF DEVELOPMENT DAYS (you'll know those by the two groms who cut you off and crash into each other at 11 AM), and FUCKING RIDICULOUS HOLIDAYS you haven't celebrated since you were in school and have since forgotten since no non-governmental employer has EVER given anyone the day off since their inception. These include COLUMBUS DAY, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY, ARBOR DAY, BANK HOLIDAYS, NATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY, and God knows what else.

So, tomorrow is Wednesday. No minimum day. No staff development (they've been "developing" for the last 3 months). No holiday...except for maybe National Admin & Excel Spreadsheet Day (which, I don't think even the staff at the Long Beach VA gets off). Just hot weather, warm water, glassy conditions, and a little leftover swell from the weekend. Perfect for trunks, a longboard, no leash...and a flexible work schedule.

Do it.

You sat at a desk all summer. You dug ditches. You went on sales calls at 1 PM in Riverside to see some asshole who just wanted another quote so he could tell his boss he shopped around, and then hook his cousin up. You spent what used to be the best part of your life WORKING. No summer vacation. WORK.

Do it.

Take a long lunch. Call in sick. Make an "appointment" with some client. Go in early, leave even earlier. Put "On a conference call" on your Instant Messenger status (don't forget to turn off the idle mode).

Do it.

School is in. Time to go surf.

The Colonel says, "Here's to year-round schooling."

Fear and Loathing in Bali - Part II

2004-08-24T01:17:00.000-07:00

The second installment of a multi-part series, chronicling a recent surf trip to Indo. No sponsors, no pros, no boat trips. Just 5 mates, 10 days, 6 days off work, 15 boards, 1 giant swell, and enough Bintang to ensure any other numbers cited in this tale are purely estimation.

May 28th, 2004
Uluwatu, Bali
5:00 PM

The second I emerge from the giant cave I start moving, and I mean MOVING. The current has me literally paddling sideways as it sucks me north along the cliffs.

I can see Web, Beach, and Glenn...but just barely...they're just dots appearing in between waves way out on the horizon.

Keith is right behind me - I look back and he's paddling like mad - and already I'm realizing that this is a bad idea.

The sky is a dark gray, the water a light gray. I can FEEL the waves thundering on the reef way on the outside. It's so cloudy and stormy that I can't tell how low in the sky the sun is, but it has to be low. We don't have a lot of time.

My arms burn as a I fight the current, trying to straighten out and head, more or less, straight out to sea. I duck dive under a few depleted rows of white water. It's warm, quite possibly the only plus of this entire endeavor so far.

I look back over my shoulder. I've actually made some progress and my rapid descent northward has slowed a bit. Keith has managed to keep himself within 20 or so yards of me.

Then the first inside set arrives.

It's the first real wave we've seen. An insider, near the racetrack, but I think to myself, "We've drifted really far north, so we'll just paddle over the shoulder."

Obviously we're not as far north as we think, because this thing starts to rear it's head...it's getting bigger...and OH FUCK...it's starting to feather at the top. Not only are we not going to make it to the shoulder, but this thing is going to DUMP ten feet in front of me.

It feathers. Mist starts blowing off the top. It keeps rearing up. It's gone translucent. Plumes of spray are blowing off the top. The lip pitches...and there's that second or two of silence...and then CRRRRACK!

Five feet in front of me this thing explodes on the reef.

Big breathe, death grip on the rails, I rise up, push down, ass in the air, and go under...

Big hit. Dragged back.

...and then, I pop up.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Maybe the last year of surfing beachbreaks has actually done me some good. Instead of churning, swirling, chaotic white water filled with masses of air bubbles, there's actually some method to the madness of reef waves. The duck dive is successful.

I look back. Keith has not fared so well. I see his board pop amidst the foamy white water and watch as he clambers back on. But he's back in the current now, and I need to move on.

Best of luck, bro.

You see, of the five who paddled out at giant Uluwatu that evening, only two of us had ever surfed the place before.

Bad.

But that wasn't even the worst of it. Everything we could have done wrong that evening, we did. The list of missteps is long and pathetic, with the foremost factors being:

1. It was big, stormy, unpredictable, and the currents were Class 5 Rapids-esque.
2. The sun was setting and, within an hour and a half, it would be pitch black...with no moon and no stars.
3. We were tired, hungover, a bit drunk, and a whole lot jet-lagged.
4. Because the sun was setting, we were in such a hurry to assemble our gear and therefore didn't evaluate the conditions.
5. Rush wax jobs on bare boards are a bad idea, especially on new, unfamiliar equipment in heavy surf.

Our worst move though goes right back to the fact that only two of us knew the spot. At many places, that isn't a problem. You paddle out, you surf, you paddle in. But at Ulu, IT'S A PROBLEM.

See, at Uluwatu, there's only one way out and one way in...via a giant cave carved into the base of these 50 foot cliffs. Inside the cave, about 20 yards deep, is actually a little beach, with stairs that lead to the top.

Big deal, you might think. So you paddle back into the cave you paddled out of. So what?

Well, it's not that simple. Heavy currents run north along the base of the cliff. And the only way to get back in the cave is to paddle out and around (as I was currently doing) and then southward, PAST the cave. Then, when you're done surfing, you have to catch a wave that's sufficiently south of the cave, immediately straighten out, and aim for the southernmost part of the opening.

If you time it just right, and the currents aren't too strong, you'll hit the bullseye - sperm and egg style - and you're home free.

However, if you miss the cave, you can paddle all day, but you'll never beat the current. So then you gotta start ALL OVER AGAIN. That means paddling north, out and around the waves to the outside, and then paddle all the way south again past the cave, line up, and take another shot.

On a big day, like today, that can take 45 minutes.

If the current is just too heavy, there is one other option. You can let the current take you about a half mile north to the beach just south of Padang Padang. There you can wash up on the beach and then wander back up to the road and hitchhike back to Uluwatu.

So, guess which two hungover, jet-lagged dumbasses forgot to tell their friends about all this?

You got it.

While Beach and I were focusing on our own little private stress sessions, we'd completely forgotten to tell our mates the real deal on getting back in.

Poor fucking saps.

By the time I've made it outside, past the racetrack, at least 20 minutes have passed. Keith is nowhere to be seen behind me, and the rest of the crew are still just tiny dots. I keep paddling. And paddling. And paddling.

All the while these massive bumps are rolling under me. Up ahead, Outside Corners is dumping giant mushburgers. I've got one eye on my friends, who are slowly coming into focus, and the other eye on the outside, expecting massive cleanup sets any minute.

Out of the blue, I see a little red-trunked man in a white rash guard drop backside into a solid overhead beast. Big bottom turn, bigger turn off the top...the guy is flying...and then a big kick out before the inside section freight trains him to the bottom.

That's my boy, Web, charging.

For the first time since getting wet, the knot in my stomach is joined by just the tiniest twinge of stoke. It doesn't last long.

I finally arrive at the main lineup. Surprisingly, and despite how alone I feel out there, we're not the only ones out. A handful of Aussies float here and there. Then I find Beach, then Glenn...then Web makes it back out after his bomb.

We chat, talk about Web's wave, all the while keeping an eye on the horizon.

Then it starts to rain. No, it starts to pour. The wind was already blowing hard, but now it's howling. The squall has also made it even darker...the sky and the ocean. The whitewater is almost fluorescent against the backdrop of such dark gray.

In surfing, one of the most maddening things is the view. Even sitting upright on your board, you're pretty much level with the sea's surface, which means that you can never see beyond the nearest wave. That is, until that waves rolls underneath you and, for one fleeting second, you rise up and can see what else is on its way - flat water all the way to the horizon, or rows of incoming swells ("corduroy to the horizon" as they say).

Every surfer has similar tales of scrambling over the top of a wave, just a split second before it breaks, only to have their bowels liquefy as they get that first glimpse of what's behind it...a bigger, scarier waves, breaking even further out...of which they have no chance of getting over.

For a lot of surfers, the worst wipeouts of their lives have happened while paddling out or just sitting in the lineup and getting cleaned up by a rogue set. See, while you're actually up and surfing, you have momentum on your side. Except for the worst wipeouts, most of the time the speed of riding that wave enables you penetrate the surface of the water, and either get through it or deep enough under it, that the beating is relatively minor.

It's when your sitting still or simply operating on paddle power, that the power of a wave really gets to manhandle you.

My worst experiences getting caught inside both happened in Northern California. One was a rogue set wave at Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz. The entire horizon just turned BLACK as this beast stretched all the way across the bay. It broke just feet in front of me, ripped the board from my hands, and drove me to the bottom. Just when I thought I was breaking free and nearing the surface, my feet touched the bottom. Unexpected and horrifying. The other was a massive day at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Only the peaky, shifting conditions and heavy currents actually saved my ass when the set of the day merely sideswiped me, instead of sending me to the depths of dark, scary, OB Hell.

It was 15 years of experiences like those that helped get me so spooked at Ulu that day.

So when THAT set inevitably rolled through I was already the furthest guy out. I scrambled for the horizon anyway. If those guys wanted to sit too far in and get cleaned up, well, fuck 'em.

After the second mini-mountain rolled underneath me, though, a third began to peak up in front of me. I was in just about the right spot. And you know what? It looked pretty good.

"Fuck it," I thought. "I came all the way to Bali to surf. I don't want to wake up tomorrow bummed that I paddled all the way out and didn't even go for it."

So I spun around on my 6'10" Aloha mini-gun that I'd never ridden, with fins I'd just attached, and a wax job I'd just applied, and paddled into this big, gray, wedging beast.

I paddled harder as the wind howled up the face, blowing me backwards. I looked to my left and saw Beach and Glenn and some Aussie paddling up the face, hooting as they crested over the top of the wave. The spray from the wind started blowing in my eyes, almost blinding me. I took two more paddles, prepared to stand, looked down the face and...um...and, um...

FUCK THAT.

The wind was blowing so hard I was just perched at the top. This sure as shit wasn't Mavericks, but I was just as hung up in the lip as what's-his-face on the Surfer cover ten years ago. I took one last look over the edge, at the dark spots of the reef down below, pulled back on my board and just got rained on for about five seconds by the water being blown off the top.

Ok. Over it. Done. Going in.

Whic brings us to a key thing (for lack of a better word) in surfing. As the grizzled old French woman told her band of equally wretched Parisian revolutionaries in History of the World Part I, "Let us end this meeting on a high note."

In surfing, you gotta finish strong. Your last wave needs to be a good one. Going in after a shitty wave is just, well, it just sucks. It's your last dance before you go home. You gotta make it a good one. That's why guys will stay out in the water for an hour after they've decided to go in. Making the decision to go in is the easy part. Scoring that elusive "last wave"...one that's worthy of being a "last wave"...well, that's the hard part.

But see, going in after a crappy "last wave" isn't even the worst thing you can do. Nope. What's worse, way worse, is going in after NO WAVE. In other words, PADDLING IN.

Not only is paddling in just a lame way to end your session, but on a day like today it's a bit like running home with your tail between your legs (if the waves are simply tiny or the ocean has gone flat, it's a different story - you may have no choice but to paddle in...at which point, manliness remains intact).

But fuck it. It was dark, it was raining, it was big, it was nasty, and all I could think about was HOW THE FUCK AM I GOING TO GET BACK INTO THAT CAVE???

That's when two Aussies made my day. One simply paddled over to the other and said:

"Oy, mate, you wanna go in?"

"I reckon...it's pretty much crap out here, mate."

"Paddle in?"

"Fucking heavy...oy, let's just go."

And they just started paddling. And guess what? I was right behind them. I mean RIGHT behind them.

Now, paddling in when it's big isn't as easy as it sounds. Imagine dodging traffic on the freeway and then deciding that you're going to get off the freeway by running down an exit ramp. Yeah, you're getting off the freeway, but there are still trucks getting off the freeway, too, and turning your back on a big Mack truck going 60 MPH ain't exactly the smartest thing to do.

So what you do it this:

Wait until a big set rumbles through. Check.

Start paddling your ass off. You want to get as much distance in between you and the impact zone before the next set shows up. Check - the three of us could've put Michael Phelps to shame.

You look back over your shoulder every few seconds to see what might be sneaking up behind you. Check. Um, wait...

Wave coming.

Now you have to evaluate. Will the wave break far enough behind me that the energy will dissipate enough before it reaches me that I can let it slam into me and simply bellyboard my way into the shore? OR, is it close enough that I have to turn around and duck dive through it?

Thanks to the winds still howling offshore, this wave took its sweet time to break and at the last second all three of us spun around and dove under.

Back up, start paddling again. The fight or flight syndrome was in full gear at this point (100% flight, thank you very much) and a certain panic was driving me shoreward.

A second wave snuck up behind us, but this time we (somehow, collectively) decided to give it a go.

One final glimpse over your shoulder right before it hits. Grab the rails of your board. Brace yourself. And then BOOM! It's like getting shot out of a cannon. Everything goes white as you're enveloped by the whitewater. Foam in your eyes. Can't see a thing. Turbulence is incredible. Don't let go. Don't pearl. Don't flip over. Don't fuck it up. This wave is your ticket in because only the power of a wave is going to beat the current and get you into that cave, which suddenly seems very fucking small.

Suddenly I can see. I'm out in front, bellyboarding. Aussie #1 is next to me. Aussie #2 is next to him. We're flying. I can see the reef racing by beneath me. And there's the cave, dead ahead. We're right on track.

But then, suddenly, just 20 feet in front of the cave, that fucking wave hits a patch of deep water and just...dies.

One minute we're speeding along, Millennium Falcon in the tractor beam, headed straight for the Death Star. Next minute Darth Vader decides he wants to cut down on the Empire's electricity bill and shuts that thing down. We're just...floating.

No, now we're drifting. The current. FUCK!

Actually it was the Aussie next to me who said it.

"Fuck, mate."

We start paddling. Quiet desperation. No one's saying a word now. We all know the consequences if we don't make it into that cave. Back out, around, back into those filthy beasts masquerading as waves...all in the dark...in Bali...with no lifeguards...no Baywatch...no Pamela Anderson with a little red floaty thing...no 911...no "Where's Tom?".

Paddle.

We're getting closer, but the cave is starting to move away as the current picks up speed.

Paddle HARDER.

Suddenly, just as I'm about to sock my board in frustration (paddling for five minutes and going NOWHERE can do that to a man), Aussie #2 hits a little jetstream and just shoots into the cave. Aussie #1 follows him, and then, American #1 does the same.

I'm a Proton Torpedo. I'm an Olympic arrow. I'm 16 at some party in Mountain View with a slutty chick from Sac. I'm bribing a bouncer in West Hollywood...

I am IN.

The water in the cave is frothing and heavy and slamming up against the sides. I don't care. We're in. We stand up. Loose sand floods into my reef booties. I don't care. We trudge up onto the little beach. I want to French kiss the sand.

I also want to look reasonably cool, so I look at the two Aussies who are already headed for the stairs. I give a little head nod to say, "Later, guys...that was a fun little session in some waves of no real consequence...have a good night."

They respond with the same and disappear up the precarious stone steps.

That's when I realize I'm the only one on the beach. It's almost completely dark now. I can hear the waves thundering on the outside reef. It's raining steadily now. The water is heaving in and out of the cave, smashing on the rock.

Four of my bros are out there, and only one knows how to get back in. And I have absolutely no idea what to do.

For five minutes I just stand there, staring out the cave, listening to the water dripping down the sides, listening to the sound of the waves, and straining to see the outline of a figure paddling in.

Nothing.

So I walk up the stairs and over to the edge of the cliff. Again, nothing. It's pitch black now. The clouds have completely obscured the moon. I can hear monkeys, but mostly I can just hear waves.

I walk back down into the cave and do what I was doing before - standing there on the sand, staring into the darkness, looking for my friends, listening to the rain and the wind and waves.

Wait...there! It's a figure...but it's not paddling in...it's...what the fuck??? It's walking along the inside wall of the cave. Waves are smashing up alongside him. Is this guy fucking nuts? Wait a second...he's waving...it's Beach. Fucking Beach.

"Bro," he tells me. "Missed the cave by about ten feet. Climbed up on the base of the cliff and just walked back around into the cave. Pretty hairy."

"You see the other guys?" I ask.

"I think I saw Glenn, " he says. "But he was even further North...walking along the cliff as well...he was hurting, bro."

That's when we hear whistling up above.

Back up the stairs and back to the edge of the cliff. There we meet a young Balinese guy who, apparently, has been watching this whole thing unfold.

"Your friend," he says. "He walking on the cliff. Veddy bad."

"Glenn," Beach says.

Now I'm starting to freak a bit. Glenn is my sister's boyfriend. My sister's boyfriend is now scaling the base of a very huge cliff, getting pummeled by very huge waves, in complete darkness. He doesn't know where he is and he doesn't know where he's going. Tomorrow I'm going to have to get on the phone and call home and tell my sister that, "Um, we're having a great time in Bali but, oh, we lost your boyfriend and haven't seen him since he was GETTING SMASHED INTO A CLIFF BY LARGE STORM WAVES. Oh and by the way, how are the Giants doing?"

So, what do we do? Well, the three of us do exactly what I was doing by myself down in the goddamn cave. We stand there and stare into the darkness.

Finally we decide to go back into the cave. At least then maybe we can walk along the inside and yell for those guys. What else can we do?

We start walking back when a figure pops up from the stairs. Web...no, Glenn! Wait, Web, too...right behind him! I can't believe it. We run up. Both of them look exhausted. Turns out they both missed the cave and ended up walking along the cliff. Their feet are shredded by the sharp reef rock. Glenn's board is dinged and battered from taking a few spills on the way.

I don't care. I'm just stoked I can call home in a few days with nothing more on my mind than Giants scores.

Wait a second...1...2...3...4...who's missi...ah fuck...

Where's Keith?

"Guys," I say. "Where the fuck is Keith?"

"Never even saw him."

Then the four of us proceed to do what I've now coined, "The Lost at Sea Shuffle". Stand, look, stare, squint, listen, shuffle feet. Repeat.

Somehow it worked the other two times, but this time, no Keith. Another round of the "Shuffle" and, still, no Keith.

"Guys, we can't just stand here. Any ideas?"

"The only other way in is Padang...half a mile down."

"Then let's get the fuck back to the hotel, hire a car, and get the fuck down there."

So we hustle back to our little faux resort - wet, fatigued, scraped-up, and not just a little freaked out. Our friend is probably in deep shit and we need to just hope he decided on finding a port in the storm - i.e. a safe beach landing - as opposed to making a go of it along the cliffs.

We get to the lights of the Uluwatu Resort.

"Guys," I say. "Go drop our shit off...I'll get us a car."

Glenn grabs my board and heads back to the rooms. I grab the nearest hotel staff member, standing around, smiling and looking fairly confused, as they tend to do in Bali.

"Hey," I say. "Did our friend come back? Big guy? Trunks a bit too tight?"

"Oh, no...no, you the first ones to come back."

"Okay, we need a car. Can you get us a car right now?"

"Car?"

"Transport. We need fucking transport. Our friend, he's lost...out to sea...and we need a fucking car to go fucking find him. Okay?"

"Maybe this your friend," he says, smiling and referring to a set of headlights approaching the hotel up a skinny, winding driveway.

I swear to God, a nuclear bomb could be exploding overhead and most Balinese would just smile and say, "Transport?"

"No, that's not my fucking friend. Okay? Listen to me. My friend, he's in the ocean...he's lost...and we need to drive down to Padang and fucking look for him, okay???"

"I think maybe this your friend."

Just as I'm about to beat this guy to death with a large rock, I hear, just over the din of the approaching motorcycle:

"Whooooooooooooo!"

No way. No fucking way.

There, on one of those dime-a-dozen Honda motorcycles that every guy in Asia rides around on (with his unhelmeted chick riding sidesaddle, of course), is a young Balinese guy. However, behind him, with one arm around a surfboard and the other arm clutching a Bintang beer, smiling and hooting like a high-school kid on Friday night, is Keith.

Safe, sound, soaking wet, fresh from the beach at Padang, without a scratch on him, and with yet another beer in him.

We've been here for FOUR HOURS.

Welcome to Bali.

The Local, The Legend, & The Little Brats Who Rip

2004-08-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

Part II of Fear and Loathing in Bali is actually almost finished, but I thought I should post some recent random ramblings before the memories fade like the tan on my feet every Fall.

Today a decent swell finally rolled in. By the time I left the beach at about sunset, there were some solid head-high, almost overhead sets rolling in. Wind wasn't bad either. Second day in a row we've had an almost evening glassoff.

The amazing thing though was the after-work crowd. When I paddled out at 5 PM it was fairly uncrowded - maybe 5-10 guys per 50 feet. By the time I paddled in, it was wall-to-wall. I mean it was PACKED. And as I unlocked my bike, with the sun setting, there must have been 15-20 guys on the beach about to paddle out.

Here's to making your own schedule.

Saturday afternoon I had what might have been the most dangerous surf of my life. It was sunny, warm, not too windy, low tide, and the waves were about knee to waist high. Oh, and there were about fifty million people playing in the water.

See, the waves were breaking in about waist to chest-high water and, thanks to the low tide, about 20 feet from the beach.

So on every wave, you were literally doing a slalom through teenage girls (all squealing and huddling in little groups) and groups of 19 year-old boys (also squealing and huddling in little groups, although mostly in an attempt to tackle one another and shotgun footballs and each other's foreheads).

Toss in heaps of fat Mexican children, fat American children, and, hell, just pods of fat people in general, all bathing in the not-so-mellow impact zone, and you have one recipe for disaster (hey fat people, "recipe" is just a metaphor...I'm not actually cooking anything, so go away).

I actually lost count of the number of people I almost hit. On only one wave though did I lose my board - my 6'2" HIC fish, with no leash - and it landed on some teenage kid's head. He thought it was really funny though, laughing as he stood in the water with my board perched on his head like some kind of hat. Then it fell off and got washed all the way in and he thought that was even funnier.

Punk. Sorry about the noggin though.

Sunday though was probably the worst day of surf I've had in a while, and yet it probably had the most interesting moment.

7 PM or so. Starting to get dark. It's tiny and high tide and there's just very little going on out in the water. Painful wait between sets. It gets so bad that I did what I almost never do in the summer, and that's paddle over to the pier.

The only notable locals in the water at the time were the John Whitmore lookalike and two obnoxious high school kids who rip, weigh about 95 pounds, whistle at everyone in the water when they paddle for a wave, have no fear of anyone, and are the main reason I don't surf the pier.

So I'm sitting there, and the John Whitmore lookalike (remember him? the South African guy with the goatee from the Endless Summer?) just, out the blue, goes, "Yeah, PT!"

I look behind me and there's PT...also known as Peter Townend, first ever modern World Champ, longtime surf commentator on TV, and current president of Surfing America, the governing body of competitive surfing in the US (to which ASP North America, the NSSA, the ESA, and others all report into).

He's also an HB local, but this is the first time I've ever seen him in the water. To me he's just a legend. And right now he's a legend in pink trunks, on a pink board, sitting in oily green water, scrapping for mushy, knee-high crap waves with me, the two brats, and John Whitmore, who surfs the pier, like, every fucking day, all day.

Disability, unemployed, trust fund (doubtful)...all I know is that I don't think I've ever paddled out anywhere near the pier, in 13 months, and not seen him.

So he goes, "Yeah, PT!"

PT smiles and goes, "What's going on?"

Old man Whitmore replies, "Not a thing, man...not a thing."

Okay, so I'm thinking the local has made his verbal connection with the legend and hopefully I don't have to listen to some awkward conversation on top of being cold and waiting for a set that seems unlikely to ever arrive, and even if it does arrive I'm going to get whistled at by the two brats.

So please, no awkward conversation. No local guy trying to make everyone think he knows the legend. And no legend humoring waterlogged old local with forced smiles and lots of, "Right on, man" middle-aged bro-isms.

No such luck.

Local (trying to call himself out as key local figure): So, uh, PT...you, uh, ever need any help with, uh, those contests you're putting on...give me a call.

Legend (clearly doesn't know this local and isn't going to let him ramble on with nonsensical offers to help, Da Hui style): Uh, what contests are those?

Local: You know, those contests and stuff you put on, like, for the kids and stuff. We usually handle all that stuff and, so, uh, let me know and we'll, uh, help out and stuff.

Legend (calling local's bluff and clearly not interested): I'm not sure what you're talking about. I don't really do that anymore.

Local (bluff officially called): Well, you just say the word and we'll be there.

Legend: Where?

Local: Wherever you need us, man...wherever you need us.

I actually cringed, and then started laughing right there in the water. I laughed into my hands and hopefully John Whitmore didn't see or hear me. PT will be off on another surf adventure and I'll still be stuck in HB slop with this guy.

Just then a set...if you can call it that...came through. I paddled into the little peak right by the pier, and got whistled at by the smaller of the two brats - the one who looks exactly like the little brother in Growing Pains. He didn't make the section and I ended up taking the next wave, a mushy, crappy little left.

Ben Seaver - 1
Me - 0

Still though, the whistling brats were easily worth the price of admission to overhear that conversation between the local and the legend in pink trunks.

Local - o
Legend - 1

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Fear and Loathing in Bali - Part I

2004-08-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

The first installment of a multi-part series, chronicling a recent surf trip to Indo. No sponsors, no pros, no boat trips. Just 5 mates, 10 days, 6 days off work, 15 boards, 1 giant swell, and enough Bintang to ensure any other numbers cited in this tale are purely estimation.

May 26th, 2004
Huntington Beach

So, the trip is looming and the news is big.

BIG.

A rather huge swell is plowing through the Indian Ocean and is expected to UNLOAD on Bali the day we arrive.

Fuck.

The waves in Indo already make me nervous...now I gotta deal with double overhead ("up to 18 feet" says Surfline) Uluwatu??? Fuck me.

I WAS planning on bringing two 6'6"s...a skinnier one with lots of rocker, and a thicker, fatter, wider one (for thicker, fatter, wider surfers, like me). But now it's the day before the trip and I'm panicked. Do I go out and buy a mini-gun? Do I buy a 3 board bag on top of that? Will I charge big Ulu even if I have the board?

So, Glenn shows up the night we're supposed to leave and, of course, I need his trained eyes to evaluate any potential purchase, so I drag him to 5 surf shops, including the Frog House, Chuck Dent, and every surf emporium in HB. I end up at Jack's, buying a 6'10" Aloha rounded-pin mini-gun, as well as the 3 board bag coffin on wheels.

Six hundo and I haven't even left the country yet. As added insult to injury, the cool/tough/tatted-up guy behind the counter tosses in a free bar of wax.

ONE BAR.

Either Jack's doesn't have to play that game, or I just got ranked on the Cool Guy Ladder somewhere between Wilbur Kookmeyer and that Arabic guy in the water last week wearing the orange spring suit and booties.

Of note, Keith reminds me that I specifically told him NOT to buy a board bag on wheels because "board bags on wheels are fucking gay" (I don't remember saying that, but Keith learns a valuable lesson that day which is - don't ever take surf gear advice from a guy who thinks the solution to dings is to buy new boards).

Maybe I didn't even deserve that one bar of wax.

Anyhow, we've got a red eye out of LAX at about 1 AM, so at around 10:30 we pile into Glenn's Toyota truck, which is the only vehicle that can hold all the boards. This is actually quite funny because my wife is driving us, and the idea of her behind the wheel of a beat-up black Toyota truck - with a stick shift - is a bit like envisioning a tatted-up skinhead HB tweaker behind the wheel of a white Mercedes convertible.

Which, come to think of it, I do occasionally see.

Luckily we got to really enjoy this odd pairing, with her at the airport curb trying to drive away after dropping us off. She keeps stalling and this cop is yelling at her to get moving. The more he yells, the more she panics. Finally he pulls out his ticket book and is pretending to write her a ticket as she's hiccuping away from the curb, Glenn's truck dry-heaving back and forth.

Bye, honey.

May 27th, 2004
LAX

If you've ever been to the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX then you know that once you step foot inside, you've basically gotten a head start on your overseas vacationing. It's pretty much total chaos...and 3rd world-esque chaos at that. You've got entire families from Mexico wandering around, sketchy looking dudes from the Philippines with piles of television sized cardboard boxes, all taped up with complicated looking addresses in Manila scrawled on them in that slightly foreign handwriting style. You've got smelly Euro kids looking stoned and bored, sitting indian style in some corner, reading paperbacks and listening to their Discman players.

The only thing missing is the fog of cigarette smoke that fills most buildings outside of the US, creating its own damp, hazy, mini-atmosphere. Politeness, as well as the American definition of "personal space", also gets replaced with pushiness and large-scale huddling. Heaps of huddling, which is a bitch when you're wheeling around an 8 foot long bag on two tiny wheels.

Speaking of which, few quick thoughts on the triple board bags with wheels...

- You still have to "carry" a large percentage of the weight when pulling.
- Has a tendency to tip over.
- Very difficult to navigate in tight areas or crowded places.

Bottom line: Great idea but needs more work.

So, in the amount of time it takes me to drive to John Wayne, go through security, get a coffee, and fly to San Francisco, catch the shuttle and pick up my Buick Rendezvous rental, we manage to check in, get our bags scanned and checked for explosives, Anthrax and orange springsuits, and make it upstairs for a few beers.

After that, as anyone who regularly travels internationally can attest to, it's all a blur.

Getting on the plane. Falling asleep. Drifting in and out of consciousness. Restless leg syndrome. Half-hearted picking at oddball meals only China Airlines could dream up. Fading in and out of forgettable movies...I think there were 5 or 6 on this flight. Waking up partially strangled by the headphones. More weird food.

(This is actually more than I usually remember. The last time I flew to Asia, I was so doped up on Valium that the only thing I recall is waking up over the Pacific with the plane practically being shaken to bits. I looked around at the white-knuckled people across the row, rubbing rosary beads and looking terrified, and simply smiled at my equally doped-up wife snoozing next to me and passed back out.)

May 28th, 2004
Taiwan

So, 12...13...14 hours later...we land in Taiwan. It's about 6 AM, local time.

And there, at one of the little cafeteria style restaurants, are Keith, Web and Beach...already on Kirin round 2. They'd flown concurrently from SFO and arrived only 15 minutes before us.

Turns out they'd already visited every other eatery in the terminal and had just settled down in some empty chairs when the folding security doors peeled back for its 6 AM opening and a tiny woman asked if they'd care for something to eat.

"3 beers, please."

Granted, the drunken text messages I'd received from Keith & co. while still at LAX should have been a solid indication of things to come, but this was definitely the official kickoff.

Too confused and stiff to even be jet-lagged yet, I sat down with my mates, thousands of miles from home, on a 10 day hall pass, and, at 6 AM, celebrated the moment as we usually do when unleashed upon each other.

We ordered 12 rounds of beers.

By the time we all boarded the flight to Denpasar together, we were officially ugly Americans. The video cameras came unsheathed, the iPods came out, as did the singing.

The hippie 20-something backpacker couples looked annoyed and huddled in their seats, stewing in patchouli and North Face rain gear. The honeymooners on the other hand seemed inspired and we caught a bunch of them following suit and ordering beers. The Asians mostly ignored us.

The China Airlines stewardesses were, as always, unflappable, and brought us round after round with perfect smiles and request after request to "Prease enjoy."

We did. We "prease enjoyed" all the way to Bali.

May 28th, 2004
Denpasar, Bali

One of the cool things about Bali is that the airport runways are on these jetties that stick out into the ocean. So when you land or take off, you're seeing waves breaking on both sides of the plane - the aptly named "Airport Rights" and "Airport Lefts".

Strangely enough, as we landed we noticed the clouds and drizzle, but not much seemed to be breaking. A few waves feathering up at Airport Lefts, but certainly not the giant swells we'd been anticipating.

We made it through customs more or less intact. Our bro, Beach was bringing, of all things, a 10 pound sack of pinto beans to his friend, Robert who runs a Mexican restaurant near Bingin (plenty more on Robert later).

Anyhow, the Balinese officials see a lot of stuff every day, but I guess 10 pound sacks of pinto beans ain't one of 'em. They hassled him for close to half an hour, muttering stuff about "vegetation" and "taxes" and whatever else Balinese customs officials mutter when confronted with bags of pinto beans stuffed in surfboard bags.

Finally, in a move that was eerily reminiscent of our hundred or so forays into Mexico over the past 15 years, Beach slipped them a twomp and we were on our way.

"Import tax," he said.

"Expensive fucking pinto beans," we all said.

Web got hassled a bit for not having his paperwork filled out and then blew a gasket when a half dozen or so of the official "porters" carried his board bag 10 feet from one end of the customs counter to the other, and then demanded a half dozen tips. He slipped them what, in his jet-lagged, hungover, and unaccustomed state must have looked like a lot of dough - $1,000 Rupies - which is actually like 10 cents. They heckled him and, before he started throwing blows, we helped him grab his stuff and escorted him out the curb where the rest of the crew had been standing for 20 minutes.

Funny, no matter how many times you go to the 3rd world Tropics, it's always a bit of a shock when you step out of the airport. The heat, the humidity, the smells of exhaust, spices, and animals, and the sight of throngs of people milling about, trying to get in on the tourist action.

"Transport?"

"You need transport?"

"Come with me, I will take you to hotel."

"Let me help you with bags."

"You need change? You change with me...give you good rate."

It's always overwhelming...and yet kind of exhilarating. It's just so NOT home.

Already sweating, I find our driver amongst the crowd, and we pile the boards into the back of what looks like an old ice cream truck, painted completely black. The young guy, Wayan (not that it matters, they're all named either Wayan or Made) is going to drive the gear, while our main man, Made', is going to pile us into the air-conditioned van and drive the human cargo to the Uluwatu Resort.

"Big waves today," he tell us. "Veddy big."

Turns out he's right, and either what we saw at Airport Lefts was in between sets, or the swell was sheltered right there. Regardless, Ulu is pumping...that's the word we get on the way there.

Arriving at the "resort" we find that it's partially under construction (as is most of Bali...very similar to Baja). But it's literally right above Uluwatu, with stairs straight from the resort to the cave. The rooms are nice, with ocean views, and, well, we're still drunk and they've brought us tasty pineapple drinks and are already siphoning the money from our wallets.

Not that we care.

We're too busy standing on the cliff's edge watching dark gray mountains rumble landward, heavy offshore winds blowing huge plumes of spray as they unload on the reef. Only a handful of surfers dot the various lineups that make up Uluwatu.

Outside Corners looks huge and mushy and there's no one out. Temples is walled and closed out. Racetrack is, well, racing. All in all it's hard to tell how big it is, but now it's starting to rain and the sun is starting to set.

We're hungover, jet-lagged, still a bit drunk, tired, confused, and have a pile of bags full of unwaxed boards, unleashed, and un-skegged.

And we're just standing there, on the edge of the cliff, awkwardly clutching little pineapple cocktails with little umbrellas, staring at giant storm surf like squirrels on the side of the highway evaluating approaching 18 wheelers.

"Um, well, we better get out there before the sun sets."

Not even sure who said it. Does it even matter? It might have been Beach. It might have been Web. Hell, it might have been me.

Regardless, it was the dumbest thing said on the entire trip. And, of course, it's exactly what we did.

Right about then a double overhead set cracked the reef and the little dude who had come to fetch our little pineapple cocktail glasses said, "Veddy heavy waves."

Veddy, veddy fucking heavy.

Kelly Slater, Dirtbag

2004-08-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

A few posts back I mentioned how the surf media doesn't even come close to being an institution of real journalism, and that it's essentially just a stoke factory supporting the surf industry.

As an example I asked just how much you know about Kelly Slater, 6 time World Champ, media darling since the mid-80's, and all-time American surf hero.

My response to my own question is this: I've been following his career for years and that all I know is that he grew up in Florida, has a brother, is a shitty actor, and once dated Pamela Anderson (and the last two I gleaned from the non-surf media).

The surf media simply portrays him as the model of professionalism and a nice, clean-cut young man worthy of all our admiration and support.

"Buy our Kelly Slater model boardshorts because he rips and, on top of it all, little grom with a crisp twomp in your pocket, he's a swell bloke to boot."

Guess what? He ain't.

Sports Illustrated and the LA Times, two very different publications, but two of the best sources for great journalism you'll find anywhere, both scored interviews with our beloved hero last month. And, surprise, surprise, in a tiny quarter-page article in the LA Times, I learned more about Mr. Slater in 30 lines of copy than I've learned in almost 20 years of surf media fluff.

Amongst other things I learned that:

1. His father was a drunk who left him and his brother and his mom when he was very young.
2. He got married when he was in his early 20's.
3. He got divorced not long thereafter.
4. He has a daughter whom he once went 3 years without contacting.

Huh? Say that again...

4. He has a daughter whom he once went 3 years without contacting.

Are you fucking kidding me? 3 YEARS??? Think about that for a minute. This wasn't some high school girl he knocked up when he was 14 and her parents whisked her away to an undisclosed location in Mormon Reformist territory in Northern Utah. This is a girl he MARRIED when he was in his 20's, AFTER he became a wealthy surf star, and whom he CHOSE to have kids with.

3 YEARS.

I don't have the exact quote with me, but I'll paraphrase with a certain amount of spirited accuracy here:

"Um, yeah, I haven't exactly been the best father over the years...I'm trying to do better...I once went 3 years without contacting my daughter."

I'm just going to get this out in the open, right now, right here...

Kelly Slater, you are a FUCKING DIRTBAG. You are WHITE TRASH from Cocoa Beach. I don't care if you're the best competitive surfer EVER. I think every kid who buys boardshorts or a wetsuit because of you should know that IF YOU WERE HIS DAD, YOU WOULDN'T FUCKING CALL HIM FOR 3 FUCKING YEARS.

Dirtbag.

There. I feel a little better. I'll feel a lot better with a few surfs under my belt this weekend. This past week didn't work out so hot. Surfed super fun HB on Monday - shoulder high, sunny, peaky, warm - and then work reared its ugly head and everything went to hell.

Tuesday spent the day doing all the travel stuff I need to do every few months - restocking my little dorky leather travel bag with grooming essentials, getting a decent haircut from a cute girl with tattoos who massages my scalp and causes me to pass out sitting up in the middle of the day, and ironing some clothes that never get ironed because ironing sucks and the dry cleaners are even worse because all my shirts come back looking like drywall with giant collars.

Anyhow, you'd be amazed at how long doing that crap takes and, well, there went Tuesday.

Wednesday and Thursday I spent up in SF, which wasn't a total waste because on Thursday I got to play hooky and go to the Giants game. Which was great at first. Wearing my throwback 1982 Jack "The Ripper" Clark jersey (black, not orange), sitting with 3 good bros, drinking beer, eating Polish dogs, soaking up the sun and watching an excellent outing by Woody as a 2 run game against the Reds stretched into the 7th inning.

Then, the Giants bullpen does what it always does, and fell the fuck apart.

Scott Eyre, Matt Herges, and some new kid from AA named Valdez. These 3 saps gave up 10 runs in the 8th inning.

Yup, you heard right.

Kelly Slater didn't call his kid for 3 YEARS, and the Giants bullpen gave up 10 RUNS in ONE INNING.

Needless to say the Giants didn't win and, of course, the Dodgers did, so we've now sunk to 7 1/2 behind. So afterwards I caught a late flight home and, with every intention of surfing today, I wound up on 8 zillion conference calls, spinning a half dozen plates of creative, and later on, accompanying a cute, babbling tow-head to the mall to look at the fountains.

So Tuesday through Friday, no surf.

Maybe now I understand a little bit about Slater's predicament. You take your kid to Fashion Island to look at the fountains, and you don't get to surf that day. You don't surf that day and you don't become world champ. Then you don't sign a million dollar contract with Quiksilver, you don't make an ass of yourself on national television, and you don't get to tune into Tokyo on a pair of giant, extremely famous bolt-on's.

You just wind up a bloke in HB, holding hands with a toddler while he laughs and stares at the fountain for 20 minutes while you stare at him, staring at the fountain, amazed by the way his eyes follow the water up and down, over and over again, and the way he claps his hands when the little water dance is over, and realizing that the sound of him laughing and the sight of him clapping his soft hands with the little knuckle dimples is the greatest thing in your life.

Slates charges 'Chopes, hobnobs with celebrities, does cakewalk interviews with a media designed solely to promote him, and sells heaps of surf stuff with his balding head plastered all over them. A real All-American surf hero.

An All-American surf hero who didn't so much as pick up a phone or send his daughter a postcard from Tahiti or Bolsa Chica for 3 whole years.

A dirtbag.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

US Open, Now Closed

2004-08-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

So the US Open has come and gone. Taj Burrow took home the cup. The beach area is covered in trash. And last night Duke's was handing out wristbands and serving drinks in plastic cups.

Pure class. That's HB, brah.

The low point of the event, I think most people would agree, had to be the announcing. Pure cheese. The kind of cheese you hear when your local "zoo crew" decides to broadcast live from some lame bar or restaurant.

"Yeah, we're here broadcasting live from CHILI'S in Santa Ana and it's CRAZY here!! So come on down for dollar appetizers until 6! Listen to this wild crowd...

(smattering of applause and a few hoots)

"...that's right, this crowd is just going NUTS here at CHILI'S and we're having a WILD time, so come on down! YOU GUYS HAVING A GOOD TIME????"

(couple more hoots, two busboys clap)

That was basically the gist of the US Open announcers. The crowning of Taj was particularly painful. Especially since, as you probably know, Burrow isn't exactly a wild man. Certainly no Mick Fanning.

Hang on - quick digression for a classic Mick Fanning story:

Surfer Poll Awards from 2 or 3 years ago. Mick is completely shitfaced and bordering on being out of control. He's up on stage just being a jackass, but a pretty funny jackass. Kelly Slater is at the podium and trying to be the diplomatic, well behaved surf star while giving out another award. Mick is yelling something from the side. Kelly looks at him and then says into the mic, "Mick, what do you think would happen if I went to Australia and acted like this?"

Without missing a beat, Mick runs up to the mic and yells, "Mate, you'd get LAID!!!"

Crowd goes ballistic.

Anyhow, like I said, Taj is no Mick. So the wannabe zoo crew up on stage interviewing the champ was pretty painful. Think Jimmy Fallon doing his morning DJ skit on SNL.

"So, Taj, you gonna PARTY tonight or what???"

"Um, yeah."

"You've got fifteen GRAND in your pocket, so YOU GONNA PARTY TONIGHT?"

"Yeah."

"I think our champ's gonna be getting CRAZY in HB tonight! But wait, Taj, we've got something else for you..." (presents Taj with giant teddy bear sporting Bank of the West logo...arguably the most ass thing ever given to a contest winner)

"Um, thanks."

(to the crowd) "And YOU GUYS have been absolutely CRAZY for a week now, let's hear it for TAJ BURROW!!

(smattering of applause, some Chimayo's busboys hoot)

So, we actually had a decent little swell running this weekend. And, if you avoided the pier and headed north for a few blocks, the lineup was pretty empty.

Friday was fun, Saturday was a bit smaller and messier, but then yesterday the swell popped back up with a few shoulder to head high sets sneaking in every 20 minutes or so.

And actually, what little crowd there was down by the Apartments was fairly entertaining.

First, there was the guy who paddled out with his chick. He'd sit out in the lineup with her, barking instructions. She'd nod her head and pretend to understand. Then a wave would come through and he'd say, "Okay, now watch me!"

Then he'd paddle, barely make it to his feet, eat shit when the wave closed out, and then paddle out with a triumphant grin of someone who not only just scored the wave of the decade (and killed it), but of someone who had also just impressed the hell out of a very lovely lady and was pretty much guaranteed some summer lovin' that evening.

Gotta love his enthusiasm.

On one particularly closed out wave, I'm paddling out and he's paddling into it, weaving back and forth and looking every bit like he should be wearing a bike helmet. I'm whistling and hooting at him, trying to let him know that:

1. He's heading right for me.
2. He's got about a 1 in 10 chance of making this drop.
3. This wave is going to close out and even if he makes the drop he's still going to crash into me.

My plan backfires, however, as this guys thinks I'm hooting him INTO the wave. He stumbles to his feet, elevator drops, misses me by about 6 inches, and as he goes crashing past, gives me a huge smile and a thumbs up.

Dangerous, but like I said, gotta love his enthusiasm.

Other sightings yesterday included the timely arrival of a old geezer on a Freeline Designs kneeboard (coinciding perfectly with a discussion I was having with a friend about a summer sojourn up to Santa Cruz). This guy had the pink and black wetsuit, the beard and the Doc's Pro-Plugs and looked like he'd just time warped from 1983 Pleasure Point.

Oh, and there was the Middle Eastern gent in the brand new spring suit and booties. And no, these weren't even reef booties. There were the full on calf-high booties.

EPIC look.

And you'd think a guy with a such a ridiculous ensemble would be, at the bare minimum, somewhat mellow. But no. This guy was also throwing vibes, making hand gestures, and screaming in Arabic every time he missed a wave or got dropped in on by his buddy on a boogie board.

Spring suit. Booties. Screaming in Arabic. Then he started fiddling with his feet and someone made a joke about the US Open and a shoe bomb. Terrible, I know, but it was REALLY funny at the time.

He finally paddled south, towards the contest, which made us laugh even harder. Once the dirty bomb jokes started we were thankful there was no one else around. Gotta admit though, the laughter is therapeutic.

So there you have it, another US Open come and gone. No riots. No drunken, obnoxious Aussies (on stage anyway). Just some good surfing, some terrible announcing, 4 million flyers dumped on the beach, about 8 million white Paris Hilton mini-skirt things (with only about 7 chicks with bodies truly worthy of such trashy couture), one airplane banner announcing the return of Hootie and the Blowfish (whew!) and one dude in a springer and booties.

BTW, I'm not sure those last two were a coincidence.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Crowd City

2004-07-29T23:20:00.000-07:00

Huntington Beach is a HUGE town. We're talking almost 200,000 people. That's a shitload.

The next time you forgo the 405 (sorry, Norcal buddies...it's THE 405) for PCH, notice just how long it takes to get from the River Jetties (cutoff between Newport and Huntington on the south side) to Seal Beach.

That's one LONG ASS stretch of beach.

Which is kind of funny since HB is known primarily for this one tiny little area - the pier and Main St - arguably the most crowded stretch of beach in Orange County (downtown Laguna could easily vie for that title, but I think Laguna's crowds are misleading - two lane road, tiny side streets, hills - I don't think the numbers of people support how chaotic it FEELS).

Anyhow, my point is that Huntington is just one of those places that gets really crowded in one certain spot, and yet is known, as a town, for that spot. In short, Huntington is known as a congested, chaotic, hectic surf spot.

And it is...right by the pier anyway.

So today, my buddy and I decided to steer clear of the pier (and the US Open) and paddle out further north, around 12th St. Just 12 blocks north of the action.

Totally empty.

Well, not totally empty. There were 3 girls about 14, dressed like they were about 21. There were a couple of families with a bunch of kids. Let's see, what else...oh, there was the lifeguard, sealed up in his little tower, watching his colleagues screwing around on their boats, ATVs, and brand new trucks (anyone ever seen a genuine drowning victim actually saved? I haven't. But I have seen the lifeguards racing up and down the beach like Hell's Angels in red trunks every day. Looks like fun.)

Oh yeah, and there was the bodysurfing guy who just graduated from some religious college and is now the proud possessor of a degree in "Christian Education". Suh-weet! I can't believe this guy still can't find a job. You'd think the offers would be pouring in. They must not know that he also scored a Minor in Theology. Microsoft, what, you guys need a written invitation? Scoop this guy up before IBM lands him!

I'm teasing. Really. Totally nice guy. We chatted for like 20 minutes out in the water, which, despite what Surfline said, was definitely warmer than 65 degrees. Was easily pushing 70, and this was on top of fairly heavy (and typical) cold, onshore wind.

My point is, the beach was pretty much empty. The waves kinda sucked - waist high and fairly blown out, but definitely rideable, especially on a longboard.

So there we were, smack dab in the middle of "Surf City, USA", 12 blocks from the most famous pro surf contest in America, at the end of July, with a small but rideable swell rolling in, with beautiful sunshine and warm water, and we had the run of the place.

Think about that for a minute. Not some random spot in Marin, or some hidden reef in Point Loma (oh fuck, who am I, Sam George? I'm making a subtle reference to RALPH'S, and it's an overrated spot near Sunset Cliffs in San Diego that you need a boat to get to...secret spot, my ass), but Huntington.

We got a parking spot right in front of the stairs, threw two bucks in quarters in the meter, paddled out on logs, in trunks, with no leashes, and surfed for a solid hour with only our unemployed Christian friend to keep us company (well, him and the hardworking lifeguards doing donuts in their boat).

Driving back to my house, I noticed the route I usually take - bypassing the pier and Main St. altogether - and realized that when you skip that area altogether, HB can actually feel a bit like a sleepy little beach town.

Try it yourself...

Swing down Frankfurt St. on some lazy Thursday afternoon. Grab a Coca-Cola at Steve's Liquors. Take a left on Huntington St., check out the cool plantation style house on the right, admire some of the neat old bungalows from the 20's that HAVEN'T been ripped down yet and replaced with 3 story stucco marvels, and just feel the small town.

It's there. I felt it today. It felt, uh...mellow.

Am I even allowed to say that in Huntington without getting tackled, my truck raised two feet, and a tattoo inked onto my arm? Seriously, it was totally mellow. Granted, I'll probably get woken up tonight by 3 skinheads on cruiser bikes suffering from Elephantitus of the Chrome, yelling, and throwing leftover M80s (in HB, the 4th of July actually starts in late June and lasts well into September).

But for now...right now...I live in HB, "Surf City". Home of empty beaches, uncrowded waves, warm water, friendly people, where no one ever drowns, and where even the unemployed are highly educated (and highly spiritual).

What a town.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Breakout the Aquasocks

2004-07-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

Three days in Norcal, stuck in the office in Sunnyvale. Was actually in a conference room until midnight last night. Fuck. I thought I was over that.

On a positive note, I rolled down to my old man's house in Pacific Grove on Monday night to go through some old boxes of stuff recently retrieved from my Mom. And there, mixed in amongst yearbooks, 3rd place AYSO trophies, and about a half dozen trees worth of Sears portraits, was a whole big honkin STACK of old surf mags - Surfer and Surfing dating back to the mid-80's, plus a whole bunch of Breakouts and a handful of ill-fated "Local" surf magazine/newspaper thingies from Santa Cruz.

Okay, fine, there were some Body Boarder mags, too, which I can't really deny, but let me at least defend myself by saying that there were NO HOLES in any of the pages. And considering my room used to be literally wallpapered with cutout surf shots, and that most of the surf mags I looked through resembled Swiss cheese, that has to tell you something.

So who remembers Breakout? "California's Surf Magazine?" C'mon, ring a bell? Well, if you don't remember, it was a shortlived surf magazine from the mid-late 80's that focused primarily on California. It did run photos and stories from Hawaii and Baja and elsewhere, but those usually featured California boys or somehow tied it all back into the West Coast motif. I'm not sure if it was actually started and/or published by Chris Ahrens, but he wrote the lion's share of the content...in some issues he appeared to write ALL the content.

Like I said, most of the mags were full of cutouts, but I did manage to glean a few observations on Breakout that might jog some bong and surfboard resin-clogged brain cells.

- The 1988 "Swimsuit Issue" had the most ass-faced chicks I've ever seen in print. There was actually a chick that looked like a 40 year-old waitress named Thelma. Apparently Mr. Ahrens pinched pennies not only in the editorial "department", but he obviously wasn't calling up Aaron Chang in the photo department either. "California Girls?" More like "Fugly Girls from Hemet and their Semi-Hot Cousin from Chula Vista".

- There was a two-page Nike ad featuring Colin Smith pulling into a Baja tube wearing turquoise Nike Aqua Socks. For some reason I mentioned these hideous things in an earlier post. And as if that ad wasn't bad enough, there was a whole photo section featuring Baja with two or three additional shots of Colin from the SAME SESSION. Those ridiculous neon bootie-substitutes were so bad that they almost offset his white, pink, yellow and black Body Glove wetsuit. Don't mean to get Queer Eye on you here, but just envision that for a minute. Then stop.

Oh, remember any of these surf brands from the past?

- BA Surf Stuff (featuring little Killroy type dude surfing with his butt sticking out.)

- Surfer's Alliance (featuring various colored aliens aboard a large Star Trek-esque space ship, all checking live surf cams from different planets, and all wearing the latest in geometric shape patterned surf trunks...you know, "Jamz" style.)

- Instinct ("Only a Surfer Knows the Feeling", right, mate?)

- Beach Towne (a staple of Hans "Logo Whore" Hedeman's Nascar-inspired surfboards...proudly featuring, among many others, the now sadly defunct Primo Beer. Eh? No can hear. Got beer in my ear.)

- Marui (okay, I have no idea if Marui is still around or not. Hell, I have no idea if Marui was even a surf brand...or what on Earth they sold, processed or bought. All I know is that year after year it was the Marui Pipeline Masters. Good enough for me.)

And while we're on it, how about some of these pro surfers. Where are they now? Feel free to post comments if you know...or have dirt (even better)...

- Ted Robinson (mostly what I remember about this dude was that he kicked some ass in the NSSA and then got booted when they found out he and his buddy, Kelly Gibson, forged their transcripts and had been flunking their way through school for years. Epic. Well done, lads.)

- Richard Schmidt (the Steve Martin of the surf world, this guy always looked about 45, with white, receding hair...but for a long time he was the ONLY Santa Cruz guy who got any national or international coverage, with Anthony Ruffo, Marcel Soros, and Kevin Reed bringing up a very distant rear.)

- Jim Hogan (another name I mentioned in a past post. Has anyone ever met him in person? He's like 4'11". Talk about a seabiscuit.)

- Chris Menzie (I remember this dude showing up at my house in OB about 10+ years ago and trying to sell me and my roommates some of his old wetsuits and clothes. All I could think at the time was, 1. "Hey, it's Chris Menzie...cool!" and 2. "I bet this guy has a drug problem...cool!")

- Chris Frohoff (Not only was this guy the only Californian capable of occasionally joining Tom Curren in the Top 16 at the time, but more importantly, he had the all-time greatest 80's surfer dude hair. 100% pure money.)

- Scott Farsnworth (Scott was sort of like Fro's blonde counterpart in the O'neill ads, but he could never match's Fro's hair, forgoing the bleached hair helmet and opting instead for the parted butt cut.)

- Scott Daley (okay, so this guy was from Florida and an astonishingly forgettable semi-competent pro surfer on top of that. However, I'll never forget his amazing line from The North Shore, following his early round loss to hot shot up and comer, Rick Kane - "I heard Mr. 'Nose for Waves' comes from a wave tank in Arizona!" What a sourpuss.)

Okay, that's enough reminiscing for one night. On top of this large serving of 80's cheese, I also packed on a corn dog, some fried zucchini, and an Orange Julius from the OC County Fair, and right now I need to go see a man about a horse.

Speaking of horses, go to the fair and pay $2 to see the giant horse and the giant cow. Fucking worth every penny. Probably worth ten times that. That cow will seriously blow your mind (oh, and if you see Ted Robinson, tell him "hi" and make sure he gives you a fresh corn dog - not the one sitting under the heat lamp for 20 minutes.)

As for me, I'll be back in the water tomorrow, even with the US Open in full swing. Don't know about you, but I've got my money on Bud Llamas .

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Check Me Out...I'm On Fire

2004-07-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

I'm sunburned. Well, kind of.

I spent all day cleaning and re-surfacing my sundeck. Huntington might be the windiest beach town in Southern California, but it still gets hot as shit. And, thanks to my wife's less-than-thorough sunblock application, I've got a nice Gorbachev-shaped birthmark on my back. Sweet.

Unfortunately, home improvement is home improvement and the closest I got to surfing today was listening to the sound of the US Open announcer echoing throughout the downtown area. Last year I remember hearing Lit play on the final day, which was kind of cool considering we're like 8 blocks from the pier and yet could still distinguish one song from another.

It reminded me a bit of when Shoreline Amphitheater opened for business in Norcal (for those of you unfamiliar with Shoreline, it's almost exactly like Irvine Meadows...er, sorry...Verizon Wireless Amphitheater). Anyhow, the weird thing wasn't that people 10 miles away could hear the music, it was that people only 2 miles away could NOT. Turns out loud noise can sometimes do this weird thing where it kind of arcs up and out, similar to a water fountain (i.e. you stand right next to it and you stay dry, and yet if you move further away you get wet as the arcing water lands on your melon).

Speaking of music, I spent most of today listening to Indie 103.1. I don't want to turn this blog into a big plug blog (a "plog" perhaps?), but holy shit, this station continues to amaze me. I've actually started jotting down songs they play that I've never heard on the radio before. Here's just a sample:

"I and I" - Bob Dylan (from the Infidels album...amazing record from the early 80's)
"Debaser" - Pixies
"Somebody Got Murdered" - The Clash (from Sandinista!...the one Clash album most people don't own)
"Something to Believe In" - The Ramones (an incredibly underrated single from Animal Boy...the very first punk album I ever owned)
"Why Can't I Touch It" - The Buzzcocks
"Step On" - The Happy Mondays (BTW, if you've never seen 24 Hour Party People, run, don't walk to your local video store...it was, BY FAR, the best film of 2002)
"My Girl" - The Hoodoo Gurus

Bottom line is that this station is amazing. They play all this fantastic old stuff, combined with all the good new stuff, some of which you will hear on KROQ or 91X (Bad Religion, NOFX, The Postal Service, The Killers, Modest Mouse) but a lot of which you will not (stuff like Grandaddy, Air, Scissor Sisters, and BRMC). Fucking great stuff. If you're not in Orange County or LA, lucky for you they stream live http://indie1031.fm/main.html

Oh, and in case anyone thinks I'm some sort of indie music snob, let me just list out a handful of songs that have been on my iPod playlist lately:

"Never Been Any Reason" - Head East
"Carry on My Wayward Son" - Kansas
"Red Barchetta" - Rush
"Renegade" - STYX
"Dream Police" - Cheap Trick
"Godzilla" - Blue Oyster Cult

Not sure I've ever seen a less cool setlist, but man, that late 70's / early 80's prog rock shit has been especially sounding good this summer. Fuckin' play some Asia, man!

So since we're kind of OFF THE SURF THING for a day, and it was hot as a motherfucker today, let's roll with the summer thing.

First off, the Dodgers, the Giants and the Padres...all scrapping over first place, as well as the wild card. How cool is that? The East Coast media can jerk themselves off all summer long to images of Jason Varitek and A Rod rolling in the dirt. As with the 2002 World Series, they're simply going to miss out on some of the best baseball (not to mention one of the best divisional races), of the year.

Fuck the Red Sox and fuck the Yankees. And while we're at it, fuck Roger Clemens, that bat throwing asshole, and fuck the Chicago Cubs and their 8 ZILLION transplant fans.

Speaking of which, has anyone else been to a home game (doesn't matter which team) in California against the Cubbies? Holy shit, how can there by anyone left in Chicago? With so many emigrated transplants, the Windy City should have tumbleweeds blowing through the streets. We took the train down to Petco for a Cubs/Padres game and the ENTIRE TRAIN had on Sammy Sosa jerseys. I thought maybe it was just a Chicago crew from Orange County. Nope. The crowd at Petco was just a sea of gaudy red and blue - easily as many Cubs fans as Padre fans, if not more.

I always thought Chicago was a pretty sweet city to live in. Apparently not.

So, a few weeks ago my sister graduated from the business school at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. We stayed at Sycamore Springs, which is pretty nice but smells a bit like sulfur from the natural springs. Anyhow, on our last day we all ended up at the pool. It was really hot and no one wanted to get out of the pool so we wound up playing Marco Polo like a bunch of 10 year olds.

It was so much fun, and we were feeling like such kids, that on our way home we stopped at a gas station and I bought a grape soda and a Whatchamacallit. Has anyone else had a grape soda and a Whatchamacallit since the 4th grade?

Well, if you haven't, you need to. Maybe it was the heat...maybe it was the chlorine stinging my eyes...maybe it was dry arugula salad I had for lunch. Either way, the Whatchamacallit washed down by an IBC Grape Soda was EPIC. It was so good that I highly recommend that you revist your youth one day this summer and toss back this snack of late 70's childhood champions.

One last little summer tidbit and we'll call it a day.

We recently bought my son a little inflatable kiddie pool for the front yard. Now, with the exception of some parties in college where guys filled a kiddie pool with ice and beer, I haven't seen a kiddie pool in many, many years. And actually, they haven't changed much. Minus this cool little feature where you can attach the hose and this little fountain of water shoots out the side, they're pretty much the same size, have that same plastic smell, and have those same funny little designs of whales and fish.

More importantly though, what hasn't changed is just how much a little toddler will GO NUTS when you strip his clothes off on a hot day and let him loose in the front yard with a luke-warm kiddie pool smack dab in the middle.

You know how you feel when you get down to the beach, and it's like 90 degrees and you've been in the car for an hour and the back of your shirt is plastered to your back and you see the waves are like shoulder high and it's glassy and there are peaks breaking up and down the beach and you pretty much trip over yourself running down to the water trying not to scream like a kook but unable to contain the little yelps and hoots as you splash into the water?

Well, that's how little one and a half year olds react to kiddie pools in their front yard. My kid just hacked and yelped and tripped and waved his hands like some sort of epileptic symphony conductor all the way from the front door to the pool, and which point he hit the side like a drunk driver hitting a guard rail, and flipped head over heels into the pool.

Now, I have no idea how good a surfer my kid will be. But as Felipe Alou likes to say, "Let me tell you somting...the kid is STOKED."

Okay, well, he says the first part a lot.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Stay Outta Hollywood, Lebowski

2004-07-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was quite the rant, so let's shift gears a bit, eh? Instead of some long convoluted tirade on the state of the surf industry, let's just weave together a handful of random observations and call it clever.

Right, then...

Longboarding is really hard. Obviously the getting up and catching waves part is easier than shortboarding, but everything else is much harder. Carrying the board, paddling out, maneuvering, just overall DEALING with the beast is a bitch.

After yet another log sesh in afternoon HB slop, I have a whole new respect for longboarders (and by "longboarder" I don't mean "funboarders" or anyone riding anything under a 9'0"). Getting caught inside is almost maddening. Shortboards are just so easy to deal with. Duck dive after duck dive - no problem. But punching through on a 9'8" thickly glassed canoe is a whole other deal. Turning turtle, flipping back over - whatever - even just a few waves can take a lot out of you.

Anyhow, the waves were tiny, sloppy, and doubling up - complete crap, really. But it was a lot of fun, and I'm tired. Beats the hell out of jogging, too.

So, Wednesday night I made the mistake of watching In God's Hands on TiVo. I avoided it like the plauge when it came out in '98, and for good reason. Sidestepping the whole surf movie thing, this is simply one of the worst regular movies I've ever seen. At least North Shore was fairly campy...kind of Ride the Wild Surf meets The Karate Kid. In God's Hands is just...AWFUL.

I don't know, maybe it will be funny awful in a few years and we'll go see the midnight showing at the Lido Cinema and laugh and drink beers. Not ruling that out at all. But MAN, everything about this film is hideous. Shane Dorian's subdued whisper-acting (ALA Bruce Willis in Unbreakable) is just so pathetic. And his little gappy teeth and brooding 1,000 yard stares. Ouch.

Matt George chews enough scenery that at times I almost expected him to pull back his cape, throw up his arm like Master Thespian and yell, "ACTING!"

The best part though, has to be the scene in the Balinese cafe where Shane, Matt and Matty hook up with the "Strapped Crew"...Derrick Doerner, Rush Randle and, you know, those other Hawaiian guys.

To really appreciate this scene though, you have to flashback to The Blues Brothers.

Remember all the guys in the Band, aside from Jake and Elwood? In case you didn't know, all those guys were (are) legendary musicians in real life. Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, the whole lot of 'em...seriously, some of the best in the business. It was great because none of them could act worth a shit and they all got like one or two lines, but it didn't matter, because each one was so badly delivered that they became instantly memorable.

"He opened up a soul food restaurant with his old lady...and he took Blue Lou with him."

"We'll never get that fat sound without Mr. Fabulous."

"I say we give the Blues Brothers one more chance."

"Why not? If the shit fits, wear it."

And that's exactly how that scene in Bali was. 5 legendary big wave riders, allowed to play themselves, and carving their lines out of pure wood. Beautifully awful. Derrick Doerner was so bad that after I stopped envisioning Matt "Guitar" Murphy and Tom "Bones" Malone, I started thinking about Karl Hungus from the Big Lebowski saying, "Yah...I haf come to feex da cable", everytime he opened his mouth.

With that said, the Colonel might just put up his longboard-battered feet, tune out the sound of HB police helicopters spotlighting skinheaded tweakers on cruiser bikes, and pop in the aforemention DVD .

The Colonel says, "Calmer than you are, Dude."

At ease.

Step Into Dogshit

2004-07-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

Surfline called me a "slightly disenchanted" surfer.

I think that's a fairly good description. As a matter of fact, let's run with it today.

Been in SF again this week, so haven't been back in the water since Monday afternoon. Which, by the way, was quite fun. That south swell wasn't exactly pumping, but there were lots of waves to be had.

Anyhow, the Norcal crew and I saw Riding Giants Tuesday night in THE CITY. Quick FYI - don't call it San Fran or, even worse, Frisco. Everyone just calls it THE CITY, which is rather big of them since, um, there are other cities. But whatever. People in San Francisco have always been convinced that the world revolves around them and that they're cooler than, in most cases, they actually are.

So, we saw Stacy Peralta's lastest and it was pretty good. Didn't quite have the flair or the "warts and all" dirt of Dogtown and Z-Boys, but it still delved a bit deeper into real surf culture than, say, that piece of shit fluff piece by Bruce Brown's copycat kid. Speaking of which, why do we put up with that shit? Did anyone watch that surf industry promo film and not feel their $8 trough of Coke bubbling back up their throat?

I could practically hear the pitter patter of little feet as tens of thousands of surf-stoked moviegoers made tracks to their nearest surf shop. You hear it? You hear the sound of free bars of wax getting dropped into little paper bags as Al Merrick logs yet another six hundy for a board shaped by a Oaxacan day laborer turned surfboard line cook?

And look, before you get any ideas, please understand that none of this has anything to do with some kind of anti-commerical stance. I'm not driving around with that quack from Santa Cruz who parks at every contest and spouts about the death of soul or the commercialization of a pure, spiritual interaction with Mother Nature.

It ain't that. As a matter of fact, I'm in advertising, and I'm all for the surf industry. I'm all for contests and I'm all for surf movies.

It's BULLSHIT that I don't like. And the entire surf industry is almost pure bullshit.

To illustrate this is kind of complicated, but I think we can pull it off. To start, tell me, which parts of Step Into Liquid did you relate to? The friendly, wacky "Strapped Crew" and their chummy trips with the "Santa Cruz Crew" to some remote island where they waxed philosophical about fuck all? Or maybe the Malloy brothers uniting Northern Ireland with their free brethren to the south, all thanks to a grom sesh in freezing slop? Oh man, that was "heavy". Isn't it great the way we as a people can all be united by surfing, brah? Mahalo.

Fuck me, are you kidding?

Surfing might be the most non-uniting sport on Earth. Every time you paddle out, you are essentially walking into a bar crowded with dudes, and attempting to cock block each and every one of them in order to hook up with the one or two hot chicks that showed up that night. Unless you find yourself in that rare situation of paddling out at a spot with more waves than people, surfing is the antithesis of a sport that unites people.

Too many people, not enough waves. That's it. That's the single most critical feature of our favorite pastime. It's what drives and shapes our entire surfing culture. Be it localism, or surf movies, or travel, it all stems from our NEED to get MORE of what there ISN'T ENOUGH OF.

And yet in order for the industry to continue to move forward, to sell more boards, to entice more beginners, we have to perpetuate this myth that surfing is a come one, come all, party on the beach.

Let me ask you a question. What do you know about Andy Irons? You probably know that he's from Hawaii. You probably know that he has a brother named Bruce. And, undoubtedly you know that he's won two world titles and that he freakin' RIPS.

But that's it. Did you know that he's an asshole and a bit of a thug? Did you know that he's an idiot and can barely read? Did you know that he has seven felony convictions for molesting Collies?

Okay, that's only partially true. The point is that if it was true, you wouldn't know it. This is the TWO TIME WORLD CHAMPION and you don't know anything about him. What do you know about Kelly Slater? I've been following Kelly Slater's career for almost 20 years and I don't know shit about him. How is that possible? I know everything about Barry Bonds...his upbringing, his father, his family, his skeletons, you name it.

You see, the surf industry is structured completely different from other sports because it's the makers of the equipment we use, that completely drive the entire industry. You don't know shit about the top pro surfers because it is absolutely CRITICAL to driving business that you know only what their sponsors want you to know about them.

If little Timmy in Riverside discovers that most of his surfing heroes would probably scream at him to "fuckin' SPLIT" if he paddled out at their home break, he might decide to just ask for tickets to the Lakers game and not ask Mom and Dad for that new Ultimate Elasto for Christmas.

We can illustrate this nicely by comparing surfing to other sports. The key difference is that most other sports are spectator-driven. Fans watch baseball...they don't actually play it. So in turn, they don't give a shit what type of bat Barry Bonds uses to whack ball after ball into McCovey cove.

At the same time, professional baseball also pays really really well. Bonds makes close to $20 million a year. Even a semi-competent relief pitcher will pull in a couple of million a year, just sitting in the bullpen and facing maybe 2-4 batters a game.

So Barry Bonds doesn't care about selling bats. He makes tons of cash just doing what he does, and even if he did decide to sell bats, we probably wouldn't care anyway, because we don't need a new baseball bat. His only focus, his only goal, is to hit the shit out of the ball and win games. And as long as the Giants win games, we the fans are happy and we'll pay to go to the ballpark and drink $8 beers.

Unfortunately, that's not how surfing is set up. If Andy Irons won every fucking contest he entered, he'd probably pull in a couple hundred thousand in prize money. A nice chunk of change, but that's complete dogshit for a professional athlete who's the best of the best. Plus, he's not going to win every contest he enters. He'll be incredibly lucky if he wins half.

Which brings us back to sponsorship. In other sports, sponsorship is a luxury. It's something you can do in addition to playing your sport once you've made a name for yourself. It's an add-on...a bonus. And while Buick obviously cares about Tiger Woods' image and ensuring that consumers continue to like him, Buick doesn't drive the golf industry, nor does it drive Tigers' career.

If Tiger shoots his mouth off and says something incredibly stupid, the sports media is going to print it. Buick might threaten ESPN to back off a damaging story about their golden boy, but ESPN isn't going to listen. There are literally hundreds of thousands of potential advertisers to replace them if Buick cancels their spots. And even if it means potential short term revenue loss, the loss of journalistic credibility would be far worse.

Surfer magazine doesn't have that luxury. It's a small, incestuous industry dominated by a handful of companies who sell us the gear we surf with. If TransWorld Surf wants to run an article about how Sunny Garcia is a lowlife who yells at people and picks fights, they'd be in deep shit. A half dozen companies would pull their ads. That's massive. And what's TWS going to do? Suddenly do a focus group that says surfers are really picky about their teeth and go out and court Crest and Colgate to start running ads targeting surfers?

Forget it. Penetrating a new market takes shitloads of time and money. And even then you'll probably only land ONE new advertiser. I mean, it's not like Tide and Biz are going to start running competing ads in a single magazine.

You can also flip this around, which brings us back to surf gear and clothing manufacturers and the whole Bro/Brah network. Surfing brands appeal to only one and a half demographics - surfers and people who like the idea of surfing (the wannabes, to use a now semi-defunct term). They need the surf magazines because it's a niche market (you can't advertise removable fin systems in Entertainment Weekly), thus they're an easy ad sell.

Thus what you have is a nicely packaged, tight little industry, supported by a handful of trade magazines and related media. The magazines and movies are virtually inextricable from the industry. "Surf journalism" is therefore a virtual oxymoron, and nearly impossible to find. Everything the surf media does needs to promote the idea of a mostly idyllic subculture. Otherwise the sport won't grow, the companies won't increase revenue, they'll go under, and there will be no one left to fund contests and magazines and movies.

In other words, it's all bullshit. And because it's fluff, it's dogshit, too. Step Into Liquid is a perfect example. "Surfing is wonderful. Surfing is about sharing and loving nature. Surfing is freedom and Aloha and we're all one big tribe united by surfing. Tell your friends. Tell them to buy an Al Merrick and join the tribe."

If you think I'm just being cynical, then when you paddle out in HB this weekend...or Steamer Lane...or Ala Moana...or Bell's Beach...or Uluwatu...or wherever, think about it when that guy drops into the wave of the day and then eats it, and you curse him and yourself under your breath - him for fucking it up and you for not burning him while you had the chance. Or even when you first check the surf and you mumble under your breath about how there's "already fucking 30 guys on it".

And you know what? That's a good thing. As a matter of fact, it's a great thing. Recognize that surfing isn't what the media portrays it as. Admit it out loud. Admit it to your friends. Celebrate that surfing is a hard, frustrating, crowded sport.

Then, when you pick up the next issue of Surfing, you can say to yourself, "Wow, what a bunch of bullshit this is." Better yet, tell the editor. Tell the editor that you're sick of fluff. Tell Dana Brown that his movie is a glossy real estate brochure for Bullshitsurfville. Tell Evan Slater to grow some balls and do an expose on the North Shore and how it's infested with drugs, alcoholism, and asshole locals that resemble gang members. Tell Jack McCoy that his last movie was just "okay" and that the world needs a REAL documentary on the realities of the pro tour.

More Alan Weisbecker. More Daniel Duane. Less interviews with "Wardo" about how he thinks he's ready to make a serious move on the WCT and, oh, "I had a kid when I was 19 but let's not talk about that, it's all goood, bro."

Let's do this and bring some reality into our lives. We don't need this fluff. Surfing is a wonderful sport - we wouldn't suffer through the many negative aspects if it wasn't. We're in denial. And once we start acknowledging all the fucked up aspects of our sport, we can start doing two great things.

1. We can start really appreciating the parts that are genuinely great. You need the juxtaposition of good and bad to recognize and celebrate the good. 2 hours of watching Shane Dorian do impossible things in perfect waves in perfect weather is only going to make your next session in Oceanside slop feel even worse. Shitty waves in shitty conditions can be really fun if you don't have Step Into Liquid playing over and over in your head.

2. We can start FIXING the parts of our sport that are fucked up. Localism, journalism, sexism....whatever. If we all pretend that we're a big happy tribe, bro-ing out with Flea and Laird, brah, then we'll never fix the fact that virtually every popular surf spot is rife with bad vibes and even worse manners.

Step into reality, bro. Your next great wave will be that much better. Promise.

The Colonel says, "At ease."

Skimming Down to Laguna

2004-07-18T22:49:00.000-07:00

I never noticed when skimboards stopped appearing at the beach. Did you?

I mean, one day skimboarding was marginally cool...just sort of a common mid-80's beach accessory. Whether you were down at 26th St. in Santa Cruz, or Mission Beach in San Diego, skimboards were just AROUND. Every once in a while you'd even see a little local news bit on this "fast growing sport" and they'd show you funny footage from some cove in Laguna Beach of guys slamming into the shorebreak and doing these head-over-heels flips into the air.

To be honest, I do actually remember making my own skimboard once. My buddies and I all had our Dads buy us pieces of plywood, which we cut into crooked egg shapes and then sanded for 4 days straight. We stuck on a few Quiksilver stickers and then painted on layer after layer of Verethane, which never really dried completely. I recall waxing it up anyway, dragging it down to the beach, spending an hour trying to snap my wrists, and then finally dragging it home and abondoning it behind the work shed in our backyard, where it sat for years accumulating leaves and twigs which adhered to it's permanently tacky finish.

That's it. That's all I remember. One day skimboards were around, the next they weren't. I don't think I've seen a skimboard in ten years. And even then it was probably just some kid from Michigan visiting his grandparents by the beach, who happened to find the abondoned skimboard in THEIR backyard.

So this weekend my wife and I left the little man with my Dad, and stayed at a nice little B&B in Laguna Beach. The beaches in Laguna are a LOT nicer than the beaches in Huntington, so we decided to do the full beach weekend - get up early, pack a bag, pick a nice little cove, and spend the entire day laying around, reading trash novels, and maybe doing a little body whomping.

(Quick FYI, for those of you without kids, you need to understand that the aforementioned scenario is impossible with a toddler. A trip to the beach with a toddler is rather short and violent. You get to the beach, pin the kid down WWF style, attempt to cover him in sunblock, let him up, and then spend the next 45 minutes chasing him in and out of the water. When he finally starts shivering, you dry him off, attempt to brush some of the sand from his face, check his diaper for poo - which is amazing when mixed with sand - and then spend another 45 minutes chasing him from stranger to stranger, as he runs from towel to towel, comandeering anything that isn't nailed down or, God forbid, actually belongs to him. When you finally give in to exhaustion or just don't have the will to pry yet another gunky, sand-encrusted Cheetos wrapper out of his hand, you drag him home and thus ends your trip to the beach.)

Anyhow, there we were are at this amazing little cove in Laguna. It doesn't even matter which one - they're ALL amazing. Maybe I've just spent too much time in Huntington staring at the smoke stacks and oil rigs. I don't know. All I do know is that every beach in Laguna looks like Carmel Beach, only warmer and with hotter chicks. And while there's only one Carmel Beach in Carmel, there are like a hundred of them in Laguna.

So here I am, getting out of the perfect blue-green trasluscent water after a really fun half hour body whomp (in HB the water ranges from red to gray to dark green), and as I start trudging up the sand back to our little beach basecamp, two bodies go whizzing past me, one from the left, one from the right. "How funny, " I think. "Skimboarders...haven't seen those in a while."

Then I look up, and there, along the high tide ridge, are like 15 skimboarders...all lined up and spaced apart like some kind of Civil War skirmish line, each one waiting their turn.

Then I look up and down the beach. They're EVERYWHERE. The entire beach is covered with little dudes, big dudes, old dudes, young dudes with Volcom mesh trucker hats...all carrying skimboards.

Even my wife noticed. "Hey," she said. "I didn't know people still skimboarded. Is it coming back?"

"I don't think so, " I said. "It must just be a...a Laguna thing...I guess."

And there it was. Part time warp, part Island of Misfit Surfers. In Laguna, skimboarding is still HUGE.

But guess what? That's not all. Skimboards aren't the only toys still alive and well. The next day we went to a different cove. Just as beautiful, just as perfect for body whomping, and just as packed with skimboarders. Only this time, the skimboarders had brought friends...boogie boarders, body surfers with little hand things, and SURFERS riding FOAM BZ BOARDS.

"So what," you might ask. "I see 50 million kooks at my beach renting BZ foam boards every goddamn weekend and dragging them across PCH by the leash, and then paddling out and getting in everyone's way and just stinking up the place and annoying the shit out of everyone. "

Difference here is that these guy KILL IT.

Huh? What?

You heard right. There's this whole scene in Laguna of guys surfing semi-closed-out shorebreak on BZ foam boards. And they all surf great. They pull into pits breaking in two feet of sand, grab their rails, get shacked out of their gourds, slam onto the beach, and then paddle out and do it again.

And why the fuck not? Those knuckleheads who surf Waimea shorbreak or the Wedge on their shiny new shaped boards, are just asking to either kill some poor bodysurfer, themselves, or at the bare minimum, snap a $400 surfboard into about 7 pieces.

These guys in Laguna got it going on. By 2 PM the water is packed with people, and so is the water's edge. And everyone is riding waves, in some form or another. And there isn't a traditional surfboard to be seen anywhere.

That's it. I don't really have a clever way to tie this all into something more meaningful. Laguna Beach is just this trippy, beautiful, cool little town that clearly has its own thing going on. In contrast to Hardcore Huntington, or any other surf town with a polarized view of riding waves, it was especially cool to see.

So if any of you feel like retrieving that old skimboard that's been decaying behind your work shed for 10 years, give me a shout. We'll head down to Laguna, grab a lobster burrito at Taco Loco, and go play in the ocean.

Leave your surfboard at home.

A Stroll Down Memory Trail

2004-07-15T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today was just one of those rare days when HB felt like paradise.

The sun is out, it's hot (prolly 80+ degrees), the water is warming up (67 or so), the winds stayed light through the early afternoon, and we had a fun, peaky south swell rolling in.

Grabbed the 6'6" Chuck Dent for the first time in a few weeks and paddled out around noon. Crowded, of course, but with peaks popping up pretty much up and down the beach. The sets were shoulder high and super fun but really inconsistent, however the little insiders were so peaky it didn't even matter. I actually burned my feet a bit walking across the sand and that hardly ever happens here thanks to the wind.

Right now I'm sitting here at my desk enjoying that salty, just-surfed-in-your-trunks feeling. The bottom of my feet are a bit sore...reminds me a bit of all those summer days walking down to Black's in SD.

I remember once one of my buddies walked down the road to Black's and burned his feet so bad that some guy ended up CARRYING HIM ON HIS BACK all the way back up. Think about that for a minute. I mean, this guy ain't exactly Jim Hogan...he's 5'10" and probably 175. Apparently he tried laying his t-shirt down on the ground and sort of standing/hopping up the hill. I'm guessing that would have taken him about 4+ hours and fucked his feet even worse than they already were (big, fat, oozing blisters...ugh!). So some guys sees him and is just like, "Dude, get on my back" and just Vietnam style carries him up through the rice paddies to the chopper.

A word to the wise (and to unintentionally continue this 'Nam metaphor) - when it's hot and sunny and you ain't got any shoes, take the Ho Chi Mihn Trail. It's sketchy and precarious and you might get a bee sting or ding your board, but it's much kinder on your feet than the road which, even when it's cool outside, is still tough on anything but Hobbit feet.

Since I'm on the Black's trail topic, here are my Top 5 most interesting trail moments at Black's Beach (a 30-45 minutes roundtrip process, regardless of which trail you take, unless of course you're one of those spoiled fuckers with a key).

Anyhow, here we go...

5. This was probably mid-1995 and I had my huge retro 70's Rob Machado afro sprouting out of my head (we were the only two surfers in SD County at the time sporting the real deal...oh yeah, except for my buddy Rich, he had one too). So I'm walking down the Ho Chi Mihn and we get to that scrub bushy part right before the crazy trenches in the sand stone, and there are tons of these super-sized bumblebees flying around. Anyhow, of course, one of the bees lands on my head, which had actually happened to me before, but with no problems. This time, however, it gets trapped in the fro. I panic and start trying to fish it out and only end up smooshing it into my scalp. It stings me and by the time I get tot the water I've got a golf ball sized bump on my noggin.

4. This was in the late 90's, probably the point in my life when I was doing the least amount of surfing. I was living in Norcal, being a dot-com workaholic, and was visiting my in-laws in Newport. So I take my shitty, yellowed 1994 Sharp Eye which I kept in my mother-in-law's garage, and drove my rental car down to SD to surf Black's with my buddy (same guy who burned his feet). Anyhow, I also had this shitty Victory comp wetsuit that was falling apart..including the key pocket inside. So, of course, being a dumb ass, I put the rental car key in the key pocket. I'm one of those guys who also likes to shed the top half of his suit before I even get out of the water, so I pull the top down, rinse off in the shorebreak and, of course, look and see that the key has fallen out. FUCK. Bottom line is that my buddy, being the giant whipped pussy he is, decides he can't be late for his family BBQ and he fucking LEAVES me at the pay phone at the top of the hill, trying to call a locksmith, as well as the rental car company. I spend 3 HOURS in my shitty wetsuit with my shitty, yellowed Sharp Eye, waiting for a locksmith to break into my car and mold me a new key. This is especially relevent to Black's if you've ever tried to give someone directions to the trail head...especially someone from Chula Vista.

3. Really early 90's and I was going to SDSU and living in South Mission. My newly divorced Dad had come to visit with some of his bachelor buddies for a middle-aged boyz trip to SD. I thought it would be fun to take them to Black's for some body whomping, as well as for the thrill of hiking down the Ho Chi Mihn. So as we're piling out of the car, it occurs to me that we look pretty fruity - a young guy with three older gentlemen wearing Teva sandals and elastic waistband trunks. And, as luck would have it, two hardcore Mission Beach types drive by in their raised black truck and scream, "PIRATES!!!" Luckily my Dad and his buddies had no idea what that meant and laughed and started talking like pirates - "Arr, matey." I, on the other hand, was horrified and pretty much wanted to keep my distance for the rest of the day, lest anyone else think I was part of a marauding band of fruity butt pirates.

2. One of those classic summer afternoons. A bunch of us were living by SDSU, taking summer school, and we all piled in my Volkswagon bus after morning classes and rolled down for an afternoon paddle. Anyhow, on the way back up my bro, Josh - who, just for the record, is still totally insane and completely aggro - sees a small rattlesnake relaxing in the iceplant. Being, well, Josh, he picks it up with the tip of his surfboard and starts poking it at people. We scatter up the sides of the trail and, as he's trying to poke someone on higher ground, the snake starts to slide down the deck of his board. He yelps, drops his board, and both the stick and the snake go tumbling down the hill. Jackass...before there was Jackass.

1. Okay, this last one doesn't involve the trail, but more of a whole session at Black's. In my mind it's just one of those indelible surfing memories from my college days. It was probably April, and a really warm spell had just arrived out of the blue. It was hot and sunny and the water was probably 72 degrees. A whole crew of us from SDSU decided to get in a late afternoon session. About 7 or 8 guys piled into my bus with shortboards, longboards, the whole deal. Few other cars, too. Must have been 12 of us who paddled out, all just hooting and heckling and just stoked to not be on the sweltering hot SDSU campus. And as obnoxious as we all were, this one guy, Scott (I don't use last names, but if you're a local Mission or PB guy, trust me, you know him...he's one of a kind) was just out of control. He's a big guy, and had these big sideburns, and he's wearing these jean shorts and riding this big ol' log. And on every wave he's standing straight up, raising his fist up in the air, Hitler youth style, and screaming at the top of his lungs, "SCHNELL!!!" Look, I'm part Jewish, and I know...that's NOT funny. But, dude, seriously...if you had been there, you'd havebeen laughing as hard as we were. Every damn wave, standing straight up, hand in the air, screaming, "Schnell! SCHNEEEEELLLLLL!!!!!!"

As if you couldn't tell, I love summer. My summers in SD were fantastic. And on days like today, HB feels almost as good. Can't wait to get back in the water tomorrow...maybe even an evening session tonight.

The Colonel says, "Schnell" and "Watch out for snakes and bumblebees".

At ease.

The Frog and the Log

2004-07-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

Back in HB today. Beautiful day. Lugged the log down to 6th St. again...this time around 11 AM. Looks like they're already staging for the US Open, unless there's another quick and dirty event beforehand. Then again, it seems like there's almost always some sort of event either being set up or torn down.

For those of you that don't know Huntington real well, the boarwalk does this funny cul-de-sac thing on the beach just a few steps from the parking lot at 6th St. Anyhow, that's where most of the events do their staging - they pile up the scaffolding, bring the trucks in and out, the laborers eat their lunch and flirt with chicks on the beach, etc.

Considering how it's sort of ground zero for beach traffic, they actually do a surprisingly good job of not getting in everyone's way. Then again, the bike racks I park at are right behind it, and more than once I've been fumbling with my lock as some 18 wheeler slowly and steadily backed up towards me. Kind of like that scene in Halloween where Michael Meyers is slowly walking across the street towards Jamie Lee Curtis while she panics and fumbles with her keys, trying to unlock her front door.

So far so good though...no run-over boards or mangled bikes, nor have I had to stab anyone in the neck with a coat hanger. Yet.

Waves today were pretty fun. Pretty much the usual knee to waist high crumbly walls, but maybe a few more sets than on Monday. Slid into a few fun peaks and even connected a few on the inside. Water is still chilly, but it's so warm and sunny out that I don't think anybody cares. Can't be more than 65 degrees, but everyone's out in springers and trunks.

Not exactly a ton of interesting characters out. Couple of older construction types with tats on longboards. Few 12 year old towheads having trouble getting to their feet, but then trying to do vertical backside smacks and tailslides. I'm not sure about other places, but that's a really common sight in HB. You see these kids and they can't paddle very well. They take off on waves and look like those newborn foals...wobbly legs and all...but then the next thing you know they're boosting an air on the inside. Amazing. Can I flip that around? "Man, I sure can't bust an air, but damn if I can't paddle and takeoff like a motherfucker. And you should really see me duck-dive..."

BTW, if anyone is in the market for a wetsuit top, take my advice - make sure it fits really really snug. I know, they say that about all wetsuit products. However, your fullsuit isn't going to blow up around your torso every time you fall off your log if it's a half size too big.

I know this because I have this piece of shit ProLite wetsuit top that I bought as reef protection for my first Indo trip 3 years ago. Why the fuck I bought a ProLite ANYTHING other than a boardbag is beyond me. Probably because it's black and looks cool and the inside is coated with this slippery slick skin stuff, so it's really easy to get on and off. Anyhow, that same slippery shit is also what causes it to stay permanently wedged up around my armpits and forcing me to sit up after every wave and pull it back down (not only is that totally annoying, but it's not exactly keeping me warm either).

So anyway, this afternoon I drove over to the Frog House in Newport to pick up a new one that actually works. On the way home I was wondering why I drive all the way to Newport to go to a surf shop. I mean, shit, I live in "Surf City", man. I live 6 blocks from two of the biggest surf shops on the planet - Jack's and Huntington Surf & Sport. The conclusion I came to is that I hate those fucking places. It's like shopping at the mall, only instead of 20 year-old girls from Irvine working the counter, you've got hordes of pimply faced little twerps with New York rock band hair, skulking around with backstage passes around their necks (what the fuck are those things? ID badges? changing room keys? fin keys for a quick paddle-out on their coffee break?), asking me, "Hey bro, can I help you find anything?" Yeah, bro, you can help me find you a job application for McDonalds which is where surly, pimply-faced 16 year-olds should be working in the first place.

This isn't to say those big surf shops don't have good stuff. It's just that there's too much stuff. Too many people, too many customers, too many employees, too many fucking mesh trucker hats, too many NBA style tank tops, too many Roxy half shirts, too many faded retro Ezekiel t-shirts...just too much shit.

There's just something about the Frog House that I really like. It's a REAL surf shop (Chuck Dent in HB is real, but it's too real...they got boards and, well, pretty much just boards). The Frog House has everything you need, for anything. They've got a ton of boards, a ton of wetuits, all the accessories and videos and even a good selection of clothes. It's cramped but nicely organized. Actually, have you ever looked at the building itself? It's TINY. Reminds me of that old Popeye cartoon where Popeye's in the desert and Bluto has taken Olive Oyl captive in this tiny little sheik style tent. Popeye pokes his head in and inside it's like this massive palace with waterfalls, palm trees and marble staircases. That's totally the Frog House.

Plus, how many surf shops have you been to where the owner is hanging out, ringing up your purchases? Once I was there and this young guy was lurking behind the counter trying to order sandwiches for lunch while I just stood there with my stuff, waiting to pay. The owner walks up to him and just goes, "What are you doing??? How about doing some work first...we've got customers trying to give us money and you're on the phone ordering sandwiches."

The Colonel's kind of guy, for sure.

At ease.

You'll never hear surf music again...again.

2004-07-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

I'm in San Francisco today, so there will be no surf report. I did check Surfline though and, well, it looked pretty much like it looked yesterday.

Right now my wife and kid are at some free concert-in-the-park thing where they play, of all things, surf music. Sounds like fun...kind of like Corky playing at Duke's during the summer, minus the ass-faced 40-somthing leather-faced chicks and fat fucks in Tommy Bahama shirts getting hammered on Corona. But anyhow, it got me to thinking, "Just what the hell is surf music anyway?"

There's the obvious answer - Dick Dale style instrumental "Wipe Out" guitar music. Fine, like Huntington Beach suing for the rights to "Surf City", this funky music from the 60's has somehow earned the official moniker of "Surf Music", even though, by all rights, no actual surfer under the age of 40 has listened to this stuff in 40 years.

What about music that surfers actually listen to? That's a tough one. If you've watched a surf video in the past 10+ years, you'd probably be tempted to say, "Dude, punk...fuckin' Pennywise, fuckin' Guttermouth, fuckin' whatever 3 chord pop-punk wonder Fat Mike threw out on CD and colored vinyl this week."

And you wouldn't be wrong. But I'm prepared to call bullshit anyway.

You see, surfing has spent the last decade going through a toughening up period. Black wetsuits, big waves, tattoos, big raised trucks, wallet chains, and punk fuckin' rawk, man. Suddenly we're all badasses. And if you're under 24, well, kind of like the kid out in the water wearing the Volcom trucker hat yesterday, I'm pretty sure you're just a pussy trying to look tough, but I can't prove it. Who knows? Maybe your dad is Hollerin' Hank Rollins and you grew up reciting the words to How Could Hell Be Any Worse? and you really are a tough-as-nails-badass, and always have been.

However, for the rest of us...I'd just like to refresh everyone's memory a little bit.

First off, I can recall about two dozen surf flicks from the 80s - everything from Jack McCoy's Storm Riders in the real early 80's, to Bill Delaney's Surfers: The Movie from 1990. And with maybe just a couple of exceptions, NONE of them had any punk music in them. As a matter of fact, most of them had the opposite of punk - either cheesy instrumental reggae-esque porno music (no budget), no name Australian pop-rock bands (some budget), or big name "new wave" bands, like Men At Work, U2 or even Frankie Goes to Hollywood (big budget).

As a matter of fact, the only films I can recall that had anything even slightly resembling punk, were the Runman videos...and let's not fucking kid ourselves, those things were fringe. WAY fringe. Hell, they made CKY2K look positively mainstream (although, interestingly enough, CKY2K eventually begat Jackass, which DID become mainstream, so there you go). Well, okay, there was Billabong's Filthy Habits, but that was only marginally punk and felt more like whiskey-driving hard rock...plus it was only a couple of years removed from Momentum, so the tide was finally changing.

Speaking of Momentum, even Taylor Steele, the godfather of merging surfing with punk rock, was a late-comer. His very first film, Seaside and Beyond, was full of Motley Crue songs if I recall correctly.

I guess I just find it funny how quickly we all forget what a bunch of pink-motifed bunch of pussies we used to be. Did everyone just wake up one morning and decide we were now going to be black-wearing tough guys? Did we all burn the photos of us wearing flipped-up painters cap perched atop our bleached hair? Pastel-colored Gotcha madras shorts? Pato Banton tapes?

And don't lie to me about Dead Kennedy LPs...that's what skaters listened to. You were singing in the shower to Duran Duran.

Okay, enough nostalgic beration from the Colonel. You can put your neon pink Peggers back in the closet, hide your Amazing Surf Stories video tape, and put your spiked leather belt back on and continue your charade as hardcore punk surfer guy.

But don't ever forget...the Colonel knows who you really are.

At ease.

2nd Tour of Duty Begins...

2004-07-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I think its been a little over a year since we moved to HB. But I pretty much haven't been in the water since getting back from Indo in early June (Bali burnout, if you will) and today really seems like the first genuine summer day we've had. So let's just make the call - July 12th - as the beginning of another tour in Huntington.

Weather-wise it was sunny this morning...a bit of a rarity here by the beach, even in July. It was never dead glass, I don't think, but it never got super windy either (paddled out at around noon). Saturday was gale force onshore shit...Sunday was calm almost all day...go figure.

Paddled out on the longboard todday. It's a bitch lugging that thing down to the beach on my bike, even with the racks. Then again, the racks are still bent and fucked up from when Keith crashed it. So basically I have to ride with one hand and kind of hold the tail up with my other hand...otherwise you can just see it trying to scrape the ground after each bump.

So anyhow, parked on the beach at 6th street. Typical summer weekday with tons of little groms running around with their red Jr. Lifeguard trunks and bike helmets with the straps undone. Not to digress, but has anyone else noticed this? It's funny, no matter what parents try to do to get their kids to wear bike helmets, it never quite works. I had a few buddies in elementary school (early 80's) whose moms made them wear helments. Well, I guess "wear" is the wrong word. They made them "bring" their helmets with them...which is to say, my buddies would leave the house, put their helmets on, get on their bikes, wave and smile at mom in the window, and then, half a block away would either take the helmet off and hang it on the handlebars, or get rid of it altogher by stashing it in a bush. Obviously other adults noticed this, so now it's a LAW that all kids under 18 have to WEAR a bike helmet. Unfortunately, no where in the law does it say the helment has to be STRAPPED on (kind of a key part of helmet functionality, don't you think?) In over a year, I have yet to see a single kid on a bike with his helmet strapped on. I love kids.

Back to surfing, the waves were pretty much typical mid-day, summer OC. Lot of knee-high cumbly closeouts. Every 20 minutes or so a few nice outside peaks would pop up, maybe chest high. Fucking crowded as ever. Must have been 30-40 bodies wedged into the north side of the pier. Things spaced out a bit the further north you went, as usual, but it was still pretty much Hands Across HB.

Didn't really recognize anyone out in the water...a few heads here and there that looked like they could be familiar. Fleshy man-child was out though. This kid has the size and build of an adult, but has the face and baby fat of a 14 year old. Real salty, slackjawed face...like a lot of HB kids, just looks kind of angry all the time. Normally I've seen him ride a longboard and he's fairly good. Mostly I remember him from some super flat days last winter on the south side of the pier. He and his buddy were paddling out as I dropped into the wave of the hour on my Dewey Weber longboard that a good friend had just given me for Christmas. I just remember him screaming from the shoulder, "Ride the NOSE, man!"

Fuckin' A...I can barely steer this thing and this kid is heckling me to go hang a few toes. I probably pearled. Anyhow, today the kid was riding a big fish...actually looked like a lot of fun. Big thick rails, twin fin...reminded me of Glenn's "Way Back Machine".

First few waves today were a bit sketchy. Getting back into the water after not surfing for a couple of weeks is tough. Kind of like getting your sea legs back I guess. After a half hour or so though I got back into the groove. Few late takeoffs. Few nice peaky sets. Got hooted at by another geezer on a log. This guy was cracking me up...had trunks, a vest, gloves, and a knee brace on. Plus, he had this big, powerlifter, stinkbug stance. Every wave he'd drop in backside, legs spread like he was getting frisked, race to the shoulder and then just power a big turn. Not pretty to watch, but he was having fun. Plus, he hooted my wave...and he was a geezer...so I liked him.

It was this one kid though that really cracked me up today. Let me preface by saying that in the past few years its become fashionable amongst the kids to go anti-gear. That is to say, go retro and instead of, say, wearing an expensive Volcom rashguard, they wear a baggy t-shirt out in the water. So the latest trend is hats. Not the goofy floppy Indo hats with chin straps that are MADE to go surfing in (there's that chin strap thing again), but baseball caps. Now, granted, it's always been somewhat fashionable to wear a not-made-for-surfing hat in the water. No one will admit it, but it's not really for sun protection either. Sunblock is just too effective and simple to cause someone to go, "Dammit, this shit ain't working...I need a HAT!" No, the hat tells other surfers, "I am good enough that I don't need to worry about falling and losing my hat, which isn't made for surfing and might easily fall off. Surfing is my thing, mate, and I can do all kinds of tricks whilst wearing this silly hat. Check me out."

So these two kids out in the water are wearing Volcom baseball hats. The first kid, well, I see him and think to myself, "Okay, it's noon...it's sunny...and while I'm pretty sure you're just trying to look cool, I can't prove it." Then I see his buddy. His buddy is also wearing a Volcom trucker hat, but his is OFF TO THE SIDE. Y'know, Ashton Kucher style? I mean, he's not even pretending his hat is to keep the sun off. But you know what? That's cool. I mean, I think he looks like a retard...as does everyone in the partially sideways trucker hat (which, despite what the surf shops say, actually got popular amongst surfers in the mid-90's and I'm thoroughly sick of it), but at least this kid is coming clean. The hat isn't for sun protection...this hat is to say to the world, "I surf real good...and I will do tricks...and my hat will not fall off."

Okay, so next summer I'm making the call - Vans slip-ons. Preferably the red and blue two-tones and not the black and white checkered ones, which have already been done to death, even in a retro sense. And please, these are not to be confused with Nike Aqua Socks. If you remember those, smile, and never speak of them again. Speak neither of OP lycra shorts, the O'neill "Animal", or iridium Oakley Blades (BTW, just how did those go from de-facto surf star shades to the specs of choice for mullet-wearing white trash so quickly?) I still, however, have a soft spot in my heart for Oakley Frogskins...the clear ones, with the purple lenses.

Bottom line, a typical summer day in HB. Gone to SF tomorrow, but will be back on Wednesday.

The Colonel says, "At ease".