October 29, 2004
Eery blood-curdling vexations

Never-mind the severed Medusa-head that leapt from a garbage pale on my way to the beach. Never-mind the cackling banshees that sneered and threatened from the rooftops as I tried to get my surf-psyche on. Never-mind the pus-oozing, flesh-dripping zombies that tried to bar me from crossing the great highway. And then I saw her, the infamous, ghastly “Blue Lady” from the Moss Beach Distillery. She looked pretty sexy despite her 200 years of haunting, spooking and lurking. She tried to seduce me into her sultry beach-cave but I saw the pearlescent (co-worker’s word), shellacked ocean surface out of the corner of my eye and then noticed a picturesque shoulder-high peak peel and beckon. I quickly forgot about the supple blue thighs of the Blue Lady and sprinted out into the surf.

Gorgeous, technicolor sunrise as Lerm and I traded waves within nobody around for miles. Slim pickins for those desirous of power and size. A few shoulder-high, uber-glassy undulations squirted through the lineup. I lucked into some memorable ramps and enjoyed that legendary feeling of pumping along the face of a glassy, tapering wave. On a log you’d be LOVIN it out there. Great beginner day too. Sunny and beautiful. Small, playful, fun-lovin’, oil-smooth OB light-coreness. Take your grandpa out there and push him into a few. Great day for the girlfriends who want to surf but don’t like it huge. I managed one lip-click that had me free-falling down with the lip and actually landing successfully in the whitewater. It’s surprising what you can pull off with a little balance and forward momentum. Some cool opportunities to just catch a wave and stand there riding toward the beach on the mushy, fat pulsation. I had a fun belly ride at the end too!

In summary, avoid the pre-Halloween ghouls, take your foamiest board, and go get some sliders.

Check out this excerpt of a story penned by the illustrious Mexi:

"The quest for foreign surf isn’t something I necessarily understand myself, but I do know that it drives me to places I may not have gone to otherwise, and it allows me to participate with nature in ways other travelers can’t. Surfing almost legitimizes my being there, I wasn’t there to observe, I was there willing and ready to participate.
I headed out in search of the left point the Australian surfer told me about. I took off early from Opuwo and headed southwest through a vast barren land of red tabletop mountains and dusty brown desert flats. Along the way I passed small villages of cow dung and mud huts. Occasionally Herero children would place rocks in the road to try to get me to pull over and look at the goods they had for sale, mostly bracelets and crystals. I drove hundreds of kilometers on gravel, dirt and sand roads past the occasional giraffe or zebra through Kokoveld and on to Damaraland."

East Coast photos from surfline

maldives

blue lady

Posted by Ethan at 10:17 AM
October 28, 2004
Lumpy head-high slabs

Much smaller than yesterday, but still fun and solid.

Lumpy head-high slabs.
Barrels on hand.
Not too crowded.
Chalky/putrid smell to the water.
Funky rips and currents.
No wind.
Thick, chunkified caverns.
Steep drops.
Chilly post-eclipse morning.
Spellbound feathering lips.
Smooth regular-foot scoring multiple VFW barrels.
Super-fun ledging drops!! (I love those!)
Shreddable possibilities for the quick and able.
Relatively mellow on the pounding scale.
Water warmer than air.
Racy walls if you get in behind the section.

Pictures from yesterday make me a believer.

Walker sent these photos of OB, taken 10.27.04
niceness

niceness

niceness

niceness

Surfdog posted this pic of OB, also from yesterday. Niceness for whoever that is droppin' in.
niceness


Posted by Ethan at 10:14 AM
October 27, 2004
Big, burly and raw at the beach. Good for the chargers

SF buoy at 7ft 16seconds. Winds whipping offshore out of the NE. Sea surface shellacked and inviting. Fecal coliform and ecoli levels still dangerous as all monitoring points are posted. Good day for hell-chargers in hazmat suits. California buoy at 20ft 13seconds. There is definitely some seething energy out there. Maybe a good day to explore Santa Cruz county? Maybe some north-coast mysto spots? Maybe stay in bed and hide under the covers? Due to late-night birthday revelry I didn’t really consider getting out there this morning so I can’t provide the first-hand, in-the-water summary. There is a chance that Kaiser Sose hit it up so we’ll see what he has to say. Also the OB gun club probably represented tough down at their favorite area toward the south. Kdalle and company most likely dropped a few bombs.

Soo.. the best holiday ever is coming up! Not Chu Suk, the Korean harvest moon fest. Not Samhain, the Celtic new year. Not Durga Puja, the reception of the Goddess Durga. I’m talking All Hollow’s Eve! I’m talkin’ the night when the dark forces amass and well up in the congregated, inebriated breasts of would-be celebrants. Whether you be druid, witch, neopagan or just a regular joe, Halloween is a time to get freaky wit it. As I peruse some Halloween history it seems that Samhain, the celtic new year, actually is purported to be the origin of the modern Halloween tradition. Over 2000 years ago the ancient Celts honored the dead on October 31, Samhain. “In order to appease the wandering spirits they believed roamed at night, the Celtic priests made fires in which they burned sacrifices, made charms, and cast spells.” Whoooo..

Soo… as if to kick in this ghoulish and festive time, something really strange happened to me late last night. I woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of an animals footsteps scampering across my roof. I then heard a loud snarl that trailed off into what almost sounded like a human voice saying, “come.” I got myself out of bed and looked out the window. At first I only saw the dripping tree in the yard and my hanging wetties, but then I noticed a pair of illuminated green eyes looking back at me. A fearful chill ripped through my mind. Before I knew it the eyes leapt toward me and smacked against the window pain. This thing, some misshapen beast of the night, attached itself with a giant, fleshy, organic sucking mechanism to the outside of my window. Like the underside of some giant barnacle or something. But maybe more like Sarlacc, the creature on Tatooine's Dune Sea in Star Wars. Sarlacc with it's mucous-lined hole brimming with inward pointing teeth. At the center of its mouth a smooth, pointed beak containing a fat, muscular tongue, blindly flexing in hopes of capturing a savory morsel.
I jumped back and began looking for some kind of weapon, in case the thing came in my window. I found my tennis racquet and stood there ready to strike a blow. The gruesome sucking thing then release some oozing acid which began eating away at my window!! Fuuck! This thing was coming inside. Sure enough the glass gave way and the beast fell in though the window and crashed to the ground. It’s amorphous body was disgusting. Slimy and gelatinous with sparse thick hair sprouting out here and there. It moved quickly, like a turbo-slug, with its crenulated, grotesque underbelly. Those fluorescent green eyes poked out of a head-like form on top, beneath which snarled and chattered a heinous assortment of razor-sharp, unsymmetrical teeth. Fuck! The thing shot at me real quick but I whacked it solidly with the racquet. A forehand that sent it smacking against the wall. It slithered down to the ground, leaving a nasty trail of slime on my wall, then It shot at me again. This time I backhanded the bitch right out of the window. I expected it to come back but I watched a wild, anomalous thing occur. All the neighborhood cats. A whole fucking squadron of them. Had silently gathered in my yard and were now surrounding the gruesome, slime-drenched, snaggle-toothed beast. The closed in a circle around it and then pounced in a ferocious team-effort of screeching, clawing and biting. 5 minutes later there was no beast left, Only some belly-full alley-cats who all seemed to wink at me and then slank off in separate directions!

Soo.. moral of the story. Be nice to your neighborhood felines! Ya never know when some ill-intentioned beast of the night is gonna attack.

Sarlacc - distant relative of the creature who attacked me last night

Couple of Bruce shots from the Lane (check out surfhumor.com for more sick photos)

Posted by Ethan at 10:07 AM
October 26, 2004
Stormy, polluted water, no surf.

Not much available for local surfers today. A meager, lackluster windswell. A choppy, grisly sea surface. Grimy, fetid poo-water. A scintillating rainbow arced over OB at around 8:15, suggesting a pot of gold somewhere amidst the outer sandbars of Judah street.

Soo.. I’ll be honest and admit that I’m a bit of a surf-media whore. I’m still the guy that reads every word in every surf magazine cover to cover. Surfer, TWsurf, Surfing, Surfers Path, Water, Surfers Journal, Happy, Surfing News, BASEmag, Inside Surf (I miss that mag), Adrenaline, ASL, Tracks, etc. I wish I could get my hands on ZigZag (south African mag) and the kiwi mags which I’ve heard are cool. I’ve also gone through periods of intense video addiction. But… since ridding my home of television and internet my consumption of surf cinematography has come to a veritable halt. For years I was rabid about any surf information I could digest. Over the last few years, however, I’ve felt tinges of surf media overconsumption. Surf info burnout. I’ll go a day or two without perusing a surf mag.. But… yesterday after work for some reason I suffered the old jones and eagerly whet my appetite with the piles of wave-rich literature overflowing my cottage. The folks at Low Pressure publishing recently came out with “World Stormriders Guide Volume Two” which I purchased the other day and hadn’t quite completed yet. A bit disappointed to see Nicaragua in there. But excited to check out random-ass south-pacific islands like Raratonga (check it out NZ swell) and Western Samoa. Also surprising to learn about all the solid setups really close to Melbourne. I had always assumed that Melbourne surfers had to drive a few hours to the Bells/Winki area to score good surf but I guess I’m wrong. How about the Seychelles or the Andaman islands? How about Oman for a random-ass surf trip! Some amazing photos from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) way out in the middle of the South Pacific… possibly more isolated than Hawaii. Rapa Nui picks up some major swell and seems to have some setups that can hold it. Prehistoric stone heads gaze out into the violent ocean at certain spots. No trees left on the island. Yeah the Stomrider Guides might make any hardened, itinerant surf traveler cringe with its maps and glossy photos.. But.. in terms of inspiring wander-lust… these guides rule!

Soo.. then I cruised over my friend’s place, imbibed in some “Bom Shiva” hashish strait from India and proceeded to watch two Volcom flicks, Magna Plasm and 156 Tricks. Both arty, grainy 16-mm jobbers with inspired surfing and funky, crusty home-spun art scenes between surf porn. One segment in Magna Plasm showcases this ridiculous barreling left somewhere in California during the El Nino winter of ’98 (I think).. Jimi Hendrix “Goin’ South” blasts while insano surfers and boogies plunge into unbelievable lip-tossing gigantor barrels. (anyone know where that wave is?). crazy shit. The Gavin segment is awesome as that guy defines the lanky styly chill radical flowy surfer paradigm. Then 156 tricks I’d never seen before but Ozzie Wright kills it all over the place. Craziest moments as he and a friend pull into shore-dumping barrels and just get annihilated on the exposed sand. Ozzie pulls huge airs over dry reef throughout the whole video. Gnarly shit..

Then I fell asleep reading Marcus Sanders article in The Surfer’s Path about a trip to Chili with Flea and Barney last winter. Flea climbing some fence to get at psychedelic San Pedro cactus which the group proceeds to sample and enjoy under the closer-than-ever high-desert, middle-of-nowhere night sky. Stars reaching down to enliven campfire ruminations. Also it seems that Flea “don’t like hippies.” Shit.. I better avoid the Lane!

Bah! Now it’s time to get some work done.. enjoy the day!

Here are some photos of the Juice part last Thursday. (I had some photos of the beautiful boards, including the Manny fish, but my disk got corrupted on the way to work!?)
Juice party

Juice party

rapa nui

Posted by Ethan at 10:23 AM
October 25, 2004
A slick of brown

I didn’t get on it this morning. Biking to work I looked back at the ocean and noticed that a huge swath of water from the beach out toward the horizon looked brown and murky. Beyond that, about a mile out to sea, the water looked its normal blue. Not sure if this was a shadow of a cloud or effluence from Saturday’s rain? Hopefully the former. But, other than the slimy brown color of the water, the surface looked smooth and inviting, and the wind blew gently offshore out of the NE. I spent most of yesterday in the water so if conditions are at all similar it’s probably purdy fun out there. Yesterday morning started out kinda lumpy and fat, with signs of a building swell and some sizeable walls. Occasionally the variables would line up and a slick, powerful, roping wave would present itself. Only a few other surfers in the water. As Lerm and I exited the ocean and then stood on the dunes looking out toward the lineup we saw a veritable parade of surfers funnel from various locations to convene at the same spot and proceed to crowd each other in the lineup. It began with one guy in the water scoring a few nice rides. Two guys saw this and then walked 200 yards down the beach to paddle out where they saw the ride. Two other guys then walked up from the opposite direction and paddled out at the same spot. Then a guy that I’ve witnessed yelling and dropping in on people walked over the dunes, scanned the lineup (many empty peaks on offer) and proceeded to jog directly to the spot where everyone else was paddling out and paddle out there himself. It was comical. Lerm remarked that it’s kind-of cool that surfers do that because it frees up a lot of space throughout the rest of the beach. An hour later Lerm and i were back out there and conditions had improved dramatically. The tide sucked out and heavy, barrelling, thumpy ocean beach A-frames pulsed in. Heart-fluttering drops on offer. Lips available for the crackin'. Lerm sliced and diced on a few glassy canvasses. I enjoyed one memorable sprint down the line of a hucking, heaving, chocolate-brown foamy beasty. surf!!

Earlier this weekend I lucked into a beautiful session at a low-key reefbreak in Santa Cruz county. Uber-glass. Shoulder/Head-high peaky swell. A few friendly heads in the lineup. 30 or 40 rides. Multiple lip-hits and chances. Guaranteed open face every ride. Jaws theme song. Baking sunshine. Underwater kelp forest. Some of the best lip cracks I’ve ever performed balanced against many kooky backside rides. Plenty of weak, slow waves too, which were still fun. Shoulders toasted at the end but mind screaming for more rides. Glassy, tapering sections.

I probably improved more during that one session than during 5 or 6 similar sessions at OB. Reef breaks with no crowds rule!!! Guaranteed face time rules!!!

Surfing.

not narrelled

backhand attack

bagel's happy onion

moochie

Posted by Ethan at 09:49 AM
October 21, 2004
large and gorgeous

Not a whisper of wind as the day began. From three blocks away the sea-surface looked oily and slick. I didn't see ginormo wave-mountains rising toward the heavens so i thought it might be approachable for mere mortals. I sauntered down there with a camera and my initial impression was, "Fuuuck, i need to turn around immediately and grab my board!" But.. then after 15 minutes of gawking, gazing, murmering and watching one lonely paddler battle unsuccessfully in his bid to get outside i decided to just chill and give my body one more morning off. The biggest waves were well over head-high. Not huge. However, massive wall after massive wall after destructo wall marched in and created a sort-of barbed-wire/land-mined/crossfire no-man's land through which it seemed tough to penetrate. No joke "OB Factor" this morning. "OB Factor" refers to when OB looks manageable and inviting from the beach or road, but once in the water things become much bigger and meaner than previously assumed. Look out for the OB Factor this season!

(a co-worker just asked it i'd ever heard of the inflatable surfboard!)

Soo.. if you could make it past the death-zone, you'd probably score some seriously killer olas (waves)! GLassy, largish, steep, barrelling, lefts and rights, empty, solid! Hopefully the whole OB gun club (Kdalle, Friend #1, Doof, 'stah, Christian, Lewis, Pez) and the rest of you will have some good stories of this morning's surf!? Let's here it!

Shoutout to Krustaceous Kristen! A super chill lassie who's a friend of Jocular's and travelled with us a bit in Central America. Kristen and the Lerminator both struggled through some grueling Montezuma's revenge while we explored and chilled at the Finca Magdellena, which sat at the base of a huge tropical, conical volcano. Kristen also kicked our collective asses at Gin. Not afraid to sack up and shoot the moon. Cheers kristen.

I also just finished an interview with "underground ripper" Lewis! Siiiicck.. it will appear in the next BASE mag, which i'm actually renaming "Niceness the mag". But.. i'll try to post Lewis' interview up here on niceness today or tomorrow.

If you're interested in advertising in Niceness the Mag let me know. I'd also be hip to any kind of barter or exchange. If you have a burrito place maybe a few burritos in exchange for an ad? Let me know at cranial_bulge@yahoo.com

I'm hoping to print and distrubute 2000 copies this time. Plan to do a road-trip up and down the coast and put a pile in every surf shop from SLO to PA. Let me know if you have ideas/submissions/photos/stories, etc.

A few of you have submitted stories to me and i haven't responded because i'm sometimes a lame-wad slacker. I still have your stories and i'll get back to you! thanks for submitting!!!

also.. i know that the female posterior is a thing of immaculate, unparalleled beauty. but.. please no naked pics and i guess try to keep it respectful for all the lovely lady surfers and readers out there.

anyway.. enough blabbering. here are some photos from this morning..
niceness

niceness

niceness

niceness

A few photos of Bagel's fish, shaped by Elias
niceness

cool Wedge shot
shittyness

also.. check this out tonight.. put on by some local surfers/heads/artists
juice art show

Posted by Ethan at 10:12 AM
October 20, 2004
Crisp, brilliant day. Out of control surf.

More rain last night. As the storm passed eastward it seemed to suck all the moisture along with it. This morning was/is immaculately clear. The ocean shone a rich dark blue. The Farallons sparkled on the horizon. Misshapen, tatterdemalion, foaming walls of whitewater could be seen cresting and threatening at the end of the street. Surfpulse reports triple overhead waves at the beach but it didn’t look that huge from my vantage. The violent, energetic effects of the storm are still being felt by the sea-surface. It’s also clearly evident that wind is the mother of waves. The severe local winds of the last 24 hours have generated wild short-period storm swell. It’s crazy to think that the swell generating storms of the Aleutians and the roaring 40’s create similarly chaotic local waves as they rage and blow in the middle of the ocean. As the waves propagate outward in the same general direction as the predominant winds of the storm, they change shape. As they travel across the ocean they begin to settle into more refined, distinctive bands of wave-form energy. Families, or sets of waves begin to coalesce into long, mature organized lumps of propagating, roiling energy. The further they travel, the longer the “period,” or distance between waves. With no opposing force such as wind or land the waves continue to congeal and collect into more and more powerful, distinct bands. It’s fascinating to thing how the physical process works. Pressure differences in the air create wind and storms. These winds blow along the surface of the water creating little ripples. The friction of wind on ripple gains in force until the ripples become wavelets, then grow into waves. The more sustained the wind and the more consistent the direction of the wind, the bigger and stronger the waves created. Then.. that energy of friction gets propagated through a liquid medium (ocean) for thousands and thousands of miles unless opposed by some other force! Isn’t that crazy? I guess it’s similar to waves of light through the cosmos, hurtling for trillions of miles, unabated and unopposed.

Life man!

Energy.

Waves.

Coagulation.

It’s cool to witness the physical manifestation of propagated energy. Only via a liquid medium can we humans visualize what a wave-form is. Waves of energy happen all around us and effect us in myriad waves, but they don’t take on a physical shape and appearance. Sine waves man! Calculus. Radio. Heat. Sound. Goodbuy waves. SUUURFFF!!

Couple of pics Jake took in Spain


Posted by Ethan at 09:59 AM
October 19, 2004
First storm of the year!

Yay!!! It’s raining!! As a transplant east-coaster used to summer storms and spring rains it feels like it NEVER friggin rains here! The deluge last night and this morning feels comforting and snuggly. I was pretty psyched until a MUNI meltdown left me stranded at Van Ness station. I then hoofed it through the lateral rain squalls 25 minutes down to my office. Ugg.. now I’m soaked! Yay!!

Soo.. I guess the question for local surfers is.. who nutted up and paddled out at poo-ville today? Schmlindy could’ve been firing with the maniacal south winds and relatively solid swell. Don’t mind the turds or motor oil floating out of san pedro creek. When it's brown in town the shit's going down! literally. For best ***** conditions look for that huge swath of thick, globular putrid brown effluence oozing out of the creek mouth. Plug your ears nose and mouth and paddle our right in the mix. Look for the stellar lefts breaking off the newly created sandbars. no shit! ha ha!! The funny thing is that i'm totally serious. Some of best waves i've witnessed in poo-town have come during crazy-ass storms with loony south winds. you know the deal.

OB looks mega-wild this morning. Stormy white-caps paraded not far from shore and the tempest blew foamy sprindrift high into the air. I noticed no takers.

Storms are rad!!

Supposedly the Berkeley skate park closes for the winter after the first major rain because of carcinogenic ground water? Or something? I’m sure that most local surf spots will now play host to loovely fecal coliform and ecoli and other little pretties like that. If you decide to surf lindy, watch out for hep a and dysentery and other shit that relates to shit. Remember.. it all flows into the sea.

Now is a great few days to burrow into the work you’ve been slacking on.

Here's a quick poll if you like these things (answer any, all or none)
Enter the Dragon or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon?
Orange County or Ventura County or San Diego County?
Acid or E?
College or High School?
Small and glassy or large and serious?
Mexican food or Italian food?
Hans Solo or Indiana Jones?
Lindy or the Jetty?
Sonoma county or Marin County?
Phish or the Dead?
Anchor Steam or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale?
Crowded perfect pointbreak or uncrowded mediocre beachie?
girl next door or total hottie (who knows it)?
Guitar or drums?
Halloween or Thanksgiving?
First kiss or first intercourse?
Sloat or VFWs?

Bertlemann

crazy storm

Posted by Ethan at 10:24 AM
October 18, 2004
dark wet cold solid

Dark, wet and cold in the pre-dawn calm. Peel myself out of warm, womb-like bed. Vibrant, colorful shimmer on usually muted, grey SF surroundings. Olfactory freshness as overnight rain releases pungent flavors from street, tree and city. Wetsuit dripping and frozen. Ughh. Hold my breath as I slither into it’s arctic, clammy interior. Sky barely showing Monday’s light. Earplugs in, board under arm, out the door, hide the keys, scamper down the street. Over the great highway, onto the beach. Look out onto an empty lineup. Just a few dogwalkers and dawn-patrol joggers smiling hellos and good-mornings. Same people every day. Oily glassy, head-high, peaky, fun, barreling, warbly, strange, vacant, smooth, enticing, out there. Super glass! Slightly fetid, tangy taste/smell to the water. Enough rain to pollute the surf zone? Largish peaks loping in. Absolutely nobody for miles in either direction. Poundings on the inside. First ride a towering right. Get to my feet; notice the translucent, mesmerizing glassy face. Make the drop, turn off the bottom, feet not exactly right, wiggle back-foot back a bit.. pump… slow turn along the top, few more pumps, kick out the back. Good opener. Initial orange-ness pokes over Eastern horizon. Heart-fluttering glassy barrels crack and peel all around me. Tough to be in the right spot. Enjoy just observing the natural power, symmetry, speed and beauty of those temporal sculptures. Soon a left comes my way. Stroke in and take-off steep. Stand up like a man no pigdog. Carve off the bottom, then back up the face, off the top.. meander and trim down the line. Let the wave push and carry me. Momentary desire for more foam than my little chippy 6’6”. Another guy paddles out. Kinda nice to have a buddy. 2 surfers is the perfect number. I catch a few short rights… kick out the back. Conditions grow less peaky. Tide shift? Closeouts and not so many waves breaking on the outside. Getting time for work so I catch a suckout, crazy-ass left and then lay down and ride in on my belly. See my friend Brett with his dog Zeus on the beach. He asks if it was good. I reply “oh yeah, get out there homie.”

Lopey

Slates - what's going on here?


Reading this now. I like.

Also read John Mcphee "A Sense of Where You Are" yesterday. Story about Bill Bradley's basketball virtuosity at Princeton in the late 60's. Beautiful book.

also finished Neal Stephenson's 3-book trilogy "A Baroque Cycle." Nothing short of a total masterpiece!! I'm dumbfounded and warmed by his unrivaled literary acumen. I was both sad and happy to finish it. Go Neal!!

Posted by Ethan at 10:03 AM
October 15, 2004
Uninsipired.. but.. highly doable.

A respite for the weary.
A denouement for the fulfilled.
A last gasp for the frothing.
An inhalation for mamma Pacific.

As most of you know, the fog rolled in yesterday eve. Foghorns bellowed from Land’s End while dismayed surflings returned to their abodes to hunker down and await the next installment of Autumn’s copious offerings. Placed in the middle of July 2004 this morning’s conditions would be heralded as “gifted,” “cathartic,” or maybe even “monumental.” But.. compared to this weeks bounty this morning looked “lackluster, “dismal,” and “flabby.” A mellow onshore blew(blows) out the SW. 15 or 20 undeterred dawn-patrollers made a go of it in the north end. Shoulder-high, crumbly, sometimes-sweet peaks lolly-gagged toward shore like the foamy/dreggy remains of a previously full keg of Anchor Liberty. I watched one mediocre-ish left and a handful of 2 foot droplets. If you’re pining for a few waves, cruise the beach and pick a peak, you’ll probably end up scoring some tasty fritters and enjoying yourself a-plenty.

Dining on Chestnut street in the Marina last night catalyzed some inward cogitation regarding the stereotypes of denizens of each of SF’s neighborhoods. Here are some reflections and generalizations about a few ‘hoods.

Lower Haight and the Mission – Hipster heaven. ¾ length dickies. Lip piercings and tats. Died black hair with the choppy cut bangs and random spurts. the maud aesthetic rages into the new millenium. Cell Space and burningman. Bad poetry and indy-rock angst. Mildew-smelling used book stores. Stylish grime. Androgenous cuteness. Boutique shops. Ganja and Skateboarders. Tag-art. Funky art shows. Wannabees interspersed with brilliance.

Noe and Cole Valleys – Urban yuppies. Young families. Bucolic, idealistic communites. Mountains at the end of the street. Neurotic neighbors. Wholesome, beautiful women. Lots of dogs. Classic Victorian homes. Friendly vibes. Overpriced groceries. Safety. Splitting the difference between the Mission and the Marina.

The Marina – Materialistic. Wealthy. Pompous. Good restaurants. Plastic women. Diamonds in the rough. Maybe the hardest partying and highest level of consumption of illicit substances? Value-system based on personal wealth or perception of personal wealth. Volleyball courts. Wave-organ. Fake blow-dried blond hair. Pants pulled up too high. People dressed like my pops, but not quite as stylish and 30 years younger. Mostly solid peeps when you get down to it, though a few of them represent everything that’s wrong with hyper-capitalistic, materialistic, western/american society. Am i too harsh? Fort Mason and Palace of Fine Arts are siick.

Outer Sunset – Obviously the best neighborhood in our fare city!! Total smorgasbord of humanity. Asian families, leftover Irish folk, artsy/heady surfer-types, drunken derelicts, urban white-families, old-school SF blacks and latinos. Sunset Rec centers. Other Avenues coop. OCEAN BEACH!!! Heaps of garage sales. Bad vibes at the sea biscuit (ask Lerm). Super friendly greek dude at the market next to the sea biscuit. New Vegan restaurant at 45th and Judah!! Heads in the rough.

Western Addition – kinda like lower height and mission hipsters but with the roughneck/gangsta/fillmoe element thrown in the mix. House of Love. Giant Victorians.

Twin Peaks/Forrest Hill/Midtown Terrace/Mt Davidson – quiet, low-key sweetness. Family-style.

Outer Richmond – wishes they were Outer Sunset!! Ha!! But seriously Sutro area is sick. Best views of the beach. Simple Pleasures. Robme’s house. Lewis and Bird. Biggsie and Sam. Land’s End. Secret hidden mysto spots. Hmmm..

photos from the garden state grudge match 2004
Frank Walsh beat Sam Hammer (photos from z-surf.com)

Posted by Ethan at 10:15 AM
October 14, 2004
waves!!!

I’m writing this on Wednesday night. Listening to Indian music from the Concert for George Harrison. Surfing has been on my mind all day. I’ve been thinking about this morning’s session and then juxtaposing it against this afternoon’s. This morning (wed.) I was all crabby and frustrated with the “crowd.” In reality 10 or 15 people traded waves and enjoyed the bounty gifted to us by the mighty Pacific. Picturesque ovals spun and cracked as riders launched themselves into their spiritual bowels. Those of us out there were healthy and lucky enough to be surfing, at that time and moment, experiencing sick waves at our home spot. My apologies to 3to5 and anyone else who thought my “whinging” about the unusually populated lineup reeked of jaded, selfish entitlement. 3to5 is the man, always espousing positive vibes and always super psyched on surfing.
Another thing that dawned on me after this afternoon’s session. IT’S GOING OFF OUT THERE!!!! Strait up. Some of the best waves we’ve seen in years!? Crisp, offshore-groomed, glassy, head-high, barreling waves pumped into the beach all day long. Not only that, but there were heaps of waves on offer. This afternoon saw this morning’s crowd quadrupled, easy. But vibes remained chill because everyone that sacked-up and tossed themselves over a ledge or two scored waves. There were tons of waves coming in. Waves for everybody. Rapid fire glassy peeler after gulping glassy pit. The waves this afternoon were some of the best I’ve ever seen at Ocean Beach. One older guy on a yellow longboard stroked into a thickening, oily-glass, overhead+, A-framing, stacking paradigm of beachbreak perfection. Seriously. 20 or 30 surfers turned and watched as he paddled with authority deep into the steepening cleft. Seconds later he’s dropping in, turning hard off the bottom and then standing in the pocket as a massive, barreling slab encapsulates him into it’s deep recesses. I had a perfect view of this guy getting absolutely SHACKED! Deeply shacked. He stayed packed within for a healthy second or two.. then almost squeezes out of the closing section before getting knocked off his board. Easily one of the most enchanting, mesmerizing, beautiful waves I’ve seen ridden in years. Sitting out in the lineup you could look one way or another up and down the beach and witness people stuffing themselves into funneling, unbelievable, “almond” barrels. Lefts and rights. All over the place. Everyone happy. People dropping into serious, meaty chunk-o-waves. I personally saw a few curtains fly overhead but wasn’t able to maneuver any extended spats of green-room consciousness. Soul-gratifying waves come through today. Dropping down into smooth, powerful, critical, dreamy walls feels totally amazing. Waves that got the butterflies fluttering as you saw them mount on the horizon, knowing that people were watching your takeoff, knowing that barrels were eminent and the sandbars shallow. For every barrel handed out, 50 beatings got dished out and humbled the blessed-out surfers. I just want to express my sincere gratitude for being able to surf those waves. For all it’s faults, our society allows a select few of us to develop the knowledge and ability to ride the ocean’s waves. The purpose of surfing is pure enjoyment. The idea of the pursuit is to have fun. We’re given the time and resources to make it happen. There is no evolutionary or economic or practical underpinning to the activity. We don’t do it to help provide sustenance, shelter or sex. Well… maybe some people derive those things from it. But… Some manifestation of the universe dictates that for certain mammalian species (dolphins, pinnipeds, whales and humans), riding waves is a good time. It’s funny that such a practically meaningless endeavor affords each of us such profound meaning. Surfing is one of those imponderable human activities. It’s a celebration of existence. The human spirit shines strongly through the art of surfing. I felt a sense of brotherhood in the lineup this afternoon. We were all just basking in the greatness of a thing we love.
Also in regard to crowds. On one hand a pack of 8 guys on a peak could create a competitive and tense vibration. But.. given the same peak with 8 guys who are all your friends.. If has the makings of an epic session with everyone pushing and encouraging each other. Same situation and number of surfers, totally different mindset and enjoyment level. Shift in perspective. Also, when there is a sea of people like this afternoon. It helps to have a smattering of friends and allies in the mix. When you’re in a mini-pod of three of your friends in one area, you kind-of control the scene and can work for each-other’s benefit. The more people you know the better. The more people you treat with kindness and respect out there, the more people who are gonna want to treat you the same. Give a wave one time and who knows when that niceness will circle back around for you. When the golden gate bridge used to be $3, I’d often pull up to the ticket gate to be told that the car in front of me paid my way. “No shit!!” I’d say.. then I’d fork over $3 for the next guy, supposedly that niceness often got spread down the line at the golden gate. Same shit can happen in the lineup. Everyone hooking each other and everyone even more stoked than ever.

Anyway.. thanks for reading!!!

As kdalle says, keep surfing no matter what.

oh yeah.. there were waves this morning too!! a little morning sickness.. but still nugs on hand. Watched Christian tear the place up and even slank back into a nice backside cavern, right in front of Lerm and i. Barrelled! Cool to share a chill, foggy, low-key session with Tomstah, Lerm and Christian!! Can't be beat.

anyway.. enjoy it!!! like it's your last session!

photos from pkphotos.com


Posted by Ethan at 09:57 AM
October 13, 2004
Another beautiful morning

The first 30 minutes of daylight were magical. Nary a soul in the water ‘cept Lerm and I. Solid lines cruising in and bowling/peeling/closing/pounding/etc. My first ride, in the barely visable pre-dawn, proved my best. I took off deep and hugged the wall… then just basically stood there in the pocket, in the mouth of the pit, scraping my hand along the glassy wall. Felt good. But then a strange thing began occurring. Surfer after surfer could be seen walking down the beach, getting ready to paddle out. By 7:30 is was unusually populated and by 7:45 it was as crowded as I’ve ever experienced this spot during a mid-week dawn-patrol. Lerm and I looked at each other and just shrugged our shoulders. It felt like the loss of a little secret garden or something. We knew it would happen eventually, but we were still a little sad. People just kept paddling right up to us. It looked like there were plenty of empty peaks up and down the beach but it was too late to get out and walk down to any of them. As the crowd thickened and the waves got a tad more wobbly a larger bloke paddled right up to our zone. I was alreally a bit frustrated by the crowd so i think i put my head down and tried to paddle away or something but then he asked if my name was e. It was 3to5, havin’ a go at the dawnie. I then saw him take off on a nice left and work it down the line. Sorry we didn’t get to chill in the lineup 3to5, but.. work beckoned. Sooo.. I guess this morning was pretty much a sure bet at OB, making it crowded up and down the whole beach? Or maybe the bars were just randomly best where we surfed this morning, unbeknownst to Lerm and I? Regardless there were barrels on hand. Powerful, suck-out, cavernous, roaring barrels, cracking and snarling along the shallow sandbars. Beautiful barrels. The sea-surface was relatively glassy. The biggest waves were a tad larger than head-high. A few ledging, no-joke double-ups moved through and unleashed violent fury on unsuspecting surfers caught inside. Good times out there in surf land. And… everyone surfing spread the good vibes… its just.. you know how it gets when it’s tight out there.

Yesterday evening witnessed some guillotine-like barrels, along with massive crowds. After the million duckdives to get out, if you could pick off a peeling corner, you’d be very very psyched!! On the way out i saw someone charge into a deep closeout barrel. I could see his body riding down the line behind the curtain. Totally, utterly in the barrel!! Good on ya whoever that was. Not to toot my own horn.. because my whimpy-ass surfing didn't score any barrel time.. but.. I one-upped my “best ride of the season” from yesterday morning with an even better ride last night. Super-steep, uber-ledge drop.. no bottom turn just pump and sprint down the line, trying to beat the sections.. bank off-the-top with tons of speed, not really turning.. just banking off the lip.. then more pumps and a more lip-clicks… finally a little floater at the end.. Long-ass ride on a head-high, barrelly, glassy wave. But then, of course, I payed the price for taking a wave all the way in. The ocean just pulverized my skinny arse trying to get back out. I felt like a gang of villains tied me up in a sack and just beat me with slightly-padded baseball bats. OB!!

Probably more of the same all day today.. Get on it and enjoy!! If you see an empty peak next to a peak with a few heads on it, paddle out at the empty peak!

Also cool to see Trout out there for the super-mega dawn patrol. What happened to you man?

this has been posted before.. but.. it's nice..
Art Brewer shot of Curren

Padang market, Sumatra

Indo

Maccas

Indian Ocean

Posted by Ethan at 09:50 AM
October 12, 2004
Ummm.. glassy offshore and good.

Balmy, Indian-summer morning. Offshore breeze blowing dirty smog out through the golden gate. Pre-dawn low-tide harnessing the remaining power of the NW swell. Glassy. Beginning of the session saw some bombs. As the tide filled in, the waves began to back-off. Lerm snapped his favorite board in two, but not before charging down the face of some suck-out beasts. 20 seconds after that I snagged my best wave of the season. Ledging, groping, wedging right-hander that I pushed over the edge, then dropped in like a super-halfpipe, dug into the bottom turn.. pumped and raced up high along the feathering wall.. with speed!! Then came down to the bottom again, off the bottom.. then a gauging turn into the face.. which felt damn good!! Other than that I just caught a bunch of drops and some other mild down-the-line excursions. Good times surfing with Elias at the end. Homie caught a bunch of nice rights as I watched from the back. Multiple stylish carving turns off the top from the central coast mysto-shaper. Solid surfing from our boy Elias. Now my ass is late to work.. but.. the surf is out there.

I’d wager that random beach breaks up and down the coast are looking good right now. The swell is down to manageable levels, the offshores blew all night. It’s warm and sunny. If you’re a lunchtime charger keep an eye on the tides and maybe push your lunch a bit later today. Rumors of 1pm sweetness yesterday spread around the outer sunset like wildfire last night. Hmmm.. Let’s just say that the green room was reportedly open for business.

Bruce shot of Baron Von Bagel at the Lane
bagel

air

gerry lopez

soul arch


Posted by Ethan at 10:06 AM
October 11, 2004
Warm offshores.

Big lumpy swell flirting with sweetness along our grandiose beach this morning. Conditions didn’t line up perfectly for the dawn patrol but many a ledging pit could be seen reeking havoc on northern OB sandbars. To the south the outer bars coaxed the lessening swell into breaking mushily, far from shore. It’s surfable.

I would love to see how Stinkeye Cruz handled this powerful, unwieldy groundswell. OB was chock-full o’ gnar all weekend, though I did see one ballsy lad pull into a gaping closeout barrel at VFWs around 11:30 yesterday. Cheers to you man! Sack.

On Saturday the swell was raging so a small niceness crew went scouting for nuglets... and eventually found the proverbial garden. First stop, Sloat looked farkin’ serious. Judith, the curly-haired booger and a few others looked to be suiting up. If you like giant drops and skull-crushing duckdive after spine-numbing duckdive.. it could have been your bag of donuts out there. But.. we were so over it. Southbound we traveled. Thoughts of Santa Cruz point-break nirvana flashed through our heads. Maybe 2-mile, we mused.. we could score it? Maybe Masterbations will be firing with nobody around? Maybe Lunatics? Hmm.. with the higher tide and the macking swell we conjectured that the santa cruz pickin’s might be slim. Lindy and Rockaway looked wild and ugly. Mon-Scare-a looked exactly that. Then the EG pimp’s stompin’ grounds. Offshore-licked, groomed, overhead, peaky, working. Only about 250 surfers in the water! Seriously! I’ve never seen so many people. Soo.. we nashed on some delectable scones for a bit and cogitated our next move. Kaiser suggested a low-key, rarely-working spot not far away and we acquiesced and cruised over for a check-out. Nobody around. Glassy, fast, barrelly, pounding, head-high peaky sweetness. Nobody around. Soo..Korewin, Kaiser, Lerm and I piled into Kaiser’s station-wagon for an old-school, pre-surf monster clam bake!! Oh yeah.. then we suited up and hit it. Long, 2-hour, jammy session followed. Lots of closeouts but plenty makeable drops into crystalline, barreling groundswell juice. Quintessential conditions for hooting your stony friends into monster, barely-makeable closeouts. Poundings on the inside but a handful of high-quality walls ta boot. Korewin took-off on the outside on some nice rights. Kaiser-Sose steered into some widow-makers… as usual. Lerm picked his way down the line on a few glassy morsels. I enjoyed some of my better rides at the very end of the session, which is abnormal for me. I managed a few lip-clicks off the closeouts and also funneled down some steep, freefall-like drops. Nobody around. Good times. Cheers to Kaiser for making that call.. even though I doubted it upon initial suggestion..

Then Lerm and I went for a repeat at the same spot yesterday and got utterly, totally denied. Yeah, we surfed, but, what on Saturday was *almost* closed-out super-enjoyable, high-intensity, racy peaks yesterday was total complete utter close-outs. No shoulders at all. I took many a headache-inducing digger into the shallow bottom trying to snug my body back into the non-existent pockets. My neck still hurts!

Soo… surf!! If you’ve got your health, if your able of body and mind. Get out there and do what you like. My neighbor and friend, a life-long surfer from Hermosa Beach. Just got out of the hospital after having a brain tumor removed. Right now he’s lost most of the functioning on the right side of his body. He can’t surf for a while.. maybe ever. Don’t take your health for granted. Ride a wave for my friend Dave who loves to surf and is a generous, kind man.

malpais

padang padang

OZ - photo from fluidzone.com


Posted by Ethan at 10:13 AM
October 08, 2004
A few bombs out the back

The swell is here. Around 7am the fog finally lifted enough to give the lot lizards a look at what was happening in the surf zone. Some parts of the beach were working better than others. The classic big-wave spot of the last few seasons was again sculpting the incoming raw NW groundswell into semi-rideable, bumpy, loping, occasionally lined-up peaks. Many of the usual suspects made a go of it for the dawnie. Alex Martins, Christian, Dave Bricca, Blakestah, Kaiser Sose, Paul B, Judith and a handful of others could be seen alternatively battling and duck-diving on the inside or sitting and waiting on the outside. Alex just returned from the North Shore and said he scored large Sunset beach. I watched for about 40 minutes and saw around 4 rides. One guy with a longer blue board snagged a few nice ones. If you like big waves and aren’t afraid of 40 or so duckdives to get out there you should investigate. It's pretty classic large OB. Gnarly but well within range. The biggest set waves this morning flirted with double-overhead. Maybe 8 or 9 feet on the faces? Good on ya if you got out there and actually caught one of the needles in the haystack. I nearly paddled out myself but became paralyzed with indecision until my meager time-window closed down. My little tooth-picky 6’6” could have got me out there but I would’ve been scratching like mad to get into any waves. My session would have most-likely gone as follows:
- suit up
- paddle out
- 30 minutes of duckdiving and drifting south
- get outside
- 10 minutes of waiting
- attempt to paddle into a bomb
- can’t get into it
- another 10 minutes of waiting… it’s time for me to come in for work
- See surfers getting sick waves all around me.
- try to scratch into a bomb.. see that it’s going to close-out but might as well try to make the drop
- get into the wave at the last second only to tumble over the falls
- get ragdolled underwater for 20 seconds
- come up to see that my leash is broken and my board is nowhere to be seen.
- start swimming in
- see another wave headed right for me, with someone riding it, getting a fabulous ride
- Said rider decides to head strait for me
- I dive to avoid him but his leash catches on my ankle and I get ripped backward.
- He falls and we get entangled underwater
- He surfaces and begins yelling at me
- I apologize
- I continue swimming in
- Turn around every 10 minutes to see people getting sick rides all over the place.
- Find my board on the beach split in half.
- Go home dejected.
- Yay!!!!

I’m just trying to make myself feel better for being a puss and not chargin’ it this morning. I suck!

Garaj Mahal tonight at the independent. Fareed Haque plays a MEAN guitar. Seriously.

anyone have a 7'10" (or thereabouts) gun they's like to sell? email me at cranial_bulge@yahoo.com

a couple like this puerto wave this morning

baja pointbreak

baja


Posted by Ethan at 10:04 AM
October 07, 2004
Blowy and junky. Surfable.

Ehh.. not the most scrumptious of conditions this morning. Chilly, breezy, wet, misty, foggy, rainy, grey, foreboding. CJ and I woke up and said “What the heck, let’s do this.” We suited up in the yard and marched down to the beach for a kamikaze pre-work surf excursion. No signs of the new swell as of 7:30. Chest-high, rapid-fire short-period windswell was on tap. The fog rolled in last night, bringing the onshores with it. The sea-surface wasn’t too happy about that. BUT!! There were a few waves available for the stout of heart. I only surfed for a about 40 minutes and managed 5 or 6 trips down the line. Might be fun on the log this morning with the combo of spineless windswell and higher tide.

But.. in more inspiring news. The buoys are jumpin’ to the NW of us. The Oregon Buoy is 13.5ft 14seconds. The California buoy is already up to 12ft 14seconds. It’s coommmmiinnnngg! However, with the higher tide all day there won’t be many places to hide tomorrow. I’d say it’s doubtful whether OB will be very surfable. This morning proved really junky and choppy. If you combine that with a powerful NW groundswell, it doesn’t look too good. Soo.. I’m not really sure about where to surf tomorrow dawn patrol? A true conundrum I tellz ya. If you can get down to our neighbor city 90 minutes to the south, you might score dredging glassy groundswell dungeons at certain locales. And by that I mean deep pits. Gnarly, whoa-daddy, spitting, funneling cones. Hmmmm…

Shout out to Kus in Jersey! Whattup dogg? You around the week and weekend before thanksgiving?

anyone have any good barrel stories?

wipeout stories?

romantic encounters?

lineup altercations?

celebrity sightings?

some good barrel videos and shit here

a few stylish photos from Patrick Trevz

Barney... the life of a pro surfer/artist
casting


Hawaii

a few shots from sunset
niceness

niceness

Posted by Ethan at 09:59 AM
October 06, 2004
Super glassy, sunshine, but.. waves??

The sea-surface looks uber-clean. Polished, sparkling, oily-glass. I received the early-morning call that the waves were missing in action. Where art thou, waves? Niceness correspondent Lerm reported that every once in a while a few shoulder-high wavelets marched toward shore, only to mushily break toward the inside, not offering too many rideable faces. Otherwise not much on tap wave-wise. Hmmm.. soo.. I drifted off into dream-land for another 45 minutes. But.. now I’m suffering the typical pangs of the 9-5er who skipped the dawnie and now has to sit at the computer all day, knowing that it’s glassy and now seeing people actually get rides on the cam! Curse you surfpulse cam! It looks like you could have a blast on the inside, slanking along slick mini-pockets and discovering hidden energy vectors. Get out there if you enjoy the small stuff on a sunny day.

Soo.. yesterday I yakked philosophic about a musician who thought that people in modern society often eschew time and thought of the infinite/underlying/magical interconnectedness of the universe in favor of pursuing the spectrum of humdrum everyday errands and tasks. He waxed that people often fill up their time and schedules in an attempt to feel “busy.” They do this partially to avoid the openness and possibility of experiencing the personal freedom necessary to consider/explore/contemplate the core of existence, the grand mysteries. I’m paraphrasing incorrectly. Obviously there are many reasons why people fill up their schedules to the brim. Maybe that’s what makes them happy? Maybe many people are depending on them? Maybe they’re filling their time to better forget some unfortunate memory? Anyway.. regardless of those thoughts.. I got kind-of swept up in idea of perceiving the grand design via the musical experience. Got all excited about the purity of activities such as music, dancing, surfing, juggling, whatever. I guess it’s a bit trite, ala “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” but still I think the idea has significance. Whenever I get in the deep flow while jamming, it feels like the music is just out there. It doesn’t come from within me, but rather it’s just sitting in the air, ripe for the plucking. It seems like I play best when I don’t push for ideas but rather tred lightly with my mind, allowing myself to open up and listen intently to the current of sound. The world seems awash in rhythms and melodies, virtually floating all around. Carlos Santana once said that he doesn’t create the music, it’s just inherently existent in the universe. When he plays he feels like the music is the water. He’s the hose which the water flows through. The audience is the garden which the hose waters, allowing the flowers and plants in the garden to smile and grow.

Umm… soo.. does that relate to surfing? Am I talking out of my ass? Who knows?

PS… BVB (Agnes) hates us all!!!

BVB - why all the hate?

couple of paintings from fecalface.com
chinese dude

Esfoster painting
stump head

Posted by Ethan at 10:11 AM
October 05, 2004
Dreary and small… but??

Probably not much that’s particularly incredible out there this morning. But… I elected to sleep in soo who knows? Sharkbait or Klooless probably know. It was dark and morbid at the beach as the day began. Mysterious and energetic as thumping drums and tolling bells echoed faintly in the onshore breeze. I listened to a fantastic musician last night speak about the Divine. He suggested that the daily toilings of everyday life, the way in which many in our society encumber themselves with a multitude of things to keep them “busy,” was really a shying away from or putting off looking deep within the grand design of creation. The mystery, beauty and magic of this interconnected, grandiose, exquisite universe lingers all around us yet we turn our senses and our minds to more superficial dealings. For security? For comfort? For ease? We have an inkling that this undercurrent exists within and among us but we choose to focus on the mundane, the everyday. This musician waxes about how lucky he feels to be able to seek this energy that courses through everything; binding, interconnecting, loosening, radiating. He discussed how after years and years of playing in the band, each of the band members had become open and accepting of the other members attributes and flaws. To the point of sometimes encouraging those flaws; probing and exploring the musical flaws in search of new ground and novel experiences. I felt uplifted hearing this musician articulate his understanding of meaning and existence. He talked about seeing the joy in people’s faces as they looked up to the stage, dancing and smiling, letting go for a few moments from the lock-step severity that often fastens down modern man. Of course… life itself isn’t meant to be all joyous and celebratory, if so those pungent emotions would lose their meaning. But, it’s good to be reminded that we are but temporal conglomerations of biomass, existing for a fleeting instant within an ever-morphing, evolving, fantastic enigma of universal significance. If that is so why not latch on to that which is joyous, that which is deep, that which is profound. Why bury yourself in meaningless clutter at the expense of that which makes you happy.

You only live once.

Check out the new “posts from the past” section in the upper right.. the current post is from J.O.C in 2003.

mundaka

Occy gettin' pitted

Coming to us this Friday?


Posted by Ethan at 10:05 AM
October 04, 2004
Monday morning blues.

It’s all but gone out there this morning. Small, crumbly, meager windswell-surf on hand as we speak. This weekend began with a bang and ended with a whimper, to borrow an oft-used phrase. After a Friday night of revelry Lerminade woke Dr. DENI!! and I up for the super-early Saturday morning low-tide dawnie. It ended up being small, glassy and fun. The crowds descended around 9am but it never got crazy-crowded. We surfed for a while and watched in awe as a few seasoned rippers tore the place up. Damn. Sometimes it makes a man want to hang it up and retire. But at the same time it’s inspiring to see people killing it. It makes you want to turn your own game up a few notches. Soo.. after a fulfilling session we cruised back to the house, showered and then hit up the Sea Breeze for pancakes and omelettes and such. Scarfed that down then back to the house for wee little jam. Lerm gave me this look like, “dood, let’s go surfing again.” Deni was already asleep on the couch. Hmm… We popped in the bonus sequence from “Shelter” and watched the Taylor Knox segment a few times while pulling a few tubes to get psyched. Lerm and I then jogged down for a second sesh with one goal in mind, “HIT THE LIP!” That was the goal. As it turned out the higher tide kinda prevented the formation of many tasty lips but we found some sections anyway. Poaching on the inside ended up being the call and we traded waves on this nebulous peak for a few hours. Just the two of us on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Not too many lips had been cracked after an hour or so… until this one left rose up and presented its smooth inner-thigh-like deliciousness to me. I backside pumped a few times down the line and then steered up toward the lip as the wave began to close-out. I did my best to blast all my energy into that closeout lip and then changed direction really quick as the wave collapsed and closed-out toward shore, with me riding it out.. Schhweeeet.

Then it was serious nap-time for yours truly. After a good hour and a half of “System of the World” reading.. Neal Stephenson is the farkin’ man!

Yesterday was pretty dainty but still enjoyable for the dawn-patrol. Not too many takers and just mellowish groundswell leftovers. Werewolf out there carving some nice turns on his self-shaped boards. Good to see. My friend CJ paddled out with me and charged some larger waves. I predict that within the year there will be a new OB lady shredder in town. Oh yeah..

Soo.. looks like we might have some fun-sized waves trickling in this week. Sean Collins was nice enough to post forecasts on E’s surf report over the weekend. Blakestah predicts a real Aleutian groundswell to alight our shores at the end of this week. Soo. Get your guns waxed up.

Also.. does anyone know the deal with “GRAS” shapes? Lerm owns a GRAS fish that he really likes and I received an email from someone inquiring about them. Rumor has it that they're shaped right here in town, in Bernal Heights? What’s the scoop?

anyone want to longboard skate after work today if it's not too wet? Either Ortega street or twin peaks coarse? Korewin? Traut? CK? Kaiser?

i know that many of you dislike the polished "ASP photos" but.. the waves in France over the weekend were off the proverbial hook.. check em'.

Andy beat brother Bruce in the final. Slates and Slappy Garcia were the other semi finalists.


Posted by Ethan at 10:07 AM
October 01, 2004
Magic Morning

Sometimes it just comes together. Wind, swell, tide, friends, health, state-of-mind, etc. This morning was one of those times. One of my old-school friends Dr DENI!!! made his way into town, stayed in Sausalito last night, and then met me at my place this morning for a session. Last night i had a stellar evening with my good friend CJ... saw Neal Stephenson speak, ate sushi, conversed into the late pm, snuggled. Soo.. the positive vibrations were aligning for a good session this morning. We sauntered down to the local, over the great highway, and BLAM! Glassy headhigh A-frames up and down the beach! No shit! Nobody out for miles in either direction. We giggled to each other for a bit and then hit it. For some reason i felt really confident in the surf today (probably because i was showing my out-of-town homie the local turf). My body also felt really strong and flexible. I probably caught close to 30 rides this morning. Got a few narrelly lefts that raced along super fast and found me unusually balanced on my board, enough to rise up to the lip and slash some backside turns.. well.. at least it felt like that!! ha! who knows what it looked like. Caught a bunch of ledgified rights and was able to get up to the lip a bunch of times, sometimes numerous lip-hits on the same wave. Shiit.. I know it may seem that I’m blowin’ hot air about this morning’s session but the waves were truly offering it up. Ya want barrels, they’re out there. Roping glassy walls, yup. Ramps for airs, no problem. Pretty much whatever you desired was coming in. I’m bummed to hear that the NW is winding down because it’s nearing my ideal OB size right now. Semi-serious and energetic but not fear in the pit of my stomach I will crush you you must die death destruction annihilation hellfire OB. You know what I’m sayin’. Dr Deni’s friend (from Jersey) also joined us and after catching one wave (after 40 minutes of beat-downs and the like) he let out a primal yell and exclaimed, “That was the best wave I’ve had in a long time, It actually had a open face and I could turn! There weren’t 4 people trying to drop in on me!” Soo.. the dream lives on in California. For a little while at least.

Shiit.. soo.. I guess tomorrow all the weekend chargers will get a chance at a few as the NW swell winds down. I predict large crowds so get on it before 8 or after 12 or else you’ll be battling. All us everyday surfers should remember to give a few waves to the weekend crew.. This is their only time, let’s not be greedy.

Soo.. in recap.. if you missed it this morning.. it was pretty shitty.. kinda cold, inconsistent and lots of close-outs. Not many surfers around so you know it wasn’t too epic.
If you got some, good on ya.

seth took these photos of norcal last week

NZ waves from fluidzone.com

one for BBR

Posted by Ethan at 10:00 AM