A bit of windswell.
Not too much local wind.
Tomorrow maybe some offshores?
The Jones is setting in.

A few surf-flick reviews:
Seasons - This is an Ezekial movie with Ross Williams, Jon Rose, Rizal and a bunch of other folk. I really disliked this movie. One of the girls at Aqua told me she really dug it, that it was all trippy and creative. But.. i was continually annoyed with all the footage of the surfers not surfing. You'd see Rizal do a sick turn on an Indo left, then you'd see some pro prancing down the beach, then two guys laughing, then Brad Gerlach hamming it up, then an "artistic" shot of a cliffside, then finally another segment of someone ripping... sheesh.. then of course more cameos of pros drinking water or farting or whatever. Super annoying. The boys score some fun-but-cold Icelandic waves, which is interesting to watch. I also enjoyed watching all the young Balinese guys shred shredding shreddables. They have their own, distinctive style, as a group. Huge vertical attacks and no-fear, balls-out giant maneuvers. The Balinese guys rip! All in all this movie felt like some so-cal team manager grabbed a digital video camera and just filmed everything during 4 surf trips. Amateur and without style.

TK5 - this movie kills it! Thanks to Jocular for lending it to me. The film opens with Slater destroying it at T-poo. Epic epic slates footage of the man owning it on his backhand. Impossible barrels and hyper-radical lip-launches. Background dialogue of Slates discussing his approach to Teahupoo while you watch him anihilate on screen. Great segment to watch over and over and over again to school your backhand. The guy charges like nobodies business. Bummer that he lost in the third round to Bede Durbridge yesterday. TK5 then jumps to modern Curren shredding Rincon. You can't really beat an opening segment of Slates and then a follow-up segment with Curren. Effortless, stylish, aggressive flow. Grooving. Then Ratboy in Nias. Ratboy scores a huge swell and threads needles on monster perfect barrels with tropical palm-trees wafting in the background. Even though the Rat kinda seems like an asshole?? I've surfed with him a few times down in Santa Cruz and he's ridiculously good. He's not only an air guy. On big days on the west side Ratboy gets many of the best waves and just works them like a champ. The guy is deeply familiar with the barrel. There's a great Ozzie Wright segment in the Mentawais later in the vid. Basically a sick surf vid with some tight music brought to you from the maker of Punk Rock Surfers.

Surfers Journal Biography (Curren and Slater) - Just picked this up yesterday after getting gum surgery (crown lengthening)! yay! I haven't watched the Slater segment yet but the Curren one is pretty cool. I was bummed that much of the footage comes from Searching for Tom Curren. For the most part i didn't learn anything new about the guy. There is some cool quotes from the Occ, and also from Al Merrick and Slater and Curren himself. When asked about his quiet, reticent nature Curren responds, "I don't realy say anything because i don't feel like i have a lot to say." This one particular wave in the video really impressed me where Curren goes backside and steers vertically up the face for a massive lip cremation three times in a row down the line. Just Whack! Whack! Whack! It's cool to see Curren go backside. Lots of that classic J-bay footage when he's wearing the black and pink wetty. Some cool older footage that wasn't part of Searching for Tom Curren. Some amazing Pat Curren footage from Waimea and Makaha. Also in the end there's a little clip of Tom Curren surfing a spot very close to here. I'm stoked to watch the Slater part this weekend.

anyhoo.. peace out.

Jersey photos from jerseyjuice.com

John Veage shots of east coast of Australia (from sargesdailysurf.com)

Fanning

An hour into an intense jam-session last night in Oakland, I thought about the similarities between music and surf. Both hinge on the vibe and energy of the participants. Both are temporal, fleeting, and dynamic. A musical mantra that you hear around jazz and funk circles is "layin' back in the cut." It basically means getting way back into the deepest groove of the music. Reinforcing the fundemental movement and beat. Usually the drummer and bass player hang back in the cut, while the horns or guitar fly all over the map. There really are no rules, however. Each musician is left to his own ear and opinion about how to best contribute to the overall sound. Sometimes the music needs more reinforcement of the core groove, other times it needs manic, wide-arcing brush strokes of creativity. Good sessions happen when all participants are intently aware of the overall sound. All engage and listen and react. Hover between passion and restraint. When it comes together and everything clicks the energy is vibrant and full. Last night we had a few moments of transcendent rocking and i looked at the drummer and he was just smiling really wide with his eyes closed. The bass player rocked back and forth, channelling his inner muse. For me it felt like my fingers were moving with very little input from my brain. The notes were there in space, my body a conduit to the music already in existence. Our band a conduit to the deeper pool of different people, traditions, lives, pain, anguish, lust. A fleeting moment lost in time. Cherished.

First round of the Rip Curl Cup completed, along with 4 heats of round 2. No huge upsets yet. AI barely squeaked out of the losers round. Bede Durbridge surfed pretty huge. Slates beat Jamie Obrien and Chris Ward in round 1. Sunny advanced. Occy beat Tim Reyes in the losers round. The Lopez brothers continue to lose. bummer as i'm a fan of Shea and Cory.

Good day for the kites and windsurfers. A tough morning for regular-joe surfers. Way too much onshore wind for West-facing beaches. Not enough swell for protected spots. A teleport might get you to tropical northern Brazil for some decent head-high warm-water green funnels right now. The Mentawais and other Indian Ocean hot-spots are seeing 2 or 3 concurrent medium period swells. You might be scoring huge with pre-season lack of crowds at Lance's and Maccas. Maybe charter a boat to the Nicobars or the Andamans?

A semi-powerful low-pressure system just roared past Capetown, South Africa. So.. maybe teleport over to Port Elizabeth and sample some of the random, tucked-away goods between J-bay and Durban? Little right-point-break secrets. Maybe keep going up into Mozambique? Supposedly the shark-vibe is overblown in that beautiful, relatively crowd-free surf zone?

It also looks like a sizeable south swell is brewing for later in the week, at least for Puerto Escondito. Predicted 6ft 18second south swell for thursday down there. Juicy gyrating jackhammers. We (or at least Santa Cruz) might see traces of that 190 degree south late this week. hmm.. Beware the false-promise of the south swell.

Bells is being relocated to some more-exposed beach break 200 km. away. the contest should get underway today. Check out http://www.ripcurl.com/ripcurlpro

Some solid waves this past weekend.
Good Friday hooked it with chunky, messy speed-runs. Thanks to Bagel for coming over and getting me pumped before he went to work. First stony session in a while. NIIIIICE!!

Saturday saw some fun ramps and cylinders. One shaved-head guy near me was destroying shit!! I watched him tuck into 5 or 6 stalled-out tubes in about 40 minutes. He also punted a few solid airs. I thought he might be part of the Brigade so i kept my distance but it was highly educational to watch how he faded and then tucked himself back into those little barrels. Right spot at the right time. It was a great lesson to realize that good surfers can and do get plenty-o-barrels on the same waves were i get none, barely even see any. Guy was shredding.

Slates in Sydney (Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds)

Bells struggling

Morning sun after late-night showers.
Nare a soul seeking waves.
Frumpy chest-high thumpers.
Some glassiness.
Smelly, filthy water.
Pretty shitty.
Steep, pitchy drops.
Surfing as relaxation.
Surfing as an escape.
Surfing for pleasure.
Just surfing.

Thanks to all the good-vibers out there.

Tom Curren video

Amir sent me some amazing photos of jim denevan's beach drawings

Chucho photos from Mexico

Bells contest still on hold

Not much to cheer about in surf-land today. Crazy, tumultuous victory at sea conditions. Fabulous morning to sleep in.

Read a few heavy books recently.

"Roots," by Alex Haley traces the story of an African boy who grows up in a traditional rural village in the Gambia, West Africa. For 300 pages you read about the proud, stoic, beautiful ways of his people, the Mandinkas. Boyhood lessons with his father. Herding goats with his friends. Manhood training with the village elders. Listening to travelling griotes speak from memory of generations and generations of ancestors dating back to ancient Mali. Things are going good for Kunte Kinte until one day in his early teens he goes out searching in the forest for a good tree-limb from which to carve out a drum. Stories of slave-traders and foul-smelling "toubob" (white men) had circulated through the villages for years. Kunta had heard of people being snatched and stolen. But he didn't think it would happen to him. Next thing he knows he's being ambushed and captured by 4 men, three large africans and a white man. He's chained up and dragged for miles back to a slave port. Whipped, branded, shaved and greased, he's then dragged into a cramped and putrid slave boat. The story gruesomely relates the 5 month voyage across the Atlantic. Chained to a row of other stolen Africans. Lying in wooden shelves in the dark, covered in their own shit, vomit and fear. People dying around them. Brought to the surface of the boat once in a while to be sprayed down. Plotting death to all slave-traders. Living in a nightmare. Hallucinating. Stolen. Ripped from life. No knowledge of where they're going. Stories of a huge white devil in some strange land that devoures all Africans. Eventually landing in Annapolis. Sold at a slave auction. Chained and brought back to the plantation. Attempts at escape result in the chopping off of half his foot. Sold to another plantation owner. Revultion at the other slaves for being ignorant of their African Roots. Eventual gut-wrenching acceptance of being "owned." Kunte marries and has a child. Child grows up and eventually tries to help her lover escape to the North. The plan is foiled and Kunte's daughter gets sold to a "po white cracker massa" who rapes and beats her. She eventually bares a mulatto baby to that master. etc. the story goes on through the generations until the birth of Alex Haley himself.

Heavy heavy heavy story. Riveting and painful. What humans have done in the past and continue to do today is horrifying.

humans.

The other book is "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. Tons of people recommended this book. I had no idea how powerful and disturbing it would be. Told in the first person. A young Afghan boy grows up in a wealthy house. His servant and the servant's child are Hazara, Sh'ia muslims regarded as second class citezens. The narrator and child of his servant grow up best friends. They compete in the kite-fighting and kite-running competitions in Kabul. Until one day the narrator watches his friend get raped by a group of older boys let by a Hitler-loving sociapath named Assef. The narrator feels ashamed that he didn't help his Sh'ia companion. He lives with the guilt and remorse for years. The Russians invade Afghanistan and the narrator and his father escape to America. The story then describes the life of transplanted Afghani refugees in Fremont. For lack of a more apt description, Gnarly shit goes down. Check this book out.

anyway!!!

Jim Shaw sent some more fabulous photos along with this note:
The pier at Kelly's was a prominent feature. It was a landmark, you surfed the north side or the south side. That's Tambi Tavasieff shooting the pier bare skin. It was that or VFW. Lincoln Ave was rarely surfed, Moraga Pacheco Taraval even more rarely. Sloat was for those who feared the Kelly's gang and in particular the 'Power Squadron'. Truth be told, everyone was welcome anywhere, just beware of Gary Kingma and Bobby Truelove. Only altercations were on big peaky days with a narrow take off, but we all know most SF peaks are all over the place, so not much problem there.Here's some old pier shots and a couple of lovely Ticas.

Tough dealings this morning if you need to get shreducated.
Stormy and wild in town.
Scatological scroungings at Kelly's could do you wrong.
A bit of south in the wind creates some potential for a few nearby locales?
Snuggling trumped surf for me on this blustery morn.
SURRFF!!
The jones is beginning to creep up in earnest.
April is around the corner.
We're entering the surfing darkness of Spring and Summer.
A gut-wrenching nightmare-land where the onshores know no respite.
They blow and blow and wreak painful havoc on some otherwise playful windswell.
But... there are sections in the slop, lines in the muck.
Crowds dissipate and guns hibernate.
The dawn patrol rules and sunny afternoons are forgotten.
Sessions are balanced on one's imagination and creativity.
Love the junk. Embrace the crap.
Or... move to Indo for the summer.

tamborjim sent in some rad photos of Lindy, along with this message:
E, Lot of comments today about Pedro. We oldtimers called the point and creek area Pedro, down the beach towards the middle we called 'Wander Inn' because of some old club that used to be there. It used to be great until the 1969 super storm hit everywhere and changed the bottom. Here's some photos from 1967. 'Flash' Gordon at the point, Tommy Ross, now SF Firefighter, great style, contest 1967.

Bells yesterday

The waves are out there.
Watched two guys paddle out at a very unusual spot.
I pulled up just as they were waxing up and one of the guys shot me the angriest skinkeye i've ever received! Scary. I didn't see them catch any during the 20 minutes i watched. Good on em for braving a wild and burly spot.

Not really much on offer for the dawn-patrol crew. Large and menacing through the aves. Linda Marginal exactly that. Bombs out near Sharp Park. If you had the day off and a full tank of gas i'm sure you could score pretty huge somewhere.

Saturday the coast was lit up pretty good. 4-mile closing our the whole bay. Wave-ski, sea-kayak wave riding competion at the Lane. A few surfers defying the ban on surfing to poach a few lurchy, lumpy mushy peaks. One of the best wave-skiers wearing NO WETSUIT! On a chilly/windy afternoon. Crazy. Joctastic and i decided against surfing and instead hit up Pizza My Heart. A respectable effort for a west coast pizzeria!

After watching a stream of surfers descend on one particular spot while i was out surfing, my mom commented to me later, "Why are all the surfers so unfriendly? None of them smile or wave and they all look really angry."

Good to catch a few with the legendary Robme.

Pretty good March so far.

Curren

pigdog hell-drop

photos from the 6-star Salomon Masters in WA

niceness

It all started in Shoeville one cold, morbid evening.
I ventured outside not sure i was seeing.
My mind seemed not right since that terrible crash.
Knowledge of dreaming or reality just a jumbled up mash.

I stumbled around like some drunken lost cause.
Wandered into a tavern to see what i saw.
The faces grotesque, all sneering and bleery
I cringed from the sight and ran for a clearing.

But the more that i spun, the more that i panicked
The more that those faces just jeered, bit and ravaged.
I couldn't escape, i couldn't get out.
The crowd kept pushing me down, drowning my shout.

Then from the nightmare i awoke, sweaty and scared.
Why were all those people so angry and flared?
Smeared through my mind came phantasmagorical visions.
Demon-spawn fang-dripping puss-spewing quicksand.

all artwork by Jose Emroca Flores

Lerm and i shared a peak.
Nobody else around.
Waves cruised in here and there.
A few were nice and round.

Dolphins played and lolled about.
Arcing out of the water.
The dorsel fins an eery site
A reminder of the predator.

Wedging lefts came loping in.
Pick and choose with care.
Set your rail, down the face,
Some barrels you could snare.

Days weeks months and years.
Lives go passing by.
The little things are the juicy bits
Find em and suck em dry.

A few stinkeye photos from last week

Sterling King ceramic paintings

Portugal cutback

Same expression, different medium

The individual factors were present (lower tide, crossed up SW and NW swells, not bad wind, sunshine, no crowds) but it just wasn't coming together this morning at the beach. One sandbar hosted a pack of 10 or 15 dawn-patrollers who looked to be having a good time. A kneeboarder was killing it with some stylish carves and lines. Different parts of the beach expressed different idiosyncrasies. One part did the inner-bar dumpy closeout thing. Another area did the outer-bar threaten-to-break but then backoff followed by inner-bar sandy shore-dump. Amid the morass you could sniff out tasty sections here and there, especially toward the middle of the beach, where more poundings seemed to correspond with more shred potential. I mind-surfed a few high-speed cavernous grinders as I watched from the dunes but in the end ended up bailing on the surf mission in favor of an extra 40 minutes of snooze time.

It's out there if you want it.

Thanks SOOO much to Tom, Bagel, Pez, Lerm, MWSF, Robme, Tom V, Jenny, Aiko, Gadiel, TK, Jess, CJ, Brenda, Paul and all others for representing STRONG at the 12 Galaxies last night. You guys rule! Thanks so much for coming out! Thanks to Zotz for putting the show together. We had a friggin' blast playing our set!! It's hard to know how it really went because nobody is going to come up and say, "That shit was weaksauce my friend, go back to the minors!" But, everyone in the band agreed that it was the best we'd ever played together. Psyched! Next week we're going into the studio to record a 7-track CD. I'll post mp3s on niceness when it's finished.

Rob sent me a link to his cool surf site... check it.

It looks like Punta Roca in La Libertad is on the list of endangered waves. Check out savethewaves.org. I spent nearly 2 weeks in this area last summer and scored one magic day at Punta Roca. The wave is unreal. Big, hollow, serious, walling, high-intensity, uber-quality righthand pointbreak in ridiculously warm bathwater. Jake and i made it past the crackheads on the point and paddled out to a dream session. The local surfers around there are refreshingly friendly (and talented!!). Punta Roca is probably amongst the top 20 waves on earth. It would be a damn shame to see it destroyed.

a few photos from www.santacruzlineup.com

Just wrote a huge report and lost it all to a buggy computer!!! argh!!
surf!
glassy.
Largish.
long waits.
Rampaging cylinders of doom here and there.
PaulB on a nice one.
Goatboater crazy drop.
lines.
Hordes of folk checking it. Not many takers.
Humongoid biff on my first ride.
Sucked up and around and then held down.
Still a kook after all these years.
Locked into a few later on.
Crystal-clean sunny clarity today.
Enjoy it!

Open Realm TONIGHT!! 9pm sharp!! Our set is only 35 minutes, so don't be late. 12 Galaxies. 22nd and Mission. Small cover charge.

Jim Shaw sent in some nice photos

Guaranteed killer surf this morning because i missed it. Most likely fun, head-high, uncrowded perfection. I'm sure there were dolphins, whales, otters, seals and puffins playing and frolicking in the surf zone. I'm sure that Tom Curren showed up and gave people waves and smoked heads out on the beach with some homegrown Santa Barbara Skunk #5. I'm sure that Al Merrick rolled up with a huge 18-wheeler and gave away hundreds of freshly-shaped boards to the regular Monday morning crew. I also bet that some weird reverse-upwelling (downwelling) occurred, making the water temp a balmy 77 degrees. Most likely some crazy, once-in-a-century sandbar formed near my house that offered unprecedented 300-yard rights. I'd bet there were a gentle smattering of good-natured folks in the lineup. Everyone hooting each-other and taking turns on the best peaks. Bikinis and board-shorts only. Also i'm sure that an old Spanish Treasure Galleon was recently unearthed by the formation of the new sandbar, exposing millions of dollars worth of gold coins and booty. All those surfing came away tens of thousands of dollars richer. Out from the exposed ship came an enchanted, beautiful group of sparkling mermaids. Each of the mermaids swam to the surface, exposing their well-endowed midriffs to the elements and began humming and singing a mesmerizing chant. The surfers kept on merrily riding the freight-train rights while the mermaids sang and the gold shimmered and the dolphins lept and Curren chilled.

yup.. most definitely a disgustingly ridiculous surf day! Enjoy! Enjoy it for all us cube-dwellers.

Also.. tomorrow night at the 12 Galaxies (22nd and Mission). 9:30 sharp!! Open Realm takes the stage for it's premier gig. Gospel Rock croonings. Jammy Rap. Unpretentious flow. Be there.

Africa

California

Hot.
Offshores.
Funky, not-so-inviting conditions.
Surfable for sure.
Nary a soul on the dawn-patrol.

What if:
What if perfect surf conditions alighted all world-wide beaches/reefs/points everyday, all day, all year?
Ocean Beach head-high+, 5ft 12second inner bar glassy radiance guaranteed. Every peak a winner. All the way down to Sharp Park. Heaps and heaps of waves. Lindy peeling and succulent. San-O style lefts at the South end. Trestles rights up north. The Jetty wedge working and grinding all the time. Every dog has its day every day. Would surfing lose any of its allure? Would crowds mushroom out of control? Imagine every pocket beach in Marin producing a point-break left and right at each end. Tennessee Valley Beach tossing out funnelling barrels at each end. Muir beach longboard heaven. What place, if any, lives closest to this ideal of guaranteed perfection every day? Mentawais? Bali? Yallingup? Santa Cruz?

What if humans could elect be invisible to each other. Imagine surfing Steamer Lane and somehow crafting it so that you could only see/bump-into/be-aware-of those people that you elect. I could see myself, Lerm, Kaiser and Jake on a perfect low-tide session but nobody else. It would appear to us that we're the only ones in the water. Meanwhile, hundreds or thousands of simultaneous crowd-free sessions are happening at the same time, at the same place, on the same waves. Two humans occupying the same space without interfering with each other.

What if cars could fold up into credit-card-sized gadgets? No parking issues.

What if we knew the world would end in 10 years. How would things change?

What if you could surf the way you wanted.

So Cal during this last swell (photos by Alan K)

Be the change you want to see in the world
- Mahatma Gandhi

ALSO!!! Tuesday March 15th my band Open Realm has a show at the 12 Galaxies. We're the first of three bands and our 45 minute set starts at 9:30. 12 Galaxies is at 22nd and Mission. ROCK!

Still man-sized out there.
A little funky/lumpy.
Reports of Rincon ruling.
Gargantuan Grenada
Sagacious Santa Cruz
Monster Mavs
Got up around 4:30 and found some waves.
Forced to use water-logged green-lantern board.
A few ledgy drops and some kookish down-the-line meandering.
One narrelesque moment.
Good times in the drink.

Never buy OAM leashes!!!

Absolutely ridiculously gorgeous day.

Cool to see pony-tailed Bagel on the way to work! Didn't even recognize that newfangled hippy art-guy shredder-dude.

peace be with you.

(photos from surfline)
archy

pottz

Tom Carroll

hardman

Sunny

Lindy

Narabean

Sloat

Oahu

rising swell

15.4ft 17seconds at the SF buoy.

Anyone brave the beach this morning?

26ft 20 seconds on the Papa buoy this morning.
BIG!
If winds stay mellow, tomorrow afternoon at Mavs should be insanity.

Other places will be psychonautic as well.

Offshores this morning.. but.. big and angry out there.

Know your limits.

Cool Anime (thanks to Lerm for introducing me!):
Doomed Megalopolis
Ghost in the Shell
Ninja Scroll
Princess Mononoke
Vampire Hunter D
Akira

Brian Barneclo artwork (from fecalface.com)

Sylvia Ji

Fanning beat Wardo in the final of the Snapper contest! Go the albino!! Awesome!!

Wardo Destruction

surf like Macca

A good day NOT to be a 9-5er.
No wind this morning.
Pretty glassy.
Negative low tide all afternoon.
Think south.
Didn't see the beach but jogged down to Baker and some waist-high shore-pounders were on offer. Maybe for the skimboard crew?
Blakestah and others predict a meaty swell for Wednsday and Thursday.
Get it while you can.

Remember - if you don't have the skills to surf a high-quality, crowded spot, just watch from the afar instead of paddling out.

Try not to be a hassler for waves.

Don't be too ambitious in a crowded lineup. Keep it chill.

Sometimes 30 scrappy rides with no hassles on the inside can be better than 2 insane rides from the peak that you had to fight for.

Take your time paddling back to the peak after a good ride. Pick off a few insiders. Let others sit on the peak for a bit. Let the lineup cycle naturally.

Talked to Alex Martins last night and he surfed Mavs both days this weekend. Onshore, big and wild. Not many people out. Can you imagine going down to Mavs for a leisurely Sunday afternoon session? That guy is gnarly. Saw Robme's board in the garage. Also Ryan Seelbach's Mavs gun.

Snapper Rocks set to finish today. Bruce vs. Andy in round 4. Wardo blitzed Taj in round three and blazes ahead. Occy still in it. Parko. Fanning. Slates. Should be sick. aspworldtour.com

A few photos from J.O.C.

Snappah

Slates Slanking

Can AI do it again in 2005? I hope not!

Waves for those with jones.
A few made the paddle.
Didn't see any rides.
Looked a bit sea-sicky.
Onshores and rain.
Smaller than yesterday.
Empty for those who dig solo sessions.

3 hour band practice last night. Again tonight. Mark your calendars: March 15 "Open Realm" plays the early set at 12 Galaxies. We're currently slightly better than total suckage. I think we go on around 8 or 8:30. Trying to lock down our songs now. Tightening and tightening and tweaking and adding. Being in a band is a bit like being in a relationship. A give and take between people. Highs and lows. Who's the leader? How much do you compromise. Sometimes things are fabulous and sometimes you get bummed. Some of the songs are created by the group, they're my favorite. The keyboardist might come up with the first groove and then the bass player suggests a second part and then the drummer crafts a little ditty to bring it back around. Music is such a strange and fascinating kernal of humanity. Tied into spirituality. Temporal. Communicative. Expressive. Emotional. Ancient Africans used talking drums to communicate village to village. music at weddings. music in movies. South Indian mrthingum complexity. 15 tone octave. Indonesian dancers tell stories with their eyes and fingers. Balinese Gamelan. Indian Santoor ragas. Tuvan throat-singing, harmonics upon harmonics. Music to get pumped for surf. Melodies reverberating through our heads as we think. Our brains recreate sound where there is no sound. The mind's ear. White noise drone. Unintended symphonies. Rhythm within nonsense. Cars splash through puddles form a beat. Flock of birds take flight from a lake and pound out a syncopated rhyme. Rhythm in everything. Wind-shield wipers, keyboard tapping, waves lapping, lips cracking.

Surrrrf.

A few Paul Ferraris gems

Not a soul for miles.
Heavy, smooth, funnelling peaks.
Biatch paddle-out.
Chopping blocks on the outside.
Good ones if you can work it.
Nice day for a thin, 7'2" minigun.
Slight offshore.

Every 3 or 4 months I get a muscular back spasm in my upper back. It happens in one moment and then is sore for a while. This time it happened when i lifted my board off the top of the car. I feel the muscle spaz and i know it's going to hurt for a week. SUcks! It alternates between right and left side. It puts me out of commission for a week or so while i wait for it to settle down. Anybody else deal with this? I guess Yoga and less slouching in my office chair would help.

Awesome day for surf fans yesterday. The mavs contest went off, with West Side Santa Cruz grom Anthony Tashnick winning. I've witnessed him be a loudmouthed brat in the water but others have seen his niceness side. Either way the kid charges charging chargeables. Chargalicious!

Also the first round of the ASP contest at Snapper Rocks went down. Jezarks, that wave farking rules! Warm-water, sand-bottom, longer-than-long right-hand pointbreak. The kind of wave that grows and continually reforms as it meanderes down the point. Too bad it's normally overflowing with legions of frothing Aussie rippers. Bede Durbridge came up huge in his first ASP heat. Bruce Irons had him comboed with a combined 17.5 (out of 20) with 10 minutes left and Bede found two sick rides to overtake BI. solid. Sucks that Wardo lost a close one. Sunny advanced. So did AI, Slates, Joel, Taj and Neco. Hopefully more today at http://www.aspworldtour.com/live/

artifact photo from the Mavs contest yesterday

Korewin's buddy took these in NC

pipe antics

11ft 17 second west swell.
Sunny skies.
Slight offshore wind.
10,000 screaming spectators strewn over beach and cliff.
Tide low and dropping.
Glassy.
West swell low tide triple-overhead beasties pounding and roaring.
Long lulls between sets.
Jockeying Flea and Brock Little for position deep in the bowl.
Flea keeps pushing you deeper and deeper, taunting you.
Calling you a city-boy pansy kook.
"Go back to OB, Castro boy"
Blips appear on the horizon and the crowd on the cliff begins to shout.
The boats in the channel gun their engines to avoid the approaching set.
Flea grabs your leash (ala the movie North Shore) but you kick away and position yourself behind the bowl.
The huge freight train of a wave lifts you up and you scratch and dig on your 9'10" to get in.
The wave gulps and bottoms-out and you air-drop into oblivion.
You free-fall for 10 feet but then gloriously connect toward the bottom of the wave.
Eyes watering and your face peeled back from the ridiculous velocity you turn hard off the bottom and look up at the massive, quadruple-overhead, lip-chucking wall next to you.
Shit.. this thing is throwing.
Insinctively you take a high line and just scoot under the 4-ton curtain of aquatic death.
In the cathedral green room. You hear cacophonous echoes of oceanic spirits.
You see the oval escape route but you're not making this one.
Suddenly everything turns black and you're way down under water.
Your shoulder feels like it's wrenched toward the middle of your back and your foot just kicked your head.
Ragdolled and spinning and lost.
Black black nothingness.
Open your eyes and maybe that's the surface way way up there.
Try not to panic.
One leg unresponsive.
One arm aching.
Kick with the one good leg toward the light.
Just... about... make... it..
Get one foamy, save-your-life, gurgly breath then see a 20 foot mountain of white-water headed strait for you.
Again with the darker than night ragdolling.
Pulling.
Angry.
Distant siren song of Davey Jones growing louder.
Grim Reaper taps your shoulder and smiles.
His seductive breath beckons you forward.
But... something else fights for your recognition.
No!! Must deny death's empty promise.
Eery, centering, inner calm.
Notice the sun through miles of water.
Swim toward it.
Black specks and hallucinations cloud judgement.
Finally pop up into the air of life.
Shawn Alliodo whips in on the jetski and whisks you toward the channel.
Broken leg, broken collarbone.
One of the largest barrels ever attempted.
Stoked.

(photos from mavsurfer.com)

Andrew Chisholm photo

Waves out there. Big ones.
With some driving, an open mind and some sack you could find action today. Good luck and know your limits.

But.. enough of my blabbering. A talented surfer nearly drowned at a local beach the other day. If not for the heroism of a few individuals things might have turned out differently. Reality Check and Pez helped bring this surfer to safety. This is what they had to say:

I am one of the absent minded buddys of the guy pulled out of the water on Saturday. It was by far the heaviest thing I have ever seen in almost 20 years of surfing in the area. The guy who went unconscious is a very solid surfer who excels in the biggest & meanest OB can dish out. Fortunately Saturday was not one of those days.

Out of respect for privacy I don't want to go into too much detail but I think recounting the story could help save lives down the road. Basically how it started is I hear someone screaming which I mistakenly assume is some asshole barking for some surf etiquette breach but then I see what he is motioning to which is a someone floating unconcsious with their board tombstoning. To my absolute horror I recognize my friends board and that it is him. I paddle over to him just as the guy who first saw him does. At this point I think I went into a state of semi shock as it seemed more like a nightmare than reality. Fortunately the guy that initially saw him knew CPR and began giving mouth to mouth along with another friend that came over. Basically four of us pulled him into the shorebreak(right where the rocks are) so we had to pull him north to actual beach. At that point a bunch of other people ran down and jumped into the water fully clothed to help pull him to shore. Once we got him to shore he started to breathe again and fortunately the EMS got there really quickly. I don't think he fully came to until he was in back of the ambulance but he is fine now. Me personally I would like to thank every single person that helped bring him in, the guys that jumped in fully clothed, the person that saw us waving from the water & dialed 911, EMS for a really speedy response, and especially the guy that first saw him, got in there quickly with emergency breathing assistance. If someone here knows him, please re thank him for me.

Lessons learned from this experience:
1. Every single surfer should know at least basic CPR, after this experience I just signed up for a course.

2. Always keep an eye on others in the lineup you never know who could need help.

Posted by: Reality Check

Hey all....been a long time since I have posted. Work has been a drag and preventing me from browsing as well as surfing.

I hope that folks do not mis understand my intentions by publicizing that I was that initial guy who saw and helped reality checks buddy. I am very releived to hear he is ok and glad that everything went well.

Its a real intense situation that truely disturbs me and left me slightly distraut. I also just want to thank you guys for comming to our aid and putting forth all of your efforts.

This guy has a few people to thank, the first being is himself. I dont know how I know, but this guy wanted to live. It didnt take much work to get him breathing again and he just seemed to not want to give up. All of you who assume that he should not be in the water in the first place, please fuck off as you are probably the type of surfers who were 10 yards closer than I was or taking off on a wave towards his body only to ignore the situation. You know who you are and luckily I have already forgotten your faces as I seriously wish it were you face down in the water rather than someone who has the drive and courage to do something that is potentially dangerous and is told "you cant do that". That guy has some spirit and despite this event I sincerely hope he doesnt quit surfing. Maybe the sea was sending a message, but I for one will welcome this guy in any lineup.

He owes a lot to his friends who not only helped bring him in but put themselves at risk to assist. I also really think he responded to thier voices and he should feel comfortable knowing he has genuine friends who care for him and wanted him to make it through. They also worked like fucking hell to get him in. I can only hope that my friends would put in the same effort for me given the situation.

I would have done this for anyone out there in the water including people I dont like. A lot of us surfers need a reality check, a good look in the mirror and an attitude change. Surfing is not supposed to be like the rest of society, where we get ahead by ignoring others needs and stepping on people/ideals to get ahead. Its not supposed to be about "HEY I GOT IT!" or "did you see me on that wave". The spirtual element of surfing is dying and self centeredness, greed, selfishness and vanity within us is killing it. Im still going to surf as there are good surfers with sound characters who still inspire me. Sounds corny but EDDY WOULD GO can teach us a lot about surfing and what it means to take part in this blessing that is surf. Surfing has soul and you either are destroying it, enslaving it or allowing it to embrace you.

Please send my thanks to that guy as he both reminded me of many things and inspires me to not only challange myself in surfing but more importantly in life. I WANT TO LIVE TOO!!!!!

Posted by: pez

Pez - hopefully you'll be shot out of one of these soon (Sarge photos)

Hog no fear

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