happy new year with elliot smith

dawn ruminations

been up since five. folded the laundry, made some breakfast. sipping on coffee now listening to Midnite. it's really cold. minus 8 C. icy too. no matter. leaving here inna short while to check the points. the wind is still gusting to thirty kilometers so it's sure to be cold in the line up. paddle to stay warm. if I only surfed for riding waves I'd go back to bed. to see the sun rise and the steam coming off the harbour is enough to get me outta bed.

someone once said to me with reprimand "why be complacent?" perhaps I'm complacent about the state of things. and as a man blessed and fortunate, and if your reading this you too are fortunate, must I fight against humanities inhumanity? I suppose I could get up and fight -contribute to the violence and strife. no. I will not. if it's just this one go round I get then I am going surfing. I'll watch the sun rise and the wind blow -the snow fall, turn to ice and then wash away with the warming rain. from morning to sundown I'll be a watcher and a walker, feeling myself moving through space with all senses peaked. if you see me wave and smile and I'll do likewise. I will do my best not to judge you. I will hope that you too feel the wind. the wind is not delirious and absurd.

cy sutton + right point + fish

a right point of mellow yet perfect proportions combined with a wide tailed, twin keeled fish of small stature and you have what is perhaps one of the best short sequences I've seen in a while. cy sutton makes movies. he also surfs masterfully.

waiting room

you got beef?

nah man i ain't got no beef!

yes indeed. our man of mystery and easy livin is back in his element wearin a 3x2 and slidin an alaia like it ain't nobody's biness. peep the clean cutbacks and cheater fives on the finless flexy flier. go cyrus go!

peep: pelagic lovin

My good friend Crusty B has been quietly developing a thoughtful collection of posts on a blog titled Pelagic Lovin. Surfically trained on the heavy waves of Kauai, Crusty has more style than attitude and paddles out every time. Check out this post-air re-entry on his futuristic swallow tailed quad sled. Shoots.

canadian's can surf

ever wonder if Canada has good surfers? you decide. here's a recent video of West Coaster Pete Devries ripping some mainland Mex beachies. he can also surf like this in 6x4mm winter suit.

good things

here's a good piece of Jamaica culture via U Roy from the late 1970's. these days there's Armageddon in Haiti, genocide in Darfur, cholera outbreaks in Zimbabwe, food riots in Bolivia, mass exodus of migrant workers back to their impoverished homelands all over Europe and Asia... and I live here in this little bubble. free to surf and enjoy a life not of my choosing but indeed of my design.

we choose every day no? I vacillate sometimes but more times I begin to know what I want and which way to go.

easy -go easy. don't tread hard on the land. I heard that advise from so many Rasta singers and thinkers. "tread light pon de land." in some Rastafarian beliefs the individual is the I and the creator/creation is the I. therefore to be free, to achieve enlightenment you must be I and I. you must be one. you must tread lightly upon the earth and respect your fellow man.

the passenger

surfed out. my shoulders are sore. my neck a kinked tweak. rocks icy on the way to the point in the mid-morning sun. surreal after 13 feet at 12 seconds yesterday. like city buses without street lights at rush hour. disorganized like the night wildflowers. one drop here and a closed door. another drop there and a run down the line to plump shoulder. fat like the seal rotting on the beach bloated. like life on mars.

style

natural style. Flex.

DH committed



Danforth


Favourite blogs at the moment:

Hydrodynamica
Wooster Collective
The Frontside Rock & Roll Review
Pushingtide
The Fresh Aspect

row

had two sessions this week. surfed almost four hours Monday with just a few others. slightly overhead, barreling, fast, snow on the bluff and everywhere.

then again this morning. small kine, the tide too high, the swell angle better for that other point but work got in the way. lots of clean little waves, turns and flowing with some cool heads. I give thanks for these days of nature and cold and feeling alive and not numb.

more time things are not as they seem. clouds of doubt and distilled grains can impede some clear thoughts. other times they allow thoughts to flow from a place usually hidden. more time I just don't flow. nature must take over. I remember my good friend TT. gone up the road on his his bike, calves flexin and tires smokin and he's gone for a spin and his nature takes over. it's like surfin too I reckon. if you learn to paddle and catch waves then just forget those things and let nature take over. one hit off the top gets you the speed to make it 'round the section and then set the rail and trim and you know the rest. can't fight it. why bother. grace and style come when the ego is out of the way. and yet I may as well be everyman. not superman. conscious man but not rasta man. ego trippin. thinkin 'bout the me and the I all the time. that's what this page is for innit? don't know why some of you keep comin back. maybe you want to know about surfing. haven't missed a swell in two and half years. but I cannot write about it time after time. it's fleeting. I got a wave yesterday that made my hair stand on end. now I can't recall it. so it goes. and yet I look at these keys and I'm prodded by some unseen hand to go on and push on this button and then that. to string a few words together to make a sentence. but it don't make sense. all of this that we've created. as I said before it's absurd. you have to laugh. and go surf. and use things. and abstain and revel. you have to cry and dance. you have to run! when's the last time you ran? you have to carry your own weight. figuratively and literally. and all the while letting go of ego. flowing. like pelicans surfing Mexican waves. like bees bringing home pollen. like bike messengers in Manhattan. like eels in reefs. like the cycle of the sun and moon. are you still reading? goodnight.

drop

takin a stance away
from the puppet mans dance
gone surfing at sunrise
like steam coming off the harbour
air colder than water
like not tryin and tryin
like doin and doin
see yuh in the lineup
I'll be there at first light

style - duane peters

nothing to say except I need to try harder

respec

Often we get to see images of people surfing in amazing locations like the Mentawais or in huge waves like Pipe. I wonder how many of us though would really have the balls or the skills to surf Pipe or Waimea on a big day?

I'm fairly certain that I couldn't make a go of it at Pipe -even if it was just me and D$ in the line up. So when I see a photo like the one above of Flea takin a macker on the head I get a little quiet. Those guys have a different personality type altogether. Sure it's just surfing. But as men who use their wits and tendons and muscles to get through a heavy life they are grand. respec!

the Eddie is on in 25 to 30 foot waves.

more style

MP with rail in deep.

yesterday a friend told me that apathy wasn't a desirable world view. perhaps an absurdist view is more palatable and humorous.

here' a little quote from one the English language's best absurdist writers Mr. Vonnegut -"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before... He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."

so in the spirit of narcissism and egocentric obsession I wish you all a grand day. may you smell the dog shit on the sidewalk and enjoy the gratuitous violence on TV. may you feel compelled to participate in compulsory consumption during this joyless holiday season and may you get all the things you didn't want or need. for life as we've made it is absurd and delirious and for that we should be shameful.

now where is the next swell?

Wilco & Young

surfed a perfect point yesterday with Blacks. then we went to see Wilco and Neil. done.

it's friday afternoon

...and my eyes bleedin from typin reports and starin at this here screen. so I dedicate this little diddy to all you hardworkin boys and girls out there. we're makin the cog turn but for what I don't know. everyone talks about productivity, profitability, efficiency and for what?

nuff people tell me all the time they think I'm lucky for bein passionate about somethin -in my case surfin. sometimes I wonder why a lightbulb don't spark in their own gray matter. don't they want a passion too? if I didn't surf in my dreams, at my desk and at sunrise I may as well be dead. I got this body, these tendons and guts, and aim to use 'em goddammit!

what?

charlie daniels - recognize