fun

some people really know how to have fun. B and her sis are those people.

photo booth shenanigans

St Pete Moe

florida in december

sunny and green. the big oaks bearded with gray spanish moss. on my run yesterday a four-foot-long otter crossed the road in front of me on his way to greener pastures and less slime covered lakes. cows. stray cur dogs in the yard. cans of assorted American beers fillin bags and crate. full belly bloated from too much of everything. uncle R. Grannie. pops and mom. Jack the furry dog lickin Moe's foot bottoms with love. brother and I winnin at bolas criollas. me talkin shit to my Dad as he smokes me on the court 12 to 3. beers with brother and sister. dominoes smakin the fold out card table and me gettin yelled at about "wakin the baby!" Matina making us all laugh to tears with pure charisma. fresh OJ from the trees in the yard. family. big oaks. spanish moss. no surf in the middle of the orange groves and forgotten phosphate mines.

sloppy choppy and thats all we got

D$ on bamboo


our man on the beach Burry got some shots of proof that fat floats

hangin with D$

Florida beach breaks are
like day old tortillas

soft and crumbly

casual dismisal

it’s easy to forgo the beauty
of solemn gray morning skies
of rain drops dripping
from tree into puddle
on blacktopped streets
peace of dawn
subdued sunrise upon gray skies
the quiet listening of a
favourite morning song
the looks on the faces
of mother and baby
in deep sleep
sometimes when too much time is
misspent on life’s listless noise
it’s easy to forget the beauty
of life’s livity
consciousness shouldn’t be
casually
dismissed
viewing, feeling, tasting
sensing
daily
intentionally

Kingston Town

and the classic UB40 tune

huh?

it was really really good this morning. overhead sets with long walls. where was everyone? thanks for not showing up. I got to ride some mackers with just three other guys. we watched an amazing sunrise, then I had an icy walk back to the car and snowy bike ride in to work. doesn't really get any better eh.

last week's DIY

61 bottles of traditional red ale


board sock for my 5'8" fish -doubles as a body prophylactic

note B's print in the background. full image some other time with her permission.

winter surf

the greatest aspect of surfing in winter in Nova Scotia is that it's never crowded. in fact, there's hardly ever anyone out come November.





images stolen from MSW from last Sunday's north swell

human conditioning

paddled out into what looked like perfect overhead rights from the vantage of the bluff. I had the 6’3” under arm -shoulda had the 6’8” for paddle power. so much water moving made it hard to paddle for the 8 to 10 foot peaks. got stuffed a bunch. cut two slashes into my brand new winter suit with sharp glass fins. can’t imagine what woulda happened to my rear had I been skinning it. big bomb sets swept through the lineup. homeboy on the Flyer was in perfected position for a macker and rode it with style as we three sat on the shoulder in resigned drift.

paddled out again the next sunrise. walked down the trail, two boards under arm and a backpack with winter gear, skirting mud holes in the darkness. clean lines left over but all power gone now. big seals watched as Blacks and I shared the dregs of the previous day’s bounty.

saturday afternoon I bottled 61 red ales. it’s the second batch of brew for me and will be ready for tasting in the new year. six and a half percent power and of deep red colour. I hope it tastes as good as it looks. I’ll start a new batch as soon this one is ready to drink. maybe a dark lager.

professionally I stand at the threshold of dramatic change. the swing is dramatic –one way will be a working hell with a lousy work environment accompanied by endemic lifelessness and a demise of hope for self in the staff. the other swing, a new opportunity for me to write creatively for a living and perhaps still maintain a work life balance. or should I say a surf/work balance.

what would I give to be able to make my own hours and surf anytime the swell is running. at 34 I feel in better physical form than ever. and it’s strictly because of a surfing life. I am also more creative and surfing inspires me to write.

so any of you extremely wealthy folks out there who may be thinking about what to do with so much dough I have a proposition for you.

set up a trust that would pay me a humble salary so that I may focus on this surfing life and creating written works. in turn I will repay you by taking full advantage of a dream opportunity of a lifetime and transform myself completely into a finely tuned human. I will strive to achieve the highest potential of my physical and intellectual self to show that we have much more to offer than we are led to believe or allowed by our modern pursuit for the acquisition of wealth.

think of yourself as a muse, an investor in the human condition, in the dying art of personal development.

whadaya say?

controlando al diablo

here's a video I made a while back of my cousin Tadeo playing around in the living room at our old apartment in downtown HFX.

truth

street art is unapologetic. David Choe has a message for us all.

from Original Cultures

Ericailcane, DEM, Will Barras - Stay Away From Light (edit 1) from Original Cultures on Vimeo.

more info at originalcultures.org

wednesday afternoons

bailed work yesterday after JB confirmed my suspicions that a certain spot would be working. it was a high tide day yesterday so likely it wouldn't be as good as it coulda been. but the water and air are still warm so whose counting?

took out the fish for its first frontside session. damn I love that board. the waves were small but clean and fast with a mini hollow section on the inside. sat next to the kelp covered rock and picked off the smaller ones that were swinging wide. with the high tide the wave peels really close to shore on top of round topped boulders so that when you kick out you have to go over the back of the wave or risk a broken fin or worse.

Blacks was there pullin into little closeouts with ease. made one or two I think. we traded waves for a while. out on the horizon a deep azure sky skirted the ocean surface and then faded from a dark to light grey. the heavy fog diffused the remaing light casting a surreal glow across the viewscape. the red faced headland and remaining greenery on the shoreline added to the amazing colours.

what I love about surfing is how it motivates me to notice things around me. how it gets me out there and allows me to experience the moods and shifts of days and seasons. Blacks and I have over the past three years shared so many amazing sunrises, so many different skies and winds. we've seen seals -alive and dead. we've paddled out in minus insanely cold temperatures to surf knee high waves and on blustery victory at sea days to surf huge storm surf. always stoked.

this life never disappoints.

blind faith: part 1

science

beware of scientists who use the phrase:
"we used to believe that ____,
but now we now for certain that_____"
next generation's scientist
will likely use
the same phrase again
with new
cockamamie
discoveries.
why don't we
listen
to our own
intuition?
why don't we understand,
that the same breath
we breathe,
is the same wind
blowing
through trees?
beware of
blind faith

el picaro

I'll have to make sure this kid reads Lazarillo del Tormes and Huck Finn

influences

Chester Himes


Tom Waits

Tom Waits - Earth Died Screaming - The most popular videos are a click away

Jim Jarmusch

mongrel dog

I was caught by self doubt. like a mongrel dog tryin to cross the road after a beating. it is an absurd world that we live in. and the self aware notice the absurdities more often than the self involved. but we are all ego one way or another. some manifest it less and some more.

what is courage?

what is determination?

what is gritt?

some like Chinaski did what they did out of a sense of duty to their own constitution –he, praising and cursing his muses depending on the severity of his hangover.

some do nothing at all. they go through motions like so much flotsam and jetsam at mid-tide on a Jamaican beach.

and where do you see yourself?

how are you living?

how am i living? with trepidation.

that is no way to live a life is it?

fear is not a hoax but it also isn’t concrete. it can be malleable like Gumby. it can be used to one’s advantage or can be crippling like ms. it is the ability to move beyond failure that is a measure of one’s success. this is the paradox of our human condition and perhaps the crux of our western belief in good vs. bad. there is no good. there is no bad. there simply just is. everything is everything. absurdities arise when we negate this basic principle.

Himes wrote of the prison preacher preachin about pork chops and mashed potatoes in paradise.

do mongrels get pork chops in the afterlife?

more absurd world from Buk

one thirty-six a.m.

I laugh sometimes when I think about
say
Céline at a typewriter
or Dostoevsky...
or Hamsun...
ordinary men with feet, ears, eyes,
ordinary men with hair on their heads
sitting there typing words
while having difficulties with life
while being puzzled almost to madness.

Dostoevsky gets up
he leaves the machine to piss,
comes back
drinks a glass of milk and thinks about
the casino and
the roulette wheel.

Céline stops, gets up, walks to the
window, looks out, thinks, my last patient
died today, I won't have to make any more
visits there.
when I saw him last
he paid his doctor bill;
it's those who don't pay their bills,
they live on and on.
Céline walks back, sits down at the
machine
is still for a good two minutes
then begins to type.

Hamsun stands over his machine thinking,
I wonder if they are going to believe
all these things I write?
he sits down, begins to type.
he doesn't know what a writer's block
is:
he's a prolific son-of-a-bitch
damn near as magnificent as
the sun.
he types away.

and I laugh
not out loud
but all up and down these walls, these
dirty yellow and blue walls
my white cat asleep on the
table
hiding his eyes from the
light.

he's not alone tonight
and neither am
I.

more at bukowski.net