style: john haffey

I let go

radness from Oldy

Critical Sliders from Nathan Oldfield on Vimeo.

style:natas

there was a skate shop when I was a teen that refused to carry that Natas Kaupas boards because they thought the name was Satan spelled backwards -which it is. the dude is also Lithuanian and the shop owners culturally inept zealots.

style: the hypnotic brass ensemble

my friend D$ just turned me on to these guys and I can only wish I'd come across them sooner. authentic vibes here -no posturing and no front.

style: RT

RT of Warbles calm and collected


snagged this one from Grass is Greener

style: strauch

style: robyn kegal

four dubyahs

who: an 18 year old kid outta high school with a little grit, no sense, a library job for gas money and a white Karmann Ghia

what: a passion for moving across space atop magic carpets - concrete or water didn't matter

when:same as now -as much as can be fit in between things that otherwise matter less to him

how: with graceless abandon, sometimes timidity, in the heat of summer, with duct tape, no leash, behind the beach house after the hurricanes with no one out north of the pier, with cigarette dangling sometimes, with disregard for self harm -mostly always -no always passionately.

forward trim

I've been really diggin the longboard again lately and the feeling of forward trim. saturday morning I surfed alone for a little over an hour on some little knee high rights. the waves had just enough wave face to allow for perfect trim. the feeling of standing on the board motionless while gliding across the wave face is like no other. there's no posturing, no macho antics, just the board beneath your feet and the passing of time as energy through water.

this year I've resolved to learn to surf all of the boards I have and to not acquire any others. with the exception of the mini-gun, my quiver consists of high volume boards -from the 5'8" fish, to the 6'0" speed egg, to the 6'3" old yeller seventies singlefin, my shortboard quiver is made to catch waves. so that's what I plan to do. I want to take the time to learn what it is that I like and dislike about board design so that I can get closer to the feeling of surfboard as extension to my body.

one thing I know for certain, the high performance shortboard is not my idea of the most fun to be had. I prefer the ease of paddling and instant speed of a board with a wider front end. performance shortboards can be super fast with constant rider input but I find that that approach does not allow me to notice what's going on around me as my focus is singular. with the high volume shortboards speed is built in so that I can focus instead on the way that the wave forms and unfolds in front of me.

I am also a fan of style like Jay Adams skating a pool or Gonz skating a rail or as in the photo below, Tyler Warren in forward trim. style is harder to come by when your shakin yer tail feather trying to keep the board from boggin. and there's nothin less stylish than me struggling to surf a performance shortboard -the hops and wiggles are more akin to a red wriggler on a hot summer sidewalk.



inspiration:

Picaresque
Warbles

sunrise & sopes

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.

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?

style: greenough and warren

george greenough is often referred to as the father of performance surfing. on his kneeboard greenough would do super high speed cutbacks back into the pocket in a way that no one had ever done before him.



tyler warren is young kid who seems to be able to ride any type of board. he's got loads of style in the water and is easily one of my favourite surfers to watch on video. here he does his best greenough impersonation on a Velo spoon replica.





tyler warren has a film coming soon. check out more info here

rhythm and meter

I’m off completely. been off for two weeks now since Moe arrived. and I finally realized that the pace of my life has forever changed. the rhythm and meter are slower now. the change was like an Art Blakey solo, fast and furious. it’s too soon yet to find my new rhythm. we gotta figure it out as a family. and eventually it will settle and the beat will roll like it did before, only slower.

it’s like surfing. for me progression isn’t only learning a solid cutback, but actually slowing down on the wave in order to see where I’m going. so many times I see a hump, turn and paddle into it, only to race down the line like a scalded dog (thank god people don’t scald dogs any more). but really progression for me now is to be able to take off and look down the line, see what’s transpiring in front of me so that I can flow with it. bottom turn to highline run to beat the section? or maybe bottom turn to snap off the top? and then when the section comes do I bottom turn, ass low around it, or float over it?

the guys that make surfing look easy are the ones that have slowed it down. not their speed but their vision. they can see the wave in front of them and are confident enough in their skills to know that they can generate speed at will or bury the rail for a smooth mid face turn.

I must change my rhythm and meter. slowing down is good because it is the present that we live in. why rush it thinking about the next swell, next board, next diaper change, next kid. baby steps baby.

baby steps.



PS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY D$ you old fucker
Burry photo.

in case you didn't know

Tia Rafaela

my Tia Rafaela is an artist. he main body of work is her life, the sculptures, paintings and poems are adornments - a frame for her masterpiece.

from "the eagle of the heart-"

it is well
to feel good
for no reason;
or
with a limited
choice to
choose
anyhow;
or with a little love,
not to buckle to
hatred
faith, brother, not it the
gods
but in
yourself:
don't ask
tell.

Henry Chinaski

trim

I love thinking about board design. there is so much that goes into the planning aspects of a surfboard. however I’m also certain that the most important aspect of any board’s performance is the ability and fitness of the person riding it. but then that’s another post.

recently I’ve been riding my noserider a lot, partly out of necessity as my new EPS fish is in the works and partly because I want to. the longboard experience is completely different than riding a shortboard and it requires a less physical and more refined approach.

on the log trim is king. and trim happens due to the rail length and shape of the board's rail. on a speedy steep face the board will move super fast without my input whereas on a shortboard I’d need to generate my own speed. turning a log is also completely different from a shortboard. on a shortboard turn you slide your rear foot over the fins and transition your weight so that the wave facing edge is buried into the face of the wave as it changes direction. turning a shortboard is a very physical thing whereas the longboard is about fineness.

my 9’6” has one fin and is quite heavy. there is absolutely no way to turn the board with a wide shortboard stance while burying the rail. well I suppose some big heavy cats could do that but it’s not necessary. instead I simply step back to the tail, and with feet less than shoulder width apart, I weigh down the back of the board and pivot the front end around bringing the rail down back onto the face to engage trim again. once the board is in trim in the pocket I can walk up to the nose as the water from the lip sucks over the egg shaped rails holding the tail in the face.

Dora, style king.

the longboard seems to be marketed as a beginner board quite often. and while it is much easier to catch a wave on a longboard due to its large planning area and volume, it doesn’t really prepare the beginner to surf a shortboard. that is often a misconception that can be clearly seen in the lineup. aspiring shortboarders catch a shoulder high wave on their 9’0” “performance” longboard and with a wide as Texas stance try fruitlessly to turn nine feet of rail like a shortboard and end up either getting hit by the lip or falling over like deadwood in a forest. some like to call this stance the stink butt stance – sorta gives a squatty image eh. now we just need some swell so I can stop thinking about it and just go surf.

style: Tyler Warren

Churches from Charlie Waite on Vimeo.

Lawmang's wisdom

when trying to decide whether to head out or not D$ says to me,

"onshore is the new offshore. get out there."

life is great when you keep it simple

good relationships

good food

wholeheartedly immersing yourself into your passions