Happening : Lava Girl Surf Workshop

OPEN TO WOMEN & MEN. SURF SCIENCE & TRAVEL | Sunday, October 6, 2013 | 2pm-6pm To purchase your tickets go to: http://surfworkshop.eventbrite.com/ Admission $45.00 | Space is Limited.

Head Up, Ass Down.

There are not too many activities where keeping your butt high is the call. It always seems that dropping the ass, keeping the back straight, bending the knees and lowering that central center of gravity is the right thing to do. It sort of goes along with such chestnuts as "keep your eye on the ball!" and "push through to till the end!" and "breathe!"  It is such a common coaching missive it is hard to imagine anyone forgetting it so quickly. Unless you've never been coached.  I myself was only coached intermittently, always in the nether, twilight edges of sports team culture.  Anyhow. In surfing the same holds true. Keep your eye on the wave, paddle till the end, relax and don't stinkbug.  And it's amazing what will happen when you just stick with it.  Like me, you may have something of a disaster of a working weekend. Getting a late start and taking too long at the hardware store. Nothing quite beats that feeling when you discover one corner of your pad is rotted through and you've got to replace the whole propping.  Then your little mini circular saw dies.  Then you leave the wood out overnight to get rained on. And nothing quite like laying waste to a rabid zombie squirrel with a one wood.  And the waves are shit.  Well, the waves are shit until the last possible moment.  And then they are gloriously shit.  The sort of shit that leaves a big buzzing smile on your face as the autumnal sun sets over the strumming classic rock hits maestro at the Gilgo burger shack.  The sort of gloriously shit waves that make the whole disaster of a working weekend worth every penny of time taken.  The sort of gloriously shit waves to which, as you drift off later that evening, you construct wholly new mnemonically augmented epic ride archival 35 millimeter footage out of the dregs of mixed up semi-swell standard definition video footage.  Oh and did I mention we saved a lost and thoroughly confused swan trying to cross the Sunrise Highway?  We somehow did that too. Big ducks, those. Keep that butt down.

The Hurricane Sandy Update

Ty Breuer talks to Jon Rose about the deal on the ground now, and where it's headed, at the Inertia. (click on that colored bit.)

And Kind Snacks will donate a dollar to the continuing rebuilding effort everytime this video is viewed so get to it.

Happening:: Andy Kessler Day

Happening : Mo' Olelo in Rockaway

Happening : Wave Ki, Brooklyn Style

Open house this weekend at New York Shaolin.  The place where I study my hand style via Tai Chi and my son studies what it means to be a thoughtful, considered human via Kung Fu.  If you've ever thought to take Brad Gerlach at his word, show up tomorrow.

Come take a free class and see for yourself. Guaranteed to focus and re-energize your life.

148 N 10th St. (Between Bedford & Berry), Basement Room 2, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

For more information or to RSVP, contact Master Christopher Lee at (718) 963-3686 

or 

nyc_kungfu@hotmail.com

¡Enter & Win!*

*Waves Guaranteed To Look Exactly As They Appear In The Flier

Sundown Surf Shop and The Atlantic Surfing Federation are pleased to announce the 2nd Annual Sundown Surf Challenge hosted by Supervisor Kate Murray at Camp Anchor, 630 Lido Blvd., Lido Beach, NY 11561 on Sunday, September 29, 2013.

The Sundown Surf Challenge is being held in conjunction with the Town of Hempstead’s Family Festival by the Sea, which runs Saturday and Sunday September 28th and 29th. 

The Family Festival by the Sea will bring food vendors, bands, and other family friendly activities to the park adjacent to the beach. This contest is stop #2 of the ASF NY Chapter’s 2013-2014 competition season. 

Go towww.atlanticsurfing.org to sign up and register!

Today's Wave Ki

I finish reading the Brad Gerlach interview.  Wave Ki is pretty funny sounding.  I reckon quietly to myself as my wife hastles me to turn out the light that one can be doing wave ki all day if one wants.  I mean, shit, I do wave ki while I'm eating.  I dip into some book about releasing the creative endeavor.  I skim a few more pages about statistical analysis in soccer.  My wife is really crowing now. I check the swell forecast app.  Looks like I'll have a productive weekend.  Red until Monday.  I get off the phone with DJ Matchie.  We plan a private surf movie premiere night for Joe Cups for next Thursday.  Pizza and beer.  Maybe some turntables.  Low key event. It happens to fall on the same night as the semi-annual P.S. 110 parent's night out at Fada. That's always a great mess of good times. Turks and Francs and Yanks and expats of all sorts.  I wonder how I'll split the evening.  I was never a big Brad Gerlach fan.  But as Lentini say's "he sure believes in himself."  And yeah, you can't ask for more than that.  Believe in yourself.

Your Phone Exists With or Without You

I've started staring at my phone.  Just staring at it.  It doesn't need to do anything.  It doesn't need to ring or vibrate or shine or sparkle or smile or reach out and give me a high five. A sweet soul affirming, self-consciousness defeating high five.  No, I just stare at it and it has become the object of my visual fancy. It is a liar too.  It tells me things that aren't true.  It pretends it's something else.  It demands so much discernment.  And it brings me people and things I don't want to deal with, to talk to, to talk about.  I have a folder on my phone (that liar, trying to fool me into thinking it has a folder for me) called Outside.  In Outside I have a few weather applications and a few surf report applications.  These things, while not my phone, also lie to me.  Or they tell me the truth and I disbelieve them.  Fucking liars.  Last night it said this morning would be "good."  Or really, "green." Green means good.  I believed it, sort of, as I always do.  Falling for the trap, I'm such an idiot. Brandon spent the night in anticipation of a 4:30 AM start time.  Then he woke up at 2 AM (that is, my phone said it was 2 AM) with terrible, breathe-retarding allergies and split back to his own place to rest in private. My phone then slapped me in the face at the appointed morning time and I nearly woke up.  But I took that goddamn phone and put it under a pillow on the floor and went back to sleep.  It said it would be "green" this morning, but all I got was "blue" and I think it has lied to me again.  I'm staring at it now.

Sifu Onion

My tai chi teacher, my son's kung fu sifu, is one of those guys.  Peel back a little bit, get a little more. No more than a rabid martial arts disciplinarian to some, Sifu Lee has more than a few other sides to him. Fishing, bow hunting, living out of his camper, playing bass in a rock band.  The guy is always surprising me with something.  The other day he shows up with an 8mm video cassette of Christian Hosoi ripping it in a 1980's Connecticut grocery store parking lot. At least that's what he thinks is on there. We haven't transfered it yet.  Today he sends me this simple statement with a link to the following vid.  I'm going to start calling him Sifu Onion.

Tommy Guerrero was to me the epitome of "Street Style" ....his delicate moves, knee bending and grace is what I find lacking in todays skaters. 
-Sifu Christopher Lee

Londoners Beware: The Working Artisan's Club Exhibition

Huck Says: Join us for the private view of The Working Artisans' Club exhibition. A celebration of hand-made craft and the craftsmen and women who choose to live life the artisanal way.

SEPTEMBER 19 | 6.30PM - 10PM |71a Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4QS
Please RSVP at theworkingartisansclub.eventbrite.co.uk

Our Motto is Immaterial

Awake from your slumber, cretins of drawn breath complaints.  Arouse your suspicions and widen your eyes.  Set your jaw amongst the tumbling tides of terrible twerkers. For it is now when the rubber strikes the anvil on the hallowed hulls. The mayhem awaits the unworried mind.

I had three recent mornings at San Onofre to bring the surfy quotient of this non-surfing surf blog up, tipping the scales slightly. Add to that a renewed interest by one "Other Gustav" with watery-esque images of his own and all of a sudden this thing is humming like a dilapidated Subaru cv joint.  Even Lentini has upped his usual ante with a vision of that massive Armenian's rad style.  And what are we supposed to do, pine for the past our whole lives?  Yes, I suppose we are.  I mean, the world prolly woulda been a better place had we all just started Scrambling instead of driving.

All this to say salt is in the air. It remains to be seen how the flood gates of a million boards sold in calmer times will pollute the water with joy or sorrow.  My knees are seemingly on the mend (while the back is stiff, the ankle still janky) (and that old war wound still gurgles, spitting blood and puss at awkward moments.)

The surfing season is here.  It could be your last. Enjoy your stay mortals.  Enjoy your stay.

Missive Missiles from the Mastic Bureau

Love Letters From the Other Gustav

Love Letters from the Other Gustav