Current Notes from Two Days of Vacation Volume One

I will soon be writing a book modestly titled The Six Year Old and You: Shame-Based Discipline and the Coercion of Your Child Through Humiliation.  The heading of the third chapter will be "Wow this is the tallest two year old I've ever seen!"

The best response to someone erroneously yelling at you for dropping in on them is to not say a word and stare them down.  This may actually be the worst response in some cases.  But if they really did paddle under you and then claim the wave was theirs after you obliterated them on the drop, well, best not to say anything anyhow, your actions just said everything that needed saying.

If you ever have the chance to take part in a Native Southern Californian family reunion, take it. Take it and sit down to some of the best mexican food you've ever had.

Foamy boards will rip up your knees.

Carry your harddrives with you.  Do not leave them to the fates of the checked pelican case. Disaster.

Show You My Quiver?

Ok. EBNY North County Quiver.

"Rode hard and put away wet."

Show You My Quiver?

Ok. The North Brooklyn EBNY Quiver

Moose Runs. Moose Swims. Moose Bikes.

Local surfy guy Moose Huerta is running the NYC Triath-a-lon tomorrow, raising money for the Ronald McDonald house.  Donate to help a great guy and a great cause.

Today's Photo

The Endless Bummer Brooklyn HQ

Yesterday's Photo

The French Lieutenant's Woman 

Mastastico

woke up ate quick breakfast with the kiddies and old lady

hopped in the truck (already loaded day before)

drove on outer beach to cut three 3 miles down

set up camp

wind was offshore tide was filling in

caught a bunch of little wompers the one turn get womped kind but grinning the whole time (all this on a log)

then I ditched surfboard for fins and a handplane--kids screamed on the beach as I got crushed on somewhat purpose

the little 1.5 yr old attempted to deliver my seltzer water out to me in the lineup (one an lineup)

I laughed so hard a booger shot out my nose

we went for a beach walk threw logs as hard as we could into the ocean

collected garbage from the assholes who left it on the beach

rode home used outdoor shower

wifey off to work and now me and the kids are doing nothing..laying around listening to music watching tv destroying the house

New York is for Surfers (The +s & -s of a Stab Article)

Stab Magazine is doing some sort of "best cities to live and surf in" deal and New York came up #8. I am not sure how much time Charlie Smith spends living in the city, but since he is a writer and may make his own writerly hours, perhaps he has a different take on the rigors of surfing here than the normal nine to five guy.   Or even  an eight to eight guy like me.  Either way, here is the scoresheet:


"The women are not the best. That is what Los Angeles is for."  I do not know what universe this guy is from.  Seriously.  I wouldn't usually talk about this sort of thing, but, come on.  We've got the United Nations.  Literally the United Nations.   There is no better place for women (and men) of a certain caliber and variety.  Come on.  
-40 points


"Do not stay cheap. Do not stay with friends. Do not stay cheap." God bless you for saying so. 
+20 points


"Walk, don’t ride or even subway. In walking, you will discover the textural nuances of Manhattan."  New York is for the peripatetic.  That is one of the very first things that occurs to everyone when they start living here.  One day you're in Central Park, walking around, getting the feel, in the blink of an eye you're eating a burger and drinking a beer at the Corner Bistro.  And you didn't step foot in a cab or train.  It's crazy.  Happens all the time.  
+5 points


"Do not listen to the hip New York crowd. They will crow on and on about Momofuku or the newest this and the newest that. Their tastes have become spoiled by excess. They no longer know what actually tastes good." This is so right on it is almost worth a thousand points.  Except it is ruined by the bizarre advice to eat at Pastis before other places.  You can do a lot better than that. 
0 points


"Do not set foot in Brooklyn."  Classic.  I'd tell you the same. Lord knows I rarely set foot in Manhattan anymore except to go to a session, see a museum show or um... what was that third thing?  Fact is, parts of Brooklyn, the famous parts where the hip people live, are now more expensive than lots of Manhattan.  Even Downtown.  Besides, there is nothing to really see in Brooklyn.  The see stuff is in Manhattan.  The only reason you'd want to make the trek to Brooklyn is to have a rooftop barbecue with some old friends.  And even that can be a drag, depending on the friends.
+10 points


"Don’t look shell-shocked. Look slightly jaded."  Shit, I look shell shocked all the time and I've lived here for over a decade.
-5 points


 "I don’t know how people have time for work with so much culture and fun around." Me neither. It sucks, truly.  
+5 points


"The models in Soho may even talk with you."  Here lies the problem.  All the models that would talk to you live in Brooklyn.  
-5 points


"Cold in the winter, humid hot in the summer, perfect in the spring and fall. New Yorkers love it when seasons change and they are right. It is loveable. Enjoy the nuances of each. Dress appropriately for each. Dress appropriate always." I have no idea what this even means.  But it's sorta true.  I guess.  
+2.5 points


Grand total: + 12.5
Ok, so I did the math on a piece of paper and it may still be wrong. And ok, I have no idea what +12.5 means.  But it's not a minus so... um... the birds are hotter here.  Photo by Matt Clark.

Happy Independence Day from New York

Today's Thought

Mastic is the new Mastic

Let's get one thing straight, I'm not a skater.  I'm not that cool.  Skaters are cool and I'm not. I've always been ok with that.  Sort of.  I mean, I tried to skate.  I skated a little. And for what it's worth, I wasn't terrible.  But I'm no skater.  I like tennis.  And I like soccer. But the last time I was on a half pipe, somewhere in the piedmont of Santa Barbara, I twisted my ankle so bad I couldn't walk straight for a while.  My ankle is now permanently jacked.  All this is to say that the KCDC ramp is now somewhere safe and getting ready for a son to better his father.

More on Wax Magazine

Here

And in other news, here is a recent photo of EBNY contributor Kevin Curran.

Da Cat

I've been surfing all day.  You gotta surf, Toddy.  But not in the street. On the sidewalks.  I've been finding waves everywhere. Look, see!  There.  There is a little wave there.

Stoke.

I'm not sure what kind of father I am.  On Sunday, my five year old had one of those crazy five-year-old meltdowns that beggar belief. Tears and pouts and blubbers.  Really put a damper on things.  And boy did he get it as a result.  It's a difficult thing to instill an idea of consequence when real consequences seem so far away from daily life. Later on in the afternoon, my son, after some more ribbing, broke down again and cried, "I know why I acted that way this morning! It was that ice cream I ate yesterday!"  Wow.  Maybe I need to ease off the sugar-is-the-devil rhetoric a touch.
Spending more time with Tyler Breuer is a bit like spending time with this clip.  You get a heavy dose of stoke wrapped up in a neat little (er, big) nostalgic package.  The guy has more good vibes than three average goofs put together, and that's not just because of proportions. Saturday night we spent the evening tending coals and trading stories culled from years of Surfer mag reading.  The phrase "whiff of a chance" got the mnemonic juices going like crazy.  The way my history goes, I was reading surf magazines long before I was surfing, so it all has some sort of warped, wrinkly bit of my brain wired just so.
Becoming a man after being a boy isn't easy.  And I think it may be getting harder.  There just aren't the sort of rites of passage there used to be.  Every life epoque seems to smoosh into each the next these days.  There are plenty of people who claim childhood doesn't even exist, that adolescence is nothing more than a recent construct that gets in the way of self-knowledge.  Die broke.  Never grow old.  Yesterday I actually told someone that surfing is some kind of "fountain of youth."  What a bunch of hooey.

WAX ON

Dropping off the boy at summer camp I ride my bike past Pilgrim to see the guys getting ready to head out. The call for camaraderie is of the clarion sort and I speed home to put board on the car. An hour and a half later, an hour and a half where a full third is spent just making my way out of North West Brooklyn, a third spent stuck in Rockaway Turnpike steam engine broiler room ninety degree traffic with no air conditioning, and whatever is remaining spent hustling around Long Beach trying to track down a functioning ATM so I can pay my beach dues, all the while getting it in the ear from my far better half about surreptitiously making off with the automobile when multiple errands need to be done (and the opportunity for one run-on sentence), I finally get into the water.
Being a Brooklyn based surfer has its high points and low points. The low inevitably coming right before the high. In this case a fun knee high session with friends.
I met the Wax people the other night at a function. I had been skeptical about a surf magazine in New York. I'm not sure why. I think I was worried it would fall into some unfortunate categories of nonsensical posturing. And truth be told, I haven't seen the magazine yet. But the Wax people? The people who have started it up? As nice as can be. And genuinely stoked. From what little I've seen from the fancy sizzler video, it looks top notch quality. Readwax.com .
I think it's very much worth the shot.