This is Me on LBI.

Not quite, but amazing nonetheless. Derek Hynd, Jeffrey's Bay, finless.

Classic Oldies WMID 1340 AM Song of the Day

A great line around 1:10.

Some Photographs

Here are some scans of photographs taken this past Saturday's Hurricane Earl swell at Sandal. The light is kind of off on them because the battery on my camera (Olympus OM-1) was dead, so the light meter was not operational. Still, they came out not so bad. Here they are. The shots of Frank and I are shot by Jeannine.

Frank on the best wave of the afternoon session. 

 Me, upgrading my rainbow. 

Frank and I paddling, with a small metallic waterspout behind us?

Mysterious. 

No, I did not make it.

     Well, that's it for now. There may be a few more pictures from Sunday morning, but I have to get that roll developed. This was the first time using my telephoto lens to shoot actual action, and the first time Jeannine has taken pictures of surfing, so I'd say all in all they came out pretty good. Next time we'll have the light thing worked out, hopefully, because all the shots of me getting huge airs didn't come out that great. Too close to the sun.

Wavelength, by Michael Snow. 

Good Times, Bad Times...

     ...today I've had my share. Sub-par softies in the morning at Holyoke, followed by superb chest to head high bombs rolling in giving barrels at Sandal for a few hours, then some lackluster landlubber-style "surfing" in the afternoon, which was partially the fault of the waves getting whacked by the strengthening wind, and partially the fault of myself, who forgot how to surf between A.M. and P.M.Oh well, tomorrow's another day.
     Been surfing my 5'5" fish exclusively recently, and so far it's held up in some really big stuff, and I've made tons of steep drops that last September I thought were impossible on a board with such little rocker. Turns out it was only my surfing that had to catch up. One thing that bugs me about the general public's notion of fish-type surfboards is that they are meant for and great for small surf. Not true. While they may work well on smaller surf due to the speed the design itself generates, they also work well, and were originally conceived for, much larger surf. Here's a picture from Point Loma, San Diego, where the design originated and evolved:

     Don't know if that guy is on a fish, but that's a pretty good size wave. It just drives me crazy when you hear, "Oh man, it's gonna get small duuuuuude, looks like I'll have to bust out the fish, brah." Not true. I've decided I'm going to use my fish in bigger and bigger surf until it proves it can't handle it. Maybe I'll never surf anything else. Probably not.
     Some more pictures from today, with film pictures coming soon.

Two of Frank.

Pre-dawn fish nose. 

     Led Zeppelin, "Good Times Bad Times," from the first track from the band's initial aural assault, Led Zeppelin. I would say this album is probably my favorite album from the band, and if you haven't listened to it in a while, you should. Around 1:30 on this track is where your mind explodes if you love rock 'n' roll. 

It is time...

...for stormy weather. Hurricane Earl hurls towards the coast, and it looks like this one is going to definitely send some monumental swell. A lot of people had harsh bells ringing in their ears when they checked the waves Saturday/Sunday, and while the mid-afternoons may have been lackluster, the mornings and evenings were outstanding, if you could weather the crowds. This picture is from the infamous Holyoke, where the crowds were confining:

Ha!

     Just kidding, it's from Surfy Surfy, but if it was a left, that could have been from the aforementioned break, where at least 30 people were out at one time. I don't normally subject myself to torture, I'm no masochist, so instead of pushing for the point like so many cool guys and gals, we decided to hang off the outside, which allowed us to garner many tasty waves.
  
 






     The space above is where some water shots of us surfing would be, had I not forgotten to fasten the locking latch on my Dad's waterproof camera. allowing it to open and fill instantaneously with water, destroying it. It met with death after three shots of Frank silhouetted by the sunrise. Cute.
     Anyway, Earl's almost here, Fiona's out there, and we've had solid surf for eight of the last nine days, with not much end in site. Looks like everything's coming up roses.

    

     "Stormy Weather," the 13th track off of the Pixies' 1990 album Bossanova. Every time I listen to the Pixies,  I find myself wondering why I don't listen to them more.

Recent Developments

     So, it's been a little bit so I figure it's time for an update, and a rain-day washout morning is the best time for that sort of thing. We had a great swell this past weekend, with days upon days of ever-changing solid northeast windswell, ranging from chaotic to semi-clean, from shallow take-offs to steep drops. Wind never switched offshore, but that's OK. Surfed Wounded Gull, Sandal, and had inaugural WJ surf on Saturday, which was great to get back down there after a couple months hiatus and surf some nice long lines. Sunday's surf at Wounded Gull was punctuated parenthetically in the middle by the 32nd Annual Dog Day 5 Mile Road Race, in which I beat my past self by about 1 minute 15 seconds, for a total of 41:14 (which when you factor in the delay between when the siren sounded and when we actually crossed the starting line is more like 39:14 or so) which is better than I thought I'd do considering I haven't really been running. I have been surfing a lot more than last year, though, so I guess the lesson is: surfing is better training for running than running. Probably not, but a man can dream.

   If you remember, back on Valentine's Day I posted about skinning Frank's Rastafish with plans to make something out of it for him. Well, with 005 finished for Mark, it was about time to start this one. The dimensions are 5'4" x 19 5/8" x 2 5/16 ", with a single wing and this little fang-fish-squash thing of  a tail, which was entirely my design. No, it was Frank's, and that's the truth. That square hole is where the leash plug used to be. Still a bit to go shaping-wise, but it's coming along.

     Check out that cover, first printing 1968. Been reading this book I picked up at the thrift store last week. Science Fiction by Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazine from 1891-1911, edited by Sam Moskowitz. This collection has been really interesting so far, with the first 30 or so pages giving a really detailed history of the popular magazine in the United States and England, along with the prevalence of science fiction material therein. Really great stuff in here, divided into sections such as Catastrophes, Marvelous Inventions, Monsters and Horrors, Future Wars, Man-Eating Plants, and more. The titles of the stories are really great as well: "Where the Air Quivered," "The Voice in the Night," "The Ray of Displacement," "Itself," and "The Mansion of Forgetfulness," just to name a few. There's a couple well known names here, H.G.Wells and Jules Verne, but most of the stories are written by authors I've never heard of. One thing to think of when reading the works of forward-thinking imaginations of the past: Would they have been disappointed in the future? Maybe, because Robert Barr, in his story "The Doom of London," imagines that by the year 1950 electricity would have run its course and been replaced by "vibratory ether." It must have been a strange, strange world back then. I guess it still is.

A rare shot of Wounded Gull.

KAK was a psych group formed in a San Francisco in 1968 by Gary Lee Yoder, who would later be a member of Blue Cheer. A really wonderful album from '69 that has since been re-released with some great extra tracks. A blend of really good psych-jams veering towards the harder side, such as "Electric Sailor" and "Bryte 'N' Clear Day," and some mellower stuff that really balances the album, such as "I've Got Time" and my personal favorite off of the album, "Flowing By." The whole album is a solid piece of '60s psych rock that is definitely worth a listen. 

Here to Hear

03 - Electric Sailor

05 - I've Got Time

06 - Flowing By

07 - Bryte 'N' Clear Day

Another Jay Nine Bag! Also: Dark Fall Apologies.

      Jeannine made a bag for Mark's board, and here it is! The bricks on the nose match the bricks on the SF lam. You can check out Jeannine's Etsy shop RIGHT HERE. She has a bunch of vintage ladies clothing and things like that.
     Surfed this morning and it was nice to finally get some waves that had some size (4 -5 ft.) and power to them. Nice to not have to pump and flounder on small gutless mush. Got me more thirsty for hurricanes.
     Also, after some discussion today I feel I may have been too hard on Dark Fall. Still, I'll probably never watch it again, and I still stick to my argument that the narrator's voice and the ideas it transmitted were not very intelligent sounding, and I think for someone who doesn't surf it really degrades the movie and surfing in general. Wise up.

     This one's for Ryan, and all you wonderful vegetarians out there. I'm not the first to say "Thou shall not kill!" Even though more closely translated, Exodus 20:13 says, "Thou shalt not murder," which is way different than kill, murder still involving killing but "unlawfully with malice aforethought" (OED). Anyway, Gorilla Biscuits' "Cats and Dogs", from their second album Start Today.