Winter Surfing :: Long Beach , NY

Tuesday morning I was woken up by a dream. While putting on my 5/4/3 winter wetsuit for the first time, I found out that Jake had forgotten the gloves and booties he promissed to lend me. I started smacking him around and told him that he'd done it on purpose. Two hours later as we pulled into the parking lot, he told me that he too had the exact same dream one month earlier when Chris Gentile took him surfing in NY for his first winter session.
I had pretty much been a hater on cold water surfing. I had dealt with Santa Cruz 4/3 with booties which was fine but I thought to myself, "It's going to have to be at least 4ft with light offshore winds for me to pop my cold water cherry." Truth be told it was kinda anti-climatic. I paddled out into waist high clean surf, and the only thing remotely uncomfortable was that my face stung when I duck dove. The highlight of the whole session were the two girls that pulled up in their little Red Bull car asking us if we wanted some Red Bulls. I guess we did look like a couple of extreme dudes all buff in our winter surfing gear.

Get Your Burger Out

I thought I was obsessed with with cheeseburgers (distant 2nd to burritos), but you don't see me incorporating it into my daily attire. I guess it is too cold in NYC to be rocking one of these burger-rific dresses. I'll bet you a cheeseburger that I'll spot a couple come spring time and it'll be in Williamsburg worn by a Vegan. Can you begin to fathom the irony behind that?

Barc"th"elona

I started out my day long journey to Barcelona with a 5:30 cab ride to Heathrow and ended it with a kind Catalan gentleman telling me "Tienes que volver." "you have to come back." A trade show and a meeting with one of the founders of my favorite Basque line Loreak Mendian planted me in Barcelona for the day.

The MapThe StoreI managed to break free of my meetings and the trade show by 16:30 which left me just enough time to figure out the metro and manage to get lost somewhere in the vicinity of the Loreak Mendian store. I kept showing the locals the snap shot of the map I had on my blackberry, and every time without fail I received a "dalle" and then was told that they thought it was that way. ps: Barcelonans are the nicest people to ask for directions in the world. I think my Spanish might have taken them a little off guard by being a little too formal and a little too casual. Think of someone starting a conversation off with a "Excuse me sir" and then ending it with a "Thanks Bro you're the man." I even received a few kind pats on the back. After an hour of being lost I feared the only thing worse than the defeat of not finding the shop, which would be missing my flight, thus I hailed a cab to the airport.

Tip Top TapasMy only expectations after finishing up my meetings was to go and buy shirt from the Loreak Mendian store and enjoy some genuine tapas. What I settled for was getting lost for an hour and over priced tapas from a place called Tip Top Tapas at the Barcelona airport.

Panic on the streets of London

Matters of international business exported me to London for a few days and here is what there is to report.
A. Newcastle Brown Ale: (Newquay Brown)
Its not as classy of a drink as it is here in the states. It's the equivalent of someone coming to the states and ordering a Budweiser. During the summer of 99 in Portugal this guy looked at me and Jayson drinking a Super Bock and said "Why are you not drinking Budweiser? It is the King of Beers!" If he only knew we called in Buttwiper in college.

B. Leave Your Shank at Home:
London is cracking down on a severe knife problem. I think that the campaign slogan should be, "Don't be a wanker drop your shanker!"

C. Americans are not the only environmental A-Holes:
Shock value or not there are still people that think global warming is a fallacy and they are not just from Texas. I spotted this billboard while on the Heathrow express.

29 years on planet earth

And it still is all about burritos, babes, and waves. Thanks to John McSwain for the lazer portrait.

Human Tetris

Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov (Алексей Леонидович Пажитнов, born 1956) is a computer engineer from Russia now living in the United States, who developed the popular game Tetris while working for the Computing Centre of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, a Soviet government-founded R&D centre. Pajitnov was to leave his mathematics school (#91) in Moscow. Pajitnov created Tetris with the help of Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov in 1985. The game, first available in the Soviet Union, appeared in the West in 1986. Pajitnov also created the lesser known sequel to Tetris, entitled Welltris, which has the same principle but in a three dimensional environment where you see the "board" from above. The Soviet bureaucracy licensed and managed Tetris, and advertised it with the slogan "From Russia with Love", Pajitnov did not receive royalties.

New Year :: New Cruiser

My Christmas present to myself this year was a new Krooked Zip Zinger, with some 62mm Satori softies for the harsh metropolitan city streets around the world, and some Ace trucks more suitable for grinding my way into 2008.

Orange....ish :: Alert

I was told over the PA that the Atlanta aiport was under and orange terror alert on December 30th, 2007. I was happy to see that it didn't stop people from buying iPods from a vending machine or standing in line for a seasonal ginger bread mocha.

Pensacola Beach :: Florida 1997 vs. 2007

On December 25th, 1997 my high school buddy Jeff and I scored Pensacola Beach as good as it gets. 4 ft surf with feathery easy little barrels working on the outside sandbars. 10 years later Jeff is selling real estate in Nicaragua and I am slinging premium denim in NYC, but every year we try and recreate that xmas of 97. This year Jeff found himself boardless. So we stopped by the local surf shop so he could rent a board. A 6'2" beast of a quad fin fish "it really sucked" is the best they had. Little tubers were breaking on the inside sandbar some were makeable some were not. A pact was made that we would both leave boards at our families house so that we would never find ourselves boardless in Pensacola.

MOvember

November is prostate cancer awareness month. MOvember "MO Australian slang for Mustache" is a month in which all are encouraged to grow out their best MO to raise awareness towards prostate cancer and other major male health issues.

What I am here to talk about are the overly ironic mustaches. I am over the "hey look I'll grow a handle bar so everyone will know I'm joking around and not serious about having a mustache" mustache. Grow some cajones and keep it within the smile line. The goal of a good mustache should be that when someone looks at it they ask "is that for real?, no its a joke!, no its for real!, wait or is it a joke?" Keep that in mind the next time you manicure that hair on your upper lip.

Mutual Thanks on Thanksgiving

Right when I moved to NYC I met old school NYC skate legend Andy Kessler. He talked shit on surfers yet surfed. So we had that in common. There can be an intimidating crew of locals and/or visiting pros at the Autumn Bowl in Brooklyn, and when I first got my key and started showing up Andy gladly made it known to all that I was one of his boys. So instead of getting the who the fuck is this guy skating with a stank surfer style vibe, I was given the benefit of the doubt. Every now and then I'll get a call from Andy and the conversation starts with a "Hey you homo have you gotten in the water lately?" and always closes with a "Well we should go and skate soon."

Back in the Spring of 2005 Andy busted his hip skating the former Blinde bowl in SoHo. Like many Andy didn't have health insurance so in that fall all of his creative friends got together and applied some artwork to his model blanks. An auction/party was held to raise money to chip away at Andy's surgery bills. Wouldn't socialized medicine be nice? My friend Dewey and I built a website for Andy pro bono to sell the remaining pieces. My favorite was this Ric Charnowski piece that had Jesus is Answer stuck to it. Ric Charnowski and Buddy Nichols made the skate films Northwest, Fruit of the Vine, and Tent City. These titles feature the most credible pool/bowl skaters and the infamous Anti Hero team. Andy knew I had been eye balling it and 2 years later he has given it to me as a sign of thanks. So on this Thanksgiving thursday I wanted to give thanks to Andy "you little fairy" for saying thanks to me.

Joe Strummer :: Punk Rock Warlord

My sisters told me that when I was 4 I would walk around the house singing "Rock the Casbah!, Rock the Casbah!" You can imagine my delight when I found out Joe Strummer : The Future is Unwritten was playing at the local movie theater in Biarritz. I bought a ticket then ran to buy a bottle of wine to polish off while watching the film. This weekend it is being released in States. Go buy yourself a ticket. I can pretty much guarantee it'll be the best $10 dollars you will have spent all week.

Arcade Fire :: Neon Bible Video

Check out Arcade Fire's online video of Neon Bible. Watch it one time through as is and then the second time around try clicking on his hands and face. The Québécois's strike again with their musical savvy. P.S. The Canadian dollar is stronger than the US dollar at the moment......bummer.

San Sebastian, Spain :: Donostia, Euskadi

During my stay in Biarritz I made sure to budget some time to take a day trip down to San Sebastian. Northern Spain is the heart of the Basque / Euskadi Region. You really feel it when you cross the border from Hendaye to Irun. There is something that lingers in the air of a separatist city. The only thing I can really relate it to is paddling out at surf spot that you didn't grow up at. A little bit of tension keeps you on your toes, and if you're tuned in enough to sense it you know how to show respect.
As long as I can remember I have wanted to be older, to play with the bigger kids, to be an upper classmen, to start my career, to be more advanced in my career, etc... Zurriola surprised me with a waist high clean swell and a lesson in life. I went down to the surfboard rental kiosk and rapped out with kid working there and rented a board for an hour. While walking down to the waters edge I overheard a kid in his late teens giving a surfing lesson in broken English. After my first wave I though to myself, "Why the fuck didn't you do this in college?" I guess what I was asking myself is why didn't I move to Spain for a summer to polish my Spanish, look for that European summer love that I never had, or to just adapt to a foreign culture. After all these kids were doing the exact same thing I had except in Spanish. On the train ride back to Biarritz I realized that for the first time in my life I wished I was younger. Was this a sign of getting old or a peak moment in life when you still want to be older yet wish you could be younger? I think it is all of the above. However if you told me 4 years ago while I was in California that I'd be living in NYC today I would have put down my burrito and then proceeded to tell you to put down your crack pipe. Who knows maybe someday life will place me back on the shores of Zurriola on a more permanent basis. But one thing I know is to never say never.

J' aime Biarritz

My first memory of Biarritz is standing in the Grande Plage parking lot with my sister and brother-in-law in December of 1991. While I macked down on my chocolate eclair I thought man that surf looks cold. Sixteen years later I am emailing Franck Bywalski of Extreme Video asking if I could borrow his longboard while I was in town. I did not expect him to offer me the spare bedroom in his beach side bachelor pad overlooking Grande Plage. None the less he did, and made my fourth journey to Biarritz the most decadent to date. Surfwise I caught some fun logging waves out front but my best session was up the road in Anglet at a break called Le Barre. I caught the wave of the day that session only to be dropped in by a french girl on a longboard. She turned around and in a patented french girl accent yelled out "soooorry....." How did she know my native tongue? I hadn't spoken a single word to anyone while I was in the water. More importantly how can you be angry at such a cute accent?

Paris :: Je Voudrais

Ah... Paris. Beautiful women, decadent street cafe dwelling, and yes little patience towards Americans. For example a young drunk frenchman approached me in the St. Andres des Art neighborhood and asked me 2 questions. "Are you an American?" "Do you like George Bush?" My response was. "Yeah I'm an American and no I don't like George Bush." Then I asked him "Do you like Napoleon?" His response was "...well no." I guess the reason I tell that story is because whenever I think of Paris I think of extreme beauty and mild cultural conflict. Not enough conflict to ever drive you away, but pull you closer. I mixed a bit of business and pleasure for 5 days, but the whole time i kept my eyes on the prize, a weeks vacation chasing Basque waves.

Dana Point to Catalina and Back

A two-day pit stop on the way out to Vegas before a tradeshow placed my colleague J.P. and I on Chris Christenson’s doorstep in Cardiff by the Sea, California. There were some ankle snappers breaking at Cardiff but nothing to write home about. Chris being proud owner of a brand new 19ft Boston Whaler decided that the calm seas equated to the perfect opportunity to take the boat out on its first long distance voyage to Catalina. The outbound trip was an hour and fifteen minutes harbor-to-harbor Dana Point to Avalon. After having lunch in Avalon we decided to troll the east coast over to Two Harbors. We anchored up for a while, and went spear fishing, which just turned out to be snorkeling. Signs of the west swell that wasn’t supposed to arrive until the following morning prompted us to pull anchor. Immediately we noticed that the seas were bigger than we had anticipated. Chris was certain that J.P. was going to be the first to get seasick, but the sub-par burrito that I had for lunch had its money down on another contender.


A quarter of the way back the voltage on the engine took a frightening dive. The brand new boat proved to have a faulty alternator. Faced with an “oh shit do we turn around and go back" moment we decided to power through it. Just when we were smack dab between Catalina and the mainland we saw a powerboat about our same size b lining it right into our path. The last thing we wanted to do was slow down and allow the engine to cut out, but Chris had no other choice than to do so. No more than two seconds later, what seemed to be a grey golf course, surfaced 30 yards in front of us. In unison J.P. and I let out an “OH SHIT…………” The other boat was chasing a whale, and I shit you not, we were about thirty yards from t-boning that thing. We managed to make it back in three hours, more than double the time it took us to get out there. We pulled up to the dock and Chris yelled out “Tie us off on the dock Florida.” My sea legs nearly got best of me because I barely cleared the rail narrowly avoiding taking a dip. Fortunately fate had decided on a happier ending. There are some photos up in the California section of my photo blog.

Brooklyn vs. Manhattan

Here's a little something for all you haters!
Just for the record I do not wear wizard boots, i hold a steady job, and i bathe regularly. Enjoy this clip

Cuando en Lima!

A development trip to visit our tee shirt and sweatshirt manufacturers placed my co-worker Steve Green and I on the beautiful shores of Lima, Peru. After clearing customs Steve said "Hey that guy is holding up a sign that says Moose Huerta" I felt like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and after a 30 min drive we arrived at the illustrious Hotel Olivar. "I yelled to the driver yo holmes smell yah later. I looked at my kingdom. I was finally there to sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel-Air", well room 322 at least...

::Con Queso?::

We spent four days with the boys over at American Flex Printing. We never had much direct dialogue with the team; mainly because of the cultural divide between the indigenous Peruvians and the Peruvians of European descent. As much as Steve and I wanted to bro-down with the fellas we realized we needed to earn their respect. So after four days of my gringo Spanish we shared a few laughs. Usually at our expense. In fact the biggest laugh we got was when our buddy Luis Angel tried to describe to Steve how to say turquoise in Spanish (which is pronounced Tor-que-sah.) I thought he said "con queso" which translates to "with cheese" and I said it out loud. That one really brought the house down especially when I tried to play it off.

::Vamos a la playa::

My mother was born in Bolivia and the first time she saw the ocean was in Lima. She always describes it as one of her more frightening experiences , because as a little girl the waves seemed so gigantic. I packed my wetsuit hoping to rent a board and catch one of these Goliaths in my down time, but that never happened. In fact our only salvation was that Peruvians hold lunch and dinner very sacred. Had I suggested having a working lunch or dinner I may have gotten smacked in the mouth and rightly so. Maurice our Peruvian liason "unofficial mayor of Lima's textile industry" lead us in a sprint down to the beach right before sunset one evening to get a quick glimpse of lay out. Maurice also took us to a skate park but only for us to discover a series of decrepid ramps. You can bet 100 soles that the next trip will strategically be placed between two weekends of decadent leisure. Until then I will be dreaming of Inca Cola and Lomo Soltado, or maybe Ceviche with a Pisco Sour depending on my mood. Ay dios mio.. Hasta la proxima vez, Peru!