Yesterday on Tantalus

Big leaves
E-dog behind the wheels

One Slide Wipe Out

Went down Tantalus Mountain on the fresh paved smooth buttery road.
The butter can bite and burn.

I looked behind me as i was sliding on my ass and saw my
pants turning into mini cotton balls flying in the wind.
All limbs in tact.
Mild burn on right cheek.
All G.
And didn't scathe my new favorite T-shirt.

Shut Skates Memory

another reminder of a story I want to tell...
-how Shut Skates would pull up to a Brooklyn Banks contest with hundreds of skaters on the banks getting ready with the heaviest snake sessions ever.

Shut would pull up in a van right in a the middle of it all.
Park.
Pull out a street ramp.
Force an isle way in the middle of it all somehow
and have their riders do a demo...
basically show off there stuff.
it was super ballzy but totally true.
they did have the best riders at the time.

A list of riders during this memory at the time. Most from Union City or Jersey area
-Felix Arguelles
-Mike Kemper
-Preston
-Coco Santiago
-Richie Garcia
-Sean Sheffey
-Jeremy Henderson
-Troy
and a couple of others I forget.

Led by Bruno and Rodney Smith who would soon end Shut and start Zoo York.

some of the tricks they were doing.
Ollie Japans.
Saran wraps
Possibly frontside 360 Japan's by Mike Kemper
Judos
Frigids
Just going so fast and pretty huge...
all of us skating on smooth almost perfectly laid red brick
which you didn't want to slam on.

It is one of my most bad ass memories I've ever witnessed.

Reminder

what I want to remember to write about.

1) the day I surfed Pipeline and watched Jamie O'brien drop in slow-mo and disappear only to re emerge cracking the lip.

2) the day I met Jeff Pang and the first day I slept over his house.

3) the day I surfed Rockaway with Colin after the windiest morning and catching the best session just the two of us
and catching waves all the way to the sand.

4)Surfing the Rockaway Box with Jimmy Gallagher. The day it was a shoulder high wave machine and us riding the conveyer belt all to ourselves for and hour and him yelling from the inside "that was probably the best wave of your life!"
5) the first time I surfed what I thought was the the Banzai Pipeline with Chris Cesca. It was only like Chris's third time surfing and he shouldn't have been out. He went over the falls on an overhead wave... into like knee high water and I thought he broke his neck like he almost did when he got pile driven by a kid named Jamie VanDunk in 6th grade. A few seconds later I found him emerging from under water with a smile on his face... He tried to drop in before me and this compelled me to drop into the steepest waves I dropped into yet. Everyone that surrounded us thought and knew he was stupid and risked his physical health...
but I got stoked off his big balls and I mean guts to you homo jokesters. That day I caught three rad waves back to back on my 8'0" which to me was my short board. I was trimming down from a 9'0".

6)Surfing bowls with Ben Aipa

7) figuring out that the nicest uncle to me at Ala Moana Bowls besides the twin Aunties is Uncle Clyde Aikau...
Eddie Aikau's younger brother.

8)watching a 40 plus year old crack the lip upside down past vertical and making it look like a kick turn past vert on a skateboard only much gnarlier... and later seeing him in a magazine named Mike Akima...

thats it for now...
these stories I want to embelish on at a later date.. when I have more time.

Dog eat Dog and Gerry Lopez

Damn.
I don't know if it's the weather, or what,
but I'm feeling the Dog eat Dog aspects of life.
Everyone out for self vibe... and I'm right there with'em no matter how much I may try to be a nice guy....
I'm just another guy catching waves... catching dolla bills.

But I won't go into what sucks in my life right now...

What was really rad for a moment was a few weeks ago (about 2)
the Friday before the Stand up Paddle Board race from Molokai to Oahu,
I surfed Rice Bowls with Gerry Lopez.

I didn't want to surf there at first.(I wanted to surf my new favorite spot)
but my friend Luke said our two friends Johnny and Joah were going to be surfing at Tongs,
which is right inside of Rice Bowls....
so I said ,.. I'll go session with some bros instead.

Rice Bowls is the high performance wave on the South Shore, second to Ala Moana Bowls.
The only difference is that Bowls catches almost every swell and breaks every day from knee high to double over head.
Rice Bowls only starts breaking at head high.

I never saw Johnny and Joah as I paddled past Tongs straight to Rice Bowls.
There to my surprise was, not the normal 5 extremely aggressive guys and the other 15,

but 4 other dudes and myself... and in a few minutes of catching waves....
Gerry Lopez paddles into the line up.

The next wave I caught, I rode all the way in. It walled up nice and I did a few cut backs stoked smackin' the soup,
and then racing down the line into a head dip...
When I popped off the backside of the wave... I see Gerry on the wave behind me flying down the line with his paddle dug into the face of the wave....
"I scream yeah Gerry!" stoked.

as we paddle back to the line up I said, "how was that wave?" and he said "ok. I saw you catch a good one earlier"
Soon another wave approached and I say "here comes your wave Gjer Gjer"
and I think to myself, I just called Gerry Lopez, "Gjer Gjer"
After some small talk, I find that he's in town to surf the Molokai channel race.

he then paddled off to the next break outside Tongs ( I believe the break is called Zeros)
and that's one of the last stoked days I had.
Besides last sunday. and my wedding on July 28th 2009.

-Mandog

Have the week off.
Honeymoon in Hawaii.
Got married on Saturday.
Today is Tuesday.
Skated around Diamond Head.
and surfed at bowls.

Some guy dropped in on Ethan pretty bad.
A rad perfect wave.
The guy who dropped in on him ripped the wave apart.
Ethan did the same. Only behind the guy.

His response to the bad move was.
"Hey. You got some sick lines brah."

And the guy made a sour face.

Later an Uncle recognized Ethan.
Ethan said yeah I'm gonna take the next one in.
Uncle says, "Why you just got out. You gotta be patient."
The drop in dude was sitting right next to Ethan."
And Ethan says, "No, I just caught a sick wave right behind this guy right here."
It made the guy look small and lame.

I liked this technique... Instead of calling him a kook, and starting a fight,
Ethan came at it positive and the guy didn't know what to do.

The skating earlier in the day was good times.
I put on an old set of unused soft 78a Kryptonic wheels.
They slid real good. and were such a cush ride.

Overall the day was rad.

Surf Wisdom: Crucial Seconds into a tangent mantra.

A second to early or a second too late is what your dealing with sometimes when catching waves.
Being at the right place and the right time. Some waves the margin of error is larger. Some waves there is no margin of error, where you must be spot on. Some boards will create that opportunity for error, however you might trade that for manueverablility. For instance a longer board will catch more waves, however you may not be able to turn it as radical.

However. with a shorter board that day and at that spot you may not catch any waves at all.
There is a right board for the right condition. And sometimes a condition that will allow for a variety of boards.

It works both waves. Ones choices are a dance or a gamble... or a recipe.

It's kind of like Mexian food sometimes. Your ingredients are beans, rice, tomato, onions, beef, or chicken and corn tortillas.
And you take these ingredients to take many differnet forms: Tacos, Burritos, Enchiladas, Chimichangas, Tostadas,

Some surfers think long boarding and short boarding and stand-up paddling boaring are separate, but they're not.d
They are all connected.
Take that a step further.
Surfing is no different than eating mexican food, Different choices, for a result of satisfying a hunger, a pleasure.

My ideas are scattered, but this is an attempt to attack the simplicity at hand.
Life is simple yet so hard to describe at times.
What angle to come at.
Well these writings are a literal practice like to be able to clearly define the secret to living life to your highest potential.

I want to surf.
I want a job.

I have to go where the waves are.
I go where the jobs are.

I like fast waves.
I like artistic jobs.

I surf where the fast waves form often.
I work where there are artistic jobs.

However the one thing that differs form life on land and surfing.
In surfing you have to wait for the waves to arise.

But on land, you can create the waves yourself with the help of others.
Waves of thought in the minds of others.

Sometimes perfect waves hit an area only once that year.
And sometimes they may not show up again for 2 more years or who knows when.

The more I surf the better I understand surfing waves and the ocean.
The more I write the better I understand how the waves of thought in the ocean in my mind.
The more I surf the better I can express myself on waves.
The more I write, the better I can express my thoughts.

The more I dance, the better I can move.
The more I surf, the better I surf.
The more I paint pictures, the better I can understand pictures.
The more I paint, the better I can understand color, shape, line, composition, narrating visually.

The more I surf, the better I understand surfing.

The more I work with people, the better I work with people.

The more I work, the better I work.

The more I love, the better I love.
The more I express my love, the better I express my love.

The more I spend time with friends, the better friends I have.

The more I breathe, the better I breathe.

The more I paint the better I paint.

The more time I spend with myself, the better I understand myself.

But watch out. there are exceptions. You will run into a time when this technique of thought will not work
in every situation. Just as one surfboard won't work for all waves.


(Woke up at 3+am coudn't sleep and had these ideas. So I jumped onto the computer to capture them.)\
Alot of words.But...

There is an ocean of thoughts with infinite waves.
The act of Surfing is an easy activity to peer into the truth of the universe because it is not processed in thought and decisions of others... and too many tools. It is one mind, one board, one wave, one moment. And the only moment you have to deal with is the moment at hand. There are very few variables to deal with. You, your board, and the wave.


Not a team of players, not a boss, a company, your office, computer, assistant, department., Just you a board and the wave.

This is why it is good to eat unprocessed food. Something closer to its original form.

If you can surf between all these... juggle all of your passions.
Balance them all... This is what you must keep in practice.

The more I balance, the better I can balance.
The more I juggle, the better I juggle.

But there comes a point where I can only juggle a certain number of elements my life.
One more too many and the whole juggle collapses. I drop all the balls.

I gotta watch closely how many things I try to juggle.
Myself. Wife. Kid. Surf, Skate, Create.Write. Speak. Business.

Its funny how peoples priorities differ.
What happens when I shift around my priorities.
Like put Business on top.

nahhh. that would be gross.
But hey how about different priority combination for different conditions.
Switch up the ingredients for different occassions.

We're not gonna eat tacos every night right.

hmmmm. To be continued.