It is 5:52am on July 17th. It's my birthday today!!! It's interesting to decide what to do on a birthday!!! At the moment the tide is really high in the mornings so I'm thinking High tide Jaco and hopefully filming with two of the pro kids. I actually find it really enjoyable to work with these kids and get to film them. I happily give up an hour of my session to get their footage. Waves have been fun lately. Rainy season opened up the rivers along the beach and the sand bars have been peeling. Often the swell is too big to surf out front so we trek with some friends to other waves in the area. Danielle's making cinnamon rolls this morning for me and I thought a fun thing to do would be to post a blog. I recently saw Nick Grosvenor's blog (Catchcamera.com) and it made me want to blog more. Lately I have been painting a lot!!!! We moved to Las Olas and are doing a big mural for them as well as two paintings per room. That covers two months of rent and a meal a day for Danielle and I at their restaurant for the next two months. It's nice sitting at the restaurant since we rarely get to eat out.
I've been painting a whole lot because we need to put on an art show in the next couple weeks to buy new tickets back to RI. This is the longest stint we've stayed in Costa and the art show should cover the expenses of the tickets. We recently went down to the Panama border to stamp passports and also got to score Pavones. That was cool. I hadn't been there in four years or something like that. Kelly Slater has been coming to Costa every chance he can. He was down here just before the Jbay event started. Andy Irons, Julian Wilson, Yadin Nichols, Corey Lopez and a variety of other pros have been coming through here in the past month to train as well- we've collected some incredible footage. :)
Today is going to be a fun day. The backyard bar contest is on at 4pm so I will get to film all the kids going mental in the afternoon and today I will get to do so with a beer in hand. I Love birthdays! filming, painting, and surfing... that is life right now. We need some new music to listen to- a favorite song listing would be cool too if anyone can send us one. Is anybody else following taylor steele's innersection? I just watched Torrey Meister's part recently... Sick!!!! So was Marlon's. They both had songs I had never heard before that were really good. That's what I'm hoping someone can help us with. a few songs or bands that have stayed under the radar. That's all for now. I'll post some photos of some shots of life down here and we made a cute little film of the raven(our dog)- we made them for our parents, but I think you guys will like them. Enjoy
We just got some new My Local Lineup Decal stickers!!! They are designed primarily for surfboards and are still in the prototype phase. That means only select people have them thus far.
If you're interested in getting one, please contact info@mylocallineup.com and have "Stickers" in the subject line.
The stickers have been partly produced by 858 Graphics and David and his crew have done an outstanding job in helping us out to get that done. If you want to get hooked up with some graphics, check out their site San Diego Sticker Printing
And again, there have been only a few of them produced for the time being, so if you can't get a hold of one of them, don't take it personally. But if you do want one, please make sure to shoot us an email at info@mylocallineup.com
Every year I participate in the PB Summer Classic.
Its one of my favorite events and its held at Tourmaline Surf Park in Pacific Beach, CA.
This is the Pacific Beach Surf Clubs annual event to raise money for the club. They had raffle prizes that included a Longboard, a shortboard, skateboards, paintings, t-shirts, and the list goes on.
There is A TON of surfing talent in San Diego, which helps make this event so fun to watch. Every heat I was in was stacked with great surfers.
I was about 8 min late for my SUP heat...I got 4th, and didnt advance. (Im not too bummed) My Local Lineup was filming the event, so I was helping out with interviews and getting footage & pics in between my heats. Thank you to everyone who volunteered to do an interview!
At the end of the day, I wasnt sure how the results were going to turn out, but I was so stoked to get 1st place!! YES!!!!
Celia did a great job putting together the event.
I cant wait until next year!! Be on the look out for more footage/pics from My Local Lineup!
Pics of awards...
SUP Finalists Woman division I Woman division 2 Mens division I Mens division 2
***Note Groms were missing during the award ceremony, rumor has it...they were in the water!
It's 7:00am on a rainy tuesday down here. The day is starting a little slow with the rain, but that's just fine with us, we had a long day yesterday. We just took the dog for a walk on the beach with umbrellas and now are just sort of waiting to see who wants to surf. The surf is big again. Not so big that it's unsurfable out front, but there are more user-friendly places to go today. Yesterday was even bigger though and two of the local pro kids paddled out front and put on a show. We weren't there to witness it, we went surf venturing up the coast, but we came back to hear that those two got barrels that looked like big Puerto. Cest La Vi. We got to try out a spot we had never surfed and check two others that we had wanted to see what they were doing. One of those spots was dangerously perfect....but a little too big and shacking for our shortboards. We watched tube after tube spinning down the reef. But a step up board would have been needed to get yourself in early enough to survive the drop. We recently got to see a secret spot down here do it's thing a few weeks ago. Getting there is no picnic. It involves driving on a beach that is only navigable at low tide, paddling across a river that has crocodiles, walking a 1/2 mile up the beach and surfing in the outflow of an even bigger river where 16ft crocodiles have been spotted hanging out on the sand where you have to paddle out. The wave itself is sick though. The left comes in and tubes from start to finish with the potential for 20 second tubes... No exposure says the main locals here, so I won't be able to show you any video clips of it. The takeoff is not user friendly... It throws the entire time. Almost everyone tows it, due to safety reasons of less time in the water = less chance of being eaten by crocodile, and makes for the easy takeoff. But it is paddleable. I got some footage of Andy and Cory Lopez paddling in and doing quite well. THey were calling the wave better than skeletan bay. After that only two weeks passed before Kelly came down to give the wave a go. We couldn't film those days because the tide made it impassable to drive, you had to launch a ski from a long way away to get there. But I did get an opportunity to film him at Terraza and get some good clips of him. We finished our first surf movie called Pura Alma and his clips are in there. We also made a trailer for the movie on youtube with his best wave in it. here's the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj58TBVV1fY
THe movie itself was a long long process to make. an uncountable number of hours editing and filming and then when we finally made the movie, the file we were working with became corrupted somehow and we had to remake the whole thing. We then got it done again only to realize that the HD clips would not be seen HD in the version of Imovie we made the video in so we had to go back, find every clip again out of our 50 high stack of dvds containing the footage and put them into the new version of Imovie. It was a long process, but the movie is done. At the moment it is only availabe at surf shops down here, but we will work on getting it available elsewhere soon. We are going to do a few murals down here this month which is pretty cool. I'll post the photos once we complete them. Other than the hours and hours of filming and editing, we've gotten to surf some great waves along the way. I had to do a fair bit of healing too. I fell into a ravine at night while walking the sidewalk. The sidewalk had collapsed to the point where only one person could cross that section and my brother in law and I were walking side by side. my side ended in an 8ft ravine full of jagged concrete and rusty rebar. Amazingly, for how gnarley the injuries could have been from a face first fall into that thing I only ended up with two deep cuts. One in the elbow on in the back. I didn't surf for five weeks to heal them and the elbow is still a bit painfull at times. ( I think it cut into the muscle or something it's a strange pain because the wound itself has scared over). The time out of the water was necessary though to finish the film for the deadline of the New York Surf Film festival. So its one of those good luck bad luck who knows stories. Getting the dog here was an interesting adventure of taking a train from Conecticut to New York's grand central station. And then walking with all our luggage for 9 blocks before a buddy picked us up to get to his apartment. Then it took a plane from NY (the only cheap direct flight we could find) to get here. Life has been infineatly better having her here though. We will create a little video and post it below showing a bit of what life is like for us and her down here. that's all for now, it's 7:46am, the rain just stopped, the tide's hit its midpoint. It might be time to surf...
Ron House just made me 2 new boards that are really fast and loose. 8'6" 30" wide quad, and 9'6" 28 3/4" quad. Think blown up shortboards. I rode the 8'6" in 1 foot surf and was able to generate enough speed to do fin drift carves and vertical snaps.
A friend (dedicated shortboarder) came up to me and said now that is something he would like.
The 9'6" is a mini gun designed for 6' to 10' hollow freight trains.
Sorry it took so long to post these. I would have loved to keep A better blog this last bit of time, but I was either too busy, too tired, or too something to actually get these things posted. It doesn't help that I'm somewhat computer inept meaning that Danielle has to be the one to help me gather the photos, upload the videos, and even upload the writings. That means we had to have both of us alive enough to do it.
As long as I can find the old blog I wrote I left off with us staying in A loft of an all bamboo built house set back up the mountain a bit with our friends Dorian and Angelina and their little one. It had a shala out back to do yoga in and numerous fruit trees in the yard; including starfruit, guava, nani, and lemongrass. It felt like a japanese monastary. That lasted until just before Xmas and they decided to buy a different house and go back to the States for a bit to pay it off. We had no problems with that because staying there was literally sucking the life force out of us. We prepped, cooked, and cleaned almost every meal in exchange for the free rent, but that mixed with long bike rides to the beach to surf, and producing a weekly surf movie drained us to the point that we were running on empty. By the time we visited danielles family in RI for XMAS we were both exhausted to the point of sickness. That explains the not posting A blog over the holidays. Just too tired to do anything but rest and recover- and that is exactly what we did for two weeks. A steady diet of all the delicious foods we'd been missing, movies, and reading books, revived to the point that we were ready to go back down there. Our trip back down to costa rica was great because danielles mom came with us and we got to celebrate New Years in a hotel in Boston. We even got to see fireworks right from the hotel!
Our buddy Louis who we partnered with to create some surf films and a surfing based tv show had bought a waterproof video camera and we were excited to start filming with it. Thus another 90 days of all out get 'er done filming ensued. I'm actually really excited about the results. Getting through dry season in Costa Rica is no picnic when you have no a.c. and you are working all day and we both came back exhausted, but we got through it and things keep getting better.
For starters, we moved out of our place up the mountain and back to a place on the beach which has internet from our bed - so after we were done with our filming and editing for the day we could watch a movie on you tube. The local pro surfer kids really started wanting to work with us too so we had a steady stream of talent to film. There is some serious talent coming out of costa Rica these days. We made a you tube promo video for A sixteen year old kid down there named Carlos Munoz. To check it, go to you tube and type in Carlos Munoz surfing and then click on the 9 1/2 minute one. that's ours. He's pretty amazing!!!!
We also have our first surf video pretty much done. We are applying for some music rights and doing some last minute editing but it is coming together. You can see a rough draft of some of the footage below (there are five parts- Famosa Hermosa part 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, etc - click the next to see them all! or go to youtube.com/freefallwave24 )
Somewhere along in there boards broke, but we traded paintings for new ones and I'm finally on a board I really like and feel comfortable with. Danielle's got a new one coming her way when we get back so things are just flowing along. Both our parents visited us while we were down there. That meant a chance to have pina coladas and lounge pool side for a bit.
When we get back down there the first episode of our tv show will run (april 19th) It's pretty cool. The show is on the local public broadcasting chanel and is called Cultura Surf. It's 1/2 surfing and half local history and culture of the coastal area. Our job is to make the surfing parts. which is not so bad. It includes a condensed weekly surf footage, a trick tip, a profile, and a summary of the local backyard bar surf contest each week.
So that's our life right now. A steady diet of surfing, filming, making those parts for the tv show, making a weekly surf video for the restraunt, and making promo videos for the aspiring pro kids down there. We are back in Rhode Island at the moment just sort of recovering and getting inspired again. I read the Percy Jackson series (they are worth reading) and I just finished a book by Jimmy Buffet called A salty peice of land. that one's good too. I also just finished Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol which was another excellent read. It's springtime here at the moment. All the trees are budding or blooming so there is color everywhere and the weather is pleasant. (shorts and a tshirt so far, but jeans and a sweater on the cold days- which is really nice after nearly sweating to death for 90 days.) We only have 12 days here before we go back which seems an entirely too short of time for how tired we are, but Danielle's dad, stepmom, and stepbrother are coming down on the 15th so that was that. We are bringing our dog down there with us this time though which will make life down there infinetly better for us. It's hard to really explain our life down there and have you understand what it feels like. All I can say is that it keeps getting a little bit better each time, so why dwell on the hardships? We made it through dry season and now we are coming up on rainy season meaning it will be a lot less hot, we will have our dog with us, and you can normally surf out front much more during rainy season so it's less biking. We also have A 64 vw bus coming to us at some point free of charge thanks to the tv show so that's something to look forward to as well. At the moment we are trying to get the dog used to the dogger crate she will ride in on the plane and the dogger carrier she rides in behind the bike. Mix that with reading, watching movies, and overall decompressing and that's life for us. I am excited because in a week it's Danielle's birtthday which is fun to celebrate and each day before that is like a mini celebration anyways. There is always beer in the fridge here and ingredients to make whatever you desire. The weather is perfect for walking, and we have free time for a change. Most go to Costa Rica For a vacation. We go to Rhode Island. That' s all for now, I'm going to try to be more consistent with blogging. I will leave you with the opening quote from the Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol: "To live in the world without becoming aware of the meaning of the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books."- The Secret teachings of All Ages That's us for you, we're just trying to get through the Costa Rica chapter.
The Maverick crew shared this photo with us on the net. The Cliff angle of Peter Mel. Courtesy of "Big Daddy" Don Montgomery. In addition to big, we must remember that that is a dark, cold, shark-infested monster.
If you are a grom ,or an up and comer who is in need of images for your sponsor(s), let me know and I will come and shoot you. No charge (FREE) for you, but you will need to have your sponsors already. Let me know.
Come check out the all new Captains HElm...right next door to the old one! Its bigger, its better and were having a 50% off sale a free cookout and music by the cormans the day we open what more could you ask for? Come stop by next friday the 5th and check it out...
"SSPN" is having a meeting this Thursday Jan 28, 2010 10am - 11am at Ki's Restraunt accross from the Cardiff Chart House. Come and participate in a group of Surfing Business Owners and Professionals who get together once a month to share ideas and network to grow their business. Let me know if you are interested.
As all of San Diego, and for that matter Southern California, probably knows by now, Scripps was firing over the past weeks with the north west swell, especially in light of the south winds howling early on. Justin McBride, Corban Campbell, and others came down in droves to hit the waves south of the pier. Here is a glimpse of what went down.
Can this surfboard work finless? Jeff Doc Lausch shared these photos with My Local Lineup and got me thinking. A few thoughts come to mind on the finless project. Alaias, retrospective endearment but performance debacle. Modern attempts, thrilling possibilities but mission still to be accomplished. Perhaps, this is the one ...
The XX chromosomes have joined the line up and they are here so stay -- for after all, when the magic of surfing "hits you" it gets you all the way. Anyway, that might make some sense after you watch the trailer.
It's incredible how the wahines have put up with their beastial counterparts all these years in the lineup. And for that, they definitely deserve huge kudos from one of these very abominations.
Sean Mattison, Carlsbad local and assistant coach to the US Surf Team, just returned from a trip to Nicaraga where he score some killer surf on his newly designed board, "The Shadow."
Mattison ranks among the most stylish shortboarders of all times, by my lights. Typically, shortboarders (and I'm one of them) are so obsessed with performance -- pulling that killer turn, air, etc -- that they are completely oblivious to style, or at least relatively indifferent to it, as long as "I get to land that air!" Mattison is a breadth of fresh air.
Devon Howard shot me this nice clip of the last leg of the world premiere tour for Rob Machado's film THE DRIFTER. By the way, Ian O'Roarty is the mastermind behind the outstanding shortclip below -- congrats on the excellent job of putting it together.
"Catching up with surfing legend Rob Machado in his hometown of Cardiff by the Sea Caifornia, on the final stop of his film premier of The Drifter. Shot entirely on 2 Canon DSLRs 7D and 5D mark 2 respectively."
As I watch this, I can't help but ask myself if my viewing of these types of clips is partly what drives these big wave riders to put themselves in unreasonably dangerous, death-defying situtations. I don't have problems with big waves, but why go out with all that ridiculous chop?
In other words, are my media consumption habits subsidizing what in many cases ends in death? I'm sure the athlete is partly to blame. But aren't we also partly to blame? For if no body watched these things, the industry wouldn't be subsidizing insanity.
Some have suggested "inverted reversal." But I'm still trying to figure out how the surfboard is able to stay attached to his foot as he pulls off that turn inside of the white wash. Surfer: Josh Kerr.
Remember when Kelly and Rob played dual in the water and music on the stage, with lead singer and local surfer Peter King in the mix? Click play to go down memory lane.
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