Slap in the Face

"I get no respect." --Rodney Dangerfield

The waves were overhead and the north wind was blowing offshore at Shorties on Monday night, creating ideal conditions for an after work surf. When O.S. and I finally made it to the logs facing the cove, it was nearly 6:30, so we charged straight in. We timed the paddle-out perfectly and made it without having to duck any of the set waves that would pile in every 10 minutes. There was a group of five other surfers out there that were absolutely ripping. One would take off on an A-frame peak, completely disappear from view, and before you could ask yourself what direction he went, a board would slash like a blade over the back of the lip--all the way up to the fins--and snap back down, sending a cascade of water in its wake.

The peak shifted around the second creek area to the north of the cove. There was really no way of telling who would be lucky enough to get the biggest and best shaped waves. I had a couple good rides, but seemed to be getting weird vibes from another surfer who was nearest to me. A few waves before, he dropped in on a wave and went right and I nearly went left toward him, but pulled back. I apologized for almost getting in his way. He just gave me a look that resembled a person who smelled an offensive egg fart.

A few minutes later, a big set wave rolled in from the north and started feathering behind me. The stink-eye guy had been catching some insiders and was well out of position for this one. With O.S. yelling, "Yeah Chum!" I turned and stroked into it confidently, and surged forward with the same sensation that Barry Bonds must have when he lays pine on a baseball and knows it hit the sweet spot. As I jumped to my feet, I noticed that the guy inside was paddling into the wave on the shoulder. Normally, I call a person off to avoid being dropped in on ("beep, beep!"), but this time I didn't have to, because when I laid into my bottom turn and reached out to drag my hand I must have been going pretty fast--my glove slapped the face of the wave so hard that it popped like a firecracker. The guy jerked his board back and I flew by, just working the green wall as hard as I could, feeling the speed and watching the swell reshape and re-bowl several times.

It took me forever to get back to where O.S. was sitting and when I finally did, he said, "I thought you wiped out, because I heard a big smack after you took off." I just laughed and told him about what happened. Then I thought about this blog and about how nobody would believe how good it was if One Speed wasn't there to witness the session. Am I just getting lucky? Or is there another factor, something magical in the woods, bringing me good fortune at Shorties?

The Fiery Furnaces "Paw Paw Tree"

PS - I grabbed this photo off of the Short Sands area of Magic Seaweed because it looks similar to the conditions we had on Monday... Thanks, whoever!

The Peen

The first time we walked down the path to Short Sands, Gee and I noticed a strange formation in the roots of one of the old growth trees. At first we laughed about it, joking that the old pines around here have gentile genitals, et-cetera, proceeding to "knock on wood," and create all manner of immature puns and wordplays to kill the next 20 minutes as we made our way to the beach. After scoring good spring waves, we acknowledged the tree on the way back up the hill, thanking "The Peen" for delivering a good session. From that day on, we ceremoniously rubbed it for luck like Buddha's belly on our way down the trail, and most of the time it delivered. Even on days when we had crappy sessions (like the one where I busted my nose) Gee pointed out that maybe it would have been worse had I not paid homage to the ancient dong. I agreed.

We touched The Peen yesterday, Nash, Kato, and I, and that wooden weenie smiled upon us. Short Sands displayed why it is one of the best spots on the Oregon coast, with glassy 3-4 ft. peaks popping up all over the cove. I had one of my best sessions ever. I could fearlessly drop in late, drag my hand, stall back into the steepest part of the wave, release, speed ahead, cut back, crouch low, fly forward again, and turn off the top. Guys were getting tubed and even landing aerials.

It's funny how people diss Shorties, calling it the "Kook Corral" and referring to the beautiful hike as "The Walk of Shame." Then, on nights like last night, when the wind instigates chaos across the surface of the sea, where do all of the North Coast's best surfers flock? Oswald West State Park. Hopefully the haters will keep hating and never discover the secret of "The Peen." It's pretty gay after all.

Anybody else have surf superstitions?


Stevie Wonder "Superstition"

Risk Vs. Reward

Nash and I made the big hike to one of Oregon's legendary mysto spots on Saturday. Two miles down a muddy switchback trail without any indication of what the waves would be like was enough to keep the weekend warriors away, but we'd done a little homework and were fully committed. When we reached the beach, we were greeted by a speedy a-frame barrel rifling in both directions. Not a soul in the water.

I paddled out first and quickly realized that my inexperience in hollow conditions limited my ability to make the most of the waves. For the first hour I didn't make ANY... Some would break with that perfect head-swivelling peel, but others would close out like a curtain call. The difference, when paddling into a peak, was sometimes tough to judge.

I eventually figured out where I needed to be to make the drop - right in the middle of the "U" where the wave was bending. After that I caught a couple steep rights and directed the heel side of my board toward the highest line it could hold, but I never even tried to duck into the tube, content to get speed and distance (and also a little wary about the prospect of getting slammed so far from civilization).

A few hours later, after checking out a peak where a couple other surfers had made their way into the water, Nash and I decided to take a break. By the time we had finished lunch, the wind picked up, the tide changed, and the waves were gone.

As we hiked back up the steep path, I kicked myself for not charging harder earlier. I'd have to get over my new fear of injury if I wanted the reward of my first tube.



Surf Punks "My Wave"

Snowboarding: Not Like Surfing

At least that's how I felt after last weekend at Mt. Hood Meadows, where I spent a few hours tearing up the bunny hill -- literally tearing holes in it with my ass, my knees, my elbows, and my wrists.

I had snowboarded twice before this on my home "stash" at Mt. Ashland and actually made some progress, going from their beginner run one day to some blue runs the next. But that was 5 years ago, before I started surfing again. It seems like my learning curve made a serious bear descent as a result of the new skills I've picked up in the ocean. Here are the biggest differences between surfing and snowboarding:

1. You can't move your feet.
2. The snow-covered ground hurts.
3. It takes forever to get your boots strapped in.
4. Most of the time, your knees are being tweaked at awkward angles.
5. You can slide sideways pretty fast down a steep hill (until you catch an edge).
6. You can actually slide backwards down the steep hill before crashing too.
7. It is a real bitch to stand back up after you fall.
8. If you "just go straight" you go faster than on a wave.
9. There are big poles, trees, and little children on tiny skis in your way.
10. You need to clip your toenails before wearing the boots.
11. Goggles really squeeze the bridge of your nose, which can hurt if it's broken.
12. People can easily push you down.
13. It takes longer to get to the mountain than to the beach.
14. On a positive note, there is nice music playing all the time and beer close by.

Don't get me wrong, it was such a fantastic day on the mountain. It was alternately sunny and snowing every couple of minutes and the air was so clean it was like sinus rejuvination with every breath. My wife absolutely loved it and she proceeded to show me up in her ability to connect turns and keep herself under control (i.e. going at a snail's pace down the hill with perfect form).


I'd like to thank the following people for making it possible: O.S. for the day passes he gave to us for Christmas (we just barely squeezed it in before the mountain closed!) and Kato and Roomy for lending me gear and a board (pictured) which several people offered to buy off of me - one even offered to trade a new CI surfboard for it.

Today I'm taking my aching arms surfing.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy "A Minor Place"

The Nose Is Mightier Than the Board

It seems unlikely that the face, with all its fleshiness and fragility, can actually be stronger than a six-foot plastic plank, but on Sunday my nose proved that it is more resiliant that the nose of my surfboard. Suffice to say, Sunday was an eventful session, filled with great turns on open faces in the spring sunshine, the lowlight of which was a ride that came three hours into the day when I wiped out on a benign inside reform, falling headfirst onto my upwardly mobile McCoy. I know what you're going to say. My nose looks worse than the board's in the picture. Well, I can assure you that while my broke beak is on the mend today, the surfboard still needs a few patches.

With the complete, unabridged, photojournalistic version of the story still to come, I must pose this question to my surfing friends out there:

What's your worst surf-related battle wound?

Animal Collective "Flesh Canoe"

Blow me.

We got a late start Tuesday (4pm) so we had to drive directly to a break and commit to that spot instead of searching for more condition-receptive locations. When we got to Indian, the winds were blowing hard offshore, creating great plumes of spray that flew in the air in vails triple the size of the actual waves. The waves, which were about 4-6 feet, would stand up and the lip would jiggle like jello before finally succumbing to gravity.

The gale seemed to present easy drop-in situations, so we decided to give it a shot, pulling on our wetsuits quickly and scrambling down the hill to the waterline. The rip along the northern cliff was pulling like a conveyer belt, sheilded from the blunt of the swell and the whipping wind. Depositing ourselves in the outgoing current, we looked left and I pointed out a perfect hollow wave reeling toward us, halfway to the safety of the outside. The question was, how would we put ourselves in a position to find that peak as we battled the NE wind and resulting chop, not to mention larger outside sets.

Once we drifted far enough outside, we paddled due south, pulling ourselves from the tidal reflux. Nash had the first wave and went right on the peak. Nice drop, but the wave petered. I howled like a banshee, though. I hadn't seen Nash look that comfy on a drop-in and turn before - he was really improving.

After another set rolled in that I barely punched through, I realized that getting caught inside was a bad idea. There wasn't much of an interval and the waves were heavy closer to shore, so getting pushed too far would require walking back up the beach to the rip again to get back to the lineup. I also noticed that the NE wind was blowing us south at a rapid clip. I was soon halfway down the beach and periodically paddling north to stay on the peak I wanted, which I lined up with a saddle in the rocks at the north side of beach and a reddish cliff beyond the shorline.

I spotted a good swell running at me and knew I would be able to get into it. It jacked up to the north, meaning that I'd have to go right, so I paddled and angled myself slightly right to give myself a chance of making the wave. The offshore wind spat water in my face like a motorcycle in a driving rain and I squinted hard as my board propelled forward. I popped up despite the heavy wind and flew down the face, looking back over my lead shoulder. The wave was overhead and I was going really fast, but ahead of me I could see the lip starting to feather and throw. There was no way that I would make the section, as tempted as I was to take a higher line on the wave to see if I could get tubed. So I straightened out a little and bailed into the rumbling wall of whitewater, lunging into it with as much power as I could to get through the back.

When I broke the surface of the sea, I quickly grabbed my leash and yanked my board back to me. There were two more set waves exploding outside and advancing quickly. I pointed my nose directly at the first and paddled like hell to get some speed for the duckdive. When the foam was 10 yards away, I pushed the font of my board deep and kicked the tail down with my foot. When the stick was flat and at arm's length under the water, I pulled my body down to it. The foam passed over head and I exhaled through my nose as I came out the back.

I scratched toward the shoulder of the second wave and duckdove again, this time just under the falling lip. When I broke through the back, the spray rained down in sheets, like hammers and nails.

I would make the section on my next wave.

Love Is Laughter "Corona Extra"

My iPod Loves Me.

I put my iPod on shuffle this morning, and this is what it told me:

Wire "Outdoor Miner"
Robert Pollard "The Right Thing"
Jimmy Cliff "Many Rivers to Cross"
BRMC "Ain't No Easy Way"
Camper Van Beethoven "Laundromat"
Pixies "Holiday Song"
Joggers "We've Been Talked Down"
Jens Lekman "Oh You're So Silent, Jens"
Red House Painters "I Feel the Rain Fall"
Metro Area "Nerves"
My Bloody Valentine "Off Your Face"
Love Is Laughter "Idol Worship"
Broken Social Scene "Shoreline"

Sometimes I think it knows my moods.

Brown Balled

I got sick this week.
Sore throat.
Brown phlegm balls in the toilet every morning.
Needless to say, I won't be submerging myself in ice water this weekend.

T. Rex "Slide"

Inspiration/Regurgitation

It is hard to put into words the amount of inspiration I feel every time Jimmy and Emily come to town. I've known these guys since they were playing brightly-lit coffee shops in Santa Monica and driving a beat up minivan to work, where they spent their days in a QA dungeon, painstakingly checking the sound quality of thousands of songs that would be distributed by an internet music company.

I've always admired their music and wondered if the rest of the world would feel the same way. Emily is a true poet, constantly creating and questioning. We went to Coachella together one year, determined to sneak into the VIP tent. Once there, while Jimmy and I sucked down margaritas and talked shit, Emily sat quietly, jotting lyrics in a sketchbook she carried with her.

Jimmy is a prolific musician who lives life as passionately as he plays guitar and trumpet. He emailed me before he got to Portland on Sunday night: "We're in town until 6am... dangerous." And it was. After their gig, our reunion was a blur of beer, bourbon and bear hugs, punctuated by shots of tequila and sloppy karaoke. At one point, Jimmy put his arm around me and said, "We're selling out this tour." I'm sure I shot him a strange look, so he clarified: "We sold out the Filmore last night!"

Metric will never sell out. I remembered Palm Springs again, when Emily told me that they turned down a chance to license their music to a Power Puff Girls cartoon. It was at a time when they clearly could have used the money, but instead kept their integrity in check.

I wished I was as dedicated to art as they were. I wished I could go see them fulfill their dream of actually playing Coachella this year. I'm sure my thoughts were slurring by this point. Then, almost instantly, the inspiration I felt was replaced by another sensation, something that I hadn't felt since college. Forcing a bottle of water into my hand, my wife guided me out of the tour bus (how had I gotten there?) into the car, and back home where I vomited.

Metric "Too Little Too Late"

Portland concert photos: jk@justin-kent.com

Finding the G-Spot

The rumors are true. Saturday we held a surf contest in honor of Gee, my surf comrade, who was turning 30 years old. The location was dependent upon the elements, so we spent the night at a beach house in Northern Oregon and got up early to scout out a good spot--or a spot that at least had rideable waves. The horn for the big heat was to sound at 9:00 AM, so we had to make the call with very limited information. We drove 40 minutes south of O to check out the pipe and PC, neither of which looked as good as the surf right outside our window when we woke up. Running into the other invitees along the way, Slim and Nash, we made the call to head back to the beach break at O.

The whole thing was a big piss-take really, since none of us are all that accomplished at surfing, so we came up with some funny categories the contest would be judged upon: Best Wipeout, Longest Ride, Bigget Wave, Best Picture, Smallest Wave, and the coup de gras: Best Tube Ride. Yeah.

The best part of the whole thing is that we had a videographer taping the contest, meaning that we could review any points of contention later, over cheap beers.

Slim was the first guy out and the first man to catch a decent wave, leading the way for the rest of the guys: myself, Nash, Gee, and Onespeed (OS). Then, OS caught a really long wave on his Stewart longboard that I was sure would clench the Longest Ride prize.

The highlight of my session was when a well-shaped peak rolled in and I was sitting next to Slim. It looked like it would A-frame, so I asked which way he was going. "Right!" he yelled, so I took off left. It was a great wave that actually gave me a chance to crouch in the pocket and drag my fingers in the face. I felt a little spray feather over my head and thought, "Best tube ride?" Not. But the wave went on a long time and allowed for some nice turns. When I finally made it back out to the lineup, Slim, who had missed the right, said, "That one is going to have to be reviewed." I told him that he shouldn't have said he was going right.

After a couple hours, the waves got blown out and we had to head back to the city anyway to prepare for the rest of Gee's birthday activities. If it were up to me, the contest results would be as follows:

Best Wipeout - Gee
Longest Ride - OS
Biggest Wave - Slim
Best Picture - (TBD upon video review)
Smallest Wave - Nash
Tube Ride - Not Applicable (although I got a little spray cover!)

I'm hoping to get a chance to check out the video soon, and when I do, I'll get some screen grabs for Sissyfish!





Yo La Tengo "Beach Party Tonight"

Suit Up

When I was in art school, my painting teacher and mentor--a guy who recreated bowls of fruit with three-haired brushes--gave the class some unexpected advice. He seemed grumpy as he looked at a studio filled with bleary-eyed undergrads. "You guys are artists," he growled, staring down a frat boy who had invited two of his "brothers" to our lifedrawing class a few days before to check out the nude model. "You should be living and breathing art. You should look like artists. Wear a fucking beret around campus if you have to. Be proud and express yourself whenever you can."

I'll never forget that speech. It came completely out of left field, between how to create depth with line weight and the importance of negative space, but it's something that I draw from more often in my daily life than most of his other lessons (as you can probably tell from my drawings).

A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a guy who has devoted most his life to the outdoor apparel industry. Both being surfers, we started talking about surfwear. I said that I don't even want to look like a surfer if it means wearing baggy, pseudo-punk printed trunks, logo plastered t-shirts and pink trucker hats. We both agreed that defining yourself by what brands consider "lifestyle" is completely ridiculous.

Later that day, I was thinking about how surfers have always embodied a bohemian lifestyle that clothing brands have worked hard to capitalize on, but have never really gotten right. How could they? Thinking about Mickey Dora showing up to play tennis against Mike Doyle in Beverly Hills wearing a Nazi trenchcoat, Da Bull in his unlaced jailbird-striped trunks, skaters with massive armpit holes cut out of their shirts, graffiti artists with bandana/masks around their necks, John Peck's natty beard ("shaving is inhumane!"), Mickey Munoz's half-beard, Brad Gerlach going cowboy in the '80s, even Donavan Frankenreiter's bell-bottoms, it became obvious that there was something surf brands could never package. It goes without saying, but it's mojo, attitude, individual style, or whatever you want to call it.

And if you want to see real freaks, combine surfers and artists. Then put them in Portland, the land of the weird, far from the strip malls of SoCal.

Joggers "We've Been Talked Down"

Seaside's Seedy Side

Alternate title: "Beer and Bloating by the Sea."

It was Friday night and in a stroke of good luck that can only be attributed to the smile St Patrick himself, my wife gave me the green light to spend the weekend at the beach.

Gee and I checked the Seaside Cove immediately when we arrived and finding it blown to smithereens, made our way to our $38-per-night room at "The Mariner Motel." When we checked in, I asked the man behind the desk what was happening in town for St. Patty's day. He did what I thought was a pretty sad impersonation of a drunken Irishman: "Oh, there'll be a-plenty of shinanigans goin' down on Broadway, eh!"

"Oh, you even have the accent. Nice," I said, taking the room key.

"So you're in town for the surfin', EH?" he replied. His accent actually was sounding more Canadian, or maybe it was a speech impediment... Oops. Feeling embarassed, I said that we were indeed here to surf and that we might see him on Broadway later. With that, we went to our room, opened the windows to let some of the hookery meth must out, cracked a couple Guinnesses, and watched the NCAA Tournament.

We started our St. Patrick's prowl on Broadway at a windowless wood-walled bar called "The Bridge Tender." It was actually located on a bridge that crossed the river that runs through Seaside, thus the name. Inside, the smoke was as thick as Frisco fog in the summertime. We pulled up to the bar and ordered a couple Buds in festive green metallic bottles. They were $1.50 each. An alcoholic couple to our right gave us the lowdown on the town's finer drinking establishments. The list of places to drown your sorrows sounded kind of like surf spots, all ending in "s": Dooger's, Pudgy's, Girtle's, and Sam's (where the old guy insisted that Lucky Lagers were 75 cents and the waitresses had big knockers, to which I replied that we would enjoy, since we were members of the big titty committee. He had never heard that one, and laughed for about 15 minutes.)

Where am I going with this? Needless to say, we hit all of the "s" ending bars above (and one that didn't end with s, where a Van Halen/GNR cover band was playing) and found ourselves riding around in the back of some guy's VW van to get food at "Muchos Gracias" taco stand at 3:30. It was closed. The van kept stalling and things were feeling a little sharky, so we bailed out at a 24-hour gas station mini market and walked back to our humble crack hovel to get some shut-eye. This was going to wreak havoc on our dawn patrol.

Woke up at 8:00. Rousted Gee, who wondered out loud how his pant legs had gotten soaked up to the knees. I vaguely remembered the smell of pot smoke and his charging down the beach toward the waterline.

Neither of us brought tooth brushes.

We checked the cove first. The waves were smallish and red. Nobody was surfing. I guess it was a red tide, which I'd never seen before. We hit about four more spots before settling on Short Sands, and it ended up being the right decision. We surfed there for about five hours, subsisting on only coffee, a bagel, a stick of string cheese, and a hard boiled egg.

O.S. met us at Shorties and we did the cycle, riding waves in and taking the rip back out to the break. It was a nature cruise that we dubbed "The A-Train." You could just sit on your board and examine the passing rock formations, starfish, sea pines leaning 100 feet over the ocean with their roots exposed, all the time humming the Billy Strayhorn jazz standard. And when you got to the little duck bobbing and diving in the lineup, you paddled out of the rip. It was a good day.

O.S. got to the parking lot and realized that he had left his lights on. Dead battery. After 30 minutes, we found someone with cables. Ate dinner in the lounge of Ye Olde Steakhouse in Cannon Beach. When we got back to Seaside, the city's power was out. It remained that way for 3 hours, so we drove north of town and discovered a bowling alley. I came out of the gate and rolled a turkey (3 strikes in a row). I thought I actually had a chance for a 200 game, but only ended up with 170. Alas. Halfway through the game, the lights went out - but it was for "Cosmic Bowling." The place filled up with high school kids who ran around and made out under the black lights. It was pretty entertaining. We got back to Seaside at 11:30 and the power was back on.

Sunday morning. Sore arms. We found the cove looking pretty good. We did the rock-walk out to the break and carefully launched ourselves from the slippery boulders into the rip. This is the first day that my 6'2" McCoy actually showed some potential. The waves were powerful and brown, about shoulder high with head high sets. I found it really easy to drop in and once up, the board was a bullet. We surfed for about an hour-and-a-half before the conditions dropped. I promised my wife I would be home for tennis in the morning, anyway. The sun shined all weekend and my lips were burned when I got home. Could it actually be springtime?

Pogues "Dirty Old Town"
Duke Ellington "Take the A-Train"

Sitting Surfers

This is a sketch I did for the cover of an Oregon surf 'zine that Gee and I came up with on a ride to and from the coast. Yes, that's where my screen name came from. We basically had the whole first issue figured out, from an "Ask the Crusty Local" department to bikinis modeled by Suicide Girls wearing Sorel boots and ski masks. It was gonna be perfect. Instead, I started this blog and the 'zine got shelved. I still have the original service station receipt that I wrote all of our ideas on the back of during our first impromptu editorial staff meeting. I'd post it here, but, you know, they were some damn good ideas...

Modest Mouse "Gray Ice Water"

Pink Surfer, Blue Board

I have never been tubed. I've tried a handful of times but basically got drilled and never saw an exit. I kept my eyes open on a few of those rare occasions and contrary to the "green room" analogy, saw only white. It looked like I was inside a white bubble with vertical lines running through it. For a second anyway... Then it was just boom.

ELO "Livin' Thing"

The Cape

This is the first drawing I did on my computer a year ago. I was just playing around with different brush effects and line styles and this wave emerged, so I put a little surfer in there. I didn't even know how to create different layers at the time, so the whole thing is on one, meaning none of the colors or marks can be removed easily. Kind of like a jazz take... or maybe not.

Thelonius Monk "Round Midnight"

Open Wide

So at the end of the day, after everybody had written the surf off as "too mushy" and "blown out," five friends pulled on their slimy wetsuits and got back into the water. Within minutes, the rip along the cape deposited them in a neat row in the line-up. Once there, they found themselves in the most perfect waves they had ever experienced on the Oregon coast. The 6-foot peelers wrapped around the rocks and gave them a taste of point break surfing - a rarity in this land of whitewater walls and shifty beach breaks. This wave glowed aqua under the setting sun. It came in a long line before standing too tall and folding over neatly from the right, a friendly foamball punctuating the end of a smooth green slope. The break was so precise that it was actually difficult to get caught inside. It was overhead, but the drop was easy. After that, it was up to the rider to write his little story/song on the face to the best of his ability. For our group, that usually meant drop in, bottom turn, find pocket, stay in sweet spot and "go, go, go!" We all hooted until we were hoarse.

There was another guy out there with us; a skilled longboarder who must have been Hawaiian (judging by his dark complexion, tough demeanor, Excel wetsuit, and board with "Kahlua" emblazoned on the deck). I'll never forget one of his rides. It's like a David Pu'u surf photo in my mind. There he was, riding in the classic knock-kneed style, backlit with the lip throwing right over his head. Was he going to pull in? He was standing too tall. Did he get tubed? The last thing I remember before he was obscured by the passing swell were his gleaming white teeth blasting from the silhouette of his head. When he paddled back out next to me, we both had to scratch hard to get outside another wave rifling down the line toward us, bigger than the one he had just ridden. He howled as we barely made it over the top, "Open wide!"

Animal Collective "Did You See the Words"

Hang Ten

I'm not a longboarder, but I've always been blown away by the amount of grace good log riders have when they surf. It's not about the size of the wave. It's not about being aggro. It's all about style and making it look easy. I tried to capture economy of movement in this drawing by only using a few lines.

Tom Ze "Vi!"

Green Surfer, Pink Clouds

I have resolved time and again to include more of my art on this blog, but somehow keep forgetting to actually do it. That's not to say that my photographs and writing aren't "art," but in reality they are more of a record-keeping tool than expression of my so-called muse. So starting today, inspired by creative bloggers Doc and Foul Pete, I'm going to throw up more of the drawing and painting I do on a regular basis. It's all about the stoke, right?

Robert Pollard "Caught Waves Again"

Southern Exposure: Tripping to Nirvana

Hitting a zen-like state can be achieved in several ways: sometimes you can get there there through challenging activities like surfing, where your mind is completely thought-free in the infinite moment, and sometimes you can get there through relaxation and meditation. Saturday, I was taken to a higher plane via the latter. After surfing at Otter Rock in wind blown (albeit powerful) conditions, I returned to the Salishan resort near Lincoln City where my wife was already enjoying a spa treatment. I was scheduled for a 4:30 massage, but I got there early, alowing for plenty of time to enjoy the facilities. The place is amazing. It reminded me of Ryoanji's rock garden in Kyoto, where nature, art and civilization all blend together seamlessly, except in this case you could sit in a bubbling hot tub outdoors and take it all in. The simple modern building (made of native lumber and slate) was situated on the edge of a bay where every window afforded visitors views of water, trees, and scattered rocks. There was a fireplace in the middle of a glassed "obervation room" where people wearing robes sipped tea and warmed their toes.

My massage was perfect. Sore shoulders were kneaded to putty and neck knots were squeezed to submission. Afterward, I took a long sauna followed by a cold "rain shower," then I went back outside and sat in the infinity-style jacuzzi again, alone. It was gettting dark as I watched the wind create rippled patterns on the bay. Moments later I would feel the same wind hit my face as it came on shore, a cool contast to the hot water. Contemplating the shape of an angular sea pine against the sky (which reminded me of an Utamaro woodcut) and the illuminated green bubbles circulating around me, I felt myself slipping into a near-unconscious state. I thought of how incapable words are to describe these things and tried to put myself in a place where there was no language, only senses. The bluish bubbles were simply a feeling and a relationship between light and matter. The air was actually more solid than empty, filled with energy and particles. I was tripping and it actually scared me a little. I felt like I was standing on a cliff in my mind and I carefully moved back away from it. I got out of the water, showered, and went back to our hotel room feeling completely refreshed and ready for dinner.

This was a significant day. It was the same day a year ago that my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. We only realized this fact as we drank rich Italian wine in our hotel room and readied ourselves for dinner. We needed this reprieve from our daily lives, especially on the anniversary of what had been the start of a very heavy year for both of us. A special thanks goes out to my brother and his wife, who gave us this weekend getaway for Christmas. Words cannot describe how significant this experience was for both of us.

Below are some pictures I took during my exploration around the Lincoln City/Newport area. Sorry I couldn't take snapshot in the spa, but I don't think the clientele would have appreciated it...

South of Lincoln City, skimmers in their swimmers. Brrr-ly.

Rip city at Otter Rock.

After taking a few closeouts over the head I wondered if this was a bad omen.

Shot from the point at Otter Rock.

The swell died a lot after I got out of the water (I swear).

A heart-shaped hole over a 20-foot drop.

The south swell touches down.

Secret spot with southern protection...

...and a sketchy entry and exit.

Two peaks working in two little bays. I'll never tell.

Red House Painters "Grace Cathedral"

Locals Only

It's always tough to paddle out at a new spot, even when the conditions are great, as they were when we four-wheeled it down an umarked trail north of PC. You don't know which way the rips are going to pull, if the boils in the water are going to turn into exposed rocks as the tide goes out, or exactly how far out the sneaker waves may break. But the worst thing about testing new waters is running into surly locals who think they own the place.

The waves were pretty amazing on Saturday when Nash and I parked his truck on the cobblestones above the waterline. Winds were offshore (yet again) and the shoulder-high peelers were actually hollow, breaking both right and left. We met up with Slim and Smithy, who had surfed this spot before, and followed them out to the peak. Just a mile down the beach we had witnessed a group of longboarders jockeying for mushburgers, yet we were all alone. It was Smith who picked off the first good wave, and he actually ripped it - I saw the nose of his new board flick above the back of the wave several times before he kicked out. Hm. We actually had a decent surfer in our ranks.

Inspired, I made a fair effort going right, staying in front of the fast-moving lip and doing a few little top turns of my own. Slim rode the Grease Slapper well in these conditions and Nash made some nice drops despite his bum eyes.

About halfway through the sesh, the locals showed up. I'm not sure how they snuck up on us, being as fat as they were, but no sooner had I finished a ride and paddled back outside when they made their presence known. They weren't happy. The first one paddled over agressively and jutted his nasty whisker-covered jaw at me exposing his bottom teeth. He barked like the animal he was. I was intimidated. Oregon locals have a bad rep and these, blimpish in their black slick skins, looked ready to throw down. The second one just glared with his beady black eyes. "Salty dogs!" I thought as they moved a little closer. They must've weighed about 1,000 pounds each, and they were backing me off the peak, inside where the set waves were breaking. I was about to threaten to "go Inuit on their blubbery asses" when they made themselves scarce, just as stealthily as they had arrived.



When sea lions get up in your grill, it can be a little scary. They love to face off and make a lot of noise, but usually they're all bark and no bite. Sometimes you can see their shadowy forms zipping underneath you under the water, which can add to the tension, but it's hard to imagine that an animal whose head looks like a wet daschund can do too much damage. Sometimes it can be more unsettling when the animals all dissappear at once, as they did on Sunday. Then you start wondering about the locals with the silver suits and the blacker eyes. The ones that don't say anyghing with their big mouths...

Robert Pollard "Gold"




P.S. This entry is meant to be read in your cheesiest Bruce Brown narration voice - I have been overdosing on vintage movies like Waterlogged that were part of a box set I was given for Christmas. (I'm also going to see Robert Pollard tonight).