MY MAT

This one's for Surfsister- that's my dad holding the dog (Suki our shih-tzu), me coming in with the mat at the breakwater. It has to be 1976. I did the mat thing, then went "half-man." I started surfing about two years prior to this pic but they were blackballing and I needed to get my grades up before my dad bought me my first board. He's gotta be checking out the booty.

SUMMER GUARD- ASS CHEWING

I lost my board last week, my big Zephyr tandem, went to ride the nose and the tail lifted out of the water and it bounced for 46 yards up onto the shore, right into this little girls shins..took her down. I won't go into the rest of the story, of my greeting on the beach by all the do-gooders, but after it was all settled, I went to pay a little visit to the lifeguard tower to ask WTF he was doing? I had been watching the tower for about 45 minutes, thinking he was going to BLACKBALL because it was a warm day..but the water was cold. There were very few people in the water, but I don't know why there was no designated swim surf area- usually the guards will cone and flag the area for "swimmer safety." Since I fell out in the surfing area and my board bobbed and popped all the way to shore, felt like it wasn't really all my fault- maybe it was. I still went and chewed some ass, because the last thing I wanted to do was hurt someone, but it was a surfing area. It's not like I was surfing in the swimming area.

I WISH I HAD MY OLD JOB BACK...

You meet tons of people during your lifetime, we've all had some crazy jobs. I don't like to talk much, so I don't often find out what people have done in their past, my therapist says, be here now." This is one job I miss, I was blocking out for Matt Archbold- we were surfing Trestles, trying to get some footage for a movie..All I had to do was watch for Matt, Dino or Jodie take off and then fade left, try to push out anyone surfing behind them. Since these guys were South County surfers, they pretty much got respect from the crew there anyway, so it was much more of a free surf for me. That's one of the Condon Brothers shooting from the mat, I could tell he was out of place and not going to shoot, so I took off, Matt yelled at me to go, then he kicked out..I got a good cruiser out of that wave. I got to work with all sorts of surfing legends on that job. Johnny Fain told me the best way to fade out and clear the wave, was to act drunk...completely hammered. It worked, I got into it with this guy and was so blotto, he just shook his head and turned away. Good times.

Some other people may have touched on this topic before, so excuse me if so... I'm only a few months into this circle..blogging. Does a surf session that was fun to the surfer, mean it was good? I've walked up the boardwalk many times these last few months and people ask, "How was it?" Honestly, it was shitty...but I had fun...since I've been out of the water a lot this year, most of my sessions have been fun. So, when I respond, "it was fun." Does that mean it was good? Everyone else walks up the boardwalk and into the parking lot grumbling and pissing..saying how crappy it was....yeah, its a given. The real question is, "did you have fun?"

NAME THE PLACE....

Just a little surf spot trivia... name the place and I'll give you a free rinse off, next time I see you at the beach.
This was sent by a new friend, Daniel. He surfs more days a year than I do..which is crazy, when you find out where he's from.
HARDCORE.

NEED A NEW BOARD?

I saw this on the wall at the OP bathroom wall. I kept calling and calling and calling, no one answered. I'm always looking for a good longboard, sometimes you really score a gem that's been in the rafters for years. That's what happened with the CON piglet.. I got it from a guy that I know, it used to be his dad's. I sure hope this guy has some good ones...

Now thats what I'm talkin bout...

Some more vintage photos of the old P.O.P pier, some empty surf. These photos were taken by Craig Ferre- I mentioned him in the previous posts- he shapes boards and takes nice photos- has some good stories about being chased out of the ZEPHYR shop, back in the day. I'm finally getting some of my photos scanned and will post soon. PLEASE SHARE YOUR STORIES AND PHOTOS, there'll be no fact checking, so make em up.