Surfing Ruined My Life

For the last two weeks things were looking mighty good for Mauriello to take this quarter and the year.  Where had Kooky Kyle been.  Well if you follow this blog then you already know the answer.  Poor Kooky has been run ragged by me all over Santa Barbara in plenty of surfing and drunken mishaps.  All the chaos makes it hard to come up with UCB topics.  Not to mention when you are living in the court of Lisanti Land I answer most of your topics orally anyhow.  Mauriello can attest to that.  Kooky put forth an amazing Power of Ten one that would make even the likes of Nick the Kook proud.  He snags two points for his efforts.

1. What if trees could talk?:  Here is something I think about quite often since trees live for such a greater duration in comparison to the that of humans.  I personally am highly impressed by trees.  Their immense size and ability for survival makes me think they must be of a higher plane than us.  I believe they most likely can talk but care not to waste their breath on such simpletons as human beings.  I  like to assume that if trees could talk it would be much like Tolkien wrote in The Two Towers, the second book of the Lord of the Rings saga.

2. Pigeons Vs. Seagulls: Wow what a fight, beach rats against the city rats.  I have seen both species go at it in the heart of the city and on the beach.  Unless out numbered the seagulls always win.  If I had to pick a favorite and mind you this a stretch since I hate both species of birds I would have to go with sea gulls cause they make for hours of fun entertainment whenever I am stuck going to the beach outside of surfing.  Here is a fun little side story.  I hate just sitting on the beach.  It bores the shit out of me.  Over the summer I went on a beach date with this chick.  She fell asleep on the blanket we were sitting on.  As soon as she did that I went to town building an intricate society of sand castles with roads and different class neighborhoods. She ends up dozing off for nearly three hours.  Upon waking she found herself surrounded by this bizarre sand community I had been working on.  She looked at me with this interested yet somewhat appalling gaze.  Needless to say she did not return any of my calls after.

3. Ridiculous T-Shirts: This is a topic close to my heart.  I have always had a thirst to wear the dumbest most nonsensical, crazy colored t-shirts I could get my hands on.  I used to scour the surf shop racks for them as a kid, then raid my sponsor’s barracks for the most bizarre stuff I could find.  These days I score most of my finds on the $3 rack at Kmart. You should see some of the gnarl I wear.  Let your imagination run wild on this one.   Today for example I wore a shirt with nothing but a giant red human heart on it.  Yesterday I wore a shirt with a picture of a llama on it that said “I am not a camel, I am a llama”.  Day before that I wore a Globe shirt completely covered in a variety of assault rifles, hand guns and shot guns.  That is just the last three days.  I have an entire closet full.

I have just a few crazy shirts. Yes I have extreme OCD and those shirts are color coordinated.

4.  My Accent: This is one that always provides a laugh at my expense everywhere I go.  In my younger days I at times got hot headed about it.  Now I just work material off of it and enjoy partaking in the laughter.  If you can’t laugh at yourself sometimes then your taking life too seriously.  Shit I spend the majority of my time laughing at myself.  My crazy accent also has gotten me laid on many of occasion.  People never quite know where I am from and I have got everything from Aussie, to European, to just plain idiot.  What is this accent I speak?  It is a mix of New York, New Jersey, Surfer, Jazz Cat, Hipster, Californian, Australian, Italian. Basically I like to sum it up as Lisantbonics.

5.  Serenity Garden: I get stressed out sometimes.  A few years ago I got stressed out most of the time and did not know how to deal with  it except to fly off the handle and make an angry fool of myself.  Then I was at this Japanese exhibit in Florida and found real peace walking through their intricate little gardens.  When I returned to California I began a modest garden of potted succulents I grew from clippings.  Then I started finding all these plants in the trash my neighbor would throw away when the plants started looking ugly on her.  I pruned, trimmed, re-potted and nursed these plants back to health and have gotten great results.  All the while I would become very relaxed out there doing it.  Then again my backyard does overlook the ocean on one end and the beautiful mountains that surround Santa Barbara on the other.  Now that they have finished construction on City College it has gotten even more amazing back there.  I know whenever I am feeling especially down about the Adrienne situation I go our there and do some pruning and feel better.  Why cant people be like plants so that when you show them love and tenderness they grow to be marvelous.  I know my plants will be there for me as long as I take care of them.

A flower I picked from my garden, the whole garden pulled back and a few of my potted friends including, basil, agave, pineapple, thyme, rosemary and others.

6. French Food:  I fucking hate french food, with the exception of their baked goods.  It is so involved and over zealous.  Let me tell everyone a fact back in the days of monarchy  France one of their kings married an Italian princess and she brought her entire Italian cook staff over to Paris with her.  Her crew and the kings crew developed the French cuisine most known to us today.  Not to mention that we have been cooking over in Italy as long as the French.  The Italians were just too lazy to write it down.

7.  What Does Alfie Do When He Runs Away:  Alfie has become quite the little Houdini finding ways out of my apartment when not a door or window has been opened.  For a while I figured he just ran around killing shit and eating garbage.  Since his recent heroin addiction courtesy of my former roommate I am pretty sure he is running all over town looking for another fix.  With out Sleepy Time Nick here (the loving nick name we gave him since the heroin always made him fall asleep, sometimes even standing up) anymore poor Alfie has no more junk to get him his fix.  Poor cat went through a tough withdrawal.  Minus all the chunks of fur missing from him and the insatiable cravings I would say he is almost back to normal.

Alfie all strung out with no fix in sight. Sorry bud, but I taught you better.

8.  Favorite Author:  Myself of course.  Just kidding.  I suck compared to the greats.  To pick one would be a real crime but I will narrow it down to my top few in no order: Dickens, Hemingway, Thoreau, Ayn Rand, George Elliot, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Voltaire, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Dostoevsky just to name a few.

9. What Does Alfie Think About the Girls I Bring Home:  I don’t know what he thinks.  These days I try not to keep them around long enough for him to get attached to them.  Poor Alfie was left behind by my ex-wife.  He was her cat, but due to her career path out of the country she was unable to care for him.  This left him in the custody of me, which for any living creature is a pretty scary feat.  Since then he constantly has been searching for another female and when I have such guest he charges her.  Then he could not get enough of Adrienne.  She left and the poor guy did not come away from the front door for weeks.  Since then I don’t really like women to get too close to him.  It is easier for her just to walk out on me.  At least I know why she is leaving.  Poor Alfie has no idea at all.  He just knows that she is gone.  I think that is way worse.

10.  Why Surfing in Santa Barbara Sucks:  First off surfing in general sucks.  The waves are always a let down.  The spots are always too crowded and it was better twenty years ago.  For all those reasons is why surfing sucks in Santa Barbara.  In all seriousness surfing in Santa Barbara is a bit more challenging in the sense that one really must be in tune with every swell angle, wind direction and swell period if he is to score the best possible waves.  You better have a reliable car that gets good gas mileage for all the driving involved in the hunt.  Either that or have a very, very versatile quiver and a love for stand up paddling.  The biggest reason why surfing sucks in Santa Barbara is to watch a handful of world class waves be completely dormant more then 75% of the time.

Yep Surfing in Santa Barbara sure is terrible. Don't come here you will get skunked.