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Micheala’s Lisanti Adventure Tour

Posted in Life, News From Lisanti Land, Skating, Surfing, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 2, 2012| 3 Comments »


Who likes to party? We like to fucken party!

I have known this girl Micheala from my home town back in New Jersey since my buddy Bojangles dated her when she was 14.  Years have passed like their relationship.  Thanks to the wonderful internet perpetual waste of time FaceBook.com her and I began communicating pretty much right around the time Adrienne and I were falling apart.  It was nice to have someone to talk to especially someone who was an outsider to the situation.  When I was home in NJ over the summer playing some shows with a Santa Barbara based theater group, Proximity she took me around the NJ night life scene and even managed to get me to go out for a grovel  surf or two.  See A Trip Back East blog for more on that trip.

I was rather appreciative since Nick the Kook my usual partner in crime when I am back East was in Chile causing trouble.  You can read about his adventures on his blog Staywet.net.  The lazy fuck has not written anything in a while.  I need his incoherent stupidity to help myself feel better about the garbage I write.  As a token of my gratitude I offered Micheala a pass to Lisanti Land anytime she wished.  She had been claiming she was cruising for a while during her winter break.  I was skeptical.  People always tell me they are coming, but end up never making it, Keifer, Cory.  Cory may still be waiting for me to pick him up at LAX.  At this point he is like Tom Hanks in the movie Terminal.

To my surprise she ended up making it out here in early January and spent a solid seven days.  Now whenever I have a Lisanti Adventure Tour I always ask the recipient what he/she want to get out of the trip.  Santa Barbara is my town and if it is going down here and you want to be a part of it then more times then not I can make it happen.  My connections here get stronger every day and my own person wanderlust spirit has helped me to become a connoisseur on the town.  Whether it be surfing, skate boarding, wine tasting, hang gliding, sailing, island tours, whale watching, hiking, party, sky diving, breweries, events etc, I can make it happen.

Micheala was looking to surf and party as much as possible. These two options happen to be some of my stronger points as if this blog has not proved already over the years.  First night I had her at the Wild Cat sucking down rum and cokes with the boys.  I think I may have thrown in a round of Adios Mother Fuckers just for good measure.  It was a Sunday and those never disappoint at the Kitty.   A good time was enjoyed with out a doubt by all.

Next morning I had the day off.  The options were to either go down south and surf the beachies there or run up north to Jalama where conditions looked rather favorable.  I left the decision to her being she was a guest.  “I want to go get the biggest waves you can find” was her reply.  Remember folks in Lisanti Land one must always watch what they wish for.  We rolled up north and it was solid.  I was really only expecting chest to head high fun surf.  Turns out the beach break was easily 6-8ft and Tarantellas was breaking.

Like a bone head I forgot my wet suit back in Santa Barbara.  It was agreed that whomever got out first would allow me to use his suit between Sorbo or Kooky so I could get a few.  The gang paddled out at Tarantellas and were all rather shocked with the extreme gnarl factor and power of the wave.  Kooky fell in love with it.  Micheala and Sorbo found it a bit more then they were looking for.  Thanks to Kooky I managed to get a few fun ones too.  It was a splendid day on the beach.  Nice weather, good conditions and a very light crowd.  I think everyone had a great time.

That night Micheala wanted to keep the party going and then set the precedent that we were going to rage ever night till she left on Friday.  I do not think I need to tell any of my readers here about my party capabilities, but Micheala’s program nearly had me throw in the towel.  It was seven very exhausting nights of pure ridiculousness.  From druken fights, to samurai swords through living furniture, to urban golfing, calling a lady about her missing cat at 2am, throwing fruit and lord knows what else at one another on a drunken walk home, bizarre dancing on the cat walk and dance floor, vomiting behind dumpsters, after parties with Mexican gangsters.   You name it we did it that week.  Then after she left instead of taking the night off Kooky and I went out to the Kitty and I threw an after party that went just about all night with nearly thirty heads in attendance.  Good times.

Micheala also got a scrumptious home cooked meal from the Lisanti Kitchen.  By request Kooky and I served up grilled chicken pasta primavera in one of the best alfredo sauces I have put together yet.   Unfortunately thanks to starting up work at Westmont one meal was all I was able to prepare.  I had limited time to give to her tour as well.   She was an adventurous one and had no problem taking her skate board and meandering her way all over town.

She got a really fun day at Rincon where I believe she got one of the better waves of her life.  Learned first hand just how bad of a wave Leadbetter really is and got to sample my New Jersey wave away from home, New Jetty.  On her last night Sorbo and I decided to build a barricade of chairs to the ceiling in front of her bedroom door and then backed it up with the living room couch just to show our endearment towards her.  By far I think it was with out a doubt one of the heavier Lisanti Adventure Tours to date.  That’s the challenge out there for anyone willing to risk their skin in Lisanti Land, get more ridiculous then Micheala.

Here is a little slide show of some of the ridiculousness.

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The Lost Cat Video:

 

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The Good Ol’ DMV

Posted in Blast From the Past, Blast from the Past: 2006, Odd Jobs, Skating, Surfing, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2011| 2 Comments »

In 2006 I was living in a beat up run down beach bungalow in Manasquan, NJ with my now ex-wife working a dead end job managing an unsuccessful surf shop that the owner would later screw me royally at for making it successful.  I was going through the blog archives and came across this little gem about a trip to the DMV and a glimpse into just how much yet how little I have changed as an individual.  The last sentence is the real kicker to this Blast From the Past cause it proved I actually did accomplish something for a change. “Yippie Kiy yay Mother Fucker”!!!!!  This blog was originally posted on March 8 2006. Enjoy…

I woke up as usual on my day off eager (Note how my sarcasm is timeless)  and ready to sand and glass battered old surfboards for people who are not worthy of my skill.  As I went to get my sander out I realized that my respirator was shot, clogged with epoxy dust from this M10 I had to do last week (by the way I would rather get hit by a big stick swung by a Ningitsu master then fix epoxy surfboards.  Its just so un holy. They are like the Rose Mary Baby of the surfboard industry…but that is a whole other topic all together.). I still hate to fix epoxy surf boards.

Anyhow so I jump in my car and head over to A’s Home Center on HWY 35 in Wall(not getting paid for this plug either) cause they seem to have the best supplies at a quality price.  On my way back a very diligent officer of the law (oink oink) pulls me over to remind me in the form of a citation that my license had expired like 7 days ago.  Thank God for PBA Cards or I would have been hit with a 140 buck fine.  You know Squan cops hate me..but that too is for another topic.

So I decided to make the trek out to the DMV, which is not unlike one of the great crusades to  the holy land back in the middle ages.  Its a battle you dont want to fight, but the state makes it your duty to go there. Now for those of you who have not been to the DMV cause your too young to drive let me give you a play by play on how this Hell on earth works.  The first topic and the most frustrating is somthing we thank our good friend Osma for.  Its called the 6 points of ID you need to bring with you in order to obtain any kind of official document. In California you need like two.  God bless  the soon to rise again and secede from the union, The Bear Republic.  That is a blog for another day as well.

You need your old license, a Passport, a Marriage license, a Credit Card, School ID and a recent government Statement of Proof of address.  If you don’t have atleast 3 of these documents they are sending you on your way.  I once got shut down at Eaton Town because I was short 1 point of ID and that was on my 3rd check point.  Thats right you have to go through 3 different people to check your shit before you can even get in line.   Each one of these “Document Officials” is about as well trained to spot a forgery as my cat is to use the litter box with out making a mess. After 8-10years (not sure how old he is) Alfie still shits on the floor about 25% of the time.

So I got rejected cause my proof address was 31 days ago, one day past the 30 day cut off point.  Meanwhile Mohammad abdul wearing his turban and consealing his Israeli built hand held Usi had his 9 points of fraudulent ID cliaming he was Joe Smith got his license no problem.  I think they handed him a pilots license too.  I on the other hand was escorted out by security for as they put it “causing a scene”. Can you believe I did not drink back then???

This time however I was crazy prepared. I went to the one in Freehold to beat the crowds, plus was hoping to catch an afternoon session at Jackson. They had this really fun six foot half pipe at the skate park there I used to rock the shit out of.  I brought 12 points of ID and I had ID to back up that ID.  Those bitches did not even know what was coming their  way.  When I got through to the last check point the lady looked at me with eyes of contempt saying “the war is not over just because one battle was won”.  I snatched my license out of her hand grabed my balls Bruce Irons at Teau’poo style and laughed my way out the door all the while hearing complaints from others getting turned away for not being as prepared as me. “See you in 6 years bitches” I muttered undermy breath.  If in 6 years Im still living in this wretched place please come over my house and hit me across the face with the flat end of a 2×4′ cause I deserve a beating.  See I told you the last sentence was a kicker.  Out of one shit hole and into another. Lucky me, but at least I get to surf everyday.

Chris Lisanti Skating the Jackson NJ Skate Park

I really do miss skating that ramp.

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San Francisco Skating.

Posted in Skating, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 11, 2011| 3 Comments »

Victory

About a two weeks ago I was running a muck all over the streets of San Francisco with my boy John Muariello.  We wreaked havoc doing the tourist thing, surfing shitty Ocean Beach, enjoying the nightlife (or just getting frustrated with it) and we also did some skateboarding.  I thought I had retired the skateboard once and for all about a year ago.  Every time I think I am out I just get pulled back in.  When I informed John of my intentions to come visit he said to bring my board and we would bomb some hills.

It quickly escalated from a few mellow grade 16 city block hills in the Ocean Beach area to me bombing Lombard Street Now Im not going to get into that bomb here because there is an entire detailed first hand account on it at “I Bombed Lombard Street” and then just hit the bread crumbs on the top left hand corner of the screen if you want to read about the rest of my SF adventuring.  John actually made a short little video of the pathetic attempts we made of fucking shit up skating all over the city.  There are also a few more photos from a skate we had at Fort Miley.  Enjoy.  Don’t mind the commentary, I was still feeling rather bitter about things.

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I Bombed Lombard St: SF Day 5

Posted in Life, News From Lisanti Land, Skating, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 29, 2011| 6 Comments »

Lombard Street from the bottom. The difficulty level here is no joke folks.

If you’re not familiar with Lombard St it is this crazy windy street in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco completely made of bricks.  The street is a major tourist attraction and a major skate destination for hill bombing enthusiasts alike.  I have seen this street in skate videos, read about it in skate magazines and it was even used in the X-games a few times.  Ever since I was a kid I always thought it would be cool to go and bomb it.

Up until I was about 15 years old I spent the bulk of my time and efforts with skateboarding living about twenty miles in land from the nearest waves.  Once I moved to Manasquan, New Jersey I was only about two miles from the beach and redirected my focus onto surfing.  Leaving most of my skateboard dreams unsatisfied.   I practically gave up the sport till I was 23 and then thanks to a job managing a small surf shop got back into it.  I will save the history of Chris Lisanti skateboarding for another blog.

Due to my circumstance (see blogs, Bowing Out and One Last Perfect Day if your not up to speed) I found myself coming to San Francisco with a bit of a death wish.  No, I’m not suicidal or anything, although I did think of a great way to turn the trunk of my car into a make shift guillotine.  I just kind of showed up with a reckless abandoned not caring if I lived or died.  With this mentality surfing in heavily shark infested waters and bombing streets I would have never dreamed of became a very real possibility.

For that reason I found myself standing at the top of Lombard Street with a skateboard in my hand, fifty tourists pointing and taking pictures and my heart in my mouth (or what was left of my heart for that matter).  The funny thing is I really did not think I was ever going to go through with it.  Especially when I got face to face with the beast.  According to the books Lombard is a 17% grade.

When I had a look down at it I was rather intimidated.  I mean the street was nuts.  I had never seen anything like it before in my life. It was a man eater for sure.  Not to mention the fact that there were easily like 50 tourists all over the street taking pictures and a steady flow of cars driving down it. Lombard not only traversed like a slithering snake but on each side there was nothing but a sheer four foot drop off to a steep flight of steps.  Basically I was looking at getting hit by a car, taking a terrible spill due to lack of control or falling over the side and then tumbling down thirty flights of stairs.  Either way I was going to get very messed up.

John made many rational attempts to keep me from doing it and the bare truth was I really did not believe I had the skill level to complete the task.  Then I got a rush of adrenaline and remember that in order to achieve greatness one must take a leap into the unknown regardless of the consequences.  With that in mind I decided to give the bomb the green light.  I went back to my car and fully padded myself.  I’m talking helmet, elbows, and knees.  I wanted as much protection as I could get.

Mauriello was going to film it so he went half way down to document my death.  I told John he was responsible to tell the world my story if I did not survive.  I really did believe that I might die. Now we had observed the street for about twenty minutes or so and realized that when a sight seeing trolley came by it blocked traffic at the top of the street giving a three-minute window or so to bomb it.

I was standing at the top with my board preparing for the bomb and waiting for the next trolley (apparently they ran every ten minutes) when there was a noticeable break in the traffic.  John signaled me to go and I was pretty antsy to get it over with.  I ran to the middle of the street to the delight of the many tourists, hopped on my board and began to descend into oblivion.  I got about ten feet down the first turn and fell flat on my face in an attempt to power slide it.  I heard ooos, ahhs and laughter from the crowd as I got up and dusted myself off.

Determined to make it down to the bottom at all costs I jumped back on my board and kept moving down hill.  I made it through another three turns or so before falling again, but not as dramatic this time.  The entire run is around 10 switch back turns.  I ended up falling four times.  With a grade that steep you get moving very fast in a very short interval of time.  The only way to really do it is to pull super big power slides.  Most of the slides I was doing slid for twenty feet.

When I got to the bottom there were around another 30 tourist cheering and taking pictures.  I guess I gave all of them a story to tell. I came out of the last turn, did a big power slide in the middle of the cross street and then spiked my skateboard on the ground.  I turned and looked back up at what I had just done and reveled in the feat I had performed.

Then John came running down the steps all stoked as well.  “I think you should do it again,” he said.  I had already decided I was before he even mentioned it.  The second time went a lot better.  As soon as I got to the top a trolley pulled up chuck full of more tourists, who began point and yell as I bomb dropped onto my board right in front of them.  I had my rhythm worlds better this time around and only sort of fell once, although I did not lose my board.  My back foot just came off while recovering from a big power slide.  I bet if I gave it a third run I may have made it down flawlessly.

I did not want to push my luck though.  Also I was not sure my wheels could handle another run.  They had already lost two years worth of life from the previous two runs as it was.  I guess I will have to save it for next time.  I was super pumped just for the fact that I actually did it.

So many people in this life think about doing things like this and then let rationality talk them out of it.  I am not a skater by any means and Lombard St. was with out a doubt way out of my ability range.  I had an opportunity to realize a dream, do something great.  Yeah bombing a crazy hill on a skateboard is not as great as helping starving orphans or something of that aperture, but for me at that moment it was a heck of an accomplishment.  It is another check off the list.

What I am trying to say is that when an opportunity comes your way you should seize it no matter how scary or difficult it may seem.  I have always believed that anyone can do anything if they wanted it bad enough and I meet and see other people all the time who prove this to be true.  Maybe this blog will inspire you to go out and take a chance, do something you always wanted to, but have been hesitant for whatever reason.  Life is short and we are only here for a limited amount of time.  I think we owe it to ourselves to get the most out of it we possibly can.  I have said it once and I will say it again “You miss 100% of the pitches you don’t swing at”.

Stay tuned for a video of my SF skate adventures and more photos from Lombard soon.  They are on John’s Camera and he left it in San Francisco.  Click here for the video of my Lombard Bomb.

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Blast from the Past: Best of 2006, “February 2006 In Review”

Posted in Blast from the Past: 2006, Skating, Surfing on August 30, 2010| 1 Comment »

Considering the recent move from Myspace over to Surfing Ruined My Life I began to feel some remorse leaving some of my best writing behind.  So I decided that once a week I will feature a blog from the Lisanti Myspace archives and repost as part of a segment I would like to call “Blast from the Past”.  I will introduce the old blog, maybe give a thought or two on it, some hindsight even?  Let me know if you fancy this idea at all (not that I give a shit either way)

Title: February 2006 In Review
Date of Original posting: 2/28/2006

I love this blog after perusing it again after four years.  It is a perfect example of what a pessimistic Debbie downer I am. I mean my life was not all that bad, but I always wanted to more.  Maybe that is one of my biggest flaws my “Macbeth” like ambition for a title that is not meant to be mine?  It is also funny to think about what a different mindset I was in back then, still with wide eyes and hopes that I could amount to something in the commercial surf world.  I wont take up any more of your time with my finger words, your not stupid and can read it for yourself.  I will add the occasional note in the actual text in red!

February 2006 In Review

Well here we go; since there is like only 20 minutes left in the month of Febuary for the year 2006 I thought it might be apropos to give some what detail of the highlights and despair for this month in my life.  This may be a bit longer then my usual entries but trust me it will be totally worth the ride.

First let me tell you that Feb is a shit month for straight out of the gate cause my birthday is on the 4th.  Now I know this should seem like a good thing but truth be told after 18 its all down hill.  Some may say that 21 is the turning point for which all birthdays will suck after.  The main belief being that you can drink at 21.  Well Ive been drinking since I was 14 years old and was pretty much over it by the time I was 21 any way(at the time I had quit drinking for almost a year).

So This year I turned 25 which is a really shitty age.  Do you know that Kelly Slater already had 3 world titles by this age.  Not to mention that I am now classified as a masters competitor in Amatuer competition basically forcing me to only surf in pro events inorder to keep some semblance of dignity.  For those who dont know the masters division(in the CNJ/ESA) is one heat usually shared with the grand masters where you compete with the same 8 guys who basically pull the usual 3 to the beach format for points stifling any chance of creative surfing.

On my birthday I had to go to this winter Pro-Am contest in the rain on the beach air temp 35 water temp 41 (it was fucking freezing) . The surf was mini Vas conditions with shitty tides and fog.  Somehow I managed to pull off one of the best contest plays of my life winning every heat to the final by a margin of 3 points or better a heat.  Then I clowned the final cause of my whole loser complex (see “Olympic Realizations blog“).  But whatever I won a case of Red Bull which I gave away to a grom (Mike Scheoning, who was my former roommate and now joined the circus) but should have sold on ebay (I have never sold anything successfully on ebay).

As far as waves go Feb was a flat out skunking besides super fun super bowl sunday (check out the pics onwww.surfnjamnj.com)(surfnjamnj.com was the precursor to this site and is now long since defunct) and one really epic day at Jenks.  Luckily I discovered a Skate Park in Moorstown with a 12 foot half pipe to help ease the pain.

Mentally Feb was a tough month for me.  My Hawaii trip that I have been looking foward to all winter long was shot down no longer then a week ago.  I called my boy who lives out there who was all like “yeah cuz you come out to rock and Ill put you up no worries”. Right?!!! The I call him and he is all like back peddling sayin maybe I could stay for like 2 or 3 days and that not to rely on him to get me to some waves.  Great invite next time your back home in dirty Jerze see what kind of hook ups you get from me. “Here on the North Shore we treat our friends MO betta Bra”.(I ended up scoring Costa Rica and California on two separate trips later that winter)

So with no winter training in my sights you can see how bummed I am.  So all I have to look foward to is a Shitty ESA Pro AM at Casino Peir and that Sayreville opens up at night again tomorrow. Not to mention that I cant open up Crazy Chris’ Skate Land (Skate Land was this pipe dream I had thinking I could open and run a successful skate park, there were some potential investors, a business plan was drawn up, but then as usual I got lazy on it) in the old Wonder Bread Factory cause there are too many cross bars in the ceiling.

Overall Febuary gets a 3 out of ten making it thus far the shitiest month of the year.  But At least I got my health.  Truth be told I probaly dont even have that cuase I got this gnarly rash on my neck that is probaly skin cancer slowly killing me for the outside in (it was not skin cancer just an allergic reaction).  We wont get into my hypocondria now though for that can be a topic for another day.  If you dont see me tomorrow it is because I most likely hung myself from my shower curtain rod. (Dont worry I doubt it is strong enough to support my weight plus the length from the ceiling to the floor is only 6 feet. So it will just be another task that I will fail at) (I really did try and hang myself, first from the shower rod then my closet rod breaking both of them, not only did I fail at suicide but I had to fix my shower and my closet, that was a joke please no sympathy “dont kill yourself Chris” messages).

There you have it a bonified blast from the past, speaking of Blast from the past, here is a really fun clip from the movie “Blast From the Past”.

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