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Taking the Bay Area by Storm

Posted in Life, News From Lisanti Land, Surfing, tagged 2012, Bay to Breakers, Cooking Lobsters, Costume parade, Drunken adventuring. Lobsterfest, FACE, house party, Manor West. I left my heart in San Francisco especially at Ocean Beach., San Francisco, SF on July 8, 2012| 6 Comments »

I took this while driving to Oakland. One hand on the wheel the other on the camera.

***Post Script: I started writing this blog on May 26th about an adventure that happened May 17th thru the 20th. As usual things have been crazy in my life and I was not able to get it finished and published till now. Normally when that happens I just shelve the blog. I thought there was too much here to just let it fall by the wayside. I hope you enjoy a great weekend in Lisanti Adventuring. ***

What a difference a year makes in ones life. That was exactly what was going through my head as I was cruising up the 101 north toward a crazy weekend in San Francisco. It was precisely one year ago that I was on the same trek, but under very different circumstances. Last time around I went in a vain attempt to run away from my problems for a brief stint. This time my intentions were all about having some fun and adventure while spending some quality time with some very good friends.

Initially I had planned to go up sometime in June to cause trouble with one of my favorite partners in crime and SurfingRuinedMyLife.net all star John Mauriello. Then my former roommate and another SRML all star, Brennan invited me to the 2nd Annual Lobsterfest at our buddy Christian’s house in Orinda. From what I heard the the inaugural Lobsterfest was all time. Who am I to pass up an event that with my presence could go from all time status to epic? Finally my roommate Dan was going up the same weekend for an event, the 101st Bay to Breakers. I mean did I need anymore reasons? Game, set and match.

“I will be on the road by 8am”

Well that was what I was proclaiming at my usual Wednesday night dinner party. Which sadly was the first without my sous chef and good friend Calvin, whom like many became a Santa Barbara, but really a California in general, casualty and moved back to Boston. (thats a blog right there for another time and definitely a topic worth shedding some light on) Dinner was with out a doubt not the same with out him. For starters we went through a lot less wine. Oh Cal why?!!!!!??? The food was superb as usual.

I guess I drank too much as always and did not wake up till 11am. So much for the 8am start. Then all sorts of things happened to keep me off schedule. Schedule! Ha ha ha ha. That’s a joke. There has been a running gambol among everyone who knows me. We like to call it the “Lisanti 10 minutes” (which I am pretty sure I wrote a blog about either here or on Myspace. I will have to dig that one up. Find this blog in the Myspace archives and I will give you 5 UCB points copy and paste the actual blog text not the link in the comments). In a nutshell I have little concept of time as it is and now that I am not working well forget it. If it was not for the contrast of night and day I would be completely hopeless.

I did not get on the road till nearly 5pm. So much for grabbing a surf on the way up. Instead I trucked it through the 101 north. Around Salinas I get a text from Mauriello “I hope you brought good clothes, we are going out tonight”. Now this is the same guy who a week before told me he did not want to get wasted with me this year. You don’t have to twist my arm to party. Did I bring nice clothes? Fuck I had five pairs of shoes in my trunk alone. The Civic and I went into high gear and I don’t know if it turned into the Delorean or what but I made it in just under five hours.

Wheres Doc Brown? Marty!!!!! I really want to own a Delorean some day

Night at the Roxbury Gets a Little Out of Hand

I don’t know if it was from all the excitement or what but I as soon as I showed up at John’s place it was time to game up and move out. Apparently he was doing a promo thing for this fledgling sunglasses company him and some friends are getting off the ground. I don’t know, but somehow I think a very sound promotion would be to get Chris Lisanti on a program, but considering I broke a pair at this promo event I may be more of a liability then an asset.

It was at this club called Manor West. I could not find my way back to the place if my life depended on it. I only know the name because It was on my most recent bank statement five times. I am not going to mention the size of the tab, but will put it this way, upon leaving the bar tender handed me his personal phone number and told me if I wanted to come out at all over the weekend he would make sure myself and party would be on the VIP list, no line, no cover. Just use your imagination.

A high bar tab leads to a high level of intoxication which in my world usually leads to a high amount of absolute ridiculousness. We get to the club are through VIP the whole way with one of the most ridiculous looking promo girls I have ever seen. She had to be at least my age trying to sport an outfit that barely fit her with a push up bra that I was afraid might explode at any minute taking my eyes out with the under wire. For my sake it did not happen. I was handed a pair of the sun glasses to put on. I concurred, which allowed me to not see a thing but shadows in the dark club.

For whatever reason this place felt a bit like the Wild Cat. There are plenty of you out there now who have experienced a night at the Kitty with me and know what it entails. Those of you who have not but are a regular reader I am sure have a well enough idea. Upon walking in John and I were both very sober only having a PBR and a Bacardi mini shot. That being the case it was time to do some damage at the bar where round after round of tequila shots were reciprocated. As a result it did not take long to become completely inebriated.

The blonde bizzaro promo chick draged Dave, John’s partner out onto the dance floor and we followed. From there John and I full on became Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell in “Night at the Roxbury”. Remember that scene of them dancing out of control at the club. That was us in a nut shell and we were all dressed up in sport jackets an nice duds for dub step night. We have this friend called Face who is now a San Francisco based dub step artist. At one point in the evening we started screaming FACE! as loud as we could. Before long the crowd joined in and at pretty much most of the dance floor was screaming FACE.

I hit on some chick all sloppy. I’m sure I drooled all over her face while slurring my speech. Surprise, surprise she walked away. No worries all I wanted to do is dance anyway. That is about the last thing I remembered from the night. The rest was all provided by Dave and John. Some how I managed to close out my tab and we began walking to catch a bus. On the way we stopped at an all night doughnut shot at my request. I got a bear claw and forced John to eat a pink doughnut. I guess I was a bit obnoxious to the counter help.

The Social Experiment

After walking out of the Doughnut joint we ran into two homeless people. John proceeded to pull out three dollars form his pocket, our bus fare. He gave a dollar to each and then put the third one up and told them to share it. One bum grabbed the extra dollar and ran leaving the other bum all surely about it. In response to the incident he scolded John about how that was not good bum to solicitee etiquette. All the while Dave was holding me back from beating the bum while screaming profanity. How a good old fashion urban bum shanking did not take place is besides me.

Thanks to the social failure in sharing I had no money to get on the bus. I drunkenly pulled out a ten spot but could not get it in the machine. Over it the driver just let me ride for free. John tried swiping his metro card but was too drink to make that happen either. I think everyone on that bus was just happy none of us vomited. Apparently we had a deep philosophical conversation before I passed out on Dave’s couch. The first adventure happened being in the city for less then eight hours.

Lobster Fest

Brennan and I about to put our new friends in the Jacuzzi. Wait is 180 too hot?

I missed the first Lobster Fest last year by about week or so and heard nothing but rave reviews after. This year when my boy Brennan invited me jokingly on Facebook I decided why not. It was not like I had anything better to do. Besides someone had to help cook all the food. The party was located at Christian’s family’s home in Orinda, a ritzy little suburb just outside of the city.

It was a quaint home with an amazing view. They had this cute little antique stove that took a few minutes to get acquainted with before being able to work with it. We had over two dozen lobsters to cook, I made a rice pilaf and roasted potatoes. The boys grilled up some vegetables. Their friend Andy, another crazy mofo who happened to find his way down to Santa Barbara a few years ago to party brought a few bottles of his own personal home made wine. He had a Montreux red blend that I found most enjoyable. I was supposed to meet up with him and see his set up and get a bottle myself but unfortunately had to leave sooner then I had expected.

All I can say is that a solid crew of people showed up. Everyone ate, drank and had a good old time. There were some failed pyrotechnics that could have burned the house down. A drunken attack on a pinata filled with mini-bottles of booze where near death by falling off the balcony fifty feet down lurked in the shadows. There was a computerized toilet I for one made a point to take full advantage of and a state of the art massage chair that basically had it’s way with me and I pleased for it. I don’t usually do house parties but I must say this one was top notch. You can definitely count on seeing Chris Lisanti at Lobster Fest 2013.
The Surfing
While going up to SF is never about the good surf you are going to score, especially in the spring time when the winds are primarily bad and swell window finicky. The one thing you can count on about Ocean Beach is the fact that there will be waves of some kind be it good or bad and no matter the size it will take you way too long to paddle out if caught inside. I was in the full on frother mode I have been in since winter’s end. To Mauriello’s dismay I made him surf more then one session I think he would have been more then happy to have lived with out. You can read about those surf sessions in detail at the May edition of the Surflog, 5-18 through 5-20.

The food!!!
Now keep in mind I am not a fan of food in California in general. Next to New York I have to say things are lacking. Maybe that is just my own personal taste. As far as San Fran is concerned I have no complaints. Every time I am in that city I eat like a king. Remember I love jank joints that serve comfort food. you can take that gourmet shit and shove it up your ass. I have a serious hankering for luncheonettes. First morning, well more like afternoon by the time we got back from the crazy night I described earlier in this blog, we hit up this awesome little eatery called Sea Breeze. The nostalgia from Spring Lake New Jersey had me won over. Then the food and service were even better.

John and I were still dressed in our out clothes from the night before and our waiter thought we worked in sales. We hit up this amazing little mom and pop Mediterranean place literally run by a Greek Mom and Pop. I was enthralled and had to try just about everything on the menu. John broke the atm machine and I scared this poor lady off most likely being a “cocky prick” as Amber from Wild Cat likes to describe me. Whatever the case the food was some of the better cuisine of that genre I have ever had.

Finally no one likes an all you can eat Indian lunch buffet better then I do. SF is full of the places. The one I picked was all you can eat for like 8 bucks. By the time we got there the buffet was seriously lacking so we decided to order an Indian pizza “with out pizza sauce” as the menu described it. Although I would noy call it a pizza by any stretch of the imagination I will say it was very tasty and I would totally get it again.

I love Mediterranean food.mmmmmmm

Bay To Breakers
Finally we get to the main reason I ended up in SF ahead of schedule, Bay to Breakers. Apparently Every year during this time there is a running race that runs 8 miles across the city and it is a qualifier for the Boston Marathon. After the race is over around 9am a ridiculous amount of people take to the race course dressed up in costumes drunk and walk the course while drinking and partying in the streets. This thing is a full on party for miles. As far as you can see in either direction of the street it is packed with costume clad enthusiasts all going nuts.

I for one found myself hammered by noon. A bunch of my friends were going dressed as animals thus the group was know as the “party animals”. I went as Ace Ventura cause you cant have a bunch of animals running around all over town with out the pet detective. There was every kind of costume imaginable and some people were even naked. If I had known I could have went naked, well lets just say I would have had a different kind of out fit on or not on. There were house parties happening along the street on the route. Some with DJ’s, others with professional bands. All the parks were filled with parties and some even had people doing trapeze like stunts in the trees. It was a sight to be seen. I would with out a doubt recommend giving it a go at least once in your life. There is a good chance I will be a permanent fixture.

Here I am caught in the middle of all the chaos.

That damn Route 152
My plan was not to leave for a few more days. My roommate Dan who also came up for Bay to Breakers got screwed over by his ride home and hit me up. Although exhausted from the long day, heck long weekend for that much I agreed to leave by the early evening. Being it was a nice night I decided to take the Pacific Coast Highway California Route 1. The drive alone is a breath taking one weaving down the vista laden Northern California coast. There was a solar eclipse happening at the same time. It was definitely the perfect way to cap off an already splendid weekend.

I made sure to stop for a burrito at my favorite burrito place in the entire world located right off the hwy 1 in the heart of Santa Cruz. There are basically four options once in Santa Cruz for getting back to Santa Barbara. One can stay on the PCH and keep enjoying the views through Monterrey and the Central coast. Although a very nice drive it also takes double the time. Since it was already dark there was no point for any more scenery. Next option is the 17 which runs straight across to San Jose and then links up with the 101S.

The route I like to take is the 183 which cuts across on a southerly angle from Monterrey to Salinas finally linking up with the 101S. It is the hypotenuse of a right hand triangle and always my choice of route in any circumstance. Unfortunately I was not paying attention and jumped on the god damn 152, the fourth and worst option. On a map the 152 in theory looks like the best way to go distance wise. Topographically it winds through the hills and is only one lane on each side. It reminded me of driving in New Zealand, but with out all the giant logging trucks zooming past at 60KM.

I ate up about an hour and half of this sketchy road where I was owned by some dare devil chick in a Prius. I can drive and my Civic totally handles better then her shit car, yet she was traveling easily 15 to 20 miles per hour faster then me around every turn. Ultimately we all ended up getting stuck behind this RV pulling a trailer causing us to have to cruise at 25mph for the next 50 miles. As it turns out the 152 is also supposedly haunted cause of the high accident rate and that back in the 1920’s some sheriff used to hang people along the side of it. All I can say is that I was a little bit spooked and I did not even know it was haunted.

Well there you have it a fun filled action packed three days of pure Lisanti mayhem. Yep all of this you just read went down in a three day span. I assure I spent the next three days doing absolutely nothing to make up for it. Look for more adventures that happened over the last month or so to come soon.

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Let Us Raise A Glass

Posted in Deep Thoughts, News From Lisanti Land, Odd Jobs, Surfing, tagged Black Cat, Black Cat drinking from a wine glass, Cooking, dirty sink, Flat Santa Barbara Summers, Jay-Z, Mesa Lane, Sous chef, The path less traveled upon on June 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I stood on a bench this morning overlooking the break at Mesa Lane. It was tiny maybe knee to thigh at best. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Fresh off a new hair cut, I took a deep breath of the warm sweet summer sea air. There is nothing like the feeling after a good hair cut. You look at yourself in the mirror when all is said and done and there is this sort affirmation “you have arrived”. Alright maybe that is a little bit of a stretch, but it is what such means to me.

There were two guys out making the most of the meager offerings, a grom and his mentor. The kid was struggling to catch a wave, as I stood there watching his agony. The guy out with him pushed the kid into the next wave. The grommie stood up and cruised across the the wave’s tiny face. I let out a giant hoot so loud he probably heard it in the water. At that moment I felt his stoke and reveled in it. What a day, what a week, what a month, what a year!

I just stood there in utter amazement of how beautiful the world around me was. The islands were in full view. A speed boat with boards on top cruised by most likely en route to the ranch. A pod of dolphins frolicked along the swell lines. There was an old man walking his dog on the beach and some woman a little further watching her three dogs running in a blissful caper through the surf.

A huge smile was on my face. I could not help but laugh out loud at both life and myself. One year ago (I sort of judge my years now from June 1st to June 1st) I wrote this blog: “A New Normal: The One Year Plan“. Ironically while checking my daily stats I noticed someone read that this morning and it got me thinking. What a pathetic miserably sad state I was in when I wrote that on June 30th 2011. Back then if one would have told me that I would be sitting here writing a blog like this I would have strangled them to death after which committed seppuku.

Last night at my weekly family dinner I have now been hosting for five months surrounded by five of my regulars, who really have in my mind become family and three new comers to the table I raised a class of champagne and toasted to what is looking like a very bright future. Before we get there let me take a minute to remember how arduous a road it has been to get thus far in 2012.

There were plenty of proclamations made all of which were pretty much shattered about a day after they were made much like most New Years resolutions. And yes more drinking ensued, but it was more fun drinking then depression drinking and slowly but surely everyday I began to feel a little bit better and a little bit stronger. I did let a few unworthy people into my life whom I carelessly mistook as having potential. But that passed too. We renovated the Lisanti Palace so I could wake up everyday to a respectable looking apartment and want to get on par with my new ambient.

March came around and I saw the departure of Kooky Kyle who if not for him I may not have gotten through November to March. I was sad to see him leave, but happy to relinquish his duties as keeper of the Lisanti Palace. He went on to conquer his own demons in pursuit of wanderlust. You can read about his post Lisanti Land adventures in his occasional segment here on SurfingruinedMyLife.net Kooky’s Korner.

After Kooky the keys to the Palace, ha that’s a joke to anyone who has spent time here(or the butter knife we use to open the laundry room) were passed on to this guy Dan. He showed up on the scene and met all the requirements I have for a roommate. He did not shoot heroin, smoke meth or crack or any other heavy drugs for that matter, had a steady job and kept his mess to his room and was gone more then home. The guy was some type of ultimate frisbee champion or something. I though whatever as long as he pays the rent.

Turns out the guy was alright with me and I guess we have become a modern version of the odd couple. The thing about Dan is he is super positive all the time always building one up. When he would come home and find me depression drinking by myself in the dark he brought me out and got my head out of my ass. No matter what the guy always got me looking on that bright side of things. He helped fill out my dinner parties and as a result they are becoming quite the event. Last night I made four contrasting styles of pizza and calzones followed by a splendid peach and kiwi French custard dessert.

This kid Sean I have know for years here in Santa Barbara found himself temporarily homeless and I think every reader here should know by now that no friend of mine will go homeless as long I have a couch. Shit I have three and a leaky blow up mattress. Sean came to stay for a few weeks before moving back to Bakersfield with his dad. As it turned out him and I had pretty much went through the same type of shit over the past year. Empathy can be rapturous at the right time. Sean did something for me no one had yet out of all the astounding people that came into my life, each whether negative or positive contributing to where I am right now. Sean allowed me to open my mind to possibilities I had for far too long been too skeptical to believe.

Last night as I raised my glass to make a toast to my new life. Before doing so I silently thanked everyone who had a hand in the moment who could not be at my table, in time order: Adrienne, Aniaya, Heroin Bryan, Silly Steve, Sleepy Time Nick, Jules, Rye Guy, Kooky Kyle, Sorbo, Calvin, Dave, Vespera, Danny Boy, Sean, Jennifer, Anna and my always everyday people Ryan, Lindsay, Mauriello who put up with my shit on a regular basis. From all of these aforementioned people I learned a bit more about myself and capabilities. A king is only as strong as his court. Thanks to all these people I will never have to worry about walking around naked unless I so choose “The Emperors New Clothes” style.

What the fuck am I rambling about you ask? I mean seriously right I have been muttering on for over a thousands words now. Who do I think I am Faulkner or something. Well, about two weeks I hit a serious cross roads in my life and was walking the fine line between cashing out on my life here in Santa Barbara, hanging my hat where ever the wind decided to blow me or continuing on the path I originally set out on two years ago when I quit the gas station and got back to cooking. The whole “growing up” thing and creating a “real life”. Ultimately I chose the the latter. Its fine time I stop running. Maybe this past year was my time in the rock quarry like my fictional counter part Howard Roark (The Fountain Head, Ayn Rand).

I began putting out my resume to anyone and everyone, for any job available be it dish washer, prep cook or chef. Yesterday I got hired as sous chef at a small bistro in Carpinteria. Now, its only a trial right now and Monday is my first day, but Westmont was only a trial and that seemed to work out. All I know is I am ready to meet this new challenge and move forward with the rest of my life. Enough splitting rocks for it is time to fulfill my destiny. The best part is all of it is for me and no one else, not a woman, not to impress, but just for my own personal quest to cook the most scrumptious food possible while enhancing my own person skill set. “Please allow me to reintroduce myself” my name is CHRIS LISANTI and I am not small!!!

Ahhh yes, here is to the Summer of Alf.

Sometimes in life it is the path more traveled upon that is the hardest to follow. I think I have finally chosen the right road.

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Keeping the Dream Alive: Kooky Kyle’s El Salvadorian Adventure

Posted in Kooky's Korner, Surfing, tagged El Salvador, fat old wankers giving it to some poor 15 year old El Salvadorian Hooker, God Bless America, K58, K61, Kooky Kyle, pissing out your ass, Punta Roca, shits, Sunzal, Suring on June 18, 2012| 6 Comments »

While its been business as usual here in Lisanti Land since our good friend Kooky left the couch and set out on his own personal solo adventure. I thought since it had been some time since we heard from our good friend it be pertinent to bring him back for another edition of Kooky’s Korner. Kooky recently was on an El Salvadorian adventure with another suringruinedmylife.net all star John Mauriello. Yours truly almost pulled the trigger and jumped on this bandwagon as well, but unfortunately had previously committed to a Lisanti Adventure Tour that fell in the same time frame. Here is an account of a surf adventure from two of my better friends, brothers even and “I mean that way black people say it cause I find it is way more meaningful that way”. (Where is that from and who said it for an extra UCB point)….Chris Lisanti

Luckily, Maryland and New Jersey were hot and sticky as a crotch before I got on my plane to El Salvador; I can’t imagine the temperature shock John must have had coming from San Francisco. Everyone I know warned me about going there. “Dude it is super dangerous.” “Highest murder rate in Central America”. “60 guys out at every point” . “Locals won’t give you a wave and they will burn you every time.” “Man, I am El Salvadorian and the last time I was there I almost got stabbed for my wallet, I will never go back again!” Then again everyone warned me about living with Lisanti and I survived

After going smoothly through customs and finding my shuttle to the hotel I arrived to find John and his friend Jason napping in our room. They had already gotten a surf in and I was anxious to get wet so we headed out to the end of the street we were on and surfed this fun river mouth La Bocana. It is a very high performance rivermouth that is usually a rippable left and has the occasional punchy right. It felt good to get in and wash off the airport ride.

The following morning we checked El Sunzal, which looked mushy as hell but like it might get better on the lower tide. We had our morning session at La Bocana again. It was pretty crowded with the locals really holding the peak and forcing us to take scraps. John stuck to the inside and got a ton of waves, I tried snagging wide ones like I did everywhere else I surfed this year and got nothing all that great. Jason elected to sleep in. After Breakfast we took a little rest and then surfed Sunzal. It is a lot like C-street and according to John it is very much like Maria’s in Puerto Rico. I found my punchiest waves on the left. Regardless, it was a decent session and my best at the spot.

After the session John and I were on a quest to find something that was a little more high performance. Punta Roca was nearby and we were told that the bus was easy but the language barrier and John’s aversion to risky situations precluded us from going. Luckily some helpful locals told us it was super easy, just get the bus to La Libertad that runs about every 10 minutes and get off at the point. Sure enough it was that easy.

The bus dropped us up the street from the promenade that goes along the point and we started seeing small glassy lines peeling down it. We got to the top of the point and there was a pack of locals sitting up the top of the point and perfect barrels rifling down the line. A few would be cut in half by some of the gnarly barnacle encrusted boulders but most would drain out for a long perfect little round barrel. Once past the boulders at the top it looked like the Cove at Rincon. This was the session of the trip. I spent a ton of time in the barrel (Jason saw a few of them) and did some of my best turns of the trip.

That wave is as good as anything in the States. Mid afternoon weekday crowd was totally manageable we shared it with a few locals and a knee boarder who absolutely killed it. One of the locals was the little Occy like goofy foot. The kid, Charlie, couldn’t have been much more than 14 but threw more water than most grown men, full on Occy hacks. Right before we got out Jason nearly ran a local over and got yelled at. Luckily I was already out. The boys cut up their feet pretty good getting in and out. John had a particularly gnarly gash on his foot that I had to clean out for him. If you want a visual picture the scene in Forty Year Old Virgin when Steve Carell gets his chest waxed.

After Monday we were pretty surfed out and luckily the swell was down for the next few days. We rested and recuperated. Unfortunately I made the mistake of eating some bad street food and started to pee out of my butt, so did Jason. Though it could very well be the photos I saw of myself surfing that made me sick. Jason changed none of his eating habits and just dealt with it. I decided to fast and flush it all out. It worked, but it eventually returned with an evil vengeance. On one of these lay days we met this Floridian Rory while at breakfast. The guy spoke the best Spanish of any American I have ever heard. “Hola, yo queero un Sandwhich cone eggs e….bacon e cheese, poor favor”.

Make sure you read that and pronounce it as if it were written in English. Anyways he sold us on the idea of K-59. He said it was a really fun wave and had no problems with a crowd there. On one of these lay days Jason and I ventured to the bar next door which advertised a wide beer selection and extensive liquor list. If you know me, you know I love good beer. We figured it would be all shitty Central American and Mexican beers. Were we wrong, 40 rums, and 30ish beers. And while they did have the smattering of tropical pils, which the Belgian bar owner said sound like tropical piss, they did have a good selection of European brews. It turns out they were opening the first craft brewery in El Salvador and were going to have the beers ready before we left. We tried those as they were ready and they were good. If/when I go back I am staying there. It was awesome. I am sure if I smuggle them some hops they will hook me up.

On Friday we decided that with Punta Roca being such an easy adventure we would try our luck using the bus to get to K-59. It was as easy as getting to Punta Roca it just required a longer ride and a longer wait for the bus. Rounding the last bend, we could see K-59 and it’s sister point K-61 through the forest. Upon disembarking from the bus we wandered through the maze of dirt roads down to the point.

The place definitely has potential but we didn’t score it. In the morning there was some morning sickness from the previous nights thunderstorms. The point is tiny maybe 75 yards long and the wave hugs it. There were a few but I was slow as usual and feeling a little weak from the whole not eating for two days thing. We got out and a local cooked us up lunch, which was awesome. While we ate john let him borrow his board and go for a surf. During lunch it was the best we saw the spot the bobbles were out of the wave, and the afternoon chop hadn’t destroyed it. When we got out after eating the place quickly stopped working. It was frustrating to say the least.

The weekend came with the swell and crowds. The biggest act of angry localism came Saturday morning when this kook dropped in on a local at La Bocana the resulting was a lot of screaming in Spanish and “todos cebollos” had to leave. Later the offending kook burned me at Sunzal. But the world is an odd place. Later that day I went to pull money out of the ATM after he had just done so. He left his card, giving me the perfect opportunity to inform him of his complete and utter obliviousness both in and out of the water. Sunzal was crowded as hell too. There were some angry longboarders who would yell at the people they dropped in on. One particularly surly one even shoved Jason. The best though was one dropped in on John. Over the course of the ride he tried to box John out of the wave, but John was having none of it. He just kept doing his turns and crossing the guy’s wake. Eventually they collided much to the delight of the local guide at our hotel and down the douche went. I am sorry but if you are on a longboard and shortboards are taking off outside of you, there is a problem. Apparently the assholes are weekend warriors from San Salvador who don’t respect anyone.

Sunday the swell really filled in with the afternoon being DOH at Sunzal. We headed to Punta Roca. A fairly empty line up and a few 10ft sets. Guess who was sitting in the parking lot. The guy who Jason nearly ran over. Like a pussy Jason looked at the ground and walked past. I made respectful eye contact and for that I took the lashing for his infraction and orders that we better be respectful or else. After informing him of the local’s instructions, Jason then paddled out straight to the front of the pack. If he got in any more trouble I would have thrown his ass under the bus and let him take the wrath that was due. It was a fun session until I met the rocks getting some nice cuts on my hands, arms and legs. Some locals got some footage and it was pretty frustrating watching myself surf.

Monday was another fun ass day at Punta Roca. It was head to head and a half with friendly happy locals; it wasn’t as hollow as the previous week but certainly fun as hell and rippable. Tuesday we went back to Punta Roca for another helping of racy rights. Light crowd and our new neighbors at the hotel were there too, complete kooks. One of them burned a local at Punta Roca and sadly did not have his face torn off.

The night before, these guys had gotten a hooker and ran the train on her. I guess that is what happens when you get old. You get married, have kids and then cheat on your wife with third world hookers while on vacation trying to escape your miserable life. It was funny talking to them telling us about their kids in a vain attempt to be buddies with us. Then one of them would come down shirtless and slap his buddy on the shoulder and say, “You’re up!” And the fat fuck would go off to get his turn with the worn out third world cooter.

Wednesday John finally came down with the shits. Jason and I left him miserable in bed and went and surfed the last of the swell at Punta Roca. It was fun, it was like the first Monday but not glassy. We had the place to ourselves with Ricky and Proctor of Proctor surfboards. They were very friendly and we all had a good session. Overall it was a pretty marginal session and when we got out it was terrible.

We finished our last morning with a quick surf at la Bocana and at 11 I got in the shuttle to the airport and went home. Flights are always a crapshoot. Half the time you wind up getting crammed between two pigs like you are headed off to the slaughter house or someone who wants to tell you their whole life story when you just want to sleep. Sometimes though you get lucky. The flight back was great; I sat next to the Guatemalan Ambassador to the US with a whole extra seat in our row. Then once in the US, I got to hang out with the former US Ambassador to El Salvador while we waited for our bags. Nice guy, turns out he was originally from NJ too. When he was in his youth he surfed back in the 50’s on old redwood boards and he used to surf with some of the classic surf characters of the era. All in all the entire trip was worthwhile, even as my bowels are slowly recovering from the traumatic experience. But now the question arises, where will I go to next? I am thinking somewhere with cold water…

Punta Roca, one of the Jewels of Central America

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I Gots Power (Power of Ten, May)

Posted in Anger, Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged Chris Lisanti's dick looks like it has a bad case of elephantitis, Evan Giesleman, I think I could beat Kooky Kyle in a Masturbation contest, Joe Vs the Vocano is one of the best movies ever made, Josh Kerr, Kerrupt, Kerrupt Flip, Like that is true, Selling your soul one pair of board shorts at a time, Stale Fish, Surfing, The Surf Industry is evil, This blog is nothing but a bunch of bull shit on June 16, 2012| 4 Comments »

So what if May came and went like 16 days ago? In Lisanti time that was yesterday. In geological time it barely even registered. There were two lists submitted for May (John and Kooky) and it would be rather rude of me to ignore that. Sorry Danny yours counts towards June. I have to say I was less then impressed with either list, but Mauriello’s took the cake and as such he will be awarded two points for his actions. Now don’t fret June is here and that means you can still submit a list and the points will count towards spring. I have decided to end the Spring quarter June 30th instead of the 21st.

1. Toughest Air Grabs to Pull off in Surfing: Ten years ago if you could just pull a sizable air it was sick. If you could stick a rotation you were the man. Now if can’t stick an air reverse nine times out of ten and have some type of flip in your arsenal you might as well be a a sorry excuse for a ripper. A grab is done for two reasons: to keep the board under your feet better or to invert an air to make it even more gnarly. The two hardest in my opinion one of which I can pull off the other I cannot are Stale Fish in which a surfer uses his inside arm and grabs the inside tail rail. I find this one to be somewhat easy backside, very difficult front side. The second one I completely gave up on as a result of far too many shitty wipe outs: Kerrupt. The Kerrupt began as a sort of inverted ally-oop flip that was known as the Kerrupt Flip. Then people started doing the grab in all sorts of aerial inversions thus making it a grab as well. Basically you turn completely looking at your tail and grab both tail rails of your board while crossing your arms. You need a ton of air to pull this and there is a lot of room for error and injury when you fail.
Kerrupt

Stale Fish

Here Evan Geiselman demonstrates a perfect stale fish.

2. Masturbation: What can I say. I don’t think anyone is as big an advocate for masturbation then me, except maybe Kooky Kyle. Men talk openly about it, women are more secretive. The establishment would have you believe it is a shameful act. I say why not pleasure oneself. End of story

3. My type (In Terms of Women): This is with out a doubt one of those topics I have been pondering for sometime now, could be a blog in itself if I actually knew the answer. Looks wise its not too specific although I do prefer brunettes over blondes, like a darker complexion. Them pale pasty folk confuse me. I dig a petite figure that is well proportioned. I cook Italian food so she has to start out small so that I don’t make her too fat. Height is a big issue for me. She needs to be no taller then around 5’5/5’6. Im only 5’9 and bit on the smaller side for a man in general (don’t fret ladies my man downstairs is more then he needs to be). I like to dress up and go out and expect the same for my girl. If she puts on heels and is either right at my height or taller how is that going to look? Like shit, that’s how. Remember Tom Cruise next to Nicole Kidman and then everyone wondered why they got divorced. Personality wise at this point its up in the air. I’m a tough one to put up with so I guess if she can stand my bs at least half the time she would be a saint. She must have a healthy sex drive. That “I’m too tired” crap is not going to fly ever again. I’m not saying I want a nympho, but would love it if she would be all over me for a change.

Tom and Nicole back in the day. Look its like he is her pet monkey or something. Not going to be me.

4. Real Dolls: This is some twisted shit even for me. Although if it was for me I could use the previous topic to order my own “perfect” woman. A blow up doll is one thing. That is masturbation with props, but this shit is heavy. These look almost real. Anyone ever see the movie “Lars and the Real Girl”? It was based on this premise exactly. Its a really decent movie actually. I need to get a copy of that. If one of my readers wants to hook it up send it to me with a picture of yourself and I will frame it and hang on the wall in my living room and worship you like a false idol.

5. The Surf Industry: Just when I thought we were done with all the dirty talk John goes and picks the dirtiest topic of them all. I’m pretty sure the surfing industry is run solely by the devil. It’s a classic Adam and Eve situation. The Hawaiians created this pure amazing entity, where all one had to do was cut down a tree turn it into a ride-able hung of wood and go ride waves naked. Pure and simple, Men, women, children all living in bliss, one with the ocean. hundreds of years later some imbecilic business man in a suit decided he could sell this wonderful life style to the masses and convinced the current participants at the time it was for the betterment of the sport. I.e. Eve having Adam eat the apple. Then the Movie Gidget came out and surfers were expelled from the garden of Eden forced to endure crowds, traffic, kooks, valley people, stand up paddlers, surf camps, and all the other current annoyances in everyday surfing life.

6. Haircuts: I feel like this should be a given, but then I am constantly amazed at the number of people who don’t care about their hair. For me its my vanity for sure, but deeper then that I have baldness in my family and thus far am hanging on like a barnacle. I feel it is my duty in thankfulness of whatever higher power has allowed me such good fortune and take the best care of my hair possible. A good hair dresser is an artist, pure gold. My current one a profit of hair design. Everyone who cares about their hair ought to have their own hair stylist only they will go to. If mine moves away I may seriously consider relocating. Tipping should 30%.

8. Inlanders: These people baffle me. I will start with Valley folk and work my way completely inland. If you truly love the ocean then living a mere 30minutes to an hour inland is a fucking travesty to your soul just to save a few bucks in rent. I pay a shit load of money for my ocean view causing me to live way outside of my means. Waking up every morning to the smell of sea and then glancing at it out my window makes it worth all the sacrifice and frustration. Those people who have never stepped foot on the beach in their entire lives cause they live hundreds of miles inland well I will have to go with Meg Ryan’s line from “Joe Vs The Volcano” “I have no response to that”.

8. South Swell Hype: Its officially summertime on the West Coast of the US and that means South Swell season or in other words a ton of bullshit and lots of let down. Maybe it you live from Huntington Beach and south the hype is worth something. North of that it is all lies and heartbreak . Most times its just a reason for Surfline.com to get extra hits. In Santa Barbara who gives a fuck unless you have a boat since the Islands block everything anyway. If you happen to be lucky enough to have a boat or ranch access you will be welcomed by quite the crowd to reward your efforts. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere good on ya, but here in California it is nothing but a bunch of bull shit.

Over hyped or not you cant beat a good day at Malibu with 500 of your closest friends.

9. Having to Use a Bathroom at in Opportune Times: Read this blog I wrote back in 2009 for my thoughts on this topic: Bathroom Revenge and Good Times.

10. Alfie’s New Toy: About a few weeks ago I decided Alfie’s life was a bit too simple and needed some adversity. I devised this diamond type contraption I built out of cardboard with a little whole on two sides just big enough to let out a small kernel of dry food if kicked in just the right combination. It drove him crazy. Now he has it down to an art. He can get all the food out of it in under thirty minutes. I guess I need to go back to the drawing board.

Alfie hard at work…

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A Saving Grace?

Posted in Deep Thoughts, News From Lisanti Land, Surfing on June 13, 2012| 4 Comments »

I must admit the last two days have been tough for me mentally and emotionally. I am trying to stay strong, but its hard. Deliberately acting out of one’s naturally ordained character can be very trying on that same person’s animus. I don’t believe I was predestined to be happy or positive. Thus this thinking I could ever actually be happy is a rather big stretch to begin with.

I always like to go back to the Aldous Huxley’s take on happiness in Brave New World “Happiness isn’t grand and can only truly be realized by the simple of mind”. Then I read Voltaire who in Candide presents happiness as the ability to “Tend one’s garden” to best of his own ability. Garden in this sense being symbolic for life in general. Finally I took a look at Henry David Thoreau and “On Walden” , his personal life long quest for true happiness being true to yourself and your own beliefs. To be honest I don’t really know how happy Thoreau was in life.

Up until I read his works in college when I was younger I had yet to really find an author that veraciously embodied myself. I could in some respect be his reincarnation if such a thing is possible (I have just recently been exploring the spiritual side of things courtesy of my new couch guy Sean). What ever salvation or delirium he found it was by living rather simply and wandering. Simple was the common theme here.

Now I am an intellectually inclined person or at the very least would like to think so. I will admit that yes I can be a very miserable person to be around. In my childhood I was down right wanton to be around. In many ways I guess I still am. I don’t believe I did it on purpose it was just in my nature to constantly shake the tree. When such an action is taken the results are many times adverse causing my spirits to fall. After a while I just assumed a negative out look on the world around me. My mother once put a smile or frown face on a calender for a whole year to prove such a point.

As I got older and did more reading, thinking, traveling and overall gathering of life experiences I came to realize that I should be able to control my own destiny and emotions. Being such I got better at changing the way I saw things. Looking through “rose colored glasses” so to speak, “the bright side of things”. Its fucking hard. I find myself constantly torn by contradicting thoughts and emotions. I fight it well and really do try and stay in the positive frame of mind. It has for the most part worked out for me over the past few years or so.

Then there is surfing. An entity in my life I curse as much as praise. The most frustrating yet rewarding part of my life. A true paradox, oxymoron. Yesterday afternoon I was on the phone freaking out telling my mother I was ready to cash out on my life here in Santa Barbara and move on to either Australia or New Zealand. I still may. Then I went surfing and had a hell of a surf and my perspectives changed. I was stoked, came home cooked a scrumptious dinner for my roommates,watched a Seinfeld and passed out merrily on my couch.

I woke up this morning and scored really fun Rincon. I’m not going to go into the details of the surf sessions you read the surf log for that. It just sets my mind at ease. These days even the bad sessions bring a sort of solace over me. I was just talking to a buddy of mine who just recently got back from a surf trip and has yet to surf since. The first thing I do when I get back from a surf trip is go for a surf if it is ride-able to wash away the annoyance of travel. Its truly is my soul.

I find myself constantly fighting this reality. How is that my essence of being is locked up in a feeling that last no more then a fraction of a second at most times? Yet it doesn’t. For me that feeling lasts the entire day. Even the memory or telling the tale of an epic surf rejuvenates me. Then the question comes up “can I really surf the rest of my life”? At some point my body will be too decrepit to remain and then what?

At the moment I find myself attempting to build a life that would have me surfing less and less all in the pursuit of happiness? Surfing for me is happiness. Its crazy talk. I look around at my current apartment and all the THINGS that I have, the furniture, wood floors I added. “Nice things” as my ex-wife used to put it, some one who has definitely traded surfing for a “real life”. In the accumulation of these nice things I have sacrificed so many hours of surf, and good ones at that. Why? So people can come over my pad and tell me how nice it looks and how I am finally an “adult”? I could have surfed all over the world for over a year on what I spent to make this place look nice.

At the moment I am working on a life compromise. For me compromising is the hardest thing ever. If there has not been much writing here lately I am sorry, but I have been working through many serious thoughts and emotions. I have to lump the two together cause for me they are in most cases synonymous. At the moment I am at a very crucial cross road; which ever decision I choose will with out a doubt decide the course my life for a very long time. The decision I have to make is if what I should do and is according to society the “right decision” is the right decision for me. Maybe I’m not suppose to have nice things. Instead maybe just maybe I am suppose to do great things. If the ability to have nice things completely trumps my ability to do great things then something is wrong.

“All men aspire to greatness, yet so few succeed”.

Perfection is out there and for some reason I don’t think it is found in a compromise.

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Tail Free Baby!!!

Posted in Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged Backside Tail Free Reos, Blow Tail, Chris Lisanti only does tail free surfing well cause he is too light to do anything else., Dane Renyolds, Frontside Tail Free Reos, How to do a Blow Tail surfing, How to do Tail Free Surfing Maneuvers, Kelly Slater, Lessons, Matt Wilkerson, Surfing, Tail Free, Tutorial, Why did I forget to grow? on May 11, 2012| 14 Comments »

This weeks UCB and the first of the quarter makes a victor of Kooky Kyle, who by the way has already accrued one bonus point in the surflog. With this win he is already starting out strong with 2.5pts. He asked I write about how to successfully bring tail free reos back into the wave face. Well Kooky the answer is quite simple: Don’t suck so bad a surfing. Either that or “Kill Yourself” (what song and by what artist is that from for 1.5 UCB points, answer in the comments and link the you tube video and I am looking for one distinct song. It should be obvious if you know it).

In all seriousness tail free surfing is one of the hardest maneuver inversions in surfing to control and successfully complete. At the same time if you can pull one off it both looks and feels sick. The old school guys like to call it “flicky surfing” and in a way that is true. I mean when you blow the tail out in most instances you are burning a lot of speed and taking away from the energy that say a full rail hit might incur . For me personally I would rather blow my tail then do a huge gaff any day. If you can get them down eventually you can add power and finesse on top of radicalness to them. Just look at the tour guys like Slater or Wilko. Dane Reynolds’ tail free hits are power and insanity. I am constantly overwhelmed on how far he can take a tail free turn and come back in.

Frontside

Freeing the tail Frontside is all about being out of control yet in control all at the same time.

The first step to a good tail free maneuver is just the same as any lip related move, a good bottom turn. Drop into a wave and make sure it has a steep section with a lip that is going to throw out. It is near impossible to do a tail free hit on a mushy or flat section. As your bottom turning, pivot off your toes and lean into your inside rail. On larger waves it helps if you even touch the water with your back hand almost pulling yourself back up into the face. Watch any clip of Mick Fanning for a perfect example.

In this frame I am at the end of my bottom turn, all my weight is on my toes and I have just shifted the bulk of my weight from my front foot to my back foot. This will allow me to climb up the face of the wave towards the lip. If you notice my head is looking toward the cascading lip I am about to hit.

Although this is not the same sequence this is what the next step from the above bottom turn would yield. At this point I have climbed up the face and have about half my board above the lip and have began to put all my weight on my heels. I am about to also kick the tail and rest of my body up over the lip. Which you will see in the next two frames.

The pivot will allow you and your board to begin to climb back up the face of the wave. As your approaching the lip wait until your nose is beginning to come over the lip before counter acting the turn as shown in the above frame. At this point counter your weight over the outside rail by leaning on your heels. If you over exaggerate at this point you will be forced to come back in lay back and in most cases losing the wave in the process. Be sure also not to over throw the hit or you will just be pushed off the back of the wave. By overthrowing I mean waiting too long to counter act the turn. Also when finally approaching the lip as shown above you must kick the rest of your weight and board forward by pushing up toward the lip with your legs while keeping your upper body straight. The below sequence demonstrates this.

In frame one I have just finished kicking the rest of my board and body out of the wave and am about to become tail free. At this point all of my weight is on my heels and I am about to shift it back over my toes to counter act the kicking out of the tail.
In Frame two I am completely free of the wave except for my inside rail. Keep in mind this is a very inverted look at the maneuver. At this point you should just be loose and wait for the rest of your board to catch back with the wave.

At this point you are completely weightless and it is a rather awesome feeling and sight if you have done it correctly. By that I mean your posture should be in tact even though the only thing left inside the wave is your inside rail sort of as demonstrated in the above second frame or the very first photo in the beginning of the fronside tutorial. Now you just need to wait for the rest of your board to catch back into the lip. This is where the hard part comes in, keeping your body over your board. This is the one of the most important things in all facets of good surfing. At this point you want all your weight centered in the middle of the board and on your toe tail. All your weight on the re-entry should be on your back foot or you are going to dig your nose and pearl or dig your outside rail and fall over it. Try not to recover in a lay back or in most cases it will be the end of your ride unless you are on a perfect wave such as Lowers.

By this point my board has caught back into the wave and I am ready to put my weight back over my board and onto my toes so I can recover and go into my next maneuver.

Once your weight has been center back over your board free fall back down with the lip if your are still in it. In the case of many inversions you may have actually destroyed the lip in the process and are now in the flats. Either way it is no problem. Stabilize yourself for impact. Once you hit regroup and gather your balance, put your weight back over your toes and go into your next bottom turn. Or if you did one so gnarly that the wave is done or it was a close out hit claim it.

Everything has reconnected and I’m a just waiting to come back down to the bottom with the wave. Notice all my weight is on my back foot here cause I have buried my nose a little bit and I don’t want it to catch on the way down.

Backside Tail Free Reos
Backside is very similar to frontside with the only real variation being that every thing is opposite. Once again start with a good bottom turn except all your weight should be on your heels. Maybe it is because I am goofy foot but I find backside tail free maneuvers way easier to pull off.

All my weight is on my heels and I am spotting the incoming lip.

For the rest of this I am going to refer to the following sequence.
Here is a perfect example of the rest of a clean back side tail free reo. In the the first frame my weight is all on my heels and I am climbing back up the face. My nose is pointed 12 o’clock and is above the lip. The second frame is the larger one in the seq. and is the shifting of my weight from my heels to my toes and am about to do the kick up motion we discussed in the front side tutorial. Frame three is the actual kick up motion. I am pushing my entire board and body over the lip with the force of my legs. Notice my body is stabilizing the motion, not going with it. Frame 4 my tail is free and I am just going along for the ride. Frame 5 I am beginning to shift my weight back over my board as my rail and tail catch back with the lip.

Frame 6 is where backside and frontside differ. On a frontside hit you actually open your body up on the recovery. Backside is the opposite, you want to crunch up into a ball for the free fall keeping the majority of your weight over your toes. Once you begin to fall with the lip open your body up and put your weight back over your heels. Stabilize your landing and go into your next bottom turn.

No one blows the tail quite as gnarly as Dane.

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Not Surfing My Troubles Away: May 2011 Surfing in Review

Posted in Surfing, tagged California, Emma Wood, La Conchita, May 2011, Mesa Lane, New Jetty, North County, Ocean Beach, Rincon, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara River Mouth, Santa Cruz, Surfing, The summer of Alf is eminent., Ventura, Waddel Creek on May 8, 2012| 3 Comments »

May 2011 Surfing in Review

Considering we are 7 days, 14 hours away from the start of the “Summer of Alf”, which may be a benchmark in the history of Lisanti Land and will be described in detail on or around May 16th, the official start date. I thought it would be right to finally close out 2011 and get the first ever year in a life of Chris Lisanti surfing stats. In order to do that I first had to compile the stats from May of 2011. Actually May was a very integral month in my life last year in a very negative way.

The “Summer of Alf” is going to be all about the positive. Its almost necessary for this recap to happen nearly a year later. May was it for Adrienne and I, the final cabash. I spent the greater part of April trying to win her back and by May my efforts had become futile. It was not long into the month that I found myself packing my bags and moving out of MY APARTMENT as a result of the situation. You can read “Bowing Out” and “One Last Perfect Day” if your new here and lost or just want to rehash my pain. I know I link these regularly but that is because they were some of the hardest yet better pieces I have written here at SurfingRuinedMyLife.net.

The funny thing is when I read them looking back now it amazes me how messed up and confused I was. As a result my surfing took a toll. I missed some days, I was frustrated others and a few surfboards got destroyed as a result of drunken tantrums. I still managed to stay wet as Nick the Kook would say. I have said it before the only constant in my life in last 21 years has been surfing and I am thankful for every moment that has been bestowed on me in the water. Here are the numbers of May 2011.

Number of Sessions Surfed: 16
Number of Days Surfed: 15
Time in Water: 27 hours
Number of Waves Surfed: 409
Average Waves Surfed Per Hour: 15

Spots Surfed:
Mesa Lane: 4
Rincon: 3
New Jetty: 3
Santa Clara River Mouth: 2
Emma Wood: 1
La Conchita: 1
Ocean Beach, San Francisco: 1
Waddel Creek, Santa Cruz: 1

Top 3 Sessions:

3. 5/30/11 PM Session: 2-3ft, Mesa Lane
Time in Water: 1hr 20mins
Waves Surfed: 25
After a morning of failed car surfing John and I decided to give Mesa Lane a look. The wind was right and the tide was not too low making it a definite possibility. Upon checking it there were tons of glassy little nugget bowls rolling in with a very light crowd. It was bit on the low tide side but I was kind of frothy for a surf. The surf was far from epic but I was in crazy surf mode and began pulling and sticking a variety of airs out of which I brought down three ally oops and one really fast backside air reverse. It was a fun little session to say the least.

2: 5/29/11 PM Session: 2-3ft, Rincon
Time in Water: 2.5hrs
Waves Surfed: 28
Talk about late season crazy wind swell. I checked the buoys this morning and they were spiking at 12ft. I knew Rincon would have to have a wave of some sort. Low tide was around one. John and I cruised south and on the way down Santa Claus did not look very promising. The parking lot at Rincon had a fair number of cars in it and some people were walking around with short boards leading me to believe that there might be some waves to surf. Turned out there was some waist to chest high scrubby wind swell coming into the cove that was semi clean. At first I as not too enthusiastic but then saw a solid set of three waves roll in that sparked my interest and had us all over it. I ended up call boxing one wave and snagged at least three good ones and I saw John get a few good ones also.

1: 5/25/11 PM Session: 2-3+ft, North County, Santa Cruz
Time in the Water: 2.5hrs
Waves Surfed: 40
See Blog Clearing My Head for more details. In short just a buddy of mine and I sharing waves in the middle of nowhere on a well shaped left reef pass.

There you have it the final recap that was needed to complete 2011. Stay tuned for the entire stats from 2011, an entire year in surfing. I’m excited. Check out the “Urban Surfing” blog I wrote back in May of 2011 it some cool surfing and other adventures from this time period. As always read the surf log for daily updates on my surfing and day to day.

Empty perfection. If you don’t surf then you probably don’t understand how precious this scene is. All you see is a pretty picture of a wave.

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Of Things to Come…

Posted in Deep Thoughts, Life, News From Lisanti Land, Surfing, tagged California, Cinco De Mayo, Emma Wood, Hang out with Midget Bar Sluts now that is a goal for the Summer of Alf, How to ruin a perfectly good coffee table., Party Pooper, Santa Barbara, Spring 2012, Summer of Alf, The chances of Chris Lisanti accomplishing even a quarter of this: 17%, Ventura on May 6, 2012| 13 Comments »

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone although it is sort of a bull shit holiday that has been over dramatized and commercialized by America in order to sell tequila and cheap shitty Mexican beer. Seriously Mexicans don’t even really celebrate it. Many believe today is Mexican Independence Day. If you thought such you would be wrong . Mexican Independence Day is actually September 16th. Cinco de Mayo actually celebrates some battle the Mexican Army won against the French in 1862. Now it is just another bullshit drinking holiday so that the general public can feel better about going out and getting absolutely shit faced.

I for one was planning on jumping on the bandwagon. I mean who am I to pass up an excuse to drink? Then as I thought about all the fucking idiot amateurs that were going to be out tonight, the incessant lines and excessive cover charges for that reason I quickly got over it. I went out last night and had an average time at best. I think I will leave tonight to all fools who need an excuse to get drunk rather then be honest with themselves that they enjoy to get plastered from time to time. What is with all these drinking holidays falling on a weekend this year? First St. Pats, now Cinco de Mayo. They are way more fun on weekdays so everyone who works a normal Monday through Friday week can feel what its like to work the entire day with hangover like us weekend workers do.

America Fuck Yeah!

Enough about tonight before I change my mind and cruise to the bar with the idiots and on to my initial reason for writing. A blog ago or so I wrote about my current lot in life and feelings (see Food for Thought). In this blog I am going to explore some of my thoughts about moving forward in life. Take some stock in the direction I would like to see things move for me.

The Path to Enlightenment

“Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water”. This is an old Buddhist proverb I picked up in the brief survey I gave to the study of the religion. I took from them what suited me and left behind the organization. My religious views are not to be explored in this blog. I feel this is a really good mantra to try and follow. One who is truly enlightened knows he must keep at the path that got him to that point.

I am constantly striving to find out more about myself, who I am, what I am about and what I am capable of. I don’t believe many understand such entities of themselves or want to for that matter. When you start digging into your mind, heart and soul honestly there is much there that is amazing, alarming and somewhat a bit unsettling. Once you open the flood gates its not like you can turn back. You must keep moving forward. I have discovered a bunch about myself in the past few years and even more over the last year.

The more I learn the less I know. “The wise man knows that he knows nothing at all”. One thing I do know is that I know what I stand for as a person and what I do not. I also know that I will not compromise this for anyone or anything and I never have. I rocked long hair for nearly 16 years despite pressure from my ex-wife, family, society, jobs, etc. Yeah I finally did cut my hair, but for me. I entered a new chapter in my life and wanted a new hairstyle to go with it. I plan on continuing this existential journey through my character and how it interacts both positive and adverse in our society making adjustments where necessary to suit me and no one else. No one can tell you what you need or want besides you. That my friends is how I intend to live out my days.

The Short List

These are some things I wish to accomplish over the coming months or at the very least better myself in. If you don’t have some type of direction then you are just running around like dog chasing his tail. Here is to moving vertically.

Get Back into Music
I play the saxophones rather well and enjoy doing it. At one point it was my job and that basically ruined the whole thing for me. After a very short stint in that industry I burnt out and went rouge. That was over ten years ago. I have never stopped playing. I did a little work last summer in the musical theatre genre that was a blast (see “A Trip Back East” Blog for more on that). I really want to get back into Jazz. I’m not even talking about performance. I would just love to meet a few like minded people who would be stoked on pulling out a real book and blowing from time to time. So if your in the Santa Barbara area and have a yearning to play some of that Jazz music please hit me up.

Learn to Speak Italian
This is more of a necessity to go with one of my other more long term directions, which I will discuss later on. I am not sure as of late how to accomplish this task. At the moment I am leading towards taking classes at Santa Barbara City College. I was also thinking about trying some of those language tapes as well. Any suggestions would be very helpful. Maybe I will just kidnap an Italian, lock him/her in my hall closet, force feed him/her cat food and speak conversational Italian with me on a daily basis. I could def think of one Italian here in SB that deserves such treatment.

Go Surfing As Much As Possible
This plan has already been put into action. I have been really lazy as far as surfing is concerned over the past year. Yeah I don’t do it competitively or professionally anymore, but it is my best source of enjoyment, exercise and therapy. I know we are steadily approaching our off season here in the 805. There are still plenty of waves that can be enjoyed by the intrepid and willing. I was once both and want to be once again. Its always more fun when your out there. Visit the surf log for my daily surfing escapades and more.

Time to get my grovel on…

Read More Books
I have been very, very lazy on the reading front. I used get to read nearly two novels a month. Now I am down to around three a year. This really puts a damper on my thirst to read as many great works of literature as possible. I have a rather extensive collection of classics many of which I have sadly yet to read.

Write More
This one goes all around from blogging, to my novel, to another writing project I have been working, to a possible cooking show my buddy and I are working on pitching, to short stories. I am also in the process of a SurfingRuinedMyLife.net redesign.

Explore more of the greater Santa Barbara Area
It was not long ago, maybe two years to be somewhat exact that my boy Brennan and I set out to attack a list of 101 free things to do in Santa Barbara. In the process we did and saw many really fun and amazing things. Since then I have still been striking out to explore my home albeit not as frequently. There are plenty of places with in a fifty mile radius or so that I have to check off my list and this may be the summer for it. No matter what I’m sure you will get to read about the results here.

Just another Santa Barbara Adventure!

Finish the Coffee Table
Ok this project has been going on for almost two years now and the odds of its completion slim, me ruining it in the attempt very good or finding a better one on craigslist most likely. You never know at the moment I am feeling very ambitious. We never thought the renovations on the Lisanti Palace would come to pass either.

The current state of my coffee table:(

Drink and Party Less
How am I going to accomplish all this you ask? Well one of the things I am going to cut out is the number of hours I spend per week getting hammered both downtown and at home. When you drink and party all night you sleep and are sick all day or even days depending. The amount of money such a life style amounts to is preposterous. That does not mean I am going all Mormon on you. All it means is I am going to bring things down to a safer more manageable level before I end up dead by 40. Everything in moderation after all.

The high life…Looks enticing huh? Its not all its cracked up to be.

Grow a Mustache

I DON’T THINK SO…Been there done that scared myself and everyone around me for one week too long.

That is the meat of what I think the “Summer of Alf” (what I am billing the summer of 2012) is going to be all about. Stay tuned for some of my long term accomplishments soon…And of course regular updates, departments and other fun from Lisanti Land.

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Food for Thought

Posted in Deep Thoughts, News From Lisanti Land, Surfing, tagged Big things are coming., Emma Wood, Emotions, New Jetty, Realizations, Surfing, The finer things in life, The summer of Alf on April 25, 2012| 4 Comments »

It was last Wednesday evening that things began making sense to me again. One year ago my life was in absolute shambles. I had plans, the means to execute those plans and high expectations. I had this mental imagine, a dream have you of the way the rest of my life was going to pan out. If I learned anything from Steinbeck its that “the best plans of mice and men may go astray”. Shakespeare has always warned me to “beware of the ides of March”.

At that time in my life I did not head either great writer’s advice. When things went awry I had no where to turn in my mind but the bottle. Anyone who reads regularly can attest to the less then stellar results that have come out of such. If your new here just peruse some blogs exactly a year ago and maybe a few from the summer and fall. They will fill in all the blanks immensely.

I was lucky in that I had a strong support system of friends who were not about to sit around and watch me destroy myself. You know what I am still here and sure I still drink a bit too much, but “kill all my demons and my angels may die too”. In all seriousness I have been working on reducing my alcoholism back down to a safer level. I must say it has been a crazy, scary yet invigorating ride to arrive at the point I am at now.

There I sat out in the middle of a very disorganized lineup at New Jetty with two other guys out making the most of the crossed up lefts that were coming in. It was more then just a surf. The sun was going down, the lighting perfect to allow the mountains to reflect all the colors of the sunset. I looked up the coast line, one where the mountains literally meet the ocean, then back out to the horizon at the channel islands ominously floating in perpetual solidarity. The world around me is so breathtaking. That is why I live my life. That is why I always have.

I let myself get so dragged down into the mud that I forgot what being alive was all about. I still have no idea what is going to happen, but then again it really is not my place to know. If one knew his own fate would his life still be worth living? I know I have been lost for a while now, maybe the last four years of my life even. I had put all of my cards into surfing and as that ticket slowly ran out I was unsure of where to turn. I think that was where Adrienne came into the picture.

She kind of gave me a new reason to live. I was wrong to put all my eggs in someone else’s basket and ultimately I don’t really know how happy I was with our arrangement anyway. I spent so much time trying to glorify it and living in a constant state of veneration of what we were that I clouded what our reality was. The truth is Ade’s and I lived very separate lives for a couple and both of us let a lot slide with the other cause it was not worth arguing about. When I look back on things now I realized that we almost never fought and I know on my side of things and I believe on hers too it was because neither of us cared enough about any topic to make it worth our while. All the big issues we never resolved just pushed under the rug.

I was never good at compromising and I am pretty sure it is a skill she lacks as well. I know right now your reading this thinking why is he rehashing all this? The answer my friends is that sometimes I need to put things into writing when my thought process on them has finally reached a conclusion. Call this my final closure on the Adrienne issue. I have been stewing on these thoughts for a year.

So basically the reason we did not work was because neither of us found it worth while to put the necessary effort in that two people in relationship have to in order to keep it moving into a forward direction. Ultimately we hit an impasse and by the time I realized it things had already spiraled out of control. Looking back objectively now things sort of went down hill steadily after we moved in together. Much of that is due to many factors that we never bothered to address. Its like a car, over time there are certain maintenance issues that need to be regularly handled for the vehicle to remain functional. If you miss oil changes and regular service eventually that car will break down no matter how strong it was initially.

In our a case neither of us really gave a shit about making things work. Now that I see that clearly it is no wonder what happened happened. I mean could the situation had been dealt with better sure, but I guess what went down was in true Lisanti Land fashion. In my world there are only extremes and nothing in between. I must say I would not have it any other way. Insanity or as Micheala put it Lisanity becomes me. I think the moment I went wrong was when I tried to compromise what I am about.

Where does that leave me? My new roommate Dan put things in perspective perfectly a few weeks ago after spending just a short time in Lisanti Land. This guy lives in the palace full time and those of you who have spent time here know exactly the level of ridiculousness that goes down on a normal week. To my readers if you think you get the full story here you don’t know the half of it. There are plenty of instances that go down that are either too embarrassing, incriminating , just plain wrong to put on any kind of public record or go lost in the mix of all the other craziness. Those are the stories you have to come to the palace to hear from my lips to your ears. Then live your own adventures with us.

Dan being a complete outsider to my world. I mean I could not have found a roommate who comes from such a different walk of life then myself. The guy is on the total opposite of the spectrum. I think for me he has been and may be the necessary evil and contrast I need in my life. An outsider looking in can often better observe what is going on then those directly involved. About two weeks ago he said to me that I am an artist at life.

That is what really got me to understand myself and my entire reason for being. On greater thought he is one hundred percent correct. I am an artist at living and the entire world has been my canvas. Since as long as I can remember I have custom tailored ever facet of my existence to suit me perfectly. Every detail down to the color socks I wear, the type of bed I sleep in, the club I frequent, the drinks I consume, etc has been thought about with meticulous detail.

My life has been always about not compromising and you know what I am proud of that. When given the option of doing something I did not really want to do and be with friends or being alone I have always chose the latter. Does that make me selfish or narcissistic, I don’t really know. I know for the most part I get the most out of every minute of my day I can and always have. If I seem angry, sad or frustrated at times it is because things did not work the way I saw in my head. In other words I could not paint the picture I wanted.

The reason I have calmed down a bit in recent years is that I have learned that sometimes I have to learn to paint with in the parameters of the rest of civilization, but still manage to make the statement I intend. I hope some of this makes sense to you. It is a bit confusing even to me, but I finally do understand more about myself then I ever have. Forget living out of spite cause the only person I was spiting was me.

Over the next few weeks I have some new long term possibilities (I’m not going to call them goals or plans anymore cause that seems so final and definite) I want to explore here. And yeah I don’t know whats next. I can promise that I am going to continue my art, that is the art of living and living well. I always said one of my best characteristics was that no matter what I always knew how to appreciate the finer things in life. As summer is upon us I would like to declare the summer of 2012 “The Summer of Alf”. There will be more explanation of what that means soon.

A surprise barrel on an other wise less then optimal surf day is definitely one of those finer things in life.

Ready or not "The Summer of Alf" is upon us.......

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Kooky’s Last Stand: Kooky’s Korner

Posted in Kooky's Korner, Surfing, tagged Auckland, Chris Lisanti needs to take his own advice and start living again., I bet Kooky wishes he never got that return flight home, Indicator, Manu Bay, Maryland, New Zealand, NZ, Piha, Raglan, Solscape, Surfing, The Ledge on April 16, 2012| 5 Comments »

Well folks there are two types of people out there in this world: Those who go out and live life to its fullest potential despite their own personal fears, discretion, insecurities and the abrogating of popular beliefs. Then there are the drones who sit in their happy little safety blanket they have created around themselves living half asleep and vicariously through the first group. For the longest time I believed Kooky Kyle was a member of the drones and then he broke out of his shell and was awakened in his recent traveling adventures. First in Lisanti Land and then New Zealand.

His adventures abroad have finally come to an end. I think the kid came a long way in the last six months and hopefully will take his experiences, life lessons and other things from this past tenure and use it to enhance his regular life. Knowledge plus experience equals wisdom. Here is kooky’s take on his last days in New Zealand. Enjoy…Lisanti

I am for the first time in 6 months sitting in my parents Maryland house. The contrast in swell between my first few weeks and my last few couldn’t be greater. Last you heard from me I was just out of Piha and unsure of where I was going to go. I met up with a friend of a friend in Auckland for a beer and with any luck a place to stay for the night. “Sorry mate, I asked my girl if you could stay and she was not having it. Sorry” I sat there confounded. It wasn’t too bad, the swell was going to be too big up there anyway.

What was I to do? The sun had set, and there was no way I was finding the way back out to Piha and the Backpackers out there in the dark. Staying around was going to be a exercise in surfing closed out beachies. The East coast, out of the question for a storm was lashing it like Kunta Kinte. Taranaki was too far. The swell was actually looking really good for Raglan.

I called Sarah up and got myself a spot back at Solscape despite the busy Easter weekend. I raced down to rags that night on a mission. Thursday the swell was still down so I got back into the swing of things at Solscape. Friday morning the swell had just started showing and that evening I surfed some fun Indies. Saturday morning the tide was a bit full so Sarah and I surfed Manu. It was good but inconsistent and overly crowded with Easter. I got my share thanks to my time in California. We got out as it was really getting swamped with heads and the tide.

The afternoon session I paddled out to a light crowd with some devil winds back at Manu. I was sitting in the line up and before I realized it I had drifted on to the Ledge (the Ledge is this heavy30 to 50 yard section at the very top of Manu that is most times unmakeable except on the best of days. It is also really shallow and when you fuck up you get tossed into the rocks and then left in shallow water with no channel. If you make one through it is pretty sick. I broke a board there in an attempt to make one. So did Scotty B and my boy Pete.) .

I realized this when a wave swung towards me. Dropping in I pulled into the barrel before a bit of the devil wind chop bucked me. When I came up this grom paddled toward me and said “There are some fucking sick ones out here! I reckon we can make some of them!”. FUCK YEA! He got me fired up and it was on. With a dearth of competition out there he and I threw ourselves into anything that looked remotely make-able. I got rolled on the rocks on a few, and I didn’t make it out of many, but I got some great views. As the tide dropped the wind turned and the ledge got too gnarly for me. I shifted down and surfed the rest of the point. It was definitely my best Manu session of the trip.

Sunday morning was head high and a half, picture perfect Indies. The boys at outsides threw me a wave and Phil, the owner of Solscape even complimented one of my waves I got. That evening the winds turned side then onshore yet I still got some good waves and was pretty stoked on the session. Monday dawned and while there was still some size it was breaking into the point and the whole ride I was basically avoiding hitting the rocks. It was clear the swell was done. The forecast wasn’t showing anything for Tuesday and I had a ride to Auckland so I concluded my stay in raglan and shoved off.

There was part of the trip where I was definitely skunked and had regretted coming, but since the swell before I left for Taranaki things turned on (aside from a day or two) definitely leaving me stoked I took the trip. The final run of swell was great. Phil and the locals had even commented that it was a very good swell as they usually don’t get that many days in a row of waves with good winds. I am definitely going back and will not make the same mistakes I made this time, namely coming with enough money to buy a car and not be tied into a location like I was. All in all I met some great people, surfed some great waves and learned a lot.

So what is next for Dear Old Kooky? Well right now I am sitting at my parent’s Maryland place and am taking care of business this weekend. Then I am looking for a job to last me until lifeguarding starts. I am planning on visiting some friends who are graduating this May. There is sure to be some partying and there may even be a surf trip to be had before I start my final summer of lifeguarding. After that the real world awaits, or at least my deranged version of Dexheimerdom.

Indicators on a really good day.

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Surfing Ruined My Life

One delusional surfer's quixotic journey through life.

Archive for the ‘Surfing’ Category

Taking the Bay Area by Storm

Let Us Raise A Glass

Keeping the Dream Alive: Kooky Kyle’s El Salvadorian Adventure

I Gots Power (Power of Ten, May)

A Saving Grace?

Tail Free Baby!!!

Not Surfing My Troubles Away: May 2011 Surfing in Review

Of Things to Come…

Food for Thought

Kooky’s Last Stand: Kooky’s Korner

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