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I Gots Power (Power of Ten, May)

Posted in Anger, Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 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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Bubble Time or Bubble Trouble?

Posted in Deep Thoughts, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 23, 2012| 10 Comments »

Looks like Kooky gets another stick on the board this week.  First off let me say that there were a bunch more topics more formidable thrown out there and I am sorry if there are any hard feelings.  Those really good topics require a lot of forethought and planning.  At the moment I am just not up to working that hard.  I was also too lazy to look through all the comments thus I decided the first topic that peaked my interest and made me laugh was getting the green light. 

Kooky asked I write about bubble time of which I think he may have experienced or at least happened a few times during his tenure in the Palace.  He gets 1 point for his efforts.  No one has yet to snag the bonus question I threw out there in last weeks UCB.  As a result I am going to double its value, now worth 2 points!!! Go back find the answer and take the points.  Don’t forget to get those Power of Ten lists in by May 31st or they won’t count for the month. 

Bubble Time

I am crazy as we know and any last strain of sanity I was clinging to all left the building months ago.  I was lost and found myself in depths of my psychotics.   Your not really free until you give up everything you thought you believed in.  I think we get clouded on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis by all sorts of influence both positive and negative that cause us to get lost in what really matters in life. 

I have been lost my whole life, then again maybe being lost is what defines who I am and my ability to exist in this counter dimension.  Over the past ten years I filled my head with all sorts of ideas and beliefs that most of which did not belong to me at all.  I shook a few off here and there, then gained a few more, shook a few off, gained a few more…Do you see a cycle developing?  I let everything, everyone, our society in general turn me into an entity I could not even recognize when staring myself in the mirror.

When you finally remove the painted veil and stare blankly at yourself and are astounded at what you see and who you see then you know it is time for a change.  I had that opportunity and it scared the shit out of me and I did not know how to handle it or life in general.  I coped with this in a menagerie of ways one of which was bubble time.  

When Ades and I first broke up I could not handle my emotions, mainly the random out bursts of anger.  My temper and rage problem was one of the entities I wanted fix in myself.  Some how breaking all the furniture in my apartment over and over again “Dewey Cox” style was not only nonsensical but rather costly.  I began running out of surf boards to smash as well.  Poor Alfie was afraid to come near me. 

One day I was walking in some random park here in town and found a bottle of bubble solution and a giant bubble wand.  Please don’t judge me, I think bubble time is far better then throwing bums shopping carts full of shit over bridges at 3am.  I looked around and there were no children in sight.  I did not want to be stealing some poor kid’s bubble stuff.  No one was around for that matter except some smelly bum passed out in a puddle of his own urine. 

I opened the top of the container and there was a small bubble wand attached to the lid.  I blew a few bubbles and watched them blow away in the wind, reflect the sunlight in pretty little rainbows and ultimately float down to the ground in scrupulous manner before imploding.  I was miserable walking through this park where I was hoping the piss laden bum might stab me with a dirty shank or needle.   But when those bubbles started to soar all around me I became rather jovial.  I was full on giggling.  How I was not committed to a mental institution that day is beyond me. 

I ended up emptying the entire bottle then laid down under a tree and took a blissful nap.  When I came to I proclaimed that I would no longer have negative out bursts of rage or despair, but instead have bubble time.  I went out and bought a dozen bottles of bubble solution (till I realized all I needed was some dish washing liquid and water).  The giant bubble wand just upped the ante even more.  Now I could blow enormous bubbles bigger then my head. 

Whenever I was having a bad day I would go out into my yard and let the bubbles fly.  There were still the occasional fits of rage and depression drinking.  Overall bubble time slowly began to take over.  I am sure there is some psychological disorder for how I dealt with my emotions and probably some type of treatment or drugs.  All I have to say about that is “you can stuff it in a sack” (half point for that reference).   Sometimes its perfectly ok to be crazy.

I must admit I have not had bubble time in a while now.  I have not needed it.  I am proud to say I have learned to keep my emotions down to a controlled elevate.  To this day I still keep a bottle of bubble solution in my car just in case and the bubble wand is hanging on the wall in my kitchen for easy access in an emergency.   What if we could just have bubble time instead of fighting?  What then….BUBBLES YEAH!

 

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Tail Free Baby!!!

Posted in Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , 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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Another Asterisk Victory Courtesy of Sloth

Posted in Anger, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , on May 7, 2012| 18 Comments »

Hey you guys! The numbers are in!

May 1st officially closed the winter quarter and maybe the weakest one both on my part and on yours.  I had a real lack of interest here folks.  Besides Mauriello and Kooky no one even bothered to submit anything.  Then people wonder why I was unmotivated on the UCB front this past quarter.  Whatever I forgive you.  Besides I was too busy getting drunk and fucking up anyhow.  But we are steadily approaching the start of the “Summer of Alf” which officially kicks off Wednesday May 16th.  That means more blogs that are going to be bigger, better and way more bad ass then ever.  There will be laughter, tears, jeers, rants, raves, yet mostly the usual gibberish we have come to love.

It was a two man race and despite the lack of quantity I must say the UCB’s that got written were of a very decent quality. To be honest that is one of the things I am striving for here as of late anyway, quality not quantity.  Here was how the quarter broke down.

John Mauriello takes the cake or the…”waterpik”?
“Your not giving away our waterpik”

1st Place: Mauriello – 4.5points
2nd Place: Kooky Kyle – 3points
Last Place: Everyone Else 😦

Its on for the spring quarter which will run till June 21st.  Its also an abbreviated one thanks to my winter blunder.  That is two power of ten lists and seven UCBs.  I will write the first UCB by the end of the week and that is worth 1.5points, the rest are worth 1point and the Power of tens are worth 2 points.  If you get suggesting then I will get writing.  My hope is to have one UCB a week.

Lets not have our laziness allow the UCB  to end up like this sloth here. “Wake up little friend, oh who killed my pet”

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“First Day At Work” Daniel Johnston

Posted in Anger, Groovin' High, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2012| 4 Comments »

Today as a result of my extreme laziness, me lazy…noooooo, never.  Mr. go getter over here, about to become the next Rockefeller.  I am going to combine both the UCB and Groovin’ High.  Now I know what your thinking: “Chris you can’t do that”.  Its my blog and I will cry if I want to.  Alright that really did not make any sense at all sort of like this opening paragraph of complete ramblings of an idiot.  In truth I do prefer asshole as I tried to explain to the girl I kicked out of my bedroom last night cause I wanted to go to sleep.  “Sorry, you need to leave now cause that pillow is where my cat sleeps”.

Now that every female subscriber has clicked the unfollow button on my blog let me get back to the point.  Wait what was I writing about again?  No in all seriousness I am not a womanizing prick.  I am actual a hopeless romantic who has been maliciously manized a few times too many and am now jaded, discontent and at this point rather disappointed in both sexes of humanity, male and female on the whole.  Thus I am forced to lash out in at times an inappropriate manner in order to achieve a petty vindication of sorts.  Basically I am an asshole, at least I’m not bitter, I just get better.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way.  John Mauriello in one of our usual Facebook chat sessions, which by the way may become a monthly segment here if I ever get around to it, yep that lazy thing again.  He posted a link to this funny little surfing short Dane Renyolds posted on his blog Marine Layer Productions.  He put the video to this bizarre song, if you can even call it that.  The singing sounds like a chorus of ally cats crying late at night.  Musically it is probably one of the worst songs I have ever laid ears upon.  The lyrics on the other hand are priceless.

Here is a mental image for you.  I was drinking a cup of tea when I played the video, mid sip mind you.  I ended up snorting tea out my nose I laughed so hard.  It was a fucking mess to clean up.  Mucus, blood and tea, but hey now my sinuses are clear for the moment.  The video for the song is rather fucking funny too.

It reminded me just how much working sucks.  Maybe not my job.  Find a job that you love and you never work a day in your life.  That being said I cant stand having to be somewhere for eight hours at day at a certain time till a certain time.  Then being yelled at for coming an hour late sometimes, showing up intoxicated or disheveled from the night before, yelling at customers, having too much fun (yeah my boss told me I needed to calm down cause I was scaring some of the other employees with the antics I hatch in order to amuse myself), throwing food, throwing knives, starting a fire.  All honest mistakes right?  I guess that sort of stuff is only ok on your first day at work, but now its been a few years since that for me.

Like the song says “Today your boss is nice to you, tomorrow he will be mean to you”.  If you laughed at this blog then this song and subsequent video should have your rolling on the floor.  If by reading this bull shit I have just wrote you found yourself offended in some way then get over yourself and stop taking life so seriously.  Either that or “KILL YOURSELF”. Enjoy “First Day At Work” by Daniel Johnston.

Then watch this a Groovin’ High daily double!  Actually it is in honor of the fact that in a few hours my old and best wingman I ever had, great friend and overall enjoyable dude, Brennan will be in town with his boy Christian.  This means I am going to get sloshed tonight.   Whooooooooooooot!!!!!!!!!!  This is also for John Mauriello cause it was our song two summers ago.  Nick the Kook gets a mention since he introduced us to the song.  Kooky Kyle cause he used to sing it at work on a Tuesday in order to pump me up to go party with him.   Finally my perfidious ex-girl friend Ades who loved this song dearly especially when sung so beautifully by Mauriello and I every Friday and most other days of the week for that matter.  “Ooooo I put on my shoes and Im ready for the (insert high pitched tone) WEEKEND”!

“Ready for the Weekend” by Calvin Harris

Nobody messes with Alfie's sleeping spot...

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The Maternal Connection

Posted in User Choice BLog, tagged on March 30, 2012| 1 Comment »

This week’s UCB, well ok, more like this month’s makes of winner of Mauriello.  I know I have been slacking on the whole thing but I mean seriously the only participants at the moment are Kooky and Mauriello and I am fucking busy as shit between working, drinking and surfing.  If you want more UCBs then suggest more.  Also March is over on Saturday but I will honor any Power of Ten list that gets posted before 12am on April 1st and post it on Monday April 2nd.  Remember them things be worth 2 points and are with out a doubt some of the best blogs here for pure entertainment value.  John asked I write a blog about mothers and for whatever reason I feel sentimental at the moment so why the fuck  not.

First off John and I are both Italian and being brought up by Italian mothers were well raised(I know its hard to believe, but I do have manners and in most cases would consider myself a gentleman).  For my up bringing I thank my mother’s painstaking efforts to keep me a decent member of society.  In Italy there is a saying that roughly translates to “Italian men love their mothers first and foremost before any other woman in the world”.  To this day I have yet to meet a woman who has stacked up to my mother and certainly am not looking for that anyway.

I love my mother.  She gave me life .  It blows my mind that any female would want go through the entire pregnancy process to bring into the world a most likely ungrateful let down of an offspring.  I think maybe a let down is being a bit hard on myself.  These days I think, well I hope my mother can find a little pride in me.  I don’t blame her I definitely squandered a lot of opportunities, blew other ones, wasted various skill/talent/intelligence.  Hey we only go around once and she should have known from the get go that I was to beat to my own drum and it was not about to sound like the norm.

Despite the love I have for my mom there is also not a person on this planet that knows how to push  my buttons like she does.  Left in the same room with no escape from one another I am sure the two of us would tear each other to pieces.  If not physically then for sure emotionally and mentally.  Maybe that is why we have such a great relationship these days her and I because I live nearly 3,000 miles away and in a different time zone.   I think that separation allows  us to miss one another enough that when we converse and get together we over look the little stupidities we used to fight over and focus on making the most of the minimal amount of time we have allotted to spend together.

I have to honestly say I really do miss my mother.  For my entire life up until I moved out here to Santa Barbara I lived no further then a few miles from her door for more then a few months.  To be perfectly honest she is the closest friend I have ever known.  I am a very independent person and thinker.  As a result I have trouble getting along with others whom I may not understand, which encompasses 98% of the human race.  I don’t have an Oedipus complex so get your filthy minds out of the gutter for once.  Don’t worry I am sure there will be a dirty perverted blog to come at some point soon.

As a kid it was rather tough for me to make any friends because I did not know how to understand or control the level of aggravation playing with most other children gave me.  I would lash out ultimately causing problems and in some cases bodily harm to play mates.  I once hit a kid across the face with a toy truck and he had to get like eight stitches or something absurd like that.   It was not long before other children did not want to associate themselves with me and in the process caused my poor mother to be isolated as well, being no other mothers her age would spend time with her because of fear of my bad influence on their own children.   My mom became my friend and I hers.

I picked up a ton of great skills from the whole ordeal.  She was a math teacher and as an educator instilled the ideals in me how important it was to be an intelligent person.  I learned how to keep a clean house, dress, shop ( I can find a bargain on anything) cook, basic sewing.  You know how there are guys who can’t do shit for themselves and always have to rely on either there mother or girl friend to handle their domestic shit.  In most of my previous relationships I was the one handling my woman’s shit.  To this day I don’t leave my house with out my bed being made and the overall impression that I live in a neat and orderly home.  This way if you have an unexpected guest or a thief breaks in at least that person will respect your ability to have pride that you live in a decent home.

I tell my mother everything and always have.  I have little if any secrets from her.  I mean I have shared everything to fights I got into at school, to my first sexual experience to my current drinking problem.  There is no point in trying to hide anything from her anyway.  I mean when I lived close and saw her she could tell right by my demeanor if something was bothering me.  These days she can tell just by how my voice sounds over the phone.   Its uncanny actually.

For example I called my mother Wednesday, I call her every week and have whenever I have been away from her as long as I have breathed air.  I was telling her what a fun time I had out at the bar Sunday night and she immediately replied “oh, that means you blacked out and don’t remember most of the details”.  I was stunned for a second.  She knows her son.  At the moment she does not judge me, I hope.  She knows there are times in my life where I need the distraction in order to transition into a new phase.  At the moment I have been in a year long transitional period.  Things are getting better.

There was a time when I used to hate her.  I blamed her for all of my problems in life.  Its human nature to blame everyone and everything else but yourself in times of adversity.  Once I stopped playing the blame game and realized that my life is whatever I make it to be therefore can only be blamed on my own personal decisions and actions I gave up being angry at her.  There was a period when I stopped calling her or going over her house out of absolute spite.  Family vendettas are a terrible thing and unfortunately being Italian I have witnessed too many.  Life is too short to cut someone off cause of a disagreement over most likely stupidity.  This whole life, whatever it is, is rather stupid when you come to think about it.

I know it makes me laugh.  I love my mother and I thank her for everything she has ever done for me and will do for me.  Sure some of her parenting methods may have been a bit abstract at times, but if it was not for her I would not be the man I am today.  Mom’s don’t really get a lesson on how to be a good mom.  They just do what they think is right for their children and mine did the best she could.  I hope yours did too.

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Sliding Down The Pole

Posted in Anger, Deep Thoughts, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 9, 2012| 8 Comments »

This week’s UCB and first of the quarter goes to John Mauriello, despite a challenge and a half set forth by Scotty B involving making home made Four Loco and possibly by own death.  I actually really am considering the challenge, just waiting for the right group of people in Lisanti Land to be down.  It seems like something I would need Micheala for.  John gets 1.5 points for the inaugural UCB.  He suggested I write just how I feel about strip clubs being I was just recently at one for Kooky’s send off.

A Right of Passage

Not condoning what goes on there, going to a strip joint is an American male right of passage when he turns 18 years old. It goes like this, you turn 18 and buy a pack of cigarettes, a lotto ticket and you go to the titty bar.  Yeah maybe you don’t smoke and could give two shits about the lotto.  You buy it because you can, end of story.  For the same reason it is why you should go to the nudey bar.

When I turned 18 I actually did not go to a strip club, per say.  Well I guess I sort of did.  My friend Jay and I (whom would later stab me in the back, et tu brute,  I guess I should have been aware of the Ides of March.  That is a story not for this blog, ever. You will just have to come to court for the skinny on that one) used to hang out at this run down dive in Asbury where I believe Porto is now.  It was called club seduction and it was the raunchiest strip club I have to this day ever been inside of.  They used to let us in under age and serve us alcohol.  The girls dancing were either over weight or anorexic, a few even had track marks on their arms.  All the while pimps would be propositioning us with their girls, drug dealers pushing and every other type of degenerate one could imagine to lurk about such a place.

We never went there for the strippers but the fact that they served us alcohol and the odds of us getting stabbed was rather high.  One night the cops raided the place and we bolted.  I found myself running through the streets of Asbury at 1 am.  Those of you who are lost, Asbury Park, NJ was one of the most run down dangerous towns in the state back then.  Not to mention 80% black, 15% Mexican and 100% bad news especially for two rich white boys.

Rage

After Seduction was shut down for illegal solicitation so ended my strip club days.  It was no matter cause I went off to college anyway.  I got back into town for winter break and my old friend rage tells me I have to come with him to this awesome club.  Skeptical I found myself at yet another strip joint.  Rage owned a convenience store and had plenty of money.  We walk in the door and the bouncer pounds him out.  Then upon entry all the girls cruising about trying to sell lap dances kept coming up, giving him hugs.  Apparently Rage had been spending some money there.  As it turns out the dude would drop around $250 a night and the strippers always tried to go home with him.  When I asked why he never took them he replied “fuck that they are dirty”.  Yet it did not stop him from getting a lap dance from them.

The Stripper Pole

This is one of those things I have never understood about strip clubs: the pole.  When was it decided that it was sexy to watch a woman swing around a six foot pole naked upside down?  I think it is rather entertaining to watch and a skill in its own right.  Come on how has something so bizarre become common place.  I love it even more when non-stripper women who on any given day would demean a stripper will go crazy on a stripper pole any place they find one outside of a strip club.

The Desperation

That is what these places are: dens of desperation.  I always find myself in a state of confusion in such establishments.  If I was in a whore house it would make sense.  Watch what each girl had to offer then buy one for the night.  At a strip club you go into a back room where you pay a women upward of $40 to $100’s of dollars to rub her nasty cootch all over your cloths.  If I drop $100 at the bar I am sure to pick up a woman who will do a lot more then that for me and we will both be satisfied in the morning.

The girls, oh the girls.  Is your self esteem so low that you need to dance for men for money, naked?  Sure the pay is good, but it is also good being a bar tender and one would still get similar attention as a pretty woman.  How is one ever to expect to amount to anything respectable in such line of work?  I may be lonely, but when I walk into a place like that it makes me feel even more alone.  Then again I have never really had a hard time meeting women.  Maybe for some men that kind of attention makes them feel good.  Hey bud wake up, your paying for that attention.

Quarter Rapped Dollar Bills

What is this you ask?  You take a dollar bill and you rap it around a quarter so that now you have a device you can whip a the stripper while she is dancing in attempt to bruise her body.  I went to a strip club in Oceanside once with a guy who literally would stack six quarters and rap them up then beam it at the girls tits.  Had he not regularly dropped hundreds of dollars there I think he would have gotten thrown out.  Recently I had a stripper sit down next to me and say “I drank a  green tea, a latte and a red bull and now I am really horny”.  I was taken aback at first then replied “Wow if I had all that caffeine I would be bouncing off the walls, not horny”.  She did not see the humor in it.

All I can say is that strip clubs in general are a waste of time and money in my opinion.  The occasional visit is a bit enjoyable thanks to the combination of the patrons and strippers. For whatever reason I seem to find my way into one on an annual basis.  One time by accident.  I was in San Francisco visiting Mauriello (For more on that trip read Talk About a Miscommunication) .  We got into a cab after a party had broken up early.  I asked the cabby to take us some place we could meet some pretty girls.  Misunderstanding my request we were dropped off in the strip club district of that town.  When in Rome….

Even Grandma Loves to get all over the pole. Ohhh baby what club does she work at.

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Covering the High Ground: Power of Ten

Posted in Anger, Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 29, 2012| 5 Comments »

The first Power of Ten of the quarter and the month of February goes to Kooky Kyle, whom also earned himself one bonus point for answering the question posed in the UCB winners blog.  The champ is already off to a strong start.  At this moment he is on a bus to LA to catch a plane bound for New Zealand and the next chapter of his adventures.  Don’t worry there will be plenty of Kooky’s Korner entries written by him about his escapades in the land of the sheep.  I for one am very proud of the kid.  He also carried himself quite well last night at the strip club.

Now they are not really my cup of tea, but the guy had never been to one at 23.  I am sorry but it is a straight man’s right of passage to go to the titty bar at 18 and get a lap dance.  I think he was a bit mortified by the whole thing.  I don’t blame him.  Strip clubs are some of the lowest forms of our civilization.  Nothing says I give up like that.  The strippers have given up their personal dignity and pride and so have the customers.  I would rather buy a pretty girl a nice meal for 100 bucks then have her dance on my lap naked.  Maybe that is me just romanticizing life again.  Anyway lets get back to the power of ten cause this can of worms is a whole different blog for another time.

1.  The Barf Barrel – This could be a blog in itself and it may have been written back in the early myspace days.  When I was a junior in high school  Mac Donalds had this promotion, twenty five cent cheese burger Tuesdays or something.  My boy Odie and I on the way to an after school surf decided to stop and pick up $10 bucks worth.  That is forty burgers!  We scarfed that shit down then went up to the beach.  Turns out it was firing.  Solid 6-8ft and barrels everywhere.  We ran out there and began tearing it up.  Well it did not take long for the indigestion to set in.  By my fourth wave I as not feeling so well.  I was sitting out there in agony when this perfect left bowl came right to me.  All the boys started hooting and hollering.  I was the deepest so I had to go.  I sucked it up and paddled into the wave.  Upon dropping in I was ensconced in the pit.  It was solid, so wide I could drive my Honda Civic through it.  Half way into the ride I felt my lunch coming up with a vengeance. Sure enough I spewed right into the face of the wave.   Then I proceeded to watch the vomit go up the face and around the tube.  I basically surfed through a barrel of my own throw up.  I barfed another two times on the paddle back out and then was fine for the rest of the afternoon.  Odie lost his lunch too.  It was a pretty great session.  My buddy Jason saw the whole thing from the side while he was paddling back out.  Said he almost blew chunks as a result too.

Barf Barrel

Just Imagine seeing a streak of vomit coming over me and that would have been what the Barf Barrel looked like.

2. Surf Lingo – On the whole I find surf lingo rather ridiculous and somewhat demeaning to surfers, especially when used by non surfers who have no idea what they are  talking about.  There are some instances where surf lingo or surf speak as I like to refer to it is necessary.  That is for certain feelings, emotions and circumstances that can only happen while surfing and be experienced by a surfer.  It is for those reasons certain surf speak was created.  There were no other words in the human language to describe such.  Barrel, tube, pit, larrel, lip, mush burger, green room, slotted, etc. are all terms to describe different parts of the wave/ride.  They have meaning in the English language but none of those definitions fit their meaning in surfing.  Kook, ripper, shredder, sweeper, sponger, wahine, loc, heavy, punk etc.  are all terms that describe different types of  surfers and abilities. What I am saying is I am fine with surf lingo when used among surfers, but outside of our sub culture I find it brass and idiotic.  When the non-surfing use it I just feel insulted and outraged.  If I have to explain it you won’t understand anyway.

3. Worst Surf Trip  – Santa Barbara is the worst surf trip that I have ever took cause I have been stuck on it for the last five years.  Just kidding.  Truthfully I really can’t think of a bad surf trip.  Even the ones where the waves were awful I still managed to surf my brains out and have a great time.  A few years back I probably would have had a whole list for you.  These days as I look back over all my travels I am grateful for every single one.  Traveling is one of the most amazing things a person can do.  It is an amazing world out there with endless possibilities.  If surfing is the outlet one must use to get out there and see what there is to see then good on ya.  I know if I was not a surfer I most likely would not have went to half the places I have been.  These days most of the trips I take are non surfing trips and so are many of the ones I hope to some day take on.  I really want to go to Italy for a few months, back to my native country and see all the sights, eat the food, maybe even cook the food.  I want to see Stonehenge.  Bottom line there is no such thing as a bad trip except for the ones not taken.

4.  Vagrancy – I guess at one time I was classified as a vagrant and have definitely put up my share of them here in Lisanti Land.  I believe everyone ought to have a period of his/her life spent as a vagabond living by the seat of their pants, traveling from place to place on a wing and prayer with no destination in mind.  I did it for years and it was amazing.  At some point life catches up to you and then you to make a decision.  Believe me I have plenty of friends who were all former vagrants now living very stable lives.  Heck I am one of them.  Shit I just put 2gs into my apartment.  If that is not stable I don’t know what is.  Career vagrants and I do not get along.  I hate bums.  Quite frankly there are way to many of them here in the city of Santa Barbara.  I have a good mind to go sit down with the mayor ask her to deputize me, give me a van, a clan of Pinkertons and let me clean up the town.  No questions asked.  That is a whole different blog entirely.

These guys need to go. I pay too much money to live in this town to put up with their shit.

5. Garbage Can Books – I find more great books in the garbage then I buy.  Its rather alarming to me as a writer myself.  Here I am working on a master piece of a novel that I know is most likely to be thrown in the trash.  Its probably a terrible work, but my delusional ass likes to think it is good.  The other day I picked The Portrait of Dorian Grey, The Canterbury Tales, Tess of the d’urbervilles among other great titles from a trash pail.  It was shocking.   Books are all we have as a civilization.  You know what made us “civilized” and I use that term lightly considering my thoughts and beliefs on the human race, reading and writing.  If you finished a book and do not want it any more pass it along to someone else.  That is the best way to share a piece of yourself with others.  I always give my extended guests a book upon their entrance to the Lisanti Palace.  I try to tailor the selection to a work I feel will fit their character and current situation in life.  Sometimes I will use a work to teach a lesson of sorts.  For example when I was pretty sure my ex-girlfriend was cheating on me I gave her a copy of Gustav Flaubert’s Madam Bovary read.  If you do not understand why, read the book cause it is a beautiful tragic love story.

6. Alfie and the Dish Cloth – I am a bit of push over with my pets.  I hate being a disciplinarian especially with my pets.  Neither was my ex-wife.  As a result Alfie grew up with not the best manners.  More times then not during dinner hour he would have to be thrown off the table repeatedly.  Then when my drug addict roommate Nick was passing out all over the apartment (who by the way I am happy to say is in England going through rehab and hopefully cleaning up his life.  Nick I am proud of you man.  Stay on the course.  Your too good for that shit.) Alfie had free reign over all the food that was constantly getting left out or spilled.  Now before we go any further let me say I am not a fan of animal abuse and that I love my cat.  Please do not go calling the ASPCA on me.  One day after feeling a bit sad and then angry over the Adrienne situation I was eating dinner ALONE!  Alfie jumped up on the table and tried to grab my food.  I lost it snagged the dish cloth and rat tailed him.  I got him pretty good too.  So every time Alfie gets out of line all I have to do is pick up the dish cloth and begin to roll it and he bolts.  My dinner parties all run a ton smoother now.

7. Girls Destroying Clothing – I have had a startling amount of clothing ruined by women.  I cannot even tell you the number of button down shirts that I had all or most of the buttons ripped off in the heat of passion.  One in particular wrecked five of my best shirts.  I have had pants ruined because the zipper got torn off.  Fuck I know if tore off an expensive designer dress on some chick she would be pissed as hell about it.   I remove clothing in a sexy yet respectable manner.  I am not even going to get into the number of outfits I had ruined on me as a result of vomiting.  Ladies c’mon.  I know I am irresistible, but does my wardrobe have to suffer for it?

8. Best …Lost Moment – The company …lost has for the greater span of their life as a surf brand been known as anti surfers surf company.  In other words they full on touted the party hard, surf less, miss contests, cause trouble, derelict surf life style rather then the clean cut, mellow, guitar playing, life loving drug/alcohol free positive surfer portrayed by the majority of the industry.  As a result they built up a team of quite the group of characters and a following even worse.  Then they put out these series of films in the early 2000’s documenting and glorifying said lifestyle.  It was very entertaining and there were plenty of out of control moments.  Girls falling down flights of stairs, drunken stair surfing, Randal who was this bum they found living under the pier in Oceanside and paid in booze to allow the team to abuse.  He got his hair lit on fire on many occasion.  There were drunken fights, under age riders chugging pitchers of beers for $20, going over the falls at huge shore break Mexico in an inner tube, having a surfing dog burn some of the best pros at Lowers.  It was insane.  The best moment and I think the entire surf world is with me on is this one is this clip when pro surfer Strider pulled the g-string of some 15 year old girl on the beach in Mexico, called her a slut then jumped back in his jeep and drove away from “Whats really goin wrong”.

I could not find the clip, but this trailer gives a decent idea of what …lost was all about.  The side of surfing everyone knows exists, but don’t want to talk about.

9.  Covering Your Tracks –  This can go for anything in life, but in surfing it is about hiding either where your surfing or surfed to keep the crowds down.  For example in Cape Hatteras, NC the sand bars are constantly shifting.  A good bar can be around for a day or a week or so.  When such occurs initially it is uncrowded.  Then some one goes and tells his friend, who tells his friend, who tells his friend and so on and so forth.  Next thing you know the place is mobbed the next day.  To keep this from happening many of us like to park not right on the spot, drive cars that are not obvious surf cars, I have seen people go as far as hiding their cars behind dunes and then literally covering up the tire tracks.  I once told a buddy of mine I was surfing shitty blown out Ventura, all the while looking at perfect Loons with no one out.  I knew that guy had a big mouth and I was not about to tell him where I was so he could show up with ten bros.

1o. Animal Print – I am a sucker for animal print.  It drives me wild.  When I see a chick wearing any kind of animal print outfit I am immediately turned on.  It brings out our most primal of instincts.  For that reason my bedding has always contained some form of animal print.  Currently I am running with zebra print satin sheets.  Ohhhhh yeahhh, high class.  As I am writing this I have a leopard comforter around me from a former bed set.  Maybe that is why I have all my cloths torn off by women?

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King of the Castle, Lord of Manor…

Posted in User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , on February 28, 2012| 2 Comments »

Well folks its all over.  I mean it ended on December 21st technically.  Thanks to my laziness, some amazing surf sessions (Visit the surf log to read about those), too much party (you can read the surf log for this too), pure exhaustion due to my job,  and renovations to the Lisanti Palace I am only finally getting around to posting the Fall UCB winner and the winner for the year/subsequent winner of the grand prize: A SELF EXPENSE PAID TRIP TO LISANTI LAND: THE SANTA BARBARA CHAPER!!!! What do I have to say for myself?  Absolutely nothing.  My life has been busy, hectic and as usual out of control thanks to the fact that I am insane, maybe in a good way?  I do not know.  You can be the judge of that.  I am always a bit to harsh a critic on myself after all.

2011 was actually the most exciting year for the UCB franchise that I can remember.  Going into the fall quarter I had a three way tie between our current reigning champ and two time yearly winner Kooky Kyle, UCB heavy and I believe a champ once back in the myspace days, John Mauriello and a man who should never be discounted, a man who is living proof that the size of the dog does not equal the size of the fight, Nick the Kook.  Now all three of these guys have lived the grand prize and all currently have life time passports to Lisanti Land.  Of course that is not their life time, but mine cause when Chris Lisanti ceases to exist so goes Lisanti Land and with the way I choose to live my life that could be sooner rather then later.

I guess if I had a kid and he/she was a nut job like myself Lisanti Land could live on.   Lets face it look at Alfie.  That is the product of being brought up in Lisanti Land for eight years and he is a cat.  Imagine the mental effects I would have on a very impressionable human child.  The kid’s sanity would not stand a chance.  Mino is living proof of this theory.  Then again if I had a daughter and she got married and took the defuses’ last night then Lisanti Land would be lost forever.  So for the survival of Lisanti Land all must hope for a male heir.  Face it I am destined to be perpetually alone for the rest of my life, am probably sterile from years of wearing tighty whities, only recently converting to full on commando, heavy alcohol abuse and surfing in freezing cold water.

There could be illegitimate children of mine floating around out there, but even if their mothers remembered who I was which is a stretch considering they would had to have known my name in the first place, they would most likely lie to their kids and tell them their father died in a horrific pie eating contest accident rather then tell them the truth.  At this point it seems the Lisanti empire dies with me considering I am the last male of my line :(.  Wow talk about rambling on.

Without any more of my crap the winner for both the fall quarter and 2011 is:

Kooky Kyle!!!!!

1st: Kooky Kyle – 5 points
2nd:  John Mauriello – 4.5pts
3rd: Fifi – 2pts
4th: Nick the Kook – 1pt

Congratulations to Kooky Kyle and everyone else who participated.  Remember if you don’t play you can’t win.  Let me take a minute to explain that the UCB is a two way street for all of us.  For me I get a steady flow of new topics to sound off on and extra motivation to write.  Some of my best work has been as a result of UCB suggestions.  For you, there are more blogs and usually of higher content, its always fun to have bragging rights, albeit I am not sure the weight of such, and there is the grand prize up for grabs, although lets face it all one really has to do is ask and he/she can come hang out in Lisanti Land.  I guess there really is not much incentive to play.

Do it for me then, cause I really get a kick out of the whole thing.  I have a lot of new readers and subscribers.  If you enjoy reading my stuff then why not take an active roll in what you read?  It will bring a smile to my face and lots of outside ideas to the blog.

Here is what is going to happen with the winter quarter.  I am extending it to April 1st rather then ending on the spring equinox as I have done in the past to make up for missing the entire months of February and January.  There will be one UCB in February and a Power of Ten list.   In March I will feature two UCBs a week and two Power of ten Lists.  Remember the Power of Tens are worth two points, regular UCBs worth one, and the first blog of the quarter worth 1.5.   Lets get this party started and try and keep Kooky from taking a fourth title.  So far he is in the same class as Andy Irons and Tom Curren.  Here is a chance for an easy bonus point.  The title of this blog was used as part of phrase from what television show? For full rules and regulations of the UCB click  here.

Three time UCB Champion Kooky Kyle. He is ready to take you on this year!

 

Tom Curren

Ok, maybe Kooky is not quite in the same class as Curren.

 

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The Return of the Champ: Power of 10!!!!

Posted in Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , on December 30, 2011| 13 Comments »

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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