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Posts Tagged ‘barrel’

Always Expect the Unexpected (Power of Ten)

Posted in Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 29, 2011| 4 Comments »

I know this is going to shake a few trees with this month’s Power of Ten.  First let me say these were some of the best lists submitted as of yet.  I had to literally spend the last two weeks on who I wanted to pick.  Then a new contender entered the ring and she came out swinging.  Maybe that is how the crowd felt when they saw Babe Ruth point to the left field bleachers and hit one out of the park the first time.  Fifi gets two points for her efforts, but then again not surprising when she dates UCB all star Mauriello.   All the lists I got this month were gold so if you did not get the win maybe tweak it a little more for next month.

1.  Your Hair: I assume she is talking about my hair since it is my blog and not just hair in general.  I have a vain obsession with my hair.  I should have been bald already, that did not happen.  I rocked long hair from when I was 14 all the way until now (well I guess my hair is still longer for most guys, but it seems short to me).  I have always pride myself on the up keep of my own hair.  Hair on your head does nothing for warmth or very little from what I have read.  It was given to us to enhance each and every person’s individuality.  As a result I have always had the utmost respect for hair stylists, artists in their own right.  I tend to be a heavy tipper in general but let me tell everyone your hair dresser is not one to stiff.  I leave mine 30%.  Despite my hairs straw like texture I would not trade it for anything in the world.

2. Girls You Think Are “The One” Then End Up Being Lame:  This could be an entire blog, shit it has been running around in my head for the last six months.  I have been bitching about romance and my pain for some time now so I will spare everyone for the moment, although I am in the process of formulating a piece on love that may be one of my best works since “One Last Perfect Day” and “Bowing Out“.  I love and truly believe in the whole concept of “The One” and that everyone is meant to meet their “One and Only” and when they do both parties male and female will know it.  There will be none of that stupid game playing bullshit.  For me I fall hard when I meet a woman that I find compatible, do everything in my power to keep them safe, happy and satiated.  In the end they are never content and always want more leaving me alone and miserable.   I would not call any of them lame though.  They would not have hurt me so badly if they were lame.  Things did not work out.  I was not the man for any of them.  All I think is that I hope they find all the happiness they are searching for and could not see in me.

3. People Who Don’t Dress Up When They Go Out: There was a time less then sixty years ago when peoples casual clothes were better then what we today call “dressed up”.  I love to dress up and I love to flash even more.  I have a closet full of threads and 13 pairs of shoes.  Still I am never satisfied with my wardrobe.  Dressing up is part of the fun of going out.  Picking out what to wear then wondering what everyone else will wear.  In today’s sad world I go out to the bar looking like class and more then half the crowd is is looking like trash.  Sure I can understand it at a dive bar, but if you are at an en vogue spot beach attire is inappropriate.  I wore a suit out the other night and was looking sharp.  Some guy came up to me in a t-shirt, poor fitting cheap Kmart jeans and sneakers then proceeded to give me a hard time on what I was wearing.  My roommate’s girl friend tried to tell me I look like I am trying to hard.  Shoots I just want to look good.  Ladies when you don a sexy but classy dress, designer heels and do yourself up all beautiful my outfit is then a complement to you.  It blows my mind when I see a woman dressed to the nines with some guy in a white t-shirt and baseball cap at the club.  What happened to class people?

4.  The Texture of Cat’s Bellies: Cats stomachs are gnarly.  They just sort of hang down all soft.  My Grandmother would not pick up cats cause she claimed it felt like she could feel their insides.  Plus when they eat too much their stomach expands to a strange little ball.  Its odd for sure but fun to pet at the same time.  My family’s cat Hercules is a conniving little bastard and will roll over on his back so that you can scratch his belly, but when you do he grabs your hand with his paws and bites. Cats are interesting creatures.

5.  Girls Who Make You Pick Them Over Surfing:  For me this does not happen.  I tell women that I am with as soon as things start getting serious that surfing has been with me before them and will be with me after them.  My whole life has revolved around surfing. With out it I am not complete.  If you really surf and are not just one of those “I surf once a month or less” types you know what I am talking about.  When I am not surfing or at work, my girlfriend when I have one always gets the rest of my time and these days if the surf is terrible she can have that time too.  Ask me to choose and I am leaving with my board in hand.

6. Wine Under $5: I must first address the fact that Kooky Kyle had this on his Power of Ten as well.  Normally that would make a list void, but I do not think Fifi saw Kooky’s list in the comments so I am allowing it and it is my blog thus I can do whatever I want.  There are great wines in every price range, but it is true the pricier the wine the better the quality if you know what you are looking for.  I personal at the moment cant spend more then $14 a bottle, that is because I drink about a case a week and am renovating the apartment.  I have a few gems I enjoy under $5 before tax.  The key is to look for sales.  I have been buying this really good Chianti cause it has been marking down from $18 to $6.  I am going to actually start a new edition to Recipe D’Jour where I will list wines I think are worth drinking cause it has come to my attention that most people are clueless when it comes to picking a nice wine and since I do go to a lot of tasting and such have a bit more exposure to the scene then your average bear.

7. Cooking for Children: I learned how to cook at very young age and as a result found a love for the kitchen.  I think everyone should teach kids some basic cooking techniques at age ten.  Maybe just simple things like how to boil water and cook some pasta, heat up a bit of sauce out of a jar.  Give them a bit of understanding of the dangers of being careless around heat.  As far as cooking meals for children I believe in comfort food, Hot dogs, chicken fingers/nuggets, ham burgers, pasta, peas and carrots, fish sticks, pizza etc.  Then as their pallets begin to develop try to slip in other dishes that have similar characteristics.  Chicken fingers can easily be made into chicken parmigiana, which is almost a combination off pizza and chicken fingers.  I see too many parents try to force their kids to eat adult food too soon and then turn the kids off to certain flavors and even entire meat groups.  It takes time for our pallets to develop.  I hated veal as a kid and now I find it quite the scrumptious culinary treat.

8.  Towels Out of the Dryer: I was just thinking about this one the other day as I was pulling my beach towels out of the dryer.  They are amazing.  There is something about taking a towel out of dryer and sticking your face into it.  It is sooo soft and warm.  Sometimes I wrap my entire body in it right there in the laundry room.  Back when I lived in the frat  my neighbor walked in on me enjoying a freshly washed and dried towel right there in the garage.  Our eyes met and she nodded at me in approval.  What kind of monster would not like a freshly dried towel?

9.  Girls That Look Shrimpy But End Up Having Amazing Bodies: For starters I think most women have amazing bodies.  Everyone is shaped differently and have to play to their strengths.  If a girl has an amazing body but is coming up short and looking featureless then she needs to rethink her wardrobe.  I am not a stylist when it comes to women.  I know what looks good and what does not.  All I can say is my ex girl friend Adrienne was very good at dressing to her strengths being a more petite woman.     Guys do it too.  I am a bit skinny for a man so I built a wardrobe that plays to my strengths.

10. Why the “Power of Ten” is so successful: Fifi is rather new to the Lisanti sphere of influence and so are many of my new Word Press readers.  Back in the Myspace days I used to regularly write these types of blogs where I would just rant or project my insanity on multiple topics.  Also it ups the ante on the UCB contest and challenges me to be short winded on a plethora of topics.  Initially when I wrote the first one “Your a Fucking Idiot But So Am I” it was  because everyone was dumping UCB topics on me in massive lists.  I wrote this blog to prove that quality is better then quantity.  Unfortunately in America where the opposite is embraced the blog back fired and became an instant hit.  I have always been a believer in giving the public what they like.

There is a cat belly to be reckonned with.

Its all about dressing to your strengths.

No woman will ever take me from the barrel.


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When Lightning Strikes

Posted in Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 24, 2011| 4 Comments »

Kooky Kyle takes the cake on the last UCB of the quarter with the topic “lightning”.  Him and I were actually discussing this topic while cruising around the streets of NYC on my most recent jaunt back east (see blog: A Trip Back East for those deatails). Out of all of my friends he was the only one to come see my performance in the East Village and for that I was rather stoked.  He had never heard me play before and I think was left a bit awestruck good or bad I do not know.  He gets one point for his efforts.  Sorry Kooky no double points for you.

I have two interesting stories to tell about lightning and although rather far fetched I can vouch for both and actually have witnesses for both.  When it comes to something as crazy as lightning anything is possible.  A fellow psychotic die hard surfer gave me some wise advice when I was a teen “There are two things you should never mess with, sharks and lightning”.  I have yet to heed his warning.  I fuck with both.  Surfing in some of the most shark infested water to surfing through full on lightning storms.  That brings us to our first story.

The Flaming Barrel

 About seven years ago or so I was out surfing in front of the Lost Castle (nickname given to my run down beach bungalow I lived in on 2nd Ave, Manasquan, NJ.  Currently we call my abode in Santa Barbara the Lisanti Palace although it is far from a palace and more like a run down crack house.).  It was mid August and the surf had been down for nearly two weeks.  We finally got an inkling of a tropical swell with a very short window.  I am talking hours here.

Conditions were trash with heavy onshore winds thanks to the extremely hot weather.  In the summer NJ on such days as a result of all the humidity is garnished with intense thunderstorms.  The storms bring a good deal of thunder and lightning. They also bring offshore winds with them.  The catch is the offshore winds usually only last while the storm is hitting.  This makes for perfect yet dangerous surfing conditions.

We like to call these surf sessions, electric sessions for obvious reasons.  My buddy Sorbo and I had paddled out at Sea Watch beach and were making the most of the crowded chest high blown to shit conditions.  As we are sitting out there we noticed the ominous black clouds on the horizon, which could only mean one thing, bad weather.  As always when adverse weather arrives on the beach there is a mass exodus of fleeing beach goers to escape the rain and lightning.

The storm cleared the line up and the wind began to pick up turning absolute garbage into perfect little cylinders.  Immediately we found ourselves getting shacked off our ass.  Then it started to rain, torrential down pour.  It was raining so hard it made it hard to see.  Still using my surf senses I was grabbing good tube after good tube.  The lightning started and we could tell this was not going to be one of these thunderstorms where the lightning stayed up in the clouds or hit far away.

Sorbo and I could see it hitting all around us and at one point even felt the heat from the strokes.  At this point we thought of leaving, but my justification for staying out was that it was most likely more dangerous to get out and run up the beach for cover.  Lightning loves to get people on the beach. Sorbo was a tough sale, but I told him I read it somewhere.  Rule of thumb when attempting to convince a person on anything tell them “you read it somewhere or saw it on the news”.  Nine times out of ten they will take your word for it.

Right after we made the decision to stay and surf I ended up snagging a solid head high bowl and backed doored the thing.  While in the barrel all I could see was yellow and orange and it was hot in there.  Then I came out and there was a huge crash of thunder.  I was all disoriented and Sorbo was sitting on the shoulder with a crazed look in his eyes.  According to his account a bolt of lightning hit the wave as I pulled in and all he saw was a bright flash of light and then me coming out of the barrel.

I believe that because I was in the tube the voltage went all around me with the water but never touched me.  I came out griming with no idea what happened or how close I had come to be fried.  Shortly after the storm cleared, the wind went back onshore and the crowd showed back up.  By far it was one of the strangest surfing experiences I have ever had.

The Circle of Death

It was the summer of 2002, mid August. Like I said that is peak thunderstorm season.  A group of my close friends, including my old roommate Cory, Mookie, CH, Brian M. and a few others were helping out with this free one day surf clinic at Manasquan Inlet courtesy of Quicksilver.  This was before all the surf camp mambo jumbo of today.  I was working at Ocean Hut Surf Shop at the time and was let out early to go represent the shop as another instructor.  I got there just as the thunderstorm was beginning to roll in and everyone scurrying off the beach for their lives.

I was standing under this cabana type thing they have up on the ocean walk there (Manasquan does not have a board walk, but an asphalt paved walk way along its beach front) slyly filling my pockets with Quicksilver promo gear.  I heard one of the loudest crashes of thunder I have ever auscultated in my entire life.  Upon looking up I saw all of my friends lying on their backs on the beach.

I wanted to go running to their aid, but then checked myself.   The lightning was not letting up and if they got hit they were probably dead anyway and I was not nearly qualified to give the kind of aid they would have needed for survival anyhow.  I stood there momentarily horrified.  Then one by one they began to get up and stagger back to the cabana.  As it turns out a bolt of lightning struck the sand directly in front of them and the whole group was brought down by the excess shock. Cory claims it was one of the scariest moments of his life.  All I can say is it was nuts to witness.

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The Impromptu Picnic

Posted in Life, Surfing, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 2, 2011| 7 Comments »

Your never know what you may stumble upon in the great outdoors.

 

Today I experienced a most unexpected delightful, yet strange afternoon.  3:30 finally came closing out a rather hectic day of nothing working out as it should.  First someone accidentally turned off the oven containing the bulk of my roasted vegetables, a catastrophe I discovered at 10:45am when I checked on them to make sure they were not going to burn up.  Now roasted vegetables take around 25 minutes to cook and I needed them for an 11:15 service.  Luckily I had one axillary pan in a separate oven and it was just enough to get me started.

Then my mashed potatoes came out a little too dry from my liking and a bit on the bland side since we were all out of fresh garlic.  How does a professional kitchen run out of fresh garlic?!!!!?  Finally someone must have bumped into my rotisserie oven and mistakenly turned off one of the motors thus keeping an entire side (four racks containing 50 lbs of turkey) from turning.  One side was completely charred.  I made out like a bandit in this case also because after cutting off the burnt side the rest was still usable and actually still quite tender all things considered.  My meal was serve able and as it turns out was completely eaten.

If all that was not enough my boss thought it would be best utilize my skills for cleaning the entire kitchen for the last two hours of work.  Needless to say when that clock striked 3:3o I was more then jubilant to get the fuck out of there.  After missing a surf yesterday (see surflog for details) I was chomping at the bit to get some water time so it was off to Rincon.  I knew the swell was down from the previous days, but I had hopes I could find something to surf.  Unfortunately for me as I passed Santa Claus I noticed a serious lack of waves, strong onshore wind and a -2 low tide.  That being the case there was not going to be many places to surf besides either Rincon or Cstreet and since Santa Claus is a Rincon indicator I immediately lost my enthusiasm.

I cruised to the Con just the same and strolled down the trail to see if there were any grovel able waves.  It was super small maybe knee to waist high, but clean and long lines, plus there was only three guys on it.  Still not decided I began to bumble my way up the the top of the point to see what was coming in up at both Indicator and River Mouth.  About mid way up the point I noticed this gathering of people chilling on the rocks just about adjacent to where one would line up to surf proper cove.

As Im approaching this ensemble I hear one of them say “lets ask the chef’s opinion”.  Immediately proceeding the hollering of  the word chef in my direction.  At first forgetting that I was still wearing my coat and work uniform I did not realize it was myself to whom they were addressing.  I meandered my way over to them and saw they had quite the quaint little spread going on.  This gang of out door enthusiasts had a splendid little picnic going on right in the midst of one of the best right hand point breaks in the world on a day off.

They had the most adorable little round coffee table made from roth iron with a little removable bamboo wood finished round top.  On the table they had a loaf of olive bread, a giant bowl of guacamole, an opened bottle of Chenin Blanc, a silver decorative platter with these roasted tomatoes with mozzarella balls and basil on it and next to that another large silver decorative bowl with a mix greens chicken salad.  Under the table was a copper ice chest filled with a type of fruit salad dessert and another two bottles of wine.  Like I said it was a real classy set up.

I walk over there and the first thing they ask is if I would like to join them, sample their foods and give my “professional” critique.  Little did they know that Im hardly a chef being nothing more then a lowly bulk food line cook, but I can play any role and since I will be a chef in a few years figured a white lie could not hurt anyone.  I sat down and enjoyed a gourmet afternoon snack with interesting strangers at Rincon while debating on whether or not to paddle.

I ended up hanging out for a half an hour enjoying wine and food and getting to know my benefactors.  There was this older English guy totally grey with a Sean Connery beard (maybe he was Sean Connery Im always in such I fog I would not know the difference anyway).  He was wearing a super nice grey with black poke-dote smoking jacket, nice slacks and loafers.  Totally rich man casual.  To his right was this older couple in their fifties who brought the food and owned an avocado farm in Carpinteria  thus explaining the big bowl of guacamole.  On their right were these two twenty something lesbians from San Fransisco (no surprise there) both of which were quite hot.  Sitting next to them was another older guy who owned an antique shop in Carp and next to him was this crazy old hippie woman wearing a tunic.

Sean Connery had an interesting group of friends and as it turns out lived in one of the houses right there in the Rincon Point exclusive community.  I must say the food and company was most refreshing.  I had a great time.  While I was sitting there I noticed a few really good sets in the close to chest high range come in and peel down the point now with only one other guy out.  Derek Hynd on his crazy fin less board he has been riding at the Con the past week and his lady friend were just exiting the water.  He kills those crazy fin less boards.  You would not believe the speed he gets out of them until you see it in person.  What would you expect from a surf icon of his esteem.

If it was good enough for Derek it was good enough for me (Im just glad he was not with Jack Johnson like he was the night Slater was out.  I hate Jack Johnson.  See The Champ has returned blog for more details).  I suited up and paddled out.  I ended up getting tons of great waves and few classic larrels as well as two legit barrels.  I had a ball.  There was a picturesque sunset. I stuck a perfect two foot out nose pick air reverse and met a chill guy named Donovan who gave me a free bar of wax before getting on his scooter and riding away sitting on his surfboard.  What a most spectacular afternoon.  It was definitely one for the books or for the blog in this case.  I dont really know why things like this always happen to me.  It could just be a right time right place coincidence, but it happens so often that I have to think there is more to it then that.

Sean Connery always knows how to have a good time.

One of surfing finest, Derek Hynd and his fin less wonder.

Speaking of strange things......

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