Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘kooks’

Will The Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up!!!

Posted in Anger, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 29, 2013| 3 Comments »

Lisanti Safety grab

 

What the fuck is going on here?  I turn my back for a minute, take a brief hiatus from hating life and some mother fucking small time poor excuse for an impostor decides to go and steal my thunder!  What am I ranting about incoherently you ask? Check this shit out: SURFINGRUINEDMYLIFE.COM circa 2012…Guess what? SurfingRuinedMyLife.net was established in August of 2010.  I know I have been a bit of a slacker as of late.  To be honest all sorts of random ass bullshit has been going on in my life both good and bad and I have not cared to write about everything as an actual post.  I decided to use the surflog for my day to day and blog posts for things of more substance or lack there of.  Just like this very important post.

I know imitation is the best flattery, but if one is to imitate at least get it right and don’t be some poor excuse for another shitty bull shit surf clothing company that means to portray a lie of a life style only really enjoyed by total and utter kooks.  Oh except for in this case where it appears to be two fat old men who can’t surf for shit and are probably just eternal kooks. Just when I though things in this world could not get more fucked up and stupid some idiots design a terrible logo, put it on a cheap fifty cent t shirt and then try and turn around and sell it for $22.  Meanwhile I give away the real thing right here for free.  Kooky Kyle said I should go after them for a share of the profits.  That sounds like a nice idea but I don’t want to end up owing anymore money then I already do cause I could not imagine anyone buying that ugly shit let alone wear it.

Yeah surfing a ton of fun. Just watch out for those fiberglass shanks attached to the bottom of your board

Yeah surfing a ton of fun. Just watch out for those fiberglass shanks attached to the bottom of your board

If you cruise through their nice little site and I stress the word “NICE” (real quick how nice is any of the content you read here?) they have tales of how surfing ruined their lives.  One is about ditching work on a good south to go surf Malibu and what a great time they had.  Let me tell a real tale about going and surfing Malibu on a south swell.  I left my apartment around 8 am, fought three hours of traffic on the 101 in my shitty beat up Saturn with out air conditioning.  Spent another hour finding a parking spot which was impossible forcing me to illegally park.  1st peak was shit house packed with kooks, long boards and SUP’s.  I paddled, got burned on every fucking wave I went for and some chick on a soft top ran me over and ripped my suit.  Then I got back to my car where I had a $100 parking ticket on my windshield and my driver’s side mirror was knocked off where some asshole side swiped me.  I paid $4.50 a gallon to fill my tank so I could drive home, where my angry girl friend made me sleep on the couch cause I forgot it was her birthday.  Now that my friends is a true story of how surfing ruined my life!

My fellow friends at surfingruinedmylife.com continue on in their about us section to talk of their life long devotion to surfing and how that devotion ruined their lives.  Hey boys here is a look at mine.  I spent 22 years chasing terrible waves all around the world in search of fame, fortune and glory.  So far all it has brought me is heart ache, frustration, and anger.  At 32 years old I am broke as fuck, owe money to more people then I can count on one hand, work a dead end job, can barely remember what the word stoke means and have nothing to show for my quest then tons of memories of perfectly good closed out barrels.  It has cost me a marriage, countless relationships, more money then I have earned, friends, family, jobs, schooling, opportunity, and dreams.

PGCB Fun

PGCB Fun

Am I complaining? Absolutely not.  On the contrary, I would not have had it any other way.  Before enlightenment chop wood carry water, after enlightenment chop wood carry water.  I have sacrificed everything in life in order to surf.  I do surf, nearly every single fucking day no matter if it is one foot and blown out or ten foot perfect Rincon.   Please my fat iconic, ironic, counterparts over at surfingruinedmylife.com cease and desist in your retarded portrayal of how surfing ruined your lives.  News flash; all of you have wives, families and most likely decent jobs and I am guessing all of you own SUP’s too.  Nice pictures of surf trophies you found in the trash at HB Pier.  I filled a garbage pail with surf trophies once too.  The guy who threw those away, well I bet surfing really did ruin his life.  Your shit is weak.  So I would like to invite you guys over at surfingruinedmylife.com to come up here to Santa Barbara and suck my BIG FAT HAIRY COCK!!

I think this picture of this bear says it all

I think this picture of this bear says it all

Now here is a guy who surfing has ruined his life.

Now here is a guy who surfing has ruined his life.

 

 

Read Full Post »

The Rule of Two

Posted in Surf Tips, Surfing, tagged , , , , , , , on December 10, 2012| 7 Comments »

Surfers Waving

It has come to my attention that with the increasing numbers of beginner surfers who have recently graduated to the intermediate level, many have learned how to stand up and ride waves, but the majority have missed out on the unwritten laws of the hard core surfing devote.  There was time years ago back when I learned how to surf when these laws were bestowed upon ever novice surfer early on by “law of the club and the fang”.   What this means is that when a beginner, usually under the age of 15 (adult learners just did not happen back then) caused an infraction of one of said laws he/she was ridiculed, kicked out of the water, beaten, thrown in a garbage can, dunked in the water or subject to numerous other forms of punishment.

Only after being punished was one informed about the rule he had broken.  This was the way of things since surfing had come to the modern world.  In earlier days surfing was a bit more rough then it is now.  The boards were not as beginner friendly.  Wetsuit technology was primitive at best, as was surf forecasting.  Do you believe there was a time when we did not have the internet, cell phones or web cams?!!!?  If a surfer wanted to know how the surf was he had to actually get in his car and check it himself. (to my female surfers I am not being sexist, I am just using the figurative he for this narrative.  I actually have no problem with the sex of another surfer, or what they ride for that matter as long as they follow the rules and are respectful) Before the internet the only surf forecasting was the weather channel and NOAA radio alerts.  From these two entities one would have to make his own inferences on what the waves might be like.

Things have changed.  Now if you disciplined another surfer in the above manner for getting out of line you could be thrown in prison.  I believe I penned it before that we are now in the Era of Kook running things as oppose to the elite.  There are more of them and they spend more money.  Lets face it kooks hold down decent jobs and surf when they have time.  Us hardcore guys surf all the time, have no money and can barely hold down a job unless we found one that easily catered to our addiction.  What I would like to do here on SurfingRuinedMyLife.net is every so often pick one or two of these unwritten rules of surfing and explain it so that maybe just one novice or graduate may get a glimpse into why many of us guru’s always seem so salty these days.

The Rule of Two

My car only has two seats in it when I go surfing, Mine and one for a passenger.  The back seat is always down and is for storing my boards.  Most days it only has one seat for me.  For myself usually I am surfing well known, heavily surfed lineups that are already pretty busy by the time I get there.  At these locales I like to go alone.  I am not worried about the buddy system because there will be plenty of buddies to share with at the break.  Just come surf Rincon on a Saturday when its decent to understand what I mean.

You know when you are in a public space and on the wall there is a sign that says “Maximum Occupancy” and then there is a certain number.  Those signs are put up to inform users that if that number is exceeded it can be really dangerous.  At surf spots there are no such signs.  Contrary to popular belief these spots have a maximum occupancy, which is defined by the number of people that can logically catch and ride waves for the conditions and size of the break.  For example a wave like Rincon is a very large point break with anywhere from three to twelve distinct take off zones and many other minor ones on any given swell.   If its eight foot with six to eight waves in a set every fifteen minutes with smaller ones in between the spot could easily hold 150 surfers safely.

If it is only six foot on a dropping swell with only one or two waves in a set and those sets are 20-30 minutes apart 150 guys is going to be a shit fight out there.  Lets take a spot like Hammonds, its a reef break with a small take off zone.  Even at its most consistent it can only comfortably handle around thirty guys.  When one checks a spot besides just considering the surf one must also consider the crowd.  I always ask myself when checking a spot “is there room for me”.  The best way of answering this question is to see how many waves have went unridden in the interim you are watching it.  I know if I see one wave go by that no one is on then there is room for me.  On the other hand if I see six guys fighting for every wave coming in then I know I should go someplace else.

If I had brought a friend with me, then I would need to see two waves go unridden.  If I brought three friends then three waves and so on and so forth.  For this reason I usually go surf alone.  Not everyone is a social recluse thus I will allow bringing a buddy along.  When I do roll with more then one other person I try and go to spots that I know are going to be less crowded.  Never bring a crew to a some what secret spot, or localized spot.  By yourself you may be able to sneak in and get some fun waves.  With a crew its not going to happen.

I can always tell the days Rincon is going to be too crowded when all I see are SUV’s and Vans in the parking lot each one chuck full of eager surfers.   If I see the majority is cars then I know its mostly ones and twos getting out there.  I am an advocate for car pooling as much as the next guy, but if we all took our own cars down to surf then the lot would always be full thus deterring other surfers purely cause there is no place to park.  Next time you decide to go for a surf and have an itch to call all your buddies and load up your Nissan Pathfinder, maybe think again and just call your one bud who owns a Honda Civic and roll with him.

Tune in Next Time for Lesson two: Surfing and Cell Phones

Surfers watching sunset

Read Full Post »

International Surfing Day Ought to be Called “Go F$(k Yourself Day”

Posted in Anger, Deep Thoughts, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 22, 2012| 8 Comments »

This weeks UCB makes a winner of Kooky Kyle who at press time has quite the lead thanks to snagging some extra points. I post extra point questions everywhere on this site.  There is still one more extra point floating around that I will triple if anyone gets it.  It was like four or five blogs ago I think.  Also the power of ten for June is up for grabs, get those lists in before or on the 30th of they wont count towards this quarter.  Kooky Kyle’s suggestion was “International surfing Day”.  Now I may have wrote on this topic before someplace either here or back in the myspace.com days, but I have new ideas on the whole thing.  

First off International Surfing Day is a FAKE HOLIDAY that was initially created by the Surfrider Foundation in 2004 to boost beach related environmental awareness.  Beach cleanups, pledge drives, bbqs, earth conscientiousness and good vibes on the whole were had.  At the time I thought it was a pretty rad idea even if it was stolen from skate boarding.  Since the late 90’s on a random day towards the end of June an unofficial skate board race was held through all five boroughs of NYC.  The event was completely underground and on the appointed day thousands of skaters would show up and basically clog the streets of New York for a day.  Eventually word got out and International Go Skateboarding Day took its place all over the world. 

At first things were cool, simple and all in good fun.  Then the surf industry stepped in and said lets use this day to hock more product and make more money.  The Magazines jumped on the bandwagon, videographers, pro surfers, surf shops, surf schools and anyone else who makes a buck off surfing.  Today much like the actual sport of surfing International Surfing Day is nothing more then another American Hallmark Holiday (I will coin that one) but with out the cards, although at this point with Target and Macy’s, yeah Macy’s, embracing the surfing lifestyle to make major dinero its only a matter of time before Hallmark will be making “Happy International Surfing day” Cards.  

Maybe it can have a guy deep in the barrel getting burned by some yuppie kook on a fucking soft board arms all flailing going straight fresh out his surf class he paid some surfer business man $100 bucks an hour for.  Sto00000ke! Surfing is so cool.  Or it can have some dick head pro burning some average guy just happy to squeeze an hour in before work.  Either way nothing spreads the aloha spirit like ruining another surfers day.

Happy International Surfing Day!

Lets go back to the Macy’s thing again.  I was suit shopping there the other day cause they were having this crazy 60% off sale.  I actually found a really smooth Alfani two piece Charcoal Grey suit that I am going to wear to my cousin’s wedding at the end of August with a black shirt and red tie.  I am going to be styling.  As I am doing this I walk by an entire surf section with all the brands, Volcom, Quicksilver, Rip Curl, etc.  There was a giant picture of Mic Fanning on the wall, a poster of Taj boosting.  I almost cried then destroyed the place.  Instead I shook my head and was stoked to have disconnected myself from the surf materialistic world.  I feel bad for all my friends who own surf shops lord knows how you compete.

A sneak preview of my new suit. I looked like shit this day. I don’t trust mirrors so I always take photos whenever I am buying a high ticket item. You can imagine when I am all done up this is going to be the shit.

Did I surf on International Surfing Day you ask?  Well if you read the surflog on occasion you would know I did not cause I hurt my back trying to pull a Kerrupt Flip at New Jetty earlier in the week after getting all pumped off it when I wrote about in the most recent power of ten blog “I Gots Power“.  For myself and most serious surfers every mother fucking day is International Surfing Day.  For me it has been that way for 21 years.  I don’t need a special day to get me pumped to go surfing and if you do then you really need to rethink your priorities in life.  There have been a few times in my life when I had forsaken surfing and I was miserable cause I tried to prioritize my life more mainstream.  Then I readjusted my thinking and got back on the horse.

Yes I was a sell out for a long time.  I did the pro-surfer thing, the surf shop thing, and even the surf school thing.  These days I am a complete surfing recluse.  I wear all black wet suits, ride wide surf boards some with original art work done by my friends. I show up, go surfing then as fast I was there I am gone.  No or minimal surf clothing, image or fanfare.  If it was not for my neck tan these days one would not even know I surfed.  I think most people just believe I have some strange skin disease that only allows my head to tan.

Actually I got this chick at the bar the other night to fall for that and almost got her to pity fuck me.   I went up to this woman to hit on her and after a few words I could tell she was over it.  She was doing the usual looking around the club, checking the phone, I am over talking to you sort of thing.  I was about to leave when her friend comes up to me and like a total bitch says “yuck why are you only tan from the neck up?”.  “To tell you the truth I suffer from a skin degenerating disease called pigmititus and can now only tan on my hands and from the neck up.  Its similar to the skin disease Micheal Jackson suffered from.  I must say I am a little self conscientious about it and now you have embarrassed me and I must leave”.  I turned to walk away and she grabbed me and was all apologetic bought me a shot of Patron and then chilled with me the rest of the night.  It was classic.  Now I know how that dude in the wheel chair pulls all those chicks.   Stupid California girls, got to love them.

In a world where commercialism has taken over every facet of life (phssst if your a hipster, if the majority of the population has embraced your style then you are not too hip anymore) it is sad that surfing has been taken down with it.  On the up side with anti commercial warriors out there like Dane Reynolds and Bobby Martinez maybe more will follow and we can take back the soul of surfing.  In the meantime Taylor Steele made a film recently where he picked one random day and filmed surfing all over the world on that day. No special title needed.  Here is what International Surfing Day is really about:

 

Read Full Post »

The Crystal Ball

Posted in Deep Thoughts, Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This weeks UCB makes a victor of my boy Scotty B.  You have to watch out for those sleeping giants and back in the Myspace days Bees ran the show in the UCB franchise.  It seems we have a new challenger to the Kooky Kyle dynasty.  I thought for sure it was going to be a two way race between Kook and Kooky, but now a new contender has stepped up.  I must say I am rather amused by the whole UCB process, too much probably.

A New Proclamation

 Before I get into Scott’s topic I quickly wanted to make another UCB announcement.  This one is sort of a counter action to last weeks rule of 5: One can only make 5 UCB suggestions in a 7 day period (See the first two paragraphs of Pitching a Tent blog for a better explanation of the new rule).  Last week I wrote a really fun bonus UCB entitled You’re a Fucking Idiot, But So Am I in which I took ten one word topics from Nick the Kook and wrote ten short responses to them.

I did this sarcastically because I was angry about all the serial suggesting going on. It turns I wrote one of the better blogs and definitely one of the more amusing in a while.  As I result I am making a new blog rule: Once a month I will write a special double points UCB where I will take ten one word suggestions made by one reader and write ten short answers.  Everyone can submit one set of top ten topics a month and I will write about my favorite ten.  Read the above linked blog to fully understand.  I think it will be a ton of fun for all of us.

Now let us get back to Scott’s blog.  He proposed I write about my thoughts on surf forecasting.  I am almost sure I have touched on this subject more then once here, but redundancy is what makes America awesome!

The Double Edged Sword

 I love the advances in modern day surf forecasting.  As a premium member of surfline.com I can get a very accurate three day, an accurate five day, reliable seven day and a 14 day speculation.  For a surf addict like myself, I must admit I have become quite the frother again; it makes attempting to live in the non-surfing world a tad bit easier.  That being said my life is still planned out by the five day forecast and I still find that I’m reluctant to make any long range plans for fear of missing it, although I have gotten a lot better as far as blowing things and people off to surf.  But this is not about my onerous surf habit.

Thanks to the accuracy of forecasting today you can plan trips on the fly and know you are most likely not to be skunked.  I remember a few years back Sean McGrath and I pulled the trigger on a trip down to Puerto Rico after getting a favorable long range forecast and we scored some of the best Wilderness and Table Tops I have ever seen down there.  We did not quite get it as good as we were hoping, but it was a ton better then the times I just blindly went.

Of course there is the inaccuracy as well.  There are so many factors that effect quality to surf that I am amazed at how often they get it right.  I mean wind, tide, global currents, water temperature, air temperature, frontal systems, El Nino, La Nina, all these factors mess with a swell realizing its full potential at a certain location and on the other hand allow for other less likely swell events to pleasantly surprise.  That is what has always made surfing the true oxymoron both frustrating as hell and extraordinary.

Sure when Surfline.com is claiming for Tuesday to be the day of days and I clear my entire calendar out on that day and its two foot and onshore, I am more then disappointed.  Usually I am on the dunes at Ventura harbor kicking sand or at Rincon throwing rocks spouting more then a few displeasing to the ear four letter words.

Then there are those times when the opposite happens and I had expected very little, show up and score it.  Two weeks ago actually there was some local NW wind swell and west groundswell combo.  Surfline.com was calling flat for Rincon all weekend, as would be expected for the time of year.  As it turned out the place broke in the very legit chest to head range for three days (see the surflog for more details on that).  There was nobody there but the hardcore crew of people who check the place everyday no matter what.  This leads to the next and final topic.

The Fucking Hype!!!

 Remember a paragraph ago or so when I was talking about that epic Tuesday that I cleared my calendar out for.  Guess what?  I’m not the only person to have that idea.  The Internet is a highly traveled place and there are hundreds if not thousands of sites dedicated to letting everyone know when the surf is firing and where it will be on.  That being the case on that faithful Tuesday when I show up at the crack of dawn (ok, more like after 8ish.  I live in Santa Barbara and have to drive 45 minutes to surf on most occasions) I am not by myself, not even a little.

There will be a guaranteed grip of people looking to get their surf on.  It will be a grand melting pot of the surfing spectrum, the hard core, the pros, the kooks, the valley guys, the weekend warriors taking a day off for a change, photogs and everything in between.  We will all be out there enjoying the same blown out two foot surf.  Then on Wednesday when it was suppose to be down, the surf is sure to be six foot, offshore and barreling.  God bless the great advances in modern surf forecasting.

Forecast or not, the potential to score is out there. The question is what length are you willing to go to find it?

Read Full Post »

I hate Idiots

Posted in Anger, Life, Surfing, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 26, 2010| 4 Comments »

I hate Idiots, but I especially hate idiots that surf and surf badly at that.  All day at work today while I was in the midst of making 75 pizzas by 11am and then from 11-1:30 while I was serving them and from 2-3:30 while prepping for tomorrow’s rotisserie the only thing on my mind was getting out of there to take advantage of the NW wind swell/groundswell combo.  Finally when quiting time came I was out of the kitchen faster then a fat kid runs to eat a piece of cake.

I went straight to Rincon where I was let down for the second straight day in a row (read Surf Log for more on that session).  From there I cruised to Pitas for a hopeful repeat of yesterday.  It was a little bit bigger probably around chest to head with even the occasional bigger set.  There was a little cross chop on the face but from the looks of it the top of the point had some solid killable walls pushing through with only six guys on it and it appeared they were missing more waves then they were surfing.  I was on it.

I got out in the lineup and was having a pretty decent time hitting beyond vertical backside reo’s.  After an hour of this about four other guys came out, two of whom fit into that bro, I think I surf well but I look like shit category.  My least favorite of all the surfing genders.  Of course these idiots come out and immediately start paddling every one too deep.  I was having more fun riding the inside double ups anyhow to be bothered with the set waves which were mushier and I could not be bothered with jockeying with average surfers who think they are in a world tour event or something.

While Im sitting on the inside relishing this section of the wave a good size set most likely overhead came in.  Mr. Bro decided he was going to take off on the biggest close out of the set.  I paddled deep to get out of his way but sometimes at Pitas the bowl shifts back deep, backs off and then doubles out and closes out like something you would expect to see from shore dump.  This was the case with this particular wave.  All of a sudden bro was dropping in right on my head.

Now he had plenty of time to see that A) this wave was going to dump and not be worth his while, B) even if it was not a close out the drop itself was well out of his personal skill set and C) there was a surfer directly in his path (me) and pull out of the wave.  Of course “stupid is as stupid does” brostapha air drops right onto my head.  Luckily as I was about to duck dive I realized I was more likely then not about to get decapitated by inferior surfing ability and ditched swimming as deep as I could to save my own skin.

I knew I would come out unscathed but my board on the other hand took the full brunt of the hit.  When I surfaced I found my relatively new board sliced clean through in two places and a third hole half way through as well.  The two worst slashes measured longer then four inches a piece long.  My board was trashed.  Bro looked at me was like “Dude are you ok”.  I responded “Im fine but my board is trash”.  He retorted “duh, sorry but I got stuck and could not turn and had to take the air drop”.  I looked him square in the eye and said “Its kind of hard to do anything when you paddle for an obvious close out, FUCKING DONKEY”.  Upon which I splashed some water in his face and took my next wave in ending my session an hour early and ruined what was turning out to be a great board.

I hate bad surfers, but more then that I hate stupid surfers.  Sure I have had a few collisions in my day but those were more or less due to poor paddling decisions on a paddlers side or miscommunication in a game of chicken.  In most cases with the exception of one everyone came out alright anyhow.  This is like the fourth time since I have been out here in California that I have had a board destroyed by some jack ass.  There was a time when the line ups used to be full of only competent surfers and were run and dominated by the elite.

Back then shit like this rarely happened.  These days what can one expect in the era of the kook.  The sport of kings has been degraded down to the sport of clowns.  FUCKING DONKEYS, BROS, YUPPIES, RECREATIONALS, WHATEVERS, SHOULDNT YOU GOT BACK TO PLAYING GOLF OR TENNIS OR TOUCH FOOTBALL OR WHATEVER YOU MEATBALLS DO THAT IS COOL ACCORDING TO GQ MAGAZINE AND LEAVE SURFING ALONE.  YOU DONT SEE ME DONNING A POLO SHIRT AND TRY TO GET INTO A COUNTRY CLUB DO YOU? GO FUCKING HOME.

 

The first picture is before the incident the other two show the extent of the damage.

 

Read Full Post »