oil and boats

Looking out to the sea, I saw the towers, cranes, and platforms of offshore oil derriks. They stand as constant symbolic reminders of the history of this stretch of beach. Fifty years ago, the area north of Huntington Pier was an vast oil field equipped with tall wooden derriks. They were unsightly producers of smoke, stench and noise, and were eventually replaced by smaller, quieter equipment. The development boom, which gained momentum in the late 1970s and continues growing today, made it desirable to camoflage the oil equipment for aestetic value. Drilling which remained onshore has been largly hidden by concrete walls encircling city blocks, or by developments which surround the equipment. The tactics have worked. An uninformed visitor to the area could drive from the Santa Ana river delta to the southern base of the Bolsa Chica wetlands and see a booming beach community with no signs of the large scale oil production that first brought prosperityto the city.

Offshore operation remain in stark view. Six offshore rigs sit off the coast between Huntington Beach and the port at Long Beach. They are named Eureka, Ellen, Elly, Edith, Ester, Emma, and Eva. Emmy and Eva are the oldest of the family, installed in 1963 and 1964. Ester is the youngest, installed in 1990.

Beyond the oil machinery, I saw a row of boats. They were miles out to sea, but were clearly visable from the beach. They were cargo liners, giant platforms stacked with containers for shipping across land by truck or train. Containers were stacked fifteen wide and seven high on enourmous boats anchored while awaiting an open bearth at the Port of Long Beach, 30 miles up the coast from Huntington.

Monsterous boats from China cary consumer products. The amount of contianer shipping at the port of long beach since 1990 has more than doubled from an annual 1.6 million container units to 4.6 million units in 2003. In 2004 the port of long beach imported over $36 billion of consumer productst. The port's website stated that “East Asian trade accounts for more than 90% of the shippments through the port.”, and identified the port's top tading partners as China, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea, and Tiwan. Wall Mart stores was the port's biggest customer.

The sheer volume of imports, coupled with a shortage of longshore workers, caused a chokedamp, an ocean freighter trafic jam. Dozens of shipping boats anchored off shore, waiting for an open bearth in the ports. By mid October of 2004, ninty four of the giant vessiles were anchored, forming a line across the horizon. Turnaround times at the port exceeded seven days.

A commumity press release at the port of long beach's web site described the situation as having “looked like the Normandy invasion since early this summer.”

More Later

Copyright 2004 Travis R. English


Sources
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/etc/script.html

Love, M. S., D. M. Schroeder, and M. M. Nishimoto. 2003. The ecological role of oil and gas production platforms and natural outcrops on fishes in southern and central California: a synthesis of information. U. S. Department of the Interior, U. S. Geological Survey, Biological Re­sources Division, Seattle, Washington, 98104, OCS Study MMS 2003-032.

http://www.slc.ca.gov/Division_Pages/MRM/oilfacilities.htm

TC #3827

It is horribly difficult to understand the structure of professional competitive surfing. Apathy stands in the way like a brick wall. A healthy percentage of surfers are entirely ignorant of how the competitive circuit works. Of the surfers I count as friends, not one would be able to describe the roles of the various organizations and institutions, which range from the local Calvary Chapel Surfing Association to the international Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP). I once tried to explain the organization of "the tours" to Brett. He couldn't have cared less, and interrupted me when my diatribe became unbearably boring - two sentences into the discussion.

What is variously referred to as "the surfing world", the surfing community", "surf culture", or "surf industry" lends itself to a much more reasonable understanding. The entire structure revolves around the kid that I call "U.S. Teen Consumer #3827".

#3827 was a teenager that I saw walking to school several days in September. I was driving from the beach to my job in Irvine, and passing by Newport Harbor High School on Irvine Avenue. #3827 was slightly overweight. He had a mild but noticeable case of acne. He had brown, unkempt hair and dark eyes set into a soft and rounded face. He was slight of stature, and walked with a lazy slouch, focusing his eyes clearly on the sidewalk in front of him. Whenever I saw him, he was walking north towards the high school.

#3827 carried a black backpack that prominently bore the logo of wetsuit manufacturer, Rip Curl. His shirts consistently proclaim the names of similar companies: Volcom, Hurley, Billabong. While it was difficult for me to read a label from his pants or shoes, they are clearly of the styles sold in the surf shops.

What struck me most about #3827 was his body language. He had drooping shoulders that sagged heavily forward with each slow, dragging step. But #3827's real significance, his real place in the world, his value, his meaning, his purpose - is in his clothes.

#3827 is the target consumer of the surfwear industry. He may or may not participate in surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, bodyboarding, windsurfing, or kitesurfing. He may or may not own surfboards, skateboards, wetsuits, or surfing accessories.

Let us assume that #3827 purchased his clothes at a "core retailer". A core retailer is defined as a retail facility that sells "hardgoods". Hardgoods are actual surfing products. The list of hardgoods is short - boards, wetsuits, wax, leashes, fins, etc. - but essential to the core retail experience. It is important that #3827 buys his clothing at a core retailer so that he feels that the purchasing experience is authentic to the beach lifestyle. Weather #3827 ever surfs or not, he will felt like a part of the surf community when he bought that t-shirt in a shop where he was surrounded by hardgood products.

The core retailers are important to the beach fashion industry, and are given preferential treatment over other retail outlets. Beach fashion manufacturers provide core retailers with massive and elaborate window displays, posters, banners, outdoor signs, and other decorations. Driving down the beach roads, the exterior walls and windows of a core retailer are difficult to miss. To increase their visibility further as part of the surfing culture, core retailers may sponsor surfers, support local surfing organizations and contests, or contribute to ocean themed environmental groups. For the core retailer, the trick is to participate as much as possible and makes a profit. After all, we're not communists.

#3827 may visit several core retailers, but the shopping experience varies only by location. A homogeneous menu and retail experience is provided by the overwhelming presence of so-called "surfwear" fashion manufacturers. A "surfwear" company may produce products that are useful in the act of surfing, but not necessarily. Certain surfwear manufactures produce wetsuits in addition to clothing, thus making a portion of their product line directly useful to surfers in the water. Other companies, such as shoe manufacturers, have no direct function in surfing, but are considered "surfwear" companies. To be defined as a "surfwear" company, companies advertise in surfing magazines, support surfing organizations and contests, sponsor professional surfers, and distribute products primarily through the core retailers.

Surf magazines and contests are the two major marketing outlets of the surfwear manufacturers. Like their counterparts in the fashion industry, surf magazines devote a majority of pages to advertising. Pages that are not specifically designated as advertisements are filled with product reviews of the advertiser's products, interviews, profiles and biographies of the advertisers' professional surfers, coverage of contests won by the advertisers professionals, and photographs of the surfing trips taken by those professionals. Professional surfing trips are a staple of the industry. Financed by sponsors, they provide content for magazine articles, content for sponsor's advertisements. Video footage of the trips can also be sold under separate cover. Contests are a similar endeavor, providing photo and video content, recognition for the advertisers’ professionals with trophies and prizes, and a physical spectacle on the beach that attracts consumers to the marketing message and the nearby core retailers.

So, #3827's money spent at the core retailer funnels through the core retailer to the surfwear manufacturers, who in turn finance magazines, contests, and professional surfing endeavors. All that happens after the manufacturer takes out their profits. After all, we're not communists.

Ideally, #3827 subscribes to one or more surfing magazines. Though, even if he doesn't, he will see them at school. Surfing magazines take great pride in what they call their "pass-on rate", wherein the magazine floats around a classroom and ten people can see the same advertisement. In the US, the same publishing house, Primedia, owns three of the widely distributed magazines. Primedia describes themselves as "the leading targeted Media Company in the United States." Ownership of a similar group of titles enables the publisher to spread costs, work better advertising deals, and increase profits. After all, we're not communists.

The structure of professional surfing, while difficult to understand from an organization perspective, makes perfect economic sense. It makes so much sense that companies outside the traditional surfwear clique recognize the benefits and flock to participate. Mobile phone companies, car companies, fast food companies, and even Tony the Tiger from Kellogg breakfast cereal all sponsored surfing contests at Huntington Beach in the summer I surfed there.

In my office, one of the part time workers is a community collage student who wears long sleeved Quicksilver shirts exclusively. The style fits him well. He is lanky, with thin arms and a long neck, and walks with a jerking motion in the upper body. I queried him on the trend, and he confirmed that he liked Quicksilver "a lot", and wore their shirts by extreme preference. On further inquiry, he told me he has never surfed, skateboarded, or snowboarded. He has no idea who won the recent US Open of Surfing contest in Huntington Beach, and doesn't’t care. His passion is modified racing engines and accessories on Honda cars.

Honda was a principal sponsor of the 2004 US Open of Surfing.

More Later

Copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Big Changes

"The real boom happened in the early '80s." The shop owner told me. I had asked him about surfing's rising popularity during the twenty five years he'd been doing business in orange county.

"After Big Wednesday." He said "When was that? '79? '80?"

"'78." I corrected him.

"Yea. Big Wednesday." he remembered. "A lot of people started surfing after that movie."

weather he was correct in crediting the 1978 Warner brothers film in bringing a wave of new surfers to the beaches is difficult to determine, other than by subjective opinions. What does seem clear in retrospect is that "Big Wednesday" was a Hollywood creation which, unlike other films, the surfing media and surfing community view fondly.

Perhaps it was the light sprinkling of reality in the screenplay. The characters cannot be called realistic by any stretch of the imagination. they are Hollywood stereotype heroes, living well written lives. but, compared to the their contrived counterparts in other surfing films from "Beach Party" to "Blue Crush", these men are as real as any surf movie may be capable of producing.

Perhaps, on the other hand, the film's emphasis and themes are what make it dear to surfers. Skipping over teenage love stories and the trials of proving one's self through surfing competition, the film dwells on friendships, relationships, and personal trials in the lives of individuals.

I watched "Big Wednesday" after having spent several afternoons at the library and browsing the internet, researching the history of surfing from 1966 to today. The film woke me up and smacked me in the back of the head. I felt a cartoon light bulb pop up over my living room easy chair as my eyes opened.

in all that I'd read about the shortboard revolution, surf culture in the time of the Endless Summer, early contests, surf teams, the first professional surfers, and the drug craze of the late sixties and early seventies, one background topic was missing.

Vietnam.

it eluded me until I saw the draft board sequence in Big Wednesday. the writers of surfing history had mentioned it only briefly, or not at all. In their defense, they can hardly be blamed. for anyone who lived through the era, the war is implied and does not need to be mentioned. it is a resounding and inescapable truth that any discussion of youth culture in the U.S. in the late 1960s relates to the war in Vietnam.

the U.S. involvement in Vietnam from 1964 to 1973 was a catalyst in a widespread uprising of protest across the U.S. Through popular music, media, fashion, and culture, much of the world was affected. Though, at the core, those most active were those who were most venerable: U.S. males in their late teens and early twenties, eligible for the involuntary draft into military service.

The group, by coincidence, was surfing's core demographic.

Sex, drugs, rock music, burnt draft cards, and the free life in California quickly became the calling cards of a generation's rebellious reaching for individuality. Surfing was a natural fit. It was an activity that celebrated individuality, a carefree beach lifestyle, communication with nature, and free expression. surfing became married to the counter culture movement. Timothy Leary became fascinated with surfing. LSD and marijuana became part of surfing culture. Jimi Hendrix performed a concert at Haleakala Volcano in Maui. and, in the era of free love, it didn't hurt that surfers and beachgoers wore considerably less clothing than their land locked counterparts.

The draft board scene in Big Wednesday is strikingly similar to the story in the Jeff Hakkon biography, "Mr. Sunset", which describes several professional surfers reviewing their options for evading the draft. Among the options were: playing crazy, playing junkie, playing injured, and playing queer.

Jeff Hakkon - the great professional surfer of the early 1970s and the co-founder of Quicksilver USA - evaded the draft by playing queer.

A Walk in the Park

I parked at 18th street, at the curb outside of a realty business on the east corner of 18th street and Pacific Coast Highway (conversationally abbreviated to "PCH" by the locals). The storefront is a craftsman style, two level building painted in two shades of light blue with white trim at the windows, doors, and overhangs.

To the south on PCH, the street was lined with three story houses, tightly packed into narrow lots facing the ocean, with maximum glass area and multiple balconies and patios. One of these houses was under construction.

On the north corner of the intersection was a seven foot high wall of concrete masonry with barbed wire at the top. The wall hid half of a square city block from view of drivers and pedestrians. Occasional markings warned away trespassers. A chain link sliding car gate, covered in black, had a small white sign with black letters which pronounced the mysterious property as an "Oil and Gas Production Facility" owned by Aera Energy, LLC.

I looked both ways and crossed the street. Jaywalking surfers are common to this stretch of PCH in the morning. Carying my surfboard, I jogged to the ocean side of the four lane road. Parking meters lined the side of the street. From the curb, a ten yard wide landing strip of grass seperated street traffic from walking traffic on a six foot wide asphalt paved walking path. The path has a painted yellow line running down the center and is lined on both sides by high palm trees. Bicyclist, joggers, and walkers trafficked the path in all but the dreariest weather.

Beyond the walking path was a second, smaller strip of mixed landscaping. Areas of grass, bushes, flowers and ice plant form the edge of a twenty foot sharply sloped cliff of landscape and open concrete block. Along the length of the cliff is a painted metal safety rail. Directly opposite 18th street, was a concrete bench, painted with the city's "HB" logo, overlooking the surf.

I walked to Seventeenth street where there was a traffic light, a crosswalk, and a staircase to the beach. I walk down the concrete stairs brushing my hand on the metal handrail and feeling the texture of chipped paint and rust.

At the bottom of the stairs, there was a level path of hard packed sand and dirt which lifeguard and service vehicles used to access the beach. To the right of the staircase stood an outhouse. Beyond the hard packed sand path was a line of telephone poles and a concrete retaining wall, which varied in height. At the base of the staircase, the retaining wall was less than a foot hight. I stepped over it and walked onto the cool sand with my bare feet.

In front of me, a metal sign bore the title "City of Huntington Beach". It carried lists of cautions, precautions, and beach regulations. The majority of the sign was unreadable. The paint had worn away. The sign had been marked with graffiti and stickers.

I walked across the sand, passing the brown, green and white lifeguard tower. The structure consisted of a metal deck supported above the sand by a steel brace frame. Atop the metal deck sat the lifeguard station: a small, single metal room with three windows formed by removable metal panels. The tower was unoccupied so the panels were bolted in place where the windows would be. Each window panel was stenciled with a cautionary note warning me there was no lifeguard on duty. The platform and station were covered by a metal roof painted white. In front of the lifeguard tower, a mound of sand was built up to the level of the platform, providing a runway for lifeguards on duty.

The light brown sand was devoid of people. It stretched from my point in both directions, dotted with bright blue, round, plastic trash cans, wrapped in brightly colored advertisements.

At the shoreline, there was evidence of the overnight high tide line. A line in the sand was formed by a collection of natural and man made trash. Piles of driftwood, bamboo shoots and kelp were littered with fast food wrappers, plastic and Styrofoam cups, plastic drink and bottled water containers, straws, candy wrappers, bits of unidentifiable plastic or paper, and the occasional shoe or sandal.

In the autumn and winter, when rain came to orange county, trenches formed in the sand at the outlets of the round concrete storm drains in the retaining wall. The trenches were twenty feet deep, exposing the cracked and chipped face of the retaining wall, with scarred patches of rusted steel rebar. The storm water also brought trash. The runoff trench was littered with miscellaneous debris from household trash to patches of industrial materials and a backpack.

Reading a surf forecast on the Internet one day, I read the forecaster's theory on beach trash. He proposed that if every surfer picked up one or two pieces of litter every time he or she got out of the water, the beaches would be clean.

Of course, we'll never know if this theory is true, but it seemed to me a small tax to pay for all the beach gives to me. I decided to do it. I can't claim that I remembered to pick up a piece of trash every day. I went through periods where I remembered more days than not, and vice versa. When I did remember, I found a certain satisfaction in it. Picking up a few pieces of trash on my way out of the water felt pretty good.

To any surfer reading this: give it a try. Or, better yet, give it a try and pass the word along.

More Later

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Brett - an unbelievable profile

I arranged an interview with Brett for his profile in this book.

I prepared for the interview, based on my recollection that we had a friendly verbal agreement for service fees of $100 per hour for the time I was to spend on Brett's behalf as his publicity agent. I arrived at the interview and pleasantly requested an advance on the fees for the 4 hours of work I would I had spent in preparation, the 1 hour of the interview, and the 6 hours of transcription and composition. Brett immediately and angrily proclaimed the agreement a hoax, accused me of extortion, and refused to speak further.

Eager to bring our business to a close, I recommended that If he would simply pay for my services thus far, we could part ways on gentleman's terms. Brett became violently angry and issued an intricate arranged barrage of obscures profanities. Fortunatly, I happened to have on my person a blade that I sometimes carry. In fear of my safety, I relieved the air from his car tires. As I raced away, Brett produced a military assault weapon from the trunk of his car and fired a barrage of bullets after me, cursing in multiple languages.

Of course, I was grateful to be alive. The interview was unsuccessful. However, I have done a significant body of research on the mysterious figure of Brett. For the benefit of you, dear reader, I will here expound on his elusive story. Please note that I in doing so, I bring grave danger upon myself and my family.

Brett was fathered as part of an elaborate and secret cultic ritual performed by an untraceable Satanist group in the Bolivian jungle in the early seventies. While details of the ritual are difficult to ascertain, it is known to have involved seven heads of cattle, the blood of nineteen virgins, a box of plastic spoons, and a giraffe. Witnesses from the small Bolivian towns and villages reported the sky turning black, and the voice of damnation filling the air with a cryptic, incomprehensible language. he prominent scientist and investigative journalist, Dr. Miles Ofbeeis, journeyed to the site to investigate claims of intergalactic criminal participation by a ruffian group of green haired flesh devouring cyborg mutants. The disemboweled corpse of Dr. Ofbeeis was discovered in the back seat of a Pinto several months later.

Brett was raised by a group of militant Mormon Tanzanian terrorists. His given name was "Gumajala" which translates to "harbinger of madness". His morals and values were taught to him by recorded messages during his sleep.

Brett immigrated to the united states in 1984, entering Colorado at the age of 12. he and several other cult members planned and executed what he still refers to as the "hey na na party of '87". The group hijacked a school bus returning from a flower show and filed off the children's' toenails with rusty nails. While no ransom demand was ever made, the operation came under the radar of a local paramilitary counter terrorist task force, who quickly diffused the situation with a liberal application of projectile explosives. None of the children, or Brett's companions, survived the inferno. To avoid unnecessary questions, the task force quickly evacuated the scene. Brett crawled from the smoldering ashes, badly burned and incapable of any future sexual activity.

Living on a diet of rats and human feces, Brett recuperated in a cave of Colorado's sewage system. Chemical and cold exposure soon turned his scarred skin to a texture resembling a lizard. When Brett emerged, he decided to come to California to see the coast. Being an enthusiastic conservative republican, he set his sights to Orange County.

I first met Brett at a local Wednesday night church gathering where he had come for "some good fun and fellowship". He systematically assassinated half of the congregation using a crossbow and a welding torch. Many prisoners attempted escape, only to be caught in fishing nets at the exit doors and trampled to death by the screaming crowd. Near the end of the bloodbath, myself and a small group of others were set aside because he thought we "might look cute" when subjected to electric shocks torture. We were brought back to a studio in garden grove, where we hung from barbed shackles for four days, occasionally jolted with a cattle tazer.

One day, Brett came in and announced that he wanted to take up surfing. He asked if any of us could teach him. I volunteered. I was released from my bonds. The remainder of the group were slaughtered with a dull machette.

Brett started surfing at Huntington Beach over seven years ago. His left leg, being of cyborg construction, is not as agile as his right, so he can't turn, falls often, and looks like a complete kook...

Hold on...

The phone is ringing.

OK. I think the interview is back on. Uh... just kidding, folks.

Hummer Dude

Day 55
There was a car parked at my normal parking spot when I arrived before dawn. I pulled up ahead of the car and backed my truck into place in front of it. Trying to get as far back on the street as I could, I pull in close and tight to the other vehicle.

In my rear view mirror, I saw the driver, sitting in his car and shaking his head at me angrily. I switched from reverse to gear, pulled the truck up a foot or so, and stopped.

I alighted and walked to the back of the truck. Looking at our two bumpers, I saw that he was correct in his concern. My truck was two feet from his front bumper.

The driver gave me a sour look from inside his vehicle. I shrugged, but offered no apology.

Brett had arrived and parked. I dressed in silence. The three of us were ready concurrently, and crossed the street together. Brett and I talked as we walked. The other surfer walked behind us, humming heavy metal tunes aloud.

When our paths diverged, Brett gave me a quizical look. "Ok." he said. "That guy was weird."

The surf was good. Brett caught a beauy of a right. It was one of the biggest waves of the morning, and he surfed it well, making a series of short turns up and down the face. "That" he said, as we walked up the beach after our session, "is the kind of wave that makes it worthwhile."

Having surfed, showered on the sidewalk, and dressed, I was ready to leave for work. I opened the driver's side door of my truck. There was a splatter of dried phlem and spit on the window.

The car that I had nearly backed into was gone. I cleand the spit from my window with a towell and got in. I thought about the type of fellow who felt like he needed to spit on my window because I didn't know how to park. I reflected on whether i was responsible, whether I had committed an offence deserving of such reprocussion. Perhaps, I could have apologized and made a peace offereing to guy.

After careful consideration, I decided that he was an asshole.

copyright 2004, Travis E. English

First swell of summer

Day 54
Brett and I showed up on Tuesday and the swell had come as promised.
Walking along the beach, I saw a short boarder take off on a left. As he got to the bottom and started his turn, I could judge the height. He was standing upright, knees bent, waist leaned forward. There was three feet of wave above his head and another three feet below his surfboard. the wave was, as a surf report would call it, "head high plus". The short boarder made a bottom turn and a second turn at the top of the face before disappearing into a wall of whitewater. The crashing foam threw him off his board, forward and down.
"He should of pulled out at the top." Brett said. "He could have made that."
I made a mental note of the strategy. I didn't believe I could make it work, but it was a nice thought.
We waited for a lull in the waves and paddled out to the sand bar. The tide was very low, but rising. At the sand bar, I was standing in water less than knee deep. I waited out another lull, and paddled swiftly through some medium sized surf to the line up.
A minute later, the horizon showed an incoming set, and I paddled out to meet it. I wasn't ready to paddle after one yet, but let two monsters of water pass under me. The second wave was impressive. As it passed, several surfers swam for it. I could saw one disappear over the top. The silent morning air filled with the crash of a freight train into brick wall.
A calm cames after the passing an the wave. Looking in towards shore, the sight was white foam over still water. Sporadic speckles of surfers were re-orientating themselves. One surfer was dizzy and was shaking his head violently.
"That was a big one" Brett said. It was an understatement, we both knew it. His voice was full of fear.
I prepared mentally. The streak required three waves a day. There were no stipulations that any of those had to be the biggest waves of the day.
A lull ended and a set began. I took off on one of the early waves, finding a quick left that closed out very shortly after I got to the bottom. I bent my knees, trying to keep my stance as the wave crashed behind me. But, the force of the foam explosion threw me.
Recovering from the ride, I looked back. The waves behind mine were bigger. I waited, holding my ground as best I could while several monsters pounded at my position. The current was strong, pulling me north. The set ended and the paddled back out. Brett was nowhere to be seen. I wouldn't see him again until i got back to my car.
I paddled through the surfers in the line up, swimming against the current to regain my position relative to the beach.
I repeated the process several times. I waited out the really big waves and caught waves that I was comfortable with.
After four solid rides, I looked at my watch. My allotted time was passed, but i decided to wait for one more.
I chatted with another surfer in the line up. He had dry hair, having paddled out through the lull without getting his hair wet. When the set came, he motioned to me that I had the right of way, so I paddled after the wave. I looked back at the water over my shoulder. Normally, this one would have been a little too big for me, but it was time to go.
The wave picked me up in it's momentum, and I jumped to my feet. Hugging the vertical surface, my surfboard sliced a clean line down the face the wave like a hot knife slicing into a vertical wall of butter. Moist air rushed into my nostrils. The noise of crashing water behind me was deafening. I looked up over my left shoulder. I could see the threatening, foaming crest of the beast. It was three feet over my head.

copyright 2004, Travis E. English

Eve of the Swell

Surfers have a multitude of words to describe waves. “Peaky” describes waves that form in peaks, with ridable paths in both directions. “Blown-out” is the terms for waves which are affected by onshore winds. Blown out waves are choppy and lack consistency.
The term “wall” is used for waves which form across a considerable span and break at one time. Wall can be used as a noun or an adjective. “Walled” and “Wally”are typical adjective derivations. Wally is the opposite of peaky. Walled waves are also called “close-outs”.
when Huntington gets a swell of overhead surf, it has a tendency to be walled. there's noting more frustrating and exhausting than attempting to paddle out through inescapably long, eight foot tall walls of crashing white water.
“It probably going to be walled at Huntington” Chris told me.
Surfers have a horror stories about paddling out in big surf. One surfer I met told me his the night before the swell came in:
"I remember paddling as hard as i could straight up the face of the thing. I was totally vertical, trying desperately to paddle up and over. I remember seeing my friend's feet go over the top and out of sight.
'He made it. I didn't.
'They always tell you to just hold your breath and not panic. Well, I panicked. It held me under a long time. I opened my eyes. I was thrashing around with my eyes open. I saw light. I pushed up towards the surface, but it pulled me back down again. That happened three times.
'Finally it let me up. I was gasping and chocking. I found my board and grabbed it. I held on as tight as I could. Another wave hit me, and another. I held on and let the waves pound me into the shore.
'My friends were amazed. They said that my longboard had been sticking straight up out of the water like Popsicle stick, bobbing from side to side as my leg pulled down on it.”
The phenomenon described, with the surfboard standing straight up and bobbing, happens frequently enough to have a slang term. in surfing lingo, this phenomenon is known as “tombstoning”.
My narrator took a break from his story to look at the sunset. The sky was filled with streaks of between purple and orange.
"I went right back out." he said. "You can't let the fear get you. I knew if i didn't go right back out, i would never surf again. so, i charged back out there and rode one of those bastards."
Fear was the key. Surfing in big surf scared me.
copyright 2004, Travis E. English

Adapting

Susan Orlean is a one of the premiere writers practicing the craft of literary journalism. As a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine since 1992, she's made a career out of writing character profiles of “ordinary” people.

Of course, the ordinary people she profiles are the extraordinary among us. Orlean describes her work: “I'm primarily interested in the tiny master -- a person with a tiny domain over which they are the master. I wrote a piece about a New York City cabdriver who is also the king of the Ashanti tribe in America. After that experience, I realized -- you never know. Any other cab driver I meet, any ordinary person, could be a king.”

In 1994, Susan investigated John Laroche, a plant seller who was arrested for stealing rare and protected orchids from the swamps of Florida. Her investigation was written into the book, “The Orchid Thief”, published in December of 1998, which quickly became a New York Times national bestseller.

The book was optioned to become a Hollywood movie, and screenwriter Charlie Kauffman got the job. However, the book proved difficult for Kauffman to adapt. Kauffman instead wrote a screenplay based on his difficult personal experiences attempting to pen the film. The screenplay, entitled “Adaptation” was produced by Colombia pictures on a budget of 19 million dollars, staring the talents of Meryl Streep and Nicholas Cage as Orlean and Kauffman, respectively.

“Adaptation” earned reams of critical acclaim. Kauffman's writing was nominated for an Academy Award in 2002. The film was nominated for four academy awards, including acting nominations for Streep and Cage. One of the prized golden statues went home with supporting actor Chris Cooper for his portrayal of John Laroche, the orchid thief.
Back in her literary journalist role, Susan Orlean traveled to the island of Maui, and met a group of female teenage surfers living in the small Hawaiian town of Hana. The girls were sponsored by a local surf shop, and Orlean chronicled a few days of their lives leading up to a Quicksilver sponsored island surf contest. Her profile piece was titled “The Surf Girls of Maui.”

The "Surf Girls of Maui" quickly moved, however, when Orlean's piece caught the interest of Hollywood producers. The story was re-written by Lizzy Weiss, a former staff writer for the overly sexual MTV show, “Undressed”. Weiss moved the story to Oahu, where the girls vied to compete in the famous Pipe Masters Contest at Banzai Pipeline on the North Shore. With a budget of 30 million dollars (but lacking the talents of a Meryl Streep or Nick Cage) Universal Pictures produced the 2002 summer blockbuster “Blue Crush”.

The film featured Kate Bosworth, a natural brunette, as a the young blond surfer girl yearning to enter the professional circuit. The film showcased top female professionals, beautiful surfing photography and the photogenic natural scenery of Oahu. The story was as predictable as any other sports competition movie, requiring from the viewer only a modicum of consciousness and a primative understanding of the English language.

In the climactic dramatic scene between Bosworth's charactor and the marvelously attractive mainland tourist with whom she's having sex instead of playing guardian to her orphaned kid sister, the surfer girl bears her soul, saying: “What do I want? Oh my god, I want Penny to quit smoking and go to college. I want, I want to be able to pay the phone, electric and rent in the same month. I want a girl to be on the cover of surf magazine. It would be great if that girl were me, but any girl would do. I want... i mean i wish my mom would come home, and i really really want to win pipe masters tomorrow, thats what i want.”

Despite it's lack of an intricate storyline, keen marketing and the lush beauty of great surfing and great surfing photography prevailed. The film was a success across the US, pulling in 14 million dollars on it's opening weekend, and sitting as the number three spot for the weekend of Aug 18, 2002. (The number one film of the same weekend was "XXX", staring Vin Deisal as an snowboarding secret agent) "Blue Crush" eventually grossed 40 million dollars in domestic box office returns.

Odly, the academy of motion picture arts and sciences overlooked “Blue Crush” in the 2003 Oscar awards nominations. The film was nominated for two MTV movie awards, two Teen Choice awards, and two World Stunt Awards.

Service Entrance

Depending on the day and the amount of time that I had before my job's 8 a.m. start time, I followed either of two routines to get myself and my surfboard into the office building.

When time permitted, I preferred to pull my truck up to the rear of the building, where there was a service entrance and a short corridor leading to a service elevator. I could unload my surfboard from my truck and take it up the service elevator without attracting any attention to myself. The service elevator also had the advantage of being conveniently located near a back door into my employer's office, which, in turn was conveniently near the storage closet where I kept the unsightly watercraft during work hours.

In the mornings before working hours, the small parking lot by the service entrance is empty. If anyone is there, it is the groundskeeper.

The groundskeeper for our office park, like most in the area, is Hispanic. Commercial real estate owners and operators seek the most cost efficient means of landscaping upkeep. Owners farm the work to labor contractors who hire Mexican workers (with minimal regard to their immigration status) at the low wages they can.

The head groundskeeper speaks very little English. He is a very handsome man, tall and thin, with a round, bright face and smooth features. When he saw me with my surfboard, he would wave and smiled and asked me about " las buenas olas" (the good waves). He was cheerful and projected the aura of genuine hospitality. Our conversations took place in a mixed bag of language. I spoke some Spanish, and he spoke some English.

One Thursday morning, I pulled my truck into one of the service parking spots and found the groundskeeper sitting in his parked electric golf cart. His face was turned to the ground. His features were dour. His mood was melancholy. When he saw me he smiled a weak smile. As I unloaded my surfboard, he lazily dismounted his perch and walked around to the service door, where he opened the door for me.

"Que bonitas las mananas en la playa, eh?" The groundskeeper said. His face had morphed, as if his features were confused between showing a sad look or the deeply intellectual distant consideration of things forgotten.

"Si." I told him, uncertain, but smiling slightly. In my mind, my Spanish translation mechanisms was struggling to catch up to what he said as I walked to the elevator.

By the time the elevator reached my floor, I had translated the sentence. "Que bonitas las mananas en la playa, eh?" - "How pretty the mornings at the beach, eh?"

I smiled to myself, laughing through my nostrils as the elevator door opened. I doubted that I would ever know what had set the tone of his morning, but I felt certain that he understood mine.

He understood completely.

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Our friends in gray

**day 34
There is always a feeling of wonder when the dolphins come out to play. Some mornings, dolphins swim leisurely past the morning surfers. Other morning the dolphins are playful. On rare occasions, I've seen them jumping up and out of the water, or splashing fins and tails at the surface.

On my way out to the line up, I noticed a gray dorsal fin protruding from the surface of the water behind the breaking surf. Being the first person in the water, it was a fearful moment. The fin signified the presence of one of several species of sea creatures. The question was: which one?

The answer to that question, reached in my own mind, depended on a number of factors. One of them was that I was alone.

I had heard no sound from a blow hole. If a fin is accompanied by the noise of a blow hole, the creature is certainly a mammal. Otherwise, the fin can be considered based on the known differences between the possible sea creatures. Was the back of the fin curved or straight? Was the top of the fin rounded or pointed? Was the motion of the fin up and down, or side to side?

I convinced myself that I recognized the shape of the fin and continued swimming outward, cautiously. A moment later, I saw two fins surface right next two each other. They were dolphins. I could see them clearly.

I had been in the water for only a few minutes and had caught a series of quick rights in succession. Brett arrived, and paddled out into the surf towards me.

I swam through the first wave of a set, and saw a larger wave behind it. I set my concentration and paddled quickly towards the shoulder. The wave peak was just to my left. A quick look over my shoulder verified that Brett was immediately behind me and to my right.

I was at the apex of the wave. Before I could swim up and over, there was a shocking sound of splashing water. My face was slapped with pellets of cool mist, causing me to blink momentarily as the salt water burned into my eyes. I exhaled through a film of moving water and opened my eyes as the body of a dolphin rocketed out of the water and over the peak of the wave. I stopped swimming, my arms frozen in place. The dolphin's launch point had been a yard to my left. In the surface of the water ahead of me, the landing spot still swirled with the residue of the dolphin's splash.

The dolphins that we see at Huntington beach in the summer are bottlenose dolphins, feeding on small schooling fish in the warm waters. They regularly visit the surf, swimming into the waters as shallow as 6 or 8 feet deep and can often be seen as a gray shape through the face of a breaking wave, surfing just under the surface. Brett and I have an ongoing joke about the dolphins knowing when the surf is good, as they seem to be more active on good days.

The bottlenose dolphin is a relative of the Atlantic Bottlenose dolphin that is often used in spectator shows at marine attractions parks, and featured on television and films. The California variety are darker in color and larger than their Atlantic counterparts. The size of the dolphins in southern California varies from 6 to 12 feet in length. The dolphins I've seen at Huntington beach were at the small end of that range, from 6-8 feet long.

In Southern California waters, the population of bottlenose dolphin is about 15,500 in winter and spring, bulging to 57,000 in summer and autumn.

No matter the size, the dolphins are clearly at home where we are merely visitors. They are relaxed, agile, playful, and fast. Dolphins can reach top speeds of 25 miles per hour in the water.

Brett had swum up behind me. "Did you see that?" I asked. He answered silently with a quizzical look, shaking his head in a quick and short motion as he sat upright on his longboard.

"Well." I excitedly "The dolphins are back today. There was one jumping into that last wave right over here He --"

As I turned my body to point at the spot, I heard another loud splash - this time in Brett's direction. I whipped my head around to look, and caught the blur of gray skin and splashing green water. The dolphin had breeched, and landed only inches from Brett's leg.

Brett looked like he'd seen a ghost. His eyes were wide. His mouth was open. He was panting.

"It doesn't get much closer than that, bro." He said.

copyright 2004 Travis R. English



http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jaap/delphin.htm
http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/common.htm
http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/btlnose.htm

The learing curve

**day 45
the learning curve of surfing isn't appreciated. people who are inexperienced in the ocean think that surfing is a leisure activity involving a level of skill similar to jogging or riding a bicycle. My nephew from Texas, for example, in his recent trip to California, decided that he wanted to go surfing. My aunt called me and asked that I take the two of them surfing. It never occurred to either of them that I would be unable to teach them in the course of an hour at the beach, or that they would be unable to learn. Of course, I readily agreed to play the role of tourist surf school.

The reason for my willing participation, I admit, was sadistic.

Surfing schools in Waikiki use 10 or 11 foot surfboards to teach beginners, as the larger boards stability stable and better floatation than smaller boards. The largest surfboard I own is a 7'6" funboard. The Waikiki surf schools use a beach with a smooth, consistently breaking, small to mid size wave with very little pitch. The conditions at Huntitngton Beach are more challenging. Even on a small day, the surf is inconsistent. Peaks move with the shifting sand on the bottom. There are no safe channels to paddle out on smooth water. Waves can break with varying degrees of power and pitch.

Nothing is more entertaining than bringing a newcomer to the water who legitimately believes that he'll be standing up surfing waves in a matter of minutes. The inevitable failure and degradation is a reinforcement of the value of all the work a surfer has devoted to learning the sport. If it were easy - if one could simply wade out into the water and start surfing - we wouldn't cherish it so much.

In reality, the newcomer must first learn to paddle. Lying on the board to paddle thru the waves can be a challenge. Lying in a position too far forward will cause the nose of the board to sink. Center your gravity too far back, and the nose of the board will stick out of the water cartoonishly as if there was a really heavy guy sitting in the back of the canoe. Additionally, unlike rowboats or canoes, a surfboard will rock from side to side unless one lays directly in the middle. In the midst of attempting to achieve forward, backward, and sideways balance for paddling, there are waves coming, knocking the swimmer any which way they choose. Should the new surfer find an area of calm, he may attempt to sit up on the surfboard in waiting position, as the other surfers are doing. A first attempt at this can have all kinds of results, most of which involve swallowing water.

I give my nephew the pitch. "Rule number one: There is nothing that you can do to stop the wave from getting to shore. Therefore, holding out your hands, standing in defiance, or attempting to hold out the board to stop the wave are all bad ideas."

My nephew asked what the key to surfing is. I ignored him and continued with my instructions, knowing full well that he wasn't listening to a word.

"With this size of surfboard, there are three basic ways to get through an oncoming wave. For small whitewater waves, simply paddle straight through the wave. For whitewater waves which are one to one and a half foot high, do a push up on the board, allowing the wave to pass between you and the board. For anything bigger than that, roll over and hold on the board tightly while the wave passes you by. If you cannot hold to board, and have to let go, push it as far away from you as possible. You don't want it to hit you while you're flopping around under water."

My nephew lasted about twenty minutes, paddling in the surf.

How to Steal a Surfer's Car

Email From Brett, 8/12/04

Subject: How to Steal a Car

Step 1. Call AAA. Make up a phony name and tell them that you have locked your key in your car. (In my case, the name was not phony, but they never did locate a record of my membership).

Step 2. Wait by the car you want to steal. When the tow truck arrives, the driver will unlock the vehicle and get back in his truck before you can say, oh shit, I locked by
keys in my car!. Do not be concerned, the driver will not ask for your AAA card or any evidence that the vehicle actually belongs to you or you have any right to be getting into it.

Step 3, is a bit more difficult as it involves hotwiring the vehicle. Please refer to the internet for help with this topic.

Alternate uses for this method include stealing stuff off the seat or putting something putrid in the vehicle to torment the driver.

I can personally attest to the effectiveness of this technique as I have used it on more than one occasion to enter a vehicle without a key.

Brett

Surfers and car keys have an amazing relationship. Unless the surfer is fortunate enough to live within walking or bicycle distance from their favorite break, most surfers arrive by car. Since the days of the unlocked car have ended, the surfer will be left with the following dilemma: how does one keep the car key outside of the car in a place where is not prone to being lost to the vastness of the ocean, but will still be available for reentry into the vehicle when the surfing is done.

The solutions to this problem usually fall into one of two categories.

The first category is to hide the key somewhere near in the vehicle in an easily retrievable yet not completely obvious location. This solution is enormously popular. On any given morning, surfers can be seen hugging their cars in all manners of strange positions as the struggle to retrieve keys hidden in the various folds of sheet metal bumpers, fenders, or wheel wells.

While most have the act of hiding the key down to a science (you can't be too obvious about tucking your key onto a ledge inside of the wheel well - what if the robber were watching), surfers can be observed retrieving their keys quite openly. I once watched a wet surfer in a wetsuit lying on the ground fighting with his truck's front bumper for a full three minutes while I waited for a traffic light. Catching his eye, I gave him the look of understanding. I've lost a key in a front fender before and know how much fun it can be reaching into unreachable places amidst sheet metal and engine grease with cold, wet, uncooperative hands. The traffic light turned green and I pulled off into the morning. The guy was still lying on the black top, trying to convince his bumper to give the key back.

The second solution to the key problem is provided by the surf wear and equipment industries.

Most wetsuits feature key pockets, cloth pouches with fold over mouths sewn into the back of a wetsuit just between the shoulder blades. Once inserted and zipped up, the key is unnoticeable to the surfer or observer.

Quality board shorts will feature pockets with high quality Velcro that seals the entirety of the pocket width. Some of the pockets even have a looped piece of string sewn into the pocket to pull through the key chain hole before sealing the pocket with Velcro. Even if the surfer decides to go surfing in a thong bikini, many surfboard leashes contain an extra pocket and flap of Velcro within the ankle strap designed to hold a car key.
I, for one, always use the wetsuit pocket for my car key when I'm wearing a wetsuit. In warmer water, I generally trust the full pocket Velcro seal, and have never lost a key through a Velcro pocket. I will, however, tie the key into the string for that extra measure of safety if the string is present.

Oddly enough, and perhaps I'm missing some crucial piece of logic here, but many surfers favor hiding keys in their cars.

Of course, there is a third option.

On a Thursday morning, Brett and I pulled on our wetsuits and waxed our surfboards. I zipped up my wetsuit, tossed the last bit of clothing onto my car seat, and closed the door. Behind me, I heard Brett's car door close. I glanced back to see Brett looking through me with wide eyes of fear.
"you did it, didn't you."

Brett searched his mind with his eyes, looking right and left at nothing visible. "shit.", he concluded.

he unzipped his wetsuit and checked the pocket, hoping against hope that he had subconsciously put the key where it belonged out of habit. not finding it, Brett sighed and his shoulders sagged.

"in my experience," I offered, "it's best to go ahead and surf and worry about it later."

Brett glanced at me quizzically. "I've done it both ways." I continued. "I've stayed on shore. I've stressed out about the key and not gone surfing. and, I've surfed and come back to deal with the key later. I have to say, you might as well go surfing."

Brett though about this for a moment, then accepted it fully. his demeanor immediately changed as he cleared the key problem from his mind entirely. by the time we got to shore, he was chatting regularly about his online surfboard shopping adventures and a silly "how to surf" video he'd emailed to me the day before.
We surfed an unusually crowded line-up of surfers. The waves had picked up and were coming in chest high to shoulder high on the sets. I got a couple of fun rights and a lumpy left.

I took off on a good sized wave which immediately let me know it was going to close out and leave me nowhere to go. I pointed straight to shore taking the wave in. Brett was paddling out about 10 yards to my left, grinning at me. I motioned towards the shore, giving him the "go in" signal.

He had completely forgotten about the key, but remembered once I motioned. Fortunately, we got out of the water about fifteen minutes earlier than usual. Neither of us having cell phones, we had to drive around a few blocks before finding a working payphone for him to call his roadside service company.

More Later
-Travis
copyright 2004, Travis R. English

Naked surfer from the sky

One fine day in 1966, as four adventurers were looking up into the sky, they noticed a second sun. Much disturbed, one of the group lit himself on fire (which didn't hurt very much) and flew up to investigate. A mob of people, who noticed the sky filling up with a new flaming sun, and saw this freak flying around on fire, got the wrong idea and turned a hose on him.

As it would turn out, the giant sun in the sky was just part of an elaborate hoax. The goal of the hoax, as was later explained by a gentlman named Utau, was to distract a fellow named Galactus, so that he might not see the earth. Galactus had an appetite for planets. His reputation for doing so was so bad that he was often referred to as "Galactus, Devourer of Worlds".

Unfortunately for everyone, the hoax hadn't worked, and Galactus was coming to eat the world.

Bummer.

Galactus was a classy guy, however. Anywhere he went, he sent in a herald first to announce him. "Hey, folks. Good to see you. My master is coming down to devour your plant's energy. Have a nice day." You've got to respect a guy with this kind of entourage.

The herald was in interesting guy in his own right. He was a man named Norrin Radd, from the planet Zenn-La. Zenn-La was a peaceful planet of scientists who had somehow forgotten how to defend themselves. Galactus had found the plant Zenn-La some years earlier. Radd offered Galactus a deal wherein the residents of Zenn-La could be saved, and Radd would become the Galactus' slave. Radd's would take on the job of traveling the galaxy, seeking out worlds for Galacus to devour.

Galactus agreed to the plan, and transformed Norrin Radd into a useful slave.

Recalling the event, Galactus said: "Using only a portion of my might, Norrin Radd was reborn so that he might withstand the rigors of space. I remade him, modeling him on an adolescent fantasy I plucked from his mind."(1)

By lucky change, the "adolescent fantasy" which Norrin Radd's transformation was based on was a surfer. He probably saw one when he was a kid, surfing the pink waves of Zenn-La. (More likely, it was Stan Lee, who saw some surf movies.)

"Norrin Radd had surrendered his identity, his home and his love in order to save his people. He was no more. Now there was only the SILVER SURFER. I made him into a receptacle for the ambient energies of the universe, cosmic power which he can release with devastating force. I created for him a wondrous board which obeys his every thought. My herald was one of the most powerful and unique beings in all creation."(1)

The Silver Surfer comic book hero was created by the incredibly imaginative team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1966 for a story line in the Fantastic Four comic book. The character appeared in several issues of the Fantastic Four and other Marvel titles. The Surfer got his own comic book series in 1968, which didn't sell very well. The Silver Surfer has been mostly relegated to a supporting character in the Marvel universe, occasionally becoming the lead character for new mini-series or monthly titles.

The Silver Surfer's board is a longboard. It must have been an early removable fin system. Sometimes he rides it with a single fin and sometimes he rides it without a fin, depending on the swell. It's unclear whether the board is wood, foam and fiberglass, epoxy, or some other cosmic material. In most drawings, the board has a stringer, and some racing stripes on the deck. The racing stripes may also be a traction pad, as the Silver Surfer doesn't use wax.

Silver Surfer is based on the golden age of surfing. He surfs in the style of the 1960s longboarders, often standing with both feet facing forward at the trim spot of the board. He doesn't wear a wetsuit, preferring a pair of very short board shorts that are the same color as his skin. Sometimes, the Silver Surfer appears to be surfing nude, which he may be more comfortable doing than the rest of us, owing to the apparent lack of genitalia.

More Later.

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Sources:
Silver Surfer Web Site: http://marvelite.prohosting.com/surfer/
Sanderson, "Marvel Universe"
Fantastic Four #48, Vol. 1, Lee/Kirby, 1966 1st app. of Surfer and Galactus.
(1)Silver Surfer #1, Vol. 1,Lee/Buscema, 1968, Origin of Surfer, 1st app. of Zenn-La

Handle with care, Fragile when smashed.

Day 43

On a glassy mid sized morning, Brett and I were surfing inconsistent waves amidst the weekend early crowd. Long waits between sets provided ample time for idle conversation. As the set waves came in, both of us paddled around frantically trying to catch at least one or two while the set lasted.

I found a small peak and paddled after it, intending to go to the right. Brett was about twenty yards to my right, looking back at a second peak of the same wave. He was lining up to go left. We were both paddling.

Both peaks formed well, and we both dropped into the wave face, turning right towards each other. Faster than either of us could do anything about it, we were on a collision course. Both of us jumped off our boards backwards into the foaming wave behind. In retrospect, this was the worst thing either of us could have done.

Both boards shot out forward, propelled by the push of jumping feet. There was a loud crack as the nose of my board slammed into the bottom of Brett's. A second cracking sound followed.

The wave passed by. Each of us found our boards and assessed the damage. The forensics of the accident indicated that the nose of my board had slammed into the bottom of Brett's, then slid down the length of Brett's board for a second hard impact with the left fin. Brett's board had a three inch by six inch impact wound in the bottom, just at the right rail about mid way down the board. My surfboard had a four inch gash in the left front, having been slashed by the fin.

We exchanged a few uncomfortable glances and apologies. Brett paddled immediately to shore, not wanting the water to soak into the exposed foam core of his surfboard. I stayed in the water, long enough to make my quota of three waves, and then came in. Brett was disturbed, and planned to make the repairs that afternoon. Unlike Brett, I had a backup surfboard which I could use. Even though the surf was small, I rode my shortboard for the next few days until the weekend, when I could devote time to the job.

Neither of us could determine whether to blame the other or not. Initially, we were both angry and guilt ridden at the same time. Eventually, we had to write the crash off to an excess of familiarity. I would have let the wave go, had it been anyone but Brett perched in the spot he was at. Brett admitted he would have though twice about dropping in, had it been anyone but me looking twards him. We both learned that the best thing to do when heading towards another surfer on the same wave is to turn towards shore. If both of us had made quick turns towards the sand, we would have been riding next to each other in the foam, rather than slamming into each other on the open wave face.

Most surfers I know do their own repair work for small and medium sized repair jobs. Surf shops sell a variety of surfboard repair kits which generally include fiberglass cloth, polyester resin, hardening catalyst, a few mixing supplies, and sandpaper. There are some products which, for very minor bruises, come in a squeeze tube and offer cure times of less than an hour when exposed to the UV rays of the sun. For heavier damage, a trip to the hardware store is often required for sheets of sandpaper of various roughness, rubber gloves, and filler material.

Filler material for large dings is an area that I've had to experiment with, as it is not included in any of the commercially available patch kits. With varying degrees of success, I've used sealing foam, drywall plaster compound, multiple layers of resin thickened by flour or corn starch, and even flour and water paste. On his lunch break, the day of our crash, Brett made a wonderful discovered in the paint isle of a large hardware retailer. It was an epoxy putty stick, approximately one half in in diameter, consisting of resin putty wrapped with a thin layer of catalyst putty. The stick could be mashed together to mix the catalyst and the resin, then pressed into the repair area. The mixed putty cured to forms a solid which could then be sanded and covered with a final coat of fiberglass and resin.

For the surfer who doesn't have the inkling of doing his or her own repair work, there are professional repair outlets. For major jobs, local surf shops or friendly surfers can refer surfboard repair specialist who will do the job for a fee. Piecemeal surfboard repair, however, is not the type of lucrative business which draws a competitive field of highly skilled and reliable technicians. The market is a little more underground, and consists of an interesting group of characters.

My brother Kevin once needed a fin repaired in for his longboard in Hawaii. He enlisted the services of a local methamphetamine addict, known for his fine surfboard repair work and completely unpredictable schedule. “I paid him up front.” my brother recalled. “So, by the next day, I'm sure he'd already spent the money.” After several inquiries, Kevin finally got his board back. He showed me the fin. “Pretty nice looking job, though, eh?”

I used to know the secret location of one such fiberglass repair man locally. It was a small apartment in a run down housing complex, just a few quick turns away from Beach Boulevard, near Little Saigon, an area of Orange County boasting the second largest population of Vietnamese people in the world.

I met the repairman through Paul, a friend who took me along while taking a surfboard in for repair a nasty wound to the tail section.

“I'll introduce you to this guy.” Paul had told me. “And then you'll know where to find him if you ever need him.”

If one knew where to find this repairman, one could request his services. His prices and time estimates were subject to wide variations based on the prospective customers needs, connections, and religious affiliation (he was a avid Christian fundamentalist, who gave preferential treatment to fellow Christians) and any planed that he might have. The repairman had no marketing material whatsoever. He told us that he had some business cards, but never showed us one. Paul had the phone number written in a matchbook. I made it a mental note to always remember where the apartment was, just in case.

The apartment was littered with dozens of surfboards in various stages of disrepair. Two steel posts had been added to a late 1970s surfboard, which served as a bench on the front porch. In addition to repair work for surfers, the repairman did a full trade in buying, repairing and selling used surf boards. On most summer weekends, his camper full of used boards would be parked in the lot of a local strip mall on Beach Boulevard near the Westminister courthouse, where several merchants had combined to set up an open air market of rugs, home decorations, and used surfboards.

The name of this retail and repair business, as far as I know, was “the guy with the camper on Beach Boulevard”.

Last summer, I referred a coworker to the location for a used board, and received a report that the operation was no longer there. I conducted some research in an effort to determine what had happened to the business. “Brett.” I asked. “What ever happened to the guy with the camper on Beach Boulevard?” Unfortunately, my research produced no viable results.

More Later

-Travis

copyright 2004 by Travis R. English

Small Waves and Big Business

Brett had to park a full block from the coast highway on another crowded weekend. The Orange County Register surf report had published that the surf would be 2 - 3 feet. Sometimes surf reports are wrong.

The newspaper had also reported water temperatures above 70 degrees at all the Orange County beaches. The warm water was not surprising, given the heat wave that had been dumping energy into the county all week long. I skipped the wetsuit again and opted for trunks, with no rash guard.

"You've decided that you don't like your nipples?" Brett asked.

"I could use a little sun." I replied. It was an odd thing to say with the sky still dark in the cloudless navy blue pre-dawn. but, we both knew that twilight would be upon us soon, and sunlight would be a surplus.

The ocean was as calm as a lake. It was the flattest day that Brett and i had seen yet all summer. The biggest waves waves were one to two foot high, knee high at best.

"This breaks the former record." Brett said. "This is officially the smallest day that we've surfed."

Most of the surfers waited closer to sand, catching the shore break waves, and trying to pull out of them before hitting the sand. I decided to stay out where the bigger waves were breaking. Sometimes patience pays off.

The waves that I did catch, I rode all the way in to shore, pumping through the soft sections when the wave stopped breaking, and them building speed into the shore break section, hitting one good piece of the waves lip before falling off into the knee deep water.

On my paddle back out after one of the long rides, I noticed the clarity of the water in the morning light. The sun had broken over the horizon. I could see the outline of a ray moving across the sand floor through the water.

Back in the lineup, I took up recreational diving. Diving conditions are often inverse to surfing conditions. Visibility is best in calm, waveless waters. I would have been grateful for a pair of goggles or a mask, but wet-eye diving was more fun than sitting on a board waiting for small waves.

The sand bottom was calm and smooth, with only the occasional group of fish or small stingray scurrying from a comfortable burrow in the sand. Kelp pieces littered the floor. I left my leash tied to my leg, diving down and swimming as far as I could underwater.

I've heard that big wave surfers do breath holding exercises, trying to swim under water while two or three waves pass. I tried to stay under water for two waves, a "two wave count". Unfortunately, the waves weren't big enough for me to feel them pass from four feet under the surface. I might have stayed under for a four or five wave count for all I know.

Whenever I take to swimming and diving in the absence of waves, I get odd looks from the other surfers as if I am violating some fundamental rule of conduct. This, of course, amuses the heck out of me. We all came to have fun in the ocean. When the surf is not providing that fun, it ceases to be a surfing spot and becomes a giant swimming pool. I simply treat it accordingly.

"Tomorrow" I told Brett on our way back up the beach "I'm bringing goggles."

"Yea. You'll be really cool then. In fact, let's make sure that I'm seen with you."

Driving out of Huntington Beach, I spotted Brett's car in the lane next to me. I motioned to him to follow me. He rolled down his window.

"Follow me at this next turn." I told him through the traffic.

Brett pulled his car behind my truck and followed me for two blocks up Bolsa Chica Ave. One block later, he pulled up beside me, thinking that this was some sort of joke.

"What the hell are you....."

"It's coming up right here." I hollered, shifting down and pulling into the turning lane. I put on my right blinker.

We turned right on a residential street, a few blocks north of Brett's house. The zoning changed a block later. We passed a park on the right side of the street, and begin to see industrial buildings of the Los Angeles urban sprawl variety, single or two story warehouse style structures.

I checked the street signs, and make a left turn. I drove slowly, looking on both sides of the street. I didn't really know the address that I was looking for, so I keep my eyes glancing from side to side.

Then, I saw the sign. It was low to the ground, slightly obscured by a bit of landscaping. But, it was there. There was the unmistakable logo symbol, a view of Diamond Head in Waikiki through the barrel of a breaking wave, and all upper case lettering: QUIKSILVER.

Brett and I pulled into the front parking lot, stopping in the reserved spots nearest to the front door. With any luck, I thought to myself, I'm sitting in Bob McKnight's parking spot right now.

"You should get a job here." I told Brett. "It's only blocks from your house."

"What is this place?" he asked. "Is it some kind of distribution center?"

"No." I said, looking at the building. "This is Quiksilver corporate headquarters."

The Quicksilver corporate headquarters building is an unspectacular brown concrete tilt up building, sparsely windowed with all the architectural glory of a matchbox. On either side of the front doors, red surfboards stick up out of the ground with the Quiksilver logo emblazoned on them. The door handles are also surfboards. Aside from that, it's just a industrial park building. The carefully landscaped patches of trim green grass and short trees in concrete islands do little to detract from the general look of hard scape and asphalt.

In the curb on the corner of the street is a storm drain with the stencled warning: "No dumping. Drains to Ocean" This is where rainwater washes the dirt, grime, oil, fast food wrappers, and ciggerette butts from Quiksilver's parking lot out into the Pacific.

Brett and I circled the building. Several cars were parked in the rear parking lot, where three train sized air conditioning units are mounted on the ground, their large metal ductwork running up the concrete wall. Walking timidly into the rear parking lot, we found a half-pipe skateboard ramp built in place just behind the building. Locked chains are run across the wooden surface to discourage uninvited skateboarders. Brett noticed that the parking spaces were painted with the Quiksilver logo.

Behind the corporate headquarters is a large building with metal walls. From the eighteen wheel Quiksilver truck, we judged it to be a warehousing and shipping center.

"I wonder if they give tours. You know, P.R. type of things." Brett asked.

"I don't know." I said.

"How did you find this address?" He asked.

"Stock report." I old him. "Quiksilver is public."

Brett and I confirmed our meeting spot for the following morning, and I climbed back into my truck. I leave behind the home of the biggest company in the surfing world. I can't help thinking how strange it is that the sport of surfing is somehow strongly linked to this drab brown, concrete, air conditioned, industrial office park building.

I drove out of the office park to the north, and I couldn't help but notice who Quiksilver's neighbors were. The Quiksilver building is walking distance from a two full square block weapons development facility operated by Boeing, the world's second largest defense contractor.

"Welcome to Huntington Beach" I told myself. "Big surf business and big military spending."

More Later

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Notes:
Quiksilver headquarters (and Boeing) are located in the Westminister watershed. Click here for details.
The map is hard to read because it doesn't show street names, but I'm quessing that the storm drain connects to the Westminister Channel, which then combines with the Bolsa Chica Channel to dump into Huntington Harbor, which empties out into the ocean at the bridge between Seal Beach and Sunset Beach. So, if you want to surf in Quiksilver trash, try Anderson's.

Labor Day

Sunday - day 74

Brett's call interrupted the movie that my wife and I were watching on the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend.

"So, my neighbor says that it's going to be like 10 feet tomorrow." He said.
"Is that right?"
"That's what he says"
"And where did he hear about this?"
"Don't know"

On the other end of the line, Brett was browsing the Internet. Sure enough, the orange county paper was predicting 6-12 foot waves on their web report. Other sources seemed to conflict the report, most notably the swell prediction models made by the computers at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"So, there could be good surf, great surf, or just plain dangerous." Brett said.
"But, no matter what, if your neighbor has beard about it, there will be a million people out there."
"My neighbor thinks that the size will scare everyone away."
"Yea? Is he going?"
"Well, Yes. But he figures that everyone else will stay home."
"Not likely."

On my drive down the Pacific Coast Highway to Seventeenth Street, I passed Bolsa Chica State Beach, where a line of cars stacked back a quarter mile from the gates on both sides of the road.

I got to my usually parking spot at 6 am sharply, a full quarter hour before sunlight. Cars were already parked in waiting. Surfers dressed on the sidewalks in groups of twos and threes. I struggled to find a parking space within a block of the beach.

The surf was good. The big waves were head and a half high. I caught some very fun rides with on my shortboard, which I had brought out from several months of hibernation in my garage.

I decided to start bringing the shortboard on better days. The rides I had reminded me of the advantages of shortboards. They are fast and turn on a dime, allowing for a much more aggressive style of surfing. Of course, there are disadvantages. Smaller surfboards are less boy ant, and require more paddling to catch waves.

We stayed in the water nearly two hours, finally leaving at 8am, when the crowd was so thick that it was uncomfortably claustrophobic just sitting in the water.

Monday say slightly smaller surf, still very good, but with far less surfers.

Labor day weekend had brought a heat wave to Southern California. At my house in Anaheim during the day, temperatures topped 105 degrees. Even in the beach cities, temperatures reached 90 degrees just a few blocks from the water. Nevertheless, thousands of people swarmed to the beach for relief.

A sewage spill following a power outage leaked 13,000 gallons of sewage into the ocean at the Santa Ana River mouth, and produced a beach closure from the river jetties up to the state beach, pushing surfers and beach goers alike out of the area. They diverted north to Huntington Pier and south to Newport.

Surfers celebrated the arrival of the swell as some timely good waves on a holiday weekend. But, the size of the waves caused swimming conditions that were dangerous for the average swimmer. Lifeguards at the city beach in Huntington beach reported performing over 4,000 "preventative actions" - mostly warning swimmers about the hazardous conditions.

I saw Venice out in the water on Monday. She was wearing a baseball cap, strapped to her spring suit. "Man, the sun was so bright yesterday. The glare was killing me. I ended up with a migraine all day long."

Then she paddled off into the crowd.

After weeks of surfing every day, my arms finally gave out. I got caught inside the breaking waves, unable to make it past the break to the line up of surfers. I found myself caught in strong northbound current, which pulled me up the beach. I watched two lifeguard towers go by on shore, as I fought the blue and white foamy soup for what seemed like ages. Every paddle was a searing rip in the torn fibers of my arms.

When I finally made it through, I sighed a breath of relief, sat up, and waited. I was tired and knew that I was facing a long walk back to my truck.
i walked back to 10, caught two more waves and went in. I let several sets pass me by, watching the other surfers. At the tail end of one of the big sets, I saw a swelling peak of water coming right for me. No one else was paddling for it. It was a nice looking left, and plenty big.

I could have sat there another ten minutes resting. But, this wave was mine. I took it.

The Song for Change

Day 66

I told some other guys out there about the surfing every day streak. Many people mention Dale Webber, although not many know his name.

"You must not be married, bro." Chase laughs.

"That's why i go in the mornings!"I reply.

At home, my wife drank a cup of coffe and browsed the morning paper. The cover story included a mention of a professional surfer, a girl named Daize Shane.

Daize Shayne grew up in Waimanalo and Lanikai on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Daize's mom bought her a surfboard at the age of fifteen, and she would ride her bike to the beach for morning sessions, or after school to surf.

Blond, with a spectacular look, surfing magazines found the photogenic young wave rider irresistible. Daize picked up a sponsorship from Roxy (Quicksilver) to enter the professional surfing circuit. Around the same time, a modeling agency started signing Daize up for modeling jobs.

Without having seen her 25th birthday years old, Daize had won several major surfing contests, including two titles at the 1999 and 2004 Womens World Longboard Championship.

Daize has become a surf industry icon, riding waves for photo shoots and contests in exotic locations around the world, modeling for advertisements for a variety of surf wear companies, staring in commercials for Jack in the Box, MasterCard and Dr. Pepper, and glossing the pages of surfing magazines, womens magazines, GQ and Sports Illustrated among many others.

"Personally, I predict that over time there will be more women than men in surfing.", Daize says in an article posted on here website. "Women buy more clothes..."

Diaze also likes to sing, and with producer Cliff Brodsky launched her musical entertainment career with a solo album called "The Way I do" in 2003. A collection of acoustic light pop and folk ballads.

On one entitled, "Song of Change", Daize croons:
"No more religious war,
No death upon the poor.
We are all the same color.
No more transmitted disease.
No more breathing polluted breeze,
this is our world, if it were in peace."

On August 31, Diaze performed as a featured entertainer at the Republican National Convention in New York City.

Asked about her affiliation with the GOP and the re-election campaign of George W. Bush by Nathan Myers of Surfer Magazine, Daize answered: "I'm voting for Bush because he prays, he believes in traditional marriage, and he loves God, and I love God too."

When questioned further, the interviewer went so far as to mention the Surfrider Foundation's general negative attitude towards the president, Daize told Surfer Magazine that if she gets the chance to meet the leader of the free world: "I'll just tell him, "Can you please save our reefs." I will too. I'm not afraid to say that."

Daize claims that she does not own a gun, however, she does seem excited about weaponry, saying: "But I really want to go shoot 'em though. I think that would be really fun."

References (Date)
http://surfingthemag.com/pulse/08_26_04_daize_gop/ (08/29/04)
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/daizeshayne (08/29/04)
http://www.2004nycgop.org/schedule/index.shtml (08/29/04)
http://www.daizeshayne.com/Articles.htm (08/29/04

Translating Jerk

Saturday morning (Day 73)

I met Brett and one of the guys from my office at seventeenth at sunrise. The surf was medium sized and fun. I wore my watch, knowing that I'd promised my wife that I would meet her in Anaheim at 8:30 in the morning.

Just as the crowd began to thicken, I paddled after a good sized wave. I stood up and carved a line to the left down the open face. Reaching the bottom of the slope, I noticed a surfer paddling out on a shortboard. He was right in my path.

I veered sharply away from him, cutting back towards the wave, falling off my surfboard landing prone on it sideways, all in one hard and ungraceful motion. The maneuver worked, and was the equivalent of pulling the emergency brake in a car.

I saw his head slip into the wave, right in the place where my turn would have apexed.

I spent the next several seconds swallowing foam, as swirling white water dragged us both a few meters towards shore. I struggled to the air, and looked around for the guy.

He had lost his surfboard in the foam, and was climbing back onto it, turning towards the deep to paddle away.

"Are you okay, bro?" I asked.

"You better watch where you're fucking going asshole." he replied.

(Translation from jerk into English: "I'm fine. Thanks for asking.")

I've been the guy paddling into a wave in somebody's way. The proper way to deal with this is to swim behind the surfer into the white water, sacrificing yourself into the wave to preserve the other's ride. Sometimes though, try as one may, there's simply not enough time to get out of the way, and the rider has to give up the wave to avoid hurting both people. Usually, they do. And, usually, they'll make sure everyone is alright, and go on from there. If no one is hurt, there's no reason to dwell on it.

My watch told me that it was time to go meet my wife. I paddled in, discouraged. It wasn't that I had done anything wrong. Technically, I had every right to run that fool over and yell at him about it later. He was, after all, in my way, and ruined a perfectly good wave for me.

When it comes to surfing etiquette, I've always tried to err on the side of courtesy, no matter what the crowd is. Even with only a few people in the water, I'll speak up and offer peace for anything that could even be perceived as a breech of etiquette. Sometimes I do it just for the purpose of making conversation. I find that most people are understanding, and respond in kind. I've had people give me unnecessary quarters. People laugh off difficulties, or pull back and shout at me to take it, or invite me to drop into their path and share the wave - the ultimate violation of the "one wave, one rider" rule.

Surfers deal with crowds in different ways. Some people become more polite and understanding when the crowds grow thick. They laugh at the frustrations of trying to play a solitary game with nature in a mess of strange people dressed in black rubber. Some surfers can adjust and take the situation lightly. Other people.... well... can't.

More Later

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Starting a Routine

For the first week of surfing every day, every morning was a challenge.

My alarm clock went off at 5 a.m. and, wearily, I put my feet on the floor to go turn it off. I've always had to located my alarm clocks across the room from my bed. An alarm clock within arm's reach, for me, is a sure way to be late for everything. Still, I love the snooze button, and have been known to walk across the room four or five times to keep pressing it.

At five in the morning, my wife didn't show a lot of tolerance for snooze buttons. "Just go." she'd croak, while I was padding back towards the bed to snooze off ten more minutes, "Travis. I'm serious. Go. Get out. Leave."

Downstairs, I fumbled with the coffee machine, needing a morning cup of Joe to get things rolling. While I waited for the coffee, I ate some light breakfast.

By the middle of the first week, I began putting all my clothes for work on a single hanger. A pair of pants, a button down shirt and a belt would all go on the hanger. A pair of shoes was stuffed with a pair socks. In the beginning, I left my hanger and shoes near the kitchen table to be carried to the car before leaving. By the second week, I was putting the hanger and shoes into my truck the night before.

Aside from the work clothes, the surfboard, and some surf wax (normally bought ten bars at a time and stored in the refrigerator), there were a few personal hygiene items that I began keeping in my truck: a hair brush, some spray hair gel, and a stick of deodorant. To make the whole morning work out, I also used a three gallon drinking water jug, which had once been part of a kitchen drinking water dispenser. Three gallons of water, I found, is a pretty good shower after surfing. It's enough water to rinse my hair, my body, and my wetsuit.

All this preparation became quite a routine. Most days, I would come home from work and prepare for the next morning's surfing before even going into the house to sit down and rest.

Each day, Guenivere, my one year old daughter, looked up at the sound of my truck pulling up to the back patio of our townhouse. I parked in the service driveway temporarily to go through my routine. My kid, ever the participant, liked to help out.

Gwen ran to the back patio sliding glass door in time to see me walk into the fenced patio, carrying a surfboard, a towel and a wetsuit. I hung the wetsuit and the towel over the fence, and opened the glass door, letting the child run out into the afternoon.

She followed me to the truck, making up gibberish words and slapping her hands against anything in reach, while I retrieved the water jug and leftover clothing from the cab of the truck. Gwen watched intently as I filled the jug up from a garden hose, giggling uncontrollably when the jug filled and water spilled over the top.

She then followed me into the house, up the stairs (she crawls slowly up the stairs), and into the master bedroom, where I prepared my hanger of clothes for the next day. Back down the stairs we went. I had to carry her, as she has a tendency to stand at the top and cry.

Once out the back door, I picked up the three gallon jug and carried it, along with all the clothes, out to the truck. The jug went on the passenger side floor. The clothes were hung behind the seat.

I set the child on the passenger side seat, where she gleefully played with the gear shift, liberated that Daddy would let her in a car without a child seat. I got into the drivers seat, and started the car. We drove together without seatbelts for the extremely dangerous ten yards between our back porch and my parking spot in the street.

My wife came out of the back door. "Did you just drive her out to the street without a car seat?" she asked.

"No." I replied.

I would have gotten away with it, too, had not the child been screaming in excitement, waving her arms wildly and running in jumps from the passenger side of the truck.

More Later

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Off topic from the blog - confessions from the position formerly known as "the center"

Listening to the radio a while back - ok, I'll admit it, I was listening to NPR, I heard a print journalist arguing with a very liberal radio personality about welfare and class issues.

The journalist was not a big proponent of bloated welfare services nor was he the traditional bleeding heart liberal who wanted to save the whales at the expense of middle America.

"Listen" the journalist said. "I don't consider myself a leftist liberal. I just don't agree with aggressive unilateral foreign policy, I don't think we should write off social and class issues completely, and I'm not entirely convinced that global free markets is the absolute right answer all the time."

"I'm the position formerly known as the center."

I like that very much.... "the position formerly known as the center."

Before yesterday, I'd never voted for a Democrat in my life.

When I was a kid my dad taught me never to fight. If you can't talk your way out of it, just walk away. Violence rarely solves problems, and has a nasty way of creating problems. Even if somebody smacks you, the right choice is usually not to smack them back.

I punched a guy once. I was really mad at him. He was a good friend and he broke my heart. ("Fredo, I know it was you... You broke my heart") He knew it, too. He looked me straight in the face and told me "If you needed to take a swing at me, I'd understand." So, I did. I decked him with a hard right roundhouse to the jaw.

I'd like to say that it felt great, but it didn't. I was over at his place less than five hours later, apologizing.

My brother in law went to war this year. He's in the Navy, so he didn't get into the land battle. In fact, from what I understand, he didn't get anywhere near Iraq. He said he was in the northern seas of Africa. He was "hunting the Al-Queda." He's going back for a second tour. It's been scheduled so that he'll be gone on the day that he's supposed to be done with his service. I guess that sort of thing happens sometimes. I'm sure it wasn't intentional. Although, he did protest it, but was turned down.

My wife's favorite niece has this guy that she's dating. He's a Marine. He was over at my house the day before he shipped off to Iraq. It was during some of the bloodies times in Faluja, when Sadaat's body count was rising daily and just before we hit the 1,000 corpse mark. This poor kid from the south had been deferred from active duty due to a bad case of the night terrors. He would literally wake up screaming in the middle of the night. But, the Marines activated him, told him he'd be sleeping in "a safe place", and sent him into the heart of darkness.

This kid was in my kitchen talking to my wife and me. He told us how the Marines were going in there, cleaning up after the Army made a mess out of the situation. "Ever since the Marines showed up, it's under control." he told us. It was so odd, watching this guy. His head was pumped full of propaganda from the US military, which he kept repeating. "95% of the Iraqis WANT us there!" But behind his eyes and his Marine bred tough exterior - can you imagine the fear?

My wife's family speaks to him over there. He calls my niece often. He says that he can't really talk about a lot of things, but he'll tell us when he gets back.

"95% of Iraqis WANT us there!" he said.

It wasn't the first time I'd heard that particular statistic. To me, the number brings up some very silly images. How, I wonder, was that survey conducted? Who asked the questions? Iraqi journalists? French press? American military? What question was asked? 'Do you like the American occupation?', 'Did you prefer Saddam?', 'Do you favor removing Saddam?', or 'Here is a piece of paper, write yes on it or I will shoot you.', or maybe 'Here is a piece of paper, write whatever you like, and I promise I won't shoot you if I don't like what it says.'

But, it's not like John Kerry was the ticket to peace. Hell, Kerry was talking about more troops, more arms, more money, more, more, more. He couldn't wait for Bush to stop talking about supporting the troops so that he could talk about supporting the troops... but better.

What the hell are we doing in this war anyway?

I knew that Iraq didn't have WMDs. Not that the mainstream (liberal?) press helped me reach that conclusion. But, while this whole thing was warming up, before Colon Powell did his ball and cups show at the UN ("Now you see a camper shell.. now it's a mobile biological weapons lab."), I did a bunch of reading. I read all those estimates from the former weapons inspectors, and all them said that unless Saddam shits Twinkies, you'll never find anything more than some stockpiles of old chemicals that are now a bunch of useless goop. No nukes. No biological weapons. No new chemicals.

Now, I'm not a super smart guy, but somehow I was able to come across this information before we started bombing Baghdad. I even watched Colon Powell do his little show. I downloaded it from the internet and watched his whole presentation. I gotta tell you - He sucked. It was like "Pearl Harbor". There were no surprises, he tried to impress the audience with computer graphics, and nobody who watched it bought a frickin' word of it. All said and done, Ben Afflick was better than Colon Powell.

But hey, we made a mistake. We admit it. We'll move on. We'll try to do the right thing, right?

Hardly. The voice of the people has spoken. Apparently, a majority of Americans feel that there is no need to apologize for hitting Iraq.

It's not fair to those who died in Vietnam to call Iraq the Vietnam of our generation. Vietnam was a horrific bloodbath that Iraq hasn't come close to replicating. Some people would tell you that there is no similarity at all. But, I wonder, what was the lesson that we learned from Vietnam? And how did we apply it to Iraq? Or, did we ignore that piece of history when we made our choices?

I wonder what my daughter will ask me about Iraq. I wonder what her generation will ask us about cars, oil, Jihad, Israel, Arafat, Saddam Hussein.

I try to picture how a high school history book will sum up the last four years in less than a page with a little picture on one side and a caption.
"International Forces liberate Iraq"

Of course, Michael Moore is an asshole. I think even his fans know that he's an asshole. There's a guy out there making a movie called "Michael Moore Hates America", which ought to be interesting. I don't know if Moore hates America. I don't really like the guy, and I can't imagine that he'd be any fun to hang out with. He seems like one of those guys who would always talk down at you, or give you that false sympathy look. I watched his movies. Half of what he says is total garbage. But, the other half, unfortunately.. isn't.

The "news" this morning, actually some guy giving commentary, talked about "swing voters" who claimed that the most important issues in the election were "moral issues". Eleven states passed laws banning gay marriage and supposedly, all the talk about Supreme Court nominations brought out the pro-life vote.

That scares me. Sure. America is mostly Christian. We all know that. But, I thought that we tried to have this separation of church and state so that we could keep our government laws separate from our church laws. Of course, throughout our history, we've failed in various ways. We once outlawed alcohol on principal. That worked out really well, huh?

I'm not scared of someone restricting my freedom by making our government more Christian. I don't buy drugs or visit prostitutes. I'm straight. Heck, even if the Christian majority got all the laws turned to represent Jesus, it wouldn't change the way I live my life too much.

But, I can't help buy fear that the more religious we become as a country, the more open to Holy War we become. Right now, we have a "War on Terror", which is a war on a specific religious group. I know that not all Muslims are terrorists in the same way that not all Christians are Baptists. But, so far all the terrorists are Muslims, and they sure consider it a Holy War. They go to heaven if they kill us. Does Jesus send our boys to heaven when we kill them?

Now, I make fun of gays as much as any straight, gay-hating, fag-calling, queer-bashing homophobe I know. But I see the gay rights issue as today's Alamo of Christian Fundamentalism versus the modern era. The gays are the little pink Luke Skywalkers and Han Solos of the rebellion against the bible thumping empire. The popular vote has dealt them a crushing blow, but that's what intolerant majorities do to minorities. What did you expect? But, thank God that gays are so loud. I know that they'll keep making noise and they need to. Regardless of what the Bible says about marriage, it's now a function of the state, and a state cannot hand a marriage license to a straight couple and deny it to a gay couple just because they are gay. To quote Princess Lea, "It's not over yet."

And what about all this other stuff? We've been doing this globalization thing for almost twenty years now. Are we sure that it's working? What about that guy who wrote "The mystery of capital"? Can you really install a free market system in third world countries where the people have no enforceable property rights? "This is my house. I worked for it I bought it. I own it." "Yea, well, I'm bigger and there's no proof that you own it, and no courts to stop me, so get out or I'll beat you silly."

How is Iraq ever going to develop a middle class of consumers? For everything bad that we think about labor unions since Regan and Thatcher told us they suck, how else does anyone outside of the established upper class gain enough to buy property? Many of the communities where I live were built up in the 60s and 70s, when working class families from the unionized, heavily regulated economy moved out to California and could buy a house in a beach community on a factory worker's salary. Those same families sent their kids to college, call themselves upper-middle class, vote Republican, and talk about the wonders of deregulation and free markets.

And then we have the Mexicans, or, as the talk shows like to call them "the illigals". California tried to give "the illigals" driver's licenses, so that 10% of the population of our state could drive on the road legally rather than always being the uninsured motorist in a hit-and-run. But popular opinion lashed out like a coiled snake. We can't give them drivers licenses. Deport 'em. Every last one. The INS raided a church full of a mixed crowd of citizens and non-citizens and detained the whole lot. Is it OK to arrest legitimate citizens and say "Show me your papers"? And, for every illegal worker, isn't there an illegal employer? What are the odds that he's white, and makes a pretty good living?

But, the important thing is that we provide government money to foster private profits. This is the kind of thing that makes me sick. It's what Ralph Nadar calls "corporate welfare". By my house, we have a nice stadium that houses the Anaheim Angles. The whole thing was built by taxpayer dollars, and somehow I doubt that an appropriate share of my ticket price goes back to the city coffers to pay it back. No need to wonder who gets all the profits, it's pretty clear. Nobody is hiding.

My property tax is also paying off bonds for city improvements that we part of the Disney California Adventure deal. Great. Maybe I can take my kid there some day. Oh, it'll cost me half a stack of bills? Cool. That's fair.

The entire drug industry in the United States is heavily subsidized by federal monies. My tax dollars pay to develop new drugs. The distribution right are then simply turned over to drug companies who don't pay me back for developing them. Then, when I want to use these drugs, I pay out of my ears. And, my representatives protect the whole process. They'll arrest me if I buy drugs from Canada or Mexico.

Hey, what a deal!!! I have an idea. Let's take our deficit state budget and throw $6 billion towards doing some more of this! We'll call it "stem cell research", and anything that gets developed, we'll simply hand off to whatever company wants to make the money. Do you think we can get Christopher Reeve to help us sell this one? Everybody loves Superman in a wheelchair!

My wife says that I'm a pessimist. "You think everything is a goddamn conspiracy, don't you." she asks. "Maybe we should get you some Prozac. You're depressed."

I hope so.

So, Kerry looses the popular vote. He could be an ass and try to fight for Ohio, and, who knows, maybe get the presidency. Howard Stern, a strong Kerry supporter, came on the radio first thing this morning and advised Kerry to simply announce victory. Ok boys, we're down to one state, it looks like the other guy is in the lead.... hey, WE WON!

Then I heard that Kerry conceded. Good for you, man.

You had my vote.

From the position formerly known as the center,

-Travis