Peru: The Arrival

Backseat vantage point in a taxi in Peru.

I'm a long way from home, thousands of miles in fact, but seemingly not that far: "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People is on the radio. I'm in the back seat of a rickety taxi, which is driving me through the dark streets of Lima, Peru. The warm night air is thick with body odor and diesel exhaust. I was a bit apprehensive when I saw the vehicle: it looked as though it doubles as a bumper car. I'm in this car because once I came through customs at the airport, this man had a sign with my name and the name of the organization I'm working with. Therefore, I trusted him with my life and all of my belongings.

On second thought, the sign was drawn with a Sharpie. I hope I haven't made a grave mistake.

I don't know much about Peru and it seems, sadly, that my grasp of the Spanish language is about the same. The driver tries to speak with me, something about my first time in Peru. I manage a 'Si,' and I think he senses that's about the extent of my conversational skills, so he goes silent. I watch the buildings pass by, looking for those little things that set one country apart from another: architecture, color schemes, refrigeration. I try to read some of the billboards, understanding little. I take further comfort in the fact that I, at least, know the music on the radio.

If there is one universal lesson I've learned in my travels it's that transportation is always a wildcard. Riding in a taxi teaches you about the culture, the people. Are they patient? Are they protective of one another? In both China and now Peru, the goal just seems to be "get there, and get there fast." It's like riding in a New York taxi, with zero attention paid to whatever laws may exist. Or maybe that's the problem: I didn't see anything resembling a police officer who gave a damn about reckless driving in either country. The similarity between the drivers in the two countries were liberal use of the horn. It's used for announcing you're passing someone on the shoulder, announcing that you're not stopping at an intersection, scaring tourists, greeting other drivers, and for adding to the already unpleasant experience of sitting in traffic and for whatever reason believing it will provide a solution to said traffic (this one applies in the US of A).

In the end, it all works out. I arrive at my destination in one piece, having passed the Atlantic City Hotel-Casino and lots of other buildings draped in bright sparkling lights. Casinos are a big part of the economy in Lima, I learn. This ruins my excitement about the city a bit. Not that it will much matter. I didn't come to Lima to gamble, I came to work and to eat ceviche.

Part of the drawback of my role as a Media Manager for the International Surfing Association is the long hours of work once an event is on. We're in Peru for the inaugural ISA World StandUp Paddle and Paddleboard Championship. Mostly I write press releases, write most every script needed for web announcers, beach announcers and everyone else, and make sure that media around the world who may be covering the event has what it needs. It's mostly thankless work, but it pays and it gets me around the world.

The work and the hours keeps this from being a vacation and keeps me from having time to be a tourist.

In China, the location was so remote and the buffet-style food so palette-numbing, that I didn't get to experience the Chinese culture as much as I would have liked. I make it this trips focus not to let anything similar transpire. I will be a tourist.

To be continued...

Photography Series: Up Above

Our surroundings so rarely change. The buildings, the cars, the people – they all remain largely the same as they were yesterday, the week or month prior. I think that's why when I've been shooting photographs lately so little of the frame actually focuses on buildings, highways, people, mountains or any other type of stationary object. When I'm shooting wide-angle, most of my photos are focused on what's above us. It's not necessarily something I do deliberately, but when I'm looking through the viewfinder, and tilt my camera ever so slightly upward, I end up liking what I see more than whatever may have been the intended subject. It's something about the colors, the changing cloud patterns, or even cloudless skies, and the idea that there's so much out there above and beyond our daily existence. There's a daily interaction between the land and the sky, turning similar images into entirely different ones depending on the lighting, the clouds, or with the presence of an awe-inspiring sunset.

It all makes me want to take flight, or at least snap another photo.

Los Angeles, from The Getty. November 2011.

The Jesus, from Taco Surf, Baja California. November 2011.

Oil Platforms off Newport Beach. July 2011.

East Village, Manhattan from Williamsburg. November 2011.

Dana Point Harbor. November 2010.

Huntington Beach Pier. January 2010.

Catalina and the Pacific, from Strands Vista. October 2011.

Sunset over Salt Creek Beach. March 2011.

Californication

Hank Moody has the life I could fantasize about having, but know I would be miserable in if it were my reality. I think. (Forgive me for my pause and assessment. Yep, it's official: forgive me Father, for I have sinned...)

His constant boozing and womanizing with model-types and cougars is exciting. Forgive me as I try to dive far too deep into the psyche of a f*cking TV show. But let's be real: amidst the hangovers and the debauchery and the threesomes, there's certainly something depressing about Hank and his life and his career and his living of the American Frat Boy Dream. Ok, so I write that and find myself second-guessing my own analysis. Drinking top shelf at swanky bars and stacks of gorgeous women who present themselves in the most desirable of ways and positions and negligee – it's compelling stuff. Sure, he has that troubled soul and a family and a soft side that he so desperately wants to embrace, the happy life with his stunning wife and rebel daughter, but he can't find it in himself to change his teenage ways. Yeah, there's that conundrum. Yada, yada, yada.

It's a f*cked up and thrilling series all in one. It's a portrayal of Los Angeles as it could be, when it's not perpetually over-capacity and smoggy and pretentious. It's the LA 99 percent of us could never be a part of unless we're studio heads, best-selling pop-culture novelists or the real life version of the "Entourage" crew.

As a writer and lover of women, Californication captures my attention, imagination, and guilt. I couldn't and wouldn't live that life, but I can surely watch and wonder. The fifth season needs to begin. Yesterday.

Driving the CA-1 and the Memories That Come

Sometimes it's easy to forget that there's more to California than densely-populated cities, filled with jam-packed superhighways and a never-ending stream of billboards. Make your way north of Los Angeles County and suddenly there are miles and miles of rural and mountainous terrain that is not covered in concrete grey. The Pacific is a deeper, more natural shade of blue, the presence of nature isn't artificial. It's refreshing.

When my lady and I opted to drive to the Bay Area as opposed to flying, I decided we should retrace a familiar path from my childhood. My parents had quasi-hippie friends who lived beneath a bridge in Big Sur. No, not like hermits. Just a young family that had a house on stilts, surrounded by trees and nature and located nowhere near a strip mall. When we made trips to visit, my parents would load my brother, sister and me into the VW Vanagon before sunrise and we'd wake just in time for breakfast near "the big rock" in Morro Bay. I have vivid memories from many of those trips, including the time I caught my first garden snake, approached a baby seal on the beach, and the time we were grilling on the beach, only to witness a base jumper leap from Bixby Bridge, all those thousands of feet above us, and then we hid his parachute in our cooler and lied to police.

This road trip was, in a way, a trip down memory lane. We passed "the big rock," we drove the curvey CA-1, swerving along the deep bluish-green Pacific, and came around a bend to see Bixby Bridge in the distance. That family is no longer there and I hadn't been back to Big Sur in over a decade. It was a fun place to spend parts of my childhood. I can't help but laugh thinking of my dad wearing his short-shorts and lugging around that massive video camera on his shoulder, only to turn it on himself and offer commentary. Some things never change.

Here's some moments from our trip up CA-1. Enjoy.

It's All Over For Harry Potter and Crew — and Me

I'll admit it: I'm a bit obsessed with the Harry Potter series. Not in a I'll-dress-as-my-favorite-character-for-a-midnight-screening kind of way, but I've counted down the days, with a sense of sorrow, to the release of the final movie in the series.

Other than the books, I don't own any Harry Potter memorabilia. I can't quote the books, nor do I know any oddball trivia about the characters. But I read every book. I watched every movie. And I nearly teared up a bit during the final installment.

Yes, I finally saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II. I thought about seeing a midnight screening when it came out a few days ago, but I'm several years older than when I first began with the Harry Potter series, and staying up that late doesn't go over that well come the next morning. Besides, I wanted my senses to be sharp in order to soak in and appreciate everything that was happening in this final film of an incredibly epic series.

I can appreciate the Harry Potter series on a number of levels (I may get into that in a future post). What J.K. Rowling created on a host of napkins all those years ago is something to admire. Now, to have it all come to an end is, I'll admit, saddening. I remember when the seventh book arrived in the mail. I had pre-ordered it. I'd never pre-ordered anything in my life. I had re-read the previous six books in anticipation of diving into the final book of the series. As the pages stacked from right to left, I grew reluctant. I didn't want to finish. I knew there was nothing more. What's most surprising about these feelings is that I was adamantly opposed to even trying to read the first book for nearly 6 years. I didn't think a children's story included magic and wizards was anything I'd be remotely interested in.

How very wrong my assumptions proved to be.

I know there are people who may laugh at my fondness for the series. I'm 28, so I shouldn't be gushing about a piece of children's literature. But those who laugh probably haven't read the books. That's part of why I have such respect for Rowling and world she created: it speaks to and entertains a broad audience. There's a reason why she's sold millions of copies of each book and why it's the highest-grossing movie series ever. That's not by accident or genius marketing. It's by one person convincing another person and that person passing it on to someone else and so on. I, too, was once a doubter. Now I can't wait to have my children read and watch Harry Potter some day.

Oh, and I'm considering naming my first dog Potter. (Seriously.)

Women's World Cup: We Can't Not Watch

At 11am, Pacific Standard Time, we'll gather around our plasma screens or our computers and cue ESPN. Some of us will chant "U-S-A". Some of us may be wearing jerseys, others may have been so festive as to paint our faces. Collectively, we'll be rooting for a team that two months ago, the majority of us hardly knew existed. The names were foreign then; they're celebrities now. All it took was one Hail Mary cross into history.

Hope Solo. Abby Wambach. Megan Rapinoe. Ali Krieger.

These are names that are inspiring a new generation of soccer players, male and female. They are taking the places of the Mia Hamms, Brandi Chastains, and Julie Foudys. These are the names that are making a country care about a tournament in Germany that they otherwise wouldn't even had known was ongoing. This is mostly a country of baseball lovers and NASCAR addicts. (Soccer hardly has a pulse beyond AYSO.) But we're a country that loves drama. A final second goal by Landon Donovan made us care about the men two years ago. This year, it took an improbable comeback against a chippy rival to stir interest. That happened against Brazil and the world's best player, Marta. Fortunately, the Hail Mary cross found its target. Wambach did the rest. And a country had the Cinderella Story it needed in order to care.

The tournament in Germany comes to a close today: USA vs. Japan in the World Cup Final. Thank you, ladies, for making us care.

The Superbank Comes to OC (Not Exactly)

The swell in the water had all the beachbreaks from T-Street to Cottons working.

The North Shore's Mason Ho launching backside at T-Street.

A Bit of Recent Surf Imagery

Though my blog may indicate otherwise, it's actually been a while since I last shot surfing. True, I've done a few casual shoots with afternoon light at the various breaks near my place in Dana Point. But the past two weeks were the first time I'd spent consecutive hours on the sand, documenting a surf contest ongoing in the water.

Two weeks ago I was at Trestles, in San Onofre State Park, for the Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro. Pretty much every up-and-coming name in surfing was on hand, along with a swath of the top international competitors. By the final days of competition, it was down to a pair of local talents and a bunch of Brazilians. The Brazilians overcame.

A few days after the contest, a one-day event went off at 54th Street in Newport Beach, the Ghetto Juice Airshow. A number of the young flyers from the contest had hung around and decided to take part in this unique airs-only event. Great for shooting and people on the beach. Not so great when the surf doesn't cooperate. Didn't seem to bother the competitors much, who found plenty of launch ramps.

Fun few days. Now back to shooting anything and everything else.

Kelly Slater Invented (Modern) Surfing

Photo: ASP/Robertson

The man should have his own holiday. And a postage stamp. A beach named after him. Maybe a KS clothing line. A reality TV show that follows him through his day. Better yet, his own station, a 24-hour program, a la The Truman Show. A podcast. A shrine at every break the ASP World Tour frequents over the course of a season. He should be carried to the water line and fanned with palm fronds every time he surfs. Surfers should part the line-up and he should be allowed to catch any and every wave he paddles for. The days of the surfing calendar (if one existed) should be adjusted for B.K. (Before Kelly) and A.K. (After Kelly). The sport itself should be renamed: Slatering.

Kelly Slater has had that sort of impact. No, he didn't literally invent the sport. And everyone knows Duke Kahanamoku is the "father of modern surfing." But "modern" is a relative term. Duke's surfing was nothing like it is today. Surfing today isn't what it was when KS appeared on the scene as a blue-eyed, squeaky-voiced prodigy in Florida. If Duke is the father, perhaps that makes KS surfing's Jesus or Muhammad or some other divine spirit essential for the betterment of surfing, someone better than anyone before him, year after year after year after year, and so on. In surfing so well, making the once counter-culture sport so appealing to a wider marketplace, he single-handedly transformed surfing into the financial enterprise that it is today. It didn't hurt that he made some well-publicized mistakes (Baywatch, dating Pamela Anderson) along the way. Or that he's a good looking guy. Or that he can string together a couple sentences in post-heat interviews that doesn't contain the typical substance-free surfer-speak. He's exactly what surfing wanted, but never knew it needed.

The media and the critics like to try to hurl barbs. It's what the media does. It feasts on controversy and nay-saying. And yet, every time the critics, the magazines or the announcers think they've identified a weakness, a kink in the armor, something that will allow the next generation or the next big name to finally unseat the king from his throne, he responds. He improves. He gets stronger or more flexible or faster. The man is on the wrong end of his 30s from where most athletes hit their performance peak and, yet, it may be safe to say that Kelly Slater is a better, more dynamic surfer at 39 than he was at 29. That's not natural.

He's got 10 world titles. Mark Richards, the next closest, has four. He's Michael Jordan, without the guidance of Phil Jackson or help of Scottie Pippen. He's Lance Armstrong, minus the performance enhancing drugs (come on, the truth will come out soon enough). He's Tiger Woods (sans bushel of mistresses), without the helicopter parents and in a sport that is far more physically demanding. Kelly Slater should be considered one of the greatest athletes of all time. But he won't, because surfing is still on the outside of mainstream sports, looking in. One day sports fans will realize.

As for the New York Times article by Matt Warshaw calling for KS to walk away, along with the various bloggers and media folk echoing the same belief: back off and let the once-in-a-lifetime athlete do his thing. Maybe he has another title or two in him. Maybe he'll step away slowly, competing in (and occasionally winning) a handful of contests a year. He's earned the right to dictate the remainder of his competitive career. Dane Reynolds, Jordy Smith, Owen Wright, Julian Wilson—all the young guns can wait. Or they can try to usher KS into retirement. But it doesn't seem to be working so far.

Quite a bit of the reason why anyone really gives a damn about surfing is because of the contributions of this one man. He's helped the sport to advance. He made being a professional surfer a viable career choice (sure, the Australians busted down the door, but KS made it so that drug-running wasn't a part of the gig). He's inspired legions of groms. He gave surfing a face. He invented surfing as we know it.

Reason No. 473...

...for why it's quite nice to live along the coast in Southern California. Sunsets are not created equal, and this one from March 30, overlooking Salt Creek, was spectacular. Saw quite a few people scrambling for their iPhones and cameras to capture the sight.

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ASP World Tour Back in a Minute

It seems just days ago that Kelly Slater was crowned world champ for the tenth time in his career and the Triple Crown wrapped up the compeittive season in Hawaii.

And yet, here it goes again. The 2011 season is just days away, kicking off with the Quiksilver Pro on Australia's Gold Coast. The slate is wiped clean, and once again, everyone is a contender.

Okay, enough with the blowing of the smoke. As it goes with the men, there are only a handful of realistic contenders: Jordy, Mick, Parko, Taj and, until he officially announces he's done, Kelly. With as well as he was surfing last year, it doesn't make sense that Kelly Slater will gracefully fade into the retirement abyss. He'll come out firing at Snapper Rocks, and depending on his result, the remainder of the season will be dictated.

Dane Reynolds would be the other realistic contender, but he's withdrawn from the first event, supposedly due to a knee injury. That's not good for the World Tour. No other surfer not named Kelly draws a crowd and webcast viewers quite like Dane. Kelly can't carry the Tour forever. Jordy is said to be the heir apparent, but even Jordy doesn't excite quite like Dane does. My concern is that the deficit from the gate will discourage Dane from seeing the season through. The Tour needs his flair and excitement from contest to contest. They need his weird post-heat interviews and his unorthodox heat strategy (Read: No strategy). Competitive surfing needs its mad scientist.

That said, I'm hoping Joel Parkinson, aka Parko, wins this one. I'm not much of a Mick fan and Taj just doesn't seem as committed as some of his fellow uber-fit Aussies. Parko is one of the smoothest surfers and one of the classiest chaps on Tour. He's had a few bad breaks the past couple seasons, but that time off last season should hopefully have him amped to keep his mind focused for all 10 events.

Here we go.

Photo: ASP/Cestari

A Few Moments of South County Surfing

Salt Creek. Strands. Beachbreaks. The occasional rock reef. Crowds. Seperation. Sponsored talent. Unknown shredders. Fish. Shortboards. SUPs. Barrels. Launch ramps. Lefts. Rights. Groms. Oldies. Punks. Hippies. It's very much a different world from surfing Newport and Huntington, sometimes for better, other times for worse. But the water looks cleaner and usually the crowds are fewer. Maybe it's the having to walk down a hill thing that keeps more at bay. Thank goodness for people being lazy.

Beginning of My OC Portfolio

Finding and telling good stories is rarely easy. First finding a story that readers will want to invest their time in reading, with compelling characters who are willing to open up their world to a complete stranger. It's more difficult than it sounds.

After three months in CA, I've completed three cover stories for OC Weekly. Each has been interesting and fun to work on in their own ways, but I've really been happy with the way only one has turned out. It was a story I found with characters I was able to spend ample time around. That wasn't the case with my first two stories.

The first was a look into 50 years of surfing's best known and most read magazine, SURFER. Having previously worked in the surf industry, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking to some of the key media players from throughout the years, including the magazine's founder and the father of surf media, John Severson. These days he's retired and living on Maui, mainly painting and still surfing when the waves are there. I also had the opportunity to chat with the magazine's first influential editor after JS, Drew Kampion; Steve Pezman, the one-time editor and publisher; the editor who was at the helm during the magazine's most competitive and evolutionary period, Paul Holmes; and Matt Warshaw, who had a short stint as editor, but has evolved into surfing's foremost historian; along with a few other players and current staff. It's amazing just how comprehensive one publication can be, but seeing as how they started the industry, it's understandable that they would be the ones to contribute some of the most significant work to date. It's been the media face of the sport since its inception into the media business in the '60s. Quite a wild and impactful 50-plus years.

Weeks later, I had the opportunity to shoot from the photo pit at KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas, standing in the shadow of OC punk-rock's godfather, Mike Ness of Social Distortion. With over 30 years of music behind them and a new album set to release, they were part of the conversation once again. It was my first celebrity profile of sorts, and it showed in the amount of time I was given with the band: one 30 minute sit-down with Ness, phone interviews with the guitarist and bassist, and lingering during the cover photo shoot. Just to get to that point took significant time. There were multiple emails and phone calls to the record label publicist and band manager, mostly to no avail. Eventually, with only days to meet my deadline, the meetings came together. It wasn't an ideal situation for putting together a 3,500-plus word profile, but with the help of some peers who were more involved in the music scene, it came together. The piece turned out fairly well, but, no doubt, would have been much better if given substantial time to hang around the guys more in their element.

The third and most recent piece, which I found the most fulfilling and which turned out the best (in my opinion), was the story of a group of unknown, underground big-wave surfers from OC. Though they're known to surf at various big-wave outposts around the globe, they tend to stick to Baja California and Mainland Mexico, and most often frequent their favorite spot, a wave called Killers off that breaks off Todos Santos, a small, uninhabited island. They welcomed me along on one of their attempts to track a swell out to Killers, after days of hype and hope. I sat on a boat in the channel out in the middle of the ocean, with nothing but open seas to the west, while they paddled into and towed into some good size waves. Being big-wave surfers, I expected ego-driven hardheads. The guys I met were quite the opposite. They were welcoming and funny, articulate and laid-back. They've already invited me to tag along when the next substantial swell rolls through and they return to Todos Santos.

The next piece will be my first foray into investigative journalism, but I'm pretty confident I can put together something I'll be proud of and that readers will enjoy. Thanks for reading.

Cheeseheads Rejoice

From ESPN.com

Aaron Rodgers officially steps out from No. 4's shadow. Packers injuries continue; Packers continue to perform despite them. Packers defense keeps Steelers in check, forcing game-deciding turnovers. Hyped Steelers D has no answer for Rodgers arm; best D is WRs dropping passes. Big Ben's karma. Packers win fourth Super Bowl. Cheeseheads across the country rejoice.

There Be Waves In Those Waters

Been talk for a while now about the coming set of swells. They were said to be coming in three and would be rolling through back-to-back-to-back. The third (the one somewhat documented below) is beginning to show and is expected to generate waves in the the stunning-size-range, so much so that The Eddie big-wave event at Waimea Bay on Oahu may run tomorrow (Thursday). If you have a few extra minutes, head for the coast and see if you can catch or view a few. Below is the view looking south toward Strands from the lifeguard tower near the point at Salt Creek.

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