At-Large Magazine’s Mixtape: The A-Sides
Posted on April 28, 2009
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Look for Josie Schoel’s poem in the latest issue.
058: springtime steamers
Posted on April 25, 2009
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back to the lane. south swell and the point is working, clean and head high. too windy everywhere else. springtime northwesterlies.
a small bump is showing at middle peak, but the real action is at the point.
the point. a serious pressure cooker. incredible surfers nearly always choke the lineup. crowds of people on the cliff, including photogs with the long tell tale white canon “L” lenses. snap snap snap. and a water photog today.
work my way over slowly, picking up scraps.
then the crowd thins out for an hour or so, and I get to nab a few off the point, race past the section to avoid getting creamed on the cliff, and into the inside. damn, what a wave. can you imagine what it might have been like 50 years ago, before the crowds?
of course it can’t last long. a half dozen guys jump off the cliff into the point lineup and proceed to tear it apart. impossibly deep takeoffs. fins-free gashes. airs. cover-ups. sometimes all on one wave. flashbulbs popping. sort of like watching a live surf movie.
I watch for a while, a few yards from a little otter floating on his back, eating. The sea lions bark. A couple younger guys are fighting in the water against the cliff. time to paddle in, I’m content with what I was lucky enough to get.
057: heat wave
Posted on April 19, 2009
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// clipped from an email to a good friend back east…
Jimbo-
there is this rad restaurant right at the beach where the park meets the ocean, it has a big outdoor area / beer garden to eat and hang out. Session all morning long right across the street at VFWs (Ocean Beach), well overhead and clean and sunny. then Jos comes down to meet me for a big ole Ahi steak sandwich and grilled oysters, wash it down with Arnold Palmers and some class suds from their brew pub… while across the way the bombs are still detonating up and down the beach. KA-BOOM! cracking lips, barrels all over the place. a few beers and mimosas deep in the sunny garden at that joint, and then we wander back across to the beach and pass out in the sun… sunburned and noodle armed. feels like summertime back east right now. heat wave; 80s and 90s for a few days here. git yer ass out here already!
056: fog
Posted on April 18, 2009
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looking decent from up on the roof early in the morning. by the time I make it to the beach, the fog that had been with us all night is back. really back. can’t see anything from the lot. can’t see anything from beach. thick.
paddle out into a fifty yard dome of grey, with a bright spot overhead. glassy and chest to head high surf, rolling in out of the fog. not perfect shape, but I get a nice long one, a really long one. pumping through sections all the way to the inside. ah yes, it’s all worth it now. there are other guys out, each in their own little fog domes. sometimes our domes overlap. we look at eachother curiously.
fssshhhhhwww! sea lion within a stones throw away comes up for air loudly, looks at me over his shoulder. then birds. lots of birds. and pelicans gliding. some small jellyfish drifting. foghorns blasting, answering one another’s calls.
Poster: Great Lake Swimmers
Posted on April 15, 2009
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Poster for the Great Lake Swimmers when they played at the Bottom of the Hill, in April, 2009. Bandleader Anthony Dekker is a class act, and even signed one of the copies for me. Same process as the White Denim poster; multiple pass inkjet on handmade paper in lieu of actual screenprinting.
Check out the Great Lake Swimmers. If you don’t like them, you are likely dead inside.
Poster is 13″ x 21″
Career Evolution – Art Director
Posted on April 14, 2009
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Cardboard solar oven
Posted on April 9, 2009
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Cardboard solar oven wins first prize
I had seen a higher tech, production version of a solar oven work at the Possibility Alliance in Missouri, and was quite impressed. They really work remarkably well.
Poster: White Denim
Posted on April 8, 2009
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Did up a poster for a band from Austin who was coming through town for a show last week. Original plan was to screenprint, but time and resources were short. I ended experimenting with my Epson large format printer using thicker, non-photo art paper and sending the prints through multiple times to simulate the overlays of real screenprinting. It’s nice to get away from web delivered stuff once in a while.
The downside is you don’t get the feel of screenprints, and there is no such thing as white ink on a printer, which limits your paper colors somewhat. In fact, the printer is using what it is assuming is the white of the paper as a color to mix colors, so results vary with off-white papers. Both the Bottom of the Hill (SF club) and the band were into it, which was great. I’ll be selling some on Etsy sometime in the near future.
Check out White Denim.
Poster is 13″ x 21″
The Revolution Will Be Twitterized
Posted on April 8, 2009
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Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter – NYTimes.com
055: big(ger) sur
Posted on April 6, 2009
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yesterday was a playful day of clean, shoulder high to a couple feet overhead reefbreak, powerful and fun. today, well, it’s a different story.
this morning had me up early and out of the tree we slept in, itself an incredible experience. down the hill to the cliff. the view from up top had me rubbing my eyes… is it really breaking way out there? hey that’s a guy out there paddling for a bomb! head and a half to double overhead changed the dynamics of this place pretty significantly. a different ballgame. made me wish I had my semi-gun… something more than the 6′4″ which had been perfect yesterday.
gave it a go regardless. certainly bigger than it looked from up top. one guy out, sitting way out the back. the 8′ gun he is riding is looking maxed out, he is catching the real set waves. damn, this is a fast and powerful wave. he knows the spot and where to be.
I sat outside and tried to paddle into a couple big ones where he was, but it just wasn’t going to happen, not on the big outside sets. There might be some surfers who can paddle into surf like that on a 6′4″ —I saw some of those lads in Hawaii— just not me.
caught a few of the more inside waves closer to where the peak was the day before, like in the photo above. Racing, walled up lefts, and a right or two.
tide draining, things getting strange. massive walls across entire cove. caught inside pretty bad for several waves. make it out back for another quick white-washy ride. maybe I’ll quit while I’m still ahead. dart in during a lull and escape the pounding shorebreak.
bonus: freshwater rinse in the creek after your surf, and then back up to the hot-tub.
I’ll be back to this spot…
keep looking »