In the meantime, Music

Since I can't practice surfing until Labor Day weekend, I have to continue on with my other main interest, which would be music. My currently unnamed band (we have played under the names "Fluid" and "Happy Shatner" within the last 6 to 8 years) is in rehearsals with a new drummer, and are in the process of completely revamping our setlist.
What that means is that we dumped about 2/3 of our songs and are learning a whole bunch of new stuff. Which means a lot of work.
See, we have always been a variety band. We have played everything from Merle Haggard to Tool, with the occasional blues tune, or 80s retro or whatever. Basically, we were a jack of all trades sort of band. But after an 8 or 9 month layoff after we lost our previous drummer, we're trying to get hooked up with a new booking agent who will get us into some of the better bars around town. What, exactly does that mean? It means dump everything that isn't rock, pretty much, which is fine with me, but, as I mentioned, will involve a lot of work.
We're spreading the list out over the rock tunes of the last decade or so, with some very current stuff like Green Day, Jet, and The Strokes bumping up against some Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Lenny Kravitz and whatnot. The Gin Blossoms snuck in there, as have Violent Femmes, Ramones, Black Crowes, Toadies, the Cure and quite a few others.
After we have a name and some bookings, I'll put up some show dates and keep you posted. Both of you.

laters, pretty people.

I seek the stoke!

So what, do you think, would possess an outwardly normal forty-something man to suddenly decide, practically out of nowhere, to learn to surf. The answer is that it has something to do with something called a "raison d'etre." This is a French term which, loosely translated, means "what is this crap and why should I care."
Actually, the meaning has more to do with having a reason to get up in the morning, but I enjoy attributing odd things to the French, just as a matter of course. Now, don't get me wrong. I have lots of things to motivate me to get up and face a new day (every single day so far, for, by my calculations, over 15,000 times up to this point). I have a reasonably good job which isn't really all that bad. I have an awesome wife, a great kid, a nice house, my health, a band, and lots of interests to keep my brain engaged.
For lots of people, those things provide all the satisfaction they would ever need. And if that were all I had and all I could have, it would be enough. But I can have more and be more, because I can do more. So I think I'd like to.
Lots of folks yammer on and on about happiness. What it is and how to get some of it. Let's get the cliches out of the way, shall we? I think most of us agree that it is a journey, not a destination, that it comes from inside, not outside, that money doesn't buy it and in any event, it cannot be stored up and saved for a rainy day.
The non-cliche is that everybody's different. What makes you happy might bore me to tears (or vice-versa). I mean, if happiness is simply a sense of well being and contentment, I'm not so much interested. Cows are contented. And they never seem to have a problem with constipation. And they hardly ever need therapy.
But, let's just say that I aspire to more than just another pasture, even if it is a bit greener than the one I started in.
For me, it's true that, at least to some degree, happiness is contentment, but paradoxically enough, contentment (for an intellligent human being) requires effort. It's kind of like the difference between fun and joy. I mean, fun, is, well, fun. Most people are pretty much pro-fun, I think. But joy is different, and better. To really experience joy, you have to immerse yourself in whatever you're doing.
The short version (yeah, yeah, I know it's a bit late for that) is that my concept of happiness is that sort of active contentment, mixed with genuine accomplishment, satisfying relationships, a spiritual awareness and liberal applications of joy. You know, some active actual exhileration mixed in with the contentment.
This is where the twin concepts of surfing and flow come in. If you're not familiar with the concept of "flow" it's the experience of total involvement in the task at hand. It's what athletes often describe as bing "in the zone," and, I believe, what surfers refer to as "stoke."
I seek the stoke. I'm reminded of another prescription for happiness I've heard that I think is pretty close to on the money. What you need to be happy, it is said, is "something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to."
Right now, surfing is one of the things I look forward to. It's not the only thing, the McGuffin upon which all my dreams and the plot of my future hangs. I still look forward to playing and accomplishing some things with my band and my songwriting. I look forward every day to getting home and seeing my wife. I sometimes anticipate the liquid gold of a beer going down my neck like a frenchman anticipates a liason with his mistress.
But I think that the thing about surfing that has me so wound up in anticipatory fervor is the pure physical nature of it. The culture, the image, the lifestyle that are bound up with the surfing mythos are only icing on the cake. It is the essence of the action of mastering a skill so that it can be done without conscious thought that feeds the real need.
And in the meantime, I'll be taking my runs, pushing the weights, doing some surf oriented calesthenics and feeding the anticipation. This is my something to look forward to. And in just a couple of weeks, it will become, if all goes well, the stoke.
I'll have some more questions and I appreciate everybody who has stopped by so far. I'm really digging on all the surfer blogosphere that I've found thus far. So stop by and say hi, and correct me if I say something stupid.

laters,

Dancing About Architecture

It has been said (by some jazz cat, maybe Miles Davis) that talking about music is like dancing about architecture, and I think maybe the same could be said for blogging about surfing. When that guy said that, he was pointing out that there is a deep emotional and spiritual dimension to music that defies verbal description, and I imagine the same is true of surfing.
But people do try. I mentioned in my last post the cosmic surfer dudes that sexwax philosophical about the spiritual connection with the ocean. A new blog buddy I discovered (also from here in Texas) left a friendly comment seconding the opinion that there is a deeper dimension and connection with nature that is one of the factors that makes surfing such an obsession with lots of people.
But he also brought up another factor that enters into my fascination. The Lifestyle. The sun, sand, wind and waves. The hammocks. The bare bones adventure trips. The comraderie of brother surfers. And yes, the beer.
And, as a young single guy, he has the opportunity to explore that territory to its fullest limits, if he's willing to make the sacrifice of the presumably more comfortable lifestyle afforded by a regular job in a regular city. Meanwhile, I am 42 years old and married, left at this point of my life with more responsibilities than dreams.
And that's okay. I'm healthy and in good physical shape. I have a lot to be grateful for, and don't think for one minute that 42 year olds have no dreams left at all. Even better, experience has taught me that it is better to have a goal than to have a dream. If you only knew how many lives have been crushed under the weight of the dreams that never came true, and instead settled down on their shoulders, big disappointing boulders of bitter regret. Now, more so than when I was a younger man, I think things through a little better, and I make plans with a definite path to fulfillment. The dreams themselves are usually a bit smaller, but infinitely more attainable. And I love my wife to a degree that leaves any sort of resentment completely out of the picture. My dreams have to include hers as well, so the cold fact is that there will be a lot of missed waves in my future, but I'll still do what I can, and enjoy what I do.
For me, the fascination with the full on surfer's lifestyle will likely remain one exercized from afar. I can chat online with people who pop around from San Onofre to Peru like its no big deal. I can watch surf movies with surfers carving up the tubes from Australia to Indonesia. I can ride my couch in a surfer's crouch and keep the tube tuned to Fuel TV. I can even listen to my Donovan Frankenrieter, Jack Johnson and Slightly Stoopid CDs. All of those things have the potential to make me feel like I'm somehow connected with a group of people who know something the rest of the world doesn't.
It's the same with my band. Just because I can't be a rock star doesn't mean I can't act like one on the weekend. I have a piece of that lifestyle, that aesthetic, that feeling inside me, and it's no less real just because I wear shiny lace up shoes and a button down shirt from Monday to Friday. I can still wail on the mic and turn my telecaster up to 11. And nobody said I have to wear shoes when I'm not at work.
But until Labor Day Weekend, when my first surfing lesson is scheduled, I won't really be a full on part of anything in the wide world of surfing. I won't really know anything. But when that time comes, I want to know as much as I can, so that I can take the maximum advantage of the time I have to get out there.
And I may be a bit premature with my blogging about something I haven't really started yet, but I'm learning some interesting things in the lead up, and hopefully, I'll have some interesting things to say from an outsider's viewpoint. I think it will really be interesting to see how (or if) my viewpoint changes after I get out there and make the goal a reality.
After all, it may be a little crazy, but nobody ever said that you can't dance about architecture if you want to.

A Long Journey Begins

So, here it is. What this blog is going to be about. How it started, where it's going and who I am.

Like you care. Who are you anyway, and what makes you think that I want you reading all these details about my personal life and deepest feelings? Oh, yeah, there is that other question. Do you, the reader, actually exist outside my imagination? No one knows this blog is even here yet, and if they did, they wouldn't know how to find it.

Anyway, that's all as may be (as the Brits would say). What it is, is this. I am an adventurous guy who never gets to go on any real adventures, so I'm working on making me some. Not to be confused with getting me some, which is a whole other thing. In any event, if I'm going to have any over 40 adventures, I'm going to have to make them myself. Also, there is the fact that as a person approaching mid life, I am no longer so enamoured of those sorts of adventures wherein the inherent risk to life and limb is a primary attraction. That is to say, I would like all of my various body parts and features to remain in place and relatively unscathed. Death and dismemberment is not a rush.

And, while I'm doing this (relatively non-life-threatening-type) adventure seeking, I think it may just help me along in the process if I write about it. I sort of believe that old saying that "the unexamined life is scarcely worth living." Thus, readers, or lack of readers is hardly the point, is it.

Except for this one thing that we humans have in common. We are driven to communicate, to share, to create for the benefit of others, and to seek the feeling that we have in some way connected with others. Some would say that surfing is an extension of that instinct. To connect with a community of like minded people whose greatest desire is to connect with nature. To compete against themselves and the ocean and share with it the power and glory of the universe. Personally, I think that's largely a load of crap. They really want to get an adrenaline rush and check out bikinis. But somewhere within the overblown and pseudo-philosophical ramblings of the surfing gurus that preach the cosmic gospel of the waves is a grain of truth. There is something bigger than ourselves that we connect with when we are surrounded by something as powerful and all encompassing as the ocean.

In any event, I love the feel of my body's movement in any sort of athletic activity and the physical challenge that surfing represents. Beyond that, there is something deeply satisfying in the rythmic crashing of the waves that is both relaxing and exhilarating at the same time. So, at the age of 42, despite living on (or actually, about 80 miles from) a coast known mostly for mushy, inconsistent waves, despite the suspicious glances of my wife, who suspects that I am more interested in prolonging youth than in challenging myself, despite a penchant for run on sentences and poorly thought out plans, I have decided that I am going to learn to surf.

Right now, I'm in the "doing my homework" phase of the process. I suspect that when a lot of people do all the stuff that makes the experienced surfers call them kooks, it's largely because they didn't bother to do some research before hitting the waves. So I've been doing a lot of web research over the last couple of weeks, and this weekend, my wife and I (Who will be referred to in this blog as "E") went to Galveston Island for a two day trip, consisting of one day of laying on the beach drinking beer and one day of touring around the island and stopping into every surf shop we found. We went to Surf Specialties, UnderGround Surf, Ohana Surf Shop, Beach Break Surf Shop, Las O Las Surf Shop among a couple of others whose names I can't remember.

I talked to some nice guys, all of whom were very encouraging and friendly, checked out a few boards, checked on board rentals, bought some board shorts, priced wetsuits and rashguards, talked about "Black Monday", when Clark Foam shut down and drove up prices on boards everywhere, discussed the relative merits of 8' vs 10' boards for beginners and generally soaked up the atmosphere and tried to start learning my way around a completely new culture with its own language, customs, look, and attitude.

My cousin has a 9'+ longboard and he's going to be giving me a lesson over the Labor Day weekend down on the Bolivar Peninsula, so my workouts between now and then will be focused on stuff that will help my paddling strength and endurance.

If you haven't figured out yet that I am taking this seriously, get it now. I am taking this seriously.

On a different tip, I am also a musician in a local Houston area band, and we just got a new drummer, so lots of rehearsals will be going on as we integrate him into the band at the same time as we revamp our set lists to a much more rock oriented sound than we have played in the past. More about that another time.

If you're a surfer or a musician, let me hear from you. Peace.

Second post. With Picture.

This post has been edited to remove the picture of me. Now, don't get mad. I know that those of you who saw me will miss my devilishly hansome face peering out at you from the depths of this little bloggy thing, but you'll get over it. Also, I know that you're not all vicious, diabolically clever psychopaths who will figure out my secret identity and come and hunt me down like a dog.

But it only takes one of of you (being a vicious, diabolically clever psychopath who will figure out my secret identity and come and hunt me down like a dog).

Also, I promised myself that I would try to maintain my anonymity a bit better on this blog than I did on my last one. Any non-anonymousity (non-anonymouness?) will be carried on via email, not in the uber-public halls of the mighty interbunny. You may no return to ignoring me and go on about your business. Good day. ... I said good day!

First Wave

I've had one of these bloggy/diary/journally things before, and I even had quite a few readers, but it has been a while since I last posted and in the interim, it seems that my mindset/hobbies/reason for blogging changed, so, I uprooted the old stuff and transplanted myself here. Also, it is my intent to preserve my anonymity a bit more closely here than in my previous digs.

I'll be back to post more and refine the template and profile.