About Me

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Sacramento, California, United States
so salty pieces of coral from surfing Hawaii in the 60's and 70's getting reef pounded living in my body fall through my skin from time to time!

sailing to Oahu

Jimi Hendrix was playing on Oahu. I had never sailed. Surfed Mexico, California, Hawaii! Aw, how hard could it be to sail 90-110 miles from Kauai to Oahu? Piece of cake, right? Remember it was the 60's! This is so bad. We thought we were looking at Kaiena Point,Ohau, knowing we weren't going to make the concert! But at least we were in site of Oahu-wrong! Coy, who had never sailed before, me,who had never sailed before, jeff and Abbott etc. We were looking at the sleeping giant on Kauai! We had done three-sixty's in the night! We sailed on the only tri-marran I've ever sailed on ( except later ) in my life, missed the concert! It was at the Waikiki Shell Ampitheater ( Moon eclipsed . We finally made Nawilwili Harbor! The Skipper tried to give us his boat saying, " It's trying to kill me"! We watched him go stark raving mad not even realising that had we got caught in the channel current we were on our way to Japan! Remember it was the 60's and we were going to see Hendrix. I left out some of the good stuff but I will make up for it later!

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Hanalei, Kauai....Hawaii. Rice Mill Daze 1968-1971

Jeff, no shit! We scored dude. No it wasn't all fun and games! It was what it was. We
Note:  This is what came out of Hanalei.
Your son and my nephew, Ian...........


knew what special was and what wasn't! I don't place the past as you should have been here

yesterday. Either do you. I will, however, never forget the magic and the blessings I felt to surf with

a few good friends on days where God Himself smiled upon us and we knew it. I don't need to re-capture that! I loved because I am loved. If not those days and the people I was allowed to share those experiences with would be a lie and that is simply not possible. Thank God for witnesses that are still alive or no one would believe that the past was as real as today! " I've been born ", said John Bylander! Coy says," Get back Jo-Jo ", and Bubby Laughs. Lunchmeat doesn't get it and frowns as Ambrose takes a six footer through the bowl and Ralph waits. Patiently for the clean-up

Which cleans me and Jim Pollack out after each of us had ripped three waves to the bowl where Joe Boguest took off in front of us! Sound familiar? Heh! It was a gas wasn't it, Jeff. I love you, man. You know that........RB.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Today in Hanalei, Kauai. Not Yesterday

Dated and filed.  I don't want to go home.  Why should I?  I live on a river. I can take the American, to the Sacramento, to San Francisco, to Hawaii and points unknown!   Guess where I am?  Obviously I'm not in Hawaii or New Zealand!  Nor will I be anytime soon!  I'm cool where I are.  An old friend that is young wrote what is below.  If I was there I would be surfing waves that are still unimportant to people who treasure being on camera.  To me a true surfer is invisible, kind of like God. or the wind.  The only reason we know that wind exists is by what it effects.  I feel it on my skin and it moves my hair but I can't see it with my eyes. David, in the Bible wrote, " Though I walk through the valley OF THE SHADOW of death, I shall fear no evil!   Well crowds on waves on Kauai are like ideas!  Many are meaningless and even more just clutter what is beautiful by it's being
      I have many friends on Kauai, who not only know me but love me.  The few I have here that are still alive, I have had to make.  This is a sad thing. The river that runs to the sea replenishes itself.  I am comfortable.  This is important.
show details Dec 22 (6 days ago)



Is it "have I lived too long", or "have I lived to long----for a little surf and satisfaction"? Probably the latter. Yup-- I'm glad I didn't plant my ass in Hanalei, tho I'd have gotten lots of days slipping out between the cracks, it's still discouraging to show up at Middles at 7AM these days only to feel blessed to get the last spot in the parking lot (if the surf isn't good, that is-- if it's good you missed parking by an hour.) Forget Black Pot-- you gotta park at the pavilion and walk to the pier. Women and children--2 more generations-- too dumb to lay-down geezers (you lookin' at me????), and the horde of 20-somethings hoping for that cover shot, not to mention the fleet of strokers on 10' stand up boards, acting like Laird only in their ability to catch every smallest ripple from beyond Impossibles thru the pier. I'm driven to the thought that 99% of surfing has not much to do with riding perfection-- the drive/check/wax-up/paddle-out/duck-dive/sit there/ find your take-off spot/stroke-in/ fade or bottom turn are all pretty much the same whether it's 8' west swell Hanalei or 8" on-shore "Behind-the-Golf-Course." Then there's a few seconds of delight or terror, depending on how far behind the peak you are, tempered by how on or offshore the wind is and how many others have the same idea you do.....and then it's over and you are back to step 3 of the 12 step--"Paddle back out & try again." Yup-- to each his own, but at the end of the day I usually get a few good-uns around here, with a 10 minute drive and a lot less expended testosterone as opposed to an hour drive for a few good'uns and a whole lot of frustration. The last time I surfed Middles-- 6' & I waited out the back on my 7'2" for half an hour, dodging long boarders & standups. Finally took off on a beaut, only to get jumped & stuffed behind the bowl by a life-guard (and friend--a drummer who's gigged with us, for cryin' out loud!) riding a 9'0" on his coffee break. "Sorry 'bout that," he grins-- "You waited a long time for that one." I just paddled in. "You're welcome, asshole----" Later-- J

Sunday, December 26, 2010

You Try Leaving It Behind 1865

       There was a moment when I thought I might want to be a part of this frontier city.  Now it will be business and a token participation by myself or a representative of our company.  My interests in San Francisco have been reduced due to a particular incident that altered the direction and desire I felt compelled to offer to a city that is and will become even more, a central staging point of sound business on an international scale. 
       Human beings are not possessions.  I can not live in or around the people who would call themselves
aristocrats.  There are very wealthy people here who believe their station in life is above the lives they
stold and/or manipulated to allow an appearance of sophistication that allows a separation between class
and no class.
       Who defines this term?  Class?  In this case, I do!  I would share water with anyone with a heart.
Money doesn't purchase water in a desert where only water has value!  Class is giving water to a dying man in the desert with no money but with heart!  Yours and his........entwined....
        Vigilantism is coming to San Francisco.  Not to protect the innocent as it is set up to be and written of in the newspapers but to protect the interests of people like me!  Property rich, proper schools, proper homes;
wealth built on the backs of the people who are outspoken enough to require the vigilantes we hire to destroy their spirit.  If  their spirit is to rebel, than we destroy them.  Not us, but, the temporary  government we create!
       So, I and my family must leave.  I can't fight a system that created me.  If not for me being shanghaied out of San Francisco itself, I would not be in a position today to leave.  If not for a series of coincidences I would be and still am, one of the lower class.  I am compelled to acknowledge that I remain one of the people.  Not separate or separated by something so unimportant as money! For when I had none, I still saw the nature of an individual man manifested in his actions towards his fellow man. 
       Appearances can be deceptive.  I have been fortunate to have witnessed great deeds and personal sacrifice performed by men of no substance but also by men of enormous wealth.  Here is where truth lays it's head.  Of goodness and evil I am not sure.  However, I am sure that when I have been hungry and been fed by someone who shared with me the little he had, both were enriched beyond our understanding,  Of this I have many examples.  I also am all to aware that those who have much do not share.  It is not in their nature to share as they never feel they have enough.  They are right they don't and never will.  There are exceptions but not many.
       I can not be a part, here in San Francisco, where men who but a few short weeks ago, were the people they have declared war upon.  Under the guise of protecting society, culture and property they are creating a force outside the law called, " Vigilantism "!  Not only is this outside the law, it is unconstitutional!  When the wealthy determine what is best for mankind; my family, my men with their families, my business and all aspects ( eddies and echoes ) of myself  have no choice but to re-locate.  I have been asked to join this demonic group of wealthy, ruling tyrants!  I can not! Now they come against me as a unified group of maddened animals.  Of this I am not afraid.  Fear is not part of a man who has crossed " The Horn " many times. However, I wish to enjoy what is left to me of life with family and friends in the company of truth, honesty and companionship! Sharing honest questions with honest people who are truly searching for real answers to these questions.  I fear vigilantes already have their answers to questions they wouldn't even know how to phrase OR ask!  They care nothing for learning.  They love money and make that very clear to those that can hear.  These things trouble me.
      I can not support vigilantism of any sort.  We leave on the morning tide.  I will miss the flavor of this young city.  I am sure San Francisco will survive the ashes and horrors that are forthcoming as it goes through it's growing pains.  I am also certain it will re-write it's history so that some of it's darkest characters are immortalized by street names and colleges as is the way of man.  How predictable is the behavior of man?
Very!      

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

When I love it is forever

     I met this man.  Dave Laurie.  He allowed me to sail with him.  On Guinivere!
Sixty feet, from bowsprit to bumpkin!  Forty tons, three quarter keel of solid steel. Farro cement. Built in Bluff.
God, she went to weather! Ten degrees off the point!   Working hard to thirty degrees off the wind.  With a
sea that matched but never supported the heading we were making!  Never.....ever..
    He did though.  He buried me as we were entering Latoka, Fiji.  I had just untied our 175 lb, CQR when a very large rogue wave covered me and shifted the anchor so that the fluke tore a hole in my foot.  A very large hole!  I'm bleeding all over the deck and am afraid to look because I didn't want to know how badly I was injured.  I walked aft after dropping the pick and said, "  Dave!  Did you see that wave"?  He answered,"  Yea, are you alright "?  I said,"  I don't know"? And went below.
     I went below not realizing how much blood was leaking out of my body!  Blood everywhere!  I asked Jeff, a jewler friend and shipmate if he would sew my foot back together?  He vomited and said what a mess!  He did, however curve an upulstry needle for me.  I ran double twisted stranded dentil floss through the eye of the needle and with a bottle of rum proceeded to sew my foot back together.  Thank God I was a yogi or I couldn't have done it!  It is hard to see the bottom of your foot and even harder to stich it up.  I also am fortunate to have surgical experience.  It was harder to sew my eyebrow damage while looking in a mirror than to fix my foot.That is another story about my face marrying a post hole digger!  I was digging the hole!
      I joined with Dave in Apia, Samoa.  He was born in South Africa and brought to New Zealand when he was 14.  He has passed and was way to young.  Heart attack.  The world is a sorrier place for him not being here.  I loved sailing with him and just hanging out.  He is my friend and I his. You will hear more of him down the line. Love you Dave, with all my heart.........Aloha  
    
  

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Love of it

Where is the sea I haven't sailed?  Show it to me so that in the showing
it can't be said again!
Where is landfall.  I know it is but it has been to long knot!
Where is my warm dry bed?  With my wife there warming me,
loving me for the returning.
Where is my son that has grown and followed his father to an angry sea?
My daughter, married and gone far away with a farmer man whose sea is waves
of grain on a flat ocean of land. 
Oh Lord, did I wrong those I loved by my longing to be in your arms?
Nay!
The ocean is your song and I am but a ghost and insignificent
in the vast world of wind, tide and sea.
Forgive me for my love of it!  But it is grand!
And I am blessed to sail upon many waters.
Your ocean is my destiny...I can not live without you!  

Friday, December 17, 2010

Watch, Whose Watch

     Whose watch does a navigator love?  Yours!  On your watch I can make no mistakes!  If I give
you a heading and you can't or don't keep it, it's the captains fault.  I can wonder why till the day that
I die?  Is a given heading a hard course?  What?  You saw lights, maybe a lighthouse warning you of
the danger of driving at night with no lights?  Oh, you had an original idea that you know more than the
one who reads the sextant!  Wake the navigator up!  Don't bother the Captain!  What does he know?
      The Captain trusts his navigator.  Shouldn't you?  If not, Why knot?  A watch watches.  A skipper
skips and a navigator navigates!  When a watch skips a navigator, what happens?
      That depends.  Did someone feel or hear a change brought about by watch?  Before any cataclismic
damage was done to vessel and/or crew?  Yes?  Once onboard a sailor is in tune to every nuance his
exoskeleton ( his vessel ) can make.  It is a finely tuned instrument that sings as the ocean and wind place
it where it will.  But safety and direction are the navigators.  He has time on his accurate chronometer
(watch) distance measured by speed over water and Earth with stars, Moon and Sun announcing, " Here is where I am"!
     How can a watcher, tell The Watcher, what to watch for?  Be Leary but not Timithy!  Before changing
course, always ask someone wiser than you, "What is the best course"?  Then go your own way and be
prepared for the price you must pay.  This is how we learn..  There has got to be a more affordable way!
Sometimes learning is a life and death experience.  So is sailing with a good navigator and a crew with a mind of their own!  Arrgh, aground are we on a lee shore?  Die dogs!!!!!! 

LEONARD COHEN LYRICS

This is important.  More important than my meaningless meandering
through hollow portals of past experiences I may or may not remember.
As they were or weren't doesn't hold a candle to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHI9BTpGkp8





LEONARD COHEN LYRICS









"Democracy"



It's coming through a hole in the air,

from those nights in Tiananmen Square.

It's coming from the feel

that this ain't exactly real,

or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.

From the wars against disorder,

from the sirens night and day,

from the fires of the homeless,

from the ashes of the gay:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming through a crack in the wall;

on a visionary flood of alcohol;

from the staggering account

of the Sermon on the Mount

which I don't pretend to understand at all.

It's coming from the silence

on the dock of the bay,

from the brave, the bold, the battered

heart of Chevrolet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.



It's coming from the sorrow in the street,

the holy places where the races meet;

from the homicidal bitchin'

that goes down in every kitchen

to determine who will serve and who will eat.

From the wells of disappointment

where the women kneel to pray

for the grace of God in the desert here

and the desert far away:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.



Sail on, sail on

O mighty Ship of State!

To the Shores of Need

Past the Reefs of Greed

Through the Squalls of Hate

Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.



It's coming to America first,

the cradle of the best and of the worst.

It's here they got the range

and the machinery for change

and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.

It's here the family's broken

and it's here the lonely say

that the heart has got to open

in a fundamental way:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.



It's coming from the women and the men.

O baby, we'll be making love again.

We'll be going down so deep

the river's going to weep,

and the mountain's going to shout Amen!

It's coming like the tidal flood

beneath the lunar sway,

imperial, mysterious,

in amorous array:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.



Sail on, sail on ...



I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean

I love the country but I can't stand the scene.

And I'm neither left or right

I'm just staying home tonight,

getting lost in that hopeless little screen.

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags

that Time cannot decay,

I'm junk but I'm still holding up

this little wild bouquet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Monday, December 13, 2010

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Posted by Picasa

Just A Couple Of Friends

Alter ego? The Id....The Ego......and the Super EGO?

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Ghost)?

The Prodigal son returns to the father and we place some shrimp on the barbie?

I came, I saw, I conquered?

Triune?

Extended family?

Your guess is as good as mine?

What's there to live for?

Progeny?

Please allow me to introduce myself.........

On broadway

Get high with a little help from

Thinking is creating!

Arrghh we armed for combat, matey?

Fetch me my glass....not my eye, fool!

Let them eat what Abbos eat! Larve!

water, water everywhere, not in the Sahara

How deep is water?

How cold is snow?

Where are you, now?

Do you remember tomarrow? Yesterday?

Is is not to be confused with was was!

How about?

So much trouble with so little imput?

Pay attention to the tide! It rocks....

Ebb and flood is a bill you haven't paid!

My mind? I hope you don't.....cause I do!





Game. Know, as in no!

Dice, risky at best, probabillity factor?

No dice.....Golf! Drive for show, putt for dough!

Math is real. Coin toss.......heads I win, tails you lose.....every time!



So the three are we.

Simply, you and me, never together.

always forever alone.

Together, almost never,

Qualified, certified and hog tied

from the beginning,

two or three?

And I ask me?

Can't you sea?

Than I answered a question

that wasn't asked?
 
Forgive me nothing............

Friday, December 3, 2010

Unknown-hopefully thought provoking.

       I recommend breaking the roots of a shallow fellowship, squandered by ties that are meaningless.
When one's life is jeapordized or comprimized by a childish loyalty or fellowship bound, as if written in stone; because of a behavior and false loyalty that constricts a freedom of spirit and does place chains and constrainsts upon an exploration of freedom itself, let it go or beware.
       A friend lost, is nothing, more or less, than a new Son dawning on a today horizon.  Today one's childhood is forgotten.  Never to be remembered; no matter how hard one tries! In  rememberance is falsehood.  Despicable memories shaped by what one wished was true and buried that truth in a re-writing of a wish into
a dream that becomes stronger and more true in the lie of the telling. I say," scream"!
       Truth does not exist in shadow.  Honesty lives for light.  Captain James Cook was more than a great
Captain. History has no need of a re-write about him.  It is logged!   He knew Bly..... Captain Bly was a prick.  Great sailor, miraculous navigator, lousy Captain.
       Not everyone is designed to be great.  Recognized.  Highly regarded.  If one asked  great men how they arrived in a particular special place of enoblement or a position of respect by their peers, I promise you their uniform answer is, " I did nothing more than anyone would have done, faced with the particulars of that moment in time"!  "I am not a hero". "I am everyman and nothing more".
       My hope is that in the fiction of my life there may just be some truth to it.  Some small meaning that carries the rudiments of the love that I would pray fell upon, not just my family, but upon the family of man.
 
      
     

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