Capt'n's Log

Today's top story:
Team Shredder has hit the eastern seaboard, and with a big splash i might add. Gree c and excellent Pat are down here on the beautiful coast of North Carolina workin' for the man, but first they took a moment to surprise me with a portrait of myself, installed here at the gates of Surf City. Those ladays sure are talented, the likeness is uncanny.
Anyway, gree c volunteered to "be my bitch" and sponsor my surf safari to here, though if you get real for one second you will realize that I am here to see her and crack up, and "surfing," or whatever it was that I did today in the non-swell, random chop, is secondary. It's just what I do during the day to pass the hours while Gree C and Pat are out earning the cheddar that we will eat for dinner each night.
The water was that excellent light green color, and warm, and there looked to be a few mellow small rollers coming in, more than I'd expected for today, so I got excited and went out. But the Atlantic Ocean, she was not ready to give me the goods just yet. Mocking and teasing had to happen first. 4 hours divided by 2 1/2 waves equals what?

Goodbye, LaVanda

Thank You, Cable!

I Have Tourette's

Insightful family documentary that takes a candid look at the lives of more than a dozen children who have Tourette Syndrome.

Miranda Mellis and Chris Nagler at April TMI

T.M.I. is happening Friday April 20!!!
(T.M.I. is a monthly literary performance series and open mic for queer and feminist people of all genders.)

Come sling your schlock and find your flock!

Please come support San Diego's most thrilling queer and feminist performance series and open mic, T.M.I. ("Too Much Information") Friday, April 20, 2007 featuring one of my favorite writers and people, Miranda Mellis, and the equally magnificent writer/person Christian Nagler.

Doors open at 7:30 PM, (Show at 8:00 PMish) at The Rubber Rose, a sexuality boutique 3812 Ray Street, San Diego (North Park) www.therubberrose.com. $5-$7 suggested donation - All proceeds go to the artists and to pay for the space. Hosted by Anna Joy Springer and Ali Liebegott, and organized with the enormous help of Meg Day.

Miranda Mellis is the author of The Revisionist (Calamari Press, 2007) and an editor at The Encyclopedia Project (encyclopediaproject.org), a journal of innovative and inter-genre writing that redefines the encyclopedia form. Considered a neo-fabulist by some of her many fans, she's deeply engaged with radical ethics on and off the page, and is a delightfully imaginative writer whose strange and and often humorous prose reflects her complex political, spiritual, and interpersonal values. Miranda Mellis' various writings have appeared between various pages, most recently those of The Believer, Post Road, Fence and Denver Quarterly, and soon in Harper's. She teaches at California College of the Arts.



Chris Nagler is currently writing a book of fiction about the
architectural and geographic spaces where U.S. public policy is
produced. He is a magical woodland creature. His writing is both accessible and nuanced, but also heartbreaking and extraordinarily relevant to his liberatory politics. Chris Nagler is currently editing an anthology of artists' and writers' responses to environmental crises. He teaches community art at San Francisco State University and makes site-specific performance.



*T.M.I. is a word-performance show for homos, transfolk, hags, feminists, fairies, femme-ists, S.C.U.M. Manifesto Fan Club members, lesbos, queerpunx, womanists, polyamorites, tough old broads, baby-butches, lesbian schoolteachers, second-wavers, anarchist cheerleaders, bisexual plushies, bois, feminist guys, old-fashioned diesel dykes, and their friends who like perform word-based work and to watch writers and performers groove, live on stage. T.M.I. is not your average "Spoken Word" show. We don't encourage non-satirical use of "Poetry Voice," cover songs, or compulsive disclosure diary entries, but we do encourage performance of cross-genre, stylistically innovative, queered-to-the max, freaked-out literary pieces. We're ANTI-anti-intellectual, we LIKE "conceptual" work, and we have damn good attention spans.

5 Minute Readings - In addition to the featured performances audience-members will sign up to read and perform their original work. 5 Minutes or one poem/story, whichever is shorter. The whole show will last about two hours, which should give everyone time to flirt, have drama, and organize the revolution before and after the show.

T.M.I. started in Providence, Rhode Island in 2000, where it spawned an achingly hot woman-centered experimental writing and performance scene and a few writing groups and romances.

Join T.M.I.'s Myspace friendship bubble at www.myspace.com/tmiopenmic.

Surfer choads are creative, too, and should never be plagued by self-doubt

Dick Blue found this drifting around on the ethnomusicology circuit:

"Is There Such a Thing as Surfing Music?

Never has a research project sent me back to basic ontological questions. My current research seeks to understand and interpret "surfing music" as a regional Californian cultural practice. Yet if music is at the center of this study, what is that music? Sam George, the long-time editor of Surfing magazine, makes an interesting distinction between "surf music"-a sub-genre of popular music including songs about surfing (Beach Boys) and guitar lead instrumental rock (Dick Dale) that blossomed from 1961 to 1964-and "surfing music"-music that surfers like. Of course this opens the doors impossibly wide, leaving me to ask if there is such a thing as surfing music. The crux of this question leads me back to one of the oldest assumptions of ethnomusicology: human groups (the ethno of our musicology) tend to express themselves musically. Does what I am calling an "affinity group" such as surfers develop a musical expression? Is surfing music a legitimate subject for an ethnomusicologist?

Hmm, indeed. I hear academic jobs are hard to get.


Elsewhere in today's segment, this comes from our friend Gascia O. in R & D:

Arts & Culture >> Outdoors

Relationships are all about relating

Feb 27, 2007
By Michael and Milton Willis - La Jolla Light

For many surfers, surfing is a lot more than the art of riding waves.
It's
also about having a personal and close relationship with the ocean.
Sailors,
fisherman, poets and surfers have expressed a special love for the
ocean
since the beginning of time. And the wave rolls on today.

Those who know the ocean must be filled with love and devotion. She
demands
respect. She commands responsibility. Her truth is her justice. She
speaks
to those who listen. She calls to those who cannot resist. To love her
is to
commit fully to her mind, body and soul. To be loved is good. To love
is
better. No love; no life.

The seed of love is respect. Without respect, there can be no true
love. The
ocean is a wonder park, a school, and a source of life. It's a place to
connect and harmonize with the very essence of all life.

Surfers are best to approach the ocean with deep reverence. An old
surfers
saying goes, "The Ocean will give you a thrill, but disrespect her at
your
will and you may find you take a spill. What she teaches, surfers must
learn, if to shore they want to return."

One does not have to love in order to respect, but one must have
respect in
order to love. Respect begets responsibility, the ability to respond.

Many are the moods, and emotions, of the vast, mighty, ever-changing
ocean.
A wise surfer heeds the vicissitudes of the ocean and responds
accordingly.
One moment she can be calm, and the next moment can be roaring with
tempest.
Sometimes, she plays and delights. Other times, she disciplines and
punishes.

Do everything right and you may experience heaven on earth. Do anything
wrong, you may experience something else. Each, and every, surfer is
responsible for creating their very best rides as well as responsible
for
causing their worst wipeouts with their thoughts, and actions, whether
they
acknowledge it or not.

Surfers and watermen demonstrate respect and responsibility for the
ocean,
less because of fear and more because of love. At the center of a
powerfully
breaking wave is calmness, just as in the eye of a swirling hurricane.

Truth is at the center of love, which revolves around and emanates from
truth. Everything in the universe changes except the truth. Love that
is
true lasts forever.

Regarding the ocean waves, it shall matter not whether they're big or
small,
breaking this way or not at all. If a surfer loves the ocean with all
his
heart, he will always love the ocean with all his heart, yesterday,
today,
tomorrow, forever and a day. Can't change that. Just as love does not
last
without truth, truth cannot last without love. Can't change that.

As a surfer begins to love the ocean, the ocean seems to speak out, or
communicate, with that surfer, not necessarily in words but rather in
feelings and impressions. Surfers listening to the ocean find it easier
to
surf in harmony with the ocean.

This type of listening does not take place with the ears. It takes
place
with the heart. [Note from G: I think I'm going to use that in my
diss].
Communication comes in many forms other than words - small gestures, a
person's posture, or the way something is said, can communicate volumes
more
than anything said.

There are times when a glance, a movement or saying no word at all
could say
more than all the words in the world. Rest assured the ocean will
reveal all
life's deepest mysteries for the surfer who finds a way to listen.

Some surfers flirt. Some fool around. But when you find love, you stick
around. You get out of love what you put into love. Whether you love
surfing, reading, stargazing or another person, be like a waterman who
maintains a deep and committed relationship.

Give your all. One must put in 100 percent to receive 100 percent.
Anything
less brings that much less.

Be present. Be awake. Be alive to your feelings as well as others. When
a
surfer harmoniously dances on the wave, there are no distractions. Wave
becomes surfer. Surfer becomes wave. The two become one. Suddenly,
everything becomes crystal clear and the whole universe joins together
in
perfect synchronicity. Here, now, forever and a day, renewing and
strengthening, Love, affection, romance and passion, wave by wave,
moment by
moment. To know love is to know life.
Aloha.

Ask me about The Great Depression

Thwarted again! Windstorms so severe they have not only blown out the waves, (don't ask,) they have also blown out our household ether, again.
At least the power came back on after a few hours, and at least we still have our cable. Notice that I said "our cable," because we have cable now. Only for a short while. Only for The Sopranos.

Sister Spit: The Next Generation

On tour, coming to a town near you.
Spoken word xtravaganzah, featuring our beloved Ali Liebegott, Eileen Myles, and Michelle Tea.
I'll tell you what. These are not just great writers, but great readers, too. Hit it, don't quit it.

This one's for acquatic cabbage nymph, just because

Nique "Uta Puta" and Roux "Putanesca Infamosa" Take a Hell Ride With Sea Monkey's First Surfboard, "The Millstone," in "La Vanda," the Official Team Shredder Surf Van, Somewhere Near The Glider port, In Search of "Beach Bitch"
Photo by Dick Blue or The Capt'n, 2004 or 5

The Surf Appears To Be Up

holy crapoly
get me out there

Real or Not Real?

This just in from Gandi:

Jumping Through Bureaucratic Hoops Makes Me Feel Alive

I have to take a physical and get the results of my TB test this morgen before The Man will deem me ok to work with the takers of Los Angeles.

T Street

Two noteworthy things happened yesterday, #1 being The Capt'n went to San Clemente.


<---Not this San Clemente,








but this one, in the O.C.--->

T Street, to be exact.
I wasn't sure at first. I should be excited about the new spots but instead I'm pretty leery due to the considerable choad factor as of late. I'd stopped by beautiful San Onofre first, wanting to finally try it, but not wanting to pay the $10 parking fee, for some stupid reason. I think it would have been a good day there, but I'll just have to postpone that joy till next time. The nice ranger at the parking booth told me about T Street, a little further to the north. He said it was his favorite place, and when I asked if there were any lefts there and he said yes, I was sold.
It looked big, clean and walled, and the water was that pretty light green.
Not horribly crowded. I told myself, just 3 waves, hang out to the side, let the choads pass, pick up some shoulders, nothing fancy. The paddle out was a little roughneck on my big winnebago since the swell had some power.
But dag it was so beautiful. Which did much to counter the fact that, to my dismay, there were ALL dudes, 99% on short boards, and only one was over 50 years old. I told myself to stay in my own happy, separatist place, and it worked. The two dolphins who were like 10 feet away from me plus the lack of any horrible teenagers also helped a lot to get me to the ambrosia.
I didn't used to sweat the choad so much. I hope this virus passes soon. Where is my old East Coast psychic armor when I need it? Anyhow, despite my new jaded outlook, I had a killer time out there. I ended up catching a ton of waves, and a few were pretty mad, I have to say. What's not to love about rocketing along the beautiful green wall that is taller than you?







The other noteworthy event was the beginning of Pesach at sunset.