Venice Pier when the surf is bad

The girls and their shenanigans when the surf sucks. I keep promising Annika that I’m going to get some footage of HER at the pier cuz she’s kinda jealous that I’ve only been shooting Erin. But I did shoot some footage of the OP gang on Sunday which I’ll edit and post later this week.

VBW when the surf is bad

When the surf is bad, the VBW gang congregates at the wall. Scotty, Brock and the crew waiting and watching, hoping something will roll through. Chowder (the dog) waits for his frisbee, and Annika looks like she’s pleasuring herself in other ways besides surfing. What? I’m just saying….

Erin surfing the pier (again)

Tried to get some more footage of Erin surfing the Venice Pier this past weekend, but the conditions were, again, pretty crappy. I managed to edit a little footage together, but almost everything was up and over, close-outs with nowhere to go. Plus, even though the surf was shitty, it was still crowded, so you had too many surfers paddling for the one surfable wave that would roll in every fifteen minutes or so. Someday, I’ll get Erin surfing in some good conditions….maybe Mexico?

Hobo Junction

Couldn’t resist getting in on the hobo action at the Venice Pier. Having followed Uncle Grants surf reports and hobo interaction for some time now, I decided to embark upon a little hobo interaction of my own. I was having dinner down at the pier last night and since I didn’t finish my dinner, I took the leftovers to go. As I was walking back to my car, I decided I would never eat my leftovers and instead, took them over to the boys to see if they were hungry. Josh immediately jumped on it because he needed something to feed his pet rat, Indica. Randy was so appreciative, he immediately started making me a little rose from one of his palm fronds, and eagerly showed me how he had made a pair of suspenders from his palm fronds to hold up his pants. Christian was, well as always, too f’d up to really talk, but he tried. All in all, though, the boys were very sweet and very gracious of my leftover offerings.

Have to get wet…

So I’ve now been out of the water for seven weeks in an effort to heal my torn rotator cuff injury from last summer. However, I cannot stand being out of the water, especially since everyone keeps saying how warm it is (the last time I surfed, I was still wearing a full suit), so I’ve convinced myself that I can safely get away with body boarding this weekend. I know, I know. It’s not a sideways sport, so it defies my self-identity, but I need to get in the water. I’ve rationalized that as long as I only kick and do not under any circumstance use my arms to paddle, well then I should be fine. The reality is, of course, I will probably have to do some paddling, and just holding onto the body board to steer it into the face of the wave will add some strain to my shoulder. As a good friend likes to say, “denial is not just a river in Egypt.”

I’m going to try to limit staying in the water for a short period of time, and I may be doing myself (yet again) a big disservice in my efforts to heal my injury, but for some insane reason, I keep putting “my hand in the fire” thinking maybe this time I won’t get burned. When will I learn?  We’ll see.

Everyone is in on it.

In case you haven’t noticed by the INSANE number of people learning to surf every summer, Your Daily Donkey has posted a picture – “hot hollywood couple – Benifer” is now in on the action. Oh dear God, please let the madness end!

Another Green Event

Since Green is the new black, I thought I’d post a link to an upcoming show at The Venice Contemporary hosted by Dogtown Skateboards (yeah, one of those guys from the Jeff Ho skate team in the 1970’s). The event is a fund raiser for both the Surfrider Foundation and the Ballona Wetlands, so definitely a worthy cause. Looks like there will be alot going on in the way of music, food and art. And if you’re a fan of Dogtown and Z-Boys, there will surly be a couple of those guys milling about. Question is will you recognize them?

Molly (and erin) at Dog Beach

Molly having a ball (and a stick) at Dog Beach in Huntington. You can’t tell from the footage shot at the shoreline, but it was actually breaking pretty big on the outside, and I never was able to get any footage of Erin surfing. Next time…

Annika back from Costa Rica

Annika is back from CR after ten days of super fun surfing. She said she surfed a pretty heavy beach break down there and had the line up mostly to herself…never more than 3 or 4 people out. There was a more popular point break close to where she was staying that was more crowded, but she didn’t paddle out there. She said there were a few days of bigger surf where she got worked, but here is a picture of her on a fun little left.

We are now planning our trip for September. Doesn’t look like I’m going to be ready for Samoa as previously planned because it’s a really heavy reef break from what I hear, and you have to be a very strong paddler. I’m not in any shape to paddle hard at this point. In fact, I’m not in any shape to paddle at all. My goal is to be back in the water by mid August so that will give me about a month to get back into some kind of shape for surfing. We’re now planning on heading down to Cabo. This is a much more doable trip both in terms of time and money, so I won’t feel so bad if I still can’t surf that great. Well, I’ll be super frustrated, but at least I won’t feel like I’m missing out on that one big surf trip of my life.

The 4th of July

I volunteered to be the dog babysitter of my friend, Erin’s, dog while she paddled out at the Huntington Beach dog beach.

We met up super early to drive down there knowing the crowds would be pretty insane, and still spent almost an hour looking for a parking. It was also my intention to do some video taping, but the surf was really big (5 – 7 foot with bigger sets) and the current super strong, so as soon as Erin started paddling out, she immediately drifted out of frame and the current pulled her way down the beach.

I had a blast playing with Erin’s dog, Molly, and shot some footage of her frolicking in the water and racing around with the other dogs. About an hour later, Erin came trudging up the beach. She said she got kind of worked, and both the paddle out and the current was a hassle. Not the best session. But I did get some good footage of Molly which I’ll post as soon as I get the chance.

I spent the afternoon in a drunken haze in Venice at another friend’s house right on the beach near the pier. The problem was that we started drinking so early (around 2pm) that by 7pm we were all very drunk but still trying to keep in together to see the fireworks at 9pm. The beach was a madhouse, but fortunately my friend had a nice little gated patio to escape to when we got sick of the riff-raff on the beach. The weather wasn’t that great either – muggy and overcast which probably kept some people away, but still the crowds were insane. We made our way down to the pier to watch the fireworks around 9pm, and I spent about ten minutes on the pier with the masses (I don’t do well with masses), and then had a panic attack and had to get off the pier and away from the crowd. In my mind I love fireworks and the 4th of July, but in reality, I really don’t like the hassle of the crowds. I might have to rethink 4th of July next year?

Saving grace was that I only had to bike home about a 1/4 of a mile – no parking or driving nightmares to get home.