Christian the Lion two guys adopt a lion cub. he grows too big. they re-introduce him to the wild. amazing video. i love stuff like this. it's subtitled, so turn down the volume, the soundtrack is horrocious.
Surfline | Who the F&*K Knows good article on determining wave height. if you write about surfing, this is a helpful guide.
Wordpress - Clean Up Your Backend great list of plugins that help you administer a wp site. stuff the user never sees, but makes your job 10x easier
Wednesday, Jul 30th, 2008 Categories: food, my photos
Super dialed-in güero hermano Andrew Field has opened up an authentic Mexican fish taco joint in Rockaway Beach (86th & Beach). It’s called Rockaway Taco and you can bet they’re the best tasting tacos you’ve ever had, outside of Mexico.
Andrew got a nice write-up from Soho Lunch, recently:
in any case. we had tofu tacos, fish tacos (beer battered talapia), and chorizo tacos. i ordered chips and guacamole and he actually cut up corn tortillas and fried them. i watched him make the guacamole himself. pretty impressive. it was cheap and good and made you forget about the projects behind you.1
All you New York sliders and Molluskonian trimmers, go out and support a surf bro on his quest to bring authentic mexican food to the hungry, cold water masses.
Hey this chick doesn’t like capitalized letters either! ↩
I never get tired of watching Kalle Carranza do his thing. Kalle is Mexico’s most famous surfer and famously laid-back and humble. Part of the Reef team, Kalle travels and surfs. I spotted him on Facebook, where he’s slowly dropping crumbs on his travels through Thailand, Cambodia, Loas, Vietnam and now he’s in China.
How many times have I pulled up to the rock bluff overlooking the miles of raw coastline that contain my most frequented surf breaks. I pull out the binoculars to scout for waves and for crowds (or lack thereof). Only to find small waves and large crowds. Crushed enthusiasm, I say ferck it and head back home. I’m definitely guilty of embracing the skunk.
Things are different when you travel 1000 miles on an airplane for a surf trip. You take stock of the local swell report and choose your spot for the day wisely, but once you’re there in those strange waters, you can’t turn back. There’s no going home. You must find the glide. Every spot at every size, has a glide, a sweet spot, waiting for you to find it. Sometimes it takes a longboard. Sometimes it’s the thigh-high walled up inner section with the slow crouching thirty-foot ride. Sometimes it’s a kooked-out drop into the closing tube going the wrong direction. Whatever the conditions may be, the glide is there, somewhere, maybe not in plain view, maybe hidden away, but it’s most certainly there. You just have to look for it.
The Oregon/Nayarit surf blog bro-down extravaganza ended today with a drive up the coast to “Rio Bonito”, a juicy, sand-bottomed river mouth break, right around the corner from freakin’ nowhere. As the roles reversed, it was this intrepid Oregon crew who showed me, the itinerant Mexico rustaboot, a new spot. I don’t know how the hell these guys found their way to this little jammy, but believe me I know how to get back here. We caught the joint on a pretty mellow day, mostly closeout waist high, with an occasional head-high thumper. I dropped in on a few, with seconds of glide, ledge overhead to punch out the back and a few pearls as the singlefin kicked out from the steep angled drop. Even at small, closeout sizes, the waves were walled up nicely from the water exiting the river.
Rio Bonito wasn’t exactly firing, an epic day it wasn’t, but we all tried to get a little something. You can tell, though, that this spot gets huge, breaking in long flowing lines from both sides of the river mouth. Luckily Rick, Gabe and Ean have two more days to soldier on and with hints of incoming swell, hopefully they’ll be running to the plane on Saturday with wet swim trunks.
Marcia and I are headed up to Guadalajara for the weekend. And as per usual, that means a nice big swell should be rolling through. Ah the irony.
Rodney Mullen | LoveLove Blog entrancing video of Rodney Mullen talking about why he loves skateboarding. he's so open and emotive it's inspiring but slightly agitating as well. You can tell he gets deep, i'm not used to seeing that level of emotional honesty on youtube videos.
Eye-opener with a pitch - Las Vegas Sun fox news gets shameless with sly, unethical product placement. why are the liquid levels exactly the same? and hers doesn't have lipstick on the straw.
ENVIRONMENTAL TRAGEDY IN BALI | Surfline From bad to worse: Taiwanese fishing boat dry-docked at Padang Padang; efforts to remove proving unsuccessful as new swell fills in.
Trying television: Mexico's emo riots on Current TV Former LA Weekly staff writer Daniel Hernandez posts about a Current TV video piece summarizing this spring's "emo riots". Hernandez is interviewed. video by loan Grillo.
Rick, the SissyfisherKing is currently down mexicoway with his homies Gabe and Ean. We connected up Monday night for some wicked Chilés Rellenos + chelas with the ladies and little ones (ours being still in seedling format). Dinner was civil and restrained. After grub, the boys retired to the livingroom for a full on bro-down nerd fest, as we talked blog-related schmata and plotted the next day’s surf activities while I heavy-petted and studiously-vetted the various surf vehicles the crew had slogged all the way down here from Oregon. Rick’s MCaro-shaped round-pin quad was pretty amazing in and out of the water. Drop in, set the rail and hum. dialed.
Tuesday morning we reconvened for a dawn patrol sliding session at my favoritest rocky left point break La Chuleta. Afuckingmazing, as usual. That place is blessed with serious surf/stoke/prana. We all got in some quality slide time. I took an hour or so out to snap some jammies from the boat. These are two of my favs, not intentionally out-of-focus, but what are commonly referred to as “happy accidents”.
Candela takes all her photographs on film, then makes limited edition digital archival pigment prints on this wonderful heavy watercolor paper. And in her gallery on Crosby street — you can see each encased like little treasures in hand-made frames of driftwood (made by her partner David Decker).
Lisa and David own Candela - Decker Gallery and the Sayulita series is showing there, until the end of July, as part of the temporary exhibits. Dan Eldon’s work is exhibited there permanently. For more info on her work, contact the gallery at:
Candela - Decker Gallery
31 Crosby Street. New York, NY 10013
{Between Broome and Grand}
Phone # 1-212-343-1717
There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world. Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.
- Freeman Dyson, on the conundrum of global warming.
Dylan Southworth is a Sayulita local who’s starting to come up, nationally. Definitely on some Kelly Slater sea legs style but with the out-of-water flare of Andy Irons. The kid is good and at 18 years old, he’s got some serious mindshare, exactly the kinda thing brands are looking for.
I’m hoping to catch up with him for a photo session one of these days.
VBS.TV has turned its sights towards Mexico in a month long programming tribute, accompany the Mexican language version of Vice:
Having spread our seed across the whole of the English Commonwealth and the continent of Europe (the good parts at least), this month Vice and VBS turn our sites southward for the launch of Vice Mexico. This is just the first baby-step in our planned conquest of Latin America in its entirety, but it is still a doozy of a start.
For the next four weeks, all the programming on VBS is if not Made In Mexico, at least Made By Mexicans. Or in some cases With Mexicans. There will be new Mexican episodes of Practice Space with the likes of Los Dynamite, Maria Daniela, Silverio, Jessy Bulbo, and Hong Kong Blood Opera; fresh editions of Art Talk! with Miguel Calderon, Yoshua Okon, and other luminaries of Mexico City’s incredible punk-art scene; and features on our favorite facets of Mexico’s insane-ass culture like the murder-tabloid industry (la Nota Roja) and their retirement home for aging sex workers (yes, they really have one of those).
And as a final treat in the pinata, we followed Richard Kern down to the capital for a special Mexico City installment of Shot By Kern. Be on the lookout for that, and be sure to check out the inaugural Mexican Issue of the magazine over on Viceland.com.
Most of the series seems to focus on the mex/us border towns and Mexico City, no rural coast stuff going on, I guess it doesn’t mesh with Vice’s urban hipster aesthetic. But lots of good content, so go check it out.
We’ve all been there before — with cell phones, about a decade ago. Usage-based pricing tiers started out with very limited minutes and lots of overage charges. Competition in the market by innovative operators drove plans fairly quickly to a point where only exorbitant usage resulted in overage charges (and now there are flat-rate plans for those consumers, too).
With regards to Mexico, Telcel has such an unfair advantage its competitors can’t pressure the telcom behemoth to lower its rates. There is no innovation in the Mexican cellular market directly because of Telcel’s dynastic monopoly leaving Mexico stuck in a quagmire where even light usage of cell phones leads to overage charges in voice, sms and data.
This past Saturday I drove up to Mazatlan for a surf contest at a left point break called Patole, with boards and camera in hand. The drive is six hours. I arrived at 1pm to wind-blown waist high slop. The contestants tried their hardest to put on a good show and I tried my hardest to snap some interesting shots. In a funky ass mood, I hung around for 4 hours or so and turned right around and drove all the way back to Vallarta. By the time I got home, at 11pm, I was so cracked out from that Monster energy drink I had, on the way, I couldn’t get to sleep. what a day. I have a post brewing on the cost of living in Mexico, as it relates to my road trip to Mazatlan. You will not believe how much it cost me to get there and back.
With big swell on the way, some homies have headed down to Pascuales to catch the deep water, open seas swell. I broke the budget for the week, so I’m holding the Bahia de Banderas down for the local bras.
The Bahia de Banderas is the name for the giant bay this entire area sits on. From Cabo Corrientes on the southern tip, to Punta Mita on the northern. This is also the name for the municipality I live in that stretches from Nuevo Vallarta to Lo de Marco. The state of Nayarit and Fonatur (the governmental development agency) call this area “the Riveria Nayarit”. In theory, giving the area a classy attaché in hopes of luring tourists and foreign investment dollars. The locals call it “Badeba” a contraction of its full name. I like Badeba, cuz it sounds kinda naco and probably pisses a lot of developers off.
I got skunked not once but twice yesterday. An am trip to Veneros, some nice chest high waves, but 30 people in a break that maxes out at 15. No waves at all at Albercas. And after a long trek in through the muddy river bed to Burros and nothing there as well. In the pm, back to Veneros to find blown-out waist high closeouts. I need some water.
Regular updates resuming shortly, just as soon as I can get my face out of this ginormous MS Word doc I’ve been editing for god knows how long. If I’m not in the water, I’m in this dumb word doc.
KRINK Laptop sleeve from "Curated by Arktip" for Incase the laptop sleeve is cool, but the video highlighting the collaboration is worth your time. Krink is legendary. his work clearly defines a bridge between graffiti and abstract art.
Tawainese Fishing Boat Shocks Padang; Authorities Investigate notorious law breaking fishing boat runs aground at one of the best surf breaks in the world "padang padang" in Bali, and threatens to dump oil all over the pristine reef. insang [via Rob 70]
Mondays are always better with Feist and the muppets of Sesame Street. If this video doesn’t bring a smile to your face, you got entirely too much coal in your stocking when you were a kid. give yerself a big hug and a lollipop quickfast.
Half Half - the photo blog of Tyler Manson brilliant idea for a photo blog and the images are fractured and wonderful. and the naming convention is killer. i smell a book. [via Shakas & Singlefins]
TPM | Poll: Obama drop 14 points in latest Newsweek poll "This is hard to believe, but Obama has dropped 14 points among independents since the last poll." - what's hard to believe? One word: FISA. those 14 points are made up of people who actually care about their rights to privacy and the 4th amendment. Somebody buy Obama a clue.
Kate Czuczman has a brilliant article in the July issue of Surf Girl Magazine. The article is about taking surf photography back to its artist roots via film:
The Film Revolution — what is it?
Kate Czuczman takes a look at at the photographic revolution that’s going on and highlights four photographers whose work personifies this. These photographers are striving for something more than the stereotypical surf shot and recall the days of photographer as artist.
Click on over to Kate’s flickrstream to see the rest of the tear sheets. Beautifully designed article! While you’re there, don’t forget to leave your eyeball tracks all over her beautiful celluloid-based photography. That reminds me, I need to break out the Mamiya 645 and get crunk on some 120 film, as Kate says: “medium format is the way forward”. True, True.
I spent yesterday creating a book for the Photography Book Now competition. The book is called The Faces Of Asia, A series of spontaneous portraits taken on the streets of Bali, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and India. The pictures were taken on our travels through Asia from Dec.’06 to Feb.’07.
The book is super simple, 128 pages, one portrait per page. I designed it as a 8×10 portrait format soft cover. I personally think Blurb’s prices are a little high, printing on demand is definitely still a luxury. The book runs $42, which is way too high. I’m not really expecting anyone to be able to afford a book at that price, but if you want a book, it’s there for the taking.
Unit Interactive :: Blog :: Better CSS Font Stacks why reinvent the wheel, here are some great css font stacks, organized by text kinds: paragraph/bodycopy and title/headlines. super smart stuff! [via Big Contrarian]
Update: Gente, vayanse a firmar la petición que demanda precios justos para el iPhone en Mexico: NelTelcel.com, go now!
–
The moment all us peoples south of the er, um, the southern United States border have been waiting for: Apple’s iPhone is finally coming to Mexico. Telcel is the carrier. A quick click over to Telcel’s official iPhone rate plan page and the unbearable truth starts to sink in: we may have the iPhone but Telcel’s plans totally suck. Here’s what they look like, prices are in US dollars:
Most people outside of Mexico will be shocked by the paltry amount of minutes mexicans get for their money. Despite being a developing nation, mexicans pay more than three times what people in the states and Europe do (if you adjust for average income, it’s more like 20x). Unfortunately, Telcel enjoys a monopoly that’s well documented. High prices for talk minutes is a way of life here, most people shrug and bear it. The real kick in the pants isn’t the minutes, it’s the data.
Wednesday night. I wake to huge crashers, rumbling me from my sleep. Incoming swell. Nice. I wake Thursday morning to no sounds of crashing waves, silence, odd. Prepare my morning coffee and right to work. 11am, my sister Beth calls me up and says that there are three meter waves and Tzahui Poo wants to meet up at “Holi” to take some photos. Holiday Inn (or Holi, for short) breaks far inside the bay towards Vallarta and this spot is usually reserved for when the size of a swell is so large that the outer bay spots all crap out from heavy currents and un-groomed waves.
I grab the camera and the board and I’m ghost. 20 minutes later, almost there, I get a call from Beth saying that Holi is starting to crap out from the wind, Tzahui is heading for “Velas” (or as I’m calling it “Portofino”, as there’s actually two different breaks at this spot). Portofino is the breaker of boards, a wicked dumping, open barrel, shore break. The higher the tide, the closer to shore, the deadlier the barrel. 80% of all rides end in closed out revolcadas, washing machine-like whirling dervishes of pressure, water, foam and sand. and you’re the clothing. Double overhead? No way. As my primary directive is to surf, I head back up to the north bay where I hear Birri and Ro are at Veneros. I make a u-turn.
30 Minutes later, from the cliff above Destiladeras, standing on the roof of my truck with binoculars (8×65), I can see the entire north bay looks like the north shore of Hawaii. Overhead and double overhead everywhere. Spots breaking two and three times farther out than usual. Waves breaking in mile long chains. Beth has called to tell me that Birri had to leave Veneros because the waves were too big. Too big?! I hear that a gem of a hidden break is going off, I’ll call it “La Puntilla”, a beautiful right, long ride and up until now I’ve never seen it breaking. It has near-legendary status. Birri’s there now and it’s overhead. I make another u-turn.
I pull up to the parking area for La Puntilla, just as Phil is driving out. We smile and each roll down our windows. I ask him how the swell is: “Man, I’ve been here since 7am. We had the break to ourselves for hours. Double overhead. My arms are spaghetti. 15 güeys just got here and the swell is starting to fall and the wind is coming up. Better get yours quick.”, paraphrased. We exchange shakas. I park and walk my gear to the beach to see a right break, head high and the left break on the far side about the same. I grab the camera and snap off a few captures. Birri is killing it, but the lineup is crowded. I’ve come to surf, so I grab the gear hit the car and do another u-turn.
With board in hand (camera back at the car) I walk out on to Destiladeras beach to see overhead waves lined up like jossling hordes of antsy teenagers. Veneros is unsurfable. Dinosaurs is overhead+ with maybe eight people out, half just sitting on the shoulder rolling up and over the freight trains coming though the lineup. My lower back is a ball of nerves. I recite an internal ohm relaxification ritual as I gear up and try to make it out past the thrashing shore break. The whipping current wants to put me right into the gapping maw of overhead shore dump. I paddle out to the lineup not facing out to sea, rather facing north, parallel to the beach, it takes me 20 minutes.
The lineup is farther out than I have ever seen it. I sit with the other gawkers on the shoulder, trying to come to peace with the virulent dodgy walled up sets coming through. They’re fast, vertical and open. You can fit a vw inside most. The lip is heavy. My lower back still courses with stress, I can’t seem to be able to relax, never a good sign for potentially being caught on the inside of large sets. In order to handle the white water you have to be relaxed and in control. Stress and anxiety drop your ability to hold your breath by several orders of magnitude. I focus on my breathing and try to enjoy the experience. Jason drops in on the first peak. Not fast enough to make it down the line, I drop in on the second peak. The potato chip 6′0″ shortboard keeps me too far down in the water and I drop in late. I fall out of the wave, drop four feet or so and catch the wall and I’m off, done the line. The steepest and fastest wave I’ve ever ridden, by far. I ride it surly wave to within a hundred yards of the beach. I turn around and look at the lineup. My back aches with stress. I make another u-turn, maybe another day…
I’m off to homebase, Burros, the headquarters. Overhead unruly sets are best served at a place I know intimately well. I arrive to the beach, to see nothing. nothing?! Blown out knee-high slop. No one in the water. what gives? Once again I do a u-turn.
La Puntilla it is, I should never have doubted you. As I walk out on to the beach, the lineup is almost gone. Two guys in the water and the sets at about shoulder level. Lots of onshore wind muddy up the already un-groomed lines. This is my first time surfing La Puntilla and with a vacant lineup, I enjoy every second of it. A classic rocky point break, when you’re firing, you probably give Malibu a run for its money. Lots of nice long flowing lines and soft carves (I leave the snaps to the local yokels). The spot has three sections and if you can make all three, maybe you can avoid the rocky edge. I worked on the tail stall and sitting on the foam ball, then down the line, sweet little weaving and in to the next section. I’m so glad you could make it, La Puntilla, a new friend. Later Thursday, we all get together to talk story. We all have stories to tell about the day.
Friday 8am, up to Veneros and Dinosaurs. less than a meter and no dice. I know there must be swell some place else, so I head back to town. I put in a call to Tzahui, he’s at Portofino with Chicharro and posse. It’s overhead. I grab the camera on the way down. A half-hour later I’m walking down the beach. It’s definitely overhead and heavy. When I get to the first rock jetty I can see hollow tubes and several shortboarders taking advantage of them. I drop the gear and grab the camera. The break is 50 yards from dry beach. Maybe less. The waves are ridiculously heavy and everyone does their best to show off for the camera. Only natural. I shoot for hours, luckily I brought the mono-pod. Lifesaver. I shoot 90º to the wave then 45º from both sides. good stuff. But then I get the bright idea to shoot from the rock jetty that juts out to the breaking section. The 100-400mm lens comes in handy here and although the scene is wide, the angle really helps capture the grandiosity of the swell. I kick myself that I chose to pursue surfing, the day before, instead of coming to this very same spot, which Tzahui says was easily twice as large.
The problem with being a surfer who also takes photos, is that the photography jones, more often than not, loses out to the surfing jones. It’s just a fact.
By the time I was done shooting, Friday, I was burnt to a crisp and in dire need of sustenance (monge). I snapped a few photos of Tzahui and Chicharro as they finally dragged themselves out of the water, packed up my gear and hit the road. Two full days of insane swell chasing. The first day tied to a board, the second tied to a camera. As it should be.
Hot on the tail of this past week’s Tropical Storm Douglas (pics/story coming soonish), which saw double overhead swell hit on Thursday, we have another storm coming up the coast. Scheduled to hit sometime this coming Thursday, Tropical Depression FIVE-E must be NOAA’s inside joke / hat tip to the awesomeness that is WALL-E (if you haven’t seen it already, drop your Skil saw 100 and rush to the nearest movie theater). It’s still a bit early in the week to know exactly what kind of swell we’re going to get. Wet Sand is calling it at 24 feet (which will most certainly come down as the week progresses), Wave Watch calls it at 16 secs. and Surfline doesn’t even show anything, which is funky cuz they didn’t show Douglas either (um, em, *tink *tink, is this thing on?).
kuler | Adobe Labs probably like the best color sequencing app ever? if you need to pick a series of colors for a theme or something, this thing is BOSS. The downloadable AIR app version isn’t so cool, but its got the coolest icon ever.
80 Beautiful Typefaces | Smashing Magazine great list of classic typefaces. when helvetica you wanna stray from helvetica, this is a good list of stand-ins. (but why would you ever do such a thing?)
Oh No He Didn't! | Amy Stein's blog "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." - McCain to his wife Cindy. Imagine if Obama had said this at any point in his life, in front of a reporter. At some point we have to collectively, publicly admit that there is a double standard with which the press treats McCain and Obama. McCain is a dirty old grinch yet the press never mentions this fact and despite repeated, consistent out bursts, press just shrug it off. What happens if an elected president (the oldest ever & in war time) starts to develop dementia?
Bodhi Oser has some beautiful skate/surf/snow tinged work. Art-Direction, Design and Photography are his domain and he does it inna fine style. His portfolio site is shortnsweet, exactly as it should be. His work appears effortless and minimal, deceptively so.
Further, I’ve written about Tom Adler before, his series of books are responsible for helping alter my perceptions of how surfing-related imagery can be presented. His approach to the subject has helped elevate surf photography to a high art level. Bodhi is a part of this process, these guys should be winning awards for their work.
Hi, my name is Ed Fladung, I'm a recovering web-designer who moved to Mexico about 4 years ago. Learned to surf, got married and bought a nice camera. This is my weblog/photoblog. It covers broad subjects like becoming an ex-pat, surfing, photography, graphic design, music, art, architecture, living in mexico, all things Apple and WordPress related, etc... You can find more about me here. I hope you enjoy.
Powered by WordPress and my own home-rolled flavor of the Qwilm! theme. I call it the QPwilm! theme and you can download it if you'd like. This is my 4th iteration past the publicly available QPwilm! theme.
