Go, Do, Be.

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Like all my boards, this one came to me via Craigslist. Unlike the rest, this green 10-footer is a magic board. The 'magic board' is a special match-up between the traits of a surfboard and the style/strength of its surfer. Swaylocks is loaded with posts about magic boards.

I found the ad on CL while I was travelling. A quick email and call to a friend arranged a pickup. J & J completed the transaction for me. They met the seller at his house in SF who told them that he had used the board for tandem surfing. He was leaving SF and didn't want to bring the board along. J & J squeezed it into their hatchback (somehow) and brought it over when I got back to town.

The brand is SF, a small board-making operation and surfshop in San Francisco. It's a sweet-looking board: Nice green tint, 10' x 23" x3.5", triple-stringer, big fin in the finbox. Big, round rails and lots of volume. Kinda heavy though: lots of glass. When it gets into a wave, it really screams down the line. I've taken it to Linda Mar on small days, Ocean Beach on big days: the board works amazingly well in all conditions. Magic.

A few years back, I experienced a mishap. I paddled out at Linda Mar for a rare midweek after-work session. The waves had some energy and the paddle out took timing and paddle-energy. One incoming wave brought a surprising payload toward me: some hairy dude mis-timed his duck dive and ended up catching the wave backwards. The dude's fin jammed into and cut through the nose of my board. Sure, better the board than my shoulder or neck -- still I had a hole about 'that big' in my heart. Would this kill the magic?

I took the board up to the SF surf shop for repairs. Let John Schultze the board's maker fix it and it'll be good as new. John did a great job with it. When I picked up the board, he remembered making it. We talked about it a bit:

John: "Have you tried it in Bolinas? I made it for that wave."

Me: "Why yes, I have. In fact this board seems to really sing on the waves at Bolinas. It's a perfect match."

Me: "Can you make me an EXACT replica? 3-stringers, single-fin, resin tint? that and the magic. Don't leave out the magic. Oh yeah -- and a tail-block."

John: "Nope. Can't work with giant blanks like that anymore."

Me: gasp! "Then I better take care of this thing."

Today, the board is mostly watertight. Lots of little dings and spider-cracks put this thing at risk for getting waterlogged and eventually destroying it (not to mention hairy dudes who can't duckdive). Each year around my birthday I wax this thing up and drag it up to Bolinas for some magic.

I meant to post a rocker-shot too, I'll do this later.

The deck has the dimensions and says 'For Scott at Ocean Beach'. Who is Scott? Why did he sell the board? What's he surfing now?

Somehow it worked out. The people fell for it.

The plan was to run the Olympic Torch through a gauntlet of protesters along the embarcadero. The pro-tibet and pro-chinese folks were robed in flags and ready to meet for a chant-off. The two groups met, temperatures rose, men with shaved heads pleaded for nonviolence...

Then someone said that the torch was heading up Townsend St. The crowded headed off the Embarcadero.

Then someone said that the torch was being taken from McCovey Cove to the Ferry Building by boat, then a runner would run toward Bay St. The crowds turned and headed toward the Ferry Building.

THEN it turns out that the torch was whisked toward Van Ness by bus. The runner jogged unnoticed into a convenience store, bought a pack of cigarettes and jogged on. All the protesters (and the unfortunate few who just wanted to see the torch) fell for it.

Paige & David got all the good shots.

Some fun things noticed along the way:

• When in doubt, follow the police choppers
• How did the flashmob fail?
• Lots of cameras everywhere
• The Darfur folks all in green
• The guys chanting for the Golden State Warriors
• We missed our chance for millions: should have rented a hotdog stand for the day to sell 'doggie lamas'

I offer a few recordings tonight: Sing the wolf song is to the lyrics that eve wrote me the other day. Apologies in advance if you listen with dogs in earshot. I added a few more tonight since Eve & I were sitting around with the mic on. We recorded "Always on the Sunnyside" which is something she sings at school, you're supposed to tell some kind of joke in the breaks... something I screwed up of course. This led us toward the banana knock-knock, which I also screwed up horribly.

Last night's tune 'i had nothing' was recorded at a rehearsal space with my bandmates (weekly jam-mates?). I basically said, "When I hit record, just start playing." woomp! there it is.

Thanks a bunch for all the notes you've sent me on these things.

Finally, I updated that web page. It's a klunker, but:

• you can get to everything without digging through directories
• you can listen to everything through the doodad.
• the feeds will let you get a ping if there's a new tune.

I think I'm somewhat caught up on the listening now.

Bruce-

• porches is just getting uploaded now. Really nice. I'll spin this a few more times tomorrow.
• migrain my brain is severly migrating my brain right now. Please tell me there was some loopation involved in that. The micro hemiola in the hectic part might induce seizures.
• wallevatoR nice touch here. I like the mood.
• silence is not too slient with that guitar erupting over there. Neat!
• thoughts almost takes off in a lee ranaldo direction. I like it. This made a great first impression.

Seth-

• Thanks for putting that itunes doodad together today, if the RSS thing I responded with won't work to pull in the latestgreatest, let me know and I'll cook up a dynamical version of your xml file.
• the biggest risk is great. I like the way the energy kind of goes from 0-60 in the prechorus. Also, nice organ moment, I missed that first time around.
• eve had a comment on decelerating repetition: 'that's not funny' when I played it for her right before bedtime.
• free from me is so nice. isn't it amazing how just an additional vocal track can kick up a demo recording?
• Also, sweet & flavorful AND in my right time AND the plan in the same upload pile? wow. send more, what are you waiting for?

Peter-

• I'm in touch with your blog. I enjoy catching the recording detailz over there. I'm not really making too much of an effort to engineer any of my recordings. I'll start to pay a little more attention to this and put some factoids together.
• Lyudmila works! Is that a love song about this betty?
• I enjoyed statement of too. It comes across as very thought-out and deliberate.

Derek-

• It's been a treat to hear these gems. I mentioned this to you in an IM the other day, but I'll mention it here for the groop: Your recordings are so hi-fi! In a rush, I downloaded bakersfield to my phone while I was on the bart. I listened to it on the .5 inch speaker and wow... I heard all the backup vocals even...
• down the hole- I love it. It's serious! I don't think I've heard you open up like that before! Beautiful.

So I flaked out a little tonight. I was under a schedule crunch today... so I dealt with it through some guitar crunch: partial rock, maybe I'll finish off Drums & Vox along with another song on another day. Here's something... zvex nano head in the house! More to Come

A few other notes on the recent gems:

• Derek- Bakersfield -- makes me want to hop on the 99 and head south. Way to go! Ruby On Rails makes me want to get this java crap out of my life. I think the ROR folks will go nuts about this one.
• Seth: better or worse -- We were all singing along with this one at breakfast. Amazingly catchy.
• Peter: I haven't heard Discipline (I lack) yet. I like Malice and Caprice more with each listen.
• Bruce: Thoughts and Silence -- I haven't spun your tracks yet, but I'll send some notes when I get to it.

'been playing drums a night a week with some folks from meez. We have a few covers on the setlist at this point. Lots of originalz in the same vein... we'll play a show sometime in '08!

SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

Seeqpod is kinda cool, btw, check it out if you get a chance.