Receiving A Proverbial Ass Kicking.

It's humbling to have your ass handed to you on a silver platter not once, but a couple of dozen times in the space of an hour and a half.

I had no idea that the surf would be as large as it was when I booked my beginners lesson for today. I had watched the wave reports in the last couple of weeks and thought that the surf was generally smaller in the afternoon. Oh boy, WRONG! Those petite one to two foot waves I saw last week would surely reappear and allow me to gracefully glide across them right? Wrong again!

Today when I showed up for my surf lesson I was greeted by a well built ex-highschool football player, Peter and some equally large and powerful four to six foot waves. On approaching the shoreline my mind was flooded with only two words. "Oh" and "shit". There before me lay unending sets of four footers crashing in relatively shallow water with the odd five and six footer thrown in for good measure. The bigger waves were just there to remind you that you were a smart ass for even thinking about surfing at this time of year.

Peter got me started on the beach with some pop ups and paddling drills. The paddling was pretty much to become a moot point as no beginner can really paddle out over huge wash and waves. One thing was for sure, the 4/3 Rip curl suit I bought at Christmas time was well worth the money and kept me more than warm through the entire lesson. Not a frozen digit on my body I was free to flail and get owned by countless waves in complete comfort.

As we headed out into the surf I instantly became aware that this surf was not to be trifled with and deserved much respect and a healthy portion of fear. Everything about the walling up grey waves said, "Don't even think about screwing around" as they bounced off the sandbar and curled over the top only to slam down into the trough created in front of them. The first two completely destroyed me. Peter, laughing piped up with, "I think that's Waves 2 - Kelsey 0."

I started with a couple of knee rides into the beach which was really fun and gave me a sense of how the wave would grab the board and shoot me towards the beach. I then graduated to step ups and then full pop-ups. With help from Peter I caught a number of waves and managed to stand up and ride at least 10 or more. I was chronically over-weighting my back foot which just like in snowboarding causes a loss of steering control and eventually, falling off.

The falling off I could deal with. It seemed like a natural progression of events as a beginner. It was the wading out and staring at a six foot wave which was just about to break over my head that I had a bit of a problem with.

"Toss the board and dive into it quick!" said Peter. Had I the time I would first run for the beach and second asked him, "Are you f*cking serious?"

The six foot wave showed me how serious it was. One must consider the physics in play when it comes to such a wave. Front to back that wave is one and a half to two times as long as it is high. That wave was also breaking in 4 ft of water and most of that water lying beneath it is moving in the same direction as well. So my 5'8" frame standing there in 4 ft of water with a 6 ft wave coming at it was 4'4" shorter than the wave. The volume of water moving at the surface area of my body was approximately 120-144 gallons, each gallon weighing 8 lbs. That's anywhere from 960 - 1152 lbs of water moving at 10 - 15 km/h (ohhh mixing metric and imperial!) and when just the upper portion of the wave lands on you it can be around 400 lbs of water thumping you to the bottom and holding you there for 10 seconds or more. If that's not enough, the additional ride in the washing machine and the board possibly crashing down on your head as you surface really puts the icing on the cake.

I tossed the board and dove through the wave and sorta of popped out the other side. There were other times where it simply owned me and took my for a sommersaulting ride to shore.

I should mention that the $80 lesson was an hour and forty five minutes. I made it an hour and twenty and packed it in knowing there was no way anything good was coming from me staying out there. I would be much better to head home and come back out another day when I had the use of my body.

Was it fun in the end? You bet. Will I do it again? Hellz yeah. In that size of surf? No Ma'am. I'm going to wait for the smaller stuff and have some fun. That was way too much like getting tackled by Ernie Anderson at my first men's rugby practice (I quit rugby soon after).

Dancin' Miete

 In an attempt to stay sane and help Miete burn off some of the two thousand gigawatts of energy she produces daily, Lisa has entered her into dance classes. We both wondered how she would do as the last time we entered into a class it was way too structured and we immediately pulled her.

Every kind of class seems to exist for kids in this city. You want your kid to learn French Cuisine? There's a class for it. You want junior to scuba? Sign him up! We had scouted the classes before even moving down and we are happy to say they are working out nicely.

After the first trial class, which was free, we were directly to a store located not far from where we live but definitely in an area where we probably wouldn't normally stray. We were looking for Daniel's Warehouse on Adams Blvd. in order to find Miete some ballet slippers and tap shoes. The GPS served us well and we found it in the middle of a very Mexican neighbourhood in a pretty tough looking area of Los Angeles. We parked around the corner and entered the store.

"And how can I help you fiiiiiiine people?" sung the very flamboyant Daniel as we walked through the door. Daniel was the gay version of David Cross. Come to think of it, maybe David Cross is gay, doesn't know it and that's why he's so angry. In any case, he was very nice and directed us to the back of the chaotic warehouse where the shoes were kept while holding a conversation on his blue tooth headset which I  must say, made him resemble Janet Jackson.

The back of the warehouse was insane. Huge shelves with open boxes stacked all over them. Shoes were spilling out all over the place. Shoes of every kind. Leotards, dance tights, dresses and the much, much coveted UNITARD! Adam and I would have to come back here to get Unitards for Halloween.

We found here shoes with some help and when we paid for them I nearly crapped. $22.12 for two sets of shoes. Unheard of. Thank you Daniel.

Since then Miete has been tearing it up at dance class and Lisa was able to shoot some footage and I'm posting it here:

Surfin' USA

My quest for surf since my days of getting trapped in a wetsuit in Santa Monica have progressed. I am glad to report that I have since found a great wetsuit and for a decent price.

On referral from Dave Vasquez I went and looked at suits at Rip Curl in Santa Monica. Sure enough, I found an awesome suit for a great price and after trying it and another on and NOT getting trapped or needing rescuing I purchased a brand new 2011 Rip Curl E-Bomb Pro 4/3 full suit:

The price was over a Ben Franklin cheaper than at the Rider Shack and the weather on the day was cooler and thus I made very little Human Soup while trying it on. I don't want to make it sound like I didn't sweat but for the most part there was minimal ballsack bisque created in the nether-region of my new suit.

On check out I spoke with the young twenty something surfer kid working there. He asked where I was from and I told him I had recently relocated to Los Angeles from Vancouver, Canada. It was met with pretty much the same response as I have heard time and again since moving here. NO WAY! Vancouver is awesome and weed is pretty much legal!

Apparently, the rumours of Vansterdam being known for it's herb are true. I have to constantly explain that I don't smoke weed and then immediately follow that with an explanation of why. I've found the best way to relate it is that there is simply no novelty in partaking in something which most Vancouverites can find in their couch cushions.

So, I had found a suit and now simply had to find an actual surf board. Rather than being difficult in locating a board suitable for a beginner it was more a case of it being difficult sifting through the multitude of ads on Craigslist. I received a quick education in board terminology and was off and making calls and sending emails in the hopes of finding a funboard/minimal or longboard in good condition and for a reasonable price. Like my apartment search, the search for a board brought me into contact with some interesting people.

I thought I had hit the motherlode. One Craigslist ad had forty five boards listed in it. This guy must be running a board rental shop or something. I sent him an email regarding a couple of the boards I thought would be most suitable. We arranged a time for me to come by when I called him.

Me: Hi, I'm calling about a couple of the longboards you have listed.

Jeff: Yeah dude. Come on by. I live in Palms in an apartment.

Right away, I figured something would be interesting about this visit. There is no way this guy could have forty plus boards in an apartment.

As I drove up, I knew I had the right place. There was a couple with a pickup unloading three boards and a skinny guy standing there talking. That was Jeff. I walked up and he introduced himself. He concluded his deal with the other couple who were in fact selling him boards. I was starting to get the picture. This guy must buy and sell boards. Maybe a good deal was to be had and maybe it wasn't depending on whether or not he did this as a hobby or as a living. He looked respectable enough so I hoped for the former.

I helped Jeff carry some of the boards up to his apartment and as we entered I instantly knew that this was his means of income. There are few things like being kicked in the face with the smell of man-ass and sweat to tell you that this dude was single, a bum and more than likely remaining both for the rest of his life. There were boards everywhere I looked. Jeff directed my gaze to the couch where a massive oafish figure sat, lumped under a blanket with a serving bowl of cereal held inches under his face.

Jeff: Kelsey, this is my roommate Kenny. Kenny, Kelsey.

Me: Err, hey.

Kenny: grunt *shovels more cereal into his gaping maw*

There were all the signs of flunkie-dom. The lazy roommate wrapped in a blanket eating only that which he could make in under two minutes. The empty and not so empty pizza boxes. The unclean carpet. The water bong perched perfectly in its place in the center of the coffee table its ashes strewn here and there from hookah hits gone by.

The reality: These guys sold boards and probably weed and maybe just maybe Kenny worked at the convenience store on the corner of Palms and National one night a week.

Jeff showed me dozens of boards on his porch alone but none of them were that stellar. Then we entered his room. One thrashed psuedo-futon, a shit-tonne of dirty gonch and socks and a pile... I mean a PILE of boards. This was a serious masturbation station. There was no way in hell anything but the worst of hoodrats would unclothe in this joint. He might as well hang a Jergens sponser banner on the wall. He showed me some pretty shitty planks and one 7'2" funboard which I thought was both a little short and a little over priced for me ($240). It was clear that this guy was making his living selling total shit to noobs for a hefty price.

I cannot begrudge a man for making a living so I told him I would have to think about it and made my exit, glad to finally breathe air free of years of human skin, ash and sharticles. Both Kenny and Jeff will die of breathing their own ass fumes, I'm sure of it.

I came home and hit Craigslist again and emailed three more places. The first place turned out to be the lucky listing and a young guy with a board he no longer used got back to me.

Mark, a young jewish film exec flogged me his board for a great price. He claimed to have no buds that surfed but frankly I think he just didn't like the cold water in winter which is the equivalent to the warmest B.C. water in summer. Fair play. Mazaltov my fine semetic friend. I'm going to surf the living matzo out of this sweet ass kosher plank.

In the end I bought a pretty damn sweet setup for a beginner for a helluva price. I got an almost unmarked 7'10" funboard with a leash and a soft roof carrier (kinda like a removable roof rack thing which you can strap on the car) all for two hundred bucks. The board alone is five hundred new and this has maybe a season's wear on it. The carrier is around a hundred and the leash is around thirty. He also threw in a tonne of wax so I'm good to go once the weather improves. If I had the yalmulka Lisa bought me years ago I would wear it on the virgin ride but it's packed away in Vancouver so alas, I will ride this board as a mere Goyem. LACHEIM!

CHRISTMAS EDITION 2010!!!

I posted the above photo for your benefit and the below videos for me and my families' (mine and the in-laws). We are NOT a Norman Rockwell family. Not that we're not happy and full of love and good feelings. My family is the single most important thing to me and they are the best and highest quality folk I know. It's just that unlike a Rockwell painting, we have far more shit and fart jokes and the occasional, "I swear to god, I'll kill that kid if she doesn't go to sleep soon!"

In short: Norman Rockwell was full of fucking shit.

Every family has it's fair share of trouble, strife, bad times and hopefully a good dose of tolerance to deal with the former along with some really good times. I am a firm believer in 'Life is a bed of roses' so long as those roses were fertilized with a solid layer of shit.  Nothing but good times would be boring and unappreciated without some annoyance (Dad, please let me hold the remote for more than 10 seconds next time I visit). Balance and contrast people. That's what I'm saying.

Don't believe me? 

Which feels better? Sleeping under a light sheet because it's humid and hot in the summer or cozying up under a down duvet when it's cold in winter? Alright, admittedly using the word 'duvet' is almost outing myself but you get the point.

On to the good stuff.

Here's some videos of my girls because they are simply put, insanely awesome. 

 Alright, so I'm not fond of the thought of my daughter(s) dating. In fact, I might kill the first male to show up at my doorstep thinking he is going to take one of my girls out. I own guns. I now live in the U.S. of gun lovin' A. I will shoot to maim and/or kill and more than likely I will aim for your junk if you're driving a goddamn van. If there has to be a boy showing up at my doorstep I can only wish it is one of the sons of our friends. Otherwise, manslaughter charges might be pending.
 

Hunter Dutton, you will receive the benefit of the doubt because your parents are awesome people.  You show up fifteen minutes past Miete's curfew and I put in a call to your dad the following morning when he's hung over and interrupting while he's watching Man United. Let your imagination run wild at what his response will be. Get her home on time and your proposal is pre-approved.

I believe in making the best of any situation. I'm the John Rambo of moving to other countries. I adapt. I overcome. Well, not really but I do my best. What therefore do you do with a three year old with waaaaay too much energy when you're a single mom? Ask Lisa and she'll say, "Enroll them in Ballet and Gymnastics!" Hence, the following video:

What's a holiday without a trained monkey? Alright, so I have no primate but Miete can play guitar and sing. "Play" is a relative term but love is blind and this is the mushy part of the blog where god forbid, I say I love my awesome kid. Uncle Dave will need to intervene at some point as this child is born to rock. Just no Skynyrd.

Now, I realize she doesn't do a lot but Eireland is a pretty awesome kid as well. She sort of does her own thing. By that, I mean she makes weird sounds and produces mustard from her bum. With a righteous hairdo she can simply "be" and carry a shot. This one is for the Grandmas.

In closing, wherever you are. Whomever you're with. The holidays is for having some good times and enjoying life. Please do so.

Merry Christmas.

Delays R' Us

I'm a relatively well trained husband. Years ago, my wife broke me of last minute Christmas shopping. It was one of those habits I was more than happy to give up when I realized that if you shop in November you avoid the bat-shit crazy mania of Christmas shopping in the third week of December. I was therefore a little taken aback when Lisa asked me to "swing by" Toys R Us and pick up a last minute present for Miete on December 19th.

I'll write it off to the international move and the warmer weather in Los Angeles making Lisa forget what date it really was. I have to admit, I haven't felt the least bit "christmasy" since moving here in the last days of November. I'm not one to get over enthused with holiday spirit but warm temperatures and a new city have completely killed it for me this year. So I was as guilty as she when I drove into the parking lot, Adam Wood in tow to pick up a Fisher Price digital camera for the kid.

I turned and looked at Adam as I turned off the car and said, "This may be our single biggest mistake of the holiday season". He nodded in agreement and we headed into the fray.

I've experienced some stupid shit at Christmas time but American really takes the cake when it comes to bad shopping experiences. It's like every Los Angelino who normally would be too over medicated on Prozac to act like an asshole has stopped self-medicating and now has delusions that they're Mr. T and pities the fool that gets in their way. All those assholes, they headed to Toys R Us on Sunday.

I was originally sent to get the digital camera and pull-ups as TRU has the cheapest ones in town. They were out of pull ups so I was sent on the search for the camera. I actually found it with relative ease while Adam went off searching for something to bring back to Vancouver for his boys. I arrived back at the front of the store and my gut turned. The lines were long and they were filled with some angry looking people. I noted the exits in case gunfire erupted.

I chose my line. This is something which I have a knack for. By knack, I mean the worst luck in the world. I know with certainty that whichever line I choose will be the slowest, the smelliest, the bitchiest or the one which will be spontaneously shut down. If a kid shits himself and it rolls out the leg of his size two jeans, it will be in my line. If the receipt paper roll runs out it will do so one person ahead of me. So when Consuela and her mother wanted to use a defective gift card to pay for their three hundred and fifty seven items of shit and plastic corruption it came as absolutely no surprise.

After five minutes of waiting I messaged Adam who was still off shopping."I'm in line at the front and ready to shoot myself in the face. Come meet me" He showed up minutes later to share the misery.

Consuela was like an immovable Mexican version of a Shaolin monk. Her feet as firmly planted as her English was broken and she just kept shoving that defective Toys R Us gift card back at the TRU employee, Erin and muttering, "Pay weeth card!" Erin, a black girl in her twenties kept a great attitude and smiled back and kept saying, "Ma'am, I don't know what to do with the card. I don't think it was activated. Could you please step over to the Customer Service Desk?" No Burritos Erin. Senora ain't budging.

Maybe it was the line of three people at the Customer Service Desk which Consuela refused to wait behind after already waiting behind others to get to the front of the line at the cashier. Maybe it was Constanza, Consuela's mother who stood in front of her with her own pile of items stacked high in her shopping cart  who was backing her every move that gave her the gumption to endure the glares of the waiting customers behind her. Maybe it was the fact that she as Mexican and nothing happens fast in Mexico. In fact, this was all happening at lightening speed compared to how it would go down in her homeland so she had no idea that this was even slow. In any case, "pay weeth card" was repeated several times along with, "I no go serveeece desk". This was her Alamo and I was shit out of luck.

I turned around and the behemoth women standing behind me in the black and white polka dot disaster of a shirt/tent was getting really pissed off. She looked like a furious monochromatic game of Twister. "Oh ma gawd! This is ridiculous! I can't believe this! I'm going in the other line!" Her dumpy husband stood silent knowing better than to speak after all, it would be like poking an angry Rhino in the eye.

I looked at my watch. This had been going on for twenty minutes. Erin was losing her mind as Consuela was exhibiting a will which would keep the most unimportant of secrets locked away under a Guantanamo water boarding. Finally, Erin's co-worker at the Customer Service Desk came over and performed some sort of over-ride and sent Consuela on her way, gift card spent. All that for $25. The line uttered a collective, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Fatty McFatterson behind me couldn't contain her passive aggressive self and vomitted forth, "What as the matter? Couldn't she have gone over to the Customer Service Desk?" in a tone dripping of bitchiness as the words spilled out of her gaping maw and down over her twenty seven quivering chins.

Erin simply looked up and apologized and stated in a pleasant manner, "No. She didn't want to go there."

Adam and I left both knowing that indeed, that was our biggest mistake of the holiday season.

Israel, schmisrael. BevMo is the Holyland.

Lose the thousands of years of conflict. Chuck the shitty Gefilltefisch and Motza. Add a butt-load of insanely cheap beer, wine and spirits while tossing your ancient texts written in Hebrew and Aramaic but keeping the Jews and you are getting close to BevMo in Beverly Hills.

Take off those Keds, Moshe. You're on Holy ground, you silly kosher bastard.

Enter BevMo, the discount liquor store of California (or America if it exists outside of the state. Don't know and don't care). When God rested on the seventh day I'm pretty sure when he dragged his infinitely old ass out of bed on the eighth that he thought creating BevMo was top of his list after a making coffee and taking a dump.

It obviously wasn't enough for Americans to merely have access to endless supplies of beer and wine at the local corner market. It obviously wasn't enough to put a Liquor store in every neighbourhood where when sweet talked the owner would sell you Cuban cigars and possibly a handgun with the grip already wrapped in tape. It obviously wasn't enough that all that hooch would be sold to them at incredibly low prices hence, the neccessity for BevMo. When Uncle Sam sat and pondered what else this country needed on top of massive block stores he came to the conclusion that his populace needed to get their shit all fucked up for half the price.

In Canadian terms: BevMo is to booze as Costco is to Ramen Noodles.

$20 wine? Yeah, $12. $16 Micro-brewed beer from Portland? How 'bout $7? The scotch I'm drinking right now (Balvenie Double Wood) costs $74.95 at any BCLS. It cost me $33.95. Suck it Trebek. Suck it long and suck it hard.

I'll let the link speak for itself: Bev me, BevMo!

Bits and Pieces

Some days are action packed and some days are slow. The fact is, not every day in Los Angeles has been one strange adventure after another. Sure, there's plenty of freaks here and there's plenty to see and do but life has to go on and sometimes you just need to get groceries or some other mundane activity. The following is a compilation of events which would have otherwise gone unreported as they were on relatively uneventful days.

El Mongo: Gardener Off The Top Rope

On day two of my time in Los Angeles I was still crotch deep in a search for an apartment. There were a tonne of listings and I was still trying to hold to the ideal of finding a house rather than an apartment or condo. I wrangled a listing out of Westside Rentals and made the call. The voice on the other end obviously belonged to one of California's Mexican-American residents. I'll cut the details short on the
utter shitbox I went to see afterward as it is covered in an earlier blog entry (blentry?). The juice of this tale lies in what I before finding the address.

With time to kill before the appointment I decided to take a drive around the back streets surrounding Culver Studios which is where I now work. I slowly wound my way through the residential neighborhoods of sleepy Culver City. Each street had beautiful homes with carefully manicured lawns and shrubbery. The Mexican gardeners could often be seen working in the sun and performing the labor which would make whitey simply wilt like convenience store carnation. It lulled me into a state of relaxation and comfort with the area. Surely, peace and quiet could be found in such a neighborhood.

I turned the corner onto East Carson Street and made my way down it's quiet lanes. I spotted a group of gardeners working the patch of lawn which lay between the sidewalk and road in front of a nice rancher. As I approached the two gardeners with rakes kept working while the largest one standing directly behind them raised something above his head. He simply was the largest Mexican I've seen in a long, long time. His garb struck me as rather strange. On closer inspection I realized he was wearing tight fitting pajamas. They stretched themselves over his massive six foot plus, three hundred pound frame. As I closed in and drew directly parallel with the threesome he raised the objects above his head and started to pump them like Leatherface would his chainsaw. The two with rakes looked up sleepily and apologetically as the large one behind growled loudly and feigned a charge at the car.

"Sweet mother of shit!" I thought. Who is this madman? What sort of gardener is this? I then realized he was probably the older mentally handicapped brother of the two with rakes and those were wrestling belts he was holding up over his head. Imean, these were what looked like real friggin' WWF wrestling belts. Huge dinner plate sized inscribed buckles and all. I knew right then and there that El Mongo was challenging me to a cage match. I stepped on the gas and sped down the road.

Oh oh. Dead end.

I turned the car around in the cul-de-sac. I would have to take another run past El Mongo. His ebony slicked back hair and the stressed seams of his XXXL pajamas taunted me, nay dared me to run the gauntlet yet again. That big bastard would crush the Camry if he went off the top rope. I would have to pass at speed.

On the gas and down the road. I thought for sure he would refrain from another challenge. I was wrong. El Mongo, enraged that I hadn't simply driven the car through the barrier and chain link fence at the end of the road roared his most terrible roar. Time slowed. My drive by was in slo-mo as my eyes drank in every last detail of this amazing display of simple-minded bravado. El Mongo, like a Tijuana born silverback beat the shining wrestling belts against his chest.

You are the champ, El Mongo. You are the champ. Thank you for sparing me and my Japanese automobile from certain destruction.

Social Security Mutants Epilogue.

I received my social security card in the mail today after waiting two weeks. Work was getting impatient and so it couldn't have come at a better time. For a moment I doubted the incompetency of the American government but alas, they restored my faith in their ineptitude.

Not to knock them more than the Canadian government. I mean, let's be fair. They all suck. Working for the government is some sort of equivalent to mental retirement. I'm pretty sure they could take people from the ICU who have been declared brain dead and sit them at a desk and have them perform on par. I know with a certainty that Chimp could rise through the ranks if seniority had nothing with advancement.

So what made it so evident that they are functioning at a moronic capacity? I received the letter which tells the applicant that the social security card has been approved and that should I not receive it within ten days of the letter to call a certain number. The letter was sent in a separate envelope from the same address as the social security card and post marked the same day and of course, arrived the same day. Hell, it was probably sent by the same person. Stupid and wasteful.

Someone should tell President Obama that he need not make the tax cut put forth by the Republicans. He should just get the assholes at the Social Security Administration to stop doubling up on letters.