What Happens When the Surf Goes Flat?

I´m not fully recovered, but enough so I don´t even think about whether I can surf or not, right now there just aren´t waves. So what goes on around here when the surf goes flat? Barbeques, that´s what. Friday started like a normal day, I caught the last remnants of a swell and as I watched it disappear into the night, some friends decided to get a little barbeque going. So it was only three of us, and the chicken and potatoes that we grilled up were awesome. We had knocked a few back and we were calling it a night.

Or so I thought. I was a little juiced up at this point and walked home. No problem. I get back and a whole slew of people have shown up at the family house in the hours that I´ve been gone. They decide that force feeding the gringo rum and cokes is a good idea. As I´ve said before, I was already a little tipsy, so it was starting to get interesting. I also just happened to fall into a groove with my spanish. So me boozed and in a groove led me to being pretty chatty.

I have a hard time remembering quotes and exact words of conversations in spanish so with a few in me, I forgot most of what was spoken about. I know I didn´t do anything too stupid, but I definitely said a handful of dumb things (which included calling my host mom crazy...which she is). So basically Saturday involved them making fun of me the whole time.

No one should worry because I completely made up for it last night. It was a goodbye party for Peter, the other gringo, and they decided to have a barbeque...and karaoke. The food was incredible and everyone was feeling good so they decided to break out the karaoke. In spanish. It took me a while and involved some interesting segways, but I sang as well. Interesting singing karaoke in a second language to songs I haven´t heard of before. I´ll say I did really well for the second half of the songs because most of the songs here are really repetitive.

This went on for a couple hours and then they broke out the English karaoke. I definitely did my brother proud (Reyn, in case you are unaware is a hard core karaoker and has a great knack for picking the right songs for the right time). I was on fire, there was Journey and Bon Jovi and of course, the knockout punch, the Rolling Stones. Peter, Pato (Pati´s oldest son, who´s studying to be an english translator and is a metal head) and me were bringing it all down. I was a crushing performance for all others that aspire to Karaoke greatness. There was all the right parts for the performances. Overzealousness, dancing (I killed it in ¨billie jean¨), and of course improvisation (Peter is the improve guy, who goes simply by adding as many cursewords or garabatos as possible).

I don´t think many people can possible know the joys of singing ¨Under the Bridge¨(which I soloed, and of course, kicked ass) as the sun comes up. It was a good night. The only possible way that this can be topped is if Reyn, Scott and I really turn it up a notch and kill it in Fiji. I realize that it can be done, but for us professionals, we really have to put long dedicated hours (and beards Peter had a full beard, Pato has this chinstrap to fu manchu facial hair thing going on and my beard is sensational at this point, I mean the length of my neck beard along is making things interesting) to get the show just right. It´s a tough life, but somebody´s got to do it, might as well be me.

Validation

Before arriving in Chile, I spoke pretty good spanish. I´m not saying I was incredible, but I had a reasonable ability to get my point across without making a lot of mistakes. I decided to take classes anyway, just because I knew I had some bad habits and wanted to speak spanish as properly as possible (although I still can sling some slang no worries). A lot of people that I have met here have questioned why I take so many classes (8 hours a week), and I told them I still have a lot to learn and I really want to get rid of as many bad habits as possible. I felt kinda stupid sometimes but today I recieved validation.

I had an in the field class today with my teacher Tati. She said that she thinks that Candy (the surf shop lady) is one of the most difficult to understand in Pichilemu (not true, Pati Paz, my thirteen year old host sister, blows her out of the water). When I got there, another gringo was there and we all sat down and talked while Candy wooped up some lunch for her son and husband. I did fine, as I expected, although I still have gaps in vocabulary (especially in specifics like kitchen utensils/items). What I did notice though was that the gringo next to me had spent a lot of time in Latin America and spoke fluidly incorrect. He could say whatever he wanted but he had so many errors in his speech that it made me understand why I take classes.

He learned spanish by working with some Mexican guys in California and can understand it perfectly, probably better than me, but because he has had less formal training he had way more errors in speech than me. I guess more than anything it just made me feel like I was doing the right thing.

I´m Back

I didn´t even look at the water before suiting up today. I knew I was ready to jump in the water. It didn´t matter at all to me what the surf was like, I was going in. It felt so good to be back in the ocean. The surf wasn´t great (for Pichilemu standards) and I found myself out there with only Chris (he and his wife, Val, run the institute), Keith (he takes classes at the institute) and a Chilean local. The banks are really good right now and even though the swell was inconsistent, it was easy to find yourself on a shoulder high little zipper.

I went kind of easy the first day, because I still wanted to make sure that I didn´t completely rip apart my cut and because my knee stiffened up from walking and sleeping in weird positions to protect my cut. It kinda tweaks a little when I bend it a lot, but I found that it loosened up as I surfed more. The really good news was that when I got in and took off my wetsuit, my cut hadn´t gotten worse (interestingly, it might have gotten better). I think this gives me a bit more free reign for my next surf because there will be so much less anxiety about surfing. It´s supposed to be a little bit bigger, but I guess I´ll see. It´s not supposed to be smaller, so with luck I´ll atleast get the same waves, maybe better. I think I just have to be patient out here and wait for the good ones, although that´s hard to do after spending three weeks doing nothing. I´m also a little slow because all I did while I was out was eat, so the gut is a bit bigger. Not quite flying to my feet. No matter, I´m just happy to be back.

I Don´t Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

I´ve gotten really good at saying goodbye to people. A lot of it has to do with traveling, actually probably all of it. It´s one of the few instances in life where you make good friends incredibly quickly. I think it forces you to be a bit more open with the people around you. It´s hard showing up in a new place and because of a loneliness (a less depressing version of what people get in the States, not such a soul-rending experience), it´s hard to not be a little bit more open with the people around. This of course comes with the hard part of saying goodbye, I mean I´d say the majority of people I´ve met on my travels again, I will never again see in my life. It´s not something I like to admit but I think it´s true. I even think that I´ll probably see people more often because of a couple of things: I travel a lot, and I am really good at keeping in contact with people.

Without this ability I´m not sure I would have seen Gemma, Jeremy, Kim, Jimmy or anybody else again. I realize that it´s a small percentage of people that I´ve met, but still, it´s a handful of good friends that I wouldn´t have made otherwise. I think this trip will probably generate more of that type of friends because I am staying in places for a long time and the short friendships evolve into longer ones because I´ve been here for a few weeks/months. I think I like this style of travel better, the long term, stay in one place for a while. It allows for a better more home like experience. Plus here, I´m getting comfortable with speaking spanish with the people around.

The bad part, which still exists (even in situations like mine), is that there still are large groups of people that will disappear from life. I think this would really bum some people out, and it does to me too, but to a lesser degree. As you are probably aware, I have an incredibly active imagination and really like to think a lot about the chance encounters and paths crossed in life. When I was living in LA and going to school, I would often look in every car that passed me on the freeway (and there was a lot, I mean the 405 south bound is the world´s largest parking lot). I would try to envision the future of these people´s lives and if they would ever come to have a greater impact on my life apart from a fellow commuter stuck in a traffic jam. Has my future wife just passed me on the northbound side? Is that man going to be a future boss? Maybe that sweet old lady could be a neighbor in the future or is the grandparent of somebody I already know? I guess I just think about all the times you pass somebody and then one time you meet them. I mean how many times did I pass future friends, girls without knowing it before meeting them. I guess it´s weird to think about. I guess a lot of people could line this up to fate, and how life only has one path (you can´t really go back and live a different path can you? Not to say some parents don´t try with their kids). I definitely think about my one unique path, but I´m not so fatalistic I look at it as more of a luck of the draw. I mean you pass somebody so many times and each time you have a small probability of meeting them. For some it happens right away but others not. I mean Dan is one of my good friends and we both went to the World CUp game when the US beat Columbia (famous for the Colombian player scoring an own goal, then going home and getting shot outside of some nightclub by some crazed fan who shouted ´Goal´ after each shot. Soccer, it´s a bit crazy here). I didn´t become friends with him for another 11 years, and how many times in between did our paths cross? It´s just weird to think about. I guess I just try to make the most of it and keep the good friends in my life.

I do this kind of stuff all the time, but what traveling has allowed me to do, is imagine the lives of people I´ve met while traveling and try to envision where they are. There are a handful that I think about more than others. Two were bailarinas from the Netherlands that I met in Byron Bay (obvious reasons there), and the other is this Polish guy, Chris that I met on my first day in Europe by myself. He seriously saved me. I got to Budapest without any idea what to do, and absolutely nobody speaks english, I had no place to stay, and worse yet, no idea how to get into the city center. He recognized that I was lost and helped me get downtown, he turned out to be really cool. He played for the Polish National Baseball team and was only in Budapest for ninehours, waiting out a lay over before going to Crete. I got his email but never got a chance to say thank you because he seriously saved me. My trip could have been completely altered if it wasn´t for him.

So now I´m not really that afraid of Goodbye´s, because the friendship has been worth it every time.

Are There Any Good WitchDoctors in Pichilemu?

I am at the internet cafe right now, again. It´s become the highlight of my day. I mean I really don´t have anything else to look forward to right now. I keep up with my wound, that is to say, I´m not neglecting it and I have resigned to actually trying to stay off of it as much as possible. I only walk into town once a day (and that walk is exceptionally short) and on days I have class I walk around the corner to take class. I spend a lot of time laying down or sitting in a chair. I see progress in my wound right now, but it´s such slow progress that it is easy for me to get frustrated. Especially when I don´t get much remote control power in the house. I have to sit through a lot of really irrelevant news and this show called Rojo that´s on daily for about 14 hours a day and is just people singing karaoke and some accompanying back up dancers (the silver lining to the dark cloud). I mean that is really it. Then that goes into the inane news, followed by Peloton (the most boring reality tv show in the history of mankind (and possibly all kinds but I don´t know)). Then there is Esto no tiene nombre (a boring version of 60 minutes with Barbara Walters....wait...let it sink in...yes that´s right an even more boring show than watching a 60 year old woman with a lisp interview irrelevant people). The thing is, what makes this whole ordeal even worse, is that ESPN is available and because of the time of year, they are showing baseball (go dodgers) and are about to start the playoffs for basketball (lakers please don´t get swept by the suns). I mean I actually get real sports right now, I had to ignore Jackie Robinson night (Dodgers vs. Padres) on sunday to watch some crappy news reporter talk about how people have bought computers and it takes a long time to reply to complaints.

I guess this could all be ignored if I could read at night, but the light in my bedroom is insufficient to read at night. I mean sometimes I just completely ignore this and read anyways (more common now that I am already super bored going into the night). I have to really do something. I starting hanging out more at the Institute (where I take spanish classes), but in the evening people seem to leave to go for beers in town (another thing I can´t do). I do have the luxury of having my computer so I can watch movies, of which I brought Broke Down Melody, Momentum and the third Season of the Wire (which is absolutely incredible). I have watched all of them a lot. I have blown through the season of the Wire three times, the last of which I turned on the spanish subtitles and learned some good ole curse words. That entertained me a lot. I´m contemplating putting on the french subtitles and learning some french cursing, that´s how bored I am.

I´ve gone through the surf videos a million times too, and its gotten to the point where if some one is watching one of my videos with me I am horribly obnoxious. I know when everything is going to happen and I´m always saying things like ¨watch this, I love this turn¨ and other crap like that and I think that takes away from the video. I need some thing else to get me through. I´ve even been writing a lot in my personal journal (which is completely in spanish). I do drawings in my journal too (and I´m bad and slow). I´m really trying to figure out what to do. I guess my spanish has been improving still, but I could be doing that with surfing.

I had been thinking of going back to Viña until I heal up, at least there I would have everything I need in the house and would actually stay off my feet and wouldn´t be tempted at all to surf. I just think I would get too lazy. At least now I still feel like a part of life.

Well, I´m going to go back to what I do best...look at porn (just kidding, but it is something that is socially acceptable in the internet cafe here in Pichilemu), no I´ll be looking at the Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire and admiring my team.

Usually I Decide to Dislike Someone After I´ve Heard Them Talk

The screaming baby from hell left yesterday, making my days just that much easier. I really, for the first time, disliked a baby. It was the most annoying baby ever. It would wander around the house in it´s little pink baby stroller and make sure to get as close as possible, then yell. Loudly.

Not now, now the house is quiet (well as quiet as it can be). I can eat lunch without earplugs (something I used to take for granted, but nevermore). I can actually hear conversations at the dinner table. I can hear the television without that constant ringing.

It´s strangely poetic that it reminds me of a Kurt Vonnegut story (RIP), where the people of the United States have sought out to make everyone equal and in doing so they decide to make everyone average. If you can run fast they put bags on you to weigh you down, if you are beautiful they make you wear a mask and if you are intelligent you get a ringing in your head (it should be obvious, but I am making the leap that I could be construed as intelligent and therefore received the ringing). The society in turn chooses equality in ability instead of equality of opportunity. I´m so glad I don´t live in that society anymore.

Is it any wonder then that I happened to plow through the last couple hundred pages of Gravity´s Rainbow the day after she left? I think not. Thank god she´s gone. I hope no one has kids like that and I hope I wasn´t like that.


So nice to be able to think again...

If You Can Be Bored To Death, Then I´m Dying

I haven´t written in a while, but that is largely due to the fact that nothing is happening. I got my stitches out but I´m still not allowed to walk/surf/drink beer/shower so there really isn´t much to tell. I have gotten so bored that last night I called home just to pout for a half hour or so. I will have to say that it felt good. I think the reason that it felt good is the fact that I found out one of my pranks on my dad worked.

A couple of days after I punctured myself with my board, I decided it might be a good idea to put a nose gaurd on my board in an attempt to prevent it from happening again. Well, not surprisingly there are no nose gaurds here in Pichilemu so I gave a quick call back home to see if they could send it down in the next package. Called my mom first, no answer so I left a message. Then I called my dad and he wasn´t there either, so I left a message. But not a normal one, I had just hit the I´m so bored I´m punchy stage of the boredom cycle, so I pretended to be Bob McKnight, CEO, of Quicksilver. I left a brief but serious sounding message stating my (his) current unhappiness with the advertising firm and that I (he) was looking for a new direction and in talking with Chris Gwaltney (family friend of both), I (he) recieved Kevin´s name and decided to give him a call. Of course, this included a completely made up number, but one that could be feasible (949) xxx-xxxx. I of course waited a second and then left my real message which I just asked for my dad to send me down a nose gaurd.

For those of you who know my father, you know that he works hard and is a very busy man. He does a good job of juggling a lot of things at once and always seems to come out of problems alright. But he is a terrible listener, and I mean this on two fronts. One he has bad ears and sometimes just can´t hear. Two, well he just sucks at listening. He kinda floats in and out of his world and then starts talking with the hope that what he is saying is appropriate (to give credit where credit is due he is exceptionally good at this and rarely makes mistakes like repeating what the person just thought but in a way that makes it sound like he thought it was his idea, although these moments do still happen from time to time). So with that as a reference, he gets the message and then when he hears the pause in between real and fake messages he moves on and makes note of the number. Well, being the good businessman he is he calls back right away but it turns out that the number is busy and since he doesn´t understand technology and the fact that McKnight would probably have some form of voicemail even when he is busy (whether it be a cell or a office line) he calls again. Busy. Well he calls Gwaltney up to see if McKnight has mentioned this at all and of course Gwaltney doesn´t know (since it is a figment of my imagination).


He doesn´t end up finding out until last night when I called to whine. Had I not been in need of some laughter he might not have ever found out, which probably would have been good for him, since he probably would have tracked down McKnight and eventually sweettalked him into getting a part of the advertising. I am definitely regretting the fact that I told my old man.

Whoever had April 4th wins!

I suffer from weird accidents. For as long as I can remember I have almost always been the person to receive the worst treatment while surfing. Especially in comparison to my friends. We can go for a surf and I´ll be the only one to get hurt. I thought that this trip was going to be different. I mean I´m surfing left hand pointbreaks that break over sand instead of rock/reef. Especially here in Pichilemu, where the wave is really fun and super mellow.

I was wrong. Yesterday I finished class at 6 and afterwards I strolled across the street to check on the surf. It was really good. Not in the way it had been the last few days, in the big way, but more the fun, lined up kind of way. There isn´t much time after class to get in the water, maybe an hour at most, so I had to rush. I ran back, got my wettie on and hurried off to the surf. I jumped in the water and found it was a little more crowded than normal, but there are so many waves here that there was still more than enough to share. I got a couple waves and was surfing pretty well. I mean this wave at low tide and head high to a touch overhead has got to be one of the most rippable waves I´ve ever ridden. I started to get a little more ambitious and I went for an air on a close out section. I really launched but sometimes, like this instance in particular, I get up in the air and then I stop thinking about landing and just kinda fall to the water. Only thing was that this time my board decided to stab me in the leg. I´ve had this happen before so I wasn´t really worried but I could start to see that blood was spilling out of my wetsuit, so I caught one more (it was a really good one if it´s any consolation) and went in. I didn´t think it would be much, and was kinda pissed that I ripped my wetsuit (only a little) and dinged my board (the nose is bent a little?). I got my wetsuit off in the dark and it was a bit bigger than I had thought. So I go upstairs to put some clothes on, and check it out a little better in the light. Turns out it is still worse than I thought, I can see the bone. I don´t think this is good so I walk into town to see if they have any medical glue and the person immediately points me in the direcion of the hospital.

I walk over there, no big deal, since my leg doesn´t really hurt, it just seems to be bleeding more than a normal cut. I get in the emergency area and the nurse calmly cleans out my wound and thinks it´s cute to touch my bone. Strangely this tickles. She eventually decided that she is done playing with my leg and puts me up on a bed for the doctor to come and stitch me up.

While laying down, I noticed two things. Chile is way different than Mexico, I mean the hospitals seem really clean and the nurses/doctors really do a good job following a sanitary procedure. I really expected a lot less from Chile. It made me realize that it has got to be a lot better off than most of the third world countries. I was actually unusually comfortable.

The second thing I noticed, is that most of the clientele in the emergency room happens to be overbearing parents of very small children. And the children like to cry. A lot. I normally don´t mind the occasionlay baby cry, but to have three wailing right next to me while I´m brewing over not being able to surf next week was a bit much for me.

Finally the doctor shows up (it was after hours so he had to come from his house) and he is a surprisingly young doctor. I´d be surprised if he was over thirty. Turns out he´s the director of the hospital so he´s probably no slouch. I was really impressed with him. He was extremely polite to all of his nurses and was friendly to me too. He got the stitches in quickly and I was off on my way.

So that leaves me without anything to do for the weekend. I was grumpy last night, but I´m okay right now. I know it will be annoying to be out of the water for so long (and to have a limp) but I´ll be back soon.

No Longer the Hairiest in the House

Within my group of friends, growing a beard is an event of its own, and due to my current circumstances I have begun my bearded journey, with a notable exception: I am not shaving any part of the beard (neck beard included). This has been going on for about a week and a half and right now I have a pretty solid foundation. One cheek is still a little emptier than the other but some of the holes have begun to fill in already. No surprise is that my neck is without hole and by far the strongest part of my beard. My chin also seems to be on lock down. I have no fears of someone spotting my fair skin through my chin. I figure I got about six weeks here in Pichilemu, which should leave me with really impressive facial hair. I look forward to attempting to cross boarders with my beard. I think I´ll be getting some pretty interesting looks.

There are some considerable upsides to having a well formed beard. I find I rarely get hassled in the lineup and often get preferential treatment by the locals. Also I won´t have to use as much sunscreen as now my cheeck area is completely protected.

The downsides are definitely worth noting though. I find the attention from girls is not the good type of attention (which is why I have decided to grow my beard in Pichilemu and not Viña del Mar). And combined with my mediocre spanish speaking skills, I have lost, what some would call, mojo. I plan on changing this situation with continued spanish classes (by the way my tutor is awesome, yet small, see world short people do offer some upside (pun intended)) and shaving once I get to Argentina. I really don´t feel like going into a country, famous for its attractive women, with more disadvantages than necessary.

Okay, branch back, we are back in Pichilemu now. The surf has been incredible. Today it was solid overhead to double overhead with these superfun, fast and rippable walls. It´s definitley one of the best waves I have surfed. I actually had a bit of company for a bit today. One of the guys from the language institute and the other gringo in my family house (bastard has a way more impressive beard than me)went together. I surfed for longer than they did, but man, I was getting greedy. I wanted as many waves as I could here in Pichi before I have to go back home.

This place is cool.