Random Photo #1

This photograph was taken by my sister Gemma at The Tree Of Life in Bahrain. Gemma sent it to me months ago but I have had no excuse to use it. The camels were most likely imported from Australia to become a roving tourist attraction. If you look carefully, you'll see their front two legs are tied together, not that they would have anywhere to run. Bahrain is a strange and beautiful place.

Consume

Now you can buy foulweather #1:

*HERE*

As of now, I have shifted about half the copies I got printed which isn't bad going. It has provided me with some motivation to start thinking about issue #2. The loose goal is to continue to publish creative non-fiction that combines the personal with the political. So, if anyone out there has any ideas relating to potential themes and/ or would like to contribute, let me know.

I'm Too Sexy For A Job

Illustration by Frank Patch Cubillos

Remember Right Said Fred and the song 'I'm Too Sexy'? Well back in the 80s in Britain you could get all sorts of t-shirts proclaiming that you were 'too sexy' for something or another. The funniest was 'I'm Too Sexy For a Job.' People would actually wear these t-shirts while 'signing on' for their dole checks. Oh how I miss the dole. How I miss Tony Blair's Surf and Skate Team. One of the few negatives of moving to the USA as having to get a job. Now, I know I sound incredibly slack and I am very good at being incredibly slack but I didn't waste my time on the dole. Aside from spending my days, writing bad poetry, reading novels, surfing and skateboarding, I did a lot of voluntary work. I helped do conservation management on Gower (See the Fall Bay post) and I taught a group of sixteen year olds basic literacy skills all while living off the state. Unfortunately, the glory days had to come to an end as Blair and his Champagne Socialists decided to tighten up on slackers like me and rename the 'Unemployment Benefit,' 'the Job Seeker's Allowance.' It should be obvious where this terminology change led. All I can say is, the dole, while it provided a state income for people who genuinely deserved it (like everyone in South Wales after Thatcher's reign), it also presented many young people with the opportunity to do worthwhile and creative things before becoming a wage slave. Britain would not have had half the great bands and artists if it were not for the dole. All in all I spent about three years on and off the dole in between crappy jobs and I was rarely idle.

The point of this post, was really to show you Frank's new illustration for my story "Turning My Curriculum Vitae Into A Resume" which will be up on Smokebox soon. The story is about the dark days when I eventually had to seek out a job. It was partly inspired by a collection of stories from a great zine called Temp Slave. I'll post the link to it when its up. For now, enjoy Patch's illustration and the opening quotes:

A paycheck is the worst drug there is- there's nothing worse. Never put yourself in the position where someone youwouldn't urinate on is telling you what to do at 11 in the morning- that's just too grim. You just have to say no. It's better to eat garbage. -Greg Palast, investigative journalist.

You say I need a job. I've got my own business. You want to know what I do? None of your fucking business. -Repeater by Fugazi

Cheers To Microcosm!

Cake by Melissa Owen of Epiphany Cakes

I just got an email from Joe Biel informing me that Microcosm Publishing would like to distro Foulweather #1. This is great news. Microcosm distributed my last zine and I probably sold more through them than any other outlet. If you don't already know Microcosm have been champions of DIY publishing for ten years now and have one of the coolest logos (see the cake above). Their logo motivates me to ride my bike as much as possible. In fact, I can't bring myself to drive while wearing a t-shirt bearing their logo. Microcosm, also put out the documentary, $100 and a T-shirt about zine publishers in the Northwest. I highly recommend checking it out but keep the remote at hand to forward through my bumbling interview. Video cameras and I don't work so well together...

In other news, Smokebox will be featuring a non-fiction humour piece I wrote about my employment history in their next issue and I am working on a story about the politics of street skating for possible publication in a new Northwest focused outdoor rag. Details to follow.

Fall Bay

This was one of my favourite surf spots back home on the Gower Peninsula in Wales. This spot was relatively low key until surfers from the local university 'discovered' it. Anyway, there is a nice reef just in front of the cliffs (to the left). On a good swell the wave peaks on the reef and then races left until closing out on the sandy beach. Most of the time it is as flat as it is in this photo as it requires a solid swell but the wave at Fall Bay provided the inspiration for the first surfing passage in Surrendering To The Undertow:

From Chapter One, The Endless Lull: The Take Off

"To get down to the beach with a surfboard is actually quite tricky as you have to climb down a steep pathway and scramble over the rocks. But it is well worth it. Once you reach the soft sands, hopefully no one else is there and it is just you and the wind and the waves. You put your leash around your ankle, wade out into the water and then hop on your board and paddle out to the reef. On one particularly low tide I was paddling out and had to duck dive under a wave to avoid being pushed back towards the cliff and as I sank my board under I felt it scrape on the reef. I knew then that waves were going to be good, hollow and powerful. As the more dramatic the change from deep to shallow water the faster the wave breaks. So you paddle out and straddle your board bobbing up and down waiting for the right one. If you are on your own you don’t mind waiting because waiting out in the ocean all alone is almost as important as the actual surfing. Then a good wave comes your way and you are in a good location, you lie back down into a paddling position and start stroking towards the shore, deep, powerful rhythmic strokes, your back is arched, head held high, determined. Then the wave picks you up and you start to get sucked up the face a little, so you paddle a little harder and faster and then there is that tiny minuscule of a moment when you realise that you are now within the wave’s power. At this point most of your work is done but there is still the crucial task of rapidly moving from a lying down position to a standing up one. You are at the top of the wave about to drop down towards the reef with the cliff a little bit too close for comfort, and then you do a quick push up, slide your front foot between your arms, push up further until you are crouching and then quickly standing, you begin the drop. You’ve made it and nothing feels better. Even though everything happened so fast you did not have time to think, there is an enormous sense of relief. You are now looking left, as the wave peels left away from the cliff into the beach, and you dig your back foot down hard, pushing the fins under your board against the water, creating enough pressure for you to lean into the wave. Now you are set up and really surfing. That is it simple. All the hard work is done and from then until the beach everything is effortless. You glide up and down the wave racing ahead of the white water, turning your board on top of the lip, charging for the shoulder, slow down, cut back into the pocket and storm ahead again, up and down the wide open face. All the paddling, positioning, timing, walking to the beach, driving to the coast, all the swell tracking and forecasting, all the waiting, all the in-between frustration, all the mess in your house, the unwashed dishes, the too much drinking and lack of motivation, all the shit in the city, the people, the traffic, the loneliness but crowds, the rudeness, the free for all, the chaos, the erratic non-rhythms within the forced time-table of when to be doing what, it has all paid off. When the wave reaches the shallows and close to the shore you should hold on, surfing until the very last moment, just before it breaks onto dry sand and then you safely kick off the back of the wave, to paddle back out again. And again until the waves stop coming or you physically can’t lift your arms anymore or you are so cold that your testicles (if you have them) have disappeared into your stomach and you are shaking uncontrollably. You can’t feel your toes or fingers, your lips are numb, you have reached the first stage of hypothermia and it feels great."

Sunny McMinnville Oregon

Photos by Patrick Crotty

I have started, what I hope will be the final edit of Surrendering To The Undertow. I will post some extracts shortly. Other than that I have just been blowing off some steam in sunny McMinnville Oregon.

Happy May Day.

La Sirena

So I was at my secret surf spot on Sunday. The conditions were totally disorganized but I was hoping for the best as it had been a week since my last surf session.

Anyway, during this long lull, a girl I once knew appeared from underwater. This is pretty crazy because it has been about ten years since I have seen her and she was sans wetsuit, completely naked infact. Anyway, I struggled to remember her name but before I could say anything she told me that she had a secret for me and all I had to do was follow her deep down towards the ocean floor and she would tell me this secret. So I undid my leash, abandoned my board, took a deep breath and followed her. Underwater a green light reflected of her bare tanned skin. My heart sank at the prospect of holding her again. I tried to keep up with her shapely form as she disappeared into the darkening depths. On the ocean floor, I finally caught up with her and there was faint green light all around us. I was about to run out of breath as she took my hand and whispered the secret into my ear. She said, “All you have to do, to stay here with me is to breathe one lungful of water and then you will be able to survive underwater forever.” As my pulse raced and my blood began to beg me for oxygen, I so wanted to breathe that lungful of water but I just couldn’t do it. Instead, I raced desperately for the surface. On the surface I gasped in a huge painful breath of oxygen. I looked around me and there was no sign of anything for miles. There was nothing but flat calm ocean save my surfboard. Well, essentially I came home empty handed, drank lots of Stella Artois and here I am again.