V(ery) F(oreign) W(andering)

The sign was unavoidable: Drink Labatt’s drafts for $1.75 here! The barkeep—clad in slim, stone washed jeans from the mid-90s and blonde-to-the-brown root hair reaching her shoulders, draped in a white unbuttoned sweater—flipped the keg tap like a light switch. “Sorry, sweetie, can’t take your money,” she warned, dropping the pint on a coaster. The sign actually read: V.F.W. post 6417, which is just American for “Drink Labatt’s drafts for $1.75 here!” At this local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter, American dollars are only good leaving the hands of its members. If only the Defense Authorization Act of 2009 included in its provisions—along with authorizing veterans of every ilk to salute the flag during the national anthem—the right to pay for beers despite never serving, I might still be on my stool. Instead, the cash passed hands; liquor laws were circumvented.

The Palmyra V.F.W. has been around for years. The smoke-filled walls—ceiling tiles shaded in a yellow tobacco tint—are a sanctuary for generations of townies. Localism survives here. Wooden tables, none the same, are dressed in plastic table cloths and circled by wobbly metal chairs. The scent of fried perogies drifts. A son swallows Miller High Life ("The Champagne of Beers") alongside his pool-shark father who routinely deposits his tongue into the mouth of his lady friend. She is neither skinny nor young. Her thong rises above her belt line. Nobody cares. They’ve all seen it before.

Sunday night at 6714 is quiet. The 50 year-old at the end of the bar, adjacent to the under lit dart board, will saunter to the juke box, several beers deep, and spend five dollars on a number of songs nobody paid to hear when they were released. But some sonic righteousness lingers amid the Toby Keith and ACDC and Kid Rock. John Mayer, Fiest, Floyd, post-2003 Dixie Chicks. The NFL weekend culminates on NBC on TVs above the bar.

There’s little good to be said about being 27, quitting your job, squatting with your parents in the house where you grew up, and drinking at local canteens with old friends from high school. Still, it does highlight a few things about life that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. Like the fact that, in watering holes on Main Streets across battleground states, Keystone Premium lager goes for fifty cents a can just feet from where four bottles of laundry detergent and two family-size cans of Chef Boyardee Ravioli adorn five shelves—otherwise empty except for a withered, grinning pumpkin.

John, the friend whose membership on which I drank, said, “My dad’s on the board. He’s been here since the first brick was laid.”

When was that?

“The late 70s, I think. This place is awesome. If you get stuck staying in town for a long time, you should definitely join.”

“Excuse me,” he interrupts the bartender. “How much does a membership cost?”

“If you sign up now, it’s twenty dollars for the rest of November, all of December and next year.” She seemed oblivious to the frugality of it all.

No shit. I tried to relocate to New York City from Washington, DC, after stints in Philadelphia and San Diego—not exactly affordable markets—yet I could move home, pay zero rent, and drink an assortment of beers, none exceeding two dollars. Let it be known that there are places in the U.S. suited to serve those with a palate for flat beer and a history of economic calamity.

The night we sat and watched the Patriots/Colts Sunday night NFL game, John told me to expect a slew of drunkards we knew from a past life (read: high school) to stumble in, some asking the barkeep to toss their leftovers in the microwave. At 6714, paid dues bring reheat access of any and all food purchased elsewhere. If you’re a member, our house is your house. Indeed. But what about non-veterans?

“Wait a second, John, none of these clowns were ever in the military.” Scrutiny. “How the do they get in?”

John was quick to explain. “You just need to be related to a veteran. They won't let you in if you're not a member, unless you come with one." His dad was in Vietnam, like mine. "That’s how I got in; I’ve been coming here since I was thirteen.” He’s 28. "They don't even ask for my I.D." They asked for my I.D.

Palmyra is not a city, although it’s becoming less small town by the day. In fields where we once ride dirt bikes and paged through safely-hidden, crusty dog-eared porno mags, condos were erected. The former horseshoe loop in front of our high school more resembles the braided rivers of Denali than a drop off point for underclassmen. There’s now an ice rink; no one plays hockey. Still, this is Main Street—a presidential campaign’s rhetorical device actualized. Palmyra is the town Barack Obama and John McCain have been courting all across the country. The problem is, tonight, nobody in this V.F.W. post cares.

Just under 48 hours from the most historic election of the past 50 years, the game is regularly partitioned by political ads. And judging by the interest level of the familial crew to our right, and the reputed statutory rapist on the left, neither McCain nor Obama garnered any attention. TV ads didn’t induce a peek. Priorities may lie elsewhere in Main Street America after listening to the same tired bullshit for so long. If anything, the eyes staring down their helf-empty glasses weren't planning to peer up until it was all over.

Which leads me to this: after two years of campaigning and endless polls taken by every partisan organization on Earth—24 hours of blow-hardedness, multiplied by 730 days, equaling a nauseating 17,520 hours of cable news speculation—how can anyone have any clue who the hell is going to win on Tuesday, November 4? I don’t live in small town America, but I visit occasionally. And inside this place of patriotism and Pabst, $3.50 Cordon Blue Balls and stereotypes, there is no way an accurate guess of the 2008 election could be extrapolated. Does a pro-military loathing for immigrants and colored folks trump a desire for a common sensical commander-in-chief? Do cowboy boots, Marlboro Lights, and Carharts disqualify you from tolerance and expectations of reasonably administered government and peace?

So, for once, in a country originally conceived with freedom, but demonstrably typified by prejudice—truthfully perceived as “racist” areas, as John Murtha so described western Pennsylvania—a candidate with a heritage as diverse as America could actually assume the office of president. And finally personify, 232 years later, the opportunity articulated in the documents of our founding—ideas that have made men veterans of foreign wars.

Trestles (write-up from Nat Geo Traveler)

In the October Issue of Traveler, our Destination Watch department looked into the ongoing controversy surrounding Trestles Beach in Southern California, a shore made famous in the Beach Boys classic, "Surfin' U.S.A." National Geographic Magazine production coordinator Jeff DiNunzio recently visited the beach and sends us this update.

What comes to mind when you think Southern California? These days, its infinite sun, boundless blue skies, waves…and traffic. Given that cars now outnumber drivers nationwide, a bit of bumper-to-bumper can be expected. Yet, recently it’s put the community in an uproarious mood. Just below San Diego’s northern border with Orange County sits San Onofre State Beach, or San O. The park includes three distinct areas, the Bluffs, San Onofre Surf Beach, and San Mateo Campground. San O has been a source of volatility over the past year—a battleground between supporters of highway infrastructure development and challengers who favor fewer cars and preserving the park.

The Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) wants to extend the Foothill Toll Road—route 241—and link coastal Orange County with its expansion eastward. In order to combat the estimated 30 percent population increase expected in south Orange County in the next quarter century, the TCA believes the six-lane, 16-mile extension will be a vital accommodation. The road in question falls under the California highway system but is operated by the TCA, which “is funded by the sale of bonds to both private individuals and institutional investors.” It even boasts a list of supporters—and research on congestion induced environmental hazards—to prove it.


The addition, however, would cut through a patch of well-maintained terrain in San O. Opponents fear it will threaten the operation of its campgrounds (eliminating all of San Mateo’s 161 sites); slice overall water and wildlife quality (San Mateo Watershed purportedly contains seven rare or endangered species); and assault the waves that clobber the beach. The assertion that new roads will mitigate, rather than worsen, congestion has met persistent skepticism. Organizations like Save San Onofre, the Surfrider Foundation, and United Coalition to Protect Panhe are campaigning to counter the TCA’s lobbying efforts for approval, boosting press coverage to rouse public support.

The surf break, known as Trestles, hosts the only Association of Surfing Professionals’ World Championship Tour (WCT) contest on the mainland United States. Each September, thousands of spectators crowd San O’s shores—already the fifth most visited of California’s roughly 270 state parks. So, on Friday, September 12th, I went. But the contest was over and the pros had skipped town. (WCT events have about a two-week waiting period so they can be held in the best waves, thus, end dates fluctuate.) A blessing perhaps. People travel far to attend the contest. But on a normal day, it’s mostly local surfers and beachgoers hiking the two trails—one paved, the other not—to the beach. Rather than watch surfers and talk to out-of-towners, instead I surfed and spoke with the locals.

“It’s pretty amazing that sandwiched in the middle of San Diego and that whole L.A. mess is a relatively pristine natural habitat,” said Kyle McGee, a skinny, curly-haired San Diegan who frequently surfs Trestles. “You were out there. You saw how clear the water is. And the white wash from the waves—where else in California have you seen anything that blue?” Nowhere, in fact, except the sky.

Surfer and science teacher Nick Ritchie has been camping at Trestles since he moved to Los Angeles five years ago. “Just look at this place. North and south are all paved—stores, houses, parking lots, freeways. I don’t think saving the park for its own sake is a bad reason for denying the Toll Road. There are mountain lions in the hills and steelheads in the creek. And those waves...there’s a reason the contest is held here and not anywhere else on the West Coast.” He makes valid points. “Here’s what I don’t get: how can the government override the Coastal Commission’s decision against the construction? I understand the right to appeal, but at some point the Feds have to concede that the local community knows what’s best for itself.”

The decision Ritchie referred to was made by the California Coastal Commission (CCC) last February to deny the TCA’s request to build the extension. The CCC “is an independent, quasi-judicial state agency” charged with planning and monitoring “the use of land and water in the coastal zone” in coordination with the California Coastal Act of 1976. How does the CCC view the controversy? They voted 8-2 against the toll road earlier this year. At the February hearing, Executive Director Peter M. Douglas said, “this is the most significant project to come before this commission since the San Onofre nuclear power plant in 1974. I know of no other coastal development project so demonstrably inconsistent with the law that has come this far in the regulatory review process.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an apparatus of the U.S. Commerce Department, reviewed the TCA’s appeal at a public hearing on September 22 in Del Mar. A decision by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez is expected by January 7th, 2009. If the appeal is won, and the newest extremity of the 241 approved, there will still be a reason to visit San O’s campsites, trails, and beaches: legal and logistical delays. The implications of the road are debatable; the status of the park is not. For now, it's open for all to enjoy. So, as Orange County wave rider Alex Knost suggests in the 2007 film One California Day, “enjoy it while it’s here and quit complaining.”

Sara from 2123 confessed!

Simple proclamations can be amazing, especially those shouted in silence to an unintentional audience. You see, apparently Sara, my housemates’ neighbor, has been stealing figs off the tree out front. Firm, but not free of bruises, these odd fruits have long been associated with the Keebler Elf and his freshly baked newtons. The green rounds would result from copulating golf-and-tennis balls. This fig tree is bountiful, and often underused.

Sara’s over at 2123 North Oakland--to the right or the left of the driveway who knows? When I arrived at 2125 tonight—to surf another in a quiver of couches—Sara’s note was on the dinner table. Nobody was home; there still isn’t. As the grocery bag hit, the note awoke. I was obviously not the recipient, but we’re all snoopy some times—occasionally it doesn’t require more than standing in one place. I read it.

Real time internal monologue: Drama?

“I confess,” she declared.

Really? Is this the “I backed into your parked car” preface? It goes on.

“I have picked some figs from the tree in your yard.”

(Gasp!) Figs? Ok. You mean she took the time to politely inform them that she’s been violating the boundaries of the property…for figs? That…is…very cool. Sara wasn’t finished.

“I’ve knocked on the front door when cars were here twice to see if you’d mind,” went the explanation. “But no one answers.”

Well, can’t fault her there. She did knock; the missing figs received roughly equivalent attention. Why wouldn’t she just take them? (<- Observe cynical, conditioned thinking.)

Sara concluded with an inquiry: “Do you intend to use those figs, or would it be ok if I pick more?” (Nice comma usage.) And an offer of pacification: “P.S. – Can swap some tomatoes from the garden if you like.” (Ah, so you're on that side of the house.) “Your neighbor.”

There’s a lot going on that illuminates the darker tendencies of our kind—it draws curious crowds. But sometimes, once that media reaches a saturation point, acts of unadorned politeness and general respect for people—things that have somehow been detached from normal expectations—become profound. Maybe none have happened lately—maneuvers that sharply contrast those confronted on Dateline. Sara didn’t need to write that note. No one living in this house over the past five years has ever shown a legitimate interest in those figs. This woman gave a shit about something that has gone all but neglected and still took the time to request permission the publicize the affair. But she did.

An incident of plain, unexpected pleasure at an expression of common courtesy. Sara must enjoy a light conscience.

A Few Thoughts On...posterity

There were times in our lives when getting together with friends whose routes in life rarely intersected was more prevalent than it is now. One of my good friends--and former college classmate and roommate--was heavy into photography. He shot for fun; he shot for school. First, on film, then, after a lengthy hiatus from the artistry, with a swift digital camera. Joe had accrued several canisters of our memories on film he never developed. Last weekend, he visited his parents in Lancaster--about 30 minutes from the not-as-small-as-it-used-to-be town where we grew up. Hidden in a forgettable, yet accessible, corner of his folks' newest abode, Joe retrieved a handful of those aging rolls of film.

Praise for the ease and immediacy of digital photography abounds, but there is something indescribable about film--the hues, the unintentional haze, the short lived shapes of exhaled smoke, the innocence of an untampered moment. Film is tangible timelessness. And it makes me smile with sadness.

Below are a few frames that he developed, scanned, and posted on his photoblog; they were taken, from my best guest, around the early 2000s, when many of us came home to party and relax over holiday breaks during college. Some, like Kyle (the bloke in the nostalgically revealing portrait flipping off the camera), migrated in from the west coast for days at a time. I can't wait until we all share the same room again.

(Unless you know me and/or any of the dudes in these slides, this is likely a skippable entry.)

Joe's photoblog.


(Andrew after sifting through Marty McFly's wardrobe)


(Kyle, fresh off the plane from San Diego. He split a month after graduation and has been there ever since...that was in 1999.)


(me w/a 12, Jordan on the bongo, Kyle on the 6)


(me, banging around)

Highway to the Turtle Zone

Long line bycatch. Sea entanglement. Egg harvesting. Debris ingestion. High mortality rates among the newly hatched.

All contributed to the leatherback turtle’s 90+ percent population decline over the last two decades. But there’s promise for the endangered Dermochelys. A study done by George Shillinger, a biology doctoral candidate at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, and a team of researchers that tracked leatherbacks indicates that turtles departing from Costa Rica follow a very distinct, narrow route to the South Pacific Gyre. The group monitored the turtles’ whereabouts through the Tagging of Pacific Predators program. This same method has been used to chart the trails of “white shark, bluefin tuna, black-footed albatross and elephant seal.”

Why the animals travel to this region is relatively unknown. It’s likely for deeper feeding beyond the 25-foot depth reachable by satellite imagery. A story by the Stanford News Service claims “the only data available are satellite images showing the color of the sea. Researchers interpret greener water to be richer in chlorophyll, which is considered the foundation for the ocean food chain. Thus, the relative abundance of chlorophyll is inferred to indicate the relative richness of a fishery. Satellite images show very little green in the South Pacific Gyre.” If the leatherbacks are going there to dine, the restaurant isn’t at the surface. And at six-feet, 2,000 pounds, the turtles have an evident appetite.



The authors argue that determining exactly where and when the turtles migrate, then suspending fishing in the ocean highways they travel, may help correct the loss. This seems more reasonable than trying to ban fishing in these parts completely. In Costa Rica—at Playa Grande National Park, one of the last vestiges of these turtles—villagers are paid to protect egg batches. An ecotourism market has emerged as a result. "Turtle tourism has emerged as an alternative economy and now there is a real focus on protecting this beach," says Shillinger. (Jellyfish, however, are hoping for an end to the leatherbacks’ 100 million year reign of terror over them.)

The driving factor in the leatherbacks’ life survival crusade is human involvement. Since the pools of the Pacific where the turtles operate cross international boundaries, a political will must exist to facilitate an agreement that will actually be enforced. If not, in the next 20 years, Dermochelys coriacea could experience a 100 percent slide.

-------
photos: (1)www.wildlifeextra.com; (2) scienceblogs.com...both from Google search

An INDECISIVE victory!

Comedy Central's The Daily Show--hosted by Jon Stewart--has been covering the election cycle in its "INDECISION 2008" segment. (This began in 2004 and eventually led to the incredible piece of literature by Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Rob Cordry, and other cast members that were a part of the shitshow four years ago, called "America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction.") They also have a coinciding blog poking fun at all things politics--in that dryly hilarious, "do any of these assholes have some common sense or human decency?" approach that has made the show so successful. And each week the ID '08 blog holds a caption contest where readers can post a comment to be chosen. Is the process democratic? Who knows, but, the comments are then voted upon (I'm not sure by whom, because I didn't vote or know if I could) and the winner announced. So, who's this week's winner? You guessed it...

check it out...

Here's the link to the blog, and the caption is below.

WINNER Caption Challenge: White House Congressional Picnic
POSTED BY: TheInDecider

untitled...a short story about being a kid and BB guns - just first draft

That thing made me nervous. Not in a this-could-cause-bodily-harm way, but rather a these-pellets-could-destroy-a-garage-window sort. The last thing that my 11 year-old ass needed was a swift kick from my father because I shot Ryan’s BB gun into the neighbors house.

Ryan had shattered glass before. He didn’t get in much trouble, an almost exasperated reprimand, maybe, and enough yard work to cover restitution. His dad was always in the yard—the tree hedge wasn’t level enough; blades of crab grass needed dulled; why won’t this damn garage door hinge stop howling? He liked toys—men’s toys, like saws on tables and air generators—and gave Ryan his fair share.

The BB gun was one of those. He didn’t unpack it often. But Ryan was allowed to play with guns—toys, of course—so his mysterious fascination with real firearms was muted. I wasn’t, and mine was loud.

“Can we take out back?” My persistence was relentless.
“No, my parents’ll flip.”
“Yeah, probably.” Defeat. The one thing Ryan wasn't allowed to do was shoot sans supervision.

My parents were ferocious in their opposition to guns. (My father was abnormal: a Catholic Republican less pro-choice than the Pope, but severely anti-Second Amendment.) My brother, sister, and I weren’t allowed to own fake guns or play with our friends’ fake guns. We were scolded for holding baseball bats backwards, fat end under arm, flurried noises and saliva flying from our mouths, pretending to shoot fake bullets. We didn’t watch TV with guns. Naturally, there was an attraction.

Still, that thing made me nervous.

Ryan would sometimes remove the black canvas sleeve from the hidden ledge atop his heavy oak dresser mirror. It was shaped like a baseball bat. The zipper started from the narrow end and unhinged towards the wider one, where the fatness of the trigger handle rested.

Sneeze.
Oh, right, the dust. Clean that shit off.

Ryan would set the gun on his desk chair sitting left of the stained wooden doorway. We’d slide it out with awe and trigger-happiness. “Don’t pump it,” Ryan demanded. Our friend Mike knew someone who got shot in the face, supposedly, so no use in arguing with gun instruction. Mike was there too. Just as eager to shatter pickle jars and squirrels as me, but with prior experience.

I’d hold the rifle—this wasn’t a rifle—at my shoulders and glare down the barrel, a pale bedroom wall lit by the sun’s glare in its site. What did it feel like to shoot this toddler of a weapon? How sensitive was the…“Don’t touch the fucking trigger, dude!” Would it kick back like Estele Getty in that terrible Sly Stallone cop movie? (Uh, which one?) Or did the rounds exit smoothly without sound but with pulse, like a steady stream from a siphon? I had to know.

“Ok, but only for a few minutes, they’ll be back in, like, an hour.”
Finally.

I’d wanted to shoot this thing forever. Never did. Now Ryan’s parents were gone—leaving him to preserve their trust—and we were about to break shit. We started with empty Coke cans perched on the bird feeder between the two obvious windows of Ryan’s tan-bricked garage. Me, Ryan, and Mike. (Eveywhere we went, I’d tell my mom, it was me, Ryan, and Mike.) Down the steps to the left of the side-door, beside the white siding adjacent to Ryan’s dad’s groomed tree row, was a table on the back patio. We slid it onto the grass to keep the 35-foot oak—growing from the middle of the yard—gunshot free. The firing range was open. Wait a second, nobody else seemed to think, what about those windows?

“Don’t be a girl, dude. If you can’t hit the wall you’re a puss.” Ah, yes, Ryan—how nonchalantly the kid who had never been punched in the face could emasculate you.
“Ok, but what if someone breaks a window?” That made Mike laugh.

I was a puss. My folks were so hard-line that even someone else firing a BB gun, hidden from their complete sight, worried me. But I had to shoot that gun. I’d wanted to shoot this thing forever. Please, just don’t break the windows.

Ping. Pang.

Ryan would knock the cans off the feeder, not on the first shot, but a few after. Mike hit some; I did too. We missed more than we didn't. Perhaps sixth graders aren’t as proficient in their accuracy as they think they are. We’d get bored quickly. Ryan would want to conserve ammunition so his dad wouldn’t realize he’d been packing heat after school while they were working. Mike and I dreamt of the troubles of a latchkey kid.


This went on for a month when Ryan could be convinced that pelting cans was better than smoking one of his mom’s Marlboro Lights among the three of us. (The latchkey house was a summer hideaway.) We switched to full cans. Eventually, our boredom progressed; we were over cans. There needed to be new targets that moved, testing our prowess with CO2-propelled steel peppercorns. Squirrels had proven too, well, squirrelly. But the pigeons, they just stayed there.

Four or five would loiter, pecking through the hail-size rocks for stray weeds and edibles. (Philadelphia’s Love Park it was not.) Done waddling across the pebbles, they made short, swift wing flaps and landed atop the roof of the garage. This happened every afternoon around 3:00.

Mike was gone one day. Just me, Ryan, and the BB gun. Ed’s plywood coal storage trunk sat mere yards from Ryan’s unpaved driveway—a tributary to the neighborhood's gravel alley running west. Ed’s yard separated mine from Ryan’s and we constantly ran across it. In the three feet between the coal box and Ed's faded, baby blue shed, we hunkered down. Only our heads surfaced above the trunk. We stalked our victim: that unsuspecting pigeon. It squawked alone at the highest point of convergence on Ryan’s garage—where a support beam covered by calloused shingles met briefly before descending to the gutter.

We waited. Ryan caught the bird in the scope. I watched, ill prepared for a shot of such magnitude.

Pop. Pop.

The seemingly lifeless white and slate body tumbled down the roof, ramping off the spouting, landing like a sandbag on the concrete path below. It tumbled…like a dead bird. But it wasn’t dead. It moved and twitched. Flapped it’s wings and jolted its feet. Impossible. This bird wasn’t alive. It had just taken a bullet to the throat, fallen twenty-five very high feet. Ryan shot it again. And again. Still moving.

“Holy shit,” I stammered. “This fucking thing won’t die.”
“You shoot it,” Ryan instructed.

Pop. Pop. And again. Nine times total.

“Maybe it’s just a spasm, you know,” Ryan scratched his head, petite rifle resting on his forearm as if returning from an elephant cull, “because it’s dead.”


Because it’s dead. The bird had been shot almost ten times. How could it not be dead? Oh, that’s causing the twitching. Because it’s dead. All along, we thought it was still alive, choosing to defy us, and mortality, to flop on some stones. And we kept shooting it—murdering it, repeatedly—instead of putting it to rest. Instead, of all things, letting it live.

They say serial killers start small, killing for fun, assassinating small creatures before targeting victims of greater consequence. Creepy? Perhaps, but Dexter Morgan we were not. Fun? Devastatingly so.

One more on the George...

Here’s one more George Carlin bit about language. I work at a magazine, write in my spare time, and read constantly. So, this particular routine’s hilarity is obvious—and speaks to the insanity of a language created to “cover their sins.” This country as completely lost its ability to be direct and honest with itself.

Check it out:

Rest In Peace, Motherf**ker (1937-2008)

One of the best comics around. His acerbic, hilarious observations of humanity will be missed. TIME is already running a column online about how Senor Carlin changed the perception of stand-up. And thanks to the Village Voice (to whom I've applied for a job--please hire me!) for posting the complete "Seven Words" transcript.
















On point until the very end...




(Images courtesy of a random Google image search)

Halifax (revised)

I visited Halifax recently to watch a few international hockey games with my dad and brother. We had a good time. I wrote about it for Intelligent Travel, the coinciding blog of National Geographic Traveler magazine. Here's the original post. But below is a revised version--the one with changes editors made too late.

Hockey (and more) in Halifax

If you're an avid hockey fan, you already know that 2008 marks the centennial of the official “governing body of international ice hockey and inline hockey.” But for the sake of the novice, here's a quick tutorial: Each year the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) holds the World Hockey Championship tournament in a different host country. Recognizing the country's distinguished honor as the origin of the sport, the IIHF scheduled this year’s tourney in Canada for the first time. Held between May 2 and May 14 this year, the games were split between Quebec City and Halifax. And as one of approximately three hockey fans in the United States, I entered the Atlantic time zone to scope out Halifax.


It’s a long drive from Pennsylvania to Halifax—perfect for a 1,070-mile power nap. Anyone who’s ever complained about overcrowding has likely never driven the 1 North or 2, 104, or 102 West from the U.S.-Canada border crossing at St. Stephen, New Brunswick ending at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Only howling, filthy, speeding 18-wheelers rouse the sleepy towns that freckle eastern Canada’s barren hills. As for signs of life, the 102 can be a sorry stretch of asphalt. But patience yields rewards. The freeway expires in the distinctly Canadian city—a town that’s absorbed the best traits of Europe and America (except rail transit) while creating its own unique character.

Halifax’s roughly 373,000 residents are a diverse bunch, covered by a condensed blanket of urbanity stitched together by almost 90 efficient bus routes. Like most cities, the hub of Halifax’s tourism is by the water, and several buses regurgitate passengers at the waterfront downtown, which is remarkably pedestrian friendly. The Halifax Citadel National Historic Site (a former British naval station), the Metro Centre arena where the tournament was played, and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia are all minutes apart by foot.

Augmenting Halifax's particularly pedestrian nature is the fact that it has one of the smallest ecological footprints in North America. It was recently ranked as one of the most sustainable cities in Canada—second only to Ottawa. Some of the smaller eco-touches are evident as you stroll around town, like the way almost every public trash can is married with recycling and composting containers. Biofuels are gassing public vehicles, LED lights luminate road signs and office buildings, and a methane capturing project renders city landfills less harmful. Local restaurants are encouraged to buy produce from local vendors and residents to use bikes as vehicles, while the city tries to siphon more wind-generated power.


But perhaps the most convivial aspect of Halifax is its most festive fact: It boasts the most pubs per capita of any city in North America. At least that’s what those goofy reenactors at the famed Alexander Keith’s Brewery on Lower Water Street assured me. After taking the hour-long tour of the historic brewery (Keith began brewing his IPA in 1820), and swallowing multiple pints of its various brews, the countless watering holes of Halifax are easy steps away. Duck into, say, Pogue Fado, and you’ll be guaranteed a good conversation with the locals—your depth of hockey acumen might earn you a free round. And don’t be surprised to see any Canucks tossing back the Colorado Kool-Aid…err, Coors Light; it’s heavier in the frosty north. But better to imbibe with the local brews, whether Keith’s or Garrison’s or Propeller.

Photo: Above, The Dawn Over Halifax by FloydSlip; Below, recycling cans by Jeffrey DiNunzio

The Sorry Status of Surf Writing

“In the ensuring three hours, Occy, Taj and Benji battle to get waves from the 50-thick crowd,” writes STAB magazine, Australia’s leading publication that habitually defies traditional mainstream surfing coverage. Mainstream coverage usually includes inordinate ad pages, extensive photos and minimal text. STAB generally deviates from such paradigms. Yet, presumably what STAB meant to say was, “In the ENSUING three hours…” But that is pure, albeit probably accurate, conjecture.

That sentence, from a feature interview with just retired icon Mark Occhilupo (Occy) about a filming trip to Grajagan—G-land, as it’s known, sits off the southeast coast of Java in the Indian Ocean—for a Taylor Steele movie with fellow Aussie Taj Burrow and American Benji Weatherly, demonstrates what is wrong with surf writing: it sucks. However, surf writing’s editorial shortfalls are not limited to STAB alone. In fact, crack the thin spines of other surfing magazines and, chances are, they will be littered with typos, improper diction, questionable syntax, grade-school grammar, and meandering incoherence.

Fuel TV, a beacon of action sports television that’s not offered by every cable provider, produces a series called “Fins” that explores various aspects of surf culture, from new trends in board designs and product technologies, to notable profiles in surfing and art. Recently, its “Best of” episode interviewed Newport, CA, local Josh Hoyer. Early on, the Quiksilver-sponsored free surfer remarked that he rarely publicizes that he’s a surfer to avoid being stigmatized as an apathetic, unproductive beach bum (or something like that). That sentiment, although steadily waning due to surfing’s swift-ascending popularity, is not mitigated by surf writers’ lack of style chops.

A surprising amount of bad writing is often found on magazines’ corresponding Web sites. In order to defeat the challenges posed by an increasingly digital environment, magazines are focusing equal attention on the web component of their product. Like other periodicals of greater prestige, some of the writers published in print are charged with developing and nurturing online content as well. The natural course, in that regard, is that shoddy writing in the pages of the printed edition will inevitably appear online. During a time when digital material is gaining importance, shouldn’t basic editorial competence apply?

One example can be found in the vastly popular Surfer Magazine. Its online “Surf Tip” column broaches a list of surfing grievances replicated in rule form. “Here’s a few surfing bills we’d like to see debated,” the opening paragraph reads. Sounds harmless, right? For readers with any modicum of English savvy, the number disagreement is evident. And that’s the problem. Readers and writers schooled in the nuances of the English language—if proper usage and grammar can even be defined as nuance—are not a coterie catered to by widely circulated surfing magazines.

In a business so dependent on ad-generated revenue, mags must determine which targeted audience will successfully retain their advertising accounts. (It’s a constant discussion at the magazine where I work.) Sadly, the individuals most easily influenced by the empty, barreling blue wave and bare-assed babe advertisements are those to whom sound prose is a hardly-existent concern. Churning out thoughtful, well-written essays, profiles, and reporting is not the most celebrated dollar generator. (Read: bummer.)


Yet, in the face of such stringent financial objectives, shouldn’t there be room for added literary complexity? By reducing their editorial well to reader letters, flawed articles, an occasional obtuse fictional piece, and the interview—an industry staple—publications are deterring any surfer who happens to enjoy reading about his favorite sport from spending $5 on an issue. This seems disturbingly short sighted; a niche publication is denying itself a large portion of its reachable market.

Surfer claims its mission is “to bring our readers a slice of the entire surfing world with each issue,” and it does so very effectively, as do many others like Transworld Surf, Surfing, and STAB. In question is not any given magazine’s effectiveness in covering the surfing world, but rather the method and quality with which it does. That the features published monthly, bimonthly or quarterly pander to the lowest common denominator is problematic. In turn, Hoyer’s fear of the loathsome surfer reputation is further illustrated to anyone who flips open a page in a surf magazine and reads a sentence that sounds as though it was plagiarized from a high school newspaper. Is this frustrating tendency impervious to change?

Other stalwart journals, such as Water and The Surfer’s Journal, have taken a minimalist approach to advertising in their books, laying out high caliber photos and text spreads on durable, glossy, ad-free pages that ostensibly pampers a more mature audience. And though their pages favorably probe less mainstream parts of the surfing lifestyle than the more trendy mags, they, too, are plagued by mediocre writing. What is maddening is that the content breeds intrigue—these magazines are well known, respected, and garner almost unfettered access to hordes of fascinating personalities and locations across the surfing globe. That the writers struggle to convey their thoughts with an incisive and robust vocabulary is disheartening to those who enjoy the purpose these magazines intend to serve. (In a column by surf legend Peter “P.T.” Townend in the Summer 2007 edition of Water, the opening paragraph suffers a blow to solid grammatical accuracy: “Peter Drouyn was at the time, the Queenslander of the [era]…” Omitting a comma before “at” converts an otherwise routine prepositional phrase into an fragment—a dependent clause that segues into a brutal run-on sentence.)

The weaknesses in wide reaching surf writing, nonetheless, shouldn’t tarnish what good work is continually produced and the writers who create it. Steven Kotler is perhaps the most established writer tackling surfing today. Published in the The New York Times Magazine and GQ, among others, Kotler’s most recent book, West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief, delves deeply into the spirituality of surfing and the science and research surrounding it. Kotler also tells the story of the Malloys in the May 2007 issue of Outside Magazine, three tight-knit, ranch-raised brothers whose name is ubiquitous to surfers. Even the aforementioned journalistic violators aren’t immune from running quality stories. Surfer printed Chris Dixon’s pointed and conflicted essay, “Home Cooking,” about his transition from a Southern California charger to South Carolinian reporter, father, and pleasantly surprised surfer in March of last year. A writer named Kimball Taylor wrote a book of fascinating short stories titled Return by Water. And National Geographic journalist Joel Bourne is an avid surfer. (Although his passion for wave riding isn’t revealed so specifically, since he confronts broader environmental issues.)

So, does any of this matter? Realistically, no; editors will do as they please. But erudite individuals tend to enjoy the intellectual challenge of reading something that is complicated and presented articulately in captivating phrasing. The thing is, many of those people also enjoy surfing. And though it may seem so in the publications that detail the culture, surfing and reading are not, nor have they ever been, mutually exclusive. The fact that magazines exist at all is worthy logical testimony. Just look to Ice-9 Foam Works president Jon Stillman, whose inspiration for the company’s name derived from his love of Kurt Vonnegut, lifting “Ice-9” from his book Cat’s Cradle. But the poor writing quality in the majority of surfing journals presents thorny questions. How are potential buyers reached without alienating an older generation comprised of educated consumers? Should mags market to groms to secure ad revenue, and does multi-dimensionality inhibit that goal? These are serious industry quandaries.

Ultimately, given surf mags’ large percentage of photographs of the hottest pros—always modeling their advertising sponsors’ hottest gear—and exotic locations, editorial enhancement can be achieved by changing little. That is, except the writing. Maybe if better-seasoned writers are sought, at least on a freelance basis, to draft more reader-oriented content, the problem could be solved. Doing so might actually benefit a magazine’s bottom line. Superior writing cultivates greater exposure and positive reviews—exactly what lucrative ad campaigns demand. Improving surfing’s written aspect will attract the countless surfers who love to read about it but hate what’s out there. If that means an editor doesn’t give a friend a job, then so be it.


“Surf Tip”
http://preview.surfermag.com/features/onlineexclusives/surf-tip-10-07/index.html

Kotler’s Malloy bros. piece
http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/200705/best-jobs-malloy-brothers-1.html

Author’s site
http://www.kimballtaylor.com/

Bourne’s story on America’s coasts
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0607/feature2/index.html