The Dog Days of Winter

In his poem No Possum, No Soup, No Taters, Wallace Stevens writes, “it is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.”

The poem title leads one to believe it probably doesn't get much better from there.

Sorry, bro!

Excepting the worst drought California has ever experienced—and it’s seen some doozies—this year so far has seen lots of metaphorical possum, soup, and taters.

The first of January saw Mario’s new 6'4 looking like this:

 While I was in Southern Baja doing this:

Then back home to Sonoma County where the shit got fifty shades of shreddy and looked like this for a solid week:

Then Mario’s board suddenly looked like this: 

And this:

And this! And, again, our pots were full o' possum.

Clearly, we need rain. Shakespeare's no Punxsatawny Phil, but it would be great if February goes something like  act five, scene four of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, when Don Pedro greets Benedick with, “what’s the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”

We'll take some of that.

October

If March roars in like a lion, then October pads in giddily like a golden retriever, all joy and gentle reminder.

You may need these, October suggests, your socks cradled in her mouth as you creep out of bed at dawn, suddenly darker than it was last week. Or this, she says, nuzzling a sweatshirt.

October points to the Thermos you almost forgot on your way out the door, the hotwater jug, the hat October knows you’ll be glad you remembered when you get out of the water.

October rides shotgun to the coast, head out the window, head back in to look at you, warm lips stretched into a smile, and asks, isn’t this amazing?

And it is.

And then you’re at the coast and October is bounding in a frenzy, dizzily pointing the soft cylinder of her nose at the sea—its cloudy breath and slick, morning-gold surface.

Then she’s wriggling, belly on the ground and you lower yourself to see what she’s got. Down here, she implores, listen. And you press your ear to the ground—wet, fresh—and you hear it. Thump Thump Thump of October’s tail on the packed earth.

Thump Thump Thump of the waves’ as they shatter onto sand.

Thump Thump Thump.

Deeper you listen, eyes closed.

Thump Thump Thump it goes.

Winter’s almost here.

Orange Egg

Does anyone remember the van with the external speakers in Robert Altman's (brilliant) Nashville? For some reason it was a highlight for me, as was seeing Elliott Gould in full 70s, gold-necklaced, hairy-chested glory. The van, a rolling audio advertisement for Hal Philip Walker's political ambitions, asks the question, "does Christmas smell like oranges to you?"
Well, for local wave-enthusiast Lucas, international shredder and dashing man about town, Christmas came a bit early this year, and it's definitely orange.
7' something egg, glassed with the lovely lady-hands of Leslie Anderson at Fatty Fiberglass. Lots of finboxes for lots of fin options.
Tight.