Jose's New Teeth

I stopped in at the old corner grocery store next to where I used to live. Annie and Terry the Armenian ladies who run it were very glad to see me.

They said I got out just in time. My old building has been going down hill. No more single folks living alone in apartments. It's either families of 4 in a small one bedroom or groups of drugs addicts, rockers and party boys turning singles into crash pads. The police are out there regularly now.

Jose the building manager has been wasting away. He's lost a lot of weight on this latest tweaking binge, which makes those weird oversized false teeth he got in Mexico look that much larger. His wife has left him. I'm not sure if she took the kid. His beautiful truck that didn't run is gone, as is his motorcycle.

I'm not sure why the owners keep him on. As he goes, so goes the building. They set up a conference call between them, me and Jose so that he could tell me (in between smacking on his weird false teeth) how I'd stolen the window screens, the closet door, the light fixtures, the carpet, and everything else I guess he stole out of my apartment after I left so he could trade it in for crack...The owners weren't buying it any more than I was, and after he ran out of things to accuse me of and just started prattling inanely they cut him off, apologized to me, and asked if it was okay if they keep $50 of my deposit just to make him happy. I was cool with that, but when I went to pick up the money, in cash, from Jose, he tried to short me $200.



I wrote about Jose's new teeth several months ago, before his crack or meth use had gotten out-of-control.

Jose the tweaker manager of my ghetto apartment building has new teeth.

I'm not sure where he got them or why he has them. He's a relentless scavenger. Maybe a tenant left them behind after moving. Maybe he found them on the street. There seemed nothing wrong with his old teeth. They appeared to be pretty regular, which is to say unnoticeable because the only time you notice teeth is when something is wrong, like they are unnaturally white or they are rotten or they are seriously snaggled or they are really stained or several prominent ones are missing...

Jose's new teeth are very noticeable.

They were made for a head much bigger than his, and the weird effect is exacerbated because he seems to be shrinking, maybe due to all the speed. Because they don't really fit, his speech is a little slurred and he can't seem to get his lips to cover them, so what he does instead is the sort of freakish grimace that I think is meant to be a grin.

Whatever drugs he's doing, it's a combo that has him at his most agreeable in the 6 years I've lived here. He's not looking so good, but he's happier (in a manic way) than he's ever been...

Malibu

Early March at Zuma Beach.


I was still using borrowed boards. Tony Alva loaned me this.


Tere with his mini-Simmons. This board always gets a lot of comments.

Zuma Beach, March 1 2009, 11:00am

The Salton Sea

More from the set I did in February.

Rogues & Radicals

My friend and surfing buddy Tere Karabatos is doing a show (presented by Tony Alva) in the Alva skate shop this Saturday, 6pm - 10pm. Tere's work is encaustic painting, which has its roots in ancient Greek religious art, only his is applied to more modern icons and iconography -- a series of broken down and halftoned images of surf, skate and punk icons...one of which is based on a photo I took of Henry Rollins with Black Flag back in 1983.



Rogues & Radicals
Tere Karabatos & Tony Alva
w/ DJ Al G.
Saturday march 18 6 - 10pm at Alva Los Angeles
1086 South Fairfax Ave, LA CA 90019
323.954.7295

Zuma March 21 2009

This week's beach update splits between two weekends. The idea here is to try to convey what this experience is like for me...which is not about a bunch of macho young man's stuff in which one tames a wave and conquers nature and engages in Xtreme anything...it's more about the fact that you cannot conquer nature, you cannot will the ocean to do anything, it's not listening to you and really doesn't even know you're there. it's about some sort of sense of one-ness with the whole thing. It's sort of easy to get that feeling of serene awe when you are sitting on a board in the ocean with the dolphins swimming not so far beyond you, storm clouds building over the mountains...

It's like the Buddhist mindfulness/Vipasanna meditation, which is a meditation not of blissed out, what's-up-with-my-naval escapism, but of focus, concentration on specific aspects of the immediate here-and-now.


My board, Zuma, March 14, 2009


Tere, Zuma, March 21, 2009

Ninja Mag

Ninja Mag is a very cool French magazine that just published a small set of my old Crotch Rot shots. For those of you who are not in the know about such things, Crotch Rot were Austin hardcore teen sensations circa 1984. Drummer Felix, (who was about 14 in this shot) went on to play with DRI. You can check out Ninja Magazine (and download copies in pdf form) at www.ninja-mag.com




Crotch Rot at the Ritz, Austin Tx circa 1984

Zuma Beach, March 15, 8am

Zuma Beach, March 15, at about 8am


My board - a 6'10" funboard, made by a UK company named after the Welsh shaper, Zuma Beach, March 15, at about 8am

Zuma, March 2009

Zuma Beach, March 1, 8am

Sunday morning, 8am, Zuma Beach. Perhaps it was the time of day, perhaps the time of year...but I don't remember it ever looking more beautiful. Water flat and glassy past the break; coming down the canyon the ocean looked like a lake.


Zuma FOOD sign


Huntington Beach, Feb 2009

This Year's Theme

Every year has a theme, it seems. Last year's was obvious: the election, and with it, inner city blues. This year the theme is likely gonna be the beach.

The rains have finally let up, or at least took a break. Went down to Huntington Beach Saturday am to surf. This is a shot from two years ago, up at Zuma:

Meditation on Death

"Since death alone is certain & the time of death is uncertain, what should I do?"

A meditation in three parts. The first: the final result of birth is death. There has never been an exception to this. The miraculous organism that is a sentient being, formed out of an inconceivable number of interdependent parts, a delicate balance that changes with each heart beat; I witness my own aging.

the time of death uncertain...Anything can happen. Statistics are just statistics. I will die. You will die. But neither of us know when.

What should I do?There's not really a direct answer to that question. This could be the "what is the meaning of life?" question. Maybe it means we need to examine our attachments to almost all those things we are taught to attach to: physical health, financial independence, perhaps the striving to make a name for ourselves or find the perfect partner...worldly possession can't help. Relatives and friends can neither prevent death nor make the journey with us.

The idea is to stop taking life for granted, to recognize its value and maybe be jolted awake to the sensuality of existence. Every breath is an intake of life.

Impermanence. The death of someone upsets the illusion of permanence we strive to sustain.

This is the basis of a Buddhist meditation. I'm not there yet. To me, these thoughts -- parts one and two of the meditation -- are still too frightening and morbid, and so I cannot yet get past them to part 3.

Last Saturday I took one of my trips out to the Salton Sea. I never really know what I'll find in myself every time I go out there. What it always comes down to is whether it feels alive or dead, and how I respond. And then I returned to learn the next morning that an old, old friend had died.