The Skateboard: The Good, the Rad and the Gnarly

On Saturday, August 13, 2011, the California Surf Museum in Oceanside hosted a book signing for The Skateboard. Seeing as how about half the legend skateboarders in the book are from San Diego County, invitations went out to everyone from Carl Knox (perhaps the first skater circa 1947) to the Bahne and Logan Brothers, Pineapple, Tony Hawk and Jake Brown.

A number of legends came to the party, including all three of the Brothers Logan, Bill and Bob Bahne, Dean Torrence from Jan and Dean, John van Hamersveld, Gregg Weaver, Denis Shufeldt and Frank Nasworthy – the Godfather of the urethane wheel.

Chris Yandall came even though he didn’t make the book.

Those legends and a couple dozen more signed books for over 100 people.

For a lineup of the Rogue’s Gallery who showed up, check out the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/TheSkateboardBook

The 40 books available for sale disappeared almost immediately, confirming a suspicion that there is something about the cover and contents of The Skateboard that people want to buy. And that is good because if there is a big demand, that could allow for the one book to be spread out into five books – one per chapter/era/decade.

The book signing in Oceanside was a success and there will be others in Malibu and elsewhere from now to Christmas.

We drove up to Santa Cruz in the middle of January and did some shooting: Rick Blackhart, Judi Oyama and Gary Holl at Cunningham Lake, Keith Meek at Buena Vista pool, Michael Goldman at Rampart, Rich Novak, Rob Roskopp and the NHS Brain Trust at the fruit cannery where the pear juice used to bubble out of the ground when I was a kid.

Also Zach Wormhoudt at the skate park he designed in Santa Cruz.

Up in San Francisco, Mofo gallantly showed me around the Thrasher offices, let me raid the warehouse for some t-shirts then took me to the Independent Foundry, where I interviewed Eric Swenson.

Independent still manufactures in the US of A. Good for them.

Back in Santa Cruz I recorded three hours of interviews with Rich Novak and Tim Piumarta which are 50% sarcasm and 50% burning bush insight into the skateboard business from the 1970s to now.

Also recorded an interview with Michael Mel – uncle of Peter Mel – who was the lead skater in Skaterdater.

At the other end of California for the Action Sports Retailer trade show we snagged portraits of Tony Alva, Curt Stevenson, Chris Yandell, Dennis Martinez and several others.

While interviewing Novak and Piumarta, they explained that Sector 9 was the most popular skate brand in the world, so at ASR I corralled EG and Dennis, and interviewed them about the Sector 9 Supremacy.

I just finished putting all these video interviews onto DVD to have them transcribed by someone else: Dave Andrecht, Bill Bahne, Linda Benson, Dennis Telfer, Brad Dorfman, EG Fratantaro, Eric Swenson, Larry Gordon, the Logan brothers, Frank Nasworthy, Stacy Peralta and Doug Saladino.

I am doing email interviews with a range of people, from Mark Richards of Val Surf to Keith Meek to Andy Macdonald.

A lot of work done and more to do.

It’s a load off my mind and shoulders to have the transcriptions done by others.

That will be the best $500 – $1000 I have ever spent.

Lucia will he shooting portraits around San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles until the end of February.

Still hoping to get Rodney Mullen, Steve Rocco, Natas Kaupus, Lance Mountain and many others.

Time to get this book writ!

Rumor has it that worried FAA officials change the flight pattern over LAX on New Year’s Eve. Probably for fear that some celebrant in metropolitan Los Angeles will pop a skyward New Year’s Eve cap into a passenger jet, and accidentally wreak the havoc the Nigerian Undie Bomber failed to accomplish on purpose. Which makes sense. Not too hard to imagine South Central or East LA lighting up like scene from Blackhawk Down.

The New Year’s Eve flight plan deal was a rumor I had always heard, and tracking down that rumor was one of my motivations for how to celebrate the transition from 2009 to 2010.

I was thinking about playing poker at the Hustler Casino for New Year’s – on the cusp of Gardena and Compton – and the plan was to win win win until around midnight, then step outside into the fresh air, take cover under something solid and listen: Would that part of Los Angeles do a New Year’s Eve impersonation of Lebanon or Iraq? Was there really that much gunfire? Could I hear enough to warrant changing a flight pattern into one of the world’s busiest airports?

The other option was to night surf Malibu. The elements were lining up nicely, according to a Fisherman’s Almanac I found online. Night fishing would be great between 23:00 and 1:00 AM on New Year’s Eve, because the full moon would be directly overhead for that span. Those ideal fishing conditions sounded good for surfing too, as did the tides, which would be halfway through a 4.9 high at 21:55 in 2009 and a 1.90 low at 2:40 on the first morning of the new decade. Low going to high would have been better for First, but what do you want for nothing: rubber bisket?
I had told a lot of people about the Blue Moon Surf and there was some interest in emails and around the parking lot. But warm and dry and surrounded by good friends at midnight outranks wet and freezing and surrounded by sharks in the ocean, so I was curious to see who was game.

Turned out Lucy was game. She was in Santa Monica but wanted to surf at midnight on New Years, so she got to my house at 23:00 and the first thing she said when she came in the door was “Cold…”

That set a theme. We drove a mile on PCH to check out the parking lot around 23:35. Were any of the usual suspects rallying for a midnight session?
Pacific Coast Highway was brushfire empty, but there were no roadblocks, no cops, no fire trucks or ambulances. Ghost town. Everyone was partying elsewhere. There were a few more limos than usual, but very few cars. A little eerie.
Where was everyone partying? Beverly Hills? Why weren’t they going surfing!?
We parked in the County lot at First hoping to find Cory or Chris and Anna or Billy Reynolds or Vince and Blueberry or someone else from the daily crew who was nutty enough to do what we were doing.

Instead we found three trucks pulled up to the hole in the Wall, none of them familiar. Two gay men in white suits were listening to music from a white truck. They were sashaying around the parking lot listening to Michael Jackson, Tears for Fears, Pink.

The Michael Jackson sounded right for New Year’s eve – and reminded one of the positives and negatives of the anne passé – but this was not the regular crew. Not in those white suits.

There was a group of about five women neither Lucy nor I had seen before. They had wetsuits and hoods and glow sticks and looked like TeleTubbies. They were ready for a night surf at Malibu on New Years, under a blue moon. Don’t know who they were, but they were game. They took a bunch of photos and were jumping around and wearing funny hats.

So, the trucks and the people were out of place and then I looked up and saw that the sky was whacked. There was a line of lights lined up and aiming at Malibu in a way I had never seen before. Was this the No Fly Zone for New Years?
Plane spotting is part of the regular routine at Malibu – for people who notice such things. Because surfers spend an awful lot of time sitting – or standing – around at Malibu – which is rarely a consistent wave – they spend a lot of time learning the take off and landing patterns of LAX.
On a normal day, passenger jets approach from the north, do a big, graceful, 300-ton, swooping turn to the east over Corral Canyon, line up directly over First Point and then laser beam along PCH and the 10. There is something beautiful about those giant air sharks hanging in that sky, moving that gracefully, and that approach turn is part of the aesthetic of Malibu.
Off in the distance, out of sight from Malibu, those planes do another big, sweeping turn over Skid Row, then line up for LAX. That’s how it works, if you’re paying attention, and if you’re paying attention, you can always use that pattern to know where in Los Angeles you are, or which direction you are headed.

You can’t see that final approach in the daytime, but at night the jets light up like giant insects and another part of the light show at Malibu is all the jets on approach to LAX, lined up six or eight deep, in two rows. Sitting in the lineup at Malibu, at night, if you look east you can see the illuminated Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier dancing around. And above and beyond that, an endless procession of jets sinking to the ground and then disappearing.
And the takeoff is something graceful to watch, between sets. Jets large and small, fast and ponderous lift off out of LAX and then turn north or south or go straight out to sea and head off to everywhere in the world. Most people who surf love to travel, and most have been on one of those planes heading out, craning their necks to see First Point down there. This is the reverse view.

These airplanes in flight are a romantic sight, if you want to get romantic about it, and it’s something Malibu surfers either notice in detail or sublimate. The flight pattern into and out of LAX becomes part of the psyche of a Malibu surfer, like tides, or winds or how the creek is flowing, or what the sandbars are like. Or how the crowd is.

But at around 11:30 on New Year’s Eve 2009/2010, that pattern was different. Planes were approaching Malibu from the east – to the north of LAX, flying parallel to PCH – then doing a big swooping turn directly overhead at First Point, turning to the south, then lining up to approach LAX over the water, from west to east. It looked unusual. The bright, slow-moving passenger jet lights kind of looked like those mystery lights seen over Arizona sometimes – mechanical but mysterious.
While the changed New Year’s Eve plan is a rumor, I know for sure that that the night pattern into LAX changes from east-to-west-over-land to west-to-east-over-water to allow neighbors sleeping under the flight plan sleep. The pattern will also change because of the wind, but I didn’t think there was enough east wind this New Years to make that change.

So planes do approach LAX from the sea, but usually not before midnight. Was this procession of lights coming at Malibu – instead of moving away – the changed pattern, half an hour before New Years?

That’s what it looked like, at around 11:40 on December 31, 2009. The moon was high, the wind was blowing, the Michael Jackson was throbbing, the gay men were dancing and Team TeleTubbie had scattered.

None of the regular crew had shown up yet, but we were still into it. We drove back to the house to grab our gear. I strapped my standup board to the roof of my red car with some trouble, because sometimes I forget how big those boards are. And it was something harder to do at night, in the cold. But I was going out on a standup paddleboard at Malibu because it was the drier, warmer, more secure option and I wanted to see how much the stellar wave-seeing and wave-catching qualities of the standup paddleboard were nullified by darkness.

While Lucy warmed up in the house, I sent an email to my friend Steve, who is a pilot for American Airlines:

Steve

I am going to write a thing about surfing Malibu at midnight on New Year’s Eve- which I am about to do, because it’s a blue moon and the moon is perfect for a midnight surf.

I was just there and saw they had changed the flight pattern so all the planes were coming straight at us – north of LAX, from Santa Monica to Malibu then doing a turn to the south directly overhead.
I know they change the flight plan to an over the water approach for noise after midnight, usually, but this was earlier and I think it was earlier because they change the flight pattern over LAX on New Year’s Eve because of gunfire.
Is that correct?
It looks cool to see all the planes lined up and doing that turn overhead, where usually they come in from the northwest higher and do a big swoop over Malibu and then line up along PCH and the 10.

Or does the pattern usually change at 11:00 and I’ve never seen it?
Thanks.
Steve is my go to guy for any information about passenger jets, approach patterns, restrictions and limitations. When something goes screwy in airplane world, I ask Steve, and he always knows the answer.

So we’ll see what he says about the pattern.

Driving back to the parking lot, Pacific Coast Highway was even more empty as the clock was ticking down to New Years and if you weren’t at a party by then, God bless you. We drove up to Cross Creek to see if there was a DUI checkpoint, but all we saw was the corner manger still lit up from Christmas.
Back in the County parking lot, Team Glow Stick were gone and probably in the water, while Team White Suit were dancing around the parking lot, this time to Pink. They were out of place, but they were in the right place. It was a beautiful night on the California Riviera with a big moon. But it was cold. And if you knew where to look, there were dramas happening.
Going to the Wall again to look it over, I looked to the east and looked for the pattern, but the pattern wasn’t there at all. There were no planes. None taking off. None lining up for landing, either from the east, or over the water.
No airplane lights at all. No movement. If you noticed it, it was eerie. The sky was even emptier than Pacific Coast Highway and it was weird if you are dialed into Malibu in weird ways.

Lucy had wisely changed into her wetsuit in the warmth of my apartment and as I scanned the skies she was more interested in sitting by the heater with the windows up than my theories on airplane patterns and gunfire. She couldn’t hear me with the windows rolled up and the heater blasting. Silently, without speaking, I pulled my SUP off the roof and got the paddle out and changed into not enough gear. I was in a rush to get into the water before midnight so didn’t put on my wetsuit and went out in trunks and a rash guard. Not enough protection for most people for the middle of night in the middle of winter, but I consider it a failure if I get wet while riding waves on a SUP at Malibu. The finesse move is to get half a dozen waves while keeping one’s hair dry. Warm and dry outranks cold and wet. So I went out in trunks and rashguard, determined to catch some bombs and ride them to the beach with dry hair all the way.
I would greet the New Year with dry hair, as a success. Or maybe end up wet and cold and miserable. How it all went might portend the year to come.

Lucy was determined to catch one good wave and ride it to the beach. She is a teacher in the Santa Monica School District, working one to one with kids disabled by autism and other natural phenomena. It takes resilience to be a teacher these days, her job takes even a little more. Lucy had a year that was about as rough as you might expect: Almost losing her job entirely but being moved from the job she loved to one she didn’t love as much. Traumatic. A traumatic year, but Lucy wanted to leave 2009 on her feet and say hello to 2010 riding a cold wave at midnight at Malibu.
Tough conditions, but she’d been handling that all year.

By 11:50 as we stood at the Wall then walked carefully down the beach, the women with the glow sticks were on the beach in a pile of light in front of the Adamson House. We walked our boards to the water with our teeth pre-chattering, feeling that cold wind from the northeast that was a bad direction for Malibu. No wind at all would have been sublime, but we were getting some midnight side-offshores and they felt like an ill wind.
It was cold. It was dark. Apparently they had stopped passenger jets because of gunfire. We were the only ones out. Three surfers had been buzzed by Mr. White down at Sunset a few days before. I had seen a 10-foot thresher shark breech and land while SUPping around Malibu during daylight hours, back in October.
There were heaps of reasons to turn around and head for the heater. But Lucy was determined and I wanted to see what happened to the LAX pattern after New Years. We continued marching toward the cold, wet, deep and dark black ocean. The moon was burning bright overhead, the tide was high and dropping. The wind was wrong, and there was a bit of surf. Enough to be fun, not enough to be perilous.

We got to the water’s edge not knowing exactly what time it was. Had we already missed New Years? And then people down the beach in the dark started yelling backward from “TEN!” I pushed the SUP and got on my knees at midnight exactly. The revelers cheered as I got to my feet but it was not for me. I checked to see if Lucy was okay and then we stroked into 2010 and a strange new world – Malibu at night.

The moon was big and like a black light, or a blue light. Moonglow lit up my white rash guard in that unearthly luminescence, like from black lights when we were kids at the haunted house. My standup is a Laird Soft Top so it’s got a blue and white deck and the moonglow was so bright, the blue was blue, at night, under a full moon. Blue under a blue moon!
The moon was shimmering silver across the water and the wind was blowing offshore. But this was still that ill wind. Offshores can be nice at Malibu when they blow soft and warm out of Malibu Canyon, bringing warmth to the body and notes of sage and chaparral to the nose. This wasn’t that warm breeze. The offshore winds were on the borderline between helpful and hindrance, and they were cold which made them not pleasant to paddle into in any way.

But those offshore winds made the waves look nice, lighting up the whitewater in a way that reminded Lucy and I of Avatar – where the plants and everything the Na’vi touch light up under foot and at their fingertips. Malibu was all shimmery and mysterious and otherworldly, and although it was cold, it was cool. We got into it.

Part of my mission was to guide Lucy into waves because I figured I would have better sight than she did. Lucy was spooked and for good reason. Humans are not night predators, nor are we numero uno in the ocean. Lucy looked to shore as she paddled out and saw that clump of glow sticks on the beach: “You think those glow sticks are a good idea?’ Lucy asked. “Aren’t sharks attracted to light?”

Sharks? I can tell you from sharks, because I have interviewed over a dozen white shark attack victims and I know from all their stories that sharks are not attracted to light or sight or smell – they are attracted to vibration. Almost all of the shark attack victims I have interviewed were always the person who moved at the wrong time: turned to paddle for a wave and got hit “like a frog getting hit by a bass” as one guy put it. Or they were paddling out after a wave, stopped and bam!

But I didn’t tell Lucy all that. I didn’t say anything, about sharks or vibration or anything.
I was gliding along smoothly on the SUP, not making a noise like a struggling fish, that I was aware of, but it was still spooky, seeing all I could see. The difference between prone paddling or sitting on a surfboard and paddling a standup is maybe four or five feet of elevation, but oh what those five feet let you see. In the daytime, every day: a lot of leopard sharks swimming around the bottom, and that big, solid 10 foot thresher shark jumping out to sea, landing and whipping that tail around. No one on sufboards saw that, but I saw it and the crowd saw me see it and my reaction freaked out six people around me.

I standup surf First Point every day and am known for having impeccable manners on the SUP. Because I can see waves coming 30 seconds before prone paddlers, I guide people into better positions: inside, outside, toward the beach, toward the point. Where many standup paddlers are hated for taking advantage of their advantages and grabbing every wave they can, I use that power to help others get waves.

But at night, it all looked different. Some of it was mystical, some of it was fricking scary.
Kelp looks bad, at night, from a SUP. Usually kelp is a nemesis, like offshore winds, or any contrary winds. Kelp will stop a board dead and send a dry rider headfirst into the wet and cold, and I was determined to make this a dry-hair sesh. Any moisture above the belly button was wet and cold – a failure. Couldn’t see the kelp to steer around it in front, but along the sides the kelp was black and ghostly, shimmering under the surface, like the dead souls passing under water in Pirates of the Caribbean, or the ghostly, evil shadows that slither up from the cracks and take bad souls into the black, from the movie Ghost.
It was eerie, it was scary, it was cool. Lucy couldn’t see it, and she was glad she couldn’t. She was sitting more inside, determined to catch one respectable wave and ride it for a distance and face 2010 with style. But it’s hard at night. Humans are lousy night predators because all of that evolution has not given us good night vision. We can’t see diddly at night, which is part of the reason we sleep at night, and also most of the reason more people don’t surf at night.

At midnight, the sky lit up with fireworks, but none in Malibu, all off in the distance, at what looked to be Redondo Beach. The fireworks were close enough to hear the percussion and they looked cool, off in the distance. There wasn’t a peep out of Malibu, not even a bottle rocket, nothing. The Adamson House was black, there were no fireworks from the Colony, because the Colonizers were all warm and safe and surrounded by loved ones in Beverly Hills, or Gstaad or Las Vegas or wherever the one per cent goes at New Years.

I paddled up to the top of the point and into the kelp patch while Lucy hung around inside. You feel more like the hunter than hunted when standing homo erectus on a SUP – paddling softly and carrying a big stick. Lucy hung on the inside and I probably would have too if I was paddling a surfboard, because you just feel a lot more vulnerable with your nose almost in the water, then you do with your sense receptors five feet above it.
It’s a huge difference that is not measured in feet and inches.

It was pleasant, paddling around, watching the ongoing fireworks shows off toward Carson, and looking for planes in the pattern. But now there was no pattern. There were no planes. Not in the usual pattern, or the changed pattern at all. The sky was even more empty than Pacific Coast Highway. Apparently around New Year’s Eve the pattern changes from east to west, and then stops entirely, because maybe all of the Los Angeles basin lights up with illegal yahoo AAA at the stroke of midnight, and no jet at any approach elevation is safe from San Bernardino and all the way to the coast. There were no planes, anywhere, and the sky looked blank.
Then there was one plane, a light going from east to west, way up high, like it was lost, like it had flown into the No Fly Zone late, because of some far-off delay, and now it was floating loose like a balloon, nowhere to go, nothing to do but stay far offshore until the New Year’s Eve restriction was lifted – whenever that was.

I hoped the elevation of the SUP would help my terrible night vision, and it did help a little. Beyond the kelp, the other shimmering shadows were approaching waves, dark energy bands that shifted and played trompe l’oleil and that, with the wind, made it hard to catch a wave on the kind of board that makes wave-catching ridiculously easy when you can see what you’re doing.

I flailed. I missed waves. I took off too late, wrong angle. I was overly cautious because I didn’t want to fall and get wet, but that caution made me fall and get my right shoulder wet. It was cold. I wanted to stay out and cruise around and maybe get a two foot bomb and ride it all the way to the beach – because at night, the lights off the pier and PCH bend up the wave face and create a cool light show that also gives an increased sensation of speed.
And I wanted to see what happened to the pattern, after midnight. We stayed out a good half an hour into 2010, and at some point, the planes returned. Taking off over the water, but not landing.

I didn’t want to give up but I didn’t want to freeze and after a couple more mis-timed mistakes, my hair was wet and I was wearing surf trunks and a rash guard at midnight on New Years Eve and I didn’t think I could pay the piper. Lucy and I both washed in gradually, then half sprinted up the beach, got the motor running, got the heater going, then threw everything on and in and headed home for hot showers.

Long hot showers, then a house with the thermostat cranked to 11. Delicious. A fun night. Lucy agreed with the Avatar comparison. She didn’t want to hear about gunfire or sharks.

I woke up the next morning with the house blazing to a thermostat set to stun, at 80°. The first email of the morning was from Captain Steve, who shot down my theory about planes over LAX getting shot down:

“It’s likely that the wind (Santa Ana) was from the east earlier last night (> than 10 knots at the field would be the trigger for turning the airport into the wind ). I landed yesterday at about 13:30 from the east on Runway 25L with calm winds, the sky above LA was brilliantly clear you could see well below Ensenada on the approach.

Not sure if there is any truth to the danger rumor from New Years gunfire over SE LA. As of late there seems to be more danger from Green Lasers on the south side of the airport targeting arrivals and departures.”
So that was that. The mind plays tricks at night.

Made it. Yay. The speedometer read 187,398 when I pulled up in front of the apartment.

So do the math: 187,398 – 185,531 = 1867 miles since I left here lo those many days ago.

I have mail: A package from Runman with the Trilogy. Time to have a Runman party.

A registered letter from the IRS. Always a welcome site. I doubt it’s a Christmas card.

A bill from my tax guy.

Christmas cards from Alison Cutler, Gene Rink and Robin Griffith – wife of the tax guy.

A check for $40 from the Malibu Times.

A long awaited check for $250 from the English.

In the last half an hour I came close to running out of gas when the low fuel light went on around County Line.

But that means the Red Car gets 20+ MPG and that’s good.

As I was stressing about running out of gas I saw three of those squid boats all lit up like Christmas trees, but apparently there were 50 of them a few weeks ago.

At some point today I found out I played the wrong Lotto numbers last night, but I did not blow it as my regular numbers did not come up.

Tonight, five of the numbers were all below 27, which means they all represented letters which means any of the names I regularly play could have won.

But the numbers were 8, 19, 20, 21, 41 and 3 and when you convert those to letters they are H, R, S, T and C..

So Lucy R didn’t win nor did many of the name/numbers I play but what name would have won.

Aw…. CHRIST!

That figures. Play the big man’s name a day after his birthday and it would have been 4 plus the bonus number = $1784

Which was just about my mileage on this trip. Weird.

I got home about 20 minutes ago and loaded the SUP into the van and parked the Red Car directly behind the van, so the only way to steal the SUP is to break the windshield.

Lynn carried a lot of my stuff up the stairs, because I am too disabled to get all of it.

Driving back through the Central Coast I was thinking of donating the van to Chris Malloy and the ranch he lives on.

If they kept it just on the ranch they wouldn’t have to worry about registering it or that pesky smog check that always goes with it.

Maybe they could use it to haul hay and keep it dry and let the animals eat directly from the van.

I was thinking about cattle and ranches because earlier today the first leg of the journey home went from Santa Cruz through Watsonville to San Juan Batista and Hollister to Highway 25. This is a beautiful, lost highway that runs through the Bear Valley on the east side of the Gabilan Mountains. The road is also cal;ed the Airline Highway or the Bolsa Road and it’s just beautiful: small cattle ranches in the valley which seems to have been formed by the San Andreas Fault.

I hadn’t done it in a while and always rave about it. I wanted to see if I should believe my own hype, and I should.

I drove it all the way from Hollister to 198 and then turned east and came back to the 101 at San Lucas.

I remembered from a previous trip seeing a ranch road marked with a tire and the words “Nyswonger.”

I know a guy named Jeff Nighswonger and I was hoping to get a photo of that tire if it was still there.

It was, because I don’t think those ranches change hands much.

Today I had breakfast at Paula’s and chatted with Russel for a while and then was joined by Nikki Brooks and then Jill and then Jason “Ratboy” Collins.

Turns out Ratboy is a decent chap indeed, and every inch a fishing fool. This was our second breakfast and all we talked about was trout and steelhead and sharks.

When I was learning to surf at Cowell’s Beach lo those many years ago, one of the experienced surfers who influenced us was a guy we called “Snider Noserider.”

His real name was Jay Collins and he was Jason’s dad. But some time in the 1980s I think he died of a heart attack right on the beach.

Odd for such a mellow guy, but no surprise Jason is a good surfer

And a good guy. If we go to Da Bull’s house to fish for steelhead on the Smith, Jason is down for the trip, as is his wife/girlfriend (?) Jill.

She grew up around the Trinity River and knows what is happening.

So breakfast at Paula’s despite the fact that I wrecked my back the day before and could barely walk.

On Christmas Day I woke up in Half Moon Bay after sleeping on a bed made for a 10 year old kid.

I distributed some half-hearted presents and then hit the road because I knew the swell was coming up.

On the way down Pescadero and Don’t Eat Us (Tunitas) Creek were firing. It was just big enough but not too big, and the offshores were blowing and I saw a right at the north end of Pescadero that was just perfect, reeling for more than 100 yards and needing a Kelly Slater to make it.

No one surfing anywhere up there, maybe because it was Christmas morning, maybe because it was cold and maybe because it’s soooo sharky.

I made it to Santa Cruz and geared up and went to Cowell’s first. I had SUPped out around Cowell’s the previous two days but there had been no surf and the tide was too high. Yesterday morning the tide was still high and I didn’t have change for the expensive parking meters and there were a bunch of hooligans hanging around the parking lot, so I headed for Pleasure Point instead.

I got the spot just north of the O’Neill house and gave some DVD to a guy whose name I couldn’t remember.

Several years ago I saw the guy get into a big fight at Moss Landing – standing up to the local rogues – and I was still proud of him.

His name is Kevin Miske and I gave him some DVD which he said he would watch.

My back was starting to act up as I put on all my gear, including the new rash guard and wetsuit I bought from O’Neill’s on Christmas eve day.

There wasn’t much surf and the tide was about medium and it looked very kelpy.

Seemed like it took forever to get ready. I stuck one backup key in the zipper pocket in the O’Neill spring suit I bought, and another backup in my trunks pocket.

I carried the SUP down a new set of steps I hadn’t seen before. Pleasure Point is being reinforced with concrete and rip rap all along the point, because the ocean is eating it away.

I pushed off the beach and stood up and it was too kelpy to surf 38th Ave/Insides.

I’d heard that Privates was the place to SUP so I headed east. It felt good to be paddling around and reconnecting with a place where I spent many many many hours surfing when I was younger.

I passed through a the hook and there were two guys surfing Shark’s Cove, but it was all thick with kelp.

There was one guy at Privates and I fell when some kelp tripped me. I caught a couple of waves and then what I thought was a jellyfish turned out to be a red Santa hat.

So I put that on and paddled back through the Hook, explaining to everyone I had found the hat at Privates.

I paddled up to Pleasure Point and spent an hour or so cruising around First Peak and Second Peak.

These are places I grew up surfing every day, but I hadn’t been there in at least 10 years.

I looked for familiar faces but didn’t see anyone I knew.

The waves were fun but it was crowded with a lot of beginners and I didn’t want to get in the way so I just paddled around and watched and explained to everyone that I had found the Santa hat at Privates.

I could feel my back acting up the whole time and had a feeling I was going to be in trouble when I got out.

I paddled back to 38th and a guy there complimented me on my Santa hat.

I told him I had found it at Privates and he said he had lost his Santa hat at the Hook a few hours before.

We discovered I had his Santa hat so I gave it back.

I made it up to the car and by the time I got the SUP on the roof my back was spasming and I figured that was that.

My back has been great with zero pain since I started SUPping and now that pain was back.

I knew it was temporary and it reminded me how glad I am that the permanent pain is gone.

I lived with that for 15+ years but SUP got rid of it.

So the last two days have been rough, but I am back sleeping in my own bed, and won’t be driving so that should fix it.

So I should sum up everything that happened since my last blog, but I don’t remember my last blog.

(Right now I am chatting with the girl in Pakistan who I send money to to help with school. The neighbors downstairs are arguing and I always expect to hear gunshots because the arguments are so loud)

Okay the last blog was December 21 at my dad’s after driving from Placerville to Half Moon Bay and getting the extra key at Toyota of Marin.

Here is a synopsis of what happened:

Stayed at dad’s the night of the 21st. Gave him the Clark Little book, which he liked.

The next morning we went for breakfast at the airport on a clear, cold day.

I had salmon and eggs and it was good.

That day I was hoping to go into San Francisco and see Matt Warshaw and/or Bmac, but they weren’t around so I headed for Santa Cruz.

Drove around, got my mail, tried to find Randy French, went to talk with Rich Novak at NHS.

The last few times I ahd been there he had told me I looked like shit, and I don’t think I do anymore and he would be the test.

He said I looked better. I do look better. We sat in his kitchen/office and talked and I strongly suggested he get on a SUP if he wanted to fix his back.

I slept on Danny D’s sofa that night after going to the Crow’s Nest. I think the woman walking around there was Michelle Poen, an ex-girlfriend.

The song “Seasons in the Sun” reminds me of her but I believe she is of an alternate lifestyle now.

The next morning I went to Paula’s Cafe and met Nikki Brooks there.

I owed her $50 for photos used on Wetsand. She invited Jason Collins and his wahine Jill because Nikki wants me to do a profile on Jason in The Surfer’s Journal and I said I didn’t know him that well.

So we got acquainted and talked about fishing, which is also what I talked about with Scott Bedell when I came into town on the 21st.

Scott is a fly fishing fool and he is all hot on the Owhwyhee River in Oregon.

And yes. Owyhee is the original name for Hawaii. The story behind the river is pretty interesting, as taken from Wikipedia:
The name of the river is from the older spelling of “Hawaii”. It was named for three Hawaiian trappers, in the employ of the North West Company, who were sent to explore the uncharted river. They failed to return to the rendezvous near the Boise River and were never seen again. Due to this the river and its region was named “Owyhee”.^[1] About one-third of the men with Donald MacKenzie’s Snake Country Expeditions of 1819-20 were Hawaiians, commonly called “Kanakas” or “Sandwich Islanders” in those days, with “Owyhee” being a standard period spelling of the proper Hawaiian language name for the islands, hawai’i, which then was otherwise unused in English. The three Kanakas were detached to trap on the river in 1819 and were probably killed by Indians that year. It was not until the spring or early summer of 1820 that MacKenzie learned the news of their deaths (probably at the hands of men belonging to a band of Bannocks led by a chief named The Horse). Indians led other trappers to the site, but only one skeleton was located. The earliest surviving record of the name is found on a map dating to 1825, drawn by William Kittson (who was previously with Donald MacKenzie in 1819-1820, and then with Peter Skene Ogden in 1825), on which he notes “Owhyhee River” [sic]. Journal entries in 1826 by Peter Skene Ogden, a fur trapper who led subsequent Snake Country Expeditions for the Hudson’s Bay Company refer to the river primarily as the “Sandwich Island River”, but also as “S.I. River”, “River Owyhee” and “Owyhee River.”^[8]

Sorry I digressed. Where was I? Okay on the morning of the 22nd I had breakfast with Ratboy and his wahine and Nikki Brooks. On that day I took the SUP off the beach at Cowells and paddled out to Steamer Lane. There wasn’t much surf and the tide was high so I just cruised through the kelp and got a feel for it up there. This was a beautiful day when the Bay was crystal clear and the valleys of Monterey were in high detail.

I love Santa Cruz in the winter, and this was a classic clear, cold, blue winter day.

I had only 1:30 in the parking meter and I was worried about ripoffs for some reason so I paddled out and came back and on the way back an albino sea lion swam under me and scared the bejeezus out of me. I have too many shark stories in my head.

I’m getting tired and need to finish this up.

I spent the 22nd in Santa Cruz I guess and also the 23rd because I SUPped Steamer Lane two days.

I never connected with Randy French but left him a present and thanked him for the deals he gave me on SUP.

I was in Santa Cruz on the 24th and drove to my dad’s that night to spend Christmas Eve with pops and Cherie and Gabriel.

Drove back to Santa Cruz on Christmas Day and that is when my back went out.

Today I had breakfast at Paula’s then went to Dannys and packed.

Did Highway 25 then got on 101.

I stopped and saw Terry Brown briefly in Los Osos but they were watching Inlgorious Besterds and I wanted to get home.

I stopped briefly in Santa Maria to leave one of the CostCo posters on the front porch of a person I only know through emails.

She must think I’m really weird now, but I knocked and no one answered and she was probably enthralled by the Lakers.

But my back was out and I was walking crooked and needed a shower and first impressions are important.

So that’s that. I need to download all the photos I took today but that is a jumbled thumbnail of what happend the last few days.

Time to get my aching back into bed, but it’s good to be home.

Made it to dad’s house.

No major problems today, although I did take a wrong turn onto north 101 at San Rafael, but that lead me to a Toyota dealership and that lead me to getting not one but two new keys for Red Car.

I had to have the registration and they took the VIN # and the guy in parts got a key code for that and he used that to mill me two good keys, which I am now using with the old key retired to Second Redundancy.

Remind me to YELP the parts desk at San Rafael Toyota, because the guy was good.

So I made it and the board didn’t fly off the roof and I have my phone and my wallet and pretty much everything I left with or picked up along the way, so I am calling it a success.

And I did pick up the bagel – such a good son.

I just sent an email to Y_____ M_____ at MGM/Mirage asking about the hotel policy for discounting or comping rooms for writers.

I want to write it for L______ W_________ or M________ M_________ or someone.

All well and good except I have some history with Y______ M_____.

We had a minor email tussle when I asked for MGM’s help in fact-checking the captions for Vegas at Night. This was her response, way back on May 5, 2009:

From: Mo____, Y______
Date: Tue, May 5, 2009 at 7:50 PM
Subject: RE: FW: CAPTION HELP FOR VEGAS AT NIGHT BOOK
To: Benjamin Marcus Benjamin, I’m sorry it took so long to get back to you, but I needed to check with our staff’s trademark/infringement attorneys and other executives to ensure that we remain within our Company protocol.

Unfortunately, as much as we would like to help, our staff is not available to use our Company time or resources to assist outside for-profit ventures such as this.

Additionally, and it’s not good news, sorry: We cannot give permission for you to use photographs of our branded properties and images for a for-profit venture. You run the risk of an infringement issue on the brands and images, and it is entirely your decision whether you wish to assume that risk.

If there is anything that is ultimately published in the book that is interpreted by our legal staff to be a misrepresentation of our trademarked brands or images, this could potentially spark the pursuit of an action beginning with a “cease and desist” request – but I cannot predict in advance what might or might not happen. Publications by outside parties are reviewed on a case-by-case basis following their publication.

I am sorry that I cannot provide a more definitive answer, and the only suggestion I can make is that you may wish to preempt any concerns by consulting your attorney. If you do not already have a legal advisor on board, the book’s publisher usually has legal resources on retainer for these matters, and you’ll likely want to cover all the bases to protect your investment.

Please understand that I am not a paralegal or an attorney. I work in a quasi-Public Relations function as an informational liaison to outside parties. My primary function is to try to assist and inform you about our Company’s business practices, capabilities, resources and policies. As you can well imagine, each and every request that we receive along these lines is very unique.

In an initial review of your document, I think I can help just a little bit:

“the MGM Grand was the second Strip hotel to have that name” – standing alone, this statement is confusing and somewhat misleading.

“MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park for the whole family” – there has been no theme park since the mid-1990s, but there is no indication in the text that this no longer exists. So this is also confusing.

“What was and what is there no longer. The MGM Grand entrance originally was a Vegasized version of MGM mascot Leo the Lion: mouth open and roaring to allow guests into the casino and hotel. A good idea, until MGM management wondered why all the Chinese guests were using another entrance – or not coming in at all. Turns out that in Feng Shui, walking into the mouth of a lion is considered bad luck, a variation on the English: “Like lambs to lions.” Chinese gamblers saw the open mouth of the lion and its fangs as an invitation to step aside and get eaten alive – financially – and they avoided the MGM Grand after it opened in 1993.” – we respectfully request that this photo and caption not be included in the book, as it represents a non-successful business effort. Though I completely understand that this entrance is a real part of Vegas history, this depiction and reminder of the old entrance is somewhat an affront to the reputation and ultimate success of our world-famous resort.

“Strangely, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were not included in the original design” – there is nothing “strange” about this. The resort designer did not pursue the inclusion of the World Trade Center in the design.

“Recent events have inspired some guests to refer to The Roller Coaster as “Wall Street,” or “The Dow Jones.”- this information will be sorely outdated upon the book’s publication and it is perhaps another affront to our Company and possibly an infringement on the branded coaster.

“Tropicana also forms the Great Divide between the Excalibur and New York, New York” – Excalibur and New York-New York are not “divided”. Excalibur and NY-Ny are joined together by both convenient elevated and ground-level walkways; and the two properties conduct cross-marketing efforts and share staff resources,

Thank you for checking in with us.

Y________ M_________
MGM MIRAGE Public Affairs
3260 Industrial Road, Las Vegas NV 89109
Office (702) 650-6942
Cell (702) 491-6426

So that sounded a little sketchy but maybe she was just being careful.

Today I pitched the idea to M_______ T_______ and M______ M_____ and L___ W_____.

I got a pretty quick “Pass” from Malibu Times, which was a little ironic because at that time I was pulled over in El Dorado Springs at a Fed Ex/Kinkos in some strip/shopping mall, taking time out from my busy day to email my Malibu Creek steelhead story to O_____ D______ who was writing a piece on chlorine discharges from the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility.

So there I was spending time and money to help them and I got barred from coming up with a reason to finagle free rooms at the Aria.

Oh well, they couldn’t have known that.

But I would like to go back, stay in the hotel and write it up for someone.

New Years would be nice, because it was New Years last year when I saw City Center being built.

The size of it was astonshing under construction and as you walk through it now, the words of Gladiator still ring true:

“I did not know men could build such things.”

So I hope they flow me some suites for New Years and I can bring Team First Point and we can tear the roof off the suckah.

This morning around 11:00 I left Placerville and stopped at Del Taco to fill my new travel mug with coffee then drove west, uneventfully.

Passing through Davis I did notice that people there were very tall and smiled a lot and were very patient with younger people, so I wondered what that was all about.

It was raining and then a litte foggy and gloomy so I listened to the radio and The Police and got kind of bummed out on California.

I guess I am a traitor to my class, because I really do not like the American middle class and all the suburban blight and strip malls and housing developments and seeing pastoral foothills being carved up for what I call “Gack.”

America is getting uglier and uglier as it all becomes one big strip mall.

I noticed this before when I was coming back from Montana a few years ago. As soon as you come over the hills from Nevada or Oregon and hit California the population density skyrockets and so do all the housing developments and chain stores and fast food stores and ugliness.

It’s a mistake. I think I should have been born when my parents were, and lived in California in the 1950s.

Whaaa whaaa whaaaa. Moan moan moan, always complaining.

So I drove past Benicia and ValleyHo and all the old familiar places where I spent time when I was a lost and lonely wanderer at the beginning of this decade/century.

My phobia about going over bridges is doubled by the Racknophobia from having that SUP on the roof of the car, so instead of taking the Bay Brige I took the Richmond/San Rafel bridge, after stopping at an Arco station to gas up and make sure I had toll money.

“Where’s gas? Where’s tolls?” That’s from Death Knocks by Woody Allen.

Read it, it’s funny: http://www.danking.org/evergreen/Summer_2002/English1B/deathknocks.html

I made it to the Marin side of the bridge and took a wrong turn going north up 101.

But I saw that Toyota dealership and decided to detour a bit and do the right thing and see about getting the key copied.

God had warned me when he let me catch that key with my toe, and who am I to disregard a supernatural caveat?

I delayed about half an hour to take care of the key, but it only cost $20 and now I have one as good as new and two backups.

Remind me to write a positive YELP review for the parts desk at San Rafael Toyota.

Driving toward the Golden Gate Bridge I was tempted to detour through Tiburon, which is a place I like very much.

Kind of the Nor Cal version of Malibu: quiet, dignified, low population, great weather.

But no surf. too bad because there is some geography in there that would be good with a bit of swell running through.

There was a very bright rainbow arcing down on Tiburon as I passed and maybe that was the Gods saying “Welcome Home!” because I was born in San Francisco.

I want to go back to Tiburon and cruise the SUP along Mar East Street where I used to live.

I can think of a million places I want to cruise that board.

Wish I had known about it all 10 years ago. The last 10 years would have been happier and healthier.

Made it across the Godlen Gate bridge and stopped at House of Bagels on Geary.

Everyone had San Francisco Giants shirts on, and that was nice.

I got a half dozen and drove down to Ocean Beach.

Weather was stormy and there was some surf.

I organized the Red Car and threw out all the SoBe bottles and beef jerky wrappers and pieces of floss, and pistachio shells and plastic wrappers and used coffee cups and other flotsam, and then drove south.

There was a guy SUPping at Linda Mar and that made me want to go SUP Linda Mar, but not today.

Made it over Devil’s Slide and was listening to Adam Sandler’s Hanukah Song when I pulled up at Pop’s house.

I knocked on the door and held one of the CostCo posters in front of me and then held out the bagel.

I gave pops one of the Clark Little books and bitched and moaned about it as he flipped through it.

And now I am doing this.

I think I shall sleep well tonight.

I might go into San Francisco tomorrow to see M Washaw and G Nikitin and maybe B McGee, but if they aren’t around I will head for Santa Cnd see that crew. I want to go thank Randy French for giving me deals on the Laird Boards.

I wonder if he”ll be pissed at me for the G______ deal at T________

We shall see. It’s competition, in a way.

If anyone has read this to the end, please send me one ping and one ping only.

How is the surf down there?

I need to get a wetsuit.

A sleep hangover. That’s what this is. You know how you fall asleep drunk and sleep eight hours and wake up still drunk?

I fell asleep dead tired after 11 solid hours of driving through rain and desert and snow and beef jerky, and now after 8 hours I am still tired.

But I am a diligent blogger and wanted to complete the epicness of my journey yesterday, so away we go.

Where was I? Anna already posted Blog #7 from yesterday and it looks good, but lets see where I left off.

Okay I was driving north along 395 as the sun was setting, flossing and texting and listening to Best of the Police.

At some point yesterday I went digging through all the CD in the Red Car and hit the jackpot when I found two CD with lots of the Po Po. So I rocked out to that and then my hands were really busy, keeping up with Stewart Copeland on the steering wheel and eating beef jerky and flossing and texting.

At all times after the sun went down I was tempted to stop and pull into a motel somewhere, and I was thinking that all the way along, thinking that I might like to fish the Walker River. But I didn’t do that and so I drove and drove and drove as the Highway signs counted down the miles to Reno.

All the time I thought I was going to Reno to connect with the 80 and I was thinking I might stay in a motel there and gamble, or possibly push on to me dad’s but that would have meant two hours of driving to Reno and another four hours to Half Moon Bay and I don’t think that was every really a possibility.

I was also driving very slowly, like as slow as 50 MPH but I couldn’t see my speed because the light on the right side of the dashboard of the Red Car is too dim to see the speedometer. But a lot of time I was going 50 because the lever to switch on the brights also doesn’t work and I was just being cautious. Maybe overly cautious while the world was blazing past me on roads that could have been slick from black ice.

My speed also made the trip longer, probably by an hour or two. But I was tired and wanted to avoid any more dumb mistakes, although with my luck lately I would have hit black ice, spun around three times, just missed getting hit by a big rig and kept coming, heart pumping again with the same relief I felt when I didn’t lose my wallet and didn’t lose my Red Car key.

I am still jazzed none of that happened because I might still be in Las Vegas dealing with that. Today if I see a Toyota dealership between here and Half Moon Bay I am going to stop and get copies of that key.

At some point, I think it was in Bishop, Lucia called and said she was having trouble tracking down Jay Adam and Buttons. She is going to take portraits of them for the skateboard book and I hope she gets them.

Lucia will be here in January and we are going to work together to get that sucker photographed and finished.

There is so much going on and I wish I could enjoy this but I am worried about money deadlines and book deadlines and all kinds of things. But that’s life I guess: work and worry.

Just checked on the money supply. It’s hanging in there but I hope things start coming through after the New Year.

I passed through Bridgeport and was tempted to stop but didn’t. I think one hotel was $85 and I was too cheap to pay that.

In the town of Walker I stopped at a gas station to get water and coffee.

I asked the girl behind the counter about getting to the Bay Area.

She was very helpful and gave me a piece of paper showing me how to get to Lake Tahoe.

Doh! Of course. Lake Tahoe. I have a SUP on the roof of my car. They have gambling there.

That’s where I was headed. Either stay there or get on the 50 and go until sleep deprivation forced me to stop.

The girl also said that people didn’t really fish the Walker River in winter, so that took away that stress.

The directions lead me to Gardnerville and Minden and that was nice, because those two towns were covered in snow and all lit up for Christmas and it was really nice. In fact that whole day was nice because it was winter and the sky was blue and the sun was out and the hills were silvery and shiny with snow and I wish I had a time lapse camera mounted on the roof of my car to give glimpses of all the things I say as I went hurtling past at 50 – 60 MPH.

I poked around Gardnerville and Minden and took photos of the Christmas lights and it all looked and felt very 1950s, Norman Rockwell, It’s a Wonderful Life. Good thing no cops pulled me over for taking IPhone photos on side streets in a small town at night.

I just looked on a map and saw that I could have detoured through the town of Sheridan, Nevada. But with a name like that I can only imagine it’s a disfunctional town, or a town of train wrecks. Or whatever.

Oh and I forgot to mention all the legal brothels I passed on the road yesterday. The Shady Lady Ranch and the Wild Cherry II. They all looked very sad and sketchy and I can only imagine what goes on in there.

But live and learn. I thought “brothel” was a place where you went for soup. Good thing I wasn’t hungry.

The directions from the girl in Walker told me to turn left at the 88 junction then turn right at Mottsville Road and that would take me over the Fairbanks Grade, and that’s what I did. That stretch of road was sketchy too – like Malibu Canyon Road with snow and ice. And I was texting and reading Nick’s email about the floating sand, when I should have been paying attention to what I was doing.

I thought I had another hour to go after Minden but actually it was only 11 treacherous miles to South Lake Tahoe. There was a nice view looking back down on all the lights of Gardnerville and Minden that I wish I could have enjoyed, but I needed to keep my eyes on the road and my hands upon the wheel.

At some point on that drive I had a “moment of clarity” about the City Center and why it all seemed so odd. That whole development is kind of like a pyramid dedicated to a dynasty that just collapsed. And by that I mean, the era of prosperity when oil went to $150 a barrel and everyone was getting rich on over-inflated mortgages, and all the financial empires that were floating on phony money.

The world is not that prosperous anymore and yet there is City Center, a $12 billion temple to that era, with high minimums on all the table games and expensive food and drinks and who knows how much for a room.

Matter of fact I am curious about that and am going to look that up right now.

I found this online:
Numbers from gaming analysts at Susquehanna Financial Group show Bellagio and Aria both at $224 a night midweek, but Bellagio’s $352 weekend room rate is well above Aria’s $184 rate.

“It is clear that MGM is aggressively pricing Aria during its first few months to generate buzz and trial,” wrote Susquehanna Financial Group analysts Robert LaFleur and Robert Shore.

The analysts added that Aria’s prices haven’t changed in two weeks, so “there appears to be no real tinkering with Aria’s rates at present.” But Aria will enjoy a slight pricing premium compared to Bellagio by February. For that month, Aria is booking rooms at $174 a night midweek, versus $154 a night at Bellagio. Weekend rates on advance bookings at Aria are $309 in February, 7 percent above Bellagio’s rate.

That is good to know because I am going to see if Malibu Times or LA Times or Malibu Magazine will let me go back and stay at the hotel and do a story on it, and maybe Aria will comp me a room for the coverage?
If I get to do that column for the LA Times, that might give me a little clout to do things like that. Free rooms would be nice, and I am curious to stay there, because as much as I saw, I didn’t nearly see all of it.

That moment of clarity hit me at around 8:40 because that is when I called Jason at Malibu Magazine and asked him if I could do the story – although I suspect Jason will swoop that one himself. But I would like to go back there and write about it proper.

I am going to interview the Hilton brothers in January and they might have some insight into the financing of the place as well. I see a comparison between now and the Howard Hughes era – when Hughes went to Las Vegas in the 1960s he had just sold TWA for $500 million, which is the equivalent of $3 billion now. He had that money burning a hole in his pocket and I think he went to Vegas to cut a deal with the State of Nevada to invest the money in Las Vegas – instead of being taxed on it – so he improved the infrastructure of the City, took the equity increase and made everyone happy.

I think that is probably the deal with Dubai World and City Center – in simplistic terms. I would like to find out how much money flowed through Dubai and the Middle East in the time it took to plan and build City Center. If you have hundreds of billions of dollars flooding your desert empire, why not invest it in another desert empire.

But still, right now City Center seems like a slap in the face to the world: an impossibly lavish temple to a world that no longer exists.

Something like that, or maybe I was just tired.

I started texting Zach at around 8:30 wondering if he was in Lake Tahoe, so that is when I must have arrived there. I passed Harrahs and Mont Bleu and the big hotel/casinos, but went looking for somewhere cheap because I had the SUP on the roof and figured I needed a small place where I could park in front and load the board into the room.

I haven’t been to South Lake Tahoe in many years and it’s a big thriving tourist area for skiiers and snowboarders right now, because there were a lot of people running around. It would have been nice to stop and check it out, tired as I was, but I called a Holiday Inn Express and got a room rate of $150, so I pushed on.

I think motels should have to post their rates on their signs outside, but oh well.

The drive out of South Lake Tahoe was narrow and sketchy and I was tired and driving slowly and it was like driving Malibu Canyon Road for an hour. worrying about black ice.

I figured I would drive as far as Sacramento and find a $30 room. Being poor is inconvenient and dangerous, but oh well.

It was a long drive out of there and I remember crossing the American River. By the time I got to Placerville I was texting Alison and that was around 11:43. The first hotel had two dozen ATT trucks parked outside and I figured all the ground floor rooms were taking.

I drove further up and saw a No Vacancy sign on a place that seemed pretty empty, so I uttered oaths and turned around.

Then I found this place, woke up the Inn Keeper, got the under $100 room rate and wandered in like Lawrence of Arabia.

I got a good night’s sleep and dreamed about someone who wanted me to organize a football team for a game that would be played at 2:00 in the morning.

Weird. Sleep deprivation.

So now it’s 9:00 and I am going to finish the drive to pop’s.

I might see if Bmac is around in the Big City because I want to visit his studio.

I would like to go see Wampler in Berkeley and I wonder where Pam and Nobu and Naomi are because I think she has moved from Malibu to take her job in Oakland. It would be weird to see them up here.

I’ll probably stay at dad’s tonight and then go to Santa Cruz tomorrow by way of San Jose and Steve Guzzetta.

I want to go to Paula’s and finish the 10 Commandments and I want to visit Novak at NHS and Randy French and I might even give Randy a Clark Little Photography book because he has been flowing me the SUPs for a discount price.

And after that, I don’t know. I want to buy some smoked salmon at Creekside Smokehouse to bring to Danny D’s Christmas event.

Oh and I did get that pastrami and the beef jerky into the refrigerator, so you can stop worrying about that.

But what I really want to do is finagle some rooms at Aria for a couple of nights.

They are probably eager for publicity and as I just wrote a book on Las Vegas, that might give me some clout.

Oh as I was leaving LAke Tahoe I stopped at a gas station I bought a travel mug and also one of those loop things that saved the car for the Red Key. I hung it around the mirror of the Red Car and so I guess that officially means I am decommissioning the van and its collection of flotsam and jetsam hanging from the mirror and am starting a new collection in my new ride The Red Car.

The seat of the van needs to be fixed and it’s not running properly and the registration is coming up and there are always problems smogging it. The roof is rusting and it leaks and the door locks are no good and the van is starting to cough up blood, so I will give it a break for a while

I would never sell it. What I did yesterday for one day in the Red Car I did for weeks and months on end in the van driving to Alaska and it never even hiccuped on me. And there was at least one time where I would have died on a back road in the Yukon Territory if the van had quit on me, and I am not going to reward that kind of loyalty by junking it or selling it.

Okay it’s 9:04. It’s time to get out the door and drive some more.

Remind me not to leave the beef jerky and the pastrami in the fridge.