surf-matic

All pics courtesy of Jimmie Hepp:

I’m back on the East Coast where the ground is piled with snow instead of sand and the roads go on into the distance instead of into the beach. (I’ll get some photos up later). School starts on Monday, so here is a post about my academic inspirations. When I read these two poems years ago, I thought, “Wow! I can’t believe this is possible with words.” From that point on, my interest in poetry has only increased. Here they are:

Yesterday
by W. S. Merwin

My friend says I was not a good son
you understand
I say yes I understand

he says I did not go
to see my parents very often you know
and I say yes I know

even when I was living in the same city he says
maybe I would go there once
a month or maybe even less
I say oh yes

he says the last time I went to see my father
I say the last time I saw my father

he says the last time I saw my father
he was asking me about my life
how I was making out and he
went into the next room
to get something to give me

oh I say
feeling again the cold
of my fathers hand the last time
he says and my father turned
in the doorway and saw me
look at my wristwatch and he
said you know I would like you to stay
and talk with me

oh yes I say

but if you are busy he said
I don’t want you to feel that you
have to
just because I’m here

I say nothing

he says my father
said maybe
you have important work you are doing
or maybe you should be seeing
somebody I dont want to keep you

I look out the window
my friend is older than I am
he says and I told my father it was so
and I got up and left him then
you know

though there was nowhere I had to go
and nothing I had to do

My Old Man
by Charles Bukowski

16 years old
during the depression
I’d come home drunk
and all my clothing–
shorts, shirts, stockings–
suitcase, and pages of
short stories
would be thrown out on the
front lawn and about the
street.

my mother would be
waiting behind a tree:
“Henry, Henry, don’t
go in . . .he’ll
kill you, he’s read
your stories . . .”

“I can whip his
ass . . .”

“Henry, please take
this . . .and
find yourself a room.”

but it worried him
that I might not
finish high school
so I’d be back
again.

one evening he walked in
with the pages of
one of my short stories
(which I had never submitted
to him)
and he said, “this is
a great short story.”
I said, “o.k.,”
and he handed it to me
and I read it.
it was a story about
a rich man
who had a fight with
his wife and had
gone out into the night
for a cup of coffee
and had observed
the waitress and the spoons
and forks and the
salt and pepper shakers
and the neon sign
in the window
and then had gone back
to his stable
to see and touch his
favorite horse
who then
kicked him in the head
and killed him.

somehow
the story held
meaning for him
though
when I had written it
I had no idea
of what I was
writing about.

so I told him,
“o.k., old man, you can
have it.”

and he took it
and walked out
and closed the door.
I guess that’s
as close
as we ever got.

Since August, I’ve sailed for film almost every time I hit the water. Today was a beautiful exception. At the end of the day, only a few guys were on the water and the beach was bare of any photographers. I was able to get into the flow of the waves without any thoughts in my mind other than the freedom found in the waves. Turn after turn. As the sun set, I came in to pack for my trip back to Princeton. After such a refreshing sail, I am ready for the blizzards of the east coast!

For the last week I’ve listened to nothing but Peter Doherty’s 2009 album Grace/Wastelands. Often when the public praises a popular songwriter for writing poetry, the lyrics are actually quite stiff, obvious, and, frankly, boring. With Doherty, I find this not to be true at all. His words are so painfully good, and paired with the music they are amazing. Check out these three songs from the album, and if you like them, buy it:

sheepskin tearaway

Last Of The English Roses

My favorite at the moment:
new love grows on trees

Here is a video clip of the taka sequence from the last post:

Hookipa Taka by Graham Ezzy from Graham Ezzy on Vimeo.

Yesterday, I returned to Maui after two weeks in Japan. After getting off the plane, I headed straight to Hookipa for a fun session. I then slept for 21 hours! Talk about jet lag. I have one more day of sailing before heading back to New Jersey for school. Here are some pics from the action (all photo credit to Jimmie Hepp):

I got really excited when I saw this move by Belgian freestyler Steven van Broekhoven:

Matador Steven Van Broeckhoven from Michael Sumereder on Vimeo.

It embodies everything great about the most modern freestyle; the rotation is fast and in the air. But this move also adds elements from conventional freestyle: body contortion and back-to-sail sailing (in the rotation!). And it’s all executed with power. Us wave guys often foolishly forget that freestyle can be radical too. Thanks for the reminder, Stephen.

Btw, after a decade of South American dominance, it is nice to see a European with a shot at the top PWA spot.

Vote for the umi team on riders match!

http://www.riders-match.com/uk/summer10/category/windsurf/

Graham does Guincho from umi pictures on Vimeo.

Brendan and I crashed the party at Guincho this summer. Even though it is one of the best summer wave spots in Europe, Guincho remains off the main map of the windsurfing media. We took a quirky hotel right on the beach and focused all of our attention on capturing the essence of Guincho wavesailing.

Guincho is no easy spot to capture. The main wave is a heavy shorebreak; it is a slab so thick that the lip is full of sand breaking onto knee deep water. I was doing takas on it, and the locals told me to watch out or I might break my neck! The wind is always onshore; even when the wind is considered to be ‘side-off’, it is the onshore version of it. Onshore wind and heavy waves make for hard but really fun wavesailing. In Portuguese, ‘guincho’ means scream: a sign of the angry extremity of the place!

When not on the water, we spent a lot of time watching the water. Guincho is just as extreme in the way it always changes. The wind can go from 5.2 to 4.2 in an hour, so we kept a constant guard on the sea’s changes. Our vigilance paid off, and we were able to see the spot in all her forms—sails from 3.7 to 5.2 and waves from waist-high to mast-high.

Our mission accomplished, Guincho captured, I look back at Guincho with fond memories. Memories of the sea’s attack on the black cliffs, the beach bursting with beautiful Portuguese girls, and nights spent exhausted from countless wipe-outs in the heavy shorebreak.