The Animal

So picture this...I've been losing my mind while posted up on the couch for 10 days, recovering from the knee surgery, popping percocets, drinking NyQuil, YouTubing surf vids, and planning my eventual escape. A couple days ago, I added some gym time into the mix. Yesterday, after getting all yoked up at the gym, I'm fucking starving and focused on building the greatest turkey, ham, & avocado pita pockets ever. As I'm cruising down the bread isle and making my way towards the meat counter I'm face to face with none other than Nat Young...World Champ, Legend, THE ANIMAL(not to be confused with the young freckle face ginger kid from Santa Cruz). Nat Young goddammit. NAT FUCKING YOUNG. I know he lives here part-time and I've seen him around before. But I'm always a bit stoked to see him cruisin around away from trade shows and work related bullshit. A few years back, when I still lived in Santa Barbara and was here on vacation, I spent the day shredding a killer pow day with a couple friends, and some big tall Australia dude. We shooshed around the mountain all morning and it took until mid-day before I realized that big tall Australia dude I've been riding with was Nat. I'm not sure why I wasn't star struck back then. But yesterday, I had some sort of man-crush...or maybe more of an adventure-crush. My mind was spinning just imagining where all his travels have taken him over the years. That dude lived more incredibley stoney shit in any random 24 hour period during the 70's. My favorite surf era. It must've been so rad to be the first person to discover an Uluwatu or Petacalco then surf the shit out of it for weeks with just you and your bros. And weed. And psycadelics. I think I've found my spots to hunker down for about 6 weeks in spring and I'm getting stoked about heading out on an extended surf adventure. And who better to feed that fire than Nat. As I passed him I gave him my best cool-guy headnod of acknowledgement for his years of ground breaking surf/life/mind shennanigans from the good old days. Then I went home and stuffed my face and took a nap.

sssshhhhaaaarrrkkkk!

Man oh man was Facedildo and my phone blowing up today with scary shit going down on the Oregon Coast. I'm friends with this chick named Becca Cundari. I went to to high school with her. Her husband, Spencer was sweeping the ocean today when some broad right next to him was attacked by a shark basically in downtown Seaside. Apparently he slung her over his barge and swept his way to shore getting an incredible core workout and working on his balance. I'm pretty sure he's the dude holding the normal sized surfboard at :30 in the news video. The vid seems to be taken from 36 miles away so i's hard to see what's going on at all. Anyway, until we rid the ocean of these fucking devil creatures, this will go on forever. Sharks win again.

SUN>SBA>LAX>ICN>JKT>TKG>???>TKG>JKT>CIMAJA>JKT>ICN>LAX>SBA>SUN

Driving back from Twin Falls, AKA God's Country.


The Brown Recluse Memorial Wing at St Luke's Wood River Valley Medical Center


There is no doubt that winter has us by the balls. The overnight temp is supposed to get down below ZERO tonight. Our mountain is up and running so it's been great to get outside, sit on some chairlifts, and stretch the legs a little. We're hurting a bit though. There hasn't been any major storms yet. We could use a big dump, cuz we're mostly running on man-made snow and it's getting a bit boring. Corduroy is rad....if we're surfing and it's stacked to the horizon. But with nothing but bitterly cold temps over the weekend, I guess I'll have to wait a while for some pow. This coming monday I go in for a little snip snip on my meniscus sending me to the bench on the injured reserve list. That means I'll have the next couple weeks to lay around and really focus on planning a spring vacation to Indo...and pill pop. It's looking really good for a couple weeks in motherfucking Sumatra and a couple more weeks in West Java. There's a couple waves I wanna surf down there. I also need to check out some orangutans, tigers, rhinos, and Krakatoa. Wingman needed.

random stokage

gettin ready for the big day

it's cyclical

Finally got some mountains in the Pacific NW opening up for the winter. Facedildo is lighting up today with several asshole's pics coming in from Baker. Meanwhile, around here, we're sitting on a solid cold ass month of non-stop manmade snows, and a couple days of natural shit mixed in. At this very moment we're getting one of those unexpected massive dumps after a beautiful, blue-sky morning. On my way to the gymnasium at about 10am today, our mountain looked gorgeous. Locked and loaded. Ready for blast off. But nope, we won't get our lifts going till the 24th, Turkey Day....the best eating day of the year. Next to Halloween, one of my favorite holidays to make a complete ass outta myself. It's where you're expected to stuff your piehole, sleep, watch football, drink, eat more, drink more, then tackle & tickle the ones you love. Then repeat all the way till mid April. Ahoy!

And in honor of all the snow coming down in the Northwest, here's one of my favorite movie scenes of all time...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt8PYFweQVE

And another classic...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFM34jnUWoA

grass is greener

Yesterday I traded an ounce of gold for my 201-2012 Sun Valley Season Pass. $1749 dollars of blood, sweat, and tears handed over to the SV Co. While smelly whiney hippies take over Wall street and sleep on your streets to smoke weed and be useless pieces of shit, I'll be snowshredding. Sure, I may be technically "poor", I'm not letting The Man keep this botha down. #1117033 is occupying Bald Mountain.

get him a body bag

About 15 ski seasons ago I jacked my right knee on a mellow little 180. If I hadn't been only a couple lift towers away from the bottom I woulda had a tough time getting down. Doc told me I tore my MCL a tad and fucked up my meniscuss. No surgery needed, but did some extensive rehab with cold beers and sloth. It was already somewhere near the beginning of April, and I remember being beat up and ready to be done with the season anyway. That knee always had a slight stability issue ever since. Fast forward to around 2008 or 2009 in a random after-work muay thai class. I get asked to be a "dummy" for the final test of a krav maga class on their final night beat down. "it's pretty much noncontact, you'll just stand there" says the coach. Reluctantly I agree to hold a heavy pad, give slight resistance, and make dude use 1 specific technique to take me down and the attacker isn't going to deviate. Me stand flat foot. Me not expecting DIFFERENT FUCKING TECHNIQUE. Me taken out at right knee like "sweep the leg, Johnny". Knee never the same. Right knee swells up more and more. Turns out my meniscuss is one giant pussy that's torn and needs a reconstruction cuz it's seeping fluids out the side creating an excessive lump of shit that needs to go December 5. I predict the 6th is filled with narcotics and nothingness. Then allegedly, 2 weeks later, I'm back on snow.

Gameplan

I'm starting to think I've been wrong all along. Up until about a week ago, I was still in bikefag mode and didn't really wanna stop cycling or start the shred season. Then the daily high temps topped out in the 35 degree range and since I'm soft after living in California for so long, I had to hang up the spandex for the year. My head wasn't on correct, and I couldn't give a rats ass about snowboarding so I was still looking for any way to leave town for the winter. This guy just doesn't need to spend any more time in -20 degree weather or wiggling around in the mountains. Then an amazing image appeared like The Virgin Mary in my grilled cheese.....quit shooting for the top. Give up. Don't fight it. Just go with it and quit trying to be some kind of career type go-getter. Live in landlocked Idaho in the winters during shred season. Shred a lot and stash cash all winter. Then in spring, right after the mountain shuts down, I take 2 months off for surf and travel. Maybe add a mini couple weeks in the fall, too. Or if I can sack up, I should drop out and expat somewhere surfy for the entire summer like I've always wanted to. Somewhere warm and cheap and maybe get a jobby job in the area to cover some costs. I mean, fuck, who am I kidding...I'm steadily more and more undateable, mortgageless, debt and dog free, and only have a few more years of being semi-ablebodied. From the way things are going, I stand a good chance of needing to contact the Scooter Store in the next few years so I need to maximize my potential STAT! Monday I get an MRI for a 95% probable meniscus tear from 15+years ago and then a quickie scope right after Turkey Day opening weekend shred. Since the 2011 deductible has been met, time to clean out all the nooks and crannies a bit. Shoulda had it done last month but wasn't thinking clearly. Should miss just a week or 2 of shred. Half that time doped up on narcotics and drooling on the couch. Winner!? I'm an F-18, bro.

The Shizzz

Here's Andy Gilbert selling Dildo Valley. I've known him for more than 20 years, going back to our Portland days partying and blowing up bean bombs in backyard fireplaces. He's got a forearm tat of Rick Flair as the Virgin of Guadalupe. I wish I had a pic of that thing. Dude kills it as the Snowboard Program Director for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. He always has a strong team with kids like Kaitlyn Farrington and Wyatt and Yancey Caldwell. This town is all about skiing, so it's a constant battle against the old timers and stupid skier mentality. The mountain got it's first half pipe about 5 years ago, and it's first park and rails around the same time, roughly 15 years behind the time. Bogner are everywhere(see below). And we still ride chairlifts with decrepit old skiers who still hold the rivalry for snowboards, so we get to clown em a lot. It's awesome.

RIF

One thing I don't do enough of is read books. I'm always stoked to power through some pages while on vacation, but it never seems to spill over into my real life. Since I don't have enough dough to constantly travel, I decided to make a conscious effort to step back from the idiot box, plop my ass in the Lazy Boy, and grab a book on a regular basis. Here's what's in the Brown Recluse's Fall 2011 Library and some brief thoughts on each.


This fucking thing will scare the beef outta you. FUCK! I seriously think that I'm going the way of the vegan because of it. Next thing you know I'll be wearing some goddamm poochooli. Basically all animal proteins (meats, dairy, cheese, milk, delicious butter, eggs, etc) will promote cancer, heart disease, and all the other diseases you don't want. Like butt cancer. Eating strictly plant proteins, means you can smoke cartons a day while eating azbestos and you still won't get any death diseases. I've mixed in at least 1 vegan meal a day to see if I can handle it. But on a side note, I first cracked the cover with a 1/2 pound Lefty's burger in my hand.



This was such a great random discovery at this mysterious structure full of smelly people called The Library.I was headed towards the Ecuador section which was just past the Surfing section which was right next to the Judo section. It was just staring at me with the incredible stoney early 70's cover photo and font. It made me grab it for 2 weeks. Plus the title is just simple and perfect. It tells the story of a wandering Judoka who travels along, gets in trouble, meets a chick and eats food. And he's cool with everything as long as he can reach mushin, or the state of no mind. It's intermixed with Judo life lessons and ways of looking at life and everything it throws at you. Deep and heavy, just like you'd expect from the epic Uluwatu single fin era of 1973.



Ever since Bali last year, I've been stoked on them Hindu's. In my world, I was getting used to dealing with a-holes from Southern California who, in a broad generalization, are very selfish and think only of themselves and how they can get ahead in life. While everybody I met in Bali were over-ther-top kind, almost too nice. At first I thought they were just setting me up, but it didn't take very long to realize that it was from their heart and they are super happy people. In amongst incredible stone architecture filled with animal heads, there were colorful flower and incense offerings strewn about making everything look and smell like heaven. They're almost all Hindu on Bali while the rest of Indo is good ol Muslims. The Balinese run their life by different standards. Karma is a key...I think....but I'm not really sure. That's why I got this book. Because I wanna figure out why they're so fucking nice...and happy. All the other books about Hindu tells riddles and stories that are too deep for me to grasp. I'm an idiot, I need people to dumb it down so I figure it out from the bottom and work my way up. To enlightenment.



There's always talk in martial arts circles that Chuck Norris was some bad ass, that he holds all kinds of records, and that he's unstoppable. I had always dismissed it as normal MMA chest pounding, mine is bigger than yours bullshit. So I found this paperback for $2.99 at Powell's in Portland and that's as much as I wanna pay for this book. Sure, it tells of his growing up, and his problems, but it seemed like he was trying to sell me The Chuck Norris Total Gym. There was some good stories about training with Bruce Lee. Then it was a couple pages selling me on Jesus Christ and The Republican Party has all the answers. I also started to gain some respect for him when he started talking about his many legit titles and VERY HIGH Korean belt levels. Then I was sold his new show, premiering somewhere soon. It is after all, Chuck Norris. So expect some cheese with your wine.

day trippin

Can't believe that fall has us by the balls and we'll be shredding in less than a month. The leaves are falling and I've had to scrape my car windows a couple times. I'm still here and it looks like I'll be spending another winter living the dream. Working nights and playing all day/every day. So before the pass closes, I drove over Trail Creek to check out my bro's ranch up in Copper Basin.



Passed by some prime fishin.



And made it t his place. There's a series of tiny little cabins, sheep wagons, and a stoney yurt on the compound. This one's from some creeper named Russian John's that's about 200 square feet and 100 years old. It was salvaged 50 miles away and rebuilt here.



"hey fucker, did you see that?"



Up the valley in the back 40.



Jesus Christ it's gorgeous everywhere around here.



And then back home down the pass and along Trail Creek.