I, the Witchfinder

And the winner for bumper sticker of the week is....
You knew it was going to be an Electric Wizard reference.

Save All My Clothes I'm Off to Heaven

File under- Only In Wildwood:

American Waste

I decided to change things up for spring and came up with this stencil for the fin of my noserider:

I Don't Need It

From the other weekend, taken by my wife:

High Hopes

There's a good reason that I chose this flyer for today. As it turns out, one year on my birthday, my friend was convinced that Strife was playing in New Jersey not far from our town. At the time I was a huge Strife fan and thought they were one of the greatest bands on the planet (this was after One Truth was released and before In this Defiance so its kind of justified), so to me, it was fate that my favorite sxe band would be playing on my birthday.

We decided to give it go, despite not being a hundred percent sure where it was or who was playing, but we took off to our neighbor the the East in search of this mysterious Strife show. After the first couple stops at spots where my friend thought the show was, I realized that if there was a show in NJ, we were not finding it. This was a time before the internet had really taken off for advertising shows, so word of mouth or flyers were really the only way of knowing when or where a show was. In our mind, we figured if we knew the town, it wouldn't be long before we saw some HC kids walking around and we would just follow them to the show. Unfortunately, in the town that my friend thought the show was at, there were no kids strolling around. In fact, no one seemed to know about a show and we were out of luck. At the end of the day, I wasn't mad because my friend had the best of intentions. So since the April 26th New Jersey Strife show was never found, I thought I'd post the flyer for one a few days later in York:

The Fine Art of Unoriginal Photography

Awhile ago, I got it in my head that it would be a good idea to try and recreate the Ink & Dagger cover art to their Initial Records seven inch. Here is my attempt:

The original cover:

Crucial Changes

Took a chance the other day and decided to see if I could find a spot that was breaking decently, despite the lack of a clean up forecasted with our recent swell. Took a ride to the south end, but didn't see much. Rain was headed out to sea, and the one spot that looked decent already had four guys on it. You can see the pier in the distance with the enlargement:

Drove a little further south and took the walk up the hill to the next spot check:

I always enjoy checking out the natural, rustic ambiance that this spot provides:
It took a few minutes to convince myself, but there were two distinct spots where it was breaking, so I decided to give it a go. You can see one spot out towards the right, which was where I headed. The inside was garbage as you can see.
During the session, it rained and then got clear, skywise, which meant things cleaned up and got somewhat glassy wave-wise for a spell. Lefts didn't line up too well, but every now and then you could find a decent right coming through. By the end, the wind was stirring things up again, but I was able to get a pretty good session all to myself.

I noticed there were a bunch of horseshoe crabs washed up on the beach.
The forecast for this weekend: small amounts of swell, large amounts of out-of-towners.

Is Wrestling Fixed?

One of my favorite events to attend at Moravian ever, until it met its demise after the 1999 performance. RIP Jello Wrestling...

Morning of the Earth

Happy Earth Day:

Mystery Juice

The tile record release show exceeded all expectations as far as I was concerned. In fact, my only complaint would be that due to my advanced age that a) all of my friends who go to shows have moved out of the lehigh valley or b) are no longer interested in DIY shows. What that means is having to attend shows solo, which kind of sucks, but I am getting used to it.

Before tile, Middle America played and they sounded tight. The last time I saw them, their set was like a lightning strike: fast, energetic and over quickly. This time they were a lot more comfortable winding through songs, abusing their equipment and really turning out a solid set.

tile's set proved to be even more impressive. This was the first time I have seen tile live and they are clearly a band to be seen live. All of their recorded material is good, but hearing them live is just crushing. Guitar, bass, drums, vocals were all in sync and created a rythmic drone that left the crowd banging their head or throwing their bodies around the room. tile played a good mix of new stuff and earlier songs all of which buzzed and blasted the crowd with their heavy groove. It was good to hear the familiar ones and the newer songs were some of their best stuff, particularly, "Murder House", which I thought was one of the best all night. Judging by the crowd reaction, they were just as impressed as I was.

Going back to the attending shows solo idea, I was a little hesistant to snap pictures which is weak I know. Anyway, here is a picture of the LP, put out by Limited Appeal Records. The thing is just massive in sound. The record sounds much bigger than their past recordings and it contains some of their best stuff to date. The one sided LP contains six tracks all of which fit together nicely into one complete package that will flatten you on your ass by the end. Seriously, it is that good. After only a couple spins, it surpasses "Adult Video Cassette" as my favorite tile release. The copies were coming with a CDR track, "Free Pizza, Free Haircuts", which is a bit different than the more serious tone of the songs on the LP, but equally good in its own right. Go to Limited Appeal, order one and stay psychadelic.
What's on the other side of a one sided LP? A crazy etching done by Eric De Jesus. The photo does not do it justice:

Aqua-Zombies

Saturday morning was calling for waist to shoulder high and clean. With the amount of swell we had in the past few days beforehand, I was expecting good conditions. I started checking spots and wasn't finding anything exciting. Another confused swell that made for closeouts at better spots and smaller stuff at others. Granted, the timing of the tides sucked, but as I drove around, I saw a lot of other cars scrambling as well. It was like a bunch of crackheads not able to get their morning fix, driving, checking spots, and going to a new spot in disbelief and in hopes of better conditions.
I finally settled on some closeouts at seventh street. Paddle, take-off, tuck into the closeout, get wrecked. Being that I hadn't been out in a week or two, it was a lot more fun than it should have been. There was the usual SUP'er at 8th street and I had initially thought about joining him, but quickly was glad that I decided against it. No sooner did I paddle out on the other side of the jetty, but four longboarders paddled out at eighth, creating an insta-crowd. Two more guys showed up just as I was leaving to add to the heavy traffic. (I headed back to grab a picture of 8th above)

The conditions weren't great and dealing with a crowd for a couple closeouts seems ridiculous. Still, with the weather and swell, everyone was just crossing their fingers and hoping that things would turn around. Speaking of turning around, I'm sure once the tide turned mid-day, things were a lot better, but I have yet to see pictures proving otherwise. Unfortunately, I couldn't stick around, seeing as I was headed up to the Lehigh Valley for the night.

War Games

Found this little piece in the alley by the secret art space in Bethlehem:

In Your Face

Holiday dining took an interesting turn when my five-year old nephew decided to make a mask out of his bread.

What Awaits Us

With so much rain the past couple days, there hasn't been much shot of rideable surf, which can be pretty frustrating considering I had the week off. Not much to do but watch movies:

"You take drugs Danny?"

"Everyday."

"Good. So what's the problem?"

"Wanna make fourteen dollars the hard way?"


"Hey man, save me a poke!"
With the weather clearing, I decided to go check things out and see what was going on. Everything was still a mess:

Has anyone seen Irwin M. Fletcher?

Gummy is that you?
A few blocks north looked a lot better, but still a complete mess. This shot is of the other side of the fishing pier however.
Back home to wait on things with a few more movies...

One Life Crew

Some people have it all figured out. They know there's no point of retirement, stopping or giving it up:

To me, this is what is all about: Being able to get in the water consistently for as long as your body will physically allow you. All these guys are on it every swell without exception. I'm only sorry I can't find the second page that goes with the article, but you get the idea.

The Stan-Hope Conspiracy

Spring Break means getting the Shack in shape for the summer. The official Shack season runs from around April to as late as November, depending on how well the weather holds out in the fall. It spends most of the winter closed up and idle, packed to the gills with outdoor furniture and toys. Other than a storage unit for my boards in between sessions, it doesn't serve much of a purpose. It usually takes a day to get it cleaned out and arranged for artwork, attempted board repair or whatever else its used for in the summer. The initial horror show:

Things aren't getting much better:

The finished product, cleaned up and ready to go:

Now that you can actually walk inside, it's really nice in there.

Instead of just listening to Stern this summer, I hooked up an old VCR and TV for added enjoyment. That afternoon I watched the Ten Yard Fight and Strife documentaries, both of which I hadn't watched in years. Here is TYF doing "Back on Track", I think:
The top shelf is mostly pieces done last year with the lower shelf being random paint, nails, tools etc.
Already have a few things in mind project-wise. If the rain lightens up, I can hopefully get out there today for a bit.

Where the Wild Things Are

With time on our hands and a lack of waves for the time being, we hit up the famous Cape May Zoo with some friends over the holiday. Maeve was a little nervous about going in at first:


It's amazing that the zoo is free, seeing as they have any animal your typical paying zoo would. They do ask for donations (as you can see from the raddest mailbox ever), but even with donating five to ten bucks, it's still a steal.



Mandatory crew picture #1:

Bad news bears:

One of Maeve's favorites:

Maeve imitating some different animal walks:

Mandatory crew shot #2:

Stop looking at me swaaaaan!!

Old Smoke:

It was the first time I had ever been there where they had birds running loose with the visiting population. We found this little guy in the bushes:

They had giraffes, lions and tigers too, but those pictures didn't come out as well:

Teenage mutant ninja turtle on the hunt for his brothers:

King of the reptile house:

Have you seen Chubbs' hand?
Even when we end up going when it is 105 degrees in the summer, the Cape May Zoo is always worth the trip!