surf progression

The idea that you can improve never goes away....  Surfing's evolved.  The boards have evolved.  I'm actually stronger now, and I have more control over my technique.  But I have too many injuries.   It's super frustrating because there are some days I don't want to surf because I'm in pain.  But I still feel, at this age right now, my best surfing is still ahead of me. 

I grew up idolizing Tom Curren.  I wanted to surf like him.  I wanted to hold my arms like him.  Then at some point I realized I'm not Tom Curren.  I have a different approach.  I think differently.  And if you're trying to be someone else, you're not offering the world what you have.  
 
-- Kelly Slater (11x World Champion) 2017

childhood lost

"As you can see, everything has just vanished. It's just like the whole thing has been completely erased from the face of the earth. I feel great anger. I feel massive sadness. It's like a complete loss of childhood...."
-- Morrissey, Top of the Pops interview (1983)

twilight galaxy

did they tell you -- you should grow up
when you wanted to dream?
did they warn you -- better shape up
if you want to succeed?
i don't know about you -- who are they talking to?
they're not talking to me.

i'm higher than high, lower than deep
i'm doing it wrong, singing along

-- metric (2009)

a voyage to wisdom

"We do not receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us. For our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives that you admire and the attitudes that seem noble to you have not been shaped by a pater familias or a schoolmaster; they have sprung from very different beginnings, having been influenced by evil or commonplace that prevailed round them. They represent a struggle and a victory."
-- Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

what hath urethane wrought?

In today's lineup -- stripped of fitness requirements, basic abilities, and the administration of swift justice for the lack of either -- it's pure anarchy. Entry-level kooks now have, with the longboard/leash combo, a backstage pass into what once was the inner sanctum of those who had paid their dues over years of hardscrabble apprenticeship and many, many long swims.
-- Dave Parmenter, Surfer magazine (June 2000)

walk away

Mounds of dirt where there used to be landing strips, airplanes over me.
Mounds of dirt where we used to see blue lights, now I'm free.
-- Experimental Aircraft (2007)