Category: Surfing Life

By on 3 Comments

Journal Entry: March 30, 2000 / Marathon des Sable / Morocco / Sahara Desert.

“This is our fourth day of covering the Marathon des Sable; so far we’ve managed to lose our way, we’ve been blasted by a sand storm, we’ve run out of toilet paper and are now surviving on granola bars, turkey jerky and hot bottles of Coca-Cola. I have no idea how many miles we have traveled or how many times we’ve managed to get stuck in the sand. My driver, Nouh, speaks no English and smokes three packets of Marlboro Lights a day.  He’s also fond of breaking wind each time he exits the Land Cruiser.

What I can tell you, should you not already know, is that the Marathon des Sable is a stage race that lasts 7 days and covers 243km/151 miles. To make things even more difficult, each competitor has to carry everything they may need for the duration of the race (apart from their tent) on their backs in a rucksack – their food, clothes, medical kit, sleeping bag, etc. In addition, runners’ water is rationed and handed out at each checkpoint.

The backdrop to this event is the Sahara Desert. Not only is the Sahara the largest desert on earth, covering an area of 3.5 million square miles, (which amounts to 8% of our planet’s surface area), it stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west across half of Northern Africa, to the Red Sea.  It then extends down to the highlands of Ethiopia with temperatures recorded as high 40° +Celsius / 120° + Fahrenheit. The Sahara is a great leveller, making all men equal regardless of their station in life. So, when you come across another soul within this vast arena of sand, you stop, share, and remind yourself that here, we are all brothers.

 

Depending on whom you ask, the estimated population of the Sahara Desert varies from 2.5 million to 4 million people – so you would think finding a singing rabbit would be easy. Oh contraire.

The singing rabbit is competitor Derek McCarrick of the UK. Mr. McCarrick has been running marathons for Leukemia and Breast Cancer Research for the past 20 years and is still going strong at the age of 73.  Mr. McCarrick has personally raised a staggering £200,000 ($ 319,920.00) for charity, an achievement which is all the more impressive as he has completed each race dressed as the cartoon character, Roger Rabbit!

Eureka! On the horizon we spot a lone figure of a man with the head of Roger Rabbit tied to his backpack.

 


‘I’m the only rabbit in the world that’s run across the Sahara,’ Mr. McCarrick once told me. He also added, ‘People think I’m bonkers!’ In 2008, this former coal miner was awarded the MBE (Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. For those who are not British, an MBE award is one of the highest distinctions that can be gained by a British citizen.  Not bad for a chap from Minster on the Isle of Sheppey.”

 

By on

Like a still image, a song can transport you back to a moment in time that has been forgotten. For instance, during the wild fires of Southern California in 2009 I had a very real flashback when Shakira’s song; “Whenever, Wherever” blared out from the radio while driving on the Glendale Freeway. The smell of a burning hillside mixed with fumes of diesel, the thump, thump, thumping of the helicopters overhead transported me immediately back to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. Music is sort of a synthetic acid, which enhances flashbacks of one’s own memories. Scans of the brain show that when people listen to music, virtually every area of their brain becomes more active. Which may explain why I have overcome a learning disability with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder. 

Strange as it may seem, when I listen to music as I am doing right now, it forces me to focus and keeps my ADD at bay. Growing up, my parents could never understand why I would play music when reading or studying. They would just shout at me to turn the record player or radio off. But, instinctively I need this learning aid to focus .. go figure! Music helps me concentrate. Once I sit down, play my music I fall into a Zen like zone and my brain slows down to a crawl so that I can concentrate. If it were not for music and the computer I would probably be selling used furniture in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

But when you combine music and dance it can bring back the passionate fire of our youth and the peacefulness of our softer and more graceful years – maybe they are never expressed more fully than through a song and a slow dance. It is the medium of music and dance that is tangible to our soul and expresses to the world who we truly are and who we can be. The best part of music for me, is when my arms are wrapped around a woman and I can feel the beat of her heart to the tempo of the music. We become lost, yet together in sync as the lyric’s nourish our souls. Unaware of time and space we dance losing isolation to become a bridge of kindred spirits as a karmic connection begins to blossom between us……….would you like to dance?

By on

By on

One of my favorite movies of all times is One Night On Earth. It’s a cinematic dream of just how connected we are as a species and all the synchronicity that life flings at us. The movie is a collection of five stories involving cab drivers in five different cities from around the world. Which is a causal or persuasive link to my nocturnal behavior of getting out of bed, grabbing my camera and climb behind the steering wheel of my KIA and drive. I actually like driving late at night. When I say late, I don’t mean 10 PM, or even midnight – I mean like the witching hours from 2 am to sunrise. There is no other time of day where you can see typically the most congested street completely empty. It’s like being teleported as the last man on earth. A bat maneuvering in the dark, it uses a process called echolocation. Echolocation refers to the process of using echoes and sound waves to navigate around objects. For my excursion into the great Basin of Los Angeles, I too use echolocation in the form of music to tap into the auditory cortex of my brain and beyond to the “seat of the soul” the pineal gland. The music dictates when I should proceed straight ahead or turn left or right. Tonight’s soundtrack is “A Perfect Place” a Morricone-esque soundtrack by Mike Patton. Ready set go!  Among the endless metaphors for life, a road is perhaps one of the best. There’s times for speed, times for caution and times to stop. Ahead, the lights of a psychic storefront beckon me to take time to stop and enjoy the cold Pink’s hotdog I picked up earlier. This is A Perfect Place for my One Night On Earth. 

By on

Geographic Assignments:

Afghanistan: Kabul, Kandahar, and Bagram. 

Australia: Sydney, Cairns, Mareeba, Atherton, Gordonvale, Undara, Chillagoe, Mt. Bartle Frere, and Queensland Outback.

Egypt: Saqqare, Giza, Red Sea, The Nile River, Cairo, Valley of Kings, Hatshepsut, Abu Simbel, Armant, Aswan, Luxor, White Desert, Thebes, Safaga, Marsa al Alam, Karnak, Al Harrah and Baharia Oasis 

Fiji: Suva and Koro Island

France: Paris, Le Mans, Nice, Cannes, Toulon, Marseille, Toulouse, Montpellier and Corsica 

Greece: Athens, Thessalonique and Island of Patmos. 

Israel: Jerusalem, Golan Heights, Ramallah, Bethany, Jericho, Temple Mount, Nazareth, Gethsemane, Kasr el Yahud, Allenby Bridge, Caphernaum, Sepphoris, West Wall Tunnels and Judea. 

Italy: Rome, Naples, Florence, Solerno and Island of Ischia.

Jordan, Mount Nebo, Tell Mar Elias, Mukawer and Amman Citadel. 

Morocco: Quarzazate, Sahara Desert, Oued Amsailikh, Tagounite and Atlas Mountains. 

Mexico: Chihuahua, Sierra Madre Occidental and Barrancas Del Cobre

New Zealand: North Island, South Island, Southern Alps, Mt. Cockayne, Lake Catherine, Lake Coleridge, Black Hill, Glenfalloch, Potts River. Mt. Peel, Forest Creek and Lake Tekapo.

Russia: Moscow, Murmansk, Severmorsk and Barrents Sea Artic Circle. 

Scotland: Edinburgh, Inverness, Orkney Islands, St. Andrews Highlands.

Turkey: Istanbul, Van, Doğubayazıt, Tabriz, and Erzurum.

By on

rabbit-hole

Thirty-one years ago I came to the sudden realization that I was engaged in a pretentious attempt to fit in. That significant moment wasn’t life changing but life beginning. It was as if the neurons in my cranium erupted blasting the magma of conscious knowledge of my own character.
Admission and acceptance is difficult without counsel, so I sought out my mentor Mike Freeman. My visit with Mike was and is the most significant moment in finding the wisest course of action and direction.
This is what he said that seemed so simple – but again a lot of things that seem simple aren’t so simple.
“Dave, let me put it in terms that you can best understand, life is not a dress rehearsal, this is it, this is all you get ” that was Mike’s advice.
It’s been a good run with life experiences that most people only dream about. I didn’t want to live a life of quiet desperation and go to the grave with a song of missing pieces in my heart.
But don’t think that I don’t have regrets, just too many to mention here and that is my burden to carry. All and all I have accomplished as much as I could and have given to the point of emotional depletion. My world has gone from technicolor to monochrome with all the grays of confusion, angst, remorse and grief.
I once read that, “Life is difficult, once we accept that life is difficult only then can we transcend it”, so easy to say but such a hard task to employ. Where am I today ? I’m far away in a place where paradise is broken and only surrounded by pigments of a colorful past. There is no pill for the rabbit hole that I have found myself and all that is left are the winter days ahead – I have no more to give but to jump into the abyss.

By on 2 Comments

I believe that I am trapped in the thoughts of a writer with no say or way out, I’m terrified that at the end of the last chapter I will no longer exist. I can only hope that the author has a strong vocabulary and a bigger imagination to let me have a happy ending. This is my sentence, where I live life on the pages of white. The author writes words without risk as I am forced to walk his narrative day in and day out, but I forgive the author. I’m not sure if my story is being revealed to him or even if he has the final say. I can only hope that maybe, just maybe the author will let me know my fate. Am I fiction or non-fiction, I just don’t know.

“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”
― Cornelia Funke

By on

IMG_2824“If you don’t know where you are going any road can take you there”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Away from the gaggle of tourist, there is a sweet spot just west of the of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There Anthony Aquarius pays tribute to Jimi Hendrix as he performs  Jimi’s heartfelt song, The Wind Cries Mary. Busking on weekends, Anthony plays in the late afternoons with the expectation that the power of his music will move the out-of-towners for voluntary donations. Standing before Anthony a small child is taken captive by the power of the song as the currency of notes and lyrics floats off the polished Walk of Fame. Just out of frame Jesus is talking to Alice in WonderLand discussing methods of wooing tourist to have their photo taken with the guise of their character. Motionless, the young child is rooted to the pink terrazzo and bronze star of a bygone era actress Dorothy McGuire as Anthony’s guitar licks echo off the wall behind him and is suspended in time for only a moment. Anthony begins to sing
After all the jacks are in their boxes,
and the clowns have all gone to bed,
you can hear happiness staggering on down the street,
footprints dress in red.
And the wind whispers Mary.
Live on Jimi, live on.

By on

“I just really want to tell you right now Enzo, that it is extremely plausible that you have created your own world and the illusion is that you are a neurotic mess because your mother was a neurotic mess. You think to much and feel to little, now go home and eat some prosciutto, drink some vino and take a nap.”