The Green Room

Heads up! M10 Surfboards currently has a new batch of premium series model surfboards available at their showroom. For the first time this year, shaper Geoff Rashe and crew have caught up to demand from custom orders and have had the opportunity to get some stock boards out on the rack at the showroom, all available at a reasonable price.

In addition, the shop has a plethora of used boards from other top labels such as Rusty, …Lost, Mayhem, Stretch and Channel Islands, all still in good condition and available at great deals. The used boards are piling up as surfers around town take advantage of M10’s trade-in incentive: bring in a used board in good condition and M10 will offer you credit towards a brand new M10 surfboard in exchange.

Swing by the M10 factory [401 Ingalls St. at Swift St. on the Westside] and see general manager Marco Foreman to find out if your next magic board just might be in stock…

"What you need?" 5'6" Hogfish to 8'0" guns, M10 manager Marco Foreman has got you covered.

For nearly 20 years the Mermen have been playing their own unique brand of surf rock.

The band, formed in San Francisco in 1989, has toured with the likes of Dick Dale and the Ventures and been featured on the soundtracks of countless surf movies, including just about every Maverick’s film ever made. They have also been dubbed “the official band of Maverick’s” by Jeff Clark himself.

But to lump the Mermen under the umbrella of “surf music” betrays an ear unfamiliar with the ocean and its many moods. For those who insist on labels, try “ocean music.” Nothing communicates the essence of the sea, particularly the chilly waters of the Northern California coast, as powerfully as the Mermen. When you play their music, you can hear the pounding surf and shifting sandbars of San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, the thick bull kelp swaying off the rocky North Coast, and the teeming wildlife of the Monterey Bay.

After 20 years of drawing inspiration from the fog and unruly beachbreak of Ocean Beach, Mermen founder and lead guitarist, Jim Thomas, who composes and produces all the band’s music, relocated to Santa Cruz. With the help of part-time Mermen bassist Jennifer Burnes, he built a recording studio/lair of the avant-garde on the Eastside of town out of an old storage space.

How would the reefs and coves of a sunny surf town like Santa Cruz influence the music? We’ll soon find out. The Mermen are set to release their first new record in nearly eight years. In the following interview at the Mermen studio, Thomas talks about his migration 70 miles down the coast and the band’s highly anticipated new album:

Q: So Jim, you’ve left Ocean Beach for the Eastside. After five years, what do you think of Santa Cruz?

A: I like Santa Cruz. It was hard leaving San Francisco, but Santa Cruz has its own thing going. Me and Jennifer are here, Martyn [Jones, Mermen drummer] is still up there in San Mateo. But you know, I lived in San Francisco for 20 years. I was looking for a place to do a studio. I would have rather not left San Francisco, which was a bad move in retrospect because I didn’t realize how much my community was established there. And once you leave San Francisco, you know, people start to hold it against you. If you’re in Berkeley or San Francisco or Oakland people tend to feel like you’re part of the hometown crew and they support you. But the minute they even see your phone number change, they’re like, ‘What the heck, what’s this 831 stuff?’ you know. I’m not kidding man. But, I figured 20 years there, I’m just gonna try something different. If I was up there I probably would have made three new albums by now. Because I got down here and it was like…

Q: You can definitely surf more often down here. More time getting distracted by waves.

A: You know, this is not San Francisco. Santa Cruz is like a small town where everybody knows what everybody else is doing. Up in SF nobody cares what anybody else is doing, right? And it’s a lot different in regards to the music scene. [In SF] it’s really harsh and intense and real competitive. If you’re into writing or art or whatever, SF is a great place because it’s competitive. It’s like New York City in that respect. Santa Cruz reminds me a lot of a small town. But this place has got some amazing people. Like Barney and Flea for example. I look at those guys and they’re really interesting people. Really soulful. They’re like cowboys, they do scary shit. They just don’t go by the book, you know. When I see Flea riding a wave that big and being so aggressive with it, it’s like what the heck is that?
Santa Cruz is a great town. Having toured a lot all over the U.S., probably to every major city in the country, gone back and forth probably 25-30 times, there is no place like the Bay Area and Santa Cruz. Here we have Big Sur. We’ve got that whole stretch up the coast [north of town] for 70 miles. We’ve got the north coast. And Santa Cruz is an interesting town. A lot of young people, it’s a surfing town, plus this area is one of the premier areas in the world where people are doing ocean science and preserving the Monterey Sanctuary. All the biggest ocean scientists are here. And then there are a lot of people who are … over the top I’ll call it. A lot of freaks, a lot of hippies. Surfer freaks, and surfer punks and surfer gangs, it’s got it all.

Q: You guys have always been very open and encouraging about sharing the Mermen’s music with fans for download. Could you talk a little about that?

A: Right now is a time where it’s so difficult to regulate. What can you do? Once you have music out there, it’s just a virtual world and it just goes everywhere and people get it for nothing. So people want to pay for our music, they pay for our music. They can get it for free if they want. I just don’t care. I’m so much more interested in just making music. I’ve never been interested in making money, to the chagrin of everybody around me. I’ve never been really ambitious about making a lot of money. It’s nice to have it, and I’ve sold music for a lot of money, but I’m just not the kind of guy who’s gotta have a nice car, gotta have a nice house, gotta have all this bullshit. So, yeah, the music’s free. And now we’ve established such a history of providing the live recordings for free, we have to continue to let people have them for free. I was talking to the guy who recorded our last show and we were talking about whether to sell it or to give it away for free. I decided we’ve been giving em away for free for all these years, we just gotta keep giving it a way for free.

Q: Did you surf with Grant [Washburn] and Doc [Renneker] and John [Raymond] and others from that original Ocean Beach/Mav’s crew back in the day?

A: Not really. Grant was in a whole other league. We lived in the same area, so we’d see each other out in the water, but I was never in the same class as those guys, you know. Even though I know Grant and Jeff [Clark] and all these people are my buddies I just… All those years I lived at Ocean Beach I saw days…man, and even days when I would paddle out that were way beyond my ability, where I put two leashes on because I thought if I ever lost my board out there, I would drown. And I’d be paddling over waves and I’d have to blink because I couldn’t comprehend that the wave was that big. And yet I wasn’t getting killed, so that was a good feeling.

Q: I just always think of that photo you guys put on the inside of the “Food for Other Fish” album [of Washburn at the bottom of a heaving, dark, outer bar Ocean Beach wave pushing 20 feet]. That photo is just ridiculous. How do you even get outside on a day like that?

A: Grant has been a huge support to the Mermen. You know, he and I learned to surf in the same town in New Jersey. Lavalette, New Jersey. He’s from Connecticut, but his parents own a house in Lavalette, where my parents used to rent a house in the summer. So we learned to surf at the same beach. Grant and I have had this resonant thing over the years. He loves the music. All the years we’ve known each other, he’s used our music in every one of his films. And Jeff too. It’s been a good relationship. A lot of the Maverick’s guys have always supported the music. Our ties to all the surf music scene over the years have become really strong, you know. I’ve met the guy who screamed at the beginning of “Wipeout,” I’ve met the guy who wrote “Pipeline.” Every surf hit known to man, I’ve met all these people over the years: The Ventures, played with Dick Dale ten times. It’s been an interesting trip. And I’m just from New Jersey.

Q: Yeah, how is that? That’s interesting to me, because I’ve always felt like you’re music captures the essence of the Northern California coast. You hear Ocean Beach in your music. It’s insane. How did you get in touch with that?

A: I don’t know. I think it’s just the fact that I love the ocean and have always lived by the ocean my whole life. I’ve always lived close to the beach and I’ve never felt comfortable anywhere else. I’ve always surfed. I’ve had a good ten years of my life where all I did was surf and travel. Surfed the Jersey shore in the winter in a full wetsuit in the snow and the ice. I think it’s informed by all that. I love surfing, I love music, I love the ocean.
The funny thing was I came to San Francisco from New Jersey with nothing. I came out here with one surfboard and an acoustic guitar. And I was in a real apathetic state. I didn’t care about doing anything. I got a job I hated. I hated it all. But then I saw a job ad in the newspaper in San Francisco for a music store salesperson. I thought, ‘that looks interesting.’ I went through interview and I wanted that job so bad. They gave me the job, I ended up doing really well there. And what happened was I ended up writing all the music for what ended up being “Krill Slippin’” [the Mermen’s first record] in the music store when things were slow. We sold four track recorders and I would play customers the songs I had written while I was showing them how to use the four track. These songs became the demo tape for what would be “Krill Slippin’”. Sometimes when I was selling people on equipment, I would write parts of songs on the spot.

Q: What did the people you were selling this equipment to think of your songs when you played them?

A: Oh, most of them didn’t give a flying [crap]. But you know you did? Allen Whitman [original Mermen bassist] was working there, and there was this girl that worked in the music store. Allen had to be in the band and that girl cared enough to finance our fist record.

Q: You guys are currently working on your seventh album. When can we expect to get our hands on it?

A: Probably a few months still. I’ve been working on this one song and it’s taking me forever. Trying to get a song where you need it to be involves a lot of pushing and shoving, you know. It’s kind of like surfing and trying to get in just the right spot on a wave that just wants to kick your ass.

Q: Is it true this August recording session was really the first new Mermen recording session in ten years?

A: Yeah. We’ve done a lot of playing together in here, but this is the first formal recording with quality tracks where we hired an engineer and we set up a huge amount of mikes and made a lot of noise and pissed off all the neighbors.

Q: How would you describe the music on this new album? What kind of sound were you going for?

A: It’s hard to describe. There are songs that are really ethereal and others, like this one I wrote, that’s like this very epic cowboy disco song. Yeah, go figure. Ever see the movie “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”? Well, Ennio Morricone wrote the music to that. I love doing that type of stuff. Sometimes people will write about us and say that the Mermen are all classic surf music. The Mermen are as far from classic surf music as possible. We get mislabeled all the time. I love all that old surf music and I play it all, but we don’t like to limit ourselves to that.

Q: Anything in particular inspire you?

A: Sometimes, but that usually never really feels right to me. You know how you have dreams? Well, I think of my music as what I dream. That’s what it feels like to me, like you’re dreaming of this perfect form. You can think of it like a perfect wave. So you have a dream where you are in that perfect form of the perfect wave, this resonant form. So the music is like putting a carrot out in front of my donkey, which is myself. I’m trying to move towards that perfect form. And maybe it’s something that will never completely come true for me, and it feels very much disembodied from me, in the sense that it’s beyond my own experience. And it could be really beautiful and resonant and perfect and meaningful to so many people — because I get lots of letters from people describing these feelings from our music — but I use the word disembodied, because it really is outside of me. It really is like a dream. Even though you’re part of it, it’s as if your body and your mind know something that you don’t know consciously. The form that we are as humans, we are evolving things. The closest I’ve really come to explaining it for myself what music is to me, is that it reminds me of dreaming. I can say all my songs are like dreams I’ve had. And I write the dream down as a song. But the dream is a tension between where I am and where I want to be. You’re growing into something greater. It’s like with surfing. As you build your skills through your life you get better and better and you reach a point where, because you have accumulated all these skills you can surf an incredibly heavy wave and deal with it. So dreaming is like grasping for that perfect form you want to get to.

Check out over 100 recordings of live performances by the Mermen available for download at www.archive.org.

Pick up any surf magazine and check out the latest water photography inside. Aside from your standard surfer in the tube shots, what stands out?

A view from the shoulder of a skate-ramp-like wave, looking skyward as surfer and board fly through the air against a jungle backdrop.

A shot of a powerful turn off the lip, board slicing through the wave just inches in front of the camera’s fisheye lens, sending beads of sun-sparkled spray flying at you, and all three fins popping out from the page like they’re about to smack you in the face.

These are the shots that draw you in and give you the feeling of being out in the water, witnessing the world’s most progressive surfers in action.

And you can thank Tony Roberts for pioneering such unique and inspiring images.

TR, killin’ it. photo: Subterra Films

TR, as he is known throughout the surf industry, is the man when it comes to getting those up-close and aggressive, skate-inspired surf photos. He was one of the first surf photographers to utilize the fisheye lens to capture radical new angles from the water. The trademark TR style fit perfectly with the new movement of aerial and big-maneuver surfing that would turn the status quo of performance upside down during the late ’80s and early ’90s.

Now the talented Santa Cruz native is the focus of a new documentary, “Gusto, Tony Roberts,” playing at this year’s Santa Cruz Film Festival. The film, which won Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Independent Television Festival in August, plays at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the Riverfront Twin in Santa Cruz.

TR has a better understanding than 99 percent of the surf photogs out there of how to effectively capture the improvisational genius of the most progressive surfers, and that’s because he is one of those elite surfers.

“He rips really hard,” said local pro Ken “Skindog” Collins, who’s done many photo shoots with Roberts. “He surfs better than half the people he shoots, and he’s getting a lot better since he moved down [to Central America]. I was down there a while ago and he was killing it. I was blown away.

“My opinion is that surfers take the best surf photos, and that’s why he does a great job of coaching guys on what they need to do, where they need to be to get the shot. Personally, I think he put Santa Cruz on the map.”

Imagine if Bob Costas could step out of the announcer’s booth, into the batter’s box, and hit a big league fastball. What if Roger Ebert could give up his seat at the movie theater and direct a cinematic masterpiece? How awesome would it be if, instead of just writing about surfing for the newspaper, I could actually go in the ocean without the aid of my inflatable water wings? Sigh … one day.

Mike Maniglia, director and producer of “Gusto,” met TR almost 15 years ago when the two were sharing an editing bay while working for Surf Video Network in Southern California. TR was putting the final touches on the O’Neill surf flick “Jacked” and Maniglia was working on his own project. Both avid surfers and skaters, the two became good friends.

“I knew he had a reputation,” Maniglia said. “Everybody I talked to, whether they were a pro or a fan was like, ‘Tony rips harder than anyone he shoots.’ He’s someone who’s an exemplary photographer, surfer and cinematographer. A multifaceted charger, that’s what he is. And that’s what the ‘Gusto’ series is all about.”

The film — only 30 minutes long — focuses on the major turning points of TR’s career: His first experiments with shooting black and white photography of friends skating around Santa Cruz back in the early ’80s, his documentation of the aerial surfing movement in the ’90s, and, eventually, his securing a position as Senior Staff Photographer for Surfing Magazine.

TR honed his surf photography skills by shooting with local surfing legends, such as Nate Acker, Anthony Ruffo, Adam Replogle, Chris Gallagher and Peter Mel. Meanwhile, TR’s many surf films — “Mental Surfing,” “Progression Sessions,” “Jacked,” “Above And Beyond,” “Players,” “Skills” and “The Path” — to name a few — were playing to sellout crowds around town. The movies remain cult classics, relics from an important era in the evolution of modern shortboard surfing.

“Santa Cruz is a cultural mecca,” TR said in an e-mail from his current home in southern Nicaragua. “Growing up there, the surf and skate scenes were very intertwined with all the music and everything. The beginning of punk rock was happening [there], as well as the best reggae bands playing. It was pretty wild.

“The progression of modern surfing took place in Santa Cruz, and it was very satisfying to present that to local audiences in my … film shows and then bring that to surfers worldwide with my videos and work in Surfing Magazine.”

The man behind the lens. photo: Subterra Films

TR’s water photography and movies also helped promote the careers of many professional surfers around Santa Cruz. Guys like Darryl “Flea” Virostko and Shawn “Barney” Barron provide feature interviews for the documentary and gave big props to TR for helping them gain more exposure in the competitive surf media.

In 1996, Roberts moved to Central America, turning his back on a position as one of the top dogs in the surfing media and falling off the mainstream radar in order to fully dedicate himself to the progression of his surfing and skating. He continued to push the limits of performance — now in relative obscurity — building a cement half-pipe in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle.

“I wanted to incorporate surfing into my daily life and leave the rat race,” said TR, who now lives at the beach with his 3-year-old daughter, Xia. He said the decision to become a full-time expat was easy because it promised “better waves and a better life.”

In addition to collecting archival footage and interviews from around Santa Cruz, Maniglia and the “Gusto” film crew went on location to Costa Rica, where TR was living at the time, to get footage of him surfing and working. Watching clips of TR, now 43, ripping the Costa Rican beachbreak — there is some footage from waves in El Salvador as well — with speed and flair begs the question: Why did TR choose to remain behind the camera instead of performing in front of it as a professional surfer?

“Simply put, he was too busy behind the lens trying to make a living,” Maniglia said. “That’s why he moved to Central America. He basically said ‘Screw it. I want to do more surfing. And if the camera happens to be there, so be it.’”

Whether in the urban surf environment of his hometown or the jungle fringed beaches of Central America, Tony Roberts has always been determined to live his passions of surfing, skating, film and photography.

“Hopefully [the documentary] will inspire people to follow their heart and live their dreams,” TR said. “Some people are happy in the 9-to-5, working for the system. Others aren’t and should do what makes them happy.”

Two surf-themed movies have been selected for this year’s Santa Cruz Film Festival, May 9-17, and will show together at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 14th at the Riverfront Twin.

The feature presentation comes from the lens of Maine filmmaker Ben Keller who takes a close look at what draws so many of us to the ocean in his documentary “BlueGreen.” Narrated by Santa Cruz’s resident Hollywood surf star Robert “Wingnut” Weaver, BlueGreen “explores many different facets of our bonds with the ocean and delivers a powerful warning about the threat we face by abusing and exploiting this powerful presence on our planet,” according to the film’s press release. Keller interviews scientists, religious leaders, evolutionary theorists, fishermen and, of course, surfers, including seven-time women’s world champion Layne Beachley, Keith Malloy, Robert August, Liz Clark, Sean Collins.

Showing alongside the feature is “Gusto: Tony Roberts,” a documentary profiling Santa Cruz native and current Central American expat Tony Roberts. TR, as he is known throughout the surf industry, was one of the first surf photographers to utilize the fisheye lens to capture innovative skate-style surf shots and radical new angles from the water.

His photos and movies captured the new school of aerial and big-maneuver surfing in a way no one had seen before during the late ’80s and early ’90s and helped forge the careers of many professional surfers around Santa Cruz. The film won Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Independent Television Festival in August, 2007. Check out next Sunday’s Green Room for a full article on the TR documentary.

“A life devoted to surfing has been a splendid way to live,” writes Gerry Lopez in the preface to his new book “Surf Is Where You Find It.”

Such a life also makes for some epic stories, described in the accompanying 38 chapters of the first-ever book authored by the man known as “Mr. Pipeline” for his inimitably stylish performances at the infamous North Shore break.

Lopez shared some of these tales in front of a packed house Saturday night at the UC Santa Cruz campus for the second stop of his book tour.

“Surf Is Where You Find It” is the second book published by Patagonia Books, a division of the Patagonia clothing company Lopez has worked for since 2004.

The new division wasn’t exactly taking a gamble when it decided to put out Lopez’s first book. Anyone who has ever subscribed to a surf magazine going back to the ’70s has likely read an article penned by Lopez, now 59. His surf stories and articles have appeared in almost all of the major surfing journals in the states as well as Europe and Japan. Lopez also credits his parents — his father was a well known newspaper journalist in Honolulu and his mother was a lifelong school teacher — for instilling a love of the written word in him.

“I’ve always loved a good story,” Lopez said in a phone interview from his home in Bend, Ore., Thursday, before arriving in Northern California. “I’ve had the good fortune to live through a few good ones, so I thought I’d write them down before I forgot them. I’ve been telling them for years, and I didn’t want to lose them.”

The stories in the book are ordered chronologically — more or less — and trace the timeline of a life dedicated to riding waves around the world, both literal and metaphorical. They tell the unbridled joy of Lopez’s first time riding a wave as a child at Baby Queens in Waikiki, his first unsuccessful attempt at surfing the Pipeline in 1963 on a bulky “ironing board” longboard, and his discovering the perfect wave at G-Land, Indonesia with a small group of friends.

Lopez has often been described as one of surfing’s more humble heroes. Fittingly, the book focuses as much on the people and places that shaped his life as it does Lopez himself. Many chapters are titled after special waves — Pakala, Ma’alaea, Cannons and, of course, Pipeline — and describe memorable experiences at each spot. Other chapters are dedicated to unique characters that played a role in Lopez’s life, such as Buffalo Keaulana, Dick Brewer, Herbie Fletcher, Miki Dora and a young Laird Hamilton growing up on the North Shore.

“Things would prompt me to think of different stories,” Lopez said. “I would see someone and we would start talking about old times and I would think, ‘Hey, that’s a really good story.’ I don’t know how most people write, but when I sit down to write a story something usually sparks me to get me going — remembering a moment or incident, and the thing just flows out. I don’t write from outlines.”

Most of the book was produced over the past four years while Lopez was living in the mountains of Oregon with his wife Toni and 18-year-old son Alex.

Lopez said that the process of writing a book, although foreign, came naturally, much like his masterful surfing at the Pipeline throughout the ’70s and ’80s, during which time he made even the heaviest of situations appear almost effortless.

Gerry’s favorite shot of himself surfing the Pipeline. photo: Denjiro Sato

“I’ve been writing articles for magazines for years, but I have no formal training,” he said. “I make surfboards. I’m not a full time writer. But the more you do it, the better you get. I’ve come to find that I really enjoy it. Sometimes it takes several days or weeks, but the whole thing just pours out. It was easy.”

Some of the stories involve fond memories. In the chapter titled “Pakala,” Lopez recalls being a child and spending some of the best times of his life at his grandmother’s old plantation home in the sugarcane fields on Kauai’s sleepy west shore.

One fateful day, two older surfers showed up with their longboards. Lopez watched in amazement as they gracefully rode the perfect empty waves breaking on the outside reef in front of his grandma’s house — waves the young Lopez had previously been oblivious to while playing on the beach. Watching the display “profoundly changed the direction my life would take from that day forward,” he wrote.

Other stories are of more grim dimensions, like when Lopez nearly drowned after getting caught inside and swept back over the falls on a failed duckdive attempt at huge second reef Pipeline. Lopez describes in vivid detail having an “out-of-body experience,” actually watching from above as his body was trapped under the turbulent white water below. Most of the stories in the book attempt to convey some type of formative experience or overt lesson learned from the ocean.

“The book is more than just surf stories,” Lopez said. “It has a lot to do with the lessons we learn while out surfing, many which may have been learned in the surf but have more to do with life on the beach than in the surf.”

Most surfers will want to check out this book if only to get a glimpse into the mind of one of the world’s great watermen to see what wisdom can be gleaned.

“Lopez has proven himself a keen observer of human nature encountered while living through experiences quite extraordinary” writes Surfer’s Journal publisher Steve Pezman in the book’s introduction. “Gerry has taken to writing more and more about what he has seen. His is a rare slice for us to have access to.”

However Lopez hopes that the book will appeal not strictly to surfers, but also to non-surfing readers.

“That’s my hope,” Lopez said. “I named it ‘Surf Is Where You Find It’ because not only have I found surf in the oceans all over the world, I’ve also found waves in places without oceans and met a lot of surfers who are people who have never ridden a wave. Surfing definitely transcends a lot of borders.”

Lifelong Santa Cruz surfer Pat Farley is featured in the upcoming film, “Between the Lines,” a documentary on the distinct paths taken by two surfers in the 1960s confronted with the Vietnam War.

Many of you are probably already familiar with Farley’s acclaimed book, “Surfing to Saigon,” his autobiography of growing up a young surfer and surfboard maker in Santa Cruz during the late 50s and 60s who, at the age of 18, volunteered for the Vietnam War in 1967. Suddenly Farley “found himself on his first day walking point for the 1st/16th Rangers in the jungles of Vietnam.” Farley’s first-hand account of being a young California surfer trying to survive, both mentally and physically, in Vietnam is a gripping tale that blends the surreal qualities of Apocalypse Now with the bitter honesty of Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.” The book received quite a bit of local acclaim, even earning Farley a 1994 Writer of the Year award from the City of Santa Cruz.

“Between the Lines” looks to have an amazing amount of rare archival footage from both the dropout surf culture on the North Shore during the sixties and early seventies, as well as the small brotherhood of surfing GIs who still managed to find the glide of wave riding, even while stuck in the middle of a war-zone in Southeast Asia. Definitely not one to miss.

Between The Lines

Folks, this could possibly be the most dangerous experiment ever undertaken in the history of the theatre–or it could be pretty funny.

On Friday, April 11 “Point Break Live!” began a three-month San Francisco engagement at Xenodrome. “‘Point Break Live!”‘ is the absurdist stage adaptation of the 1992 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze extreme-sports blockbuster “Point Break” (just admit it, we know you’ve seen it). The drama unfolds as former college football star-turned FBI agent, Johnny Utah (Reeves), goes undercover as a righteous surfer dude on the beaches of Santa Monica in order to infiltrate a wild gang of bank-robbing, skydiving, bare-hand-fighting, adrenaline-junkie surfers lead by Zen-master, Bodhi Sattva (Swayze). Epic, indeed.

Since it’s Seattle debut in 2003, “Point Break Live!” has entertained sell-out crowds in Minneapolis, New York City and Los Angeles. As strange as it may sound, here are some rave reviews from legitimate print and online publications.

* “In a nutshell: About the most dead-on dose of hilarity to ever be
on stage.” - LA.COM

* “So hideously over the top, you can’t stop laughing.” - LA WEEKLY

* “Can only be described as all-encompassing, wet, interactive, loud,
extreme, and altogether awesome.” - LA2Day.com

* “PBL! shamelessly rides the gnarly breakers of travesty until
viewers wipe out on the shoals of helpless laughter.” - LA TIMES

According to the play’s press release:

“Point Break LIVE!” features armed robbery, big-wave surfing, car chases, explosions, no less than two extended skydiving sequences and an indoor monsoon.  This “action” play offers a true cathartic experience, putting you in the water with the surfers, throwing you out the door of an airplane, and robbing you at gunpoint.  Add in the hotness factor - surfer dudes and female stunt doubles - and you have a night of live theater that rivals anything by Samuel Beckett in terms of pure excitement and energy.

What makes the play really unique, though, is this twist: the starring role of Johnny Utah is selected from the audience each night. The impromptu Keanu then reads their entire script off of cue-cards. This method manages to capture the “rawness” (i.e. complete lack of acting ability) of a Keanu Reeves performance, even from those who generally think themselves incapable of acting. The fun starts with the “screen test,” wherein the volunteer Keanus (usually 5-15 men and women vie for the role), go through a grueling audition process.  The part is then cast based on Applause-o-Meter. At the end of the performance, the “volunteer Keanu,” is handed a VHS tape of his or her performance.

The rest of the audience also plays a role in the produciton. “Survival Kits” are issued before the start of the show, containing items to help audience members participate in “the ultimate ride,” including a plastic emergency poncho to protect themselves from the action that literally spills forth from the stage.

The play could potentially land into the “so stupid it’s funny” category–and it looks like that’s the intention here–but it could also very easily wind up being ”just plain stupid.”

For now, you’ll have to judge for yourself. If you have the courage to go check it out please let me know what your final verdict is. I’m still building up the nerve to confront this reincarnation of one of the classics of the canon of Failed Hollywood Surfing Blockbusters. Look for a pull-no-punches theatrical review in the Sentinel soon.

“Point Break Live!” plays at the Xenodrome, 1320 Potrero Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94110. Tickets are available for $25.00 each at www.theatermania.com, or by calling 1-866-811-4111.  If not sold out, tickets are also available at the door for $25.00. ”Point Break Live!” will continue through June 2008, and possibly beyond, every Friday night at 8 p.m. with two performances on Saturday nights at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.  For more info, cast photos, and video, please visit www.pointbreaklive.com.

The City of Santa Cruz Parks & Recreation Department and the Santa Cruz Wharf Association are looking for artists interested in displaying their artwork in a new exhibition focusing on local surf and skate culture. Artists working in all mediums including painting, photography, glass works, metals, wood working, board making, handmade clothing & accessories, etc. are encouraged to contact the city for review of their materials.

The exhibit will be held on the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf and will feature premium booth spaces for a nominal fee, top musical entertainment, and art demonstrations. Artists’ work will be on display for the thousands of visitors who enjoy the Santa Cruz Wharf every weekend and artists will also have the opportunity to sell their pieces. A panel of artists and festival organizers will select the participants for the exhibition. Selections are based on quality of workmanship, originality, and artistic conception. Selections by the Jury are final.

I’m definitely no expert on music theory, music history, or Hawaiian music. But I know what I like and Hawaiian slack and steel guitarist Ken Emerson’s latest album has definitely earned some real estate in my music library.

Local craftsmen Nick Palandrani and Bruce Gordon, the duo behind those beautiful custom GP Surfboards you see around town, have collaborated with fine art photographer Brown W. Cannon III to produce a series of surfboards worthy of hanging on the wall at the finest art museums. The surfboards, each one a unique design with one of Cannon’s vibrant ocean imagery photographs laminated under the glass, will be on display in “Surface”, an exhibit combining fine art photography and classic surfboard designs. Here is the concept of the exhibit as explained in poetic, art school lexicon by the gallery curator:

The ocean, travel, and photography have long been passions for Brown Cannon and are the central theme of this unique exhibition of photography and collector surfboards. The surfboard is symbolic of the human relationship to environment. In its form lies the power to transport us to a feeling, a moment, a smell, an instant that we share with the ocean. We invite you to view the work at a special reception for the artist on Thursday, Feburary 21. This project is driven by a desire to share experiences and images of the ocean that will inspire people to protect these environments and ocean life.

These unique photographs and surfboards will be on display at Terra Gallery in San Francisco from February 21 – 25, 2008. Even if you have to put up with a few pretentious art snobs at the event, it could be worth it if you’re into drooling over beautiful surfboards. Plus, they might just be serving some free cheese and cracker platters and pouring out wine. Sweet! A portion of proceeds from the exhibition will be given in support of The Baum Foundation, Surfrider Foundation and The Marine Mammal Center.

When: Artist’s opening; Thursday, 2/21/08, 6-11pm. Work on view from 2/21-2/25 2008, Mon-Saturday 10AM-5PM and by appointment

Where: Terra Gallery 511 Harrison Street San Francisco, CA 94105

To learn more about GP Surfboards go to www.gpsurfboards.com. For more information on Cannon’s fine art photography, check out his website: www.browncannon3.com.

Photos: Brown Cannon III