I Love New York (again)

Our forever-in-production and much-delayed envirosurf film All Points South (allpointssouth.org) has an extended trailer version that will be screening at the New York Surf Film Festival (www.nysurffilm.com) on September 25 - 27. This happens to be the best surf film festival on the planet, so if you happen to be in NY or need a good reason to visit, this is your opportunity to see the awesome extended teaser to All Points South. It will be screening with Whitewash, a history of black surfers narrated by Ben Harper (whitewashmovie.com). Check their film festival website at nysurffilm.com because it's quite a lineup of films, including Searching for Michael Peterson and Rob Machado's The Drifter. Last year they screened my short film Pulp, Poo and Perfection (see trailer & synopsis) at the first annual New York Surf Film Festival, so you could call this a victorious return to New York after a year of adventures pillaging the photogenic corners of the globe in search of waves in danger.

The feature film version of All Points South will be released in early 2010. I hope. I promise. We'll see about that... yep!

Interpretations

me*ni*al |ˈmēnēəl|
adjective
(of work) not requiring much skill and lacking prestige : menial factory jobs.
• [ attrib. ] [dated] (of a servant) domestic.
noun
a person with a menial job.
• [dated] a domestic servant.

en*vi*ron*men*tal*ist |enˌvīrənˈmen(t)l-ist; -ˌvī(ə)rn-|
noun
a person who is concerned with or advocates the protection of the environment.

en*vi*ro*me*ni*al*ist |enˌvīrənˈmēnēəl-ist; -ˌvī(ə)rn-|
noun
The writer of this blog, a recently repatriated and lousy surfer of California and New York origins and a sometimes-outspoken, sometimes-threatened, occassionally-stifled, mediocre researcher and investigator of all things enviro-surfy. Proponent of the concept of "surfer environmentalist" and "surfer activist", this Enviromenialist often questions our role in the 'big picture' and what influence we have over our beautiful 'natural' environment. Are we victims of our own success as procreators, or are we merely caught on a fast and highly entertaining freight train to nowhere? If you're confused: welcome, my friend, that makes two of us.

Most likely, we are nothing less than complex bacteria on a sandwich, and we're here to eat the sandwich. Yesterday whilst caught in the throes of a quest for meaning and identity, I changed the name of this blog, from "A Green Surfing Movement" to "Enviromenialist." Thanks to Lewis Samuels of Postsurf.com for the name, he coined it after I asked him for ideas.

Faithless

A couple of weeks ago I learned of a minor tragedy that befell some local kids at an epic surf village I know and love. Fortunately - or so I thought - I know a small but powerful network of awesome individuals who also love the same area, so I reached out to them with a call to action to help out the kids with small donations of cash and/or supplies.

Fundraising went pretty well with nearly $1,000 raised in a week, but a very sensitive faction of the small network - leaders of the surf industry and the surf film industry - never even responded to this obviously win-win situation. Even though they've been shamelessly exploiting this surf spot through their media networks, they chose to not step up with some minor but great help for the locals. So I semi-anonymously, semi-publicly, and semi-directly called them out to please donate, now, for the kids.

Some were upset at my "fundraising techniques," and even contacted one of my superiors with their complaints. Frickin' lame! It felt like a butt-weak power play by douche bags. This was a simple, personal plea for help where it's desperately needed, not a damn corporate fundraising campaign. Get a life ya southern California wankers and don't stress the details. It's all good, and for a great cause. This is not a pissing match.

Always encourage freedom of expression. The surf industry has tried to muzzle me before, with bad results for their public image. Read and be entertained by part 2 of that saga here.



Apologies to readers who want more details, I am afraid to be more specific about who and where and why because I don't want to lose my job.

The Sea and the Hills

Who hath desired the Sea? - the sight of salt water unbounded -
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing -
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing -
His Sea in no showing the same - his Sea and the same 'neath each showing:
His Sea as she slackens or thrills?
- excerpt from 'The Sea And the Hills' by Rudyard Kipling, 1902

Greatness

This photo reminds me of how incredibly small we are in the grand scheme of things... do we really have any say in how things pan out on this planet? You can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf!

Photo from "Erupting Volcanoes On Earth as Seen From Space": http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/gallery_volcanoes/

Activist Spy Filmmaking Done Right

Follow and read this link at Wired.com to learn about how The Cove activist filmmakers designed and shot their controversial and tech-savvy film in Japan. This work of documentary cinema is the real deal: film as activism.

> Read 'The Cove' tech on Wired.com

“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

It's Alive!

Saving The Waves, a blog by Save The Waves Coalition, has been revived from the dead! Read it at www.savethewaves.blogspot.com

Even though it appears much like this blog in layout, it's totally not the same! Radical!

Shredsuits Supremo

The artist-surfer-bearded-individual Travis Weller, of San Francisco and East Coast infamy, is designing a custom screenprint art poster for our first-ever Save The Waves Film Festival. Check out his art at www.travisweller.com and stay tuned for more information soon:

* SAVE THE WAVES FILM FESTIVAL / NOVEMBER 13 / DOORS 7 PM / VICTORIA THEATRE / SAN FRANCISCO *


Detail of Shredsuits Supremo pen & ink by Travis Weller

Some of the films confirmed to screen at this festival include: 'The Cove' / 'Lost Prophets' / 'Devil's Teeth' / 'All Points South' / ...and more to come!

“What can we do with the western coast, a coast of 3,000 miles, rockbound, cheerless, uninviting, and not a harbor on it? What use have we for such a country? I will never vote one cent from the public treasury to place the Pacific Ocean one inch nearer.”
- Daniel Webster

“Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.”
- Albert Schweitzer

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”
- Henry David Thoreau

Save The Waves YouTube Channel

>> www.youtube.com/user/savethewaves <<


Watch our films and related content on the new Save The Waves YouTube Channel! Check back often for updates of new activist-surf films:

>> www.youtube.com/user/savethewaves <<

"Light Up" music video by Kapakahi

Starting our Monday on the good foot:



Kapakahi: so happy and positive, and an SF product. www.kapakahimusic.com

Go To The Cove

Roger Ebert's 4-star review of The Cove: "a certain Oscar nominee."
>www.thecovemovie.com<