Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Mike Howard talking ....
Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Episode 52: Nick Borelli: Finding Peace Behind the Lens After Years in the Shadows
When Nick Borelli paddled out on his boogie board in 1980s Santa Cruz, he instantly became an outcast in a culture that prized standing on surfboards above all else. "If you boogie boarded, you were persona non grata," host Michael Howard explains, "the bottom of the totem pole." But this relegation to surf culture's lowest rung gave Nick a perspective few others share—one that would eventually inform his remarkable photography and approach to life.
In this deeply personal conversation, Nick takes us through his journey of growing up in what he calls "the ghetto" of Capitola Shores, where despite limited resources, he found freedom in the water. Through vivid storytelling, Nick reveals how Santa Cruz's notoriously rigid surf hierarchies shaped him, creating both wounds and resilience that would define his path forward. "I knew where I sit and it's been proven to me where I sit," he reflects, describing the often brutal social dynamics at legendary spots like Sewer Peak.
The heart of this episode explores Nick's struggles with depression and substance abuse—how surfing, alcohol, drugs, and food all became escape mechanisms. "I was living in a dark spot by myself and I wasn't telling anybody," he shares with striking candor. His turning point came during time in Boston, where he found both higher education and sobriety, learning to see himself and the world with newfound clarity.
Photography emerges as Nick's ultimate form of expression and healing. What began as an attempt to capture barrel shots and possibly gain acceptance evolved into something far more profound—a way of seeing beauty in moments others might miss. As Michael beautifully observes, Nick's unique viewpoint from a lower, humbler position reveals "a world under us" with "a different essence" that standing surfers never experience.
Listen to this remarkable conversation about finding peace through acceptance, seeing things as they truly are, and discovering art in unexpected places. Whether you're familiar with Santa Cruz surf culture or not, Nick's journey offers universal insights about authenticity, sobriety, and the courage to embrace your own unique perspective.
Welcome to the Unpacked in Santa Cruz podcast. I'm your host, michael Howard. I'm going on this extraordinary effort to celebrate normalcy in this common culture of ours by interviewing normal people here in this extraordinary town of people that I see and I just appreciate that make this town so great. But this podcast is sponsored by Santa Cruz Vibes Magazine. You can find this quarterly in most of the really cool spots here in Santa Cruz. If you go to their website, you can find a lot of other data. That's santa cruzvib vibes magazinecom and you can find my podcast there. But apparently you've already found my podcast, if you're listening to me, so that's a little bit redundant.
Speaker 1:This program is also sponsored by Pointside Beach Shack. It is your place to go to if you want to host a party of 50 people or less right here in the heart of Pleasure Point. It's a really great spot. I welcome you to go to their website and check that out also. But who I'm sitting in front of today is actually someone I have a very, very long history with. We've become a little bit closer friends here in the last few years, although we've been friends for a long time. But he is a man that I really love and appreciate and we have our little chats in the morning over coffee, sitting at Pleasure Point. Appreciate and we have our little chats in the morning over coffee, sitting at Pleasure Point. But he is really a piece of the fabric at Pleasure Point and just has been a part of my life for a very long time and so there's a little bit more intimacy here with this guy. But, nick Borelli, thanks so much for coming to the program, nick Borelli.
Speaker 2:Morning.
Speaker 1:Kevin Kennedy Morning. We've been already talking over coffee right now, so so we're a little bit deep into a conversation. So we got to go in reverse, as we always are. We're always talking shop. But, nick, why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself and you know who are you, what do you do? Where'd you grow up? All that kind of shit?
Speaker 2:Wow, it's a long story to think about. 54, 55 years back. And when I was, you know, I was a little grom and I grew up in Soquel with my mom and dad. My dad came from San Francisco, south San Francisco. My mom was born here, so luckily I got to be born here, which was later in life figured out how grateful I am to have been born here. But growing up, you know, we just live here, yeah, and we just do what we do. We do what's in front of us. I didn't grow up super stoked I. There was a lot of chaos in the family, um, and my parents separated when I was two and so we moved around until my mom was able to buy a condo in Capitola Shores, okay. So we got to grow up in the Jewel box. The jewel box.
Speaker 1:Even though we were kind of in the ghetto. You know, those of us who live in the jewel box wouldn't call that the jewel box you grew up around Jade Street, those of us who are in the actual.
Speaker 2:So I've always called that the ghetto, and we grew up with pretty much nothing. Yeah, you know we were flea market people. Yeah, I'd like to consider myself a flea market person today and I feel like that's very fitting. If I was going to buy something, I wouldn't be thinking of REI or even O'Neill, I'd be going to Ross and Marshalls or back then Mervin's. I get my Hobie shirt from Mervin's.
Speaker 1:Get the plain corduroys, then you have your mom's. So the OP on there.
Speaker 2:But the cool thing was living there. I went to SoCal Elementary, so the first couple of years we'd get rides, but after a while I'd ride my bike to school yeah, and that was a long ride for a kid at seven years old and I had freedom to pretty much do whatever I wanted. Had to be home by you know four, yeah. But we had a pool. We got to swim in the pool, learn how to swim in that pool Capitola Shores.
Speaker 2:And later my mom would give me a couple dollars and we would go down to Capitola and people started surfing and I was riding a boogie and it wasn't just the good boogie, it was the one from the 50s that had like styrofoam it was made from styrofoam with fiberglass lining that crisscrossed, that came off, and then we would go home, jump in the pool, get cleaned up, go to bed. And that was kind of our life was to live at the beach, live in capitola, ride our bike all over capitola and I saw guys skateboarding and uh, tony roberts, yeah. And um warfie and jack green, chris green, yeah and yeah, and these were my heroes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:These guys were living a life that was unbelievable and I could only get pieces of it because I was so young, so I didn't really get to get a hold of everything that was going on within them. They were out doing stuff. They were probably eight years older, yeah, you know, and that at that time that's a lot of years. But there was a little, uh, socal skate park and we were too young to ride in that park, but we could sit up on top of the, on top of the hill. There was a hillside, you know work behind carpos, way up in there and we could watch those guys rip and we were like like, wow, yeah, how are they doing that? How did they learn that? Where did they know that? So somehow I got a jammer. Yeah, so here we are, everyone's got all the right stuff. Santa cruz boards I got a jammer. Yeah, okay, so let's talk about boogie boards. Yeah, so I, I grew up, I had a little money.
Speaker 2:I got a 136 more, yeah, yeah more boogie came around and, um, I would be at first jetty and all my friends were over at second jetty and second jetty was the spot to be. But you know, it scared me. Yeah, it was big water. Yeah, you couldn't touch the beach so I was like I'm not going over. There might drown, but I know how to swim. So, like, what's the deal? You got fins on. You had more than we did. I think I had one fin with a sock. I couldn't buy a wetsuit, didn't have any money for wetsuit. I think we bought one at the flea market with a ducktail.
Speaker 1:You know the old duck yeah um, so I?
Speaker 2:I didn't have the. I don't know why I didn't surf. I don't know why I never got it or figured it out, but boogieing was what filled my need in the water. As a result, I was less than yeah times a thousand. Yeah, if you could say piece of crap, that would be about right.
Speaker 1:Yeah so I want to interject here for the audience, because there's there's a couple little nuances that are important to point out. Nick would be considered a total rat, which which is, you know, it's a thing you know I've I've referenced before that you know, if you were a mile away from whatever spot, was the spot, you're not part of that program, and so Nick was part of a crew of of where I'm from, in Capitola. You know, we're all started surfing in Capitola and because of that whole experience, uh, there's just there's these layers of hierarchy and what Nick is trying to communicate is that if you boogie boarded, you were persona non grata, the bottom, the bottom of the totem pole, and anybody in surf culture is like, yeah, you know, poor Nick, you know we all love him now, but back then, not that great, what a dork, Not that great, Not that great.
Speaker 1:Like I feel awful for like how many boogie boarders you just you kicked them out of, like, like at second jetty. Like like if you I don't know if you could have gone out at second jetty, you just didn't go. And that's where the surfers were, bro, and it's capital, it's so dumb.
Speaker 2:But I have to say I got really fun.
Speaker 1:Barrels at first, jetty yeah, well, first jetty was like it was the good it was so good, there was uh pauline justin ray, uh rapogo lansing all those guys tr, tr was surfing there all the time tr was out there, the boys would come through when it went to like it was like a little mini harbor at the time, right.
Speaker 2:It actually broke a lot better than it does now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That sand would build up beautifully just inside the outside, the rocks. Don't hit the rocks, bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't hit the rocks, yeah, and the jetty was a little bit more there than it is now, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it was also as rough as as it was it was.
Speaker 2:It was a pretty great place to spend your day.
Speaker 1:It was probably the safest place in the town, for sure. Yeah, I mean there's the, the band of brothers.
Speaker 2:I mean I remember sitting up on top of the hook when there was no stairs. Yeah and uh, you would. People would park their car in a puddle that would cover a VW Bug, these huge potholes in that parking lot, and I thought this is where it's at. That was the first step from Capitola and, man, there was no guardrail. You could fall off that cliff at any moment and I loved that and that wave was world class and I thought one day I'll get to go out there one day.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've ever surfed I don't, you know, nick, I gotta be honest. I don't know if you ever wanted to go there.
Speaker 2:I mean, sarah peak, really I'm going to say back then when you could watch those lines come in, yeah, no wind, super glassy at six, 30 in the morning, foggy, pelicans riding off the top of the lips, and that thing would just break down the line and I thought man, what else is there? Yeah, this is, is it? We're here, but I can't go there. I can't be a part of that. Yeah, there was always a layer of town, of the community, of maybe call it our culture, that just said you can't be part of some of this and as much as you want to be part of it, you really didn't want to be part of it because there was consequences to be part of it, and so that kept me away. And I was working at Seafood Mamas which do you remember Seafood Mamas? It became the ostrich grill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I worked with Randall Winthrop, yeah.
Speaker 2:And Randall was a bodyboarder, yeah, and I was like that's my people. You know, like I need to be around these people because those other people are doing a different thing. You know, it's a whole different, different ball game and I knew that I couldn't ride better waves until I was hanging out with guys that were better.
Speaker 2:And randall took me to its beach and I still had my 136 yeah, maury, a boogie and my churchill fins and my socks yeah and we sat in that lineup and the wave used to break off the ones off the wall and it would come across and it would meet up with the, with the main wave, and create a barrel that was as big as you could put up. You could put a, a school bus. Yeah, your heart pounding, yeah, just knowing if I don't make this right, I'm going into the sand. Yeah, right into the sand, face first.
Speaker 2:Can't wait, you know, like that's the real deal yeah like that's our wedge, and so, um, he taught me how to surf that place and he taught me how to sit in the lineup with the boys and there was another level of, of, of, uh, hierarchy in the boogie world yeah and uh, you had to know how to sit, where to sit, when to sit, when to go, and if you didn't go, you may not go the rest of the day. Yeah, you have to go. Yeah, and you need to get beat and you need to go. You know a couple rounds underwater and think you're going to die to figure out that you're accepted.
Speaker 1:That's pretty crazy. That's a crazy world. Yeah, you know it's, and again, I'm not bagging on my wife, but it might sound like it, I'm just rhetorically speaking back to her as she listens to these things. You know, there just is this, these layers of tension that all of us grew up in, and and you know it's not only unique to our town and that that's what she says. You know every town feels this way, but the pecking order of experience is unique because it's not nothing, it's water. You know it is. You think you're going to die and you might die, and people have died and been paralyzed about. You know, referencing the spot that you were talking about, like it's is known for how many people it's killed, how many people have been paralyzed there, like, and you got a group of men who were going like, oh, you're going and you oftentimes don't want to, but you're never going to get waves anywhere else, unless they give you permission.
Speaker 1:Because you went on the one they said you could you should go on, even though they knew you were going to get beat and they love it and they loved it, and so you know it's. It's a strange um, at least in my heart. Looking back, I'm so grateful in a lot of ways to have had those men in my life to help me learn to take the kind of risks that I might not have otherwise taken, listening to my fear, but the consequences were hanging around those men though. Also. You know it's, it's, it's a, it's a.
Speaker 1:You know, surfing back then at least, was a, was a, uh, alternative lifestyle choice, and the choice here and there was really. You know, if you became a surfer here, you know you were ostracized from any business community, from anything. You know it's like, oh, you're a scumbag, you're hanging out with those guys. You know, because it was straight blue collar here Like, oh, you're a surfer, oh, you're one of those hippie idiots that's just here to do this thing. And it's hard with words to express the level of tension when you're a young person, when you know you're not the scumbag, you just want to be in the water, but you're trying to pave a way for yourself and you have to go through this hierarchy of scumbags to get your place with the scumbags, even though you don't want to be that guy and it's.
Speaker 1:It's a weird tension that that I think in our generation we experienced this thing, that that the people who wanted to be professionals and I'm not talking professional surfers, just professional people but also still surf. It was not easy, you know, during those days, I guess is the best way I want to put it you know, it was not something as simple as oh yeah, I get to go surf, that's. It wasn't celebrated, let's just put it that way. You're one of those guys now.
Speaker 1:And when people found out you surfed. It was a mixed bag, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Do you agree with that, Nick? Absolutely. It was a mixed bag.
Speaker 1:Do you surf? Yeah, I surf. Oh, oh yeah, you're not getting the job.
Speaker 2:You probably won't show up.
Speaker 1:Yes, maybe not, but yeah, so it's, you know, for the audience. I mean, it is one of the one of the unique threads. It's not really that way anymore, but it is the tension that you see with the people that are from here, especially from our age group, you know, which is now in the elderly status or not elderly but senior status of like it was different. You know, not elderly but senior status of like it was different. You know, was it better? You know.
Speaker 1:I could say that, as a result, I could probably go anywhere in the world and get away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's, I know how to sit in the lineup. I know how to be out of the way. I know how to wait my turn. Yeah, I know how to find the right person to maybe say hi to, so that everything's okay in the water, and that's huge for me, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, these surf hierarchies that we have to be obliged to, I mean, they translate. That's the reality. I've always gotten waves on the North Shore because of my experience here, which which is unique. Yeah, you know, guys, don't go out and get waves of pipeline right, I still can go do it if I want to. You know, not on the day's days, but but you know, just just you know that they know when they, when they see the label on the board.
Speaker 2:Oh, he understands and I have to be clear. There are days when I will not get a wave. Yeah, at my spot. Yeah, because it's perfect.
Speaker 2:The lineups, the lineup is chaos yeah the guys that can surf it are sending without even thinking about it, yeah, and it just becomes different on that day. I part of me, you know, it's like yo, yeah, this is my spot too, like move, I'm gonna drop in deeper than you. I'm on a boogie, yeah, but then I gotta worry about getting dropped in on and having a surfboard go through my ear. Yeah, yeah, now that's real. Yeah, and that makes me not want to be there, which is fine, and I'll go on another day when it's smaller and just funner. You know cause I don't want to be in that environment where I might get hurt or I got to get pissed, or why. Would I want to go to a place that soothes my soul and I come out angry? Yeah, a place that soothes my soul and I come out angry, that's not fair.
Speaker 2:That's not fair to anybody, and that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. I mean those people should go out there and have fun and do their thing and run around in circles and make everybody else crazy, because that's what they do and that's part of the game. But I'm not putting myself in that environment anymore. I used to play that game and I used to try to get in there and I, you know, I found out that if I went left instead of going right yeah, hey, nobody goes left.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for a while there there was just a couple of us, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it was a little bit heavier back then, so I could you know, even at 17, when I finally was able to surf out there again, Randall brought me out there. Let's talk about that for a minute. Yeah, yeah 17 years old at Sewer.
Speaker 1:Peak. Yeah, they've heard the stories.
Speaker 2:We all know the story. Yeah, I'll tell you my story. I'm on a boogie board. I still got the 136. Yeah. That thing flexes opposite, george, you know what I mean. Yeah, it flexes down. So if you catch a wave you're pearling. But I didn't know that because I'd never been on a wave. There's guys, man, do I even want to say the name? No, no no names.
Speaker 1:No, because that's the point. Let me inform the listener too, when we're talking about sewer peak. At that time, if you really wanted to learn how to surf pipeline, you surf sewer peak less like it. Just the nature of the setup was very, very similar. You had to take three more strokes, chin down and you're committed to the deal, like if you want that wave, you're going on that wave and if you're not trying your damnedest to go and taking those extra strokes, you're going over the falls and you're going to wear it. It's three feet deep sitting under you and the setup was almost exactly the same sketch, you know, not not as hollow as pipe, but like the drop was not dissimilar.
Speaker 2:I'll just put it that way I've never served pipe, so yeah, no well, nor have I even. I don't even think I've seen it live yeah it's, it's its own pipe.
Speaker 1:Pipe is pipe. Sir peak, sir peak, but that that setup is what allowed me to feel comfortable at pipe, however comfortable I feel whenever I'm there. You know it's like I'm never comfortable, but you know at least I understand what's happening for sure.
Speaker 2:We're turning around and you're going. No, you don't pull back, you just, you just go and just take the consequences. So, 17, I'm paddling out. I got another boogie Randall's out there he's my guardian, we'll call it and uh, there was a pack of kids our age that were out there. Um, you know that were able to get out there. There was a, there was a group, but realistically it was pretty frowned upon unless you were ripping or or just older, like you might not even be a good surfer, but if you're older and you know how to be in the lineup, then you're, you're out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the sewer rats were still enforcing.
Speaker 2:at that point it was a very you know, I'll name it Well quickly, like the kneeboard crew was still running it, the kneeboard crew ripping yeah, some of the best bottom turns I've ever experienced. Yeah, yeah, yeah and also, they tried to run my legs over every time, every time yeah yeah, not one time, every time, every time, yeah, you know. And then there's the guy at the bat, yeah, and he is enormous, with little legs, because all I could see was their head and they had squid lids on. They would just look at me and shake their head.
Speaker 1:Why are you out?
Speaker 2:why are you out here? What are you doing here? And I wouldn't get a wave? Yeah, no way. Yeah, you know, even on the inside, I don't think I even got a little pangy bull, I just think I, I was shell shocked, yeah, um, so, you know, if I had a surfboard, would that have been better? Probably not. Still 17, yeah, you know, still a grom, yeah, and and not allowed out there. You're really not allowed out there.
Speaker 2:And the fact that I persevered and kept going out there, um, just gave me a minor pass. I don't think it gave me a spot. I think it gave me a minor pass. I don't think it gave me a spot. I think it gave me a pass. You know, like, okay, we've seen your kid, we've seen your kid, we've seen your kid and we've seen you go on a wave when it's nobody else left and you have to go, and it's the biggest thing you've ever seen, and you're probably going to go over the falls, um, and you went for it and I, I still don't, I still don't even know if I have a spot out there. You know, like, yeah, do I?
Speaker 1:care.
Speaker 2:No, I don't care, um, but at the time it was super important and um, it was a. It was a slow crawl back to two, six over over to mose. Yeah, yeah, uh.
Speaker 2:Back to the back to uh it's beach, then finger bowl hey, summertime finger bowl finger bowl used to break and it used to be almost as good as it's, you know, and um mitchell's cove on a on a big day, or or go down to um, um, go down to uh natural bridges, and even natural bridges had a little bowl on the inside. We call it uh naturals and it was like this little little wedge on the inside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah and uh, where you famously break your surfboard, oh yeah, but on a boogie, you're fine, oh, I can. I can get through this section. Nope Snap.
Speaker 2:Damn it. So you know, after a while I finally was able just to kind of go out and surf those lefts. Yeah, Got a new board. Yeah, I got the Mach 7.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, that was like the hard bottom, hard bottom, oh, whole new world, and you could actually hold the line in those waves and I was like, wow, this is cool. You know, this is a different game and I'm maybe part of this, yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe not? Yeah, it's funny. You know, I worked for Scott Hawaii in 88. I don't know if you remember the brand. They had both sandals and body boards. It was the guy who owned the company was a body boarder and because I had a whole rack of body boards when I was done, you know Trevor Thorpe and I. Trevor was a sponger growing up before he started surfing. He just started surfing when he moved to town. You know when he was, I don't know, he was like 17 when he moved here and you know we're old roommates and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:But we would go boogie out of first peak just to piss guys off. Boogie boarding is hard. I mean, this is what people don't realize. Like, yeah, it's one thing when you're sitting at first jetty and just going straight, but like if you're, in ways of consequence, to try to bottom turn, a boogie board is a thing. And Trevor and I, like whenever 26 was maxed out, we're just like we get an early session in and then let's go to two, six and just go destroy ourselves. You know, like let's see if we can actually bottom turn on one of these waves and like it's hard, it's hard.
Speaker 2:It's hard. There's definitely some technique, for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember, I remember one of the guys that rips out there came up to me. He's like yo, I was just somewhere, tropical, you know, and it wasn't a surf wave, it was a boogie wave, you know, because I tried to ride that. I don't know how you do it. Yeah, and I go, I don't know how.
Speaker 1:I do it either. I just ride this thing, that's right.
Speaker 2:You know, and that's the deal for me Like there are really great waves and there are really bad waves. There are really great waves and there are really bad waves, and there's visions with these barrels and there's times you can just make one big turn. Even on the boogie, a good turn feels really good. Yeah, I found myself, even at that 17 age, pretty disappointed in my own world, with my own self. I was drinking in school. Yeah, I was stealing booze from the house and bringing it to school and drinking out of this little bottle out of my locker.
Speaker 1:Where did you go to high school at SoCal High Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we were smoking weed, yeah, and uh, there was a little spot where the teachers had lunch but we could just go around the tree, bush, yeah, and smoke weed and I was stoned and you know and and um, I hadn't done anything else as far as drugs go, but but when I would go in the water I would go in pretty unhappy with a lot of things around me within myself, whatever, and I'd come out pretty stoked, yeah, and the water would beat the hell out of me. I would get hammered on the inside at 2.6. Yeah, yeah, I'd get thrown into the sand, I'd roll all over the place, I'd try to figure out which way is up and I'd go do it again and I loved being beat up by the water. The water was fantastic to be beat up with and I'd come out pretty satisfied and I could go home and kind of hide in my room and I became probably was already. I was always, I've always been a loner, yeah, and I don't know if that's you know, a lot of it is because I just wanted to do my own thing and as much as I wanted to be a part of this thing, I still really just wanted to do what I wanted to do and if I had to do somebody else's life, that absorbed my life and then I would miss out on the little thing that I needed for myself and I needed to get away from whatever was going on in my brain, and drinking and smoking weed turned that all off.
Speaker 2:It was, you know. So surfing was the other drug, mm-hmm, and food was another drug, yeah, and, and I chased, I chased that mm-hmm. I. I saw the, the older guys, living this lifestyle and I don't know what they were doing, but from what I saw, they were partying and they were chasing everybody around, yeah, chasing skirt and beating people up and the point was dirty, yeah, and it was a place that turned my brain off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a place where I could escape from my own. I don't call it really a nightmare, but it's like you know. I was living in a dark spot by myself and I wasn't telling anybody, I wasn't sharing, like hey, bro, I don't really feel so good.
Speaker 1:I have depression. Could you imagine saying that out loud, like even five years ago? You know, I'm really depressed today.
Speaker 2:I'm seeing things and they don't make sense, but everyone else is telling me that it's opposite.
Speaker 2:And I'm like I was just stuck in that and I didn't know there was a way out. Asking for help wasn't the thing. My thing was keep progressing with this life that you have, which is drinking, drugging, surfing, eating and surviving through. That was was what I thought was normal. I thought all of that stuff was normal. I thought the shitty, the shitty energy that was in the water was normal. I thought being a dick was normal. I thought treating people like crap was normal, because that's what we all grew up with. We didn't grow up with, like you know, butterflies and rainbows. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:It was dirty yeah, I mean, you might be getting in a fight with your best friend any given day, which is a strange at the same time beating up the guy that's trying to fight your friend.
Speaker 1:You know, looking back, it's just strange what felt normal to us. You know it's not a. You know I don't want to bemoan it too much, but like this thing that we all celebrate, I don't know if it was that great. Like that's the in retrospect. You know, nick and I have talked a lot about this. You know I'm very grateful for being from this town, being a part of this town. I love this town. I've come to love this town way more than I ever thought I would. You know, as I've lost my chip about this thing that we're talking about.
Speaker 1:You know it's like. You know there's the you're in, but you're not. You know you're only in if a particular group decides that you're in that day. That day, you know, and it's every day, and every day is a odd little fight. And you know to call it localism is like no, that's a misnomer. Like you have no idea what localism means. It's this highly competitive hierarchy and it's any given sunday. You know it's not, it's not, it's every day.
Speaker 1:You paddle out. It's like ah shit, that guy's out. You know, something happened six months ago. It hasn't been cleared up yet. Then his two friends are out and like you're, you're, you're, as you're paddling out, you're having to mind how you're going to play the game to get the waves that you want. Like.
Speaker 1:It's so ridiculous in so many ways, because you know those of us who are just in it. It's us, you know when. We know how to sway a crowd. You know, because of just using nuanced, particular behaviors from us that aren't even what, how we really are as people, but you know how to piss the right person off. That'll piss those guys off. That'll get them to leave.
Speaker 1:It's a strange, you know. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go talk to so-and-so, make him mad. He'll get mad at those guys and now I don't have to deal with it totally, which is, which is a weird friction to grow up in and feel like it's normal. And again, for the audience, you know, again, nick and I have talked at length about this and we'll probably back away from this a little bit, but but the point being is that what people who grew up here, especially in the surf community, felt was normal is not normal behavior in society. You know, it's a little Lord of the Flies out there and especially if you grew up in and around the point, you know it was that way. It was all brothers all raising each other and it, it. It's not what it looks like now. That's all. It's not what it looks like now. No parents on the cliff, we'll just put it that way. So.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, no, you were on your own, you're on your own, yeah, and that's what I would always feel like oh, I'm going to go out there because I ride a boogie. No one, zero, has my back out here. Yeah, zero, yeah. And if you are listening and you think, oh no, I'm your buddy, nick. No, I was alone, yes, and I'm still alone out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's fine. Yeah, that's fine Because I know where I sit. Yeah, I know exactly where I sit and it's been proven to me where I sit. Yeah, and I don't have the energy to fight that anymore. Yeah, when I have to put my wetsuit on and then put another strap of armor around, emotionally, you know to like get ready to go, have a moment of clarity, to connect with nature, to be in this pretty amazing space, and then you just are met with eggy nasty. What's up?
Speaker 1:yeah, that's it hey what's up?
Speaker 2:yeah, not. How's your life? What's going on? Yeah, there's no, there's no depth in that and it's okay. It doesn't have to be, I don't need it to be anymore like I don't need, I don't need that. I, I don't look for it, I expect what I'm going to see, but I'm able to see it. And when I go out there I actually try to strip the armor off now and I try to be who I am and say, hey, how's everything, what's going on?
Speaker 2:And for a while there I stopped. I stopped talking to anybody, yeah, cause I realized like, um, all of these people who I've looked up to and thought, oh man, if I was just friends with those guys, if I could just be, if I could just be, like, feel like I'm in just for a minute, that would be amazing, yeah, and then I realized it's never going to happen. I don't want it to happen anymore. You know, I don't want, I don't want to, I don't want to be part of the thing anymore. And I and I felt very, uh, let down, one that I just put myself there. It's my fault.
Speaker 1:It's not anybody else's fault.
Speaker 2:It's not, uh, it's not on anybody else to to take care of me.
Speaker 1:All you had to do was stand up, bro, you'd be fine.
Speaker 2:At least get on your knees.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I think you're more accepted. I don't know. Oh God, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know, that's just now, like that's now and that's fine, like everything is the way it's supposed to be. Yeah, it's not my job to change it. It's not my job to make it different. It's just my job to take care of me, yeah, and so taking care of me means that I still go look at the water every day. I pick where I choose to surf based on where I'm at that day. If I feel emotionally strong, I'll paddle out at that spot, or if I want to be maybe beat up a little bit, I might go to Moss. When I go to Moss Landing, I I go to moss landing, I feel like I'm in national geographic movie. You know what I mean? Yeah, and there's plenty of places to go. Find your own spot and, um, I feel like the, the ocean is, is so much a part of who I am Like. Without that, I'm very lost. So let's talk about where I went.
Speaker 2:I worked for Seafood Mamas 18,. I got a job with Cal Fire. With Cal Fire, you go away for four days, come home for three, go back for four days, come home for three, go back for four days, pick up dead people. Yeah, um, I thought we were going to go fight fire and be at camp. Yeah, oh no, we're picking up, we're picking up dead people. Yeah, well, at 18 I wasn't really ready.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for all that, yeah, and so it's another thing of just mentally, I was just like just not cozy in my skin. Yeah, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't and and and this environment here is this environment here. Yeah, like it's, it's its own thing. It doesn't make you cozy or not cozy. You're either. You're either just deal with it or you don't, but it's not, it's not, it's not what makes or breaks you, even though it makes everything, yeah. So, yeah, I was just, I was still just not cozy in my skin. And drinking and drugging now I was just doing cocaine yeah, um, it was a whole new world it was, it was a whole nother level of freedom and people talk about oh man, you know I was doing drugs because I was. You know I did drugs because it worked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it felt, it made me feel okay oh sorry, it's, all right, it made me feel okay inside and so sorry, it's all right, it made me feel okay inside, and so I chased that and food wasn't really on the option anymore, because food was food. I didn't have any money because I was buying cocaine. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was trying to hang out with people who bought cocaine, yeah right, and I was chasing that lifestyle. So I go to work for four days and clean up and I come home and, freaking, mess up everything. So four years later, I couldn't handle picking up people and I went to work one day and I said, if there's a heart attack or someone dies today, I'm out. Yeah, doot, doot, doot. Medical aid yeah. Heart, yeah. Heart attack yeah, I'm like, are you kidding me? Yeah, so I basically, you know, waited till I got laid off so I could have money for the for the winter time. I had been kicked out of, out of the house because I wasn't going to college but I was working, but, um, so I lived at a little spot and, off gross road, these guys that I was living with had fun, we partied yeah, we won't we partied. And then, um, you know, I got I quit that job with cal fire and I was working on the point and you know, I was just drinking a drug and I was just chasing that next hit and I got fired. And then I realized, hey, I can't really do this anymore, I can't live in this town and not continue to do this. And so I had a friend on the East coast and they said come, come, stay out here.
Speaker 2:So I moved to Boston and I lived in Boston for for four years. So while I was going I was trying to figure out you know what was wrong. But I was still drinking and drugging, you know, and I would drink like a half a bottle of JD and not get drunk and I'd be like what the heck's? What's going on? You know what's going on? And weed was weird, like I started to be like I don't feel my pulse, you know. And feel my pulse, I'm like my heart's not beating and uh, but I wasn't doing cocaine anymore. So you know, that's great.
Speaker 2:And so I, um, I was at the gym. I was going to this gym and this woman told me hey, go to college. And I go, I'm dumb. I got like a 2.4 out of SoCal high. No one told me about college when I was a kid. That was not an option. I was stoned. I didn't think about college. All my friends around me I always thought they were smarter than me, better than me, whatever, and they had family that would support that and it just wasn't in my house's DNA. So I failed it. I failed in CAL FIRE. I tried to join the Marines or the Navy, and the Navy is like well, you got asthma, go to the Marines.
Speaker 2:And I'm like no, I'm not doing that. So I felt failure there and I just kind of felt I was again lost. And now I'm in Boston. I'm at the gym and this lady says go to college. And I go, how am I going to do that? She goes just apply, find out.
Speaker 2:So I applied to UMass Boston and this woman took me in her office and she said hey, you're 24. We love students like you. You're starting over. Write me a, write me an essay about your life and we'll see what we could do. So I went home and I worked my butt off to write this essay. I was like how am I going to do that? I don't know how to write. And she, she, um, she said we're going to accept you as a um I don't know the name provisionary or, uh, probational. Yeah, I think it was the first time I was accepted anywhere. Yeah, I think it was the first time I was accepted anywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I started going. I had to commute. It was an hour commute on the train and I was living in this town called Brookline, which is just barely outside of Boston, and I'd ride down on the green line and get on the red line and I'd go to school On the tube. Yeah, man, and uh, I, um, I couldn't, I, I, I couldn't. I went as hard as I could in into college and I, I did everything I could. And I had this English teacher and one of the books we had to read was about just one of the stories from that book was if you're the, if you're the first person that walks to the edge of the grand Canyon in your life, you're the first person in the whole world. Can you see that Without you know? Compared to uh, what?
Speaker 2:uh, sorry, I just screwed the story up but uh, he said, if you let's just say if you walk to the grand Canyon, can you walk over the edge and say, hey, that's, that's the grand Canyon, you know, and we've been inundated by pictures and we don't have our own ideas, we don't have our own thoughts, we've already been told what to think with that picture. And then you get over there and you're there at noon. There's no color in the Grand Canyon, it's overcast. And you're thinking, well, that doesn't look as good as the picture. What am I doing here? Yeah, and you're thinking, well, that doesn't look as good as the picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what am I doing here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I started just thinking you know, what does this world look like to me? How do I see this world? Mm-hmm, write with that professor and I started to chase this new experience of writing down what I see in the world, how I feel in the world, what's important to me, why it's important, and I'm pretty much in awe of everything around me. I feel like there is so much to experience with just our own little environment, let alone the rest of the world, that became super important for me to figure out how to write and write that down and communicate that. So I got a degree in English and I transferred out of the city to UMass, amherst. In the meantime I had quit drinking January 14th 95. And I just put the drink down because I thought I gotta, I gotta stop this. And in between all that I had gone to europe. I traveled with this band. We went all through europe doing drugs and almost going, getting caught from the border patrol and one of the you know, from austria to germany or whatever, with drugs on us and, uh, being stopped by anti-fascist police because they thought we were going to a fascist party. And I was like, oh my god, what is happening? Like. Luckily I had the us passport with the germans because they were like okay, you're good, you know? Um.
Speaker 2:So I got sober, quit drinking. I don't think I got sober, quit drinking. I don't think I got sober, I quit drinking, no more weed. My heart was being weird. I was having panic attacks and I didn't know why. I was all of a sudden feeling like my heart's beating wrong. I had an EKG done, feeling like my heart's beating wrong. I had an ekg done and, um, they said everything's normal, you're having a panic attack. And so I thought, oh, I'm having panic attacks. So I just went with that and said, okay, well, I suffer from panic attacks now you know so I guess I'm a panic attack guy, but you know the, the weed wasn't helping and drinking wasn't helping.
Speaker 2:And um, maybe that was the cause of some of this stuff. Right, so I quit, quit drinking and and um, when I moved to from boston to amherst, I moved into this dorm that was a sober dorm. I got accepted into the sober dorm because I didn't want to be 24 with a bunch of college kids that are shooting heroin or you know whatever's going on in those dorms.
Speaker 1:Well, and at that time all that stuff was hot and it was hot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there was actually. Each dorm had its own drug use. Yeah, always hierarchies. So I, I, I got into the sober dorm and it was a floor, you know, and I was in this room with an 18 year old brat, rich, rich kid from Hyannis.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, um, you know, he was a good kid, but he was 18. And so I'm over here at 24 thinking I've been seeing the whole world, you know, and he and he was, like you know, bright and fiery. And, uh, I got a knock on the door and it was a couple, a couple kids from the dorm, from that hall, and they said, hey, we're going to a meeting, you want to go? And I said, yeah, let's go. And we went to that first meeting and that pretty much started my super world of being sober. So then I had to dig and we had to go through a bunch of crap and and figure out you know what's all about and steps and all these different things. And that was, that was huge eye opener. And basically, at that point I was asking for help, you know, and that took a long time to get to that point of asking for help and, um, that was a huge turning point in my life.
Speaker 2:So I finished college and I had my girlfriend Kate at the time and and I said, hey, I'm going back, I'm going back to Santa Cruz. I got to clean up a bunch of shit and, um, I need to, I need, I'm going back, I'm going back to Santa Cruz. I got to clean up a bunch of shit and I need to just be there. I didn't realize how beautiful it was here, not living there. So that's get you back to the ocean. I felt the whole time I was a fish out of water, even with the Boston Bay, because the Boston Bay is dirty, the Boston Bay doesn't move. Yeah, you know. And I also was always in rivers or creeks or a pond or some kind of water. I always had to be in the water and everyone's like what's up with this water? I'm like let's go, it's fun Going at night, we're going to jump in. And so, anyway, I moved home and I lived with my dad and eventually home and, um, live with my dad, and eventually Kate followed me and um, that's kind of like most of my path up until, like you know, today, kind of in the meantime, there's been a lot of, there's been a lot of um ups and downs.
Speaker 2:We bought a condo, we didn't have any money. We went underwater Right when we bought it. It was 2008. Shit went weird. We went 100,000 underwater. All of a sudden we're like do we walk? What do we do? I go, I'm going to dig, we're going to work, we're going to get it done. Kate got a new job and I started chasing work and and that became more important than surfing yeah, that became more important than anything because we had to survive and uh, yeah, it was. It was uh not easy and I was angry yeah, I, you know I was angry that I was stuck to this and I didn't have a way out and uh, that I was stuck to this and I didn't have a way out.
Speaker 1:And let's, if we can, you know, I, you know and asking you to come, I, you know, I don't. I don't want to impose anything on you, nick, you know, cuz you and I are close friends and we share from similar dispositions, you know personally. But, you know, are you willing to talk a little bit about active sobriety and like the difference between not drinking and being sober and the nature of depression? Because you know, again, I have no intention of really making this a content driven forum. You know, it's not about forum, it's not about advice, it's not about any of that kind of stuff. It's really about open, honest conversations about what it sober worldview is. You know, because it really actively sits in my personal worldview. You know about, like terms like repentance, which are misused, you know, which is just don't do the wrong thing, when really repentance is seeing things for what they are, taking that deep breath in of like oh, that is not at all what I imagine life would be like. You know, now that I see things for what they are and this whole story has kind of led to a spot of you know where I'm sitting here listening to you talking about it.
Speaker 1:Sobriety, you know, as a term is seeing things for what they are truly are. You know that. That. You know letting go of the delusions. You know back to our hierarchical, delusional bullshit, that kind of lives out here, you know. But but when you grow up in a delusional world trying to figure out where you fit, you can't reason with it. You know, and, and you know this is what I learned when I went into AA is how much delusion really plays a part of our lives. You know, and it shapes us and I don't want to pass this moment up because it's so important, I think, for everybody who's listening to understand. You know, our perspective is our perspective, but it's so hard to deal with the delusion around you and get clear about what it is. You're seeing, you know, and especially when political systems, media with living somewhere, you know, with social hierarchies, they're generally just delusional and delusion is believing something is true that is not true and sobriety cuts right through that and there's a lot of non-sober, sober people that traverse through AA and all these other programs. This is why people don't like to necessarily go to them.
Speaker 1:It's because of the delusion that still sits in the room about alcohol or whatever else, when really, this is really where I think Bill and Bob, who wrote the big book in the AA, really got it, that they understood what the term repentance was. They chose to use the English terms on how to face it. Because they chose to use the English terms on how to face it. You know Paul, who wrote half the New Testament, you know who wrote all the epistles, is the only being in the Bible that talked about sobriety. So there's a little nuance and you guys can do your own reading about Paul and his little message to Timothy about how much wine he should drink every day. So you know, I'm of the conclusion that Paul was a daily drinker, saying that he quit drinking water and it's pretty impossible to survive on only water if you're not drinking enough wine.
Speaker 1:These realities that live in, these things that we think we understand because we were told a particular story about how good people were not realizing the humanity that's in there and the delusions we have. And you know from my own religion it's Christianity about who it is we're listening to and what they were struggling with. But the most important part of repentance, as it was from the beginning, you know, at the beginning of the story, when God used the term, it was see things for what they are. Take that deep breath in of like, oh no, breathe out, feel the compassion that you need now that you see it, because that way you can give the compassion to others, because you need to experience the compassion first. And it was in the framework of AA that I really understood that for myself and felt compassion for myself for the first time, and I was not there a long time.
Speaker 1:I'm not an AA guy. I don't want to pretend like I live in a sobriety world and what AA has to offer is fucking brilliant. It is brilliant for the people that are strapped to a lifestyle that's only associated with alcohol. But, that being said, a sober lifestyle is actually a hard lifestyle because you're seeing things for what they are and it's very hard to sit with people that are like being delusional about what they're seeing. You know it's just not real.
Speaker 1:And the depression that I know that I have felt in my life I don't want to impose that, but I they're striking similarities. Next one you know I'm going to I'm going to conclude that that that there are just some things that you know when, when we talk about depression and we don't talk about delusion and we don't talk about sobriety, you know, in its purest form of just seeing things for what they are, of just seeing things for what they are. You know, most of my depression was me gaslighting myself because I didn't want to see what was really happening to me, because of where I was placing myself, trying to fit. And you know, as I've expressed to you, expressed to my audience, you know, last year, february, my depression went away. It's weird, like I don't know who I am.
Speaker 2:Perfect.
Speaker 1:You know, which is like okay, I'm 54 and now I wake up in a good mood most every morning, most every morning. It's not that the cycles of behavior aren't still there, because I've been practicing them, but I don't have that same overwhelming feeling that I have to go jump in the shower immediately, you know, to wash off all the yucky that I woke up with. And I believe that you and I are in a similar space of like washing off the past, being grateful for the past because you finally have agency, you know. So you know you have this like I can now make a decision about this, now that I'm being honest about what it is, you know, and the freedom that's come from me very fast, which is really awkward, you know it's awkward to have it be like fast, which is really awkward. You know it's awkward to have it be like, oh shit, I'm just clear, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, this person that I've tried to be friends with we're not friends and really, you know, I don't know Do.
Speaker 2:I want to be there, no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like like it's. It's no judgment against them.
Speaker 2:No judgment against me, it's just like we're.
Speaker 1:We're different people and like, no, you know, like why am I imposing myself onto them? To try and be something to me? Absolutely Like it's just, it's gross. Yeah, when you see it like boy, I do this to everybody, right, like it's me, right. You know, once you work that fourth step of like you know that fourth post, okay, you told your story about how shitty it was. Why did you decide to be the person that you are? And that's where your responsibility chart lives in that fourth post. And you know it was a great way for me to dissect, you know, doing that four-step work about all these things that I expected from people.
Speaker 2:There's a one of the sayings is you know, trying to stick a square peg in a round hole, yeah, and that I, I continue to do that over and over, knowing how much pain it caused me. Yeah, I was like, well, I could just, maybe I just turn this square peg a little bit. It'll get in there, you know, and it'll, it'll work. I, I couldn't figure it out and it'll work. I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure out that I was still doing it because it was so normal to continue to do that. I got to the place where doing the right things felt wrong and doing the wrong things felt right. That's fucked up and that's normal. I mean, we all do it and we're all subject to that. It doesn't mean anyone has to change. I don't care If you don't want to see it or you want to continue to do it.
Speaker 1:It's not like you don't care about them, it's just like you can't care.
Speaker 2:I can't make anybody see any difference?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what they're refusing to look at, they're wanting to see things for how they are.
Speaker 2:The light bulb doesn't have to go off Mm-mm, you know. But when it does, there's a different kind of sharing. That happens Mm-mm, and I feel like that's really important. When it's available Mm-mm. Because when it's available it's magic, mm-mm. Oh, my God, I just had a connection. Mike gave me a hug after we talked. Like that's huge, yeah, right, Like I don't get that from everybody, yeah, and I don't want it from everybody because that's too much, I couldn't handle it for everybody, right.
Speaker 1:I can't feel all this love. This is weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there are a few, and those few make it all amazing. Yeah, you know, and those few make it all amazing. Yeah, you know. And again, it's you know. Do we all need that? I think we do. Yeah, I think we need some of it. Yeah, and I think we all need the acceptance to be who we are, as we are, and that's what we're talking about. It's like you can be who you are. You can be wild, going down the street on a stolen bike, screaming, ripping signs off the wall, and I still love that guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean when I see that I'm all, it's just being him. Yeah, he's just being him. Love that guy, yeah.
Speaker 1:We being him. Yeah, he's just being him. Love that guy. Yeah, we've talked about that guy a couple times on this podcast. I don't know how much you only listen to one.
Speaker 1:We that that guy has been brought up more than once but I love it the fabric of like that's my guy, that's me yeah, that guy stole a friend of ours's kid's bike, I don't know, three months ago. We watched him right away and we all just kind of sat there and watched it like okay, well, he's being that guy and that's just part of being from here and like I mean, the only reason I'm not doing that is because I don't.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's just a little bit of something that tells me not to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you know what I?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he didn't get that part I'll bet it feels amazing when he does it. Yeah, he's getting some, you know. Yeah, because he has to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he's stolen this poor little girl's bike. Oh my God, you know, like there it goes, like there goes the bike, and no, you don't want to engage with that guy at this moment. No, that guy at this moment, because, no, you don't know how this is going to go. You're not getting your bike back.
Speaker 2:No, and it might, and it might be he.
Speaker 1:He needs the end of rock view. He, he needs something. You know right now, for sure, and you don't want to be with that, but but again, you know it's, and I'm not meaning to be entertained by it, but these are just certain realities that this is what we grew up with our character.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:It's part of part of part of what makes santa cruz and those of us who call this place home and what's make makes us us right that you know that guy, like most the other guys, is going to die at some point and that's the trajectory. And he still doesn't feel all the love in the room for him. It's really a strange, exactly. And he knows people are taking care of him and we do. You're on one.
Speaker 2:Everybody loves him. I'm hot, yep, I'm hot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep, I get it, yeah Well, so let's transition a little bit into. You know, there's this thing with you, nick, and I believe it's something we have in common, though I think it's something you're way more practiced in.
Speaker 1:You know you had this teacher that believed in you and so you got to see the world finally. And there's a world that you see, that you get to use a lens to capture and you know, staying away from previous conversations about this, I want to more hear about your heart, because I can account to the reality, because I went to photography school and I cannot do it Like the highest form of art is film photography. There is nothing like it. You cut your chops in that spot. You know I'm married to someone who could see it. It's so fucking frustrating as a quote-unquote artist to not be able to capture what I'm seeing because I don't understand the medium. You know and as like, it's a tough medium and digital. While I love it, you know I'm a kind of depth of digital guy in my heart and soul, but I'm so grateful for this stupid little phone that fixes all the things that I can't see and can't do right. But you've lived in this space of seeing the world so uniquely and before we were podcasting we were talking about this particular spot at Rockview that is impossible to just grab a frame from, even with digital. All that kind of thing. It's impossible. I want to hear about your photography about the world that you see, what you're trying to capture about this place that brings joy to your heart and that pursuit, because you know, I don't have to ask the silly question about what drives you, because we talk about it every day when we see each other. There's this world that you see that you're trying to capture in film, that there are people and they do things and the digital is doing the work on those things. But there's an essence to your photography on those things. But there's an essence to your photography and I want to hear about what you're looking for in this town. You know whether it's filming groms. Now.
Speaker 1:You know you're trying to capture something about santa cruz that's in your heart and I'm just curious where that's driven from. You know, is it. Can I? I'll get all shrinky on you just for a second and go. You know, are you trying to capture the kid that? You see that was you. That wasn't caught. You know, on the art side it's this. You know, on the art side it's easier to talk about, like there's just the way the light works and you see it different than the other photographers around you. You know it's like what's the thing inside of you that just it's like fuck, I just want to get that, you know, because, again, the particular spot that we're talking about we're both very familiar with. It's just impossible to stay in the space to capture the thing that you're seeing. And it's so frustrating because it's just impossible to stay in the space to capture the thing that you're seeing, and it's so frustrating because it's sitting right there and you can't get it.
Speaker 2:So it's a hard, that's a. So I feel like 99 of everything I'm doing is a failure, and I don't mean that like failure, like you're yeah, suck, but more of like it's not what I was after. A lot of my wife will always be like oh, that's amazing yeah and I'll be like no, it's soft, it's blurry, there's a little thing on the boarding it. Um, at it's. The guys all had water housings that they built themselves.
Speaker 2:It was amazing they had these things and they'd stick their cameras in there and they'd go out and shoot and they'd go look at their film and you know, wouldn't go anywhere. But everyone was stoked, you know, did you see that? And then they had like a was a 16 millimeter video or whatever you call it. Yeah and uh, they would go out and shoot film and videos and get in, barreled it in black and white because they couldn't afford film or color, you know, or whatever. And I was always intrigued by this moment in the water and I just really wanted to share what it feels like to be inside of a barrel. And that was a driving force. That, again, I didn't have money, nor did I understand how to get a hold of equipment.
Speaker 2:I just wasn't in my brain to find like let's go down to the camera shop and figure it out. You know, I kept asking my dad for a camera for Christmas and he had like the higher-end camera and there was a Minolta old.
Speaker 2:Minolta you know, and it had all the bells and whistles and the dials and all the numbers and all I. I had no idea, like, what I was after, like how to like, how to attack any of that stuff. But I knew, like if I could get one barrel shot, get one barrel shot, I'd be the king, and you know so. Uh, that camera got stolen out of my truck and that was gone, and that was the end of it and I thought, well, I couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 2:Whatever, that was a good try yeah, so I was out at audio nuevo. I came back to santa cruz, I'm out on your wave of my friends at docent and he says, let's go out to on new, we'll check out the seals before they close it to the public and they have to get through a lottery system or whatever. And I said, perfect, let's go. And he brings his camera and he has this lens and it has auto focus on it. You know it's still fit, but it's, it's got auto focus on it. And then he shows me how to use one of the settings and it made it happen.
Speaker 2:You know they were garbage, all the photos were garbage, but I was able to, like you know, halfway down, press and then refocus on something else and all of a sudden, you know, things were blurry in the background and the foreground was perfectly sharp and everything was amazing. I was like, oh my gosh, this is, this is the world I'm after. I can't wait. You know, somehow I got some money together and I got the SPL water housing. Dude asked me for cash and I was like what, I'm going to send cash to LA to get a water housing, like from some guy that just, you know, it's kind of a gruff on the phone. Yeah, I'm sending my check. He was pissed here's your cash.
Speaker 1:When you get to the bank, let them give you the cash so I got this.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, I was hanging out with um. I was hanging out with ruben ruiz, okay, who I think is a phenomenal photographer. Did not know that about him phenomenal.
Speaker 2:And he photographed the dark side, andy roy shooting a needle in his eye with heroin. Yeah, and I thought that's not the avenue I want to deal with, but that's rad that he's doing that. Yeah, like that's santa cruz to me, like there's still that part of me that still believes that that dirty underbelly is the heart of santa cruz. And andy roy was amazing right ripping skater. So he is. I mean, that is all part of it, it's all part of the game. So I was like, as a boogie boarder, I'm nobody. As a photographer, I might. I might be able to get into this community a little different. So that was part of my driving force. Um, still, I mean kind of lame that I had to have that thought in my brain, cause that was it. Kind of bothers me that I have that thought in my brain, I get it. It kind of makes me sad, I get it. Um, so the the drive was part of being accepted, part of being part of the culture, since I've not accepted as a bodyboarder. Um, but I really just wanted to shoot that wave and see it exploding around me, surfer or not, and um, so I I chased that, I went out there and I shot a shot and um, so I chased that. I went out there and I shot a shot, a shot, a shot. I've actually bought a hundred rolls of expired film that came out, all kinds of colors, but I just wanted to shoot and I didn't have any money. It cost a lot of money to develop film back then, you know, and to buy a film back then was expensive and I didn't have any money. I was, I was just um, chasing it that the cheapest way I could. I bought the cheapest equipment. I got an a2. Ruben said get the a2, yeah, sick camera. And that's what he was shooting with more coy and those guys and, uh, I thought, all right, I'll get the a2. And you got to buy a battery and the battery goes dead if you don't turn the camera off. You know, that cost me money because I forget to turn the camera off. Um, so I that costs me money Cause I forget to turn the camera off. So I shot that.
Speaker 2:I shot that thing in the water, you know, and all of a sudden guys were calling me, you know, and people wanted to get shots. But I didn't know how to deal with the magazines, I didn't know how to deal with the companies, you know, and Repol will help me a little bit and, um, I sold a couple of things to Billabong and I did some work with a couple of magazines and I got some stuff in Brazil from Andre and um, you know, and I felt like that's awesome but it didn't fill my soul, you know. It just more felt like we're, we're, we're. I'm kind of moving forward, but there was a lot of stuff that, within the photographer world, that was, you know, we know what that is and I don't even need to say that. So, but it hurt me and it hurt me and and, and, as much as I wish it didn't, much I have stronger. I wish I was tougher, meaner, I'm not. Yeah, and it hurt me, yeah, and it frustrated me and it, um, it turned me away and I started shooting four by five in landscape, doing landscape work, and four by five is the old camera with the thing over your head, and you, you, uh, put the box in, expose the film, turn it over, underexpose it a little bit, so you get two shots for one shot to make sure you got the right shot.
Speaker 2:And then it costs, costs, you know, two dollars to to pay for each shot. So again, money, but I I loved being in there, I loved being inside of that. I'd be at yosemite at the falls, sunset coming over. I'm on a slow exposure. I want the water to just move all over the place but be super silky, and I knew I had highlights that were super bright and I would use an ND filter and soften the highlights and I'd come out and there would be about 30 people standing around me and they'd go. What are you doing? And I'd go. I don't know.
Speaker 2:But I'm trying, but I'm having fun and it feels really good. Yeah, I mean it feels it felt really good and it made my it, it made my, my, my stomach comfortable. You know, when I was out shooting and looking at the world, I was, I was at peace. And when I was shooting surf, I was not at peace and um, so I started to chase that for a while and I I really loved being out there. I went all over the Southwest um, dragged my wife.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, just one more shot, just one more shot, just one more shot, just one more shot. Look at the sun, look at the way the light's coming down. Oh, my gosh and um. You know and I had nothing to do with the photos there's they're not going anywhere. I'm not gonna put him in a submission somewhere, yeah, and I started to just be like I'm over this. This I like it. I did portraits, I did weddings. I'm over this. It's not feeding my soul anymore. And I decided, well, maybe I'm just going to be a worker bee and not even think about it. And that was actually freeing, because it allowed me to allow me to just turn that part of my, my brain, off and again enjoy more of what is in front of me than trying to be the next ansel adams or something. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And I'm not, I definitely don't know, I get it all you know I hate that crap. It's so much welcome to santa cru. I love that, but I hate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. You know, the recognition is not necessarily the important part, no, no, it's the. You know, when I pull a photo off and I look on the screen and I know it's going to print, well, after a little bit of adjustment, that feels really good in my stomach. So there are many, many, many, many, many days where I go out and I shoot and I just can't see it. I have no idea. I'm blind, you know, and that's because there's life, yeah, life's in the way and I can't see.
Speaker 2:I tell a lot of people that that go on workshops, because workshops you're actually completely immersed in photography, in nature, in the thing that you're shooting, so outside world falls off, you get some peace and then you can start to see it about the third day and I feel like we get pretty clouded and and luckily today, when I do go to shoot, I'm actually able to get there a lot faster than I used to be able to. And I also don't look for I don't look for what used to drive me, I look for the quiet, I look for the peace. Shot Ashley the other day. Ashley Lloyd, she's just surfing, she wasn't trying to get in a magazine cover, she was flailing on the takeoff she was dropping in on this wave and then making a killer turn and laughing what's wrong with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, I got another friend. That was, you know, I go just, you know, enhance your bottom turn, just enhance it, just drive that bottom turn just a little harder, you know, and it didn't happen. But I could see him trying to like, get to that bottom turn and then just smile when it didn't happen, you know, and I was like that's the moment that's important to me, didn't happen, you know, and I was like that's the moment that's important to me. It's important to see the joy that comes from this ugly thing that I grew up with yeah, yeah and it's not ugly.
Speaker 2:It's just what it was. But it's, if I told the story like I have- it's ugly partially brutal, yeah, you know, and and I don't want anything different that's a huge part of all of this. I feel like it's made me who I am right, like, how can you not be made to who you are and how do you not, you know, strive to get through it and still embrace it?
Speaker 2:but not let it rule you you know and and find who you are, which is it's hard. It's hard to wade through the shit, it's hard to wade through the lifestyle. And so today, when I'm walking down the street and there's people waving, hey, nick, they might not be my friend, but it sure feels good. Yeah, yeah, you know, and, and I feel like that's important, I don't get that anywhere else in the world and I do like going to tahoe and being anonymous. I can ski, I can be on the lift, I can talk to anybody. They don't know who I am, they don't know anything about me and and we're just talking like two people. That's amazing. Yeah, you know, there's there's no bias. Maybe there's a little bias.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's money involved yes right, but we're skiing, yeah, you know. And so I today chase this, I chase, I chase my time, I chase. That's important to me is my time, quiet time, if they're. You know, if I want to get out there and see everybody, then that's, that's okay, but that's, that's not my main goal anymore well, let's wrap this up.
Speaker 1:Just sure what I feel like I'm hearing from you. You know I don't want to put words in your mouth, but but this practice of acceptance, I think that we're both in. You know that, that. You know what does it mean to be me? You know where do I fit? How do I fit these questions that everybody's asking themselves, whether they're aware of it or not. All of our behaviors come from that, you know, in in a practical practice. It's very intriguing on my end to hear the words flowing from you this way, with these microphones, talking about the thing that's bringing you peace, and it involves a tarp over your head piece, and it involves a tarp over your head, you know, and, and just being present and seeing what you see, and and um, you know, I just interviewed Jack Acrop, I, I, I told you that before, but you know, with, with the coaching work he's doing, you know, you know, there there was an art teacher that brought this out in him.
Speaker 1:Like, like, you realize that what you're doing is art with your body. You know, and and it was really nice to hear that you know, be in that conversation of like, I didn't know that I did, I didn't know, like, know, that was my pursuit because of the competition, because of the thing that we're involved in. But this last three days since I interviewed him, sitting with that I'm an artist there also, and realizing that the deep need that I always felt inside of me was, you know, always being called an artist. You know, because I'm a hairdresser, like, I'm an artist, one every thousand haircuts. You know, I am providing a service to people. You know, and every once in a while it's like, oh yeah, I'm that guy. You know, I just did something. A while I was like, oh yeah, I'm that guy. You know I, I just did something nobody else can do for this person. You know, like, and that's. You know it's good to be driven that way. You know it certainly made me plenty of money.
Speaker 1:You know, not accepting most of my work. You know it's it's. You know it employs well, how's that? But you know, I never really interpreted art through hair. It was always I tried to do it through life, but I had never thought of surfing as art.
Speaker 1:You know me being myself with this thing. That is uncontrollable, but somehow I get to live in this space. And you know I kind of want to conclude what I'm thinking about you, you know, and the thing that you don't see because you're you and that's the only way you see it is that your line is different than everybody else because it's lower and it's humbler. It's had to live in a different space than those of us that are standing up four to five feet higher with our view. And so in your art we get to see what it looks like in a humble state and there's a I don't want to reflect on this portion too much, but just the reality that there's a gift in there of having been not standing straight up but seeing the thing that's really sitting underneath that they're standing on top of, and the beauty that lies in there.
Speaker 1:Like that line to me, when I look at what you do, when all the photographers are coming across my screen, right focused on this thing, there's this world under us and there's a humility in it that just lives in. You know those pictures, and to me, artist to artist, that's what feels different about your work. You know, to call one thing better than the other is taste, but it's a different view because you're looking at the same thing differently, and so there's a beauty in that, and that's what I've always appreciated about your work, is that there's just this reality that you've lived in and you see it differently, and actually it's beautiful down there too, and actually it has beautiful down there too. You know that's the, and actually it's a has a different essence, you know. And so, anyways, there's my little two cents about about what I see when I see your posts.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, nick, I truly appreciate you know you coming in here and you know, in essence, kind of baring your soul, it's a lot, no, not your lot, sorry, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not your lot. You gave a lot in the hour and a half that we sat together and I would feel selfish to take more from you in this moment. We got more there's always going to be more, and that will most likely be good stories.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, and again you know, the whole purpose of this is just to have people get to know us. You know, you keep moving here. You're wondering what that feeling is. This is that feeling. It's a component. You know, it wasn't easy. To be. From here it sounds glorious but, like you know, and again, it was hard. Everywhere I get it Like, whatever you know how it was for us was just unique, and that's really really all the only point I'm getting across. You know, it's like we're unique that way. So, thanks for coming, nick, we're lucky. Yes, all right, everybody. I uh, you know I'm trying to cue the music up and, uh, you know I'm I'm always always rough with this ending thing. But uh, anyways, nick, thanks so much for coming. Appreciate you, brother, love you.