Love the Sun, Protect your Bum.

We had the pleasure of being a sponsor for the Slater Brothers Invitational in Cocoa Beach, Florida. World class professional surfers competed in both shortboarding and longboarding for the 6th annual competition. It was a weekend of fun with great waves, a sweet mini skate ramp contest, free screenings by the World Skin Cancer Foundation, and even a concert held by the one and only Donovan Frankenreiter. There was a great turnout with thousands of spectators and surfers from all around the world.

The Bums working hard!

 

Davie Awbrey took home the shortboard win!

Mark Longenecker from Endless Summer Tattoo and his talented surfboard art.

Donovan rocked the show, of course.

 Sonny had the best seat in the house!

                                               

GoBro's

Atlanta's Terrible Secret

Atlanta, Georgia ranks as one of the highest cities for child sex trafficking. This isn’t something you’ll hear about while sipping your Starbucks coffee and watching Goodmorning America. It’s also a tough subject to dig deep into, but researchers are stating that nearly 200-300 children are exploited each month in one of the nation’s largest cities.


Former Georgia Senator, Nancy Schaefer stated, “This is not to say that there are not those children in wretched situations who need to be removed. There are, and we all agree… I’m talking about those children removed from their homes, intentionally, for profit. Children are seized, unnecessarily, from their families, due to the federal aid created in 1974 entitled ‘The Adoption and Safe Families Act.’ It offers financial incentives to the states that increase adoption numbers. To receive the adoption incentives, or bonuses, local Child Protective Services (CPS) must have more children, and more merchandise to sell.” Children are being placed in foster homes with strangers, or placed in a mental health facility and medic aided, and usually against their parents’ wishes. Parents are being victimized by the system, a system that makes more profit for holding children longer, and bonuses for not returning children to their parents. This is abusive power, and it is a growing criminal and political phenomenon that is spreading across the globe.

CPS is targeting poor families for their children. Believing that their children are not raised appropriately compared to richer families. They don’t have the wealth to hire an attorney or fight the system. Being poor shouldn’t allow the government to steal your kids. It had been reported that 6 times as many children die in foster care than in the general public. Once a child is ‘legally kidnapped ’and placed in ‘official safety,’ the child is far more likely to suffer abuse including sexual molestation, or rape.

Parents are being trapped in the system while their children suffer a threat of ‘legal’ torture. Schaefer also stated, “After having worked in this arena for several years, I do not believe that a single child comes out whole, after having been in this system. Many foster children make up the homeless population of today.”

How is it that a program so many believe are benefiting this world could really be killing us softly? CPS isn’t a corporation dedicated to helping or caring, it’s a government business that’s acting out on poor families and abusing our children of today.

I relayed my research with friends and families, and have found not one person that had the slightest inclination that something this corrupt was happening in our very own country. Sure, they’ve heard about similar situations in Europe or Africa maybe, but not even the slightest clue that our neighboring state was one of the largest in these cruel acts of separating families, and for money.

Child Protective Services and Juvenile Courts can always hide behind a confidentiality clause in order to protect their decisions and keep the funds flowing. There are no public records for people to dig further into. Children are taken away, and some parents will never contact their own children again, all because the government ensures that they are ‘in better hands.’ There is no incentive for social workers to return children to their parents quickly after taking them, or else they won’t receive as high of income or bonuses.

How can we better this system and keep it from continuing its corrupt ways? Should the government be auditing these cases and further investigating where these children are being sent off to? Are there detailed screenings for these foster homes? What tests are in affect proving that children are in better hands with strangers rather than their own parents? Something needs to be done, and people need to be aware of the evil are government is involved in.

Quitcotine.

Quitting cigarettes is easy; I’ve done it a hundred times!


But I’ve always fell right back into that nicotine cobweb. What is it about these little white paper straws that keep you wanting more and more? I’m sure you’ve never heard this before, but apparently they’re bad for you. Someone just told me for that for the first time.

All jokes aside, I decided if I started smoking at the beginning of my college career, I would quit this habit by the end of my school years, and time is closing in. Could I really stop this disgusting habit, or was it going to be another failed attempt for the millionth time? Yes! I can, I’m going to, I need to… or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Cigarettes all started my freshman year. My friends and I would lounge outside our dorm stoop, sip on our nicotine straws, talk about how hard our classes were, how to get beer for the night, and where the nearest party was at. My 18th birthday was a week into school, and I was convinced to purchase my first pack of lung killers. Soon came smoke breaks after classes, then another after eating, one while driving, one more after a long hot-date, then another and another, more and more until… (Brace Yourselves Mom and Dad)… I was defined as a cigarette smoker.

But all this needed to stop. Half a pack one day, then a full pack another day. Then I was broke and craving. Did I really fall into this tobacco corporation crap trap? I did, and I was kicking myself in the ass for it.

It’s cool though. I’ll quit for new-years, or maybe the summer time, or possibly for my new job, or I won’t smoke around my family. Wrong, wrong. Failure after failure. But this time I was certain. I’m quitting for good.

All day I fought the urges. Thoughts of having one were constant. I wake up, I want a cig. I fight it. Off to school. I drive, I want one. I fight it. A student offers me a smoke after a class. I HAVE to say no. I will say no. I fight it. I, for once, said no. I was proud. Dinner time. I finish eating, I want one. Just one little puff of that disgusting nicotine smoke to enter my craving lips. But no. I can’t. I fight it. I eat more. Off to rest. I need to sleep, but I still want one. I can’t fall asleep till I get JUST one. I’m going to go buy a pack. I can’t. Just fight it. My eyes get heavy. I start to dose. Dreams of that little cancer stick in between my fingers. I puff, and I puff. My dreams won’t fight it.

Next day, the urges grow simpler. I still want, but I know I can say no. I do say no. My breathing already feels healthier. I eat more and more: Sandwiches, cereal, eggnog, pistachios, and ice-cream, anything to keep my mouth, and mind distracted. But I still want, and I still fight.

This isn’t a heroic story everyone, so grab your armrest and prepare to be shocked. I fail. It’s Friday. I tell myself, it’s been a long week. I see a student, a friend, and they’re puffing away on that piece of shit I want so bad. I can’t take it. I’m stressed. I take it, I light it, and I fucking love it. The taste, the smoke, the fighting, the urges all just exhale. I love it. I taste it. I didn’t fight it. I’m ashamed.

Okay, new plan. Maybe I just won’t buy another pack. There you go! That a good idea. I mean a couple here and there isn’t going to kill me. And the whole process starts over again.

Reel 2011

Blood, Sweat and Tears.

July 2, 2010 quickly became the worst day of my life. July 2 was the day I said goodbye to my love, my passion, my dream, my skateboard.


I always considered myself to be invincible. That doesn’t mean I never got hurt, but I always got back on my feet. Hell, I’ve broken both ankles 4 times each, fractured both of my wrists twice, been stitched up more than a handful of times, and the list continues. But like I said, I always got back up, and I always returned to my skateboard.

Skateboarding was my addiction, my stress reliever, my exercise, my verb. That feeling of catching air, or hauling ass through a skate park. To me that was the best feeling in the world. I can safely say that before July 2, 2010, I went skating every single day. I spent my childhood pushing that piece of wood and wheels through my neighborhood streets, bombing every hill, or meeting up with friends to go skate our local spots, or just to ride down to the beach and check the waves. I was obsessed, and my parents hated it.

My folks can be summed up as tennis lovers. Scratch that. Tennis fanatics. They raised me from 3 yrs. old playing this silly sport, and I hated it. All I wanted to do was be with my friends, shedding more blood and breaking more bones on that gripped up piece of maple. So, after following my parent’s footsteps for 17 yrs., I moved out, started school, and could finally dedicate myself to what I truly loved.

I got a job at the local skate park and I was stoked. Dude, I was getting paid to skateboard! So from 17 on, I spent my days rushing through classes, grabbing a quick lunch, and hurrying to my skate park. I spent hours upon hours dedicating my blood, my sweat, and my bones to this sport. I got pretty good quickly and at 18, I got a sponsor.

A sponsorship is a dream come true for most kids doing extreme sports. I had become part of the Oldest City Skate Team, where we had a crew of close friends, a manager with a heart of gold, and we traveled around the state doing contests. I was never the best, but I did well and I had the most fun in my life. My popularity grew, and every skater in the community knew our team. I became close friends with many professionals in the sport, and couldn’t attend a Florida skate park without someone knowing me or having some homies to skate with. Life was grand.

Free skateboards, free shoes, free clothes, at 18 I thought I was hot shit. This continued on for a few more years, with only a few minor injuries. At 19, our town got a new skate park, with the help of a $50,000 donation from our shop owner. This became my new hangout. I worked at both the parks, making skate videos and spreading the joy of skateboarding. It was exactly what I wanted out of life, and I could have continued doing it happily for the rest of my eternity.

My dreams would soon become a nightmare. The new park was opened for about a year. I was a fresh 20yrs old with an awesome skate team, a popular skate website I helped design, and a new girlfriend. I was happy as a clam. On July 2, 2010, the girlfriend and I woke up to go and hang out at the skate park for the day. About 30 minutes in, I wanted to impress, and decided to go for a difficult trick I’d only landed a handful of times. Worst fucking idea ever.

I pushed fast into an A-frame bank ramp, feet set up for a frontside flip (a 180 kickflip) to land on the other side of the bank, covering a gap of about 5 feet. After launching in the air, everything was feeling good. I made the 180 rotation, the board was flipped, gap cleared, and I was preparing to land on the other side, my feet about to stomp the skateboard bolts. My back right foot stuck to the board, while my front left foot dangled off the side. Coming down, my left foot planted the cement, while the right foot stayed on board. My body rotated rapidly with my left foot still planted on cement, causing my whole leg to twist. I could feel the tendons and bones around my knee twist and pop, making a heinous cracking clatter. In a minute my life was turned upside down.

I tore my outside lateral meniscus, and nearly tore my entire ACL. Since July 2, I’ve tried my best to stay positive. Minus the few occasional breakdowns, I’ve managed to do so. It probably wasn’t the best idea to be involved in an extreme sport without insurance, but like I said, I thought I was invincible. A year and half has gone by since I’ve skated. It slowly gets better, and I’m able to surf and run, and for now, that makes me happy.

Doctors are surprised I’m walking, and recommend I don’t do any sports until a major surgery. But who knows? They all want to cut you up anyways. How else do they pay the bills? One thing I do know, is my skateboard and me will meet again soon enough, I’m 100% sure of that.

Media Starved

Media Starved!


Do you ever stop to think how much we are surrounded and influenced by today’s media? We live our lives not even realizing how exposed we are to all of the world’s types of mass media. Whether it’s through the television, internet, radio, newspapers, video games, or even the front of a cereal box, media has a huge impact in controlling our lives.

After journaling a normal day and realizing all the media I’m exposed to daily, it opened my eyes to the power it has in my life. I become aware of how impossible it is to go a day without music or television. How advertising encourages us to purchase products, and the amount of advertising that is sprung upon our minds daily. The internet, TV., cell phones, magazines, billboards, commercials, even text messaging, are some sources of media that we grown completely accustomed to. Americans have developed a nation completely dominated my mass media and advertising.

It seems that the more media and technology develop, the lazier we make our next generation. Everything is made more simple and easier for us daily. Remember looking in encyclopedia’s for information on your research paper? But now, it’s google this, and just get the directions off your iPhone, or don’t buy that CD, download it! As nice as it is for life to get easier each day, I feel it makes our nation lazier and dumber. For example; they actually sell peanut butter with the jelly already in it. Has America become so slothful that we can’t even do the three-step process of making a PB&J without help. Or the fact that 1 of 8 couples married last year met online. People can’t even get married anymore without the help of mass media.

Times seemed to be more peaceful in the past without the dependency of media. The fact that a week’s worth of New York Time’s contains more information than a person was to come across in the 18th century, startles me. Why have we become a nation that needs to know every little thing going on constantly? We don’t need to be aware of every political event, or Brittany Spear’s new hair cut, or the worst singers on American Idol. Hell, it’s all bullshit anyways. What we “know,” is strictly what we “hear.” Life might have been a lot simpler when they didn’t have the sources to find out every piece of news and information.

Personally, I’m so accustomed to media, that I couldn’t even go a full day without exposure to it. Like most Americans, it feels awkward to eat a meal without watching the television, or driving without listening to my music. Facebook and cell phones are my main types of communication, and a day without both made me feel antisocial. My life seemed a lot more boring without my iPod, or not being able to play video games at a friends’s house, even driving without noticing every billboard I passed.

Advertisements are literally everywhere. It’s why you buy the types of food you eat, it’s the reason you wear the clothes you like, it’s even the reason you like which beer you do. Think about how most clothes are designed now-a-ways. It’s all about the name brand. No one wears a plain white t-shirt anymore, they wear their Nike shirt, with their Hollister pants, and their vans slip-ons because of the name behind it, and the advertising. Everyone’s literally a walking billboard.

There was a lot of media I was glad to get away from. Not having my brain rot behind a TV screen felt refreshing, and actually listening to my car’s engine and not my radio was something nice and new. Although life is much simpler with the technology we have and the information we know, it still gets a little carried away at times. I would hate to be a celebrity and have media watching my every move and jump on a mistake like it’s a fat kid finding the last twinkie behind the vegetables.

I love the route technology and media moves in today, but I hope it doesn’t escalate to a lazier and more dependent society. We need to all be able to take a break from the media today, without having it drastically affect our lives like it did a little for me. It’s made to make life easier, but let’s make sure we don’t get too carried away with the easy part.

Terry Nails

“What’s the Point?” –A Look Into the Life of Rock Star Terry Nails


Local celebrity, Terry Nails, has lived the Hollywood rock star life for over 50 years. His life has ranged from being a professional, Guinness record-holding skateboarder, to being a rock legend playing with bands and artists like Tommy Tutone, The Pointer Sisters, Ozzy Osbourne, Steve Jones, and even Eddie Money. Nails sits down for an interview, shares some wild stories, and gives some advice to rising young adults and college students.

Nails grew up on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada. His family traveled a lot between Nevada and California, which gave Nails the chance to get into the early skate and surf scene. His brother and him would go to the nearby skate rink, rent a pair of roller skates, and then run out the backdoor with them. They used the steel wheels from these roller skates to nail into pieces of wood to skateboard on, trying to emulate surfing movements on the concrete. As he progressed in the skateboarding profession, he got to skate with concrete legends like Tony Alva, Jay Adams, and even Stacy Peralta, all members of the Zephyr Skate Team in Dog town, California in the early 1960s. Nails even went on to hold a Guinness World Record for fastest land-speed on a skateboard at 55 mph. Unfortunately, his record was succeeded shortly after a year.

His dad was a successful jazz musician and member of the band The Four Freshman. He had Nails taking piano and guitar lessons as early as three years old. For awhile he lived across the street from one of the guitar players in Big brother, James Gurley, and Gurley transformed Nails into a bass player. “Guitar players are like spoons players. They’re a dime a dozen. Everybody needs a bass player and there are not many good bass players. You actually play like a bass player,” said Gurley.

At this time in his life, Nails was living in San Francisco by himself, had just got done touring with the Grateful Dead as a roadie. He even went on to live with the Dead on a ranch for a little over a year. Music became his life. Shortly, he started playing bass for Tommy Tutone and manning the bass for musicians as varied as Ozzy Osbourne, The Pointer Sisters, and Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols. Rachel Bardin, writer and photographer from the Drift Magazine, said “Terry Nails was the guts of skateboarding, surfing, and rock and roll.”

Nails has been doing his own radio show, The Big Surf Show, at Flagler College’s Radio Station 88.5 WFCF in St. Augustine, Floirda, for a little over seven years now. He works part time at The Surf Station, also in St. Augustine, selling surfboard after surfboard for owner, Tory Strange. Strange said “Terry’s been a great employee here for eight years, and has sold more boards that any other employee I’ve had. He’s a fantastic friend, a stylish surfer, and a thrill to have working at the shop. He’s jamming”

I asked Nails what advice he would give to the upcoming generations, and he had quite a heavy input.

Boshart (Reporter for Flagler College)- “Is there anything you would want to suggest to college students, or young adults wanting to go out and make a name for themselves?”

Nails- “Well, everyone’s got their own life, do what you’re going to do with it. If you feel like you really need to do exactly what society says to do, then maybe that’s your path, but mine’s never been that, you know? What do you want to do? You’ve only got this one time, only one life, you don’t have anything else. Are you going to go and do all this work, work that you don’t want to do, and work until you retire? What’s the point? How many people do you know that worked really, really hard, saved all this money, and lost their asses? None of them are able to do anything they wanted to do. Screw it. Are you going to play by those rules again? You got to make the rules as you go. You know what the definition of insanity is? It’s repeating the same action over and over again, and expecting different results. That’s insanity to me. I’ve seen so many people that just sold their lives, down the river so-to-speak, to get to retirement and they either got fired just before, so they didn’t get their retirement, or they died right after that. If you’re going to enjoy life, go out and have the adventure now, while you can. This is just me, it’s who I am.”

College Financial Crisis...

Student loans, Financial Aid, Bright Futures, and Parent Plus loans... How do you choose to put yourself in debt?
In 2009, the New York Times reported that college students on average have $24,000 worth of debt by the time they graduate. With the job market plunging, a recession still in affect, and loan interest rates rising, what are college graduates going to do with this huge chunk of change missing from their wallets.
Nick Anderson, a senior at Flagler College, was all set up for his final semester, or at least he thought. Two days before classes start for Nick, Flagler financial aid calls to inform him he hasn't qualified for financial aid, and will not be starting classes this semester. In fact, if he was to even walk in a classroom on the first day of school, he would be charged the full amount ($7,000 give or take) and be forced to pay it. Nick's life went from preparing for a final semester, to dealing with a financial crisis. Why didn't the financial aid office informe him on the matter earlier? "It would of been nice to know that my financial aid wasn't set up in the summertime, but instead they call me 2 days before my first class, informing me that I can't attend, and if I did I would be charged the full amount, without aid, whether I decided to stay or not. So now, I'm working and staying in town, waiting for the spring semester. I'll make sure my finances are set up correctly this time around."
Who's fault is it really? Nick should of been more organized for his final semester, but then again the school should be calling and informing Nick of the problems at hand. "They already have about $46,000 from me," said Anderson, "the least they could of done was called me in August to help set up my account, an account I had no idea wasn't already set to go."

Blah

Technology is making this country lazy(ier).
Google this, wiki that. Hey! Be my friend on facebook! The shortcuts of life.
M.T. Anderson is the author of a futuristic book, feed, where the world has taken it upon itself to place micro computer chips into the back of everyone's brain. No need for computers, cellphones, not even malls. Everything you need is in the blink of an eye, or the strike of  brain nerve. Banner ads everytime you blink, online shopping just a thought away, who needs to even speak anymore? Because everyones online on chat.
I love the route technology is going, but I'm also afraid it will make us dull and inattentive (well maybe not to our iPhones).
Don't get caught up in this tech web, and forget about the means to life.
Deleting facebook, forgetting your cellphone, climbing a mountain and camping for a couple days wouldn't kill you would it?
73% of America might says yes.

Surf Camp Photos Crescent Beach 7/11-7/15