JUICE

What is Juice? A tasty and refreshing beverage concocted from any variety of fruits? Cran-Ras anyone? Well, it can be, but that's not what we're talking about here.

Juice is putting your knee to the board and grabbing the rail as a 10' right comes curling over your head. Paddling out with an offshore wind behind you. You come over the swell and the salt spray comes down all around you. Juice is the 8 wave set that rolls in after everyone has been sitting on the boards for the last 20 minutes. Just like that, guys are taking off, hooting and hollering as the those big rollers come crashing through, one right after another. It's electric.

Juice is a 90' cast that turns over perfectly and drops the fly directly in the seam.  Juice is the swing cut short by the solid take of a Wild Steelie that ain't messin' around. It's wading out in the half light of dawn, pulling out line, anything could happen. And really, just the fact that you're standing there is good enough, but still, you could end up kneeling in cold water holding 24" of Steelhead until it goes thrashing out of your shaking hands.

Juice is laying high snares over solid 4-on-the-floor beats. You drop that shit, and feel all the ants running around under your scalp.

Juice is that spot in the powerband between the top of 3rd and the bottom of 4th. Let out the clutch, and that bitch just pulls.

Juice is the first kiss on the REALLY cute girl that you've been crushing on FOREVER. Enough said.


Juice is Led Zepplin's "Heartbreaker".     Those first few chords. Yeah.


Juice is letting an attacker beat you, and then bringing your stick over his head and checking his back hand so hard that he loses the ball and his stick. Coach hates this move. Sorry coach, it's Juice.

Juice is a Kirby Morgan 2700 on your head as you're cutting steel with fire underwater.

Juice is the skate sessions we used to have in the concrete drainage behind King's Supermarket. 6 or 7 guys all on the same page, all pushing each other and ourselves. Your doing stuff you never even thought of before. Some of those guys we didn't even know, but it didn't matter at all, it was just flowing. Those were the sessions that went until it got so dark we couldn't see anything. No one wanted to stop.

Juice is pure awesomeness manifesting itself in your reality. When everything is dialing in, and you are in the center of the dial. It's just fucking clicking. As a general rule of thumb, if you've got goosebumps, you've likely got Juice. Simply put, Juice is why I get out of bed in the morning. Because really, no one ever got Juice in bed. Well,  not unless that REALLY cute girl stayed over.

Tao 1

Tao can be talked about, but not the Eternal Tao.
Names can be named, but not the Eternal Name.

As the origin of heaven-and-earth, it is nameless:
As "the Mother" of all things. it is nameable.

So, as ever hidden, we should look at it's inner essence:
As always manifest, we should look at it's outer aspects.

These two flow from the same source, though diferently named;
And both are called mysteries.

The Mystery of mysteries is the Door of all essence.

Epic Steelie cures hangover

I had been working the Sandy off and on all winter, and had really only gotten into one hatchery fish, which was taken at Oxbow Park. At some point, my lack of success, and the bait chucking masses got the better of me and I had a meltdown. I posted my tales of woe to another forum, and came up with an invite from a guy that I had actually met previously to come up and fish the upper river with him. I, of course, graciously accepted. We ended up fishing the weekend of St. Patty's Day.
The morning of, I was a little off. We had been up late the night before drinking and talking Steelhead, so I was a little groggy, and I had a little headache going. Your basic hangover. There was also a strong upstream wind at the first spot we fished, and I was trying to acclimate myself to the floating mono running line I had rigged up the night before. I was finding it hard to maintain. Still, I soldiered on, fished the water completely, and then we retired for some breakfast. Dave had already taken one behind me, nymphing. Feeling a bit better after some steak, eggs, potatoes, and a spot of tea, we set out again. The second run he put me on was a dream. Slow green braids twisting around some choicely positioned boulders. If there was a fish anywhere, it was in there.
I started casting.
About ten casts in, I got tired of the dumbell eyes I was tossing and traded up in favor of a simple un-weighted Hoh Bo pattern. I resumed casting. After about about ten swings, and nine steps down, the line came tight. A second after the fish rolled on top, I heard Dave let out a deep "YEAH!!" from behind me. It was on. The first run was a killer, the fish took out at least 250 feet on me, waaaay into the backing before it finally quit. The rest as they say, is history. This is why I don't mind waiting two or three months between fish.

 

All photos by Dave Kilhefner.

Sammy Hagar is NOT OK!

I just want to get that out there right away. There is really no excuse for him, or his sound. The fact that his shit was actually released under the name "Van Halen" only compounds the issue. Seriously, what the fuck!? It's a huge problem.

The radio would actually be an alright place to hang out if it wasn't for Sammy Hagar. As it is you are constantly being ambushed by suck. You think you're getting Van Halen, and then you get this clown. It's fucking enough already!! For this reason, I have taken a vow. For the remainder of my days I must be, HAGAR FREE! No matter what the cost, I refuse to listen for more than the few seconds it takes to fly across the room and change the station, shut off, or destroy any device that would attempt to assault me. The time for gnashing teeth and wringing hands has passed. The time when grin and bear it was an acceptable answer has come and gone. This is not the place for tolerance. Because, at the end of the day, tolerance IS acceptance. And there can be no acceptance, for Sammy Hagar. Fuck him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0j0xBfRasw