Tag: inspiration

A NEW OUTLET

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I’ve been sitting on this post for almost a month now. For some reason I haven’t hit publish. And the reason is unknown to me.

Even with all the free time I’ve had on my hands, I still find myself having to choose what to do. You’d surely think I’d have time to do everything I wanted to with this new quarantine lifestyle. But maybe I’ve bitten off more than I can chew? See here’s the thing: they say splitting your focus into too many different lanes is counterproductive. But I would disagree. I think things that are new and fresh are going to require more focus until you hone them to the level of expertise similar to other activities. So since trying new things, I’ve devoted more time to these activities I am far less familiar with. As usual, every morning consists of a surf. Just to get it out of the way. Not that it is a chore, but getting up early and striking before winds and crowds has definitely been my wavelength as of late. Even though it might be one of the things I am most an expert in (don’t take that the wrong way), I still love to give it the time and attention it deserves. Sure, I’ve woken up at 6 for the past xxx mornings, but I’ve fully gotten used to it and even when I don’t surf I still rise fairly early. If it’s a work day, I am preoccupied until around 5 or 6. Those days are a little more boring. I can pick 1 of the things I like to do after work. I have that 2 hour window to do whatever. Then it’s eat around 8 and watch a TV show with my roommates. In bed at 10. The TV show might be looked at as wasted time, but it’s time all of us sit on the couch and shoot the shit. Sometimes we pass on it but most of the time it’s our bonding (aside from our daily sunset bike cruise). So maybe I’ll fish. Or maybe I’ll read.  Maybe I’ll cook up a beat. Maybe I’ll go on a run. Maybe I’ll work out. Maybe I’ll surf. Maybe I’ll write. Do you see where I am going with this?

It seems like I keep writing these posts saying the same thing: writing has taken the backseat. But no longer! I had mentioned in an earlier piece about a side project I have quietly been working on, and I think it’s about time to let it rip. They say you have to fail a ton of times to succeed. And this might be a shot in the dark that amounts to nothing. But the cool aspect of it is that things are cemented on the internet, and I’ll always be able to look back on it and smile. And maybe learn from the mistakes. If you don’t put yourself out there, you’ll never know what the outcome could be. So here’s a quick synopsis on my new site.

Yes, it’s another website. Why? Because why not! I love this site, and it seems like (very few) others do too! Love is a strong word, but just work with me. It’s a snapshot of my professional career and me flexing my writing chops (if I even have any to flex). If you know me, you know I really don’t like things to be about me. If it doesn’t pertain to any but me, I usually don’t talk about it. I try not to gloat or boast. I (typically) am humble and quiet. As it should be. So it only made sense to make something that wasn’t all about me. Enter: Welcome Progress. I grew up glued to some surf media outlets. What Youth, Stab, SURFING (RIP), etc. Things have surely changed as far as paper magazines and how these sites are ran, but I loved reading interviews and pieces penned about things in the surf world I was enamored by. I still read articles off sites like GQ, Pitchfork, Stab, Inherent Bummer, etc. The shift from pure surf media started happening as I grew older and also more found of writing and styles. I am definitely a surf turkey by nature, but at this point in life I like to think I am a lot more. I think just being labeled a surfer got so stale. So let’s spin from that into what Welcome Progress will be about. It’s going to have some elements of surf. That’d go under the realm of “Activity”. There is also Mindset and Everyday. It’ll just be cheeky little pieces that fit into each one of those bins (or the trash bin if it sucks). Opinionated or fabricated pieces, made easily digestible. 

But it’ll be more than just my writing. I will reach out to others and post their shit. I want to talk to some of my friends and get their opinion, because I like to think I have a pretty diverse group of friends. With varying degrees of notoriety, hustle, and intellect. Some I talk to way more than others. Some tell me a lot more than others. But that’s not the point. I only know so much. Other people know a lot more. It would be strange to let other people in on a website that was named after me, so peer work will live here. Just a whole bunch of random shit! I also tried decently hard to make it look good. I think the layout is cool and a more complete site in comparison to my current site. The homepage is a mood board, linked to @welcomeprogress. It will be embedded with art, design, surf, and anything I think is cool or fits the brand. It’s still me at the helm, so you could probably guess the vibe (if you know me). Well, that’s it. Let’s see what happens!! If you are keen to give it a look, click HERE. If you want in on it, text me or reach out on the contact page. Come one come all! There’s not much currently, but if you want give the Instagram a follow and check out the little pieces I wrote under each category. 

 

The Writer’s Block Part 2

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If I am struggling on the inspiration side, I invested in a nifty little “book” titled The Writer’s Block. I don’t particularly like leaning on this for a post, but it does offer a new challenge and spices up form my usually writing. So I opened the square up and landed here, and ended up writing the little passage below:

IMG_2873

I WISH EVERYTHING WOULD GO BACK TO NORMAL. I miss meeting new people and changing things up.

I WISH I WOULDN’T GET HUNGOVER. After not drinking much at all during quarantine and finding a night or two to hang with friends, I quickly was reminded of the wrath of hangovers. 

I WISH I COULD TOSS FULL ROTATION AIRS. They say you never get what you really want. I think airs are the coolest shit ever but I am stuck going straight. 

I WISH TATTOOS WERE FREE.They aren’t. They are actually quite expensive. 

I WISH PROBLEMS WOULDN’T EXIST. I am one of the least confrontational people out there. And I think a lot of people should follow suit. 

I WISH I COULD SEE FRIENDS AND FAMILY FROM HOME MORE. New Jersey is just too far and the flight is too expensive. 

I WISH SOME OF MY FRIENDS LIVED CLOSER. I have a lot of close friends in California that live more than an hour away. That kinda sucks. 

I WISH WRITING WAS ALWAYS EASY. Today and recently it just hasn’t been there. I guess that is what gives the satisfaction after writing something good though.

I WISH READING WAS JUST A TINY BIT MORE EXCITING. Some books are far more entertaining than others. But overall, it is just quiet and monotonous. 

I WISH I COULD CATCH A FISH EVERY TIME I WENT FISHING. Lately I’ve been on a streak of not even getting a bite. I guess it’s not called catching for a reason. 

I WISH EVERYONE WOULD TREAT EVERYONE HOW THEY WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED. The Golden Rule. It really is as simple as that.

A Year in the Review: 54 Posts Later

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rear-view-mirror-drawing-32

I’ve done a couple of these introspective and reflective pieces since the inception of this site. It might have been on New Years, my birthday, or just a time where I’ve been able to think a lot. With our current situation, everyone has a lot of time to think. And it’s not the worst thing. Sure, sometimes you get lost in a rabbit hole of reminiscing (for both positive and negative events). But overall it’s a great time to work on yourself and really get to know yourself if you are at the proper age to do so (not saying there IS a definite age in which this is attainable, but you’ll know if you are at this point in your life). On with the show.

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I started this site in the first place down and out. Unemployed and looking for jobs, I kept seeing a portfolio of work as an alternative to years of working for a copywriting firm for a lot of writing positions. That was the birth of the site. I added a work history/resume section and the writing section where all the posts would live. I wrote a handful of posts and then found myself at a promising retail position for a company I believed in (Catch Surf). Writing had then taken the backseat. Here are the quick stats: from the birth of the site to my full-time employment at Hurley (OCT18-JAN19) I wrote three posts. I clearly had just forgotten about the site and was just wrapped up enjoying the lack of stress for finally being partially employed to then fully employed. 

As I got more and more accustomed to my position at Hurley, I started taking on writing tasks to help out a coworker in the building. Writing global product copy and email marketing copy meant I was writing a lot during my typical 40 hour work week. I knew the only way to sharpen the pencil was to use a pencil sharpener. So I started writing again. Even though writing copy for NIKE and then blabbing on about going out on the town and surfing are completely different, it’s still writing.

Hell-bent on grinding out work, Sundays would be the day I decided. I would work Mon-Fri at Hurley, Saturdays at Catch Surf, and write on Sundays. But this took a little while to stick. My next post, post-employment, was February 3rd (before that was January 8th) and then radio silence until March 11th. A lot of things most likely stood in the way: laziness, hangovers, travels, good surf, you get the picture by now. 

So on April 10th, 2019, I wrote the excerpt “Return to Form.” Here’s a little blurb from it 

“I will be jotting down words and phrases on Sunday and will try to keep it as consistent as possible. I woke up before the sun came up to pen this peasant piece, sipping a nice cup of joe on my left with a bowl of oats on my right. It feels good to be back.”

Did it feel good to be back to writing? In the moment probably not. If it was a Sunday, there’s a good chance I was nursing a hangover with a coffee or had just gotten back from an AM surf. I hadn’t really found the joy back then in putting pen to paper (in reality fingers to keys). I still sometimes go in and out of it now, with just about everything I like to do. But this was the oath. I was going to write a piece a week. Of course I warned my large audience (lol) there would be no post next week because of Coachella (in the most cringy way possible [No post 4/21- I will be in the desert dancing.] I want to barf). But the roadmap was there: post something every week for a year straight.

There were mishaps. I could have told you that early on Actually just forgetting to write something (mostly due to travel or an event). Not having an idea by Sunday. Surfing all day and then just being so fried that no amount of coffee could get my brain working. That just meant 2 next week. Have no clue what to write about? Find something to draw inspo out of. Sometimes this was a hell of a lot easier than others. I won’t lie, I had some help along the way. Sometimes if a friend suggested a good idea, I ran with it. I even used some old academic papers and recycled them onto this blog. I don’t feel bad about this since if I was ever going to use this portfolio to try and score a gig, I’d want some of my Chapman Writing minor classes present (some I was actually quite proud of upon re-read). But you get the jist at this point. 52 posts in a year span. I actually ended on 54 (bonus points).

In coming full circle, there definitely were a couple of takeaways from this yearlong hajj. Obviously there’s the dedication factor. Too many Sundays I found myself either toasted from a long work week and weekend or just didn’t have the creative juices flowing. But I had to write something! That’s when I started writing when it felt right. From there I got even more lazy and just posted whenever, as long as it was in the right week window, although a handful of times I found myself posting two in one week to make up for a missed week. There’s also the styles I tried to emulate and the topics I tried to cover. While some things flowed smoothly, others were a lot more jarring and required more focus (something most times I lack a ton of). I learned what I like to write about, and how I like to write about it. Hopefully you liked it too! 

Do I think my writing has improved? Of course! You can only get better at something by practicing. Ironically enough, by the time my writing duties had waned off at work, I was more excited and fired up to write that I just kept going as a side project. I spent a little more time working on my weekly posts, drafting them and then editing them. As life always seems to work in weird ways, I find myself full circle again, with a new job title that requires quite a bit of wordsmithing. While this style of writing is far from what I write at work, writing is writing. And I find myself with more creative reigns than ever before. The only way to sharpen the pencil is with the pencil sharpener. My pencil as of late is feeling extra sharp. But now I find myself at a crossroads.

I’ve always wanted a creative platform to express different things. This site has really gone all sorts of angles and directions as far as topic and execution. One week I could be talking about how to cure a hangover and the next I could be personally reflecting on (somewhat) serious topics. From surfing to coffee to recommending music and everywhere in between, it’s a little too scattered for my liking. While I never really wanted to hone in on one single idea or style (since I wanted to flex all areas of my writing), I think now is the time to get it dialed and figure out what’s next. While I don’t see myself completely stopping writing on this platform,  I know it’s not going to be as frequent. And that’s fine. If you’ve kept up, you know probably more about me than I’d like. I tried to let people in but not expose too much. I do like to use this as a place to vent sometimes, but it’s boring when it’s all about me. So moving forward, I am going to take a stab and go and sit on the ledge, looking down at the future. Next post on this site is going to expand upon that.

Quarantine Quintuplets

Posted on Posted in Life Happenings, Quarantine Tings, Recommended, Sounds in SequenceTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

Can ya believe it? Still locked down and cooped up. How quickly could the world absolutely be turned upside down. When this was first coming on, I never would have anticipated the extremes in which it has gotten to. Never in my lifetime have we had such strange and turbulent times. Where seeing friends and meeting strangers is a bad move. Going into public is frowned upon.  We are spending a lot of time with our house. Or an apartment. You might be spending time with family. Or your roommates. Or total isolation. Either way you splice it, every one of us is having our social sanity taken away, and we are unsure when it will come back (for good reason, I am no way against social distancing and quarantining). This time alone is going to grow stale quicker than it came on in the first place. Whether it’s working from home or just cruising around the crib, you might as well take some time to try new things. Yesterday, I tried this thing called “Coffee Soda”, in which I mixed cold brew with tonic water and squeezed a quarter of a lemon into it. You would surely only do that if you had been locked inside your house for 2 weeks. It actually tasted really good. As a coffee snob and coffee purist, I thought there was no way I’d like it. And that’s the point. We should be trying new things we never thought we would do in this quarantine time, simply to pass the time and maybe find new things to adore. 

Now is a good time to listen to good music. If your life were a movie (and not like IG clout-chasers saying “Yo, last night was a movie”), the pictures associated with it would grow tiresome quickly. But maybe if you put a fire soundtrack behind the monotony it could be slightly more tolerable. I imagine walking to the kettle to turn on the hot water for coffee as an example. If I sequenced that to Al Green, you would think it’s another mellow early morning. But maybe if I put it to some wild techno or heavy bass rap, you would think something different was going to happen afterwards. No matter what, the next thing that was going to happen was the grinding of the beans. But the music could make you think otherwise.

We all have our go to sounds and the music we bump on the daily, pandemic or no pandemic.  However, you might get tired of your normal wheelhouse of tunes, and be looking for something new to spice up the rotation during these quarantine times. So here is a small gift for all social distancing: I’m going to call it a 5×5. A pentagon. 5 genres and 5 songs from each genre. Maybe you’ll discover a new song you like. Maybe after listening to 5 songs, you might have a changed mind about the certain sound. Maybe you’ll still hate rap music. While there are tons of sub-genres and all that jazz (no pun intended), the 5 in this rotation are to the writers preferences: Hip-hop, Rock, Electronic, Reggae, and Blues. Hit play. Shuffling them is up to you. 

(If I can’t get the embedded player to work, here’s a list of the 25 tracks):

[Peso-A$AP Rocky, Cabin Fever-Wiz Khalifa, Murder To Excellence- Jay-Z & Kanye West, Gatti-Popsmoke & Travis Scott, Soundtrack 2 My Life-Kid Cudi, Call It What You Want-Foster The People, Up All Night-The War On Drugs, Easy Tiger-Portugal, The Man, The Longest Wave-Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lost In Yesterday-Tame Impala, Land Of Promise-Nas & Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, Sorry-SOJA, Reelin-Iration, Stone Love-Pepper, True To Myself-Ziggy Marley, Wall Fuck-Flume, Runaway (U&I)-Galantis, Happy Violence-Dada Life, The Half-DJ Snake, The City(with QuinnXCII)-Louis The Child), I’m Still in Love with You-Al Green, Cigarettes and Coffee-Otis Redding, What’s Going On-Marvin Gaye, Pusherman-Curtis Mayfield, Changes-Charles Bradley]

Quarantine Listens Pt.1

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We have a lot of time on our hands. Whether we like it or not, we are going to be stuck in the same routine for a while. Working from home, not really leaving the house, and seeing whoever you live with all day long are going to be very real circumstances for the time being (and most likely quite some time after). If you dwell on it too much, you are going to bum yourself out. Remember: it is for the greater good. The quicker we oblige to social distancing and quarantine practices, the quicker we can get out of the very funky time (hopefully). With all this free time on our hands and about a quarter of the social interactions we are used to on the daily, you need some noise to fill the gaps. Music is obviously a great choice (and that, we will be saving for pt. 2), but sometimes we need to switch it up. Ever listen to a podcast? Well, now’s the time to start. Here are some recommendations per the writers interests and biases (with duration included, as some are into short-form and others into long-form):

MUSIC

The Joe Budden Podcast (Long)

This podcast got me through transitioning from working in places that required interaction with customers to working in an office space. While I have loved all my previous and current coworkers, there are certainly times where I just need to plug in and focus to get things done. I felt often that music I was familiar with I would sing along or get easily sidetracked. Locking into a podcast of just banter was one of the best ways I could effectively get work done (at the time, this was mainly copywriting so it wouldn’t side track my word flow on docs). The Joe Budden Podcast is predominantly a music podcast, starting with roots in hip-hop but now covering most everything music related (from releases to the business to specific artists, even to Joe’s music career). The more you listen, the more you start to know about each of the characters and get the jokes that often fly under the table. In it’s evolution, they also cover current events and just about anything that makes headlines. The JBP is for sure the podcast I listen to most, and haven’t missed an episode since 217 (they are now on 334). 

Dissect (Medium)

https://open.spotify.com/show/2b025hq3gJ17tQdxS3aV43?si=jmpKwZkRTjW_MF8Wgz0sYA

This music podcast differs starkly from the JBP. It’s main contributor is Cole Cuchna, a music nerd much like myself, but he is on a completely different level. Dissect takes iconic albums and breaks them down song by song, really taking a deep dive on underlying themes and even the construction of modern music. His selection is for sure Hip-Hop based, but covers some of the most critically acclaimed albums, from KDots TPAB and DAMN to Kanye’s MBDTF. I started with the Kanye album, and by the time I was finished I would argue that MBDTF is probably the best album of the 2000s. While some of it might be a little too in depth on musical notes and history, it does feel awesome to finish a season and have a whole new understanding of an album you already loved.   

SURF

Lipped the Surfers Podcast (Short-Medium)

https://open.spotify.com/show/6QZX2yvefx8sUdIWEeDa94

The first surf podcast I really took a liking to and since I’ve I listened and enjoyed every episode. The two hosts carry the show quite well, one a more average surfer and one an ex-QS surfer turned coach. They both typically tend to have varying perspectives, but always are crushing salt lagers (beers) in unison. Whether it’s contest wrap-ups, contest previews, fantasy surf picks, or the odd guests, they have classic surf banter you and your mates have. They definitely are tapped in to surfing, and especially that coming from their homeland (Australia). It is always nice to hear from the ex-QS surfer (Cahill Bell-Warren) as he has had a wildcard spot on the CT and has grinded the QS for quite some time. Now a surf coach, it’s funny to hear him talk either ultra technical as far as surfing or aussie-slang heavy about surfs or nights out on the piss. 

L8 Night with Choccy

https://open.spotify.com/show/6zEvoIxlqCO3UUrzoz9Yfh

Guilty bias since my dad was a guest on this one (you even can here me chime in on occasion), I actually had listened to the podcast before the invite was extended. The surf world is massive, and there is a lot going on in between the CT surfers, huge corporate brands, and just the culture itself. L8 Night and Choccy do a great job highlighting the more low key but integral parts of surfing’s upbringing. Whether it’s lifelong shop owners, people who steered some of the biggest brands before buyouts, or small groups of surf-minded individuals (companies or boardrider clubs), they cover it all. Both lifelong rippers and both currently working in the industry, it doesn’t get much more core. Whether it’s surf talk, brand talk, or just about anything surrounding the sport or the industry, these guys have the inside scoop.

BONUS: The Lineup and Forerunners 

https://www.worldsurfleague.com/watch/431187/the-lineup-with-dave-prodan?playlistId=431187&s1=watch

https://www.surfline.com/series/forerunners

I really like The Lineup. For me, I am guilty of listening to them all but really only love the ones based on the guest. One thing I love about every single episode though is the lightning round: 10 questions for the guest. My favorite to hear people’s response to is best & worst person to share a session with.

Forerunners is a Surfline-powered podcast that explains wave forecasts to their perspective zones. I couldn’t put it as a favorite since it covers everywhere, and I don’t need to listen to the east coast forecast if I ain’t gonna be over there. But I do love to get the most in-depth breakdown on surf if there is a forecast that looks promising.

Perspective

YNK (Medium)

Mike Stud has always been an artist I’ve been fond of since I found him. While I do like a ton of his songs, his personality at first is what sold me. I was tipped off by a friend to check him out around sophomore/junior year of college, and then fell into the vortex of his Tourings Boring series. One of the earliest vlogs for musicians (salute Wiz Khalifa with DayToday), it follows Stud and his childhood friends in all sorts of debauchery and trouble a couple of lower to mid-20 year olds could get into. Super loose, he was a party guy. When I listened to the first episode of the pod, I realized he had definitely made a lifestyle switch. Post break-up, Mike took his time to slow down and find himself, and in the process became very spiritual. He has taken the podcast platform to interview his friend circle and beyond: fellow musicians, top-level athletes, and entrepreneurs. You can cherry pick the people who you are familiar with, watch ’em all, or listen to their friendly banter when they are sans guests and just with the Steves. 

Airplane Mode (Short) 

https://open.spotify.com/show/14Lz5tpJshLyqUV4bDSdE7

Most of the pods spotlit during this post are in the middle or on the longer side. For me, I typically like to save podcasts for longer periods of time. However, there are some bite-sized podcasts out there that really give you a bang for your buck as far as quality content in a smaller package. While one that comes to mind is the NYTimes podcast The Daily, it recently got a little too corona crazy for me to want to listen to. The GQ podcast Airplane Mode gives you easy to digest tidbits of information, coming from all sorts of different people. From trainers to artists to writers, they all cover topics that they can transfer valuable info based on experience. From 30 minutes to an hour, with the odd long form podcast in there, Airplane mode is good to just get a quick fix. And I always gotta stay true to the GQ brand. 

2 Random 1s

The Nintendads (Short-Medium)

https://open.spotify.com/show/2L0Q8ut4bEk988B7y55H9t?si=2UR80Nb_TVO8Xll7GbGa1g

Here’s some shameless self(brother)-promotion. My brother recently beat me into getting into the podcast space (more on that potential later) by starting a pod with two of his closest friends. One thing brought them together when they were younger and it’s something they all still do currently, and that one thing is their love for classic nintendo games. Enter the Nintendads, as these 3 fathers chop it up about game news, express their biases, and overall just goof around. I gotta put some respect on the brozay, as they are only getting more and more quality. While I can’t always follow the subject matter, we all grew up on nintendo games, so the nostalgia just hits home. My one beef with theirs is that there is no video to go along with (while it is understandable since they do not live near each other). Knowing how all of them are, it would be pretty good to see their facial reactions to certain topics. 

The Medium Rare Podcast (Short-Medium)

This one is my newest discovery on the podcast front. It is for sure my guilty pleasure podcast. It is no way embarrassing, but sometimes I just think to myself “why am I watching this”. It pretty much details the late-night antics and clout-driven activities between 3 close friends with money. While I am sure if me and my buddies somehow attained a nice amount of loot and a social following, we would be doing the same shit. In a nutshell, it covers girls, going out, fashion, and food. The food part is definitely what first drew me in, as it is interesting to hear their opinions about different food scenes (although it is all very high-end dining, which I won’t be partaking in anytime soon). But like I said, I got sucked in and now am playing catch up. It will act as an inspiration for when we are off quarantine and back to sending it (that’s some shit they would say). This is one I’d say is essential to watch, just because you can see how close of friends they are based on the body language and jargon between them.