YONDER BREAKS

Los Angles is on fire right now. I'm sure you've seen it on the news. We have fires all the time, but this one seems worse, and a little out of season actually (we have a "fire season" in California, believe it or not). I went to work two days ago to find this as I skated in: The first day of the Malibu fire And then as I worked, I watched the fires -- like actually saw flames that must have been several stories tall, because they were about twenty miles away -- flare up like dragon heads all day long, until night looked like a volcano erupting: On the second day of it, a friend at work said, "All it would take is a little rain to fix this," and he's right. So why doesn't God just send rain? I've certainly prayed for it, as I'm sure many also have. Instead, it's dry as a bone and windy.  Why? I work with a guy who is a staunch atheist, and we've had a few talks about God and the problems of the world. He seems pretty hung up on all t...

You may have seen my last post about my first book, All Roads Lead to Dockweiler , that's out now. (If not, please go check it out !) Well, if you've purchased the book, you've seen that it comes with a QR code for a free downloaded of my first full-length album, Golden Coast Summertime . But I also wanted to release something to celebrate the book launch, as well as a build up to the eventual public release of the Golden Coast Summertime LP, and so the week that the book came out I also released the  Sunrise at Sunset EP !  This one comes with five songs, three of which are from the upcoming album, one is a remixed version off of the album, and the last is a demo I did with my good friend Alex Barker way back in 2015. Starting off is an acoustic version of " More Beautiful ," which is the first song I ever wrote for my wife way back in 2009. Here is the official music video for the original video: Next up is " Luna ," a song I wrote about the moon th...

It's a momentous week as my first published book, All Roads Lead to Dockweiler: Devotions from the Ocean in the City of Angels , is now officially available for purchase ! It's been such a journey seeing this come to fruition, mostly thanks to my friend and fellow writer, Peter , at High Dive Publishing .  Peter and I met in film school way back in 2008. We were roommates and both one of the few folks at our semester-long program who didn't know a single other person there. We quickly bonded and formed an unintentional trio with one of our other roommates Ian, often spending our free evenings watching the latest Oscar-worthy movies (during which I would often fall asleep) and eating Little Caesars pizzas with individual half-gallons of ice cream (because we were young and could do that back then). As the years progressed, we've written films together, shot videos and produced an award-winning post-apocalyptic comedy webseries along with Ian and a few other friends. H...

Ever since my Grandfather and I would ride around running errands or going to the buffet listening to classic country music, I've been a fan. I'm talking about songs from the 40s-70s by the likes of Loretta Lynn ,  Hank Williams and Patsy Cline (which, if you follow my music, should come as no surprise given my EP Here Are Some Covers ). The other day I was watching a video of Faron Young and Willie Nelson talking about "Hello Walls," which was one my grandfather really loved (he thought it was so funny that a guy would be talking to walls). If you haven't heard it, go listen to the original, or if you're feeling lazy you can watch my cover of it here: With that song in my head, a little phrase popped up while I was cleaning the kitchen: "I don't need to be anything that I'm not...I don't need anything that I don't got." Sounds pretty country, so I decided to fill it out into a song. I also had a submission for a work competition I...

I mentioned a few posts ago about a book announcement and I am excited to relay that the day has finally come to launch the project! It's called All Roads Lead to Dockweiler: Devotions from the Ocean in the City of Angels , and it was one of the most fun things I've ever written.  Here is the story. I used to blog quite a bit about surfing. In fact, my first paid writing gig was to blog for StoreYourBoard.com , where my job was to make board storage interesting enough to read about. True to form, I wasn't content writing "Top 5 Surf Racks" and "Best Surfboard Rack for Shortboards" pieces (though I certainly wrote my share), so I always tried to tell stories alongside the content, incorporating truth and comedy with the important information. The exercise was fun, and at the time (2013-2014), surfing had become a full-blown passion of mine.  In fact, I was having so much fun writing about surfing and all of the stories and ideas that went along with it t...