excerpts from a letter to the ghetto

so ghetto rat told me a terry martin is ill story

I told him about a friend of mine

intubated on morphine drip in ICU

 

he also spoke of guys on sways who dont surf

finding fault with him riffing on kook craft jobs.

 

I wrote in part:

 

The artificially elevated in our little subculture are the same

as the media elevated in world at large. there is no one

bigger than life and the cost of admission

is casting off this mortal coil,

the body only has a limited use .

The other guys that went already can be

ignored some what as long as they aint been

close enough to touch.the wanna's,-do -be-also rans,

of the world are stretching wings they only kinda believe

they can grow.Only after they do grow these wings

will they know to shut the fuck up and fly....

this surfing from hawaii is more than

a thousand years old

our attitude of knowing shit

 at best bases itself on a fraction of knowledge

at most a hundred years old .Me at sixty ,I am amazed

at the impact reading hawaiian lore from 200 years ago.

just imagine what those old guys would think of us arguing

the fine points of alvin and the chipmunks

laying claim to chumash islands

and selling the name to some snow kook industrialist

and freighting blanks back and forth on the freeway

from north county to santa barbarito.

 

as the hyper critical kids by the fire get passed

the torch we too must become the stoic quiet old guys

nodding our heads

like taro leaves in the rain

pretending we are not

crying out loud.

yep my dad used to say it:

'' FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! ''

 

 

aloha from waipouli

...ambrose...

 

god bless us all

we are the father son

and wholly ghost.

I just looked I am 

16 posts away from 4000 posts.

hmmm.

I dont’ know Terry Martin the man. But I think we all know his influence, and he deserves our respect and prayers… for those of us inclined to do so.

I know Terry. Nicest guy in the world and a real live Human Shaping Machine.
He's ill, but I understand he's still working.  

No one here gets out alive.  

Enjoy what time you have and oh by the way, wear a hat.  

 

 

The principal issues here are tolerance and acceptance …  Most of us are still learning.

My heartfelt condolences to those who are struggling for survival!

[quote="$1"]

so ghetto rat told me a terry martin is ill story

...he also spoke of guys on sways who dont surf

finding fault with him riffing on kook craft jobs.

[/quote]

I think somebody pushing somebody's leg, brah

sorry to hear about Terry Martin

Quit saying you are sorry, put your money where your mouth is! 

http://www.terrymartinproject.com/ 

duly noted, thanks for the link

Well,  I’ve been silent on this subject for a while and now I’ve got to say something.  Terry’s not gone yet, so save the condolences, excepts of his memoirs, T-shirts, etc.   By all means contribute to his medical fund, but do it knowing that he’s still here and doing what Terry Martin does almost every single day - shaping surfboards.  I visited him Sunday afternoon and he had a glued-up balsa slab that he was cutting the rocker into.  Tomorrow he’s back in the shaping room at Hobie doing other boards. I’m still taking care of his tools like he’s going to do another 80K shapes.   He doesn’t look like he did 6 months ago, but everything else is certainly the same.  Nobody knows when any of us will check out, and I am really bothered by those assigning some time frame to my friend’s demise.  He told me today:  “Even if we could live to be 120, whatever we could hope to gain in personal skill or knowledge is nothing compared to the big picture of things.  Find something you like and are good at then strive for the very best”. 

Needed to be said and heard.

Right on Ambrose

 

"nodding our heads

 

like taro leaves in the rain

 

pretending we are not

 

crying out loud."  

 

 

 

That’s as 

 

good

 

as it

 

gets…

http://www.amazon.com/Hawaiian-Surfing-Traditions-John-Clark/dp/0824834143

 

the book .

…ambrose…