1.
During last week’s trip to San Francisco I camped out in the living room of my bro dj’s flat in the Outer Richmond. My spot on the floor—amid the collection of bikes, stacks of surf mags and architectural journals, the hookah, and old furniture—looked right up at Hokusai’s famous woodcut, The Great Wave at Kanagawa. It was the first thing I saw in morning and the last thing I looked at before falling asleep—the waves turned orange in the glow of the streetlights on Balboa.

Nobody was sure exactly whose poster it was. Like almost every flat in the City, there were things left behind that now simply belonged to the house. Their best guess was the brother of a former roommate who’d spent a few months here while his brother was back near the Jersey Shores lifeguarding, and having what he called “a porn-star summer.”

2.
Every trip, no matter how long, seems to suggest its own theme. That first evening in S.F. we went down to the beach to drink beers. Talk drifted from recent wave conditions to family updates, to, finally, how our brothers and damn near everyone we knew were now years into their careers.

Our friend Audi met up with us. Since we’d seen each other (goddamn, it’d been 5 years) in Baja, he’d lived for 6 months in N.Y.C., trying to make art and skateboarding; he’d spent several months in Tahiti (Teahupoo), and now he was back at his mom’s flat in the Richmond, working one day a week. “I need a job,” he said. “You don’t need a job, you need a career,” we were quick to respond.

3.
That night we went back to the house and just chilled. There were a hundred different things to look at in DJ’s room: the stacks of surfboards he’d shaped over the past couple years, the woodblock prints of hollow, grinding barrels, the roll of paper across the wall with DJ’s latest house design.

DJ had a record player on top of a coffee table he’d made out of an old surfboard. He put on various tunes—Air, the new Of Montreal, some Bollywood beats—and then we looked at pictures. There were different girls from South America, the house he used to live in in Florianopolis, this sick wavelike structure at Burning Man, some famous houses in LA he was studying, and some lofts he’d built.

We smoked for a while and just let the music ride. “Well, everything seems to be under control here, ” I finally said, or something to that effect, still looking around at the boards.

Then there was this look of pure stoke. “I’ve taken each of these boards to their limits,” he said. “And the ones I don’t ride anymore I use as coffee tables.”

4.
The next morning we headed south, checking waves as we went. Just south of Pacifica we stopped and surfed Grey Whale Cove. There was a pretty consistent right that was forming. I rode the mini-Malibu.

That afternoon we came back, ate burritos at Chino’s Taqueria (where nothing had changed, including the do-rag one of the chefs wore, in 7 years), then surfed Ocean Beach near Sloat. It was frustrating: the waves would pitch up, seem like they were just about to break, then mush out.

As we walked back to the car, DJ said, “I need a job.”

“No, you need a career.”

5.
That night we rode bikes through the City, meeting up with Audi at Zeitgeist. I’d never really had a night out on bikes before. The high calorie output dramatically increases your drinking ability.

Zeitgeist was packed with beautiful people drinking, smoking, laughing. The long tables and outdoor setting were good for conversation. Audi asked me about being married and having a kid on the way. “You start looking at things differently,” was the best I could do, forgetting the punch-line, “you start looking for a career.”

6.
The next night was the Matador Launch party at Minna St. Gallery. We took the Geary St. bus downtown, and met all kinds of beautiful people for the next several hours. I was stoked to meet this kid Miguel who’d been living with the Zapatistas and taken some incredible pictures. “Los Encapuchados,” I said to him, nodding at the photos. “Los Chingones,” he said back.

Meeting Ross, Ben, and Stu, was also a highlight—these cats with whom I’ve been carrying on email conversations for more than a year—finally getting to check in with them for real.

One of the DJ’s started playing Ragga beats and we danced for a while. Then we peeled away, one of my old moves: always go while the party is still good—take that good flow out the door with you.

7.
The Geary St. Owl was crazy. If only I could’ve captured it as a scene on film—a bunch of jump-cuts from one loud conversation to another all happening at the same time:

HOMELESS MAN [smiling at everybody and nobody]
Now that’s what I’m talking ‘bout. . . conversation.

SKATER KID [to well dressed man sitting next to him]
So, you work in the City?

TRIPPING TWEAKER KID [falling down as the bus stops]
I’m sorry I touched you.

PROSTITUE
Don’t you be lookin’ at me.

ME [drunkenly, to DJ]
I would fucking drive this bus into the ocean if this were my career.

HOMELESS MAN [leaving bus, addressing everybody]
Thank y’all. Goodnight.

8.
We got off at some all-night diner and both ordered breakfast. For whatever reason, the night had turned solemn. “If I would’ve followed the path laid out for me by my dad, I probably would’ve already had my first house by now,” DJ said. “Of course, I’m not sorry about my choice.”

9.
The next morning we got up late and hung out at Simple Pleasures (the café downstairs from the flat) most of the day. Audi came by and told us he wasn’t sure about the waves. He’d taken a picture on his cellphone / the Audi surf-cam. When he showed it to me, I told him, “I can’t tell anything from this. The waves look 1 millimeter high and crumbly.” Then Audi said, “Well let’s put it this way, it’s about 4-6 foot wind swell with just a hint of south in it, so the corners are kind of working, but really just mushy.”

10.
That day kind of melted into Monday. I had to travel that afternoon, but the morning was wide open. The entire crew that had been hanging out at the café all weekend was still hanging out. Audi suggested we start drinking beers just because it would be something different to do.

Later I went back up to the room, pulled all my stuff off the surfboard coffee table, and took one last look at The Great Wave. Besides Mt. Fuji in the background, besides the fact that the sea is stormy but the day is actually sunny, besides the fact that the air and the water form an almost perfect yin-yang symbol, what fascinated me so much was the way the fishermen all bowed down together to the waves.

And I could try and translate what that means to me and how it applies to so many of us in our careers and also to those of us living more for the waves and the beats and the art, but I don’t know how, really. I’m still working on it.

It’s my career.