Prue Jeffries in Mexico. Photo by Tiffany Morgan.

Once again, technically the next few messages will not be Down South Perspectives. Partially due to my Lyme disease problem and partially for ‘business’ reasons, I’m back at Montauk, from my six months in Mexico.

Can’t seem to shake the damn Lyme.

Symptoms include mental fatigue and the inability to concentrate. Sort of a bummer for a writer. Or a filmmaker.

The film I was making went on the back burner some time in March, a month wherein I was hardly able to even surf, let alone produce a world-shaking cinematic opus. Tentatively titled Patterns; Not Exactly a Surf Film, I'll be back on it in the fall, all goes well (which it frequently does not).

My dearth of DSPs since my birthday video, same problem. Lyme.

I've got to ease my way back, to the film production, writing, you name it. Some days, like today, I'm more or less okay. Yesterday I was flat on my back, like I was for weeks in Mexico – watching near perfect waves roll in from my balcony, unable to partake.

Aside from the fatigue of Lyme, another reason it took me so long to sit down and write this is that I've accumulated a lot to say over the last few months in Mexico. An embarrassment of riches kind of thing. Don't know where to start kind of thing.

Like some very interesting people I met down there.

Thomas Campbell and his wife Tiffany, for example. Thomas, you might recall, is the filmmaker behind The Seedling and Sprout.

If you're hard core about wave riding and/or just want to add to your library a couple surf films that are special, click here and treat yourself to The Seedling and Sprout.

Thomas's new film, The Present, will be out soon. I'll keep you informed as to its release date.

Kassia Meador on the nose in Mexico. Photo by Tiffany Campbell.

Tiffany was in the midst of making her own film, Dear and Yonder, An Ocean Odyssey of the Female Kind. (The Campbells seem to have a way with titles.) Among the surfers filmed just off my balcony at the point were Kassia Meador and Prue Jeffries (I know them both from Costa Rica and Montauk).

I just loved watching certain egomaniacal male surfers watch with tongues hanging as Prue and Kassia defined style and grace in the water. (Being partial to the longboard approach: I can and did watch Kassia surf all day.)

More to come on this one too.

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My writing seems off, simpleminded as this stuff is. I'm staring at the screen a lot, trying to remember what I want to say. Upsetting. Damn Lyme. Speaking of which: here are some portraits Thomas did of my skinny ass. The Lymes-driven loss of weight may be good for my noseriding, but I'll tell you, it ain't good for much else.

Another interesting character I met in Mexico is James Fulbright, the man behind the Tanker Wake Surfing Phenom down in Tex-ass. His film, Miles to Surf, is unique in the surf film genre in that… there's no surf in it.

That's a warning to you single-(and simple) minded groms. Miles to Surf is about dedication and stoke and about The Life.

I didn't ask James about this, but the title, I strongly suspect, is taken from Robert Frost's Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, which ends thus:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Let's all hope we have miles to surf before we sleep…

Actually, there are plenty of waves in the flick, just no… surf. Hey, trust me on this. Check out Miles to Surf.

More or less the same subject (stoke and dedication in the face of a less-than-perfect surf environment) : Here's a portrait of the surf culture of Rockaway, New York City, by photographer Justin Jay.

One last thing and I hope it's not too self-indulgent; I hope I'm not off base in assuming you'll be interested.

I recently got an email from a young guy named Andrew Contrino. Part of it was pretty much just a nice fan letter; always makes my day. But then he wrote about his best friend, a kid named Jeff Korba….

…my best friend died in November in a car crash. He was nineteen. He introduced me to surfing, marijuana, and your books.... (h)e said a few months before he passed away," I hope Andrew knows he's my best friend... We're like Allan and Christopher." … (l)ast
week I was in his bedroom and found a letter about how he dreamed of buying property from you and creating his own place in Pavones. Unfortunately his life was cut short. His father was the keyboard player for a long while in Hall and Oates and music was in his bones. In addition to being a surfer he was an incredible drummer. A friend is making a documentary about him, and some clips can be found on youtube.com…

Sincerly,
Andrew Contrino

PS, sorry for the length, huge fan letter
PPS, if you're interested, attached is a picture of jeff getting barreled in costa rica, possibly at witch's rock

Interesting photo. There's something… ethereal about it, I think.

So I went and looked at the videos on YouTube. I dunno, but I think there was (is) something special about this young guy, Jeff Korba.

Check out one of the videos at YouTube.

I wrote Andrew back and sent him to the link on my site with the story of my best friend Donnie, who was killed in Vietnam. I did this because of my theory that people who have passed away are never really gone as long as they live in our memory. If you watched the Jeff Korba video, you brought Jeff back a little bit…

I'll be in touch.

Allan

Oh hey. Speaking of old and best friends, “Christopher,” aka Captain Zero, real name Patrick was profiled in… what else?... High Times magazine, July issue. If you missed it, part of it is online here.

My old buddy threw me under the bus here and there, and virtually none of the ‘facts' about me are true, but god bless him, he's hanging in. (I of course did give him money, not that I owed him any; but the funniest paragraph is the description of how I bombarded Sean Penn with ‘unreasonable demands.' You know, like maybe he should read the screenplay he's ‘producing.')