Hi folks,

No DSP in several weeks; I’ve neglected you. Excuses don’t cut it but there are reasons. And there is also some good news (assuming you’re still interested in what I’m up to.)

Reasons. As many of you know, I’ve been doing a column on Surfline.com, ‘Allan Weisbecker’s Expat Journal,’ which has taken up a fair amount of writing time; of time, period. Time. Time time. 

But the main reason for my neglect, the distraction, has been my segue to a full-blown filmmaker.  My campsite on the beach in Mexico has become a production office and post-production studio, not only for the feature-length documentary (I’ve changed the title from Patterns to Water Time, with a subtitle to come) but for the various short films I have in the works, like the one included in this message – The 61st Birthday Sessions; this one was shot and edited by Daniel Carettoni of Nomad Productions. Daniel came down to shoot and to give me a crash course in Final Cut (editing software).

So the good news is that in the coming months I’ll be DSP-ing you some short films, mostly life-in-Mexico oriented, but some other themes too. It’ll be something like a year before Water Time is in the can (and shooting started over a year ago!), but meanwhile I’ll try to keep you entertained. Hang in.

As you all know, I’ve been struggling with the financing of all these films. After the pay-for-DSP fiasco I came up with the Surfline.com column idea, to drive traffic to my site and thereby sell some books and other stuff in the store. (The idea came to me via a suggestion one of you made; as I’ve said before, I’m communicating with some smart people out there. I love that.)

Something good and cool has come up regarding the films and the store. When Daniel came down he brought a mini-video cam from a company called GoPro. Tiny little sucker, the size of a cigarette pack with a water housing and some very cool mounts – you can stick the camera virtually anywhere (with the glue-down mount, I mean that literally), although the tip of my longboard is my current favorite location.

The GoPro is of amazingly high video quality for its size (5 mega-pixels); but what got me going as a filmmaker and photographer is the 170 degree super-wide angle of view.

You’ll see what I mean when you watch 61st Birthday Sessions film. The board point of view shots are matched with shots from shore; the GoPro was mounted right on the tip of my board and you have to look close to even seeit.

You can watch the film here at Banditobooks.com or at Surfline.com  as part of my current column entry. You might give the column a look; I like this week’s entry. It’s an answer to a guy who, as a comment regarding my column, wrote, ‘so if an old guy who doesn’t surf very well up and bolts, I have to read about it?’

You all know me well enough to sense that the comment became instant grist for my sarcasm mill; in my ‘reply’ I was also able to work in some stuff about the ‘surf writing’ genre. So click here for my current Surfline journal entry.

My other Journal entries are archived at Surfline, if you missed them and are interested.

But here’s the aspect that may be of immediate interest to you: The GoPro camera so knocked me out that I decided to sell it in my site store. So I wrote the company. Luckily, they’re a bunch of waterheads at GoPro (not surprising) and are all fans of In Search of Captain Zero. They not only gave me a sweetheart deal, but are sending me extra cameras as back ups; I’ve taken to using the GoPro in virtually every set up in the making of Water Time – since I usually shoot solo (apart from Honey, no assistants, no crew whatsoever), I need cutaway angles. The GoPro is perfect for this. You’ll see what I mean in upcoming short films.

Listen: This camera is so small and so indestructible that I use it as a key chain. I’m always ready to shoot! I’m a menace with this thing! There are some characters down here, they see me coming, they’re up the road in the other direction, if you get my drift.

The best pitch for the GoPro is simply to show what it can do, so, again, check out the birthday sessions film. Also notice the still shots sprinkled around this page. I shot these while writing this DSP, in about two minutes, by setting the camera to its ‘still photo, two second’ mode and just moved it around as I sat here. In this setting the little bastard shoots a frame every two seconds, keeps on going for almost 300 images (with a 2 GB card). Although for surfing I love the video mode, you can also fire up the still photo mode and get higher quality pics than you would by frame grabbing from video. (See the frame grab stills on this page, which aren’t bad either!)

I love it. Just shoot away, plug the thing into your laptop and boom! there it is, your life in super-wide angle. Keep the images you like, erase the rest, slide the card back in the camera and… more booms! (You’re always ready to document another Rodney King fiasco or false flag terror attack or your cheating mate’s escapades.)

Okay, enough pitching. I’m excited about a creative tool like this camera; I can’t help myself.

Click here to buy the GoPro (at the same price as direct from the company). Remember that you’ll be helping me make my feature documentary. And guess what? The first 100 buyers get a free Zen and Zero DVD, worth $25, plus a 2GB memory card, which is normally not included. (Many of you already have Z & Z but it does make a cool gift.)

Hold on. One more thing. How come more of you haven’t bought shaving brushes from my sorry ass?! Doncha get it? Shaving brushes save you money, are not wasteful (gels and foams pollute the atmosphere with nasty gases and the cans are extra garbage, which the planet does not need), they don’t get confiscated at airport check-in or leak all over your clothes in baggage, plus, because you use them with hot water, they work better than foams and gels. A no-brainer for less than 10 bucks.

Click here to buy a shaving brush and/or read my conspiracy theory on how its commercial demise was orchestrated by the Council on Foreign Relations.

I know, I’ve turned into a goddamn salesman, aside from a nutcase.

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John here, Allan's webguy. I'm gonna hijack a portion of this thing at this point. Sorry Allan. But since Allan's been in full-blown pitch mode for the last 1000 words or so, before he segues into Doom and Gloom I need to hop in and also say we've added some great DVDs and a new book to the Bandito store too. DVDs include two great surf films by Jason Baffa: Singlefin Yellow and One California Day, plus 2 very unique films from JBrother: Adrift and Longer (featuring some amazing glide time a-la Joel Tudor) and a book by Jamie Brisick, We Approach Our Martinis With Such High Expectations. You can see some excerpts from the book in Volume 1 of our eZine. It's an insanely creative photo journal from a well-traveled, very intelligent, creative lunatic surfer-- which is probably why we get along so well.

OK, now here's Allan again...

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Speaking of nutcases: Since my predictions for 2009 I’ve come up with a theory (extrapolated from googled articles and documents) about why the price of crude oil dropped so precipitously (as of this writing a barrel goes for less than $34).

The hint that something nasty is up has to do with the Saudis. Because of drastically reduced revenues, the Saudi’s are hurting. The country is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Good! you’re maybe thinking. Fuck ‘em!

Well, there’s a downside to this, a big one. The Saudi’s are no longer investing in U.S. Treasury Bills, T-Bills; they don’t have any money to invest.

There was a great scene in Paddy Chayefsky’s Network wherein the Ned Beatty character lectures Howard Beale about how the Arabs have taken our oil money, removed it from the economy, and now they have to put it back . Well, the situation is exactly that. But now they can’t put if back.

So the horrendous U.S. debt, i.e., the U.S. economy, sinks further and faster towards oblivion.

In fact, the situation is so serious that for the first time the Federal Reserve is now buying T-Bills, to make up for the shortfall caused by the Saudi’s bail out. (T-Bills are a primary aspect of the Ponzi [or Pyramid] Scheme that is the U.S. economy.)

Where does the Fed get the money to buy the T-Bills? They just fucking print it up! (Wouldn’t it be nice if you and I could do this? Run up our credit card bills then just go down into the basement and print the money to pay them?)

The direct result of this is – and I hope you’re ahead of me here – is… what? Right! That de facto tax called inflation! (Which means that we are buying the T-Bills, but with no interest, no equity, no nuttin’.) But not only no nuttin’, the rest of the world notices what I’ve noticed here, and what else happens? They realize that the U.S. dollar is on the verge of total collapse. This of course is self-fulfilling, since the dollar is fiat currency to begin with – it’s only worth something because people believe it is. 

Point being is that the precipitous drop in the price of crude oil is accelerating the demise of the U.S. dollar.

Here’s where I’ll lose some of you but truth is truth: None of this is happening by accident. The demise of the dollar is by design. By design of the world mega-banking  interests who want to consolidate their power to world-wide, via a one-world currency. (The North American Union, with its ‘Amero’ dollar, and which Barack Obama pretends to know nothing about, is a vital part of this plan, as was/is the European Union.)

So you’re paying less at the pump and that’s nice in theory, but the other downside to this (aside from the above effect on the dollar in the world economy) is that states get a large part of their tax revenues via the gasoline tax, which is tied to the pump price. So, as with the Saudis, our states are in the midst of a horrendous shortfall of revenues. Where will they have to go to make it up?

The Fed, of course, which will then have power over the states, as it does over the Federal Government.

A reminder: The Federal Reserve is a private consortium, a cartel of international bankers that care nothing at all about you, me, or anyone or anything except expanding their power.

The thing that’s hard to get past, but which you must get past, is the idea that these international bankers want to keep the dollar healthy. They do not. The proof of this is simply the way things are. 

So here’s a theory: The price of crude is so low because of design. It’s meant to hasten the dollar’s demise. A lot of smart people understand this. So do I.

My theory: By driving the Saudis toward bankruptcy the international bankers are further destabilizing an already shaky regime. If Saudi Arabia descends into chaos, the U.S. will have a pretext to invade and occupy the mother lode of oil reserves.

I’ll be in touch.

Allan