The Artist







Anna's sketch rendered reality in a fashion shoot. 

 

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SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER TWO - DAY EIGHT - July 19, 2020

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  Took off down Sunset Boulevard on a hot Saturday afternoon. I was committed to getting into a lineup and fighting for some real waves, crowds be damned. It also opened up the drive a bit from our normal city-based route, passing through some sweet ravines and small canyons as the urban landscape thinned out closer to shore. Last year I wrote of this iconic, gritty surfspot: "Kook's Corner is at the place where Sunset Boulevard finishes its majestic 22-mile course from Union Station downtown to the edge of the continent. A 'Kook' is a person beginning and/or not very good. Sometime in the annals of Los Angeles surfing someone decided that this prime stretch of wave would be a training ground; that you could go there and learn without being shamed and humiliated. It's a happy spot where it is okay to suck. Not coincidentally, I have surfed it many times." When I arrived at the Pacific there were only two guys in the water. You can now go online and see what th...
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THREE SURFIN’ SAFARI SUMMERS: In the summer of 2019, three years after my wife Anna Huling-Siciliano was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, it became clear that I was losing her. Time was precious, health precarious, money short, and I decided to mine the riches of Southern California and launch a defiant series of regional Surfin’ Safaris as health-driven, couple-shared adventures out of the mausoleum our home had become. As a family we’d always been beachgoers and it seemed a safe bet for my wife who was slowly losing her mind. She could sit on a blanket - as she always had - while I surfed. Things didn't work out to be so neat and clean, but that's the story. Reporting being of a second nature to me, I concocted Facebook posts after each outing through which I intended to keep friends and family apprised of Anna’s condition, and to put them at ease about her quality of life (ie; how I was treating her). Of course, others could read the posts, which were grouped under the ti...
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SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER TWO - DAY ONE - June 11, 2020

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  TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. Yesterday was the year anniversary of Surfin' Safari Summer 2019's launch, so we dusted off three months of nonsurfing and hit Marina del Rey for a brief session. The rewards of denial and patience. Pure heaven. That's a beer there nestled betwixt backpack and board. I don't normally surf and drink, but I'm loosening up on the personal discipline. For me, things have come to appear increasingly absurd and contingent over the past few months. We can't really take time and freedom of movement (or toilet paper) for granted anymore. The value of future planning and careers and such have lost stock in my personal cosmology... ...There were people everywhere at the beach gamboling with pent-up juices. Intoxicating, sensual, contagious, I couldn't shake the feeling it was all just too good to be true.
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