Johnny Versus the Lake

photo by robby staebler

Last week I was drinking some beers with my dad. It was a great day to be alive in Lakewood, Ohio. He had just gotten back from a medical center in Westlake and I am assuming his physician told him to get drunk immediately. So I'm sipping a very nice local ale when the phone rings. It's Johnny Santosuossa. And I figure he's calling because Kurt and I just filmed a segment where he works, and he wants to make sure we make him look alright. After all, dozens of people will be seeing this movie.

Or, he could just be calling because he puts in way too many hours a week at his restaurant and he is just plain sick. He probably wants to vent or something. Actually filming him at the restaurant was a point of contention at first. He was not down with the idea of being seen at work while he was feeling so negative about it. He's been missing out on a lot of waves this past year and he didn't want to be remembered at the place that was stealing his life from him. But he assured me that this was going to change.

Johnny was amped. Over excited. Aggro. He called to put me on notice that he was back. He said "Ya know Scotty there's this photo contest in TransWorld Mag. F- this stupid lake...I'm going to pull off some kind of sick maneuver on a wave that's amazing...it's gonna put your movie on the map. People will see that pic and when they find out it's in Ohio they'll be floored!"
He really said that.
Oh kay....

Now I can assure you, if this was anyone else saying this I'd be cracking up. But this is Johnny Santosuossa, and I didn't mention that he is by far the best surfer I've ever seen in my entire life. I mean it, he's a freak of nature. A Florida native who can do ridiculous things in the water, even on our smallish waves he can just rip things up. And now he is coming after the lake with a vengeance.

I mean it, he was actually sounding pissed off. He was going to take on the lake.

I promised him somebody would be there to capture whatever it was he was talking about. Either me, Kurt, Jamie, the Coast Guard or whoever would follow him and help win this contest that I'd never heard of. Sure it's crazy, but lets look at this closely.

The lake is 10,000 years old. Johnny is in his 30's. The lake is known to be cold, abusive, moody and prone to sudden violence. Johnny is a nice guy who sometimes hates his restaurant. Lake Erie has thousands of shipwrecks on the record. Johnny sometimes listens to records. The lake is 1.277 x 10^24 gallons. Johnny is a maybe 165 soak and wet. Erie is a Native American word. Santosuossa is Native Italian and difficult to spell. But i digress.

Here's the main thing, Johnny has earned some major league street cred living in Hawaii and surfing some real big waves. In fact, I'll bet that he's surfed waves far bigger than anything our shallow Lake Erie is even mathematically capable of dishing out.

Now you won't catch me bad mouthing the lake. The lake can, has and will again slap me around pretty hard. I'm afraid of it, and I don't want any part of its cold and choppy revenge. Stay tuned. Johnny is aiming to take on the lake this winter, and I don't know about you, but my money is on Johnny.
-Scott


Meet Johnny: Johnny Versus the Lake from Kurt P Vincent on Vimeo.

The Out of Place Beer Blog 1

The Out of Place Movie crew spends many hours peering over countless hours of raw footage for the movie. Their eyes get tired and their throats are easily parched. Another setting where quality hydration calls is the post-sesh parking lot or driveway or living room or local music venue. Each of these settings call for a quality adult beverage, preferably with a little kick and above all great taste.

So we thought, "Hey, let's actually let people know what we are drinking. Maybe a local brewer not to be named (GLBC) will catch on and be THE BREWER to Out of Place." Anyways, what follows is the first installment in a series about the drinks we enjoy with the hope that you will search them out and enjoy them too! I will be posting reviews of the the beers I am enjoying every week.

Butte Creek Organic Revolution XI IPA

This is the first time I have tried the high-quality IPA coming from the Chico, CA brewer. As with any IPA, the dry, hoppy taste is primary. It has a fairly high alcohol content of 8.6%, but is so subtle in strength you may not notice until it’s too late. The beer has a nice orange to amber color and is incredibly creamy for an IPA.

In two words, LOVE IT. BUY IT. DRINK IT.

I suggest you crack it open then let it sit for five minutes. This beer tastes so different and much better after warming up a bit. Drinking it chilled will mask lots of the good caramel and hoppiness. Above all, this IPA is so creamy and rich, you'd swear it was brewed to be an anniversary-type ale. Search one out today, yet do be careful. The alcohol content can sneak up on you. However, you may like this quality ale even more for that fact.

ENJOY!

chris from huntington

Chris from Huntington.
That’s the Huntington Beach in California. A spot any one of us would dream of living. A mythical place really. Even I have a framed photo of Huntington Pier in my bedroom, a perfect barreling wave in the foreground. And now this poor kid is stuck living here with his mom in Akron, aka Crackron or the A-K Rowdy. Life is over Chris, welcome to surfing hell (TM by Mikey Miller). This guy has a legit excuse to some serious depression, or so I thought. That’s why I was floored hearing Chris tell me why he was so amped about surfing here in Cleveland Ohio.

I’ll explain. It was getting dark fast. I ended up staying late at work and literally sprinted back to the rapid station. Damn, I still had to get home to retrieve my board and wetsuit. By the time I got to Edgewater the northeast winds were dying, the sun had already set, and Jamie and Luke were just staring at the dying swell from the beach. There was only one guy left out, so I paddled out like a maniac and soon it was just he and I at the break sharing some glassy three footers.

When you’re a surfer here everyone knows everyone, except I had never seen this kid before. But nobody is a stranger here for long, however, and before you knew it we were talking it up, trading some nice small waves. Hearing that he grew up surfing Huntington, I joked that he had to be suffering some major withdrawal, missing out on much better waves and the real surf culture in California. Instead he told me about how lucky he felt being able to catch waves in a place where surfing was still very much an underground thing. He said that now he knows what it must have been to be Robert August back in the 50’s and 60’s, with longboards, a friendly uncrowded lineup and some nice little waves coming through.

Wait a minute, you’re what, 17 or 18 and talking about Robert August?

Hell yeah Chris. Hell yeah. Welcome to the lineup my friend.

I just looked back toward the city, all lit up with the skyline reflecting back at us in the water. I went from being down about missing a day of surfing, to realizing just how lucky I was to be out of work and able to catch just a few waves in the near dark. This is such a different place when we can just get a little something from the lake. Even some three footers on a calm evening can make a real difference. Chris from Huntington is definitely on to something here.

taken by jamie yanak


Note: we were able to interview Chris for the Out of Place last Thursday. He was up at the lake and living in his car so he wouldn’t miss out on the storms that were coming through. Well, we did get some waves, but they never actually got any good. I’m guessing Chris didn’t care all that much.

Photos on Flickr

I just uploaded some new photos on our flickr.

This is Neal Louma in the 1970's. It is a still frame from the film.