Winter Morning

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In the mornings

when everything is still.

The sun aligns the mountains horizion.

And gently baths it’s colors on the snow.

Life starts slowly and warms the cold.

Café Hommage: Canggu's Best Ding Doctor

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This is Aki. He's a Ding Doctor in Canggu, Bali. With his team, they're fixing an average of 35 boards per day. Why? Because he's the best. And he's in Canggu.

I got to meet him after my girlfriend got ridden over while doing a Turtle Roll on her brand new 7' Mid-Length one morning on the famous break called Old Man's here on the coast of the busy Town of Canggu. Some guy smacked his fins into her board in the white water which left not only a small thing but quite an open crack in her board. Good thing it was only her Board, could as well be a body part.

It's something that happens on a daily basis many times a day when you have hundreds of enthusiasts, from beginner to intermediate to advanced surfers on the same perfect waves. No wonder the photographer at the beach didn’t act like it was a big thing when she showed the damage to him.

Back at the store where Daniela bought her Board a couple of days ago, the local Surfer who works there, whitout hesitation, recommended that we bring it to Aki for repair.

Located on the road that leads to the infamous Short Cut, Aki welcomed us with his bright white smile. With the garage looking quite busy, which they always are, we were sure it'll take at least a few days to get the job done. To our surprise, once he checked the Board, making sure it didn't soak up water and defining the damage, he said it'll be ready in a day.

Aki talks very openly and generous about the work they're doing. After learning the craft from an elderly Australian, he and his Brother opened a Surfboard Repair Shop in Kuta. After working on countless Surfboards there and building a reputation, Aki decided to part business with his Brother and moved to Canggu where he opened his Shop „Ding Repair By Aki“ four years ago.

Sticking out in all the competition is not easy. But Aki picked the best of the best to work with for his Shop. „Every single Surfboard that comes in goes through my hand. I personally check it, assign it to the right repair guy and it’s not leaving my Shop before I make sure it is 100% the best work that can be done.“ tells me Aki. There are three guys in rotation doing the simple Ding repairs, simple dents, cuts from fins or damages from being crashed on a stone shore in the shore break. He especially hired one skilled Man who is responsible for repairing the Boards that have been broken in two pieces. A job that can’t properly be done by everybody, as there shouldn’t be any indifferences in weight from the original, unbroken Board.

Same goes with the painting and finishing. Boards, like my Girlfriends, that have a beautiful, distinguished color leave the store almost without any visible spot of where it was repainted.

„You can learn a lot of things online nowadays.“ says Aki. „And there are a lot of people repairing Surfboards at the lowest cost possible. But it’s not as easy as it might seem on a youtube Video. To repair Surfboards without compromising a weight difference or any optical indifferences take a lot of work and a lot of finesse and requires a lot of experience. We want to make sure, you’ll love your Surfboard as much when it leaves our Shop as you loved it when you first hold it in your Hand before it was damaged.“

With that being said we left Aki’s repair Shop. My Girlfriend holding her beloved Orange glowing Channel Island Surfboard in her hands, not believing how good of a job Aki and his Team were able to do.

Canggu, 29.03.2024

New Wave Up Mag contribution & the importance of Print.

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Every once in a while I’m honored to be allowed to contribute Photographs or a Story, or both, to the Wave Up Magazine. The only remaining Surf Magazine that’s still available in Print. In times where everything seems exclusively available digitally it’s not to take for granted that a is Magazine still published in the form of print, let alone a Surf Magazine from Switzerland where all Surfer are landlocked.

Not being a fan of reading digitally myself I appreciate a printed Magazine more than ever. But as I just learned, there seems to be an upcoming trend on the horizon as more and more people want to abandon their phones in their free time and are looking to put some more time into something with a little more substance to grab, so to say.

A New York Times Article that’s been recently published states that high-end print Magazines are thriving. Same as it was the case when Vinyls made their comeback and stayed, more as a niche but still the sells picking up every year.

Here’s the whole article on how “In a digital age, high-end outdoors magazines are thriving in print” - although only in digital form… Read here.

Wave Up Magazine #38 is out now and available HERE.

Broken Artists Collective

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Over the course of two years, we talked about creating some kind of space for our little circle of creative individuals that would help us to reach more people. Turns out it's gotta be a digital space as no one can afford to rent a store or gallery (yet). So here it is: www.broken-artists.com

Starting with a tight range of photography & graphic illustration prints, custom made silver Jewellery, a local Hatmaker, and Ayurvedic Products supported by online classes, the Broken Artists Collective features the work from Momo Frei, Raphael Gurtner, Milu Hatmaker, Laura Burns and myself. Looking to be joined for other Artists in the near future we think we have something exciting going on.

Check it our here!

A Little Poem Of Love

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A blessing or a fraud,
that’s what runs the questions of my heart.

Are we long gone?
Or just beginning, where should we start?

A yellow rose or black abyss.
All confidence, a close miss.

The lips so red, the soul so tight.
It hurts the dark into starry night.

Let me sink into that abyss.
All I long for, is one last kiss.

 

Writing Journey Update

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A different current in improving writing:

The wind blows gently on my neck through the open window space behind me.

With a little bad conscience shadowing my self I had to admit I have failed regarding the goal to write everyday for 365 days. It’s a goal I’ve set for myself and myself only. Which doesn’t make it any easier to let it go.

How come? So first and foremost I love to spend some day not touching a Computer, Laptop or sometimes even take a day off my phone. It gives me a certain calm of mind and mostly a push of creativity through resting and recovering. Does that mean I don’t write anything? Mostly not. As much as the idea of putting something out there everyday appeals to me, it simply doesn’t resonate in reality. At least not in this phase of my being. I felt a certain burden over me at some days.

When I’m interested in something I wanna start to engage in it. Being interested in different kinds of Art, Photography being my first and foremost passion, I learned to reach out to people who are way more experienced and ask them for advice. Which, in terms of writing, is an opportunity I already got granted with talking to my friend and Author Daniel Allison.

Daniel is an incredible Storyteller and Writer. He was kind and offered me his support on this journey. When we sat down, having Coffee, we spoke about the process of writing. He helped me question my writing style and more importantly how to actually find my style in writing.

One of his suggestions was to think about what I want to say, to give my poems and stories some kind of place to go. Which I find is something quite hard for me to do. It is easy to start somewhere. There is always an idea popping up somewhere in the mists of my monkey mind. As thoughts flow it feels easy to write them down, arrange the words in a sense that it sounds appealing, but very hard to drive them to a certain destination.

Another recommendation of his was that I might wanna try to write longer pieces.

As with recommendations, you always have the option to adopt or repudiate. Coming at it with an open mind and, of course, appreciative of any help, I didn’t do neither but rather kept on writing while contemplating this thoughts on either I should adopt or dismiss. Don’t get me wrong, the thought of dismissal is in no way a disdain of Daniel’s advices. It simple stirred the thought that maybe, I wasn’t going for longer stories. I love to write short poems. Random words assembled by whatever comes to my through some higher consciousness. And who knows, maybe they don’t have to have a certain destination in means of an ending in each of them. I do see them more as a puzzle forming a bigger picture that will end up eventually as something whole. But the thing is, you can’t force them. They will come up when they feel like.

Neither the less, what I really found interesting in writing every day is that, to my surprise, something always popped up. Which is fascinating. I’m by no means a religious person. Only maybe if you count all kinds of Spiritualism as religious endeavor. But as I went through my morning routine, waking up, making Coffee, reading whatever Book I’m reading at the moment, always after meditating words just seemed to trickle down from the “heavens” for the lack of a better word.

So why did I fail after 32 days of swimming in heavens creative swamp? Because I wanna take Daniel’s advice and build some longer pieces through, gathered through some days before I post them on this lovely Website (referring to Substack). So I won’t stop writing everyday, if something is still revealing itself everyday, but rather learn how to form and structure then post a piece once a Week. Probably on Sunday, but don’t nail my word on that.

Writing this, I already get excited to share this next progression with you all.

Follow me on Substack to read more.

Morning Strolls

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Morning Walk through a Koh Phangan Neighborhood.

Day Twenty Eight

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Maybe we’ll meet in heaven, where God and the Buddha reside and everyone speaks the same language.

Maybe we’ll meet in heaven, were we’ll bask in liberation.

A few words from heaven had rendered all the words on earth inconsequental.*

I’m taking a draw from my cigarette and watch the smoke yild towards the sky, when all or a sudden it all comes to me.

All of what we percieve of as heaven is right here. Don’t you see?

Earth is already the place where God & the Buddha speak the same language.

It’s witnessed in life and translated in books.

We just have to open the door when we hear the knock.

*quote: Mitch Albom - Phone Call From Heaven

Week One

Why is it, that when we are sad depressed or mad we often turn away from the ones that are close?

But I feel also vulnerable sharing this with you as there is no disguise in poetry this time. Even tough some of us we never even met.

Thoughts of I tried so hard and got so far but in the end… - you heard this one, right? - are occupying my mind that is on a racetrack today. World speed record and the breaks went off.

But writing has this thing. Like talking I suppose, which I’m not very good at. A power that is liberating. A force of it’s own.

But why am I doing this? Of course, the writing thing basically and foremost to improve myself in the craft and to keep the creative juices flowing. It’s interesting also observing what ever pops up in this monkey mind of mine.

How do we get influenced by the thing we eat. Literally and Metaphorically. There’s a thin line between being influenced by things we won’t ever need only because it gets lingered in our mind, by advertising and the people behind that see the big green, and being creatively inspired by, let’s say reading a poem of watching a good movie.

As I’m only one week in this experiment of mine, I found myself provoked by a lot of essential questions I was never really faced with before on a deeper level. For one: Why publish that thing on this particular Website? Why not only keep it in my journal? Especially me, the ranting boy that’s always suspicious of everything coming out of Social Media. Don’t worry, I’m certainly not going into the discussion of Social Media. This one everybody has to figure out themselves on how to find a “healthy” way consuming it, if there even is one. But still here I am. Writing this little essay and probably will put it out on a Social Media link with the hope in the back of my head of evoking a conversation or even inspire someone at the best.

Then also why worry about it so much? If you don’t like it you don’t have to read it. With sending a link out to my Instagram Story I’m not forcing anyone to being interested in the things I do or write. Or am I?

But back to that beginning question of why most of us are more comfortable in spilling their guts to an anonymous audience than sharing our deepest thoughts with the ones we love. Well it seems pretty easy to answer after a little meditation on it. To me at least. While some people obviously can’t open themselves to an audience of strangers it seems like I’m quite more comfortable in throwing something at an audience which I will not have to explain myself afterwards because most likely, I’ll never see them again or didn’t even meet in the first place. Strange right? Realizing this is making me wanting to work on that.

And while I’ll be enhancing this aspect of my being, I will probably still be writing stuff and putting it out into the void that is the internet. Maybe one or two being will fly by on their flying Saucers and stop for a brief Coffee to read and reflect on those questions asked but only halfway answered.

This is the part of my writing experience which I feel like it’s all crap that I’m writing so I better press that “save & publish” button before I delete it all. At the end of the day the deal is just to write everyday, whatever comes to mind. Right?

Happy Sunday.

365 Days.

So this is it, the new year.

I made myself clear, I set my goal;

To write everyday from all of my heart and my soul.