The Santa who Surfs, 2022

'tis the season, you know?

Every year, around this time, select surf enthusiasts don a red wet-suit and matching board, and head into the ocean, to pose for “Surfing Santa” photos.

The Easy Reader, the Hermosa Beach based community newspaper, has been featuring a surfing Santa on its cover for 45 years now. And I’ve been part of the tradition since 2019, making videos of the shoot.

In this year’s edition, we watch Hermosa chiropractor Derek Levy make the transition, Clark Kent style, right on the street that borders Manhattan and Hermosa, from mild-mannered ordinary Joe to “Surfing Santa,” and follow him into the waves as he does his magic.

Ho ho ho, you know?

(Photo by Ray Vidal.)

Last year’s Tech Turkey pick. Illustration by Sam Graham

Tech Turkeys, 2022

Another long tradition for me is to annually award turkey awards to the worst offenders this time of the year.

In years past I gave the nod to that Go Pro drone that fell from the skies, the Samsung phone whose battery often erupted in flames, the Snapchat Spectacles funny glasses that laid an egg with the public and sometimes even the execs. Last year the biggest turkey was Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg for playing the big denial game in the wake of the whistleblower who educated the world on the Social Network’s predatory ways.

In years past, I used to have to spend a few minutes and think hard about my turkey picks. This year was just too easy. The turkey of the year, the turkey of the decade, the turkey of all time….say his name aloud with me. And then call him this year’s Ebenezer Scrooge too.

Mass firings, abusive e-mails, destroying Twitter and welcoming hate speech enthusiasts back to the platform. Need I say more? You are one big turkey Elon Musk.

Others on the list:

—Zuck returns for his ill-fated pivot into a Metaverse that few understand or could care less about.

—Apple’s Tim Cook for not dealing with a China problem that was clearly going to implode for years. Now the company will lose millions of dollars on iPhone sales due to political issues in China that are preventing phones from being made. (The iPhone 14 Pro is currently sold out through 12/28. Holiday 4th quarter bonanza? Forget about it.)

—Black Friday sales: Sale? Gimme a break. Five and ten dollars off, here and there, and many of the products supposedly discounted are in fact more expensive this year than last. (All those articles in tech publications telling you about “deals” are turkeys too. They’re just fishing for lucrative Amazon commissions.)

I ran down the turkey list this week on the Mark Thompson Show. This is the program formerly heard on KGO radio in San Francisco until the corporate knuckleheads fired the entire staff to switch to a sports gambling format. Luckily, as I wrote about a few weeks ago, Mark and co. are now thriving as a YouTube livestream and podcast. Click the above link to check it out.

ICYMI: Morning Blastoff

Last year at this time, I was preparing to load up the car and drive to Bosque Del Apache, New Mexico, to photograph the annual migration of birds that congregate there, en route to Mexico.

The morning “blastoffs” after sunrise are an incredible sight to see and the experience was amazing.

This year, I saved on gas, hotel costs and such by walking down to the beach on Thanksgiving morning, and capturing what for me was the best local blastoff I’d ever seen here. This takes nothing away from Bosque, but ICYMI, was one incredible sight as well. (And file it in the “It Pays to be Early” folder. Shot at 6:21 a.m., about 15 minutes before sunrise.)

For you photo nerds: the Thanksgiving blastoff was filmed on an iPhone 14 Pro Max, handheld, 4K at 24 frames per second, while in New Mexico, I was on a tripod mounted iPhone 13 Pro Max, also at 4K and 24 frames per second.

Reeling Through the Years

My pal Christine Blackburn, the host of the Story Worthy podcast, has a fun new one called My Life in 3 Songs, in which she interviews comedians about tunes. Specifically, the 3 songs that either changed their lives or made a major impact on them. It’s a fun listen. The episode above is extra special for me because Christine nabbed my portrait of Phil Rosenthal from Netflix’s “Somebody Feed Phil” to use for her thumbnail and I love seeing it out there. He’s munching on some chocolate chip cookies Ruth made just for him.

On the pod, Phil talks Elton John, Bruce Springsteen and more in the always entertaining episode.

I’d love to hear what three songs you’d all pick for your life soundtrack. Even though I believe that Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life,” is the best album of all time, my three picks are not from that album, they’re in fact all with guitar way up front.

What’s your picks? Let’s hear from you in the comments below! In the next post, I’ll reveal my 3 picks too.

Happy shopping!

Jeff