Aloha!
What a whirlwind week! Chris and I left here at 3:30 am on Tuesday to catch our flight to San Francisco and get in some of the action of day 1 of the Rip Curl "Somewhere in San Francisco" Search contest to watch some of the worlds best surfers compete for the first time in Northern California. As many of you know, I have been working with Rip Curl for about 4 years now so it was great to go out there and connect with my Rip Curl Family and enjoy a few days in the City by the Bay.
We arrived to absolutely beautiful weather, sunny, clear, warm and....waves! Some fun swell brought out some great competition as we watched day 1 and 2 down at the beach. We even were right there to watch Kelly Slater win his 11th world title (well kind of win, maybe in hi next heat, see ASP blunders) It was such an exciting day not only with the great surfers from around the world, but being there to see North Shore friends and locals Pancho Sullivan, John John Florence and Freddy P all doing there thing in San Fran!
The first night we were treated to a very cool surprise show put on by Surfrider Foundation and Rip Curl featuring Ty Segall, Kut U Up and very special surprise guests, Green Day!
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Green Day plays live at a surprise show for the Surfrider foundation and Rip Curl. November 1, 2011
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The second day, the contest was on and conditions were perfect, we had a great perspective from the scaffolding and waters edge.
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Rip Curl pro "Somewhere in San Francisco" WCT contest, November 2, 2011 |
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Great vantage point for the 2011 Rip Curl "somewhere in san francisco" WCT contest |
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Rip Curl in San Francisco with Heather Brown |
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Kelly Slater after winning his heat and due to an ASP blunder, thinking that he just won the 2011 World Title, which will be his 11th! Sure he will clinch it in his next heat, congrats Kelly!! |
Thursday they held the Grom Search and the weather was cold, rainy and windy!! With our thin blood from the Islands, we decided it was a work day, but in between, we checked out SF MOMA and a great gallery holding a really cool exhibition inspired by Wes Anderson's movies called "Bad Dads". The show will be up for a few more weeks at the Spoke Art Gallery in San Francisco. I love Wes Anderson movies so much and Life Aquatic seems to be the only movie I could watch on repeat, so this was a must see show for me.
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A small sample of the "Bad Dads" show with art inspired by Wes Anderson's movies |
Then we walked a mile to get to the best pizza in the USA and hadthe award winning Coal Fired Margheritta Pizza at Tony's in North Beach! MMMMmmmmmm!
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Tony's Pizza, North Beach San Francisco |
Then back on a plane and back home to finish up the work for my November 12, 2011 show at the Heather Brown Gallery in Tokyo! Time to paint! Mahalo and have a great weekend!