"When I was a young man, I fell from social grace." "Or rather, was pushed into deep water." "At times, I found the water good, better than the land I was cut off from." "The blessings of nature were more honest and productive to the happiness than the need to conform." "And through this, I came to know my God." "Ah, the start of another beautiful morning." "The birds are chirping, whole grain muffins are baking, and 20-year-old Ryan Burch is sucking down another coffee on his way to his first surf session, an activity he does six hours daily, four hours in the winter and eight hours in the summer," "when the days are longer." "When Ryan isn't surfing, he's eating slices of spicy chicken pizza and washing it down with Mountain Dew, before going to work at the surf shop across the train tracks from the apartment he shares with his mom." "Ryan's occupational mainstay is selling retro fishes to beginners for five-dollar commissions." "However, at 8:00 pm, commonly referred to as Board Bag Hour by Hansen's employees, he spends the majority of his time talking with enthusiastic novices, asking surfing questions they're too embarrassed to pose" "during normal business hours, before inexplicably buying a new board bag." "Down the street from Ryan, in the yard of a big pink house built in 1887, lives Cyrus Sutton." "Living in his van for the better part of three years," "Cyrus loves the simple life and has found comfort through being alone in nature." "When he isn't surfing, working in his wood shop or stumbling through clich songs on his ukulele, he scraps by with shooting and editing gigs, and installing organic gardens in people's backyards." "Cyrus and Ryan are stoked and broke." "Would you say goodbye if I get too high." "Will you say goodbye when I get too high." "Would you say hello if I get too low." "Will you say hello when I get too low." "Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh," "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh." "Will my call go through when it's after two." "Can I talk to you will my call go through." "Did I say too much, oh, now you're out of touch." "From an open window you see me down below." "And I think that you should know that it is so hard to let go." "It is so hard to let go." "Having spent years hauling loads of film gear behind corporately endorsed surf athletes to far flying destinations, in search of perfect waves to stir the collective lusts of overworked surfers," "Cyrus decided to make a web site to hopefully appeal to this same demographic, but didn't realize how draining satisfying our insatiable appetites for online entertainment can be." "So while soaking up his daily dose of Vitamin D," "Cyrus realized a documentary film was the perfect way to shamelessly self promote a surf block, while satisfying his need for the surf trip he couldn't afford." "Keenly aware of his limited shredding ability, he asked Ryan if he'd add his Marathon Man surf skills to his staycation safari epic." "After thinking about all the money he could make from the potential photo incentives from his sponsors, he agreed, and then began to prepare for their eight-day, 30-mile walk and roll for San Diego, California." "La la la la la la la la la la la la." "La la la la la la la la la la la la." "La la la la la la la la la la la la." "La la la la la la la la la la la la." "La la la la la la la la." "La la la la la la la la la." "La la la la la." "La la la la la la la la la." "La la la la." "La la la la la la la la la la la la." "Much of your income will come from peddling some items that give people a reason to give you money." "Neighbors' trees with fruit hanging outside their property are fair game." "Also, plants that appeal to hippies' cosmic inter-search are worth their weight in gold." "In the southern California region, white sage is the ticket." "La la la la la la la la la." "La la la la la." "La la la la la la la la la." "La la la la la." "The coastline from Encinitas to the Sunset Cliffs is home to a largely upper-middle class population and features a variety of beach and reef breaks offering waves of all shapes and sizes." "La la la la la la la la la la la la." "La la la la la la la." "There are often restaurants and churches in your local town that give away dinners out the back for those in need." "Ask your local homeless person for tips on finding these." "Campgrounds are excellent places to score a free accommodation." "Look for younger families with license plates from Colorado and other mountainous states, for they tend to be adventurous, quiet, and highly likely to make you a pancake in the morning." "Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do." "Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do," "Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do." "This is how to be." "This is all I see." "This is everyday with no place to stay." "This is what I fear and what I hold dear." "This is all I know and the way I go." "On the road with its awesome view." "You're the one that I run to." "And when I'm all alone you're my home away from home." "Get lost again." "Being found and then." "When the stars align." "Was it just my mind." "When I've had enough and seen the sky low." "You're so far away on some distant wave." "On my own with my things to do." "You're the one that I come to." "Take care in constructing your mode of transportation." "Some people will just give you money, simply because they're psyched on your rig." "Yeah, like I said, man, you can do it." "Thanks, dude." "It's all yours, man." "This is a stoke." "I wish I could give you more, but I didn't go to the bank today." "No worries." "I just take money out of the bank because I worked for, like," "15 years in Vegas building swimming pools." "So, it was just money all over, and it was great, but I had to sacrifice." "I didn't surf." "Now I'm back at the beach." "Now I'm doing it the way I want to do it." "But you guys did it, man." "You guys are..." "Like I said, email me." "My name's Bert, what's your name." "Cyrus." "Cyrus." "And." "Ryan." "Ryan." "Man, nice..." "Right on, man." "If you go about halfway between there and the railroad tracks, you could lay these down in there, okay, and then crash underneath that." "You know, put a few rocks, a few leaves, wherever you are." "You can sleep better all the time, when you know if a guy comes traipsing through... he's going to pop a few branches and you'll hear something, and he may be a cool dude." "Maybe you'll smoke a doobie with him." "But if he isn't, you know he's there." "Here's the man right here, so..." "Okay." "He just pulled in." "So, take your time." "All right." "Good to know." "I like to make what I want to ride, so, I got this close sale foam that it was kind of like theory that the blanks didn't even need to be glassed, 'cause they were that waterproof," "and I just thought it would work, so I grabbed it and went out, and I was really blown away." "Like, the first wave I had caught," "I locked in the trim on it." "You get down to the bottom of the wave, and the board locks in and morphs to the shape of the wave, and then as soon as you release that rail and ride flat, it did all these crazy things." "And just the more and more I rode it, the more and more I realized how dynamic this unglassed, crude just chunk of ugly Styrofoam had become." "Foam has been such a fun thing to have and ride, but when we were kids, surfing was just real... just super recreational, and foam just kind of brings it back to that." "And being able to share that with my best friend, Eric, is something that's just really awesome." "My name's Eric Snortum." "I'm 20 years old, and I live in Leucadia, California." "I surf Seaside and Cardiff a lot." "I like to ride anything from thruster to pieces of foam to a long board." "I started off as a grom, just riding the boogie board and having a good time." "I'd say my surfing's influenced the most by my father, and I've never seen anybody put a wet suit on faster than my dad." "Also, Ryan." "I mean, I can't think of anyone more influential to my surfing than Ryan is." "Surfing is my life, at the moment." "I would sacrifice most anything for surfing." "And my personal relationships with the opposite sex are pretty much non-existent." "I guess having the job or the car, or whatever to impress a woman is something that I don't really care too much about." "My female relationships will come when they come, and it's not something that I rely heavily upon for happiness," "I guess." "I survive through my parents." "I go to school at Mira Costa." "I don't have a job." "I have probably as little obligation as you could possibly have in your life." "Who else would I want to rely on besides my parents." "There's no better person to rely on than your family." "And I'm just hoping something happens down the line with education and... whatever." "Let's take a boat down the river" "I know the river looks a little rough." "And the temperature will make you shiver." "And I think I might have had enough." "Let's take a walk by the water." "Where the river runs into the bay." "The man is always a concern when heading out on a hobo surf trip." "And your appearance makes all the difference on how you'll be treated." "A, have a clean-cut hairdo and well-trimmed or no facial hair." "B, don't bring drugs." "C, overdress." "This can largely be achieved with a sport coat from any thrift store." "D, carry a valid ID and credit or debit card to show you are a good little slave to the system." "E, if you look like you could be a member of the indigenous population, wear a Bluetooth headset for extra protection." "Note, if your are blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and look under the age of 25, none of this applies." "Another benefit of the previous tip is that school girls won't be frightened to give you the lunches they didn't eat, if you look clean and sporty." "I'm in a tornado hitting a volcano" "When I was walking down the road" "I heard the mountaintop explode." "Do you eat a lot of these." "We'll have to taste it, because I make the batters for everything." "Oh, yeah." "You know." "So everything that I make," "I have to taste it." "Yeah." "I wanted to watch him." "And I was just about to make some chocolate chip cookies, so..." "Some carrot chip cookies." "'Cause dogs are allergic to chocolate, right." "Because dogs are allergic to chocolate." "It's mainly because the caffeine in it." "Really." "Yeah." "We all use honey." "Honey and unsweetened applesauce and stuff." "You're feeding these dogs better than humans feed themselves." "Yeah." "You bet." "We shouldn't buy..." "McDonald's versus, like, honey and oatmeal." "Probably." "Eight bucks." "Eight bucks, yeah." "That's what I'll spend." "What do they say." "How much a piece." "Two bucks." "Two bucks a piece." "Yeah." "Do you have four bucks." "Yeah." "Yeah." "Let's do it." "So I give you one of each." "Wow." "Really appreciate it." "Begging like a dog." "Damn, it's good." "The loudest crash." "After spending over half our savings on the best dog food money can buy, we headed down to the ocean." "Everything was upside down" "I don't know why." "Ryan and I live in an area where you're supposed to be so focused on getting the ideal house or a surfboard that will make you rip in big, perfect waves, but I've never felt richer than living off the scraps that are all around us." "Find another way to hear the things I say." "And you can find another way to make me wonder everyday." "Try your best to learn and see what it gets done." "And you can try your best to run." "But then tomorrow night will come." "So, don't try, don't try." "Don't try to tell me goodbye." "You say it's just a glance when you're greener than most plants." "Well, you know it's just a glance" "I guess I'll need another chance." "Don't try, don't try." "Don't try to tell me goodbye." "Don't mind, don't mind me." "Don't mind, don't mind me." "Don't mind, don't mind me." "Don't mind, don't mind me." "Don't mind me." "The wreck was a board that my neighbor had given to me, and it was in pretty beat down shape." "Had a ripped open tail and just probably your average run-of-the-mill '70s surfboard." "It was ugly." "And when Cyrus wanted to bring it on the trip," "I was kind of tripping, and I just thought..." "I didn't really think too much of it." "I was like, "Oh, well, he'll bring it and ride it when it's small or whatever."" "And it turns out we get firing waves." "And sure enough, he pulled that thing out and went out on it." "I always wondered if I could get the same feeling on a good-sized wave as I do on little waves on twin fins, that real sporty, loose, free feeling, and how they just cover so much ground with much less effort." "You point the board, and wherever you point the nose of the board, the board just seems to go." "It just did what it needed to do." "When hungry and tired with little food, a hot drink offers a great pick-me-up." "It may be made from cutting a small door and drilling ventilation holes in a coffee, paint or large bean can." "Look for local, family-owned businesses, and inquire about exchanging advertising services for a meal." "While not advised, if you resort to begging, be sure to have a large sign and big smile, to let people know you're not desperate." "Nobody likes a downer." "Getting good waves comes with a price, you know." "You get pretty tired, and you're pretty beat." "And when we finally managed to pull all our gear up the hill in La Jolla, it was just really nice to have somebody to stay with and be able to kind of relax and get back in with the flow of kind of an everyday life," "as opposed to full surf trip high production mode." "Once I had control," "I was never sad." "Couch surfing's a great way to break up the camping monotony." "It's amazing how a few days on the dirt will help you appreciate a clean floor and a roof over your head." "Here a few tips to maximize your stay and not get booted." "A, tackle especially nasty chores around the house." "B, clean up after yourself constantly." "C, cook dinner." "D, shred with the grom of the house." "Everything about Lucas reminds me a lot of myself as a younger kid." "He lives with his mom, and she supports his habits of surfing." "He's just out there every day, and I still do that, personally." "I'm 21 years old." "I still live at home, and I've come home to my mom's cooked dinners, and she asked me how I did surfing today." "It's awesome." "I don't know what to do if I see you." "If I see you again." "But I know you, and I know you care." "Body surfing the smaller waves on the inside," "I noticed this knee boarder who was always out every time I was surfing in La Jolla." "It made me wonder, how was he able to spend so much time in the water." "What was his life like, and where did he come from." "My name's Steve Ferguson, and I live in Pacific Beach." "First started surfing in '64." "I was 10 years old," "And I got out of school every day about 11 and got to surf for the rest of the day." "So, I surfed a lot." "In the old days, yeah, it was easy to come up with a little bit of money to get whatever you wanted, 'cause everything was cheap." "And now, you really got to think about what you're going to spend your money on, 'cause just your next meal might cost you all you got left." "I did a lot of different things, and I had a lot of full-time jobs, but most of them were at night." "And you work a job, and then you surf, and you're pretty tired for your girlfriend." "I'll tell you that much." "You start, like, trying to figure out ways to call in sick at work, you know, so you can get a little bit more surf in, or you start goin' before work and comin' in late, or..." "I've done all that stuff." "Too many times." "If I park in front of the wrong house, they're not gonna like it." "I had to move three times at night, every night, just to keep out of the radar, and it was no fun." "It was torture." "My average day is mostly just waiting for the right time to go surf." "For now, it's working, but it's not a good situation." "My future doesn't look that bright at all." "I'll have to do something besides surf." "I won't be happy, I don't think." "I started this trip to show that you don't have to travel to some exotic location to have a good time, and it was inspired by guys I'd met like Steve, who I thought had it made." "But hearing about Steve's life showed me there's a limit to the vacation." "I walked across Lucas's alley to our friend Richard's apartment." "Richard's a legendary surfer, filmmaker and writer, who's been a huge inspiration to Ryan and I." "He's always lived close to the grain, choosing a close connection to the ocean over material wealth." "Yeah, well, for me, my parents got a divorce, and it was my family kind of broke up in a way that my brother and I moved out when I was 16, and he was 15," "and that was in 1978." "And we lived in a house with a bunch of older surfers, and I was still going to high school, trying to, but it's sort of a utopian kind of thing, that it reaches a point where... where the rubber hits the road," "and you got to take care of business and deal with the world that we're living in, and I'm kind of in that situation right now, where I have to deal with a lot of stuff and take care of it." "Everything I'm doing is involved with surfing." "Surf history, writing, and those are where my passions are." "There's tons of positive things about it." "Responsibility really gives you freedom in the end." "I'm talking about lessons that I've learned." "Like, irresponsibility puts you in a prison, you know." "If you flake off too much in this society, you'll end up in a bad spot and really unhappy and under the gun, you know." "I mean, surfing, you know, we just do it 'cause we love it so much." "And it gives so much back." "Like, it gives you relief, so much relief, and it's potent." "It's powerful, you know, and you want more of it." "You know, you look at Lucas and Geraldine." "Their lives center a lot around Lucas's surfing, and Geraldine is a single mother." "She's 60 years old, and she's taking care of her 15-year-old kid and trying to get him through home school." "And they're a tight family unit, and surfing is a big part of it, but then I look at their situation, and that's something where it's working." "There's nothing better that you could get out of life than having a family unit, you know, like a loving family of your own, which I don't have, and some sort of security in the world," "which that's really, if you were gonna get advice from me, that's of a much higher value than anything you're gonna get out of surfing." "And if you can surfing to fit in there somehow, you know, then you're on top of the game, you know." "Thanks, Richard." "All right." "Sure, Cyrus." "In a darkened cloud of speculated downtime." "All I know is I don't know." "When I find an answer hanging over your head." "Can we turn the lights down low." "Turn the lights down low." "Turn the lights down low" "I think the first I'd ever heard of a hand plane or seen one was on the Internet, and it was on some blog that Danny Hess, a famous shaper in San Francisco, had been making these little chips of wood." "I'd just started riding alaias at the time." "I was totally blown away for the ability for just a flat, thin piece of wood to carry you through the water." "So I thought, "God, I got to make one of these." "They can't be that hard."" "So, I made one, and took it out on a super crowded, super small day, and was getting all these little waves that the shore boarders had no interest in." "And I was just inhabiting this little niche that nobody even knew existed." "It was incredible, and I made sure to have one with me every time I was near the ocean ever since." "Low." "Turn the lights down low." "Turn the lights down low." "Turn the lights down low." "Low." "Turn the lights down low." "Turn the lights down low." "After saying goodbye to Lucas, Geraldine and Richard, we set off for Pacific Beach." "With full bellies and a couple of good surf sessions under our belt, we had reclaimed our stoke, but our wallets were still empty, so we made a few preparations for our final moneymaking venture." "Far preferred to begging, singing songs, regardless of how poor your musical skills, is always appreciated by beachgoers." "Funny thing as the sun went down and the beachside fires are burning." "Down the track came a hobo hiking' and he said, boys, I'm not journeying" "I'm headed for a land that's far away besides the sweet blue ocean." "So come with me, we'll go and see the San Diego beaches." "In the San Diego beaches, there's sand and leaf and rock." "Handouts grow on bushes, and you sleep out every night." "All the campgrounds are empty and the sun shines everyday while the birds and the bees and the avocado trees and the mountain dew springs where the seagull sings in the San Diego beaches." "In the San Diego beaches, all the cops have wooden legs." "All the sharks have rubber teeth and the sandwiches are free." "Backyard trees are full of fruit and the strangers give us loot." "Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow." "And the lifestyle's slow, and the wind don't blow in the San Diego beaches." "In the San Diego beaches, all the pelicans fly in flocks." "Oh, I'm gonna stay where you surf all day and you snake the jerks who invented work in the San Diego beaches." "When I was 21, a couple from Pacific Beach took me under their wing." "They swooped me up and took me with them down to Mexico, where we lived for four months, doing nothing but surfing, reading and throwing horseshoes." "We'd stayed in touch by email, but I hadn't seen them since that trip." "During our stay in La Jolla, I called them and asked if we could stop by for a day and talk." "When I was 15 years old, I remember saying to myself," ""I don't ever want to be inside a building, working."" "I always just wanted to be free." "I never wanted to be bound to anything." "And in order to get there, I had to be relying on other people until I got to a point to where I was either mature enough or had the ability to make a choice to where I could free myself" "from other people's chains." "I was a carpenter for a long time." "I'd work for a month, and take three months off." "Travel, go surfing, do whatever I wanted to." "Go back to work." "There was plenty of work." "When I started this whole business of going to Mexico, back in the '60s, you can go down and have a great time for a short period of time, but then your inner self decides that you need" "some companionship." "Alienating yourself from society is okay for a short period of time, but we all need to have a relationship." "We need a way to share it with somebody, because doing' it solo..." "It's a pretty lonely place when you're down there by yourself, even though you catch the waves by yourself and you experience all this beautiful connection with the nature." "It's always good to come back to camp and have somebody there that you can share it with, too." "And then I met Roberta, and one thing led to another, and she really loves the outdoors as much as I do, and we started sharing a whole lot of things that... we could do together." "We keep a simple lifestyle." "We don't... we don't spend a lot of money, other than what we need to get to Mexico and fix cars." "And we just, basically, stay focused on what it is we really want, as a team." "We cook our meals together." "We partake in all the... whatever it takes to keep the house together." "I shape surfboards for an income." "I do all the car maintenance." "Roberta does all the health maintenance." "She makes sure that we're eating right." "And we believe in health." "We believe in longevity." "You know, your health is your wealth." "My insurance is what I eat." "Even though we have a great lifestyle, we're always learning from the outside world." "But we have our little bubble that we travel with throughout our life." "It's our security." "It's our happiness." "And I realize that being able to carry your home with you, through the search and through the journeys and all the adventures, and sharing it with somebody right beside you is the way to do it." "And that's basically what I found after doing all that soul searching for years and years." "I'd love to stay really." "But it would just kill me" "I'm goin' to that place in my heart" "I'm leaving all the madness behind." "And find peace once again in my mind" "I see the finances of this present world just holding kids back of being what they want to really be, because it's basically financially impossible just to be a free spirit, almost." "You can live it though, if you really think about it." "If it's really something you wanna do, you can do anything you want in this world, actually." "And what I say to anybody that wants to do something that's gonna allow them to be free is stay focused." "Do whatever it takes to keep your focus there." "Don't let anybody else tell you different, because if you believe it, you'll feel it, and you'll do it." "There's a lot of stuff that goes on, but just keep it happy and simple." "I'm going to the place in my heart." "After buying some groceries with the money we'd made, we decided to pack it up and go home." "The folks we talked to along the way had given us a lot to think about." "I was amazed at how many people were willing to reflect back our stoke." "You get back what you put out there, and this made me realize how lucky Ryan and I are to have found the things in our life that truly make us happy." "Going in the ocean every day, it's this amazing gift that" "I was given as a young kid that, at this moment in my life," "I'm still just enjoying that gift and taking it in, all for myself." "But the ocean's not gonna take care of me my whole life, so I'm sure I'll find joy with passing that on, but, you know, I'm not gonna immediately go out and look for some girl to go ride my piece of foam with me." "The key to any successful surf trip is to come home." "Oceanic freedom is ours to enjoy." "The price is your choice." "Who knows how long it'll take till you're on to the other side." "Who knows how long it'll take for the moon to bring in the tide." "Moon to bring in the tide." "Each step brings you down and down means closer to the ground where I'll sleep tonight, give up the fight." "Where I'll sleep tonight, give up the fight" "I said calloused hands make me the man I am." "Brings me closer, closer to the land." "Don't fall below." "Feel your soul." "This place is your home." "Is your home." "He'll see it's only a bee sting." "Lie it out when it gets so cold." "He sees he likes, likes to be free." "And never does what he's told." "And then he makes a friend to lighten up his heavy load." "Sharing the scars, we've traveled far." "Oh, we've traveled far." "He said calloused hands make me the man I am." "Brings me closer, closer to the land." "Don't fall below." "Feel your soul." "This place is your home." "Is your home." "Sing on." "Sing on." "Hold on." "Hold on." "Live on." "Live on." "Live on." "Live on." "Sing on." "Sing on." "Hold on." "Hold on." "Live on." "Live on." "Live on." "Live on." "Ooh, ooh." "Ooh, ooh"