BLENDER BABE

Now listen, I have two development projects on two islands, two ex wives, chewing on me, I got two savage pre-teen daughter pullin’ the plug on my bank account, I got a Covid lockdown, my business is in shambles, and now I have been invited on this hell trip to Mentawai with my surf star friends and I am in Sumbawa and I have to be at the Bali airport by dawn and because the Bima airport is shuttered I am going to have to drive to Bali with precious little time to spare for the whole goddamned thing. So I did what any self-respecting surfer would. I bet the farm. So now, my clock is ticking. I leave my kids here at Lakey Peak with their Indonesian.

Grandma, you know, it takes a village and all that, I load up and start driving across Indonesia again to get back to my place on Bali. By myself, three islands, 24 hours straight, of hairy roads and sketchy ferries and I am all alone. Driving at night, which is suicide in some parts of Lombok, with bandits and downed power lines and crappy highways and giant water buffalo eating in the middle of the road, all on blind curves, of course, their favorite. You know, plow into one of those damn things and ain’t no insurance on earth is gonna help.

Then Dino calls from Taiwan, or wherever the hell he is now, he’s calmed down and he says…How good does it feel, Pete? How good? To get in your van and drive all night just to make a surf trip? To get in that car with all your boards and turn the key and hit the gas and drive all night and listen to that music and you are going on a surf trip, man. Huh? Huh? How good is it? Pretty good, huh? He was right. I did feel good. I mean, we’re all people that do surf trips as a way of life, as a living, a lifestyle. It was like, with Covid, it’s like I’d forgotten how cool everything around surfing is. So alright. Stoked, I will never forget that feeling.

I remember Dino rallying me, then getting off the phone and I was looking at the highway and driving to the Lombok Ferry and the moon was out and, well, you get it, sure. So I pulled the drive, door to door, in 20 hours. Someone write that down, man, that’s a record. Now I get back to my home in Bali, which I had abandoned for six months. Something you should never do in Indonesia, cuz the jungle eats houses here. And some pregnant dog had moved in to my bedroom and my swimming pool looked like an African watering hole, I mean, it’s just a different world then when I left, so now, with very little time to spare, Dino is tellin’me I gotta find a glass blender? So the crew can make their bullet coffees. A what? For what? So I drive around looking for one of these things…nothing…and I am thinking of breaking into a restaurant, and finally it hits me.

My dating app. That’s the best source for all things. So I go on my dating app and I put out an APB for any chick that has a glass blender. God knows what they all thought, but these are modern times, so what the hell. Anyway, I swear to God, desperate measures, man. And so remember I haven’t seen a naked woman in six months and this was gonna take some game. So I got a ping and she was hot and she’s all, in a sexy voice…yeah, I gotta glass blender, I got one right here. God, I was so relieved, but then I thought, oh shit, I gotta go through with this, man. So Blender Babe was making it happen, but I still had her send me a photo of the blender, just to make sure.

So Blender Babe says ok…you want this blender? You gotta take me to a nice dinner right now. Oh Jesus… Now I’m dealing with the long drive jitters, sleep deprivation and Blender Babe. I gotta make shit happen. Matter of fact, I gotta make a few things happen, if you know what I mean. Here I am, trying to make a dawn flight to Jakarta with Dino, Griffin, Crosby, Ian Crane and Luke Davis and the swell is on the way and the Bali airport is rumored to be shutting down at noon. It’s literally my last chance to meet up with the boys and I am the one that got everyone to do this shit in the first place… but first…first I gotta go on a hot date, with Blender Babe.

Then I gotta make a bunch of promises to her that I can’t possibly keep and then I gotta bail with the glass blender under my arm before the sun comes up. But, no choice… I had to take one for the boys, you know? So you can imagine when I met up with Kolohe and the boys in Jakarta and they said where the hell you been? And I said I had to go on a dating app and go on a hot date with Blender Babe just to get their God forsaken glass blender, so they can make their goddamn bullet coffees and that’s where the hell I’ve been.

It’s 2023 and Dino still doesn’t believe me.

(The full book, The Last Crusade, featuring Griffin Colapinto, Crosby Colapinto, Kolohe Andino, Ian Crane and Luke Davis available now at the White Monkey Surf Shop and Amazon.com)

By Pete Matthews