Live Stoked
Aloha,
If you are just joining us, welcome. Darieus Legg is an independent animator, filmmaker, and surfer.
These are excerpts from…
a journal. About making an independent animated surf documentary and comic called, Stoker Machine.
…
Making something from nothing is a crazy endeavor. It takes courage and imagination. A lot of both. I’ve been reflecting on that. To sustain whatever you’re making requires something else too. Gratitude. Here is the origin story of how I got to this point, making an animated surf documentary.
PART 1, ROCK DA’ BOAT
I’ve grown up in the ocean. First on a sailboat, sailing. Then, in Kona, surfing. Now, as an artist, owning my story. Sailing and surfing are similar environments. Both surrounded by water. A close relationship with nature and a crew. Getting along, goes along way. Rocking the boat, can be dangerous. Being the first to do anything outside of family tradition - rocks da’ boat.
My mom and dad rocked first, by raising a my brother and I on a sailboat. Then my brother and I rocked again, by being the first generation of surfer. Then the boat flipped, capsized, with a painful divorce. We rebuilt the family boat with a deep commitment to each other, and evolved. Now our family is growing. The size of stoke is directly related to the size of gratitude. Live stoked.
Forty years ago…
June 10th, 1981.
Full moon. A damp joint. Two dreamers, 29 and 21 years old, sit in a jacuzzi flirting, talking about everything under the stars. They’ve just met. The American guy puts his joint out, and asks the Persian gal next to him to go for a walk on the beach. His next question changes both their lives forever. Will you marry me? In a heavy accent she says, “Fack it, les’ do it.” On June 20th, Paul Legg and Naghmeh Ghalamfarsa seal the deal on a boat in Newport Beach harbor. Barring any crafty attempts by the family to thwart their communion.
June 10th, 1983.
I’m delivered in a hospital room reeking of pizza, Budweiser, and sounds of Pink Floyd’s, Dark Side of The Moon.
Fall, 1985.
My dads carpenter hands are stained as a painters. We set sail for the Bahamas aboard our Teak wood sailboat dawning a fresh coat of paint and a new name hand lettered in bright gold old English - Shaharazad. Scheherazade is the main character in 1001 Arabian Nights. A classic piece of literature out of Asia minor where a stunning heroin recounts stories every night in an attempt to stop a megalomaniac King from beheading and raping her sister. Like the character in the book, Shaharazad would keep us alive by giving us countless stories and adventure. My mom is from a nearby city where the Arabian Nights take place. The ancient city of Shiraz, located in modern day Iran. Which doesn’t consider itself Arab at all. It’s complicated. They say, babies born in Shiraz have their umbilical cords cut by ancient poetry that came from the land. My mom was named by a musician, Navab Safa. Her name means harmony, melody, and hummingbird. This is also the region of the world where the names Darieus and Cyrus come from. Despite my mom pushing to have classic American names like, Jason; my blue collar open minded American dad was adamant his kids have Persian names to represent the culture he was infatuated by. He gave us the modest names of the greatest Persian kings - Darieus and Cyrus “The Great” . They ruled the area 4500 years ago. One was responsible for freeing the Jews while the other created the concept of Satraps and highway infrastructure. These names are unusual to have because Persian families don’t name their kids after ancient kings that pre-date Islam. It’d be like a Hawaiian family naming their kid, Kamehameha, Liho Liho, or Kalakaua. But, mom and dad loved to rock da’ boat. They didn’t have a lot of money and Shaharazad was tiny. Money didn’t stop mom and dad from making their dreams come true, like sailing to the Bahamas from upstate New York. Little did they know, Dar was about to slip overboard and nearly kill Dad in the process.
1986, Nassau, Bahamas.
At 3-years old, I fell into the ocean. I remember it crystal clear. My dad was smoking his cobb pipe while my mom made happy hour drinks. The sun setting in the red sky. My brother a year away from conception. And me, about to make my brother an only child.
Our boat was tied up to an old dilapidated pier. Rusty sharp tie-rods protruded from cracks in the concrete. This was a little rest-stop before sailing down the island chain. I was sitting on the edge of the pier pushing the boat away trying to make a bridge between the pier and Shaharazad with my body. There was too much slack in the lines, Shaharazad separated from the pier, in a distance greater than the length of my three-year old body. Kerplunk. My parents heard the splash because within seconds dad leapt off the stern, fully clothed, pipe in mouth with glass of wine in hand. Unbeknownst to dad, a razor sharp barnacle encrusted tie-rod was waiting for him. Angled up, like a human skewer just beneath the surface of the water. The pointy end passed right between his legs, missing his torso scraping up his inner thighs and stomach. Ignoring this, he bolted around the boat to find me treading water. I remember seeing him come around the boat. The pipe in his mouth and glass of wine in hand. He was smiling. So was I.
Turns out, I was a natural. I said, “Look poppa I can swim!”. From that moment on, it was hard to take me out of the water. We all grew into a life at sea. That meant, I would end up making some peculiar discoveries that not many toddlers do not at such a young age.
1992, between Main and the Bahamas.
8 years old I had read most of the crime novelist, John Grisham’s work (it was the only type of books available in free books stores at the marinas). My brother was learning to read. I’m not too sure how stoked my parents were about this; I’d ask what words like, shit, fuck, cunt, and blowjob mean. They didn’t know how to answer to a child who couldn’t keep a book out of his face. I was giving my younger brother a questionable foundation to be building his vocabulary on. I never got any answers on what all the fuss was about until we pulled into Annapolis, Maryland one hot summer.
I saw a skater using a payphone. Every other word was like the cuss words in my books. I noticed the other adults looking down on him and scoffing. I think my mom called him a “street kid” and said to me, “ Don’t you ever behave like that street kid.” I didn’t understand because his skateboard and the clothes he was wearing were so cool. That’s when I realized it was the words coming out of his mouth that were not okay to use in the general public. I got into an argument with my mom right there on the street because I couldn’t understand why it was okay to use cuss words at home, but not okay to use them in public. It made me want to use cuss words all the time. And I did. In secret, with my brother. We’d say bad words to each other all the time and crack huge smiles as if we had just got away with robbing the worlds largest bank. To keep secrets on a boat is hard!
Out of everything, the dolphins fascinated me most. The way they moved through the water fed my imagination. At one point, I asked my dad, “Can I live with the Dolphin in the ocean. You and mom can follow me incase anything goes wrong”. Bless my dad for not shooting down my imagination, he just smiled and said, “Anything’s possible Dar.” A dolphin’s dorsal fin mesmerized me more than anything. Which lead me to the surfboard. Seeing a surfboard fin for the first time immediately got me thinking that’d be the closest I’d ever get to living with the dolphin.
We pulled into a marina to fuel up and get water. At this marina they had a bookstore you could trade in books, for more books. At eight I was short on cash but had tons of books. I traded in all my John Grisham for surf magazines. Seeing a surfboard fin for the first time immediately got me thinking that’d be the closest I’d ever get to living with the dolphin. When we left that marina, I told my “I am going to learn how to surf.”
We dropped anchor for the last time when I was ten and my brother six in the Hudson river, New York. We had sailed the entire Eastern seaboard of the United States and much of the Bahamas. Both of us predominantly homeschooled. We’d seen crashed seaplanes owned by drug lords and guarded by soldiers with machine guns. Met other kids and families from all over the world. Survived numerous storms. I kept my dad alive during a crazy crossing the Gulf of Mexico. Learned lessons like the deep value of diversity. Whether in ways of people, or in nature, diversity is key to life thriving.
Married after ten days. Raising kids on a sailboat. This was just the first rocking of the family boat. Terrific preparation for when the family boat rocked so hard it capsized, and nearly drowned us all in Kona, Hawaii.
Next Blog Post…
WHAT’S GOING DOWN:
Shooting on a sound stage in Hollywood next week Aug 2nd - Aug 5th for a 20-episode series Creatively Produced called “For Starters”. The host I found for the program is a lot of fun. His name is Torin Perez. And we been sharing some solid laughs and good times in rehearsals. He’s not only great for the material, but I’m stoked to have a new friend as well.
Aug 6th - Aug 13th, shooting the final scene of the Stoker Machine.
Love learning the Clarinet. It’s not easy, but my goal is to be able to play a Benny Goodman track in a year.
If you missed my last blog post on ‘asking for help when you need it’, check out Leprechauns and Rewiring !
Spotify playlist for when you working Stoker #02.
Flash Back to my short-film, “Maps of Home Of Home”
THE CLOSE-OUT
Living stoked. The easiest way, is finding something you can be grateful for right now. If you can find gratitude in where you came from, and where you are, that’s the beginning of living stoked.
I invite you to share something you are grateful for today in the comment section. You never know how that can change the course of your day.
