Happy March Turdieth and welcome to Effort.tv,

People often ask me what I write first, the music or the lyrics, to which I reply, "Neither, I'm not a musician or a song writer." Actually, I only talk to dogs, cats and little people.

Now, this is some funny donkeylore... http://www.saludayakerz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2307

Speaking of the Saluda, here's some footage from there, plus more.

The Saluda River in Columbia SC is the best kept secret in play boating in the southeast. Tell someone about it, or tell them to go there and that it's great and all they says is, "oh yeah." Haha! It's hilarious, their one mile stretch is better play than any river around here and nobody acknowledges it. I love it. Then there's 1/4 mile hole at the Noli... incredible. Eternity hole on the Tuckaseegee is great too, probably one of the coolest man-made play spots ever. Enjoy the video from Jan-March 2007. Disclaimer: You may not want to watch this if you're a "creeker" or a "big play features only" kind of person. Make sure you're totally secure with lesser kayakers on "small" and "easy" play spots.


The holidays are beautiful this time of year. Seasons greetings,

Spencer Cooke, Effort Inc

There's a podcast that I listen to regularly that always plays audio clips from this video, "Leprechaun Sighting." I had seen it before but after hearing the audio for the millionth time I was finally persuaded to look it up on youtube again. Now... if this doesn't convince you not to do drugs then I'm not sure what will. On the other hand it could cause you to start doing drugs...


I guess I should talk about something paddling related. Here's something. I haven't paddled with my very good friend Ray Cotton in quite some time, months actually. Ray said he hadn't paddled since October when he and Drew Hayes went surf kayaking in Panama. So, we met at the Green a couple days ago for a nice run at 100%, which turned out to be 200%. It seems that someone fell asleep in the powerhouse and fell on the lever that lets the water out. Must've been Homer Simpson. Here was Ray styling it out as usual, off the couch even.


In other news my wife and I decided it was time to introduce our son to the finer things in life. First on the list was the appreciation of donkeys. He's got it dialed already.


I have nothing more to offer today which is fine since I'm the only one who reads my blog.

Recently I took a trip down to the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte NC. I paddled a couple runs through the different channels in the Riot Thunder and really enjoyed the boat. Here is a headcam video I took while doing so.

The rapids at the USNWC are broken into two main channels - the race, "competition" channel and the "wilderness," freestyle channel. Rapids range in difficulty from Class I up to Class IV. This video is a paddlers perspective of running the two channels. Enjoy.

Feel like a March turd today so here's a new video. Wintertime creeking with Linville Gorge, Toxaway, The Green, Raven Fork, Big Creek and nothing more. Now get a haircut you hippie.