About Me
Growing Up on Long Island (1993 – 2011)
I was born Christopher J. Huber on September 10th, 1993, in a town called East Islip on the South Shore of Long Island, NY. I spent the first 17 years of my life on Long Island, and during that time I never really figured myself out. Music sure did help, but not until later.
As a kid I wasn’t much of an athlete, despite my family’s best wishes. I was simply too small and not interested enough in practicing to become good at sports. Not to mention, I lacked confidence. Still, that didn’t stop me from playing lacrosse throughout my early years.
Legos caught my interest at a young age, and I think that’s where the roots of my knack for writing can be found. I remember spending long hours in my parents’ basement, crafting multicolored brick fortresses and intricate scenes complete with plots, character names, and personalities for the Lego figurines. They would engulf my attention for weeks at a time.
Then, one day, I discovered sailing. I was really close with my cousins growing up, and they took me as a guest to sailing camp one summer, around 2004. As soon as I had the tiller in my hands, I was hooked, thus beginning a lifelong passion that follows me to this day. I met some lifelong friends through sailing, and even became the captain of my high school sailing team, a sign for things to come later in life.
Throughout high school, my relationship with my parents was tumultuous. I found myself butting heads with them a lot during my junior and senior years of high school, and I jumped at the opportunity to go to school in Charleston, SC hundreds of miles from Long Island.
Discovering Music
Woven between the lines of the events of my early life was a fascination for music from a young age. First, it was finding my Dad’s copies of Dookie by Green Day and Eminem’s The Slim Shady LP in the basement, sticking them in the boombox and just hearing the sounds that came out.
Then, it was discovering Taking Back Sunday and the window into emo music, of which Long Island was a hub. This was something that coincided with both my life in school and my friends at sailing camp, and finding out about bands like Brand New, Underoath, Yellowcard, and many more, which all of my friends and I thought were the best.
Getting older, I discovered ska and reggae, and got into bands like Sublime, Slightly Stoopid, 311, and Less Than Jake. This was all at sailing camp in the summer, when we would play running bases while jamming on the boombox.
In high school, as I expanded my friend group and discovered the curiosities of substance abuse, I started listening to hip-hop, such as Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Kid Cudi, and Mac Miller (RIP).
All of this informed my music taste as I entered college. Throughout college it never strayed too far outside of those lines, until the later era when I discovered classic rock. It wasn’t until after college that I got into the Grateful Dead and jam bands, but we’ll get there.
At the College of Charleston (2011 – 2015)
CofC was the taste of freedom that I never thought I would get. Of course, as an adult, I look back and realize how the time was going to inevitably pass by regardless. Not that I regret going to Charleston, but the wisdom of age makes some of my rebellious youthful memories seem frivolous.
Even so, the four years I spent at the College of Charleston informed what would become of my adult life, in more ways than one.
My initial draw, aside from the distance from Long Island, was the fact that the College of Charleston had a sailing team. I had gotten an email from the coach, inviting me to come try out. Upon arrival I was cut from the team, and that changed my expectations about college completely.
Starting Extra Chill
I started my blog, Extra Chill, during the Fall semester of my freshman year, after a spontaneous discovery of my love for writing one night. If you want to go down that rabbit hole, see the History of Extra Chill (on Extra Chill). This piece is about my life.
While changing my major twice, from Biology to Psychology and then finally to Creative Writing, I also ended up a four-year member of the club lacrosse team. I was the social chair, which meant that it was my job to organize the team’s parties.
I did this at a house in downtown Charleston which was located at 65 Barre Street. It has since been knocked down, but I’m sure somebody reading remembers the days. It was prior to the fancy condos being built on that plot of land, and we essentially had no neighbors.
This prime location enabled me to host lots of raging keg parties and a couple of concerts inside the house performed by a band called Superflow, of which my friends and some roommates were members. These were the first “shows” I ever hosted, but at the time I never thought I had a future hosting concerts.
The Vault and Discovering Classic Rock
During college I picked up a job at a retail store in downtown Charleston called The Vault. The store had a unique concept in that the lease was split by two owners, and two separate stores shared one building. The store was split down the middle, with one half being The Vault, a retro sports apparel shop, and the other side being a women’s fashion boutique known as the Haute Hanger.
The owner of The Vault was a guy named Wayne Welden, and Wayne was a giant fan of classic rock. He used to jam out to all different kinds of rock & roll music all day long, and he knew the facts to back up his humming along in the back of the store. During my three years of employment there, I learned so much about music. It influenced my tastes significantly, and it’s the root of many current-day topic choices on Extra Chill.
Also, my role at The Vault shifted from t-shirt folding and customer service, into building and managing their E-Commerce site via Shopify, and growing their Instagram account. This was my first foray into the world of SEO & marketing and I become completely obsessed with the idea of selling Clemson hats by way of the internet, and it worked… until the winds of life swept us in different directions.
Working on Boats (2016-2022)
In college I had a cat named Franklin. He liked to go outside, and he was always an indoor-outdoor cat. One day, when I was living on Blake Street in downtown Charleston, Franklin went outside and never came back.
During my search, a friend suggested I go check down by the marinas, because maybe Franklin went down to hunt rats. It made sense, so I went for it.
It was then I saw the Schooner Pride for the first time. The boat that would become my place of employment for the next six years. I called the number on the sign at the Aquarium Wharf and told them that I knew how to sail, and that I was interested in working on the boat that summer.
Long story short, I never did find my cat, but I ended up with the job. Two years later, I got my 100 Ton Master License and in 2019 I was promoted to Captain of the Schooner Pride.
I held that position for three long years, through the pandemic and a few months of downtime, and learned more than most people will learn in a lifetime about boats. Lots of things you would want to know, and even more things that you would rather not know. Even so, there is a lifetime worth of knowledge left to learn, and it never stops in the land of boating (or any land, to be fair).
In 2022, however, Extra Chill began to take off, and the income from the blog began to surpass the income from being the captain of the Pride. So, I quit my job, and have pursued Extra Chill full time since July 2022.
Music Festivals and the Grateful Dead
During this time of working on boats, I also discovered the joys of attending music festivals, which altered the course of my life and influenced my goals significantly. My first-ever festival was Shaky Knees in 2015, and I returned in 2016. Then, 2017-2019 found me at Bonnaroo with my best friends from high school (where I saw Phish for the first time in 2019).
COVID came and canceled everybody’s fun, and in 2020 I began my first deep dive into the Grateful Dead, simply by playing 5/8/77 and other live albums while out in my garden. I had been laid off of work, I was living by myself, and I became deeply involved in DIY projects.
It was during this time that I can truly say I “got” the Grateful Dead for the first time, and now it is sure to be a lifelong passion of mine. Their music has unlocked so much peace and wisdom for me, and writing about them on Extra Chill is one of my favorite things to do.
Nowadays, I attend multiple music festivals every year, often on media credentials via Extra Chill. I have immersed myself completely in the professional aspect of that world, while still remaining present as a fan. I listen to the Grateful Dead almost every single day.
Adulthood (2023 – Present)
Throughout the whole story, I continued to age. Now, I’m in my thirties, and I’m changing once again. I’m calming down, and beginning to look at life from more of a long-term perspective. The grown-ups always warn you that your youth won’t last forever, but it’s hard to believe it while you’re in the midst of said youth.
I have a lot to be thankful for, and a lot to learn. I feel simultaneously that I have climbed mountains and that I have done nothing. Perhaps those were just hills, and the mountains still lie ahead?
Today, I’m running Extra Chill full time, and I also run sailing charters in Charleston on a part time basis during the months of appropriate weather. I’m still on the search for myself, but after various psychedelic experiences, failures, victories, disappointments, heartbreaks, and years of practice, I’ve come to accept that my own version of the cosmic mush could be a lot worse.
Connect With My Projects
Thanks for reading my life story! Of course there are more details that could be mentioned, but for the sake of a professional overview, that pretty much nails it. If you want to know me more, you can follow me on Instagram, @chubes4.