O-Side

Harry The Hat painted this.

More tour, but stick with me folks- it's almost done and we're getting down to the blood & guts here. We're pretty thrashed by now so Andrew heads off down to San Diego to take care of some business and maybe get a few days hanging out with friends down there. He pulls a real late night working on a collaborative painting with Ando, wakes up feeling crappy and spends the most of the next week laid out ill and sleeping on RK's floor. He assured me he was rallying and would make it to the Pod Room for the signing there, but when I arrive after several hours driving through rush hour traffic in pouring rain he's called to say he couldn't make it to the car let alone to Oceanside. I figured there was no point driving back in traffic and rain so I'd set up and see what happens. For those of you who haven't visited the Pod Room, you really should. It's not only about the smallest surf shop in existence, but it's upstairs in the Hill St. Cafe, a very fine organic eatery & coffee shop. I availed myself of coffee and some excellent fish & chips and was feeling much better about book tours. Despite the rain we had a reasonable turn out and they got to check out a nice range of Harry Daily's art. Harry's one of my favourite 'surf' artists simply because he really is an artist in the true meaning of the word. He has the drawing skills coupled with an elegant distinctive style that makes his art look effortless . (There's a nice gallery of his stuff at www.switch-foot.com/view_artist.php?creative_id=82) The man is all personal style too- as I sat there damp and surrounded by merch, three really quite lovely girls came in, eyed me suspiciously and finally sent an emissary over to ask 'Is Harry here?'. He was and he was wearing a bright yellow Pooh Bear raincoat which didn't slow them a minute. Harry's the man. (he's also in Believe which is a shameless plug) I was merely wet, but I drank coffee, dried out, talked to Chris Christenson and went home entertained.

Thread, stringerless & art

Here's a new You Tube post from Patrick Trefz. For those of you who haven't seen 'Thread', this is a wee chunk of it and you need to get the movie. In my uninformed opinion, it's one of the best surf films to have come out in the last couple years, and one of the very few that I can watch more than once. Helped Joe Curren take down the art at Surf Gallery last night and got to check out his new Manny stringerless (that you can see over Swallowtail Society). Really nice looking board, felt great under the arm and surfs very nicely according to Joe. I need to finish the damn tour stories as the show is down, and there's plenty of good new stuff in the works too. I'd like a decent surf though.

Product

This here is product that you can buy. The poster is our nice tour poster and one can be yours for $10 postpaid inside the USA. The DVD is the excellent new Australian surf film 'Believe' , made by Mick Waters. It features amazing footage and interviews from the likes of The Fitzgeralds, Dave Rastovich and Dick Van Straalen, Albie Falzon, Chris Brock, Harry the Hat and of course those family favourites Andrew Kidman and Neal Purchase Jnr amongst many others. Seriously a fine movie and at this point I'm the only source for it here in the States, although I'm trying to get it into a few select shops. This one is a deal at $25 postpaid inside the USA. If you want either of these or a copy of 'Ether', just drop me an email at consafos at earthlink.net and we'll get you set up. The Swift Movement site is on it's way too I swear.



Sorry- but how's that wave of Purcho's at about 3:19? The man is a prodigy.

Channels

I realize I'm sounding like a Reef ad with all this talk of tails and bottoms, but here's a wild channelled beast that young Mr. Kidman mowed out. He says it works great. I believe it sports the Purchase Jnr. designed 90/90 rails as well. The future is now.

Art

Mattson 2

Been lagging due to uncooperative internet (Earthlink- you suck). and assorted nonsense like Chinese new year parades, but here we go again. Surf Gallery, Laguna Beach. I've been involved in events there before and always go into them with a bit of trepidation- it's going to be all these rich OC surf industry 'art' collectors. I'm always wrong though. There's certainly an element of that, and bless them for the way they throw money at the likes of our boys-it's easy to forget that they help fund the sort of shenanigans we're all involved in- but there's all sorts of folks at these things. Case in point, I met Tyler Warren, who's neo-art nouveau stylings are just getting better and better and he's a freakin' kid. Young, goofy smart-arse surfer kid. I forget what an old fart I am. Mattson 2 wound up playing as they do at many of these events and again they're kids, and they were pretty damn good. I'll admit to rolling my eyes at the thought of the hep jazz deal, but they convinced me as a live act. The lads have chops and they were deep into it when they played. I'm not sure it's going to carry on a CD, but if you miss a chance to see them live you're a chump. Another bonus- right next door the the Gallery is Thalia Street Surf Shop which really is the original hipster surf boutique, and I mean that in a good way. They were doing the funky shirts and left field boards way back when, and still do it well. I remember seeing Bonzers there back when they were almost impossible to find and they've done pretty well at staying ahead of the curve. Throw in wine flowing courtesy of a Chumash run vineyard (Kalawashaq Wines- tasted good to me but I think maybe the the guy over at Wine And Woodsmoke might be a better judge of quality) and hell- it was a great night. Here in the present however I'm bumming- 6ft high tides and 2ft waves. Welcome back to LA.

Hell Yeah

That friends, is a 6' Larry Mabile stinger that Richard Kenvin flowed as an unglassed blank to my girlfriend who then painted it as you see and RK had it glassed and there it is. Being as I'm incredibly untalented in those lines I'm in awe of people like those mentioned above and all their artistic genius. I sure can appreciate it all though.

Still On Tour

Art, Santa Barbara.

It feels like this is all taking longer than the tour itself. At this point we've left young Andrew on the point at Rincon with Skip and run for home and a couple of nights in an actual bed. Not much time for relaxation as within a couple of days I'm heading back up for the show at the A-Frame Gallery in Santa Barbara. Kidman has actually done very well, he's shot rolls of film of Skip and crew surfing and Joe Curren has finished the handmade wood frames you see in the photo above. Joe has definitely inherited his Dad's hand for cabinet work- the frames really are pretty fantastic especially given the deadline we stuck the poor guy with. Show goes well and low key. Nice space in the middle of Santa Barbara with lots of pretty over the top Dan Merkel hypercolour photos and a couple of insane Yater boards that Kevin Ancell has done inlays on- one has a huge abalone shell somehow worked into the deck. My photo unfortunately came out horribly but it's worth stopping into the place to check the boards out if you're in the area. This was also the first of 3 times we wound up blowing off Scott Bass and his radio show. I actually feel bad about that as Bassy was being cool and trying to help us out. Bassy, if you're reading this sorry and don't you have somethng more important to do? Of great delight to me was the fact I got in the water this past Saturday. Santa Monica is never the best, especially with close period high tide windswell, but I wandered down the beach away from the crowd and found a sandbar throwing up the odd chest high and fast corner. I most definitely not 100% and had the paddle power of a four year old, yet notched up a couple of decent runs on the fish before the conditions went south. Crappy session yet I felt infinitely better afterwards for having simply got in the water. 9Fish were doing a demo thing too- sorry to say it but those are some shitty looking surfboards. If you're going to buy a mass market board, at least buy one that looks like it'll work.

Wecome, New Blogging Friend

One of the finest examples of womanhood ever, San Clemente's own Raquel Tejada with Ringo as Youngman Grand in 'The Magic Christian'. Cinematic genius

Got word that the notorious A. Youngman, aka Dan Diknamwer, aka the Slayer Of Rincon, has joined the blogging ranks at www.youngmangrand.blogspot.com. At last, someone who's blog will be updated less often and make less sense than mine.