Working Hard For The Rent Man

Joe Curren photo

Much afoot the last few days. Joe C was around for about 12 hours, but in that time we looked over some book stuff and it's coming along nicely. He then spent much of the evening organizing an expensive last minute dash to where there might be some southern hemi waves and at 6am I left him at LAX. Don't feel too sorry for him though, he drank all my beer and will be probably scoring barrels right now. When he gets there, it'll be Patrick Trefz standing on the beach with his megaphone making sure Joe and the boys get the shots. Patrick has been on it too, he has a Thread related book in the works and is working hard on a new film project. The flurry of productivity is all over, as word has been filtering out of the border towns that the master of the Arcane, Richard Kenvin, has been sighted delivering finished projects. He's a man with an epic 'To Do' list, but I believe it's getting worked on. The boys down under aren't getting left out either. Mackie says the sidecuts are done, flextail's at the glasser and we should see them within a few weeks- stoked! Meanwhile up in Byron Bay Devo have scored the support gig of the year, playing with the Brown Birds From Windy Hill. Let's hope Purcho gets one of those flowerpot hats.

Bacon Fat

Bob Mitzven/Swift Movement 6'8" longfish. Custom for Aussie Mike who got it a couple of days after getting back from Indo and was stoked, as he should be. There's a real nice green 7'0" quad one at Shelter, check it out when you're there this Saturday for the 'Innermost Limits' showing. Other surf shop news- Pod Room has moved into a bigger space off the courtyard of the building they were in. More details when I get my arse down to Oceanside and check it out. Swell was fun but I stuck with a mostly closing out beachy after seeing the zoo that was north LA points. I'm too old and grumpy to be mellow about surfing with 50 or 60 others and getting run over by an SUP.

Tangy Zizzle

Hey, this is post 100, and it's one I'm pretty happy about. Ulladulla's favourite son has been working hard and the beauties above will be on their way any day now. The sidecut will be in Shelter and I'll have Mick back in the shaping bay before he knows it. If those Antipodean's could send up some more swell with a slightly better angle as well we'd be in heaven.

Cycledelic

For those in the LA area, the Bicycle Film Fest hits town with Trefz' short 'Jim's Lines' showing. This Friday, 7.30pm at the Vine Theatre on Hollywood Blvd.
http://bicyclefilmfestival.com/2008_site/la/program1.php#a



This is a common Murre, and it's from my current favourite blog San Luis Coastal. It's linked on the right and my thanks to Manny at Swallowtail for the tip off. (He's got some great stuff going on there too, worth a look for the beautiful board art he just posted.) I'm off to grovel in tiny surf then pick up some customs Swift has made- pics will undoubtedly follow.

Avalon

Surf and blog free week due to being on Santa Catalina Island, hanging with the g-f's family. I did get in the water every day, took the fins and mask and did sometimes 2 free dives every day. High point was seeing a pair of Black Sea Bass that were huge, I'd guess about 4-5 feet cruising along the edge of the marine preserve. I got down close to them twice and could check them out- totally prehistoric looking things. As the photo above shows, they got huge and they got fished as a trophy, hence they are very much endangered. Unfortunately this doesn't stop a-holes taking them in Mexico where restrictions are lax, which makes marine preserves like Catalina all the more important. More cheerfully, the SurfIndian party last Saturday was pretty epic- Ando's art was cool, Skip Frye was a total gentleman as always and the gallery/shop looks like it'll be a great venue. Much fun.