Patrick Trefz

This year really is kicking off in high gear (well, except for the actual surf) with much goodness looming in the near future. Case in point, P. Trefz has his 'Thread' book done and ready to go. It'll be out in April, is a 10" x 10", 128 page softcover selection of images from around the Thread project and is looking really nice. We'll have copies at foamandfunction and a tour of sorts is in the planning stage. I'm hoping that we can get Patrok to put together a reel of recent footage to show, and I'll get dates up here as it all comes together. Joe Curren and Mick Waters are on track with a book in summer and a film and tour in winter respectively, Hydro is taking great steps forward of late, Mackies are at the laminator and the Kidman Secret Laboratory is in high gear. More shirts and Festivus pics soon too.

Viva Simmons! Viva cerveza y ropas!

Rolled to San Diego for the Swift Soup Kitchen a few nights ago with Vicente Fernandez and Schooly D for the ride sounds, and it got more freestyle from there. We cleaned, we set up an epic rack of boards- all sorts of new Hydrodynamica Test Pilot series action for the punters to check out, a few Ekstroms for mad flavor, some Mackies of course and an old school sampling of Lis and Frye. The utterly heroic Eli Miradon showed up with 2 kegs of beer and a mindblowing array of the family board design to spice things up wildly and we were set.

As always a spectacular event, and this time the night took on two distinct phases. Earlier on it was the serious legends time- Elwell, Ekstrom, Bahne and more mingling with Baja ranchers, young hotshots and a cosmopolitan array of slightly dazed escapees from the trade show hell. There was a former San Diego Charger helping cook lumpia and we had a full array of new softgoods on display.

Later the second and decidedly more debauched wave arrived consisting of the surf shop people, artists and blogwriters. The kegs were depleted, new footage of the Coinstar crew doing the deal on the mini Sims was aired, J. Smart graciously played a great trailer for 'The Tyler Warren Experiment' (out very soon, looking glorious) and boards of all sorts were appearing out of vehicles for the interested.

It went way late but way successful, and I'm feeling like hell. (Thanks Eli, next time bring crappy beer. No wait, don't, I'll bring aspirin.)

For those who couldn't make it, you can still get a shirt. We have the fine designs pictured here: The Bernoulli Lift Equation, The Sim/mons, Mackie Surfboards and the Voyager as well as the Hydrodynamica Spiral, the Foam and Function masterpiece and an epic Kenvin drawn 'Bodysurfing Feels Good All Over' design, all of which I'll post pictures of soon. Colours are black, heather and silver grey (Mackie and Equation are also in red) for the gents, navy and purple for the ladies. Price is $25 with free shipping inside the USA. The Sim/mons and the Swift Tattoo letters are on zip front hoodies and those in grey, black or brown for a mere $35 with free shipping inside the US. Email me at info@foamandfunction.com but be quick, stocks are low and the shipping free on this run only.

Mackie Surfs- Thanks Jamie

courtesy of Jamie M (who's initial I now have correct and who's involved in the surfmatters blog which is good fun), some footage of Mick Mackie at work on the home ground. Swift party is coming fast and the shirts look awesome- here's my new logo and shirt design courtesy of the talented and lovely Jill Jordan. This and others will be on the website sometime next week. The Simmons shirts are epic.

Soup Is Good Food

And again it's time for a celebration of some sort. This go-around is looking champion- there will in fact be soup along with a load of new and really, really good t-shirt designs, some amazing new Hydrodynamica Test Pilot series boards, I'll bring what Mackies I have at this moment, musical treats of all kinds and no doubt some mysto film clips will be shown. Fun for the entire family.

340 16th St, San Diego 92101

12 months ago

About this time a year ago we were in the middle of the Ether tour. Kidman, Richard Kenvin and myself had driven up to the Santa Cruz/SF area for some shows and it was a stormer of a time. Alex at Aqua made the SF night genius, we hung with Danny Hess and then had a brilliant night with the Santa Cruz folks, Patrick Trefz ringleading all the way and winding up in an insane Italian restaurant with some of the most entertaining people I've ever met. We then nearly froze in the Trefz basement and had to hit the road early to get to Rincon as Skip Frye was there celebrating his 50th year of surfing. To be honest, I had no desire to go. I'd driven a lot the last couple of weeks, I wanted to warm up, sleep, enjoy Santa Cruz and then see what sort of amazing lunch Trefz would provide, but we were back in the van and away. Skip's mana was working- we made Rincon by early afternoon through the lightest traffic I've ever encountered on the drive south, entertained by a genius Kenvin monologue. Thrashed as we were, the water was restoring and I sat and laughed and watched Kidman, Skip and his Japanese surf team killing it, even managing a few waves in there. I sat on the shoulder and RK got a few as the sun went and it was an incredible day, one of the best in what became a rough year. Skip is a force of nature, long may he ride. Here he is prepping an 11 footer while some slack jawed fool with a board half that length marvels.

There is some good stuff on the way- Swift Soup Kitchen on the 23rd, Mackie's back in the shaping bay, T-shirts are coming very soon and I thank you profoundly for your attention. Please stick with us for another year.

Channel Bottom

Andrew Kidman on a self made 6 channel widowmaker. I really wish we'd get some waves here.

Fins

If I were of a certain degree of affluence I could solve my fin quandary. Thing is, I like playing with fins, you can do cool stuff by shifting them around. But I also like glassed on fins, they feel solid and they are then the fins the shaper who made the board thought would be the best for it. If I had that degree of affluence I could have certain boards made in pairs. One with glassed on fins, the other the exact same board with boxes. Then I could get a whole bunch of cool fins to play with, like these amazing looking Gullwings by Jeff McCoy. Swiped this of the Revolution Surfboards site which is the place to go for Horan/McCoy design thread in surfing. Insane looking 5 spitfire fin board there too, worth checking out. Tim Griffin has his site up too, so that's listed over there in the links as well.

Another one starts..

Felicitations of the season to you all. So far it's been a good year. I've hung out with my kid, had a surf (tiny waves, but a surf none the less) and done an update on Foam and Function- there's a Lynch/Griffin page with some beautiful single fins up now. Please check it out, and I hope you're getting better surf than me.