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.

On Tour #3- Santa Cruz

Seriously, this was our van- Richard was in the swivel chair blasting the tunes and doing some editing on the video suite. Andrew had the solar powered blender going making us smoothies from mother earth's bounty, and I drove. The entire thing was organic and we recycled it after the last show.

At this point we're at the Sunday after the Mav's contest and scattered- Andrew over at the Hess surfboard batcave checking it all out, RK having some exotic breakfast with underground OB big wave guys and me doing the show cleanup with Aleks and enjoying a beautiful sunny morning enhanced by fine San Fran coffee- it's a very civilized town. We reconvened at Ocean Beach which was about as uncivilized as it gets- huge, blown about and terrifying. I've paddled out there on a maybe head high day and it took a solid 45 minutes for me to figure away through, so on a double overhead day like this I was staying well clear. Awesome to watch though and the occasional cloud break sets a mile or so out were amazing. There were a few takers that morning, Danny Hess among them, but fog rolled in and we rolled out for more functional waves. The coast was truly lit up, nearly every glimpse of ocean we had coming down to Santa Cruz showed waves, many big. Pigeon Point was worth a stop and cameras out- huge, hollow rights cranking down the line from the point and to the south there was an equally monumental left cranking up the beach, and all in the most stunning setting imaginable. Santa Cruz was still going off and the Casper's worked their magic until dark and our late arrival at the Mill Gallery for our last minute show. Top german photographer Patrick Trefz had set this one up for us and was pretty done in himself having arrived back from Hawaii at 6 that morning, so it luckily stayed low key. The by now standard array of great characters showed up, Sway's legend Steiny was in full force and a genuine Viking in the form of one Kirkaby turned up too. This guy freedives all over NorCal and has kneeboarded at Mavericks, so he's not fooling about. He was rocking a slew of gold rings and a seal skin vest and is currently my style hero. A fine night followed by one of the coldest attempts at sleeping I've ever had, and off to Rincon we went, as per the Skip post. I'm getting tired just remembering this.

On Tour #2- Aqua

Central Cal Kneelo goes hard

More of our mishaps- we bailed Buellton early as we knew there was swell in the water up north, and there was a chance the legendary Squirrel would ride the balsa Simmons at Mavericks or Ocean Beach. Bypassing the epic but long Big Sur drive we hauled up the 101. Even the sight of about 100 army guys in full camo shooting targets not 50 yards from the side of the freeway just north of Paso Robles didn't slow us down. We hit the coast at the spot above and were greeted by crystalline blue water, double overhead sets and a reeling, spitting right just south of where this kneelo was at work (this is one of the smaller waves but the guy was flying) with a small pack on it. Out back of this guy the set lefts were pretty damn huge, but we bailed on it- Andrew's call 'Small takeoff zone, big pack and a couple of guys dominating it- not worth the hassle' On to Santa Cruz and the Lane in full Saturday madness= a few monsters breaking at middles and the lane was headhigh and amazing. Way more of a pack, but way more room. The boys headed out on the Caspers and any qualms I had at giving up my surf to Richard were snuffed as he was heckled all the way into the water, then put on a show of how to go fast and turn hard. Phenomenal to watch and the guy is undoubtedly Curren's only equal in California. Santa Cruz has probably more great surfers than anywhere else in Cal, but this was a notch up. Back on the road after a couple of hours and we dodged the Mavericks traffic by heading up through La Honda and some gorgeous scenery, making it to Aqua about 10 mins before the show was meant to roll. Again a fantastic time with really cool people showing up- Danny Hess, the Surferbrat, some nutty Kiwi- I was thrashed and entertained by the time Aleks cleared them out. Aqua is another little, indie owned and family run surfery, and the place rules. Aleks (the co-owner) is a mad genius- amiable surfshop guy most of the time, surf-horror autuer when he gets the chance We sat up til 3am watching his new unfinished works and I was drunk on 9% stout and aching from laughing so hard when I passed out, leaving Andrew and Aleks riding the Indo board and watching 'My Eyes Won' t Dry'. If you go to aquasurfshop.com and click on the media gallery you'll find a couple of the works of genius he and his buddy Brian have made. Retarded, brilliant and he has a surf/Bigfoot movie on the way that will redefine how we think of surf film. And gingerbread men.

Unalloyed Capitalism #1

Actually, I'm the conduit only for a fine deal. That's a 6'2" EPS Bauguess shaped Simfish, and a guy called Tim decided he doesn't need it. It's in basically mint condition, ridden once and is only $550. Insane good deal. His email is 49bluenote at gmail.com and someone should jump on it.

On Tour #1- Wetsand

Richard Kenvin paddling out at Ventura 1/11/08. Photo by me which is why it blows. (But Andrew says the horizon's straight so I'm on my way.)

This will be a hazy series of tour stories and updates. 11th was our first day out on the NorCal leg, and we were only a few hours late. The rented minivan was bulging- books, t-shirts, DVDs, clothes, wetsuits and 4 boards (including the 9' Simmons balsa) but we hit Ventura in time for a mellow sunset go-out to wash the past week's chaos off. Except for me- electronic key = no surf for one of us and the boys needed the water more than I at this point. The first batch of many tacos & rellenos were consumed and we hit Wetsand for the show. Absolutely epic shop, probably the best range of boards I've ever seen in a surf shop- biofoam, EPS, wood, long, short, knee, paddle- go to their site and drool. Great folks running the place and a fun, mellow night to start the ball rolling. The one constant with these tours is the people who show up- always stoked, normal folks who surf because they love it and who, like us, are fully in love with surfboards. It's a trip- pros, legends, teenagers, beginners, the guy down the street- all have something going on and it's great. We then drove to a Motel 6 in Buellton to get a jump on the next day's driving. That was not so great.

TOUR CHANGE- We will be at the Pod Room in Oceanside on Weds 23rd. Maybe some music from Andrew, definitely some fun.

Be Like Skip Frye

Skip Frye in Scotland

After a grueling, sleepless Sunday night in a very cold Santa Cruz garage, we drove like the proverbial rocketship all the way to Rincon for the simple reason that Skip Frye was there celebrating his 50th year of surfing. We rolled into the lot exhausted, and there unloading his truck was the man himself with a huge grin and a loud coach's whistle. Sometimes things just work out right. I really can't explain how awesome Skip is, he just radiates goodwill and had as all laughing and struggling into damp, stinky wetsuits for the go-out. (Except Richard, who struggled with his camera.) The waves were chest high or so, the weather beautiful and Skip was rolling with two great Japanese girls, Riiko and Nalu, that he's been guiding into the world of California surf. Crowds, tiredness, my brutally cramped leg- it all evaporated as I got to watch Skip on his 11' Simmons Fish swoop and glide through a little cove wave from the shoulder. He had brought 7 beautiful boards and has been dragging them down to the beach to let all comers have a ride if they so desired. It's really hard to explain just what mana this man has, but needless to say having him give me a big smile and an 'Alright Man!' after a nice little speed run on the 5'5" Casper was undoubtedly the high point of my surfing life so far. He's one of nature's noblemen.
The Norcal leg of the tour is done, we had great shows, some good waves and a suitably surreal time. I'll post a tour log over the next few days as I find time, and thanks to all those who showed up. Met some great people and had some fun is the brief summary. Santa Barbara at the A Frame gallery on State St. happens tomorrow night (Thurs 17th, 7pm) Come on by.

and another...

Here's one swiped from the Nine Lights surfboards site, built by the aforementioned Jeff Beck. No idea how big, but I love them starfins and this looks fun. He offered us a shop tour so hopefully we'll get a chance to visit him

As always, 70percent is on it and got a cool slide show up before I was even close to posting, so go there and look. Kills my stealth blogger deal, but at least I don't look as scary as Andrew. We have managed to add yet another show- this time in Santa Barbara at the Dan Merkel Gallery, 632 State St, SB CA93101. Signing, some art and hopefully room to play the film stuff. Friday is Ventura at the Wetsand store on Main St (7pm or thereabouts) where I will undoubtedly lose it over some of those boards they have. Richard Kenvin is making some 'Untrustworthy' tour shirts so we'll have those on sale, and we have copies of 'Believe' that just arrived from Australia. It's a great film from the small chunk I got to watch today. I've even had some sleep so life is good.

Shelter

8'10" Larry Mabile mega-twinzer

My thanks to the fine folks at Shelter for throwing a hell of an opener for the book tour. It's a great surfshop and couldn't be cooler- family run, full of goodies (like the freshly dropped 8'10" Swift LaMo above) and willing to let us lower the tone of the neighborhood. I had a fine time and saw some very entertaining people- Rob & Maggie from 70% who are great about showing up and supporting these kinds of things, Josh Hall, Eric from Axxxe wetsuits- a whole crew of people who have been cool about backing our half assed projects in all forms. I was stoked to meet Ryan from Warbles in person, and Jeff Beck from NineLights surfboards as well. For a wet Saturday night in Long Beach, it was a stylin' time. High point of the night probably had to be selling a book to Gnar Gnar of 'Invasion...' fame. Epic stuff. And we get to go to Ventura this Friday and do it all again. Makes the past week of book signing and organizational hell well worth it for me. Extra fun is we've added a night at the Pod Room in Oceanside on the 24th of Jan. Andrew will play music it seems, and I will gladly peddle more merch. It's dawning on me that part of the payoff for all this work is I get to spend a month hanging out in some cool surfshops and that it's really not a bad thing. If I can factor in some surf time it's going to be a very tiring and entertaining month.

Goes Excellent In Any Conditions

Happy New Year.

It's all on here, we have books all over the house and they're being signed hours at a stretch. Andrew has been here through a nice little swell and sunny weather and hasn't been even near a beach yet as this is more of a procedure than we ever thought it would be. Beer, good music and lots of talking story are getting us through. First show this Saturday at Shelter and I'm stoked. On a very mercenary note we have plenty of really cool stuff to peddle. Andrew made a run of t-shirts using the screens which he does his art with, and they look pretty amazing. We have movies too: new versions of Glass Love and Litmus with bonus action (Glass Love has the soundtrack CD and Litmus has a short film that we'll be playing at the shows), Patrick Trefz's 'Thread' with the Brown Birds CD and hopefully copies of 'Believe' and 'The Hot Buttered Story' are on the way up from Australia. We'll also have all my regular stuff like 'Way Of The Bird' books and Swift Movement t-shirts. Should you want any of this and are not able to hit a show, please email me at consafos at earthlink.net and I'll happily set you up. Nicely enough I started doing this blog the very night Andrew and I decided to go for it with this book, and here we are actually boxing the damn things up. It took that long to get both book and blog organized right. Hopefully this will keep going as a way to diseminate our little pocket of surf culture to any of you who are interested. I'm hoping to see a 'Thread' book and the 'Hydrodynamica' movie and book happen this year. My thanks to the other bloggers, especially Rob at 70%, JP at Surfy and those on the blogroll for being unwitting inspiration to all this, and my thanks to you for taking the time to look at this.

Lighting it up like a Christmas Tree

Kye Fitzgerald hurling a top turn, no idea who took this but it's good.

I'm off up to central Cal for some decompression time before Jan on the road. Beer, widowmaker, Horan, thickest rubber, dog and warm clothes are in the truck. Enjoy yourselves.

Ventura

5'4" biofoam Eaton Bonzer kneeboard, shaped by Joe Bauguess

Swiped this picture of the Wetsand website- they have their bricks & mortar shop up and running and Andrew Kidman will be there Jan 11th around 8pm. There seems to be a really awesome array of boards there, the vast majority of them made with the kind to the environment biofoam that Wetsand had a hand in developing. Not many places you can go and find an off the rack super hi-tech Stanley Pleskunas flexfish and a Wegener wooden recreation of an ancient hawaiian board (both reasonably priced I might add). The much ballyhooed death of the shaper through foreign imports seems to have bypassed this place. I like going to Ventura anytime, but this is going to be an extra fun tour stop.

Derek Hynd

Derek Hynd, Skip Frye board, Scotland. photo Kidman

Andrew's interview with Derek in the Surfer's Journal Vol. 11 #1 is probably one of my favourite pieces of surf journalism ever. Here's Derek talking about the young Australian's yearning for speed.
"I was woken at midnight once by a chase going down after the Pub all over the neighbourhood between a Charger cop car and a Mach 3 Kawasaki: what a classic double. They were the only sounds around and it was like an amplified dogfight. It went on and on. You wouldn't read about it- they started getting closer and my heart was thumping like crazy and it felt like a lottery win as they got to my street half a mile away, both red lining.
Had to be. The bike raged down the first hill past the house and over the rise down the next hill. He was a local for sure, heading for the bends to shake him off. The V-8 hit the rise 30 yards outside the house at ridiculous speed. I'll never forget the moments when his car left the road before the crash. Greatest thing to happen on our street- both were heroes, better than the Queen driving by in '66.'

Derek is an absolute original; brilliant, somewhat mad and still a fantastic, relevant surfer. He's been working on the finless project and I've linked the Safe To Sea blog over there, it's a great read and he's involved in making the Musica Surfica film.

Fish, Frisco & Finished Books

5'8" Neal Purchase fish.

I've posted so many pics of hull/stubs lately, it seems time for a nice fish. I know may consider them an overdone fad, but personally I couldn't be happier with them. Stay low, drive with that front foot and keep 'em moving- it's just a lot of fun. I rode my 5'10" this morning in sunny, glassy little waves and had a surprising amount of fun. This is a nice one from Neal Purchase. Neal started out as a sander at the Keyo factuory in Brookvale working with the likes of Nat Young, Ted Spencer and Bob McTavish. In 1966 he shaped a board that both Nat and Ted rode and loved. It was called the Virgin and at 8' with asymettrical V it fits neatly into the birth of the shortboard. I'm dropping science like this because today I received advances of Andrew Kidman's book. It's utterly epic and I'm really pleased. As surfers we have our own shared history and culture which have always tended to be dominated by the big players, and valid as the Quiksilver/Slater/Cal-centric may be to may people, there's other stuff out there as well, and 'Ether' is an beautiful chunk of it all. And there's a swell coming. Really, really stoked. The Frisco portion of our story is the nailing down of a Three Sails date there. It's Jan 12th at Aqua Surf Shop, 1742 Haight St, San Francisco CA94117 (415-876-2782) and we're bringing the full dog and pony show.