Here comes Trefz!

The world of blogging widens yet further. Patrick Trefz has a really suitably suave looking photo blog. I mercilessly stole the picture above from it) If I'm going to waste time on the damn internet, this is the way to do it

http://patricktrefz.tumblr.com/

Hopefully his disciplined Germanic temperament will keep him updating it regularly, it's pretty epic so far.

Aloha & Welcome to Swift

Fine art by Sailor Jerry

The mighty Philski is up and 'social networking' with the rest of us. Appearing on your internet is not only a page on Myspace for The Swift Movement but also a blog
http://theswiftmovement.blogspot.com
Word has it that the San Diego boys have new digital camera technology and will be displaying all that they can from the Dustbin of History that is The Swift Movement.

South

Photo by Maz, a spot south of here.

Truck is back, books are shipped and I can go surfing tomorrow. Hooray!

Fine Art

Andrew Kidman prints on wood 12" x 16"

With my truck in the shop it's been a surf free week for me with Casper Jnr Jnr sitting neglected, but it's not all bad. I spent a week with my kid visiting, got a fun small surf session in on Sunday, handed the truck over and have been catching up on assorted neglected business since. One chore taken care of has been the sorting out of art left by Mr Kidman which was occupying my long-suffering daughter's bedroom. I'm curating a decent collection here, and the artist is more than happy to sell to any interested parties. Pictured here are some of what proved popular items while on tour. These are wood panels with hand-painted backgrounds and Andrew's screenprint art on top. Each is unique and they're a good deal at $300 a piece. As always feel free to email me at consafos at earthlink.net if you have any interest in these or other of Andrew's output. Those with no art budget can get their jones taken care of by ducking over to Warbles where Ryan has posted pictures of a new EPS creation he's been working on. Whether the thing surfs great or not it's a fantastic piece of sculpture, but I'm thinking it'll work fine and give an interesting variation on the ride.

Casper Jnr. Jnr.

More of the new board. Lame as I am I cranked a few crappy photos off , waxed it and away I went. Too excited to actually take a minute or two for better unsullied photos, but I'll do some nicely posed ones soon. Subsequent sessions have been more rewarding with better waves to play on (still far from great) and I can feel it doing what it should. My new daily driver without doubt. Very fun board, paddles much better than you'd think a 5'5" would be capable of, it's really loose and skateboard-esque and absolutely flies. My experience with this design had been on pretty good waves- lined up Rincon and you're in heaven- so I'm stoked that it rides so well in lesser conditions like the Santa Monica beach break. Still managed to go over the handlebars on one though

Freshly Minted

5' 5" of fun, much thanks to Joe B, Phil and RK and I'm going surfing...

UPDATE
Possibly because of new board excitement, the eye of fate and all that, the waves were crap. Small and gutless on the points with the tide filling, bigger and starting to close out at the beachy. Ah well, such is surfing. I got a couple, Casper Jnr. Jnr. felt as good as that which it was modeled off and I can't wait for a decent go at it. Did run into some friends and had much fun but not much waves. Back at it tomorrow.

Sweet

Couple of nice neo-zaps, got the pic from a Swaylocks thread and the boards are over at solosurfer.com. Both are quad with a fin box for that starfin option. No problems there.

Astounding ineptitude

Made and carried out plans to meet RK and Phil at the Shelter opening. I'll spare the full array of nonsense that has led to us being called the 'Keystone Cops of surfing' by someone who's dealt with it all, but needless to say I didn't get my board and I forgot my camera to document the fun. It was fun too, Boroquez installation art and really fine new digs for the Shelter family, K. Putnam dropping knowledge and story out front, Joe Bauguess rolling up from SD with the boys and charming the ladies all night, getting to hang with Ryan Warbles and Jeff Beck from Ninelights, both of whom are onto some wild and entertaining stuff, getting schooled on balsa by the aforementioned Jeff, Mexican beer and general frivolity. The Shelter folks throw a good party and really enjoy this surfboard stuff which is fine by me. Such a moron for leaving the camera behind. It's been a couple weeks of better than usual chaos and ineptitude from me, so here's a look at a suitable mascot for it all.

Bonza!

Eaton/Swift Bonzer by Joe Bauguess

It seems like you can't be a real blogger without posting a picture of a bonzer, so here's one from me. Joe's in town and busy shaping away so hopefully I'll be seeing my 5'5" mini Simmons very soon. I'm excited like schoolkid the day before holidays.
As the year is about 1/4 gone, I'm seriously facing up to what I need to get done. Hopefully it's going to be a productive year for us all, and by posting this I'm hoping I'll have added incentive to get these things finished. In relative order of expected production, here's my aims:
-Swift website up and running (soon I hope)
-Brown Birds From Windy Hill vinyl released
-Joe Curren book done and released
-'Bird Down Under' book finished and released
-Albie Falzon book started
-Hopefully a couple more 'Ether' shows in there too, Andrew's talking about Spain and I'd like to get those East Coast shows done, and maybe another LA/SD one if he's back in the US. I'm agitating for the full slide show/Hydrodynamica clip performance again as it went over very well.
There's also some tenative fun with Australian surfboards and shapers,and I'll hopefully also be helping Patrick Trefz sell his 'Thread' book (again- that's a really good film) but more on that as it becomes more concrete.I need to pay my rent and eat over this time too, so no doubt Jan 09 will come and I'll be staring at this list in dismay. Don't forget this Saturday is the Shelter reopening which I will most certainly attend, 'with bells on' as they say in my part of the world.

Brazil

Jair in Brazil sent me a couple of emails loaded with photos. He'd been hanging with Mike Vallely and acting as a defacto guide/translator. They went to a youth program in a Sao Paolo juvey prison and into some very harsh favela zones. Whole time Jair is taking some very epic photos. He's doing some great work and he's got a blog that I've now linked.

Surfing

A wave, south of where I was.

Went south on a very weak work pretext and managed to get in the water in a good spot while a swell was running again. After a terrible couple of months I've lucked out twice. Last week during the south/west combo I gambled on the tide making Santa Monica OK and it was, peaks all over, offshores and nicely bowly chest to head high waves. Probably was better elsewhere but I had pretty damn good all to myself. Yesterday I got nice sized and clean N. San Diego beachbreak for an hour or two, then went down to visit the Swift headquarters. RK had surfed Windansea for about 5 hours over two great sessions and had some footage to prove it. The first swell totally lit up La Jolla, insane Waimea-esque monsters in the sunset, but Ed Wood struck and the footage is a bit too mysto for it's own good. However I think the fine lads over at Shipworm have inspired him with their blogging prowess and he's up and running with Hydrodynamica, so we all get to see the fine stash of images he has, and he's started with some nice shots from yesterday. I've linked him over there along with the Grey Ghost who's shaping some truly righteous looking boards out in NYC. I'd like also to say that a visit to Warbles to see the Jeff Beck foam/wood sandwich board is well worth it. If I'm avoiding work by looking at surfboard pictures then you should too.

Purcho

Purcho pic swiped from Solace Surf Au

I've been slack about posting as I've had a week of computer malfunction that was fortunately simply fixed, and now I'm trying to get back on it and caught up with everything. Meanwhile, down in Australia the Noosa Surf Festival has been progressing with all manner of fun including a Brown Birds From Windy Hill show. Here's their guitar hero and the inventor of the rail machine, Neal Purchase Jnr, with a couple of his shapes. There was probably beer involved in the production.

Fish!

YoungmanGrand-Mackie-Fish-Hooboy

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.