Something In The Air

After a few conversations and some delay caused by high quality Central NSW swell, it's all go to make available Mick Mackie Surfboards in the USA. Mick's going to shape a few and send them up, and I'll be able to sort out any custom orders with him. This means we can all get out hands on his flextail fish and the sidecut fish (the board Garth Dickinson rides in 'Glass Love' is one) to say nothing of all the other epic and creative stuff he's playing with. I believe we'll be seeing a 5'7" sidecut fish and a 5'9" flextail to begin with, and that the flextail will be around for people to try. Go check his site at www.mackiesurfboards.com.au- this is going to be really fun.

Sea Of Joy

How epic are these prints from Mick Waters? He emailed to let me know he had Believe t-shirts and prints for sale, and these are them basically. (For those of you who haven't seen Believe, it's now available in the US and it's well worth checking out) I'm loving the prints and would gladly facilitate getting them from Mick if anyone wants one. The deal is they are gallery quality, mounted on foamcore, and signed by Mick and the surfer in the photo. He also has shots of Rasta, Beau Young and Kyuss King that I'll post soon. I'm guessing with shipping and exchange they'll pan out in the $150-175 range which really is a deal. The Aussies are on the ball, I'm hoping to have available some ridiculously amazing items from down there very soon.

A NOTE: Just looked at that post and the colours have come out a bit funny in the pictures- anyone who cares can email me and I'll send you the actual jpeg- they look way better. consafos at earthlink.net is the address.

Summer In The City

Here's hoping no-one has much planned for next weekend. Not only is the Ando/Skip show happening, there's also a deal happening during the day at the Cardiff Patagonia store where you can have a trial ride on a Bark paddleboard- all you need do is show up and register at the store and you're away. If you're in LA and don't fancy the cost of a SD drive, Shelter is showing the Alex Knost 'Black Van' film and the mighty Growlers are playing. Something for everyone it seems. The run of seriously fun swell continues, hit the points north of LA and was thrown into the world of over 50 people scrabbling for a wave. I understand the distaste felt for the stand-up guys better now I've surfed with 5 or 6 of them in the lineup. Wavehog behavior is bad enough, but from guys who can barely control their equipment it's a bit much. Watching them go sideways over the falls and seeing the 10'+ board mow through a pod of beginners was wild. Still, I got a few good ones and I've been enjoying riffing through the quiver as the Casper is on loan. Again, the Horan/Spitfire fin combo is insanely good.

Modern World

Fish by Kidman

I've had an enforced layoff thanks to AT&T screwing up my phone line. 2 weeks, no phone or DSL. It was sort of entertaining for a while. With no internet stuff to distract me I availed myself of some of the smallish but fun surf we've had here lately and got down to the business of moving storage spaces- a new print run of 'Dogtown' means I'm shifting pallets of books around, a truckload at a time. Now I'm playing catchup with all the stuff I ignored, and I'm doing it through a temporary dialup line as my phone is still not sorted. Bastards. I griefed Mr. A. Kidman about giving his good photos to other people's blogs, and he pointed out he's not blogging so much as he's spending his time making what's in the pictures, and gave me a few. Very nice classic and clean fish for the Japanese, congratulations to the individual that gets this- you scored. Kidman is on the ball, new 'Bird' book in the works and I'm back to the catchup shipping

Bicycle

Patrick Trefz was in New York for the Bicycle Film Festival and here's what he made. No lie, I'm wearing a t-shirt from Manny's Low-Rider Bike Shop in lovely Venice CA as I type this. Synchronicity, man

Big In Japan

Kidman cam catches our boy celebrating some new Japanese press. We transcend cultural and language barriers almost every day around here.

Gloom, Artshows and the rest

Photo by Joe Curren

The run of surf fun ended with Socal's bizarre weather behaviour over the last few days. Onshores howling, tornadoes in Riverside, thunderclouds- wonderful chaos. There's some inside stuff to do though. If you're in New York or environs you're stoked. Weds 28th Richard Kenvin & Joe Curren are part of a show at the Yard Gallery at Soho Grand (how NYC arty is that?) involving 3 photographers and 3 filmmakers. There will be good stuff there and the rsvp needs to go to events@sohogrand. The following night there's the bicycle oriented 'Hello Velo' show that Patrick Trefz is part of happening at 40 Great Jones St near the Bowery. Again totally worth going out for I'd say. Those of us in the greater LA can feel very urbane at the Maggie Marsek show at Shelter on Sat 31. Always a fun event there, and Maggie's photos are great so I say go for it. Added a couple more blog links over there, Jamie Murray's shaping and Norcal photos make me want a road trip, and Niega's road trip and photos make me want to go road trip France & Spain.

Jair Bortoleto's Book

Jair Bortoleto has most kindly arranged to get some copies of his book 'Alma Santista' up here for North American consumption. It's a really cool collection of photos, mostly portraits, that Jair has shot around his home town of Santos which happens to be the birthplace of Brazilian surfing. The book is about 10" x 10", softcover and black and white. It's a really nice moody collection, and even though the text is in Portuguese it's still easy to get a feel for the place. Here's the cover and a couple of spreads from the book, and Jair's blog over there on the right has a nice collection of his photos. The book is $35 postpaid inside the US, and if you want it just email me at consafos@earthlink.net and I'll make it happen.
Lagged a bit on the posting due to this swell to be perfectly honest. I've been out there on the Casper neglecting work as much as possible over the last week culminating in really fun go-outs on both Sunday and Monday. Stayed away from it today and dealt with book stuff that has been happening the way it should and looks like being a great project down the line, so I don't mind missing what was apparently another good day (Andy surfed a northern LA point and said it was plenty fun) as I'll get back on it tomorrow. Some stuff you may want to check out from the last few days are Patrick Trefz doing some updating after scoring excellent looking mainland Mex, and a great little interview with Tim Griffin (who's shaping the fine new Lynch boards for the US) at surfboardbuilders.com/blog.aspx.

Lynch by Kidman

That widowmaker has got me going and any excuse to run a shot of one of my favourite surfers I'll take. Lynch surfing is by Andrew Kidman from Ether. Not sure what happen to the colours but I like it. Not a bad bottom turn for a guy in his 50s. Underneath that is a hurried shot of my Lynch Evolution model, shaped by Terry Goldsmith. It's a 6'8", nearly as old as my daughter and far grubbier than she is (usually).
Oh yes, the board below is based of a Seebold single apparently. Makes it even more epic really.

Someone will be very happy...

Custom 6'3" Lynch Widowmaker made by Tim Griffin

Some very lucky and damn smart person ordered this beauty from Tim Griffin. It's a widow based on a Wayne Lynch single fin and looks amazing. Lynch has had a few bad deals with making his boards available outside of Victoria, but it looks like it's all go now. Tim Griffin is shaping them in N. San Diego County, he's had plenty of experience with Wayne's designs and it shows in the boards I've seen. Pretty epic stuff all round, but a Lynch Widowmaker is right up my alley- I was frothing like a 16 year old when I saw this.

And Now We Present...

Photo by Joe Curren of photos by Joe Curren

In typical Joe fashion he's got a blog he's been a bit low-key about and it's really good. Go check it out.
http://joecurren.blogspot.com

The Week in Pictures

The surf was good this weekend and the in-box has been bountiful and entertaining of late, so here's a rundown. First up is some surfing in Australia from Mick Waters.



Still in Australia, Chef Kidman whips up some special mouth numbing chile jam. The secret recipe involves a potfull of these. (Photo by the Chef himself)



Meanwhile in New York, the East Coast Fish Frye/ AB3 weekend goes down. Some cool boards on display and here's Mike and Richard post event maybe wishing they had some chile jam to go with the pizza. (Photo lifted from Shipworm & Gribble)



And finally, a shot from former Z-Girl Peggy Oki who was rock climbing near Canyonlands. She finds time to still skate, surf, climb, save whales and paint. She's an excellent example of living with gusto

Killin' It Worldwide

Jair reports nice conditions and 6' in Santos, Brazil (like the weather would be bad in Brazil). Mick Waters says it's been good in the Kirra region, barrels aplenty and some of them lefts making him a happy goofyfoot. RK said it was solid windswell joy on a Casper at one of those historically important breaks down south, and the photo is River Rock himself, killing it at Sloat (no idea when it was taken but hell of drop Petro's making there.) I'm going out tomorrow AM. Kidman is making deadly mouth numbing hot sauce. All is good. Here's hoping the NYC Fry gets a few spinners for the boards to be tried on this weekend.

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.