Smile Around The Face

Mackies are here. They look fantastic- handfoiled by Mick keels, textured deck. I'm pretty stoked although I have way too many surfboards in my house. 5'8" sidecut will be at Shelter and the 5'7" sidecut is up for grabs. More photos and a flextail ride report soon.

AN UPDATE OF SORTS

I'm too thrashed to do another post, but here's some fun.
Friday- Thalia St Surfshop are having a demo day. You can go down and put some dents in my 5'5" miniSimmons as it's a demo board for the day. Extra points if you crease it by running over Richard Kenvin. Fun starts at 4, there's a barbeque and some film action. All going well the Mackie flextail will be there to try, but no promises.

Saturday- Shelter party, 'Under The Sun' showing. That one I'm going to make I swear.

Brazil- here's the link for the Santos Surf Art show Jair curates. Pretty epic lineup and who wouldn't want to check an art show in Brazil?
http://santossurfart.blogspot.com/

Mango Pickle Down River

Another of the stock board gems. This one is a 5'5" Larmo Magic Carpet with the juciest mango tint- my photo really doesn't do this thing justice, it's beautiful. Naturally the keels are hand foiled Geppys (extra nice too, they were claimed by a colleague but No-Nonsense Phil decided this board needed 'em, so bad luck.) and there's a resin leash loop. Not that it matters to you, but personally I really love the Magic Carpets, one of the most functional and fun fish styles out there I'd say. Little bit more pulled in than a trad Lis style and a little more user friendly rail design and foam distribution. Larry is a craftsman who knows what he's doing. $750 and it's yours. Once again September is on us and again it's party time. Swift Festivus, 9/5 at the HQ, 340 16th St SD. Details to follow as the boys figure them out. Lastly, I'm making a quick run back to the homeland mid September so any Kiwis out there who may want a copy of Ether or some such item and would be happy to save the shipping fee, I'd gladly bring it down to Auckland with me. Every little bit helps.

Flat Foot Hustling

A day of driving surfboards around and being thwarted. Off to the airport bright and early I went, the Mackie's are sitting waiting to be collected and I'm stoked. An hour or so later, Customs tell me the boards are being held for inspection, I'll have them next week. I cursed, went to the beach where the waves were atrocious and the day maintained that obnoxious trend. On the bright side however, I have a few stock Swift boards littering up the house, so maybe it'll be your lucky day and my kid will have a bit more space in her room. Here's a personal favourite, a 6'0" Steve Seebold double bump pin quad. Full shred stick action here, and how core is a Seebold board? Finished in mysto SD clear, and I've so far managed not to lose the fins. Epic.

Future legend

More Mackie. These shots were meant to be saved for the website I'm going to try and organize, but this one is just too good. EPS flextail with carbon fiber rails, prototype #1, Mick's personal board. You have no idea how much insane stuff is getting played with down there in the wilds of central NSW.

30 More Miles To San Diego

Just back from San Diego and all is good. Checked out a 4'8" casper shaped by a 12 year old kid, then met the newly grounded kid at Windansea. The board is a trip, RK has amazing footage of the groms riding it and it's shorter than the 4'11" White Pony Simfish that you here see Ryan Thomas cutting back with panache. Also got word from Mackie, boards are on the plane early next week- 2 sidecuts and a flextail with more to follow. Screen grab is Mick's site with the flextail showing what kind of cuttie you can haul it through. Please note that neither of the waves being surfed are exceptionally fantastic, and figure what kind of speed these boards are generating. Had a quick bodysurf in the whomp and then we ate tacos. The good life.

Gouge Away

A couple more from Mick Waters. He's selling these nice quality prints,. signed by the surfer and Mick, and the price is pretty reasonable. If you're interested let me know and I'll put you in touch with him.

And again, the colours are all out of whack- I'll gladly the original image to anyone who's interested- these are really cool prints.

The Red And The Black

...and some blue too. Old school goes future modern Horan style courtesy of Revolution Surfboards. Swiped these pics off Swaylocks and the boards are apparently in Icons Of Surf, or contact Noel through www.solosurfer.com and he can set you up with a custom. The red/black is a demo board apparently. Nice deal. Also for surf fun, Shelter's blog has some nice shots of RT laying the White Pony into a turn. Trefz scored in Mex, pics soon we hope.

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.

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.