summer will follow...

It's undeniably spring here in SoCal, the weather has turned lovely, the sun is out, the onshores blow and the swell is barely there. Still, we do have the solace of avocados ripening, like this beauty from my mate Greg's Mum's backyard tree. The Mackie board in the previous post weighs in at 5lb 12oz without fins and somehow I find it very satisfying that I have an avocado that's a 5th of the weight of a 6' surfboard. I also have t-shirts for the impending summer, although stocks are dwindling. Here's a selection of favourites still available in a sampling of the colours available. $25 each, shipping included. The Casper shirts are womens' sizes only and only in that blue, and there's womens' sizes in most of these other designs too. info @ foamandfunction.com if you're interested.

Brand New Mackie HP Fish For Sale

This whole "Hey. let's make Mick's boards available in the US' deal is becoming a bit of a nightmare. Nothing to do with Mick, he's a lovely bloke and a pleasure to work with. Boards are done when he says they will be and his turnaround is pretty quick for a one man hand shaping operation, even when I get the 'backed up a few weeks, the surf's been good' message. He makes it all very easy, the quality is great and his design sense is inspiring and progressive. Which is where the problem lies. I have no idea what's causing it, maybe the change of seasons down there, maybe the construction on the new shopping centre going up in Ulladulla has stirred something into the air, but the last run of boards has been mind-blowing, and now this has turned up and I want to keep it. I kept the last one that came though, so I can't keep this, but I want it. 6' x 20" x 2 5/8" EPS sidecut fish. Soooo insanely nice under the arm. Totally high performance, foam where you need it but gone where you don't, a bit of thickness in the tail but a lot less than on that quad and a very hooky side cut outline. Yeah, it's good. Comes with FCS boxes and a set of black FK-2 hexcore keels. $800, info @ foamandfunction.com for inquiries. Unless I cave and wax it up. Actually, I think this Mackie deal was all Kidman's idea so it's actually his fault I'm broke and my kid's room is full surfboards. I feel better now.
A sidebar on Mackie too- he hand shapes these boards so unlike someone who's dealing with a close tolerance blank popped out of a machine, he can tweak what you want- more thickness and a quad setup? Not a problem. This board but 5'8" and an inch wider? Can do but it might look a bit odd. If you want a custom board we can do it and it will be amazing.

Sage Joske via 'Lost In The Ether'

Sage Joske is a young Australian surfer/shaper and truly a kid who makes me believe the current upwelling of interest in non 'mainstream' shapes is just the beginning. He and his dad Paul were very early proponents of the interest in ancient Hawaiian boards and Sage shapes both classic and futuristic stuff under his Valla Saltwater Constructs label.
The screen images are of Sage in Andrew Kidman's 'Lost In The Ether' film and the montage is Kidman photos ofof Sage riding one his Valla epoxy fish.

And further- as DL kindly points out there's a great Sage interview at Phoresia, which is a site well worth your attention and I've been remiss in not adding it to the links until now.

Limey Widowmaker

Aforementioned britisher who's getting the Mackie sidecut is doing alright as he also apparently just got this. It's an absolutely classic looking widowmaker in the Parmenter/Kidman vein from Adrian at Fluid Juice Surfboards in the UK. Many of you may shrug and pass on to some resin tinted confection, but you should give this board a serious glance. It's really quite a lovely thing, clean, functional and utterly stylish in it's simplicity. It conjures images of Central Cal. in the fall for me, cold green water and a solid reef breaking with no one around. Top marks for the logoless clear action too.

The Goods, from Mick Mackie

The surfboard cup runneth over as it were. I just sent a very nice sidecut twin to a luckly gent in the UK, there's an EPS twin coming to replace it, finally a fun little session (on the EPS quad Mick made, still absolutely frothing over that board) and to top it off there's these artfully posed beauties. That stub (6' I think) looks quite tidy, and I'm still very enamored by that quad stinger. All these boards were hand shaped by Mick, and that's how he does it all. He will build you any thing you want custom so if you're interested, email info @ foamandfunction.com. These are very, very fine surfboards. And that's just the Mackie stuff, a visit to Jeff Beck was made and there is some utterly brilliant stuff being cooked up in his little bay of surf delights. More on that when he's got it finished and dialed in, but it's entertaining times all round.

More Legends

Lance Mountain


Lance


Steve Caballero & Lance


Steve


Rodney Mullen & Minor Threat, Kenter Canyon

Given the success of the Dogtown documentary, it only made sense that Bones Brigade one wouldn't be far away. It has the potential of being highly entertaining, and personally I think it's when Peralta was really hitting his stride. He and Craig Stecyk created some serious cultural impact in those days. Courtesy of Glen E. Friedman, here's some shots from the interviews as well as some of Glen's classic back in the day shots. Lance Mountain was and is the man.

Legends

The gent in the white shirt is Mr. Floyd Smith of Gordon & Smith, and because the universe is a random place, he was in Ulladulla NSW visiting a friend and signing some old boards. How's that single fin?

Jay Boy Book

In one of those moments of exceptional coolness, we've got the hookup to make copies of the 'Jay Boy' book available thanks to Mike Pool King. It's a collection of mostly black and white images from the archives of Kent Sherwood, Jay Adams' stepfather and all around Venice icon. The selection is amazing, Jay and the young Dogtown crew (Alva, Baby Paul, Shogo etc) skating and surfing the LA basin in the pre Dogtown days, the last gasp of hippie innocence and feral youth amongst the fast collapsing Los Angeles backdrop. Jay provides captions and a pretty classic dialog for the images, and it's all in all a lovely book. $20 + $2 shipping, email info @ foamandfunction to order or query.

John, by Mick

Patagonia teamrider Johnny Abegg going left! from Little House Productions on Vimeo.

J. Abegg surfing, shot by M. Waters. Both great blokes who have good movies out.

surfsnow

A few more from Mick Mackie who has the antipodean winter set up nicely organized. Here's his Gentemstik snow quiver, the winter singlefins for the surf quiver and a righteous looking quad stinger. It's for sale too, $800 in Australia, $900 in the US for whoever is quickest. info @ foamandfunction.com for inquiries.

A Note: That quad is 5'7" x 19.5" x 2.5"- someone's going to get a screamer of a board for summer waves in that thing

Simmons Celebration

It was a good night.....

snowsurf

I really wasn't kidding about having a swag of great board pictures, and not all of them are for the ocean. This is one that came courtesy of our good friend Kevin Brennan at December Snowskates, part of the whole family of lunatics making sliding devices basically. It's a bindingless powderboard, 48" long with a total skateboard feel to it- nose and tail kick and a deck concave. The grip is EVA (same as the Mackie flextails) and it feels very nice under the foot, at least in my front room. The bottom is waxable P-Tex and has a couple of serious channels which you can almost see in the bottom pic. Yeah, I'm a sucker for any sort of cool board and this stuff would make me want to go where there's snow. This board is for sale- $239, and we will definitely be making a few more of Kevin's design's available in the near future. I'm stoked, we are now officially surf/skate/snow!

panoply of artistic wonder

What a life, in the space of 1 week I will have hung with NorCal genius in the form of Mr. Joe Curren, the central cal genius which is Steiny and on Saturday the mighty RT. This is why we are involved in surfing: the companionship of like minded and more talented folks (it's certainly not the money). Speaking of not the money, I will be there in full flight at the merch table. T-shirts, books etc. Feel free to stop by, check out the fantastic array of Simmons related ephemera and maybe go home with an acquisition or two. Your spending is not going to supporting a casual lifestyle (there's many day jobs involved here) but is put back into what ever project is next. (Not that I'd object to becoming some sort of surf culture oligarch- I'd expect nothing too obscene like multi million dollar yachts or football teams- a nice central coast spread with a wave or two out front would be fine, a shed full of exceptional surf boards and maybe a few russian ballerinas and/or up and coming bollywood actresses to keep things interesting, I'd invite you all over I swear...)

Oh, a footnote. Someone from Iceland looked at this blog. I think that's really cool, and if you're that person and you look again, drop an email- I'd love to know what your deal is.

Harmless Neighbourhood Eccentrics

Santa Cruz. It's a really great town. I like the people, especially Steiny and Trefz. I like the surf, and I liked the surfboard show. Lots of nice people came by and looked at boards, and we had some really good ones. The last two in this post are a pair of 5'2" Twinzers from Larmo, and they are looking for a good home after their appearance in Sacred Craft. Info @ foamandfunction if you're interested in one. More once I'm a bit rested.

Channeled Quad MiniSim and other art

...or why a custom surfboard is your best option. East Coast Stan, a gent of obvious taste and amazing patience wanted a mini Sim, bounced a few ideas around and then left the assemblage to Hank Warner. (Stan already has a solid grounding in Hank's quality rides) This is what happened, and it's good- it even excited Mackie. The boards for Sacred Craft are haphazardly piled in the front room and are annoying the dog, so I'm ready to go. Come on by if you're in the neighbourhood and we'll be at the demo session at Cowell's on Sunday AM (possibly in somewhat shakey form depending on how fired up Trefz is) If you're down here in the LA region, go by Track 16 Gallery at the Bergamot Station on Saturday night. Jeff Ho has a pretty cool little part in the new show there, 'Stoked & Broke' will be screening and it'll be a good time. More Jeff stuff coming up soon too- there's a lot on the boil which is nice in times as troubled as these.

Flex Path pt4-Mackie Space Stik

The second generation model. Mick says a bit more foam and it goes like the proverbial rocket, he can barely hang on. In the last day I have collected such a wealth of photos of incredible boards that it's going to be all on here for a while. Stay tuned.....