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.

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.

3 Sails To The Wind Tour

So we have dates finalized: Jan 5th at Shelter Surf Shop, 2700 Rose Ave, Signal Hill CA 90755 (562-997-0100)
Jan 26th at Patagonia, 2185 San Elijo Ave, Cardiff CA 92007 at 6.30
Andrew's art show at The Surf Gallery will open on Jan 19 and he'll be there signing and generally loitering, 911 S. Coast Hwy, Laguna Bch CA 92651 (949-576-9155) and we'll have San Francisco slotted in around the 12th, New York in early Feb and maybe a few others as we can fit them. Don't forget on the 25th & 26th the bi-annual Swift Movement fandango will be happening, so you should all come to at least one show and that as well.

Thanksgiving

Plenty to be thankful right now as I just heard from the printer that advances are ready of 'Ether' which means I should have the finisehed book around year end and our planned tour can go ahead for January. Andrew has a show booked at the Surf Gallery in Laguna Beach opening Jan 19, and the weekend after that it's Festivus time. I 'll start posting solid dates and times in the next week, and please come on by the shows. Andrew will be doing what will be an undoubtedly entertaining slide show of his work from the last 20 years, and we'll be showing a new trailer for 'Hydrodynamica'. The book is absolutely epic, a total piece of art. It's expensive, but it's the coolest piece of limited surf art you'll see outside of a hand shaped board. I'm stoked. (Click on the image above for an enlarged taste) Went with RK to see an Alex Kopps art show this past weekend too, and in keeping with the hull vibe of the last few posts we got to meet the legendary Steve Krajewski aka Esteban Bojorquez aka one of the most polished hull riders you'll ever see. Truly nice guy and hell of a storyteller. We wangled an invite to check out both Kirk Putnam and Steve's archives, and a good time was had by all. It's undoubtedly over-obsessive of me, but it's cool to see another thread of surfboard design concepts that have evolved out of the same Simmons concpts of the late 1940s that have inspired the short, wide twinnies and stubs I love so well. Sure, there's plenty of other equally important elements to the boards we see today, but the Simmons thing is strong when you look.

More Hull-ish action

These two bad boys are 1lb eps, stringerless and shaped by my internet buddy Greg out in Texas. He has a bunch more photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/16998046@N06/
There's some great shots of the full s-deck business he has going on at that site. The 'Leaf' is 6'4 and 21" wide, the stub is 6'0" and 22.5- Michael Peterson would know what to do with this particular board. What I think is great about them is he plans to make them both quads which seems like a fine idea. Here's the point where I make all the hull guys angry- My issue with what is traditionally considered a 'hull' -pinched rails, s-deck, single big flex fin- is simply that they don't seem to turn very well. No disrespect meant to the boards at all, I think they're amazing for what they were designed to do, which is go really fast and give the rider a very distinctive feel for how the board is riding. I love the single mindedness and purity of design that Liddle, Steve K, Hilbers, Putnam et al have put into these things. The boards are designed to fly down the line at the right hand pointbreaks that abound in N. Los Angeles county, and fly they do. I however, like turning, and if a surfer as talented as Jimmy Gamboa can't hack a decent cutback on one of these things then I have no hope. The usual complaints about hulls don't bother me much though- mostly I hear people say they're squirrelly as hell and they don't work so well on the backhand or in a beach break. Fine, it's good that the experience comes only after learning to finesse the board- that's called aquiring skill. As for the backhand problem, then ride the thing on your forehand in pointbreaks. It's awesome that we can have boards as finetuned to certain conditions as that. Still, refinement contnues- the Casper family I've had in the lasty few posts have definite elements of the hull, and here's Greg's smaller, flexy hull style boards which, with the quad set up, may turn like a teenager's shortboard. This is the stuff that keeps me stoked about surfboards.

Simfish

5'10" Swift/Eaton 'Simfish'

This is the end result of one particular train of design thought that runs through some of the most functional if non 'mainstream' surfboards of the last 50 years. Richard Kenvin had made some 6' and smaller versions of the classic 9' Simmons board (go to Hydrodynamica.com if haven't done so already- that's the big Simmons on the homepage and the little Casper appears toward the end of the clip) which despite being really odd looking, surf incredibly well. A stumpy wide s-deck, twin keels way back on a 19" wide tail and you have a high speed small wave killer for the under head high stuff. The thing paddles like a longboard as it's carved from EPS by the mighty Joe Bauguess, yet when you pop up it's like riding a skateboard and it's blazingly fast. The sort of thing that can make your surfing experience entirely new and fun again. Being the mad genius types they are, RK & Joe took it another step and here's this thing. Hull and Fish melded? Sort of, but sort of it's own thing. EPS, hand foiled keels and I'm thinking about 5'6" personally, but as they're all custom I guess you can do whatever you want with it.

Making an Effort

Very odd. I've been fumbling to make this blog thing a bit more of a priority and follow through on the orginal intention (a not too subtle way to peddle our merch and to put the creative output of friends out there), and not one but 2 friends tell me they stumbled on it. Just the push I needed, so here we go. My friend Andy said more board pics is the ticket and I think I agree, so here's another one of Dain's. It's a hull, Aussie style. 5'11" and a big flex fin for the classic down the line runner and the start of a bit of a theme. Please note I finally got it together to put some other blog links over there. Probably you've seen them but if not take a look, they're all favourites of mine. Surf In Oregon is one of the greats I believe, and the one that made me think this was a good idea to try. Sissy and Pushing are classics of the genre, and I think Surferbrat has some of the best photography out there. Swallowtail, Fish Bros and Eli are all just into the same stuff I like and pure eye candy board wise. I even managed to get in the water and on a Saturday no less. Crowded as hell at Porto so being the grumpy old man I am I went a bit north and got bounced around by high tide dumpers all on my lonesome. I've said it before but here it is again- the acceleration that Spitfire fin gives you is really, really fun. I made around a couple of sections I didn't think I'd beat, and my one right was worth the whole foggy morning despite being tossed by the reflecting wave coming back from the shore.

What a week

Bedraggled Swift Booth

Despite some gruelling moments, we survived the Sacred Craft Consumer Expo. It was absolutely packed and for some reason RK decided to unveil all the in-development boards so we spent most of the time answering questions about boards not for sale. He had the full line though, Casper, Casper Jnr (a 5'5" Casper), Sputnik (a Casper with quad keels and a very odd tail notch) and the White Pony (a 4'11" ultra wide Simmons styled fish). All EPS, all pure white, all very non-mainstream. There's a nice photo thread at www.mylocallineup.com/shows and you can find our booth at the front and the back of it. There were lots of other great boards there and lots more really generic ones. I did get to hang with some nice people though. Larry from Pro-Box who has done me right with the Horan fins, Tim Stamps who is now making the Horan boards (and very nicely too) all the Fineline/Hull crew who were well into the Casper family, Paul Jensen who makes beautiful wood boards (he and Danny Hess were the high water mark of the show I thought), Jake Moss who was next to us, Terry Martin, John Cherry- quite a roll call really. I sold some books,the consumers all seemed to be enjoying themselves and somehow we got the rack and 18 boards (including the Simmons repro and a couple of big Mirandon Bros twin pin logs) into the van and home without incident. The Joe Baugness Simfish was the board that RK was selling most of (I'm horrified no-one took advantage of our delerium and grabbed the Seebold quads at knock-down expo prices, to say nothing of the big root beer tint fish). It's a small wave machine, basically Casper with a fish tail. You'll be seeing more of it. Yesterday I went and surfed. It was sucky, dirty small red tide waves but it felt good to get wet. Too much work, not enough water has been the story of the last few weeks. Next week I go north, then back to set up more Kidman dates. It doesn't stop. Time to go rinse the wettie out I guess, the dawn patrols are what will save the shreads of my sanity.

NSW

both these photos swiped from the Six Ounce Boardstore site (www.sixounceboardstore.com.au) Truly a temple of fibreglass.

I've been a bit aussie-centric lately, but if they keep making boards like these why not? The first is a 5'10" Dain Thomas fish. Dain's a young guy in Byron Bay, his label is Sea Surfboards and I'm loving what he does. Very classic, beautifully made and as much a piece of art as anything else. He builds some incredible looking logs and singles too. I'm sort of glad I don't own this board as I'd feel bad getting it all covered in wax and dings. The second board is another from Mick Mackie in Ulladulla on the south coast of NSW. Personally, I think he's one of the most interesting shapers out there. This particular oddity is 6', nearly 23" wide and close to 3" thick. It sports a really long, narrow raked fin and is apparently insanely fun to ride (according to Neal Purchase Jnr. who has a similar one) Mackie builds some really wild boards- very curvy fish with deep swallow tails (some with flex tails), amazing quad stubbies, a few very extreme 3 fin bonzer style boards with side runners and ultra narrow center fins as well as doing a good line of gunny thrusters for the folks who ride the big hollow reefs in his part of the world. I'm like a kid in a candy store with this stuff, but with these cool, sunny fall mornings I'm loving the dawnies and getting excited about a new board for winter. It's all window shopping right now, but soon.....

onwards

Neal Purchase, Parmenter widowmaker
Photo Kidman

Time is flying away from me. Festivus was a good time and only a couple of weeks ago. I hung with some cool Japanese guys, got to say hi to Skip Frye and watched two fantastically good bands, then drove home to LA from San Diego at 2 am with a truck load of boards for the Mollusk shop out here. I was tired. Since then it's been a whirl of book shipping, barely mediocre surf, another trip down to SD, mediocre surf and much stress and work in getting the Kidman book through prepress. Here's some details- 240 pages, hardcover, drawn from Andrew's 20 years worth of work, packaged in a screen printed box with an exclusive 10" record, limited to 1050 copies total, signed and numbered, $175. It's gone from a book to a piece of limited art, and it's really, really amazing. I'll keep posting stuff and will update on Andrew's planned tour when we start planning it.

Party Time

Richard Kenvin with a Simmons Twinnie, Morro Bay 2005. Photo Kidman

It's Festivus time again. 340 16th St, San Diego. Friday 7th & Saturday 8th Spetember, 12-9pm. Jalopy will play on Sat and there will be Swift Movement surfboards to gaze longingly at as well shirts and books and wetsuits to buy. It'll be fun. The Kidman book is progressing nicely too. 240 pages of photography, film stills, art and interviews from the last 20 years. It will be limited to 1000 singned and numbered copies and will come in a screen printed box with a resin swirl 10" record of music from Andrew and Neal Purchase Jnr. Yeah, it won't be cheap but look at it as a start on your art collection and it won't be ready until early 2008 so there's plenty of time to save.

Deus Ex Machina

Putting out books is an absolute grind and no way to make money, but it has it's advantages, like hooking up with people doing ridiculously cool things, case in point- the Camperdown boys. Oh yeah, the waves are still tiny but you knew that.

www.deus.com.au

Expo

We (the Swift Movement & ConSafos Press) are going to be at the Sacred Craft board expo. There was one booth left so we paniced and took it. Please come visit it, we'll have lots of pretty surfboards and will undoubtedly enjoy the company.
www.surfboardshow.com

Epically Big

The world's tallest man got married a few weeks ago. He once saved a dolphin's life by reaching down its throat and removing plastic from its stomach. Meanwhile waves stay small, the fish gets ridden and I even tried to improve my lot by a short hop into the northern portion of Baja. The waves were a fraction bigger but still nothing to get excited about. It was a fun road trip though, my kid loved it, good food was eaten and we bought some beautiful Huichol bead art. I returned home to unload a truck full of Fugazi books and my life is now devoted to packing and shipping books. Check it out at fugazibook.com.

Pod Room

Ah summer. Warm water, little waves that make the bursts of swell so much fun and the avoidable joys of crowds and stingrays. The days are long, nights balmy and outdoor events so much fun. Thus I begin a blatent plug for the Pod Room. It's possibly the world's smallest surfshop, and definitely the world's best in it's joy per square foot ratio. It's a single room inside a fine old Victorian building at 524 S. Coast Hwy in Oceanside (there's a great organic cafe downstairs) and is run by Chip Bynum who is a fan of the events concept, so he kindly hosts a few. This past Saturday there was art (Harry Daly had me wishing I could break out the credit card), there was music (Jalopy, who have ruled at the past Festivus'-www.jalopymusic.com) and there was even a few chunks of Hydrodynamica courtesy of R. Kenvin. High point (for me anyway) was the Caspar footage. That's the weird 6' Simmons-esque beast mentioned a few posts back. RK has edited down a fantastic little chunk of footage that's popping up here and there- 70percent.org may still have a link to it- and it'll tweak your concept of what a surfboard can be. Very nice, as was the segment of Rasta on his Van Straalen carbon fibre fish. Makes you glad to be a surfer.

Back

Not my photo, but one by the very talented Scotty Sullivan of a place I like to surf

Healed, back in the water and it's trunk weather. Down south again for a day or so, then this AM I got out at the not so lovely SaMo. Little, tiny waves but there were corners and I fished around and had some short ride fun that spat you out in shin deep water. It got crowded and crappier as time went by, and when a 'surf school' decided to paddle a bunch of kids out right in front of me, I decided to go home. I usually avoid the weekends but I've missed getting wet.

New Fin Fun

This is a new 'Spitfire' fin. Essentially a winged keel with no wings. Really thick and foiled like the wing of a Spitfire plane, hence the name. I've had the thing for a while but recent flaness has conspired against me getting a good session on it. Finally rode the thing over the last couple of days on a jaunt down to San Diego. Caught some bumpy but OK chest to head windswell at a couple of spots, and it was plenty to feel this thing work. It holds in incredibly well for a single, doesn't have the insane pivoting from the tail feel of the starfin, but still it never felt like it wouldn't hold, frontside or back, whatever I did. What's really noticible is how drivey it is- I felt like I was getting slingshoted out of the drop- very fun. It's all to do with the increased tip area and I'm really liking it. On top of all this I had a fun trip, picked up a Mabile stinger (unglassed) that my better half is going to paint as an art thng, ate good Mexican food after wandering Balboa Park and fondled some fine, fine examples of alternative surfcraft at the Swift headquarters - a 6' Simmons style board with a 19" tail that is over 23" wide most of the way, has an s-deck and a pair of weird long based keels. Best of all, it's totally light EPS and glaringly whire. Oh so odd.

Coming soon...

What's been keeping me busy and more out-of-the-water than I like is now more or less done. And the next project is well under way. At least the past few days I haven't missed much.

Chipper

The mighty Ben 'Chipfish' of Swaylocks fame with a 5'6" Indian Ocean kneelo. He's looking out at the Indian Ocean too. Ben is one of the most surf stoked people I've ever encountered. He surfs every opportunity he gets, he's absolutely fin obsessed and rides mostly reshaped boards with more plugs in them than you'd imagine possible. Owing to back injury he's been out of the water a bit lately, and so has been laying up dozens of fin panels and making some wild looking combos. After our decent burst of swell last weekend it's easy to get overly grumbly about this weeks lack of anything (especially since I have a new fin for the Horan) so I'm posting Ben as my reminder that it will indeed be 'all good' and that even a couple of short rides on junky waist high surf still counts.

Inhaling The Mahatma

'One in every six people on our planet is an Indian, and the nation they inhabit is conducting the world's largest and most important experiment in democracy. Can a deeply religous society of more than one bilion people with a large Hindu majority sustain a secular government under which people of all faiths are treated equally? If it can work in a developing country as populous and diverse as India, it can work anywhere.
In just sixty years, the power of ordinary Indians to determine who governs them has revolutionised once demoralised colony of Britain, breaking down feudalisim and caste discrimination, and making enormous strides in reducing poverty and disease. In 1947 the average Indian's life had a life expectancy of thirty-two years, and only one in five people could read or write; today's Indian lives twice as long on average, is better off than ever, and two out of every three people are literate. India's information technology boom has buried its image as a timeless, caste-ridden place teeming with paupers, snake charmers and maharajas. The world is doing yoga, wearing pashmina and reading Indian authors, not to mention enjoying spicy Indian cusine and being entertained by the pulsing output of Bollywood cinema.'

from 'Inhaling The Mahatma' by Christopher Kremmer

Another big roadtrip plus is that without a computer to dick around on or a garden to distract me, I get some reading done. This one is a fine history of modern India told through Kremmer's time as a foreign correspondent based in New Delhi. He's a great writer, an Aussie journalist (and surfer) who's written a couple of great books on Afghanistan and Laos respectively. It's an intense history at times. much sectarian violence and that democracy seems to be only semi-functioning, but Kremmer is convincingly hopeful. Good stuff. And there's a swell here too. Nice size, a bit jumbled and windswelly where I was yesterday, but still fun.

crowds

Up early and out after some fooling around, but still early enough to beat the worst of the crowd. Waves were shifty, small and the tide was doing a number on them but the morning was beautiful and I sat away from from a pocket of people enjoying myself. The regular pod of dolphins was doing it's thing out the back and they began moving in towards the rip I was sitting next to, one shot under me and then I was utterly surrounded (and letting a few good ones slip by out of pure amazement.) They were swimming slowly by either side of me, the board was getting buffeted by their wake, I could have quite easily reached out and touched a few and one quite calmly eyeballed me as he came up out of the water. 10 seconds or so of serious crowding as they passed and that was it. Never had them within an arm's reach before and felt terrible as they headed off as 'Wow, those dorsal fins really do look like a Greenough with bit more tip' was one of the first things through my mind. Even managed to slide a few waves and put it on a rail once in a while. A really good day all told.

Being nice to marine mammals is a good thing- if you have kids or dig origami, check Peggy Oki's project here:
http://www.peggy-oki.com/cu_origami.html

Thanks

Waves, creeks, rocks, wind and fog

And so the central Cal trip went. Solid surf, serious afternoon winds and pretty incredible weather. Surfed all the spots I could and did well, pretty much head high or better the whole way. A few spots were just too punishing to bother with, a few were an incredible amount of fun and I had the widowmaker so I was at least prepared. I surfed by myself most all of the time but those that I did encounter in the water and parking lots were all good people. South of Sur was the mellowist so made for a good warmup, the creeks in the Sur were gorgeous, one would be unridable and the next somehow working (if only for a short while), missed the Carmel beachie which I'm determined to get good one day, Santa Cruz was firing but too crowded for my blood, a jetty north of there had some crisp rights and still further north a blown out but working beachie haded me a couple of good left drops. The creeks in Whitey's turf looked pretty rocking but the paddle out alone was not working for me and it all culminated with Ocean Beach being a manageable size so the paddle out was only gruelling not impossible. Visited with the fine folks at Mollusk Surf Shop who deserve your good attentions and as I left the shop on the way out of town I ran into Manny Caro who was an utterly nice guy. I took no photos the entire trip (I'm a backward antipodean- no digi camera, no cell phone, no TV and a tendency to forget to take a camera with me. I plan on developing the two films I no longer remember what's on and getting some sort of digital camera this year though.) and reveled in the cold, undocumented joy of it all.

Dream Quiver #3

Kidman 6'0" Diamond Tail Single
Full-on 'Morning Of The Earth' MP style machine. Big Greenough flex fin, starfin, cutaway- lots of options here.

So I went to the beach early a day or so ago, very low expectations but desperately needing to get wet. It wasn't good, but wasn't awful- waist to chest (at times) and I watched some thruster guy put together a decent ride. I went south of the 5-10 person crowd to a spot that usually works and gambled on it being better as the tide filled. Thought I'd blown it as I spent some time sitting between two rips and not seeing anything much worth paddling for, but patience was a virtue and it slowly happened. Mostly small lefts with a few bigger shorter rights popping up on the edges. I rode few, felt the starfin work nicely and had a fine old time on my backhand for an hour or so before it died on me. All by myself but not really as there were fishos casting at both rips, a 3 person pack maybe 50 yards away, kids hollering on the beach, a pod of dolphins working what must have been a rich spot on the outside and a seal in the lineup with me for a while. Went to work happy

Quiver #4

8'6" Downing Makaha. It's stashed at a friend's place in Hawaii and gets ridden at Makaha. George Downing is a hero and is often hanging around the shop. In the back room Keone Downing's oversized check from his Eddie win is thumbtacked on the wall behind a rack of boards. There's always 4 or 5 of the most insane, sleek frightening 9' + full race Waimea guns in there too. It's a serious surf shop. I rode this in a good sized South Shore swell and had one of the funnest days of surf ever, even despite horrendous crowds. I rode it in small, midweek Makaha surf that was empty except for me, a couple of lifeguards and Dave Parmenter stand up paddling. Riding it is always a treat.

soon...

Central Cal. My lousy photo makes it hard to tell, but this was a solid 6-8 face. I'm back up there next month, and can't wait. Cold, empty, a little scary and astonishingly beautiful. Reminds me of parts of NZ & Victoria, except with oaks and chaparral. Good seafood and aching arms.
Meanwhile, back in LA I finally arrive at the beach and there's working waves.Not great waves, not even good waves really, but waves. I rode, I threw a couple of hard turns to see what the starfin would do and went to work happy. Can't ask for much more than that.

Winter Of Our Discontent

Well, of my discontent anyway. Weeks of no go for the surf, mostly due to my limited window for surf of late, but the swell and weather have hardly been co-operating. It's been dire, my last few go-outs have met with tiny closeouts, waves breaking in inches of water and the like. It can't last, and after getting in the water for the first time in over a week on Friday, it felt good just to be paddling around in the sun. I have had a chance to do a few tasks like ding repair, but I'm ready to surf again.