Brull, Caceres, Clark!

Reflections on meeting Mick Sowry, watching Musica Surfica & spinning a backside 360 on my Mabile

Hi people,

I happened to receive an email from a man named Mick enquiring about my shop, Rhombus Surfshop (opening soon in Brunswick st, Fitzroy, Melb, Aust, another good plug opportunity...sweet) after a convo over the phone I learned that Mick had made a film named Musica Surfica which I remembered reading about a while back on EB.

Over a beer in a noisy local drinking hole in Sth Melb, where Mick & I both happened to be working at the time I also learned of the films travels, nominations, awards & Toddy meetings.

Mick handed me a copy of Musica Surfica & I quickly rushed home in peak hr Friday night trafica to vissy the film.

Love it Mick...it just made me want to pull my fins out & spin as the doco follows Derek Hynd, Tom Wagener, Tom Carroll, Belinda Baggs, Sage Joske & others to King Island where they get into some no finned sliding, on all types of boards from Alaias to fishes accompanied by some amazing violinists & musicians!

I was surfing on Sunday & decided to pull my main fins outta my Larry Mabile twinzer & leave the two stabilizers in!

It was rad, super loose & the first couple I caught the whole tail just slid out, so I adjusted to try & surf strictly on the rails instead, it felt more like snowboarding!

I'm stoked to say I span 360 backside & rode away, thx for the film Mick & good to meet you!

Drop in to the shop soon!

cheers,

Gus.

If you click through to the Vimeo site for Circulate Films, there is lots of pretty stuff. A wee bit too much time lapse. Actually waaaay too much, but when the time lapse isn't barfing all over your shirt, the footage is great.

Good To The Last Drop

I didn't start drinking coffee until my son was born.  After the first year, the year I would wake up early and hustle down to the coffee shop to get my wife and I our espresso drinks, we noticed the massive drain in our accounts.  Up till then, it was just wifey draining the funds.  Now, I was adding a cup for me, and adding in a chocolate croissant.  And maybe a muffin.  We quickly realized that one, we needed to get me away from the baked goods and two, we needed to buy an espresso machine. Two weeks ago I returned from my first "solo" vacation in 13 years.  Basically, since I've been married I've toured, relaxed and cavorted in the company of wife, wife & child or wife & child & extended family.  Not so bad, really.  My wife is a great traveler, and the family we visit live right on the beach ten minutes north and south to some of my favorite breaks in California.  But a few weeks ago I find myself in a big palapa palace on a point break with seven other guys, all nominally in the same boat as me.  That is, mid thirties, girlfriends wives and children, self-inflicted importance... that sort of thing.  Made me think of getting older.  This wasn't the first time I've noticed I'm getting older.  My ankles are now famously worn thin; anyone from my soccer team can probably regale you with stories about my maddeningly tender ankles.  My shoulder sort of clicks; my wife likes a certain side of the bed, then she doesn't like my dragon breath turned to the center which leaves me sleeping on one side all the time.  My sinuses hate me; one puff of a cigarette, one dip in the chlorinated pool, and I have goop the next day.  My teeth are yellow;  I need coffee in the morning.  The surf trip was interesting and good.  The waves weren't the glassy perfection they normally are, but not much beats a week of paddling into highly surfable conditions three times a day no matter what the expectation. The paddle is a long one and it took its toll the first day, but my body responded pretty well.  By the end of the trip I was feeling a bit younger, in fact.  I'd like to say I noticed the change in everyone, but really I just noticed the change in the New York contingent.  Those San Francisco guys seemed to show up already thin and mellow.  We New York guys needed a few days to unwind and lose the career fat that builds up like plaque on the urban belly.  Bubbie snapped these of me one of those days.  I appreciate these because I look skinny.  Old and skinny.
-toddy

Yuxtaponer

Frog's Eye

EBNY Blogvertising : Rapanui Eco-Brand

We started this blog a couple years ago because we were three surfers working in the same Manhattan office, babbling about surfing, babbling about not surfing, comparing notes and ho-humming. We'd seen some other surf blogs and figured there were scant that actually approached the topic of not surfing and how one might find oneself in the unfortunate circumstance of not surfing. Basically the whole thing was a self-inflicted gimmick to get ourselves in the water more. We figured the more we talked about it, the more we actually put it out there, the more we'd see the ridiculous nature of our predicament and do something about it.  Pretty much as soon as we set up for "business" we started getting queries about advertising.  Apparently surf blogs seemed like a good way to get word out about one's brand.  Some sort of street cred kind of thing.  We sort of sidestepped most of them on principle that that wasn't our deal, that we didn't really care so much to align ourselves with anything.  Our intentions were pretty basic, pretty personal.  That's not to say these were soul sucking automatons looking to make a dishonest buck, how should we know?

Recently, Will Fox from Rapanui contacted us with sounded like the standard spiel about their product and our blog and so forth.  We didn't think so much of it, but then we saw that this was coming from the Isle of Wight in the UK. Huh.  Then we noticed their eco-mission statement thing.  Nice.  Then we looked into it all a little further and realized these guys have some good values and a neat, unassuming product that doesn't look like crud and has a point.  Well, yeah, alright.

The big mega buzz word in business right now is sustainability.  It's the once and future ad campaign being cooked up in the Madison Avenue meth labs.  Is this a bad thing?   A good thing?  Will this lead to a revolution?  A devolution?  Something else? Only time will tell, and by that time, it's likely all the wild animals will be dead, the people will be burned to a crisp and the only thing surfing will be of the 100% plastic variety.

This is all to say: support your local people.  Support your nonlocal people.  Support the small guy with an idea, big or small.  Make the big guy support them too.  How?  We've no clue.  In the end, this blog has helped get us in the water,  and somehow connected us to a whole slew of good people all around the world. So it's working for us, continuing to do the trick, mas o menos.  Not sure what lesson is in there, but enjoy Rapanui if it suits you!

Rapanui

Pret–a-Surf at Mollusk

Good times for hip huggers.

Haroshi

 Via Acidolatte

Korduroy TV via Surf Fridays : Cy's Lefts

The Dream

In the back of every mind there is a hope for space.  A little mental space.  A little emotional space.  A little creative space.  I've been dreaming for years of that tool shed behind the house, at the back of the back yard, before you reach the fence, between the two trees.  A little experimental bay, a little place to drink a beer and screw around with something.  A place to store the shit my wife has been trying to get rid of.  Pack rat habits meet suburban 50s greaser dreams eloping with the inner shaper in all of us.  Mr. Lentini has it happening for him.  Here is a guy fashioning real pedigree for his kids.  This is inspirational shit.  Mastastico.

Mexico Diaries Part Dos

John arrived six days after Antonio, four days after Chris and I and one day after Chad, Dave and Jared, immediately sequestering himself into the room near the pool, reading a book.  This was only the second time I'd met John and it said something.  But not to me.  I was having too good of a time drinking beer and surfing and eating beans and not reading books (of which I brought three) (of which none were read) to listen to anything else.  During the trip, I noticed that John walks very perpendicular to the ground.  His is a regal stature almost, back straight.  Whereas my son's feet and hands flop when he runs, a little neither here nor there, gangling yet compact, I imagine John's progeny to have a sort of giraffe-like quality to their running gait; head erect, chin up, determined.  His surfing has the same quality.  Strong, precise and intelligently discerning of circumstance.

Happening...

The wonder of the internet. Arts & Crafts made available in astounding fashion. Click on the picture above for a neat e-zine sort of thing. Not made for printing so much as sharing.
Courtesy of Shakas & Singlefins...

In our ever-broadening quest to track down only the most oblique of surfing material from around the globe, The Endless Bummer New York Editorial Department would like to offer up the following tangential-at-best options for a daily dose of stoke:

Spicoli Would Go

The Beauty of Living. The Beauty of Fighting.

Hadn't seen this one yet...

Mexico Diaries Part Uno

Foto by Toddy

The back story is what makes the picture, really. Besides the good surfing. But the good surfing comes into focus a touch finer after the back story. Which is a short story really. It has to do with a universally unexpected onshore wind blowing for an unheard-of week straight. Bumpy faces, uneven sections, waves having a tougher time making the connection inside. A softball of a wave in normal conditions, its critical nature didn't get any more critical with the extra breeze. All to say garnering enough momentum to commit a rail in any fashion would read as a practice in ex nihilo creativity. Chris stood out as just such an imaginative personality out there. Always agitating to try a different board, keeping things fresh, I think he settled on that little purple fish as his preferred paintbrush. It was fun to watch him make the sort speed he was pining for.

It has been over a year since I was last in Santa Barbara. I didn't end up surfing there, instead opting for a little fun C Street further south. But with family, friends and a plethora of incredibly fun rights still in the area, my mnemonic wanderings rarely venture far from the time I lived there. Via the blog super surf highway I just got wind of this, a show that looks to be one I wish were happening here in our land of lefts. If you are around, have some fun and check it out.
-Toddy

Driving mit out gas.

Foto of JJ Wessell by Matt Chenot

RHOMBUS SURF SHOP SUPER STOKE!

Click on the card, find your way there

Hope u guys are getting some quality waves down south!
Get those Toes on the Nose you Stylemasters.
Don't get too drunk either!

Consulate Surf Team Go!

Yew!

Gustav.

Sometimes in the course of a year, a month, a week, perhaps, sadly, daily, it is important to live vicariously; to look elsewhere for the things that make one smile.
Here is a place to look, if you are in need of such salve.

Dreaming of Mexico, Dreaming of Dreaming

Foto by Toddy, the filmic experience, soon.