File Under Kitch

Hurricane Ilene Pre Party @ Diner

If You're In "Sunny" L.A. This Weekend...

Sunday, August 28 at 8pm 

Chris James Presents "Surf Movie Night" at Mandrake 

 2692 S La Cienega Blvd

Los Angeles

www.MandrakeBar.com

Hurricane Ilene Surf Preparations : Toddy In Brooklyn

Hurricane Ilene Surf Preparations : Gloria In Montauk

Why is Work Always in the Way

Hurricane of Blog Posts

Must be Friday Procrastination Day

Something of the One Made Me think of the Other

And this one is for Bubbie Genteel

Salty

Who Knew I Lived on The Top of a Hill?

Today's Other Thought

Today's Thought

Surf Art By Any Other Name

Pre Deluge Planning

"A Tramp Vomitting, Man, Into the Sewer"

D.A. Pennebaker, Don't Look Back

Today's Thought

Ku Yes.

EBNY in Maine

Madame Bummer getting caught doing what she tends to do when people aren't looking...

Stillbirth & Surfing

Sometimes you stumble across something in the blogosphere that has the unmistakable feeling of "real."  It is always a jolt and always welcome.  Last winter I stumbled upon something and felt grateful.  Now the sensibility is part of a film.  It has been around, I've seen, in the last couple days... but we are always up for a little re-posting in case someone hasn't seen it. 

EBNY Storm tracker 1027am Thursday 8.25

Make Studios in Santie Barbary Presents!

Conceits

There are a lot of things going on here.  A bad habit, a love affair, a conceit and an acquiescence.

1. I have been accused of being a bad lunch companion.  I simply like reading too much while I eat lunch.  I'll scrounge, often frantically, for something, anything to read while I eat lunch. If it is the proverbial ingredients on the cereal box, I'll read those.  The New York Post?  Begrudgingly.  But read.  It is neither an affectation or an intellectual endeavor.  It is a compulsion.
2. I love horchata.
3. A funny thing happened when I let my hair grow long again:  I started to catch more waves.  Call it what you will, but you paddle out looking like a surfer and people treat you like one. It's lame, sure. But it's a fact. Get over it.  Also, there is something nice about having surf material in your office.  One, it makes you feel grounded.  You look up, it catches your eye and you remember it will all be ok.  That is until the oceans are so full of plastic acid they are unsurfable anymore.  Also, New York advertisery types often love the fact that you are a surfy guy.  Something ticklish about that to them.  I do not blame them.  I do not blame me.  Get over it. 
4. The burrito place I got this burrito at is a classic throw-back NY Mexican joint: budget, junky and crap.  But if you ask for a regular with no rice, the meal is a right-priced and surprisingly satisfying adventure into pinto beans.

Well, this was bound to happen

A Distaster Interrupted... Then Resumed

Last weekend we played the recurring role of weekend douchebags out at Montauk, this time celebrating our fourteenth wedding anniversary, eating at The Crow's Nest having improbably secured a babysitter for the night.  Over a glass of white wine, or bubbly or whiskey or gin ( I don't remember which) Wifey points out, far in the corner there, the fashion-bloggy power couple The Satorialist and Garance Doré, mentioning, in a sort of self-depricating, offhand and halfway serious sort of way, that perhaps she ought to saunter over there and tell them how much she likes their bloggies.  I, of course, was having nothing to do with that, instead offering her the opportunity to wait near the restroom just in case Mlle. Doré or M. Sartorial might need to take a leak.  That way she could shimmy up, bump, cough and ahem her way into a far more natural conversational techniquing, noting with a sort of blase wave of the hand and sip of the ginger beer that it would leave me, her husband of newly fourteen years, waiting alone at the table for possibly some time.  Needless to say, she had to think about it.  Perhaps she ventured a plausibility spectrum in her mind a wee too long for the comfort of my confidence, but in the end she decided to stick around, graciously putting up with my undoubtedly droll color commentary about the even douchebaggier weekenders who had just been seated behind us.  This morning, out of deference to that momentous triumph of propriety and patience (both on her part) I decided I needed to see what was happening at the Sartorialist, a blog I haven't looked at since the last time one of my off-color and needlessly snide comments was moderated out.  To my pleasant surprise, among all the vomitously twee and fashionable, I found a handful of gemmy vintage photographs people have submitted by way of familial style icons.  The above are just a few.

The Nick DeWolf Archives

Oahu, Hawaii, 1972.
Originally labeled "Hawaii", set includes photographs of:
- The Polynesian Cultural Center, Laie, Oahu; a luau, native arts demonstrations, and the parade of boats.
- Landscape, mountains, coastline, sunsets.
- An unidentified winter locale: snowmobiling, stacked logs and firemen battling a blaze.
- Honolulu, Waikiki, Diamond Head.
- A local fish market.
- Pearl Harbor; naval shipyard, airplanes, helicopters, the USS Arizona Memorial.
- North Shore surfers, sunbathers and photographers.
- Mokolii Island, Kualoa Point.
- Local faces.
- Coastline and stone arch, leeward side.
- Girls on the beach.
Part of an archival project, featuring the photographs of Nick DeWolf. 

These images are among the dozens I plucked off that particular Flickr stream.   So much fun, inspirational time piece stuff in there.  Via, for me anyhow, Magic Bus

Stop Talking About Surfing. Done.

M. Huerta

So normally, this might be some sort of gauntlet thrown down to surf bloggers everywhere.  But as we've always prided ourselves about talking about not surfing, we like to feel as if this misses us completely.  Whether that's true or not means little.  But we hear and obey, even if we feel like we are left of target right.  As always.  But oblige we must. As always. Below is an extremely large animated GIF.  The people involved, enjoying loads of pork and wine, are having a conversation undoubtedly not about surfing. In fact, I know for a fact there was not mention of surfing anywhere in that conversation. Sweet relief indeed. 

To see more of a summer weekend spent in the slightly westerly hinterlands of the East Coast (and the decidedly non-surfy goodness to be had around these parts) click here. 

The September madness is beginning. Luckily, it ought to be fun.

Nike Chosen on the Bowery

Nike has been employing the considerable talents of Moose Huerta for the last number of months and he sent this through...

"Thursday night Nike Stadium is hosting a screening of the top 5 skate and top 5 surf videos from the US.  I must warn you there will be more kick flips and floaters than you can shake a stick at. 
After viewing all 10 videos you'll get to vote on which video you liked the best.
This body of work and being one of those d-bags that races out to Montauk on the weekends is why I have been such a bad friend this summer. This project is a culmination of a lot of hard work and it would mean a lot to share it with you. No RSVP needed just show up.  Feel free to tell anyone and everyone."

Word on the Street is a vote for "Defend Montauk" is a vote for the right cause.

Tonight is August 19th. Where does the time go?

New York Is For Surfers

It isn't always that I allow the choices to go the other way.  But this time I instigated the affair, leaving me little option but to head west this weekend.  It helps that the swell forecast is typically dismal.  It also helps that we are heading to a farm where, to the chagrin of many of my animal-loving friends, I will partake in many a grizzly farmish duty. 

Of Sharks & Sambo

NY Times Article

“If a shark tries to attack you, fight it off; try to hit it in the eyes and gills,” read one advisory. “Remember,” read another, “panic could lead to tragic results.”

Today's Thought

Rod Stewart

Happy Birthday Jack.

On The Big Worry

The arrival of a major surf contest in New York raises eyebrows.  For those who didn't realize there is "surf around here" the notion that the sun kissed wild men of the South Pacific might want to dip in our sullied waters has the whiff of the absurd.  For those whom surfing in the New York Metropolitan Area is part and parcel to their urban lifestyle, the thought of the disruption and commodification of their cherished pastime rouses paranoia and fear.  For everyone else (the ones who follow the New York Times' love affair with Rockaway for instance) the whole thing perhaps fits into the faddish patterns already taken hold.  In truth, there is nothing new happening here.  It is the age old arguments of lifestyle vs. sport, business vs. bliss; the ritual gnashing of teeth whenever a surf contest lands anywhere other than J Bay, North Shore, Fiji or Bells; a recipe for repeat surfy indignation.   Ricardo Salcedo makes some interesting points here regarding the O'Neil Coldwater Classic.  I put a couple cents down in the comments area there.
What is interesting about Thad's article in the Times is his concern for the naturally occurring low key, non-vibey atmosphere in the NY surf scene. Thanks to a small, relatively tight knit community, there is a basic sort of begrudging camaraderie at work.  The stated worry is that somehow a burgeoning commercialism will tip some delicate balance, sending the planet out of orbit.  It's not hard to imagine the scenario where surf crazed ignorant hoards descend upon the beaches to wreak havoc on a delicately balanced social eco-system.  What's hard for me to imagine is that they would stick around long enough to cause any more irreparable, lasting harm that is not already in motion, something that's been in motion for me, anyhow, since my parents bought me my very first T&C Surf t-shirt. Obviously, I am tainted.  I've helped the thing.  But I can't help but think the whole show will blow in, blow out and leave little side affect. New York's surf scene is already growing faster than it had, the tensions already mounting in accordance.   The contest won't do much other than give us something to watch, wonder and shake our collective head about.  Something we're already doing.