Style (waiting for Ita)

Nana Brine's house sits 50 meters from the high tide mark, where the rain is driving horizontally and little bits of frothy foam are blowing across the soaked sand, tumbling over a thick line of pumice stone, bird feathers and tangled pieces of seaweed, freshly ejected by the ocean. A cyclone is coming, but the choppy waves are still small and chaotic.

Nana Brine's house will never feature in one of those glossy Home Style type of magazines, but she doesn't care. She has her own style accumulated from 90 odd years of savouring the sights and sounds and tastes of the planet - Accidentally Retro. The 1970's cups and plates and clothes still function, so why throw them out? 

Nana Brine's house has withstood the onslaught of many thunderous weather events (and the odd debate about politics). It's 70's style wood panelling suits the enlargements on the wall of places visited last century and the collages of her children and their children and their children. Her garden is vital to her health and happiness - azaleas, hibiscus, New Zealand Christmas bush and all manner of veges and  the 30-year-veteran lemon tree in the back corner that she's loath to prune lest she jinx it's productivity.

Nana Brine's house exudes the soaked up memories and the laughter of a home lived in by the same clan for a long time. When she walks her country, she recalls the stories of those who went before her, remembering that style is more something you grow into rather than something you can buy from a shop and climb into or in her words "whack on".

Nana Brine's house shakes from the winds. An eerie whining sound in the wires is punctuated by a lone long blast of foghorn from one of the massive tankers anchored off the beach. But Nana doesn't notice. Her hearing isn't what it used to be. She asks me to make her "a cuppa" while the  fella on the national radio asks listeners if the pension age should be raised to 70 and Cyclone Ita creeps closer.

Single

Ash Grunwald and Rasta will be competiung,
All the info at the Burleigh Boardriders' webbie.
Happy Birthday Peter Harris.

Something New

Beneath the eyelids

Moonset

If you saw the full moon setting this morning in our arid western skies you'd agree it was a pretty awesome experience, difficult to describe. If you didn't see it, then I can't really explain the magnetic hypnotism of a glowing heavenly blob edging towards the rim of our planet through a screen of silhouetted branches. The feeling is somewhere between a thrilling barrel and finding a green oasis after traversing a monotonous, barren lunar desert for hours.

 Have a thrilling weekend.

"Dream until you can dream no more" **

I can't quite believe that he's gone. I mean I never knew Al Byrne so don't have any stories, but his accidental passing in Bali, both shocked me (sad face) but also reminded me of my first channel bottom surfboard and the impact of AB and the other "channel guys" have had on me and my surfing over the years - guys like Simon Jones and Jim Pollard who pioneered and persevered with the whole cumbersome craft of goughing clinkers and channels into surfboard foam and somehow glassing the the buggers.

My first channel bottom board was shaped by another Byrne - Phil of the Wooloongong crew - a six foot, post-punk twinnie bought from Kirra Surf, just before Big Simon got us all on thrusters.
Even today, when I'm driving down a certain street I'm still reminded of the day my older brother, "Bandit" drove me down to buy it in his Falcon "shaggin wagon".

It was around the time our folks sold up and moved to a small place at Broadbeach. "Bandit" and I lived together in a dingey post-war house that seemed to have a good collection of vinyl albums and 10oz beer glasses. My car was probably getting repaired after I rolled it.  I can still see Bandit's ridiculously long locks blowing in the pre-air-con highway slipstream, while his cassette player cranked out my first attempt at double tracking my own guitar.

That twinnie was a speed demon on points from Lennox to Noosa. Both me and the board were pretty hopeless in the barrel but for speed and reo's, we were UNBEATABLE. This last statement has never been tested empirically, but that's my position, OK? Let me dream.

A yankee surfer we got to know back then once said he'd never seen anybody go so fast on a board.  Somewhere in the Brinecave there's a few spools of Super 8 showing me what I used to surf like. I'm almost tempted to bust them out. "Dream until you can dream no more" - Simon Jones

That red and white checkered twinnie also witnessed the famous Coolum pub brawl and the equally memorable keg-in-a-tent episode as well as helping me court the love of my life. And even though it never had a cover and usually just got chucked in the back window of my Holden Gemini, it had nary a ding in it when I passed it on to Bandit's stepson, after I moved to three fins (albeit still with channels).

My affair with channels continues thanks to Mr Jones of Byron Bay, who crafted me a wonderful board, that's launched me along the reefs of Cokes and Sultans, the rocky ledges of Moffatt's and the sandy points of Noosa. Thank you Channel Guys for stoking a surfer through the decades.