Snap happy arvo

That feeling of getting a new board ready for the next day's dawn patrol.

Buddah, books and upselling

Tip of the sanding planer to Torsten from the Wood Buddah blog. If you can spare ten minutes have a read of the amazing work he's doing in the middle of suburbia, taking a high tech approach to wooden surfboard building. 

I'm hoping to have another surf or three with you sometime, mate.

Speaking of suburbia, my book of the week is George Saunders' collection of short stories called Tenth of December about a fictional world resembling the bleak underside of the American Dream - folks just hanging in there from pay check to pay check, in dead end jobs while hoping, wanting and ashamed that they don't have More - meanwhile their cars break down, their kids are unhappy that they're they don't have jack and all manner of distopian dysfunctional disharmony besets the protagonists.

Why is such a bleak reverse-Disney milieu so entertaining you ask? Maybe it's cathartic. Maybe it's strangely satisfying that despite the wondrous, desirable reality presented in TV makeover shows; Fakebook "status" updates (even the taxonomy has an elitist air) and TV "reality" shows, our own humdrum existences and daily struggles don't seem so bad.
Maybe there's lots of other folks like us losers out there.
Maybe it's a reminder that we don't have to buy things we can't afford, with money that we don't have... to impress people that we don't like.

Maybe I'm overthinking it and it's just blues music for the eyes.

Saunders is just such a great writer - observing the bleak, post-Afghan War,  post-GFC landscape but with dry, cracking humour and after all, those with the Power can take a lot from us but they can't stop us from laughing despite it all. They can't stop us from making jokes about them.

It also reminds me of the futility of comparison or as Theodore Roosevelt said: "Comparison is the thief of joy". Have agreat weekend.

Almond Chicken Pizza

It takes a certain courage or naivete to open a surf shop in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast where even Big Name Shapers have gone to the wall trying to compete with the onslaught of low quality imported boards from third world factories.

So at the minimum, we should all salute Justin from the Sunhouse Surf shop (41 McLean Street, Coolagatta.) His refurbished premises once served up Kentucky Fried Chicken and then pizza. Now it serves up Almond surfboards, coffee and nibbles as well as an eclectic range of salt-oriented sculpture from Grant Newby,  Neal Purchase Jnr and the enigmatic Drouyn to more underground crew like Edward Sawden.

There's a bit of rubber from Patagonia and the odd surf mag as well as Switchfoot II (at least flick to pages 333-334 to view my celluloid renderings of the 75-85 era)

If nothing else, get your old and tired boards and wetties for the surf swap today. There will be live music by the younger Purchase, Isaac Paddon, Paul Wheat. Master of the Tiki-era velvet painting and collector of surfing detritus Baron Von Weirdo will have magical artefacts for sale.

Ohhhh and somewhere in there, Justin is going to squeeze in some shaping demonstrations.
See you there.

Monochrome Monday (sax x sax)