Monochrome Monday (mush mush)

Back in winter there was a comp at a wicked beach break. My mates were surfing, but as I was not in The Comp, I wasn't allowed.

What's worse, I wonder - (insert sounds of dawn bird calls and HOT, mush-making northerlies tearing dried up leaves off the big tree outside my kitchen window) - finding good waves that you can't surf because there's comp on?

Or

Finding rubbishy mush that you can't surf on?

I drove down to the Gold Coast on the weekend. There were no waves worth surfing. But I did drink 6 coffees and ate two cheesecakes. I saw a guy shaping a board and heard three bands. I wouldn't have had that great experience if the surf was cranking.

Here's a mono-mash of my sojourns to waves I couldn't surf.

Razor Time

I really have better things to be doing this morning than Photoshopping a few JPEGs into shape.

I mean, I could be dragging some sharp object across my face so that my appearance is less scarey and hairy.
I could be chucking some chemicals thru my hair to remove the grease and then chuck some more in to add oils back.
I could be rolling some more chemicals under my manly arm pits and brushing other stuff onto what's left of my teeth (did I tell you about the $600 wave? Dentist's fee after nasty wipeout).
I could be imprisoning my fallen arches into leathery corporate looking shoes and striding confidently towards my commuting destiny.

Or I could be surfing.

Painting by Parrish Watts

Does the editor surf?

Even in this wonderful digital age of immediacy and instant gratification, I still find myself buying the odd surf mag including the Pacific Longboarder which recently featured some pics of my mates at a spot we all love (and hate when it's crowded out).

 But something I've wondered about is why you never see pictures of the editors of these mags surfing - Phil Jarrat ex-Tracks, Bruce Channon ex-Surfing World and ex-Australian Longboarder and John Brasen from Pacific Longboarder mag - I've seen them all surfing so I know they aren't just cynical keyboard hacks chained to laptops in some media mogul's basement like so many briney battery hens.

So here's a small tribute to The Ed with today's featured editor John Brasen surfing his way to winning his division at the 2013 Wrecks and Relics Comp. Stay wet or at least have a good ride on a road somewhere.

Mr Ed

Former editor of Tracks surf magazine and the Australian edition of Playboy, Phil Jarratt snares glassy beach at Miller's Left during the annual Wrecks and Relics gathering of briney old raconteurs.

Monochrome Monday (sax x sax)

Invisible

Today's post is for all the wonderful women in my life and as these pics of a bunch of over 50's show, women of that age still surf, still have fun and are not as invisible as the media assert.

Have a great wekend.

Winter Beachie Left Barrel

"music washes away from the soul

The dust of everyday life"

Berthold  Auerbach 

(I might add

surfing

to that equation)

Monochrome Monday (relics)

This is Rock n Roll Reg and his 1951 Ford Spinner ex-police car yesterday afternoon.

He tells me he's 70-something - a gentleman, relic and link to our shared lore.

Surfers of all ages should hear his yarns of runs and rumbles on the Gold Coast in the early 1960's when mods, misfits, ho-daddies, surfies, rockers and other rebels got up to mischief.

If you know folk like this capture their stories for them, their families and the rest of us.