Blue Tuesday

Thank you Headhighglassy fans who emailed reminders that I missed Blue Monday. I took (both of) your requests to heart before unceremoniously deleting them and then getting back to the project at hand: drinking as much arctic-cold chardonnay as possible.
I know what you're thinking: arctic-cold chardonnay is not du rigeur among Sonoma County's white wine cognoscenti right now. I should instead opt for a pinot gris or, if feeling saucy, a chenin blanc.
But I'm a maverick, and I drink what the conditions call for. Yesterday in Northern California was hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut; therefore, chardonnay.
Onto Blue Tuesday!
This blue 8'4 all 'rounder is currently available at Petaluma's Sonoma Coast Surf Shop.

Full board Hastings blue tint with red resin pinlines and a matching resin comp band courtesy of the fetching Leslie Anderson at Fatty Fiberglass.
Shiny.
2+1 fin setup, Lokbox finboxes, and spiral vee bottom. Cruise it on the small days as a single, rip it as a tri fin when it's got some push--the choice is yours.
Blue Tuesday is also support your local shaper, glasser, and surfshop Tuesday!

The Writes of Spring

Ah, Spring!
What's there to say about this season that hasn't already been expressed by creative types going back a few thousand years?
The wealth of spring poems out there--the odes, the sonnets, the frantic pleas to virgins--tend to be of a similar ilk. You've got your daisies pied and violets blue (Shakespeare), your calls to Sound the Flute! (Blake), and your frenetic fears of missing out on the whole thing, as evidenced by a histrionic D.H. Lawrence, who writes: I tremble so much to hear it, that even now, on the threshold of spring, I fear I shall die!
I like Rimbaud, a volatile self-examiner who wrote an ode to spring called A Season in Hell. In it, he claims that spring imbued him with, "the frightening laugh of the idiot."
Sound familiar, surfers?
Up here NOTB, spring brings strong(er) northwest winds, cold(er) water temps, and shitti(er) waves. Desperate locals threaten to move, quit altogether or, worse, take up kiteboarding. Claritin flows like wine, wine flows like water, and water gives us the frightening laugh of the idiot.
Ah, Spring!
As I've speculated before here, surfers are subconciously prone to order boards to match the season. During a particularly wet week this part February, I got TWO orders for gray boards, one from a local, and one from a guy in the PNW--neither strangers to inclement weather.
Spring orders usually feature bursts of color. None more so than this 8ft., 2+1 BroadSword for Santa Cruz lovely lass Kaelyn, who designed the spring-y artwork for the bottom with her special guy friend, Will.
See, the artwork resembles a seed pod.
Ah, Spring!
The talented Leslie Anderson taped-off the design on the foam, then 'stained' it with pigmented resin. The result, aside from being bitchin', looks not unlike the work of children's book genius Eric Carle, of The Very Hungry Caterpillar fame.
Closeup of board.
Cover of The Mixed-Up Chameleon, which my two-year-old daughter calls, The Messy Lion.
Ah, Spring!

Giant Shoulders

Sometimes it takes an entire village to do an important thing, like raise a child, or battle zombies, or hire samurai to defend itself from thieves.
Bringing a surfboard to life is not that dissimilar--often its design is a collaboration between surfer and shaper, between past and present, wave and waverider. The builder draws from a lineage of specialists, coaxes that knowledge and experience into a form and, if lucky, gets to contribute a stitch or two to the ever-evolving tapestry of surfboard making.
This 9'7" single fin log is a product of such an effort. Although only four hands ever touched this board during its creation, it is the result of the work of many, none the least of Mr. G. Cooper, whose guidance was as generous as it was mind-blowingly cool.
His old partner in crime, Ms. L. Anderson, then had her way with it, showing us kids how it's done.
The board is for The New Guy, journeyman surfer and Econoline van enthusiast, who recently arrived on our tiny stretch of coast with a lofty set of log riding ideals and the skills to back them up. He had a board order in before the silverware was even unpacked.
He, too, will stand on the shoulders of the traditional longboard surfers that preceded him, drawing idea and inspiration, perhaps tickling their ears as he dangles ten toes over.
And the rest of us, we will begin to make out a faint murmer of voices, a shifting of bodies in their seats, a shout or two of surprise from the kids. More voices will be added until, amidst the din, someone else paddles out into the lineup, spins, and strokes into a rising pulse of energy . They will stand and track their hand along the green face of the wave, their fingers making trails of diamonds that will linger for a moment, then fade into the distance.