Pink Lady

This was the last board to come through my West End shop. Fitting that it was for Jay, who's earned more than a few sandwiches over the years.

7'0 Lady model, a beachbreak-specific midlength that borrows equally from school of displacement and the school of planing.
Jay's super arty, so he painted her up, faded-red-t-shirt style. Here she is waiting in line for her hard candy shell:

 Stoked pickup stoke!

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Flexie Fin.
Flexie Fin who?
Schraaaaaaaaaaalp!
Huh?
Snaaaaaaaaaap!
What?
Schplaaaaaaaaaack!

Also, this is how my dog sits--back half like a roast chicken.

PopsiGlider

I like it when they go from this:

To this.

Rebecca's popsicle-icious Mini Glider for shredding OB waves in the fall and beyond.

This is an 8'6. What separates a Mini Glider from a standard longboard? Well, these mofos are designed for speed. With a well thought and executed rail shape/bottom contour, a single fin (flexie) is all that's necessary for control and stability.
Fast and stable for getting into tight situations, then getting the hell out of them.

Here's Rebecca handling a tight situation this morning in Nicaragua.
Recommended pairing: color-coordinated homemade popsicles. A couple of these after a solid shred sesh, and you'll have harnessed the stoke of your ten-year-old self on that summer vacation when you didn't wear shoes for what seemed like a month and drank from the hose for most of your meals.

Or pair with a couple of these if you want to harness the stoke of your sixteen-year-old self on that summer vacation when you didn't wear shoes for what seemed like a month and got to second base with Jen Gibby.

Axe Handling

In his poem Axe Handles, California poet Gary Snyder (whose intimate 70th birthday party I crashed and got loaded on sake because he was in love with my at-the-time girlfriend) helps his son make a new handle for an axe head that was lying around.
The tool to do this? An axe.
The complete axe shapes the new handle, and also serves as a model for the tool he's making.
He recalls Ezra Pound, who wrote, "when making an axe handle/the pattern is not far off."
True that.

Because he's Gary Snyder, he muses on the moment, concluding: "Pound was an axe...I am an axe, And my son a handle, soon to be shaping again, model and tool, craft of culture, how we go on."
Ezra Pound shaped him, he is shaping his son, his son will--in turn--shape his own children. This is how we craft culture--modeling ourselves to future generations. In doing so, we get a cool axe to make more shit with.
Perhaps the zen-like purity of making an axe handle with your child is a bit clouded by the mini-me narcissism of the poem's central message, but it's nice to think about during the more challenging moments of parenthood.
For instance: on Friday, my five-year-old drew a (remarkably accurate...I think mirrors were involved) likeness of special ladyparts on the living-room wall. In Sharpie.
After the initial shock, then a brief period of inquiry, then an accompanying period of overthink followed by a web search, we removed the offending image together with toothpaste (thanks, Google!).
At one point I looked down at my youngest child, her sweet, sausagey, cherubic fingers busily scrubbing genital graffiti off our wall with Crest Whitening, and thought, "what the fuck?"
It was later I recalled Snyder and Pound and found some comfort.

Also finding comfort in the craft of culture this week is Rick.
Rick ordered up an 11ft, Skip-Frye inspired Glider. Although I didn't have the original item in front of me, I did have a handsome interpretation by Larry Mabile, which I used as a model. Frye to Mabile to my own hands. I am still very much an axe handle, but these masters before me are most certainly axes.
Also an axe is Rick, evidenced here passing on some new-board stoke and first-waxing tips to the next generation of surf shredders, led by his grandson.
This is how we go on.

Nice Pair

Question:
What's red and green and shiny all over?

Answer:
This sweet, shiny set of Bronsons headed for the newly-minted SEALS Watersports right here in downtown Santa Rosa.
SEALS, formerly Pinnacle Dive Center, is a one-stop shop for the Northern California waterman/waterwoman. Dive, fish, spear, surf, the whole deal.

Here's how I describe the Bronson on the website: the Bronson is a rounded-bottom trim machine good for all conditions and waves up to a bit overhead. Like it's namesake, the Bronson is classy and versatile and looks good with its shirt off.
The deep, deep red opaque is a rounded-pin 2+1 measuring in at 8'9".
Because 8'9 has been scientifically proven to be fuggin rad!
It should cook from knee to overhead.

The coke-bottle green Bronson is a 9'2" single fin. Gets the job done with flair in just about any condition you can imagine that doesn't require an inflatable vest or serious breath-holding skills.
Technically a double stringer: one basswood, one redwood. Ebony and ivory. Chocolate and peanut butter. George and Wheezy. Together forever.

Handshaped in Sonoma County. Color lamination, sand, and polish work by the good, dusty folks at Almar Surf Works in Santa Cruz.

Zeke's got a good command of the surfier selections at SEALS. Stop by and chat him up. If he looks tired, it's because he has more small children than you, and one of them's going through a hitting stage. Maybe bring him a chai latte to help out?
SEALS. Physically here: 2112 Armory Drive in Rosa
Electronically here: http://www.sealswatersports.com/
Facebookally here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/SEALS/594226577357457

Keeping it Bronson

Jordan's a good guy. He agreed to meet at my favorite Outer Sunset baking company for a mind-blowing breakfast sangie, then handed over some monies and a mind-blowing Highland single malt--perfect for summer!

In return, I only had to hand over this surfboard: 9'4 single fin Bronson.
If trimming were currently-gentrifying mid-sized cities in Northern New York state, it would be Rochester. You get the picture.
It feels very good to ride this surfboard on waves (they're made by wind!) in the ocean.

True to the Bronson legacy, Jordan kept it classy: cedar stringer, clear with a gloss-and-polish finish, volan deck patch, neapolitan mixed-wood tailblock (cedar, bass, balsa, redwood). Tight.

I recommend pairing this wave-riding vehicle with Jordan's generous gift: Ancnoc (pronounced uh-knock, which is great for creating Ancnoc-Ancnoc jokes)12yr. It's first casked in bourbon, so you get the toasty vanilla and caramel notes of a fine American whiskey, then finished in sherry casks, so you're not at a loss for rich fruit and mulling spice flavors. Highly recommended after a summery-but-foggy California/Baja shred session. The malt will work its way down from your head while the feeling of a locked-in bottom turn works its way up from your feet. They'll meet right in the middle, coating your heart with a malty mixture of blissful warm stoke. The undeniable harmony of a single fin, a single malt, and cold, cold water. Ahhh, summer.

Log

Yellow Longboard.
Red fin.

Noserides.

Tastes of Summer

How much fun was last week (surf-wise)?

How great are Dark 'N Stormys?

How posed does this shaper-scoping-freshly-glassed-stick pic look?

Answer: it's only semi-posed. Posed in that I held a surfboard against an industrial backdrop while a picture was taken. Semi-posed in that the bulk of my attentions (which aren't that great to start with) were genuinely committed to not dropping this thing.

How great is Bud Light Lime?

Before you judge, amigos, let me recount a conversation that happened last week with one of my oldest and best friends who currently lives in Cleveland. It was 96 degrees in his house and it was nine o'clock. At night! And there was absolutely no hope of the temperature even reaching the low nineties during sleeping hours.

"How are you coping?" I asked.

"Well, there are some, um, things with lime that help take the edge off..."

"Like what?"

And he whispered the following three syllables which changed the shape of my summer (or really just the taste of the last week).

Bud Light Lime.

This man relayed this information is an artist. He has an advanced degree in Industrial Design. He hiked the entire expanse of the Appalachian Trail--some of it in Tevas. He's a Jew for god's sake!
So I did the only thing I could do: buy a twelver of BLL and have at it. Know what?
Magical.

And by that I mean Bud Light Lime magically transforms Bud Light into a greater version of itself--the version of itself that was nice to everyone in middle school, despite whatever was going on with their pores. The version that likes spending time with old people and other peoples' kids.

What, you ask, could be so different about the addition of a single word, a swart nub of a single syllable like lime? I ask you this: can you note the difference between awesome band Rush, and not awesome band Rush Limbaugh?

The addition of a single word.

Do you sense the relief of tension between Salmonella and Salmonella negative?

One word.

Billy Baldwin and Alec Baldwin?

A word substituted, but still.

Enough. Here's more surfboard.

The Painted Lady

Art.
Abstract acrylic on foam by Jay dL—local charger, Puerto barrel enthusiast, inspired artist, informed horticulturist, slayer-of-all-boards, and rocker of pearl-snap full-yolked Western shirts. He can also fix your computer, lead pumpy trad climbs on steep granite, and brew a mean yerba mate. Clearly, a Renaissance man.
The board’s a tweaked-out, Northcoast-speficic 8ft. hull-inspired trim machine. 'Lighter Than Ice' blue tint and thinnest-of-thin white resin pinline by Leslie Anderson at Fatty Fiberglass, a hell of an artist in her own right.

Pig in a Shiny Blanket

The widepoint aft, narrow-nosed, rolled-bottom Pig got its name from cowboyin' enthusiast Dale Velzy, who likened its image to that of a pig when viewed from horseback. It's a time-enduring design, and a valid approach to Northcoast surfing.
Unlike the coastline south of Point Conception, the water up here goes from very deep to very shallow without much inbetween. Longboard design elements tend to focus more on controlling speed rather than generating it, especially during the takeoff and bottom turn, and the Pig does this quite well.
It's pulled-in nose adds some curve to the planshape, and fits into a steep curl more decisively. The rear widepoint is an excellent command center, and, in addition to getting into the wave earlier, sets an authoritative line when combined with the 'D' fin and bottom curves.
This particular model is the product of an ongoing effort with Leslie to squeeze the square peg of the design into the round hole of our Northcoast waves. She wrapped this pig into a classy volan blanket, glassed on the fin so skillfully foiled by the good folks at Rainbow Fin Co., lay down a matching resin deck pinline, then polished her up good.
Speaking of coasts, I'm on the east one right now. Did you know that sometimes in New England you have to use your car's A/C at night? I shit you not.

Airing out the Inbox

Sophocles once quipped, “The true mark of a man lies in his email activity.” Amen. Modern social anthropologists, like yourselves, long ago forsook sifting through the garbage of humanity in search of answers, choosing instead to focus their lenses of scientific voyeurism onto more digital affairs. Is someone aligning themselves with terrorists? Check their email. Is there one amongst us who shops Amazon with Les Affaires abandon? It’s in the inbox. Do thoughts of adding girth to his flaccid schvantz occupy the lion’s share of your teenager’s time? I wouldn’t recommend it, but a quick AOL search would reveal the answer. You see, only email can fill in the blank spaces on the map our character.
That is why, under the banner of honesty and full disclosure, every third Tuesday I fling open the doors of the HHG inbox from the past few weeks. Onward into the unknown!

Dear HHG,
Is it possible my husband Paul ordered another board from you within the last month? I ask because there’s a blue longboard with double pinlines in the garage that I haven’t seen before. When I ask him about it, he just mumbles and points at our son. He's eight.
Thank you,
Paul’s Wife Who Is Saving Up For The Down Payment On A New House
Dear PWWISUPFTDPOANH,
Under the Shaper’s Disclosure Act of 1999, it is not compulsory for me to answer your query. However, I will say that as of last week, Paul is one step closer to a free sandwich*. Also, when he picked up something the other day (not saying what it was that he slipped into his new 9’6 board bag), he did mention how much he loved you, and how understanding you are. Maybe not in those exact words, but still.
*The HHGSC (HeadHighGlassySandwichClub) offers a free sandwich** from Traverso's, a Santa Rosa tradition for four generations, for customers who reach a certain number of board orders. In order to stave off a run on new orders, I won't give the exact number, though it's between five and seven.
**Sandwich includes one (non-alcoholic) drink, but no chips, as chips are ridiculous.
This may, or may not be your husband's new stick.

Dear HHG,
Is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 the best fall-related ode?
Yours in poetry,
Tina from Marina

Hi TfM,
No. It is clear Shakespeare never visited California during this most lovely of seasons when he penned, “when yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang/Upon those boughs which shake against the cold…”
Instead, let me recommend Keats’ To Autumn. At just 24 years old, he nailed it right from the opener: “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness…”
Huzzah!

HHG,
How do you know when you’re getting old?
Fondly,
Humbolt-er Every Day

HED,
Do you make strange noises when you sit down?
Do you ever wish your board were 2” thicker?
Have you ever opted out from a surf session to work in your vegetable garden?
Wait, that might just be me...

Dear HHG,
I’m thinking about relocating—does Sonoma County have good surf?
Sincerely,
California Dreamin’

Dear CD,
No, SoCo does not have good surf. Especially last week.
San Diego does, though!
What we do have is excellent wine. Let me recommend Trentadue’s Old Patch Red (2005). A 2008 Sonoma County Harvest Fair winner in Best of Class, and a steal at Bottle Barn right now for $9.99. The convenient screw top makes it even more appealing as a daily drinker.

And with that, I seal the HHG inbox for another month.
Don’t forget this Thursday’s Surf Movie Night at Santa Rosa’s Toad ‘n The Hole Pub in historic Railroad Square. This month’s feature is going to be solid. Festivities begin around darkish.

Twins

Ever since the first zygote divided into two separate embryos, humans have reserved special places in their rites and mythologies for twins.
The Igbo peoples of Nigeria saw twins as a curse, and would sacrifice them to the forest (as detailed in Chinua Achebe’s excellent novel Things Fall Apart).
The Navajo honor twins as descendants of the twin gods of sun and moon, believing that they will help restore order to the chaos of the world.
Americans like to stick a fake goatee on one of them and call them Evil.
Dr. Spock’s evil twin showed up in 1967, sporting the trademark Evil-Twin Beard.
Cartman's evil twin broke social boundaries, becoming the first elementary school kid with an Evil-Twin Beard to go prime time.
Surfers have our own preoccupacy with twins--twin fins, twin pins, Twinzers, the Hobgoods. Even our own Leslie Anderson isn't immune to their thrall, as evidenced by a pair of longboards that recently left her shop.
Jason's diamond tail log with 3/4" red cedar stringer seems to have shared some embryonic developing time with its twin below, blogged about here:
Both were shaped by hand in Sonoma county with smaller Northcoast waves in mind . Both feature single fin goodness, volan glasswork, and resin art by Leslie.
But what is perhaps most intriguing about twins is how they differ--which one is more popular with the ladies, which one is more fearless in the hockey rink, which one dances with their tongue out.
The differences in the above boards are equally intriguing—the bigass cedar stringer vs. the high density foam one, the diamond tail vs. the rounded pin, the clean shaven vs. the goateed one (one of these is not actually a design feature).
Although some may see one of the above boards as an evil incarnation of the other, I prefer the Navajo interpretation that twins are two parts of the same whole. That they, together, can separate the good from the evil, and order where before existed only chaos.
Or at least score us some waves when it’s head high or under.

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.

Old School Hi-Pro

Sally is a woman who knows what she wants. She lives with four huge dogs, makes her own sausage, and has little patience for smalltalk. I suspect she has roots in a Rocky Mountain state. Maybe even Alaska.
A few weeks ago she called to order a board.
"I want a log," she barked into the phone. "Ten feet long and wide as hell."
When asked about her most frequented surf spots, she ticked off a list that would make our most hardened, heavily-bearded northcoast hellmen pucker in fear. Real ugly stuff--top to bottom suckout dredgers, sharky rock pits, thick horror shows with freakish appendages.
"A log?" I asked.
"Yeah," she replied. "And make it old school. Rolled bottom, single fin, heavy as a mofo."
"You might have some problems carrying a really wide board," I offered.
"What do you care?"

The information-gathering process was no less thorny. When I inquired as to her weight, she replied, "Somewhere between zero and a freaking million." When I asked her what she wanted the board to do, she replied, "Everything I can't, I'm forty two years old for God's sake."
I was smitten.
Complex women have always held me in thrall. Their powers of vexation seem unlimited, their motivations hazy. Psychologists might speculate that these women are embodiments of my self critical nature. That I seek them out to deflate an ever-swelling ego. That I attempt to recreate a dynamic with my mother, a complex woman with a penchant for making delicious kugels.
I took on the project--what else could I do?

As is my custom, I emailed her a few snaps of the freshly-shaped board. She replied a week later (message sent at 3:23am) with the following message, perfect in its litigious ambiguity:
You bastard.
The postscript read: get a haircut.

Snubbies

I call this little blue number the Sheriff's Special, after the Colt snub-nose revolver of the same name.
McQueen rocked one in the sixties as 'Bullitt,' a scowling detective with a general disdain for criminal activity of any stripe, and timeless sexy badass James Garner was seldom seen without his in the modern era.
A snubbie was taped to the bathroom wall in 'The Godfather,' then untaped by a sneaky, diminutive Al Pacino for a dastardly, unlawful act.
The point of the snubby is that it gets the job done as well as its longer-barreled brethren, but takes up half the space.
And it looks weird.
I don't like guns, but I do like surfboards.
The Sheriff's Special is a spiritual sister of the snub-nose revolver, but instead of sinister deeds, the board's purpose is to maximize fun and nose-riding possibilities.
This particular stick is still in process at the Fattyshack, and is designed for smaller, lighter surfers (under 150 lbs) who want to spend some time on the front third of the board. Its sawed-off nose and diamond tail extend the rail line, but tighten the turning radius. Glide and snap.
The bottom is rolled throughout for maximum smoothness and extended time in the pocket. This one still needs to get sanded, pinlined, glossed, and polished, but I just couldn't wait to, um, pull the trigger.
Sorry about that.

The smoking gun effect comes standard with the Sheriff's Special.