John Ford Style Icon

My good friend Federico Hill and I often discuss our favourite war movies, there's so many, but for me its usually the early 40's flicks because I love the character actors who seem to turn up in every film like William Bendix, Lionel Stander, George Tobias, Lloyd Nolan and Preston Foster and there's always a guy from Texas and the cabbie from Brooklyn and the young kid from the mid west. The best of these for me is 'Guadalcanal Diary' but for Federico its all about 'They were Expendable', a great early PT boat drama starring John Wayne and Robert Montgomery and directed by John Ford. Above is the most fantastic stylin' photo ever of John Ford on the set of this movie wearing his G-l jacket. I had to share it with you all, its a beauty!
Below is a couple of stills from the movie and under these is a rare look at some early production sketches that were done in 1942.

Padang Padang Cup 2010 pre-party.

So anyways hanging around the beach we met up with some crew that took us off to a pre-party for the contestants of the Rip Curl Padang Padang Cup surf contest. After a great free BBQ we settled down to watch a movie on the grassy slopes of a villa overlooking the famed Uluwatu reef break. The Papa snapped off a couple of night shots of the screen and was pleasantly surprised by the results.

Another perfect day in Seminyak.

For 21 days in a row the trade winds blew straight up from the roaring forties and marched southwest across the Indian ocean pushing iridescent swell lines pulsating towards the coastline to peel and crash against dark volcanic sands, right outside my hotel door!

Gilligans island?

Wandering along the beach last week I came across the amenities block for the Legian Beach Hotel and couldn't help but to make parallels to Gilligan's and the Skipper's Hut, well albeit a little more glamourous. I think it was the life preservers that provided the visual associations to the S.S Minnow.

Holiday style the Papa way.

The Papa is home!
Be it a grass skirt for the folks back home, a boars tooth bracelet for a sweetheart back in Pearl or a hand hammered silver Shilling ring for that nurse on Tulagi, you can rest assured that there was a resourceful, enigmatic and entrepreneurial sea bee, sailor or marine that could put his hand to the manufacture of accouterments to enhance his government issue kit.
In the true spirit of the fictional South Pacific Sea Bee Luther Billis 144th USNCB unit, the Papa has been busy.
Ah yes show me a third world tailor and watch the sparks of creativity fly. In an eternal effort to create the perfect summer beach kit the Papa came up with some new items including beach pillows, 40's style trunks and his fave piece a version of the rare BA-2 USN deck cap which during the war was an experimental garment under limited release and was available only in indigo denim.