Papa goes AWOL

Well folks the Papa is off on vacation in the South Pacific so I will be taking a hiatus from blogging. See you all back here in 21 days time.

Custom Wesco Smoke Jumpers.

Okay so while we're on the outdoor theme I couldn't help but include a shot of my Custom Wesco boots. This is the third pair Ive owned and ordered from Big Black Boots.com. I love them! They are just made to walk in. On this pair I had them use black stitching throughout and instead of having a heavy cleated vibram sole I ask them to use the flat slip resistant one instead. I also left the kelties on this pair and am getting quite used to the fringing. I also like the look of the White's Boots model that are so popular in Japan at present but there's something about their squarer toe shape that irks me a little, oh well you know next time Im in the market my opinion may have changed, stare at something long enough and you usually begin to unravel the intricacies of the styling and develop an appreciation.

Field and Stream Covers 1930's

Well folks from some of my previous posts you would get the drift that the Papa digs the great outdoors be it beach, field or forest. On a recent cleanout of the shed I came across these fantastic Field and Stream Magazines from the late 1930's. At the time I collected these I was on my Hemingway, Gary Cooper, Zane Grey journey. I traversed the urban forest in Vintage Filson, Dry Back and American Field. I loved these covers with their hand painted art. There's something to be said for the commercial artist of yesteryear, before photographic covers and now photoshop there was a genuine soul to their work. On top of this there is the rugged sartorial element to the images. Being outdoorsy never looked so good and duck cloth never so fashionable. Below is a selection of my favourite covers for you to enjoy.

V-J day celebrations in Honolulu 1945

Its amazing what some of my friends come up with, this rare beauty is brought to you by Krykie and is a fantastic candid look at the spontaneous celebrations following the declaration of surrender and victory in the Pacific August 1945.

King Kamehameha immortalised in Rayon

Papa Nui's US NAVY custom bed socks.

I love the utility of military items and am always thinking of other unique items to add to my kit. This thought process often sees me conceptualising new pieces. A few months back while perusing Etsy I came across an English woman living in Turkey and working with Anatolian wool who made these fantastic moccasin style bed socks. She has some dinky pattern with flowers on them but I could see much more potential and engaged her services to make me these custom socks. I have to say Im pretty pleased with the results and lie around at night imagining that Im recovering in the base hospital surrounded by pretty nurses.

Old man and the Sea

Another big thanks to Rivethead for this great snap. I had to include it on my blog as I believe we often struggle to imagine ourselves years down the line and how we adapt our style so that it is also importantly age-appropriate. I am often bemused by the 60 year old Elvis syndrome, which is a classic case of those guys who cannot find a point of view in their person style that stretches beyond their early involvement in one youth culture or another. It encompasses many many men. I still see it at the beach on a regular basis, there is always that guy about 40 plus,with the same haircut he had at 17 years old and still wearing the current teen-inspired surf look. Some people just resist growing up. It shouldn't be however a kiss goodbye of all the things you once enjoyed but rather an embracing of the future and the freedom to express yourself beyond the narrow opinions of your peers.
The photo above is just an effortless expression of the individual, rugged and masculine, pure utility without a trace of fashion and yet the Hemingway-esque cap and trashed Marine sweatshirt speaks volumes. I can only hope that in my next 20 or so years that I can also encapsulate a look that is this timeless.

Fly-boy portrait

Although borrowed from my good friend and blogger Rivet Head I couldn't help but re-post this fantastic image. It says so much about the 'how' we wear things and not the 'what'. You ever notice how on some people the clothes wear them? Not here! This is an expression of the individual all the way.

Riding the Mini Simmons..a perspective.

When Grant Newby first began discussing Project Simmons I knew immediately that I was interested. The simple fact that Bob Simmons had conceived this design back in the late 1940’s was enough for me to realise that I could find a deep connection with this style of board and that it was something that would fire my enthusiasm and imagination.
Coming down from a 9’6” log to a 5’8” Simmons was in itself a challenge, but I figured that since I had a life long association with skateboarding and a respect and admiration for the 1970’s,‘Town’ crew that included surfers Larry Bertlemann, Dane Kealoha, Buttons Kaluhiokalani and Mark Liddle, as well as the Z-boy skateboarders from Dogtown, that this low slung pivotal style would be a great resource to draw inspiration from for developing a technique necessary to ride the Simmons.
Grant and I conceived the first Simmons configuration as a styrene stringer-less epoxy job with a truly Bob Simmons inspired hulled bottom flowing into a concaved channel in the rear between the two bamboo keel fins. We kept the traditional s-deck profile but added extra thickness to allow for my transitioning down from log riding and also to enhance the craft’s paddling capacity.
The first trails began in messy conditions at Narrowneck on the beach break inside the sandbag reef. At first the length of the board daunted my best paddling efforts and then the buoyancy of the styrene hampered my ability to engage the board into the face of the waves, but once I become more familiar with the feel of everything I began to settle into catching a few smaller sliders. Each of these though felt like I was fighting for control until out the back a larger left set loomed into my path, I paddled hard and hooked into my backside for a rail grab decent down the face and then in a moment of inspiration I pulled a very tight bottom turn and the Mini Simmons was off like a rocket, blasting up to the lip for a sharp top turn slash that literally took me by surprise, at this point I was stoked and convinced of this little craft’s future potential. I rang Grant immediately blabbering insanely about the possibilities.
After a few more weeks I began to unfold the mysteries of the Simmons. I had come from a position of out of control looseness to a point where I could hold it all together and find a very smooth flow. My analogy was a skateboard with loose trucks. The real moment of truth however came at Snapper Rocks on a day when it was peeling endlessly through to Rainbow bay. These were the first quality waves I had ventured onto with the Simmons. At first the fast late takeoffs were unsettling but once I had honed my focus I found that the moment I placed my feet securely over the rear keels the Simmons came alive, wide square tail driving, biting, tearing down the line with me piloting her glide far out onto the shoulder, her broad flat bottom and hulled front end lifting and floating over the surface of the water in a fluid series of very fast top to bottom s-turns, until crouched, I pressured my rear foot grabbed the rail and drove her screaming into an ass dragging sliding cutback, the tail drifting and throwing up a gushing fan of scattered white water, the direction change sudden, tight and purposeful. After an exhausting session of similar rides I was confident and assured that the Simmons would forever be a part of my quiver. I had spent a lifetime aspiring to a forgotten aesthetic, something gleaned from the movie screen as a teenager watching Bertlemann at Ala Moana and at Kaisers but this had been the first time that I ever felt in my mind that I had come near to achieving this archaic visual nirvana.
Grant’s next venture was a more streamlined Simmons, this one measuring in at 5’4”, with a sleek and trimmed out silhouette and shaped in glass and foam. I instantly liked the stripped down visual of this new board. While maintaining the classic Simmons s-deck configuration on top, Grant added concave to the bottom of the nose as opposed to the traditional hull; this seemed an appropriate contemporary design detail along with sharper rails and less bulk through the tail. This Simmons I christened at Currumbin just inside the point on that sandbank that seems to swing endless lines across to Lacey’s. My first few waves were a workout and this board was everything its predecessor was and then something; superfast and pivotal, but obviously due to its streamlined thickness it lacked the buoyancy and so I had to work twice as hard to keep her alive and engaged on the wave face. The next day I gave her another test run, this time at Little Marley. I was fortunate enough to catch the swell running all the way across into Rainbow Bay at about 2-3 foot, low tide and offshore. I couldn’t have found a better arena! The setup was perfect and the little 5’4” drove flat out down the line just ahead of the sand dredging foam. On almost every wave she powered superfast lines, my legs working like pistons to keep her slotted, grooved and channelled into the wall. On several waves I struggle to get to my feet set as the reduced length of the Simmons made the takeoffs even more crucial as well as the relative thinness of this board adding an extra dimension to the paddling experience and demanding a very thorough workout. However despite these small setbacks I discovered in this little Simmons a super fun surf craft with a huge capacity for speed, long drifting lines and driving pivotal turns, its wide flat underbelly gliding over the face, not dragging through it. After a serious three hour session for the Simmons and I, we both succumbed to exhaustion and washed up onto the shore where I lay with a grin from ear to ear, reflecting on a stoke and headspace I hadn’t felt in a long long time. The Simmons? I think she was happy as well.

Run Silent, Run Deep.

After a beautiful winters morning session down on the beach Im home alone on my day off. Nothing much to do except re-watch WWII submarine movies and play dress ups.
Forward torpedo tubes ready...FIRE ONE!!!