50 Years From Now...

....when all the Judd Apatows, Will Ferrells, Seth Rogens, and the other modern-day merry pranksters of comedy are long gone and forgotten, Billy Wilder's 1959 classic Some Like It Hot will still be the funniest movie you'll ever see. And it will just get funnier the next time you watch it. Watch it.

Time for Science!

     Well, as if the weather this week wasn't enough, these tell-tale flower buds prove it: Spring on her way. I love the Winter, but these first warm days are always welcome and seem brimming with energy. Of course, it's still February and there's still plenty of time for more cold weather and freezes and snow, but it's that glimpse of what's to come that gets me going. And of course, with this relatively waveless Winter, any change is welcome.
     Driving out towards Philly, I have seen a surf shop on Rt. 70 East, but have never stopped there for one reason or another. I think it's because I usually have some place that I'm going to with time constraints, and most times it's too late. Well, I finally got to go to Sunrise Surf Shop in Cherry Hill last weekend, and I was really impressed. I was surprised to find that a shop in Cherry Hill had more interesting boards, both new and used, than many of the shops on the Island. In fact, there's one in the used ranks that I see as a Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree sort of board - one that with a little love and some work could be a pretty cool board. It may join my ranks of boards that never get surfed because we never get waves any more (although, I did get out yesterday after work, which was fun, but I am yearning for some size). Anyway, check out that surf shop when you are out that way.

     We were cleaning out my Dad's storage garage and I found two gradeschool displays from bygone Science fairs. This one was pretty interesting. We built a wave-pool, with one side made of plexiglass so you could see the wave break, complete with a little clay surfer standing on the shoreline, timing the sets. We still have the wave-pool in my parents' attic.

     And this is the other one, and perhaps even more interesting. To determine the learning abilities of earthworms, I built a T-shaped maze, in which the worm was released in the bottom of the T, then came to a crossroads where it had to choose. One way led to a bare electrical wire stretched across the path, the other was safe.

     Well, turns out that worms do not cooperate with science too well:

   

This came on my shuffled iPod yesterday. It's been a while since I listened to this album, and I liked this song, so here it is. 

Recent Developments

 

 Henry, your hips!

     I listened to the Smashing Pumpkins epic tome to all the varied human emotions, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the other day for the first time in a while, and it, like all great albums, still holds up from beginning to end. "Tonight, Tonight" may be an obvious selection from this album, but it's an incredible song, and the video is amazing.

    And the original film that was the inspiration for the aforementioned SP video, the George Méliès film A Trip to the Moon. Méliès was one of the first directors to bring storylines and elaborate sets to film. Enjoy!

Retrofit.

     Well, with the rain-day off from work today (seems like we've had a rainy weekday at least once a week every week this year), I decided to clean up the shop a bit, and while doing that, I decided to install two more boxes in my Simmons and try it out as a quad. And, judging by the surf forecasts, it's looking like I might not have to wait too long to test it.

     There's SF 004 in the back there, healing from some ding repairs and very lonesome. Someday, 004, someday. On the mini-Simmons, put the trailing edge of the front fins up 10 1/4 I think, with 1/4" toe. I'm hoping it works well, at least until I get some more keels for the board.

     I found this Clairtone Stereo Cabinet while walking Henry before work yesterday, so I quickly grabbed it, thus saving it from rain and/or the junkyard. It has a tube-powered Clairtone amplifier/receiver in it, and I tested the tubes; they all work, just two have a faint gas leak, nothing major. The AM/FM on said receiver does not work as of now, but it's just the dials that are messed up I think, because you can hear the a faint station and static. It also has a Garrard Laboratory Series Type A turntable, which, I am happy to say, DOES work, and sounds pretty good.

    It blows my mind to think that someone would throw something like this away. "Hey, Trashman, here's a relic from the past. Nope, they don't make them like this anymore. Yes, it's in good shape and works but I don't want it, please smash it to pieces in your truck." Unbelievable. What blows my mind is that this was found on one little side street in Tuckerton, NJ. Just think what kind of stuff gets thrown out everyday the World over? I can't think about it...

It even had the manuals.

    To test out the record player, I grabbed this record from the stack in my living room. Herbie Mann Live at the Village Gate,  recorded November of 1961. I hadn't listened to it in a while, and after listening to it now, I don't know why. This song, "Comin' Home Baby," is the first of two songs on side A, and it's really, really good. The whole album is actually. Check it out.

Mood Indigo

Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington. 

A Fool and His Fin

    Had a good surf on Thursday morning. It was my second time out on the mini-Simmons, and this swell was much more powerful than last week, the lines at WJ were connecting for so long, w/ the best rides, at least for me, coming just outside of the Rockpile and heading south. Was having tons of fun, but then, for some reason, I went to take off on a pretty nice wave, and the tail just slid right out from under my feet. I knew right away: a fin's gone. And it was. That's the second time I've made box fins that they have gone missing during a surf, which is discouraging. The first time I knew the reason, they were cedar-core, which is a soft wood, but I thought the glass would help it. This time, they were all fiberglass, so I thought they'd last, but something must have given, because the set screws were still set, so the glass must have broken. Real bummer, because even though I planned on trying out different fins in the future, I would have liked to test these a bit more. Plus, I liked the yellow/blue color scheme. Oh well, I've got some FCS FK-2's coming, which I think might be a little small, with only a 7" base, but they were cheap (used) and if they don't work for this they'll work for future projects. That's it for now.

Ayler  - Omega is Alpha
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      One of  my favorite jazz musicians, Albert Ayler, playing one of my favorite songs of his, "Omega is the Alpha," off of his Live from the Village Vanguard album. Really wild stuff, it can suck you in.

      Another one of my favorites of his, "Spirits Rejoice." However, this version isn't as good as others I've heard, but I can't find any others, and it's 9 AM on a beautiful Saturday morning, so I'm not going to sit on the computer any longer. TAKE IT EASY.

School of Vintage, or, Buy Old Things

     Jeannine and Erin have started a blog for their Etsy site, on which they sell vintage clothes and housewares and whatever else they want to sell. You can check out the blog HERE, and if you ask me I'll tell you the items I have on consignment there, so you can buy them and make me a rich man.
     Old things are better, and that broad-sweeping generalization is not just a nostalgia or a vain reminiscence of bygone times, but a fact, for the most part. Take a Pyrex bowl, for instance:

     I use this bowl, not this exact bowl, but a bowl just like it for oatmeal every day. The pattern and colors are really interesting(look for the Spring Blossom Green series Strange Flora Surfboards, coming soon), but really simple all at the same time. No superfluous details or extravagant hyperbole, just a plain bowl with a simple floral design. But these old bowls feel good to hold, and as far as the bigger mixing bowls and all that, they just work better. Mix something, a cookie batter or anything, in a plastic bowl, or even a metal bowl, and then mix something in an older, heavier Pyrex bowl. Feel the difference.
    Also, show this to your grandparents, or even parents, and chances are they will recall this or a similar set with fondness. When we are older, will we remember that plastic bowl from Target or that metal bowl from Walmart? I can tell you we won't. It'll just be another thing we had that was cheap and got dirty and old and broke and we bought a new, shinier, plastickier(sic) one. That's one of the things I like a lot about old things:  they represent a time when industry attained, for a brief, magic instant, the ability to create things of quality and substance that would be not only remembered, but used to the highest degree of their intended function, for decades and decades. The same could be said for old surfboards, glassed heavy and made to last. This is before everything became disposable.

    So, I'm done with that, now go to their Etsy site and buy things. If I ever sell my Skil 100, it'll be on there, but I never will, so just buy something else instead.


Sometimes, this is one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs. Joan Baez tries to ruin this version, but it's still alright. The album version, on The Times They Are A-Changin', is much better. Seek it out.