Take 5: West Coast Cool

Chances are that nobody but my Dad will read this post all the way to the end, but if a few of you do and it gets into your ears, then it's been worthwhile posting.
It's a shame how sometimes it takes the passing of a great artist in order for their work to be thrust back into the view of mainstream audiences.  Dave Brubeck passed away a few days ago, on December 5th, one day before his 92nd birthday.  He was a jazz pianist and composer, a figurehead of the "west coast cool" scene and considered to be one of the foremost proponents of "progressive jazz".

Through my late teenage years, in my Dad's house dinner times were often announced by the sound of a cork popping from a bottle of wine and a jazz cd starting up.  It was never something that I paid a great deal of attention to; the music wasn't there to be listened to intently (as with most modern 3 minute thirty second songs) but more of a background layer, a decoration, something that you could dip in and out of as and when you pleased.  Over time I absorbed a lot of classic albums, and have a healthy respect for jazz as an art form.  I grew up playing the drums; jazz is difficult beyond words, it is another level of musicianship that just ties knots in my "4/4" trained brain.

Brubeck led the charge of West Coast Californian jazz musicians in the 1950's, helping to sign musicians such as Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan to Fantasy Records before then moving onto the Columbia label.  His life didn't feature any of the headline grabbing tragedy that characterised the biographies of many of his contemporaries who suffered under the needle and the bottle, it was simply driven by musical curiosity and a strong work ethic.  Take a listen to "Take Five" in the video above, and if you dig, then dig a little deeper.   

Blue

Image: Mat Arney.

Marcus Shelby, performing with his trio at Pearls, San Francisco, December 2007.  

Image: Mat Arney.

"Not Much Of A Surf Story": Bev Morgan

Bev Morgan is the Forrest Gump of surfing; I'd bet that even readers with an affinity for surf history and culture have only seen his name pop up here and there in books, articles and stories.  But the funny thing about Bev is that, if you dig deep enough, he appears to be the nuts and bolts in many of the major developments in surfing throughout California and Hawaii from the late 40's through to the mid-60's.  He was that guy in the background, involved in what was going on but never standing front and centre.  If you google his name, you'll get a whole lot of stuff come up about the Dive Helmet business that he started in the mid-60's which is one of the world's leaders in dive helmet technology.  But a few images from his days in the midst of surfing will pop up...
  

How entrenched in early Californian surf culture you ask?  This guy has pedigree and a ridiculous number of the sort of incredible stories that you wouldn't have thought could all be attributed to a single man.  Growing up as a teenage friend of Greg Noll and the Manhatten Beach Pier guys, he rode boards shaped by Joe Quigg and Bob Simmons (who shaped him a 6' x 24" wide board in the early 50's which was absolutely unheard of and has since spawned the mini-simmons trend) and glassed surfboards for Dale Velzy and Hap Jacobs.  He was a helicopter rescue diver in the early 50's, jumping out of helicopters to rescue post-war fighter jet test pilots in Los Angeles Bay, opened one of the first wetsuit shops and got big into the fledgling diving scene.  His stories about the impact of domestic detergents replacing soap in American households and it's effect on breaking up sewage effluent and it's subsequent impact on marine life, particularly the molluscs and crustaceans that he dove for, provide a harrowing illustration of overpopulation's impact on the oceans. 

In 1957 Bev sold his share in Dive N' Surf and, along with a group of friends, bought a 61' wooden ketch and spent two years exploring the South Pacific.  On a mission to collect fish samples for Scripps oceanography institute from the Cococs Islands, they discovered that the reason why nobody had done it before was because of the ferocious and inquisitive sharks, so they dove as a team with shark billys to bash the teethy fish on the nose and scare them off whilst they collected samples.  On Easter Island they were formally requested by the island elders to "contribute to the gene pool", then retrieved artifacts from the  HMS Bounty on Pitcairn Island.  Upon his return he did a stint as a photographer at Surfer magazine then got into wetsuits and started the company that would eventually turn into Bodyglove.  He hung with Pat Curren in Hawaii surfing and spear fishing, trading half their catch for gas for their car.  He  smuggled lobster into the USA from mexico by plane with a load of friends and then took a freighter and two bulldozers down to try to bring back a mile long load of pearl shell to sell to the button business (the shells were delaminated and the whole scam failed).  When he finally settled back in LA he spent a significant amount of time bodysurfing the Newport Wedge with Mickey Munoz and Phil Edwards, where Joe Quigg and Carter Pyle developed swim fins by getting a dead frozen porpoise from Marineland, cutting off the tail and used the forms to make fins on tennis shoes.  Bev then developed his diving helmet business, using all of his experience in both diving and in advanced composites from the surf industry to make the first significant advances in diving helmets in 150 years.  He now lives in Santa Barbara and, when approached by The Surfer's Journal, claimed that he "didn't really have much of a surf story to tell"...  I would disagree Bev.

Bev Morgan's story is absolutely amazing.  The closest he's got to any sort of biography is an article in The Surfer's Journal where he tells the stories behind a load of photos from his extensive personal collection, called "More Than My Share".  You can buy it as a downloadable pdf from The Surfer's Journal here.

Big Sur

There are roads, and then there are roads.

I damn near drove off the edge of the cliff a few times along the Big Sur stretch of California's Pacific Highway 1 because I was trying to peer over the edge and take in the view the whole time instead of just being sensible and keeping my eyes on the road. This is looking south across Bixby Bridge (as featured in Jack Kerouac's Big Sur) in the late afternoon - beautiful light on a beautiful stretch of coast with a huge NW swell rolling in and throwing up loads of mist and spray.

Choo-choo

I know what you're thinking..."what's with all the pictures of trains?" right? Trains aren't meant to be cool. I reckon otherwise though; I kinda like them as a means of getting around.

At some stupidly small hour this morning whilst most people were either fast asleep or being turfed out of nightclubs, my friend Kyle and I got back from a trip to Morocco. We went from Truro, Cornwall (well I did, Kyle started out in Wales) and got the train all the way to Marrakech with our surfboards. From there it was just a bus ride to the coast and we could get some waves. A medium haul surf trip entirely on a rail: Start-stop-start again, clackety clack, tickets, platform numbers and departure boards, four capital cities, Europe and Africa, pack un-pack, headphones, being kicked off platforms, midnight cafes and crazy taxi drivers, dining cars, eleven trains three of which were underground, a ferry, "you can't bring a surfboard on this train", books and looking out the window, seeing towns as the graffitied backs of warehouses and industrial units, "you want hashish?",lots of coffee in paper cups, wildflower meadows, funny looks and a jacket for a pillow.
We got a few good waves and climbed a mountain.

I have more rolls of film to develop than I can carry in my hands so once they're all done and I've absorbed and reflected on the whole damn deal I'll post a few up and put some words to it.

Why?
Because sometimes it's important to make the journey as important as the destination, put your feet on the stepping stones and nopt just jump right over them. Take a little bit of time.

Images:
The top one is the California Zephyr, which I caught from San Francisco to New York with my old man a few years back so that we could see what America looked like.
I drove my car onto the back of the Indian Pacific and let it carry me across the Nullabor desert right across Australia rather than sit on my own driving on a straight road for three days when my road-trip co-piolt couldn't make it.
The trains in Sri-Lanka are cool, old and clunky with little picture postcard train stations straight out of 1950's Britain. To get my surfboards on I had to pay for a first class ticket which was about a pound more.

Da Cat

"To what avail the plough or sail, or love, or life - if freedom fail?
Freedom. Freedom to what? Escape, run, wander turning your back on a cowed society that stutters, staggers and stagnates every man for himself and fuck you Jack I've got mine?
To be truly challenging, a voyage, like life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with their boats at sea - "cruising" it is called. Voyaging belongs to sea men, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot or will not fit in.
Little has been said or written about the ways a man may blast himself free. Why? I don't know, unless the answer lies in our diseased values....Men are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security," and in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man really need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.
The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
Dedication to the sea is the symbol of migration and movement and wandering. It is the barbaric place and stands opposed to society and it is a constant symbol in all of literature, too.
As Thomas Wolfe said, "It is the state of barbaric disorder out of which civilization has emerged and into which it is liable to return."

Sterling Hayden, Wanderer, 1964


Miki Dora, Da Cat, The Dark Prince of Malibu and the basis for every single damn counter culture surfing stereotype for the past 60 years. He was one of the most important, and possibly the most iconic individual, in the history of surfing - not for contest results, but for being at the top of the pile through the boom and then leaving the whole stinking mess behind in the persuit of his personal freedom to ride waves at any expense. He spent some time on the FBI's most wanted list, hung with film stars, smuggled gold and jewels, circled the world continuously, was a pioneer at Jeffreys Bay, pissed some people off, became a cult hero and kept surfing and sticking it to the man right to the end.
All he ever wanted to do was surf, and he did, at almost any cost. The path is made by walking and Dora walked it, that's why his name is permanently graffed on the wall at Malibu - to remind the rest of us what to do.

The Seagulls (of Santa Cruz)

There's a seagull sat on the balcony railing right outside of my kitchen window. I can tell that it's still quite young because of the remnants of downy grey feathers on the crown of its head. It keeps staring at me, and it hasn't moved for about an hour and a half. I hope it's webbed feet aren't frozen to the railing or anything (we're having a "cold snap" in Cornwall right now).

I wonder if it's going to try and eat one of the wetsuit boots that're hanging up to dry next to it?

Made me think of these images that I shot a few years back in Santa Cruz, CA - a city with a pretty right-on red commie majority city council that tried to impeach George Doubleya for going to war illegally. Rad, a city trying to impeach a President. There's a good right hander that breaks off the harbour breakwall in the top image when big swells wrap into the bay, with some long running antagonism between the local surfers and the Harbour Patrol who try to arrest them for breaking a local by-law.

But back to seagulls.

A.k.a. skyrats, I quite like them and reckon they're pretty regal birds despite their penchant for stealing chips from tourists in the summer, waking me up every morning before my alarm goes off, trying to steal the days catch whenever I go fishing and crapping on my wetsuit when it's drying on the washing line.

They're the soundtrack of a life lived on the coast.

And how amazing would it be to live in a lighthouse? Apart from getting furniture to fit I guess.

On The Road

It's the book that launched a million road trips.

Kerouac's train of thought tale of criss-crossing North America and Mexico was his effort to "explain everything to everybody" by way of skid row stories, hopping freight trains, jazz, pot and stolen cars in a definition of the beat movement that he inadvertantly found himself the poster boy of.

It's a good reminder that sometimes the best thing that you could possibly do is just GO. No direction or aim to speak of, just the wind at your back and an inquisitive mind. It'll get you a long way. That and a smile. Placing the journey over the destination, if there even is a destination, and just see what the hell happens out there along the way. The places you end up, the people you meet. Be open to the things that happen, the things that would be a stick in the spokes if you were rolling with deadlines and itineraries to keep but now instead become the opportunities and the gateways to the things that you'll actually remember. Hit and hope.

"Fifty years after the novel's publication (fifty three now), the book continues to inspire and awe those who pick it up for the first time. For those who are seasoned readers of Kerouac, the book serves as a signpost to the past, marking a transition, a rite of passage when they first realised that there is a world out there beyond their hometowns where starlight shimmers in the desert heat and the wind blows lonesome snow drifts across mountain passes like cold, unfeeling fingers."

Paul Maher Jnr

Hit the road and see what happens soometime. I'll see you out there.

Books are rad.

If you've never read any books by John Steinbeck, purveyor of stories that capture the beauty, comedy and inescapable tradegy of humanity, then take my advice and go raid your local bookshop.

The Church of Sustainable Surfing...

Has an amazing stained glass window...

The Patagonia Store, Cardiff, California.