Love's Labour's Gained

National holidays always give me pause. First of all, it's unsettling to have garbage pickup on Tuesday instead of Monday.
Second, holidays have a tendency to nag us with the message to think of others instead of ourselves. Who needs it?
Finally, a day off pretty much guarantees horrendous surf conditions.
But each of these dark clouds have their silver linings and Labor Day, unlike other holidays that wrack me with guilt as I pour lukewarm Tecates down my gizzard like they were the elixir of life itself, is designed for selfishness. What's not to love? Labor Day celebrates us, the American worker, just as we are.
It's an interesting choice to give us the day off to celebrate work, but whatever--we're supposed to drink cheap beer and let the littler ones run around with the bigger ones until their shapes are hard to distinguish in the waning light of evening. We're supposed to slap at mosquitoes or marvel at fireflies or vaguely wonder where our sweatshirts or spouses or dogs are as we stand around a bbq grill or sit around a fire pit or, if we're really lucky, stare into the gently pulsing embers as a beach bonfire fades into the fog.
All this because of American labor and all it stands for.
And up here North of the Bridge, it still stands for something. This 6'4 Lil' Pill, e-winged, cedar stringered, built for speed, inspired by the Campbell Brothers, and finned with bamboo was designed, shaped, glassed, finned, sanded, and polished by two people.
Four hands.
A singular desire to build something good.
It is also colored with resin in Laphroaig-bottle green.
My neighborhood sports a genuine old school steakhouse with a mind-boggling, wallet-draining single malt scotch menu. Surfboard building business has been conducted there through the years, and single malts have been sampled, extoled, heralded, cursed the next morning. The language of Scotland's chief export occasionally makes its way onto order cards: highland butterscotch opaque; Speyside honey tint; Lagavulin 16yr old yellow.
After a recent evening lush with liquid peat, smoke, and brine, the words Laphroaig-bottle green were jotted down. Leslie called soon thereafter.
"What the hell does that mean?" She demanded by way of introduction.
I directed her toward the Google.
"Got it," she said. "You could have just written pine, but--"and this was one of those moments that made the weekly hours-long drive to her glassing studio all the more worth it, "I'm glad you didn't."
Hope you had a great day.

The Undecider

Numbers scare the hell out of me. Want an example? 300. Terrifying number.
This is why I have a deep respect for Northcoast shredder and beard-growing enthusiast Chris, who chooses to remove numbers from his life entirely.
Chris wanted a board, but didn’t concern himself with the details. Our conversation went like this:
Me: What are you looking for?
Chris: Shaper’s choice.
Me: Glassing?
Chris: Have at it.
Me: (scrunching eyes with what-you-talkin’-‘bout-Willis-like suspicion) When do you need it?
Chris: Whenever.
With respect to Chris, I went for a shortish, wideish, thinnish little number that would like nothing more than a wave about yay-high--preferably with water temps hovering around just right.

Leslie's glassing is good.

Local Legend

In 1918 a six year old boy went missing in a dense fog along the Mendocino coast. Young Johan de Lotharsen’s disappearance made national news, as he was the first-born son of an original Mendocino settlement family with significant holdings in the area. His inheritance would have been substantial.
The Lotharsen's before Johan's (seated) disappearance.

Ten years later, a dapper young man in a grey suit and mink-brown bowler hat appeared in town, claiming the missing boy’s identity as his own. He carried a rifle. Police, family, and lawyers were informed. The young man was scrutinized, then proclaimed a de Lotharsen—heir to the family’s considerable wealth.
Because young Johan never publicly spoke of his ten-year disappearance, stories began to circulate: Johan was kidnapped by pirates; Johan ran away with the circus; Johan was raised by elephant seals.
None of these reports accounted for the suit, the hat, or the rifle.
The de Lotharsen’s had always been a reclusive bunch, and circled the wagons even tighter after Johan’s reinstatement. They retreated to a mountain property where they purportedly built homes from mud and moss, buried large sums of money from their Mendocino dried-goods business in the roots of giant trees, and practiced animism.

And Johan de Lotharsen surfed. His slight figure could be seen riding atop a self-hewn redwood alaia, parallel stance like the ancient Hawaiians, along the coves and points of the Mendocino coast. He would often disappear into the fog, not to be seen again for months.

Throughout the last century the stories persisted: Johan de Lotharsen, clad in the gray suit and brown bowler, toting an impossibly-heavy shotgun would chase down a train, board it, then terrorize passengers with a rucksack stuffed with salted cod.
Johan de Lotharsen would stay up into the wee hours in his treehouse abode writing patents by candlelight: a a centrifugal birthing apparatus for uncomfortable mothers, a sewn kelp vest for attracting sea lice (they eat terrestrial lice), a treatment for asthma made from seal fat and bituminous coal dust.
And still he surfed. Bigger waves now, more remote locations, colder, deeper water.
The last thirty years has seen the passage of his family, yet Johan de Lotharsen sightings are consistent in mentioning his agelessness. Clad always in the gray suit, the bowler hat, sporting the shotgun, he emerges for a board by a local shaper, then returns to his mountain retreat and his lonely, foggy reefs. Often, he carries a stout cat.
Sometimes local surfers look around nervously and ask, “Have you ever gotten an order from…you know…?” I admit that I haven’t, though if the phone rings late at night, or if there’s a phantom knock at the door, my mind goes to the dandily-dressed hermit from the Mendocino hills.
Then, last month, there was a knock at the door.
The smell of dried cod filled the entranceway as I took in the image: the gray suit, the brown bowler hat. Tucked under the crook of one arm was the ancient shotgun, under the other, a large cat.
“Need a board,” he said, then pressed a wad of cash into my hand—eighteen wrinkled dollar bills and a five. He looked thirty-four, tops.
“Where are you going to surf it?” I asked.
“None of your goddam business!” he shrieked, face reddening. “Do you know who I am? I’ve discovered more pointbreaks in a weekend on the Sonoma Coast than Naughton and Peterson did in a lifetime of globetrotting! I’ve Pioneered more coldwater slabs than Brad Gerlach could possibly imagine—even if he was coaching a combined team of Irishmen, Western Aussies, and the bastard love-child of John Long and Jeff Clark!”
He went on like this for some time, then got to specifics. I have to say, Johan de Lotharson knew his shit:
6’0”rounded pintail egg, red cedar stringer for flex, ice-blue tint with logo-encrusted cigar band and tapered rails, Lokbox rail finboxes, center box for 2+1 rippage.
What could I do? I shaped the board, dropped it at Fatty’s, spent the $23 on a fresh case of pullup diapers for my second-to-littlest lady.
He had Leslie deliver the completed board to an undisclosed location NOTB. She managed to snap these two shots before he disappeared into the woods, grinning, the rifle and cat tucked under his arms, the smell of salted cod trailing behind him like the cars of a ghost train disappearing into the fog.

Blue Tuesday

Thank you Headhighglassy fans who emailed reminders that I missed Blue Monday. I took (both of) your requests to heart before unceremoniously deleting them and then getting back to the project at hand: drinking as much arctic-cold chardonnay as possible.
I know what you're thinking: arctic-cold chardonnay is not du rigeur among Sonoma County's white wine cognoscenti right now. I should instead opt for a pinot gris or, if feeling saucy, a chenin blanc.
But I'm a maverick, and I drink what the conditions call for. Yesterday in Northern California was hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut; therefore, chardonnay.
Onto Blue Tuesday!
This blue 8'4 all 'rounder is currently available at Petaluma's Sonoma Coast Surf Shop.

Full board Hastings blue tint with red resin pinlines and a matching resin comp band courtesy of the fetching Leslie Anderson at Fatty Fiberglass.
Shiny.
2+1 fin setup, Lokbox finboxes, and spiral vee bottom. Cruise it on the small days as a single, rip it as a tri fin when it's got some push--the choice is yours.
Blue Tuesday is also support your local shaper, glasser, and surfshop Tuesday!

Le Flying Cigare

On October 28th, 1954, the French grape-growing hamlet of Chateauneuf-du-Pape passed a law forbidding any type of cigare volant, or flying cigar, from landing in any vineyard. Article one of the decree states: the take-off, landing, and overhead flight of the aircraft known as flying saucers, or flying cigars, whatever their nationality, are prohibited in the territory of the commune.
Up here in Northern California, the legislative vibe is a bit different from le commune, so no such law exists. This is fortunate for local surf enthusiast T, who is clearly stoked to introduce his new Cigare Volant to our chilly waters.
Full board, Martian-green opaque resin work with a cigar band complete the aesthetics of the cigare theme. The bladed-out rails, single wing in the tail, and flexie fin provide the space-age engine.
The obligatory rocker/foil check.
If you see T squirting around on his Flying Cigar along the California coast, feel free to push him of and take it for a spin. He likes to share!

The Long of It

Enough jibba-jabba, here's a longboard for Bodega Bay surf enthusiast Mike.
Mike is famously hard on his boards. Despite the hefty glass job on this 9'6" noseridin' special, I drew up a Bill of Longboard Rights upon order that looked something like this:
I, Mike, hereby pledge to take care of this surfboard most beautifully glassed by Fatty. I promise not to leave it on the top of my car, uncovered, when I spontaneously decide to drive to Tahoe for the weekend. I promise not to paddle out at Bobo with my dog perched on the deck. I also give my word that I will not attempt any ding repairs, as I have proven to suck at this, and instead I assure that I will bring my freshly damaged board straight to an industry professional."
The comp band is to prove that he's full of it when he claims a cheater five.