Privileged Pilgrimage

Photo taken from the SurfArt website

One of the five pillars of Islam requires that every Muslim, if physically and financially able, make at least one journey to the Holy City Of Mecca to perform the Haj, during their life time. The Haj is the absolute center of the Islamic world and was created to be a unifying focal point for worship.

Hawaii has a similar place in the hearts and minds of surfers. I have even heard people say that every surfer should make an effort, if possible to make at least one pilgrimage to the Hawaiian islands. I for one never thought I would make it anywhere near Hawaii. After all, Wales is a long way from this Mid-Pacific chain of islands.

However, the opportunity recently presented itself and a spontaneous decision was made to go. It was all too easy.

Now, I don't dwell on religious or spiritual matters all that often but I do occasionally dwell on privilege. I've been privileged enough to travel a fair bit further around this combustive planet than many and I used to think I was all the more 'worldly' or 'wise' or 'interesting' because of it and I yearned for more. However, I eventually found some truth in an old Zen adage. I can never remember the precise saying but it posits that one can learn just as much by never leaving their garden as they can from thousands of miles of global travel. I tend to believe this, especially since examining my own past arrogance and after countless disappointing conversations with so-called 'well-travelled' people.

Furthermore, in this day and age of a globalized monoculture, travelling is all too often sadly void of unique regional experiences. You can go almost anywhere in the world and drink same coffee while listening to the same music after shopping at the same department store as you do back home.

Even if you travel with an open mind, many environmentalists now consider air travel to be the single biggest contributor to global warming. Surfers, like most travellers tend to ignore these wider consequences and implications of their travels in the selfish pursuit of perfect surf.

Nevertheless, I'm going to make this pilgrimage as it has been a long three years since I have left this country. The longest I've stayed in one place since I was nine and my arse is getting sore from sitting in my garden. So I've packed:

1) 1 pair shorts
2) 1 Speedo
3) 1 pair of swim fins
4) 1 toothbrush

and I'm ready to roll. Hopefully I wont suck all the stoke out of my travelling companions with the above sentiments.

A hui hou!

Bad Egg

This is the cover to Bad Egg issue #4. The issue #5 cover is a full colour affair.


I just got home from a tedious day of work, half hoping The Ex CD I ordered would be awaiting me in my post box, however I was unexpectedly surprised by this little gem of a zine. I've traded zines with Ash from Bad Egg in the past but I wasn't expecting this issue to come my way as publication of the next issue of FW is still a fair way off. Bad Egg #5 is a great little DIY publication documenting skateboarding in Denver, Colorado. Since I'm on a 'natural' skate spot kick of recent, I was pleased to see that this issue mostly features real backyard pools that Ash and her crew found and drained the previous summer. The photos are clear, the layout is done well, its printed on unusual paper that I dig and it has a colour cover. I'm definitely inspired to put a bit more effort into finding abandoned houses and empty pools to skate this upcoming 'season.' The icing on the cake is documentation of a bowl Ash and her husband Tim built last year. Sounds like the dug out an egg shaped bowl in their garage and laid some concrete all by hand. Looks just up my alley.

So, you could spend $4 on a copy of TransTimeWarnerWorldAdHeavySkateboardingMagazine
or you could send Ash $3 and get a taste of what it is like to create your own scene. Click and Destroy.

Ash, you can expect a copy of FW#2 in your postbox (sometime, eventually, maybe...)

5

by Alison

Under The City

Pic taken from NYC based 5boro skates.

History says modern skateboarding's birth was in 1950s California when bored surfer kids began looking for flat day alternatives. The truth is, people were probably riding some form of four-wheeled plank, decades, maybe even a century or so before that. Photographs and film footage exists of Depression-era kids racing rollerskates and wooden fruit-crate-scooters through the streets of New York. It is quite possible that some of these kids were riding these scooters without handles, I.E. as crude skateboards.

Many Skateboarders don't care about history and would rather focus on progression. For the most part, I think this is healthy as it keeps the youth in control of the culture. However, over the last few years, there has been a big celebration of the culture's roots. Yet, this has mostly been done by older skateboarders who romanticize the ramp and skatepark era of the 1970s and 1980s. Little has been discussed of skateboarding's real roots, the streets.

Skateboarding was born in the streets and is at its most profound when practiced on terrain that was not designed with skateboarding in mind. Lots of aging skateboarders tend to neglect this, as they carve around the bowls of the many skateparks that are continuously being constructed around the world. Modern skatepark design, is allowing these skateboarders to enjoy the form of skateboarding that they grew up doing; a form that for along time was not available to them. However it is incredibly ironic that many skateboarders champion 'Transition/ vertical based' skateboarding on intentional structures/ terrain as 'hardcore' or 'punk.' Yet, it seems there is little 'hardcore' or revolutionary about limiting oneself to the sanctioned confines of a designated 'park.' While I enjoy skateboarding in skateparks, ultimately it is really only training for the real thing or what is often referred to as 'natural' terrain, the streets. For its in the cities and urban environs that skateboarders are at their most subversive.

That is why, I'm pretty excited by a new documentary, due out later this year, about the history of skateboarding in the streets of New York with the working title of, The New York Skate Movie. There have been numerous documentaries on skateboarding's past in recent years, but mostly examining the rise and fall of skateboarding's vertical legends. What is exciting about this film, is that the lead character is, 'The City' itself. This film was created by Coan 'Buddy' Nichols and Rick Charnoski who were behind the superb Fruit Of The Vine documentary about skateboarding in empty swimming pools (more 'natural' terrain). Nichols' and Charnoski's work is gritty yet artistic and is usually filmed in Super 8 and 16mm format. Check out the trailer here, grab a skateboard, step out your front door and...

...PUSH...

For more thoughts on redefining the urban realm, read my articles in Wend #2 (on skateboarding) and #3 (on Parkour). I just got a couple of boxes of copies of each of these two issues, so if you see me, I'd be happy to pass one on. Also be sure, to check out the upcoming Foulweather #2 that will also discuss, 'finding the Beach, beneath the City.'

Beautiful Frenzy

The Ex have easily been one of my favourite bands since a couple of music-nerd friends introduced me to them about five years ago. They came out the late 70s/ early 80s squatting scene in Amsterdam and played a predictable raucous punk-noise that you might expect from this era. While I like that type of music, it isn’t going to keep me interested in a band for long. However, The Ex soon started adding new elements to their music from industrial and experimental sounds, trumpets and saxophones. Then they began to explore improv and ‘Instant’ music as the Dutch call it. By the early 1990s, they were making albums with the likes of experimental cellist Tom Cora, who plugged in his cello and thrashed the hell out of it while exploring eastern European folk tunes. By the end of the 1990s/ early 2000s, The Ex were still pushing boundaries and travelling around Africa discovering new music and musicians.

Members of The Ex have been responsible for introducing the world to such cultural phenomenons as the magnificent Konono No 1, a group of musicians from the Congo. The story goes, they moved from the country into the city and feared their ancestors would no longer hear their music above the endless din of the urban setting and so they rigged up crude amplification systems using used car parts. The result is astonishing. Try to imagine groovy tribal music, delivered through a blast of industrial/ electronic distortion.

Even though I have not played music since I smashed up my school’s bass trombone at age fourteen, The Ex have provided limitless inspiration for Foulweather. To this day they remain true to their DIY roots, anarcho inspired politics and are constantly pushing musical and cultural boundaries.

Most recently The Ex put out a record they did with legendary Ethiopian Saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria. While, I have enjoyed almost everything The Ex has ever put out, I always wonder if they can keep their music relevant and cutting edge after nearly thirty years. I’m not sure if the album is going to be released over here but an MP3 of a sample track is thankfully available online. Like any collaboration with The Ex, this is seemingly a match made in heaven.

Whenever, I feel like vomiting after being forced to consume too much of what passes for culture, I just turn on and tune into The Ex for stimulation. And hope.

Getatchew Mekuria and The Ex:
"Eywat Setenafegagn"

Synchronicity On The Beach

photo from NYT, 6th Feb '07

As I was eating my tofu burrito yesterday, I was casually skimming the previous day's newspaper and came across a story on Brazil's beaches. I had been drafting an essay for my new zine, with the principle thesis being that The Beach is the ultimate arena of liberation. A place free from much of the constraints of modern life, where one can re-connect with nature and everyone can be equal in speedos. As I mentioned in the previous post, Terry Gilliam was inspired to pen Brazil, after witnessing an old man seeking escapism on a Welsh beach by tuning into some Brazilian music on the radio, as an industrial nightmare, lit up his rear. Brazil is, if nothing, about the quest for liberation from the tedium of working deep inside a uninspiring bureaucratic machine, the rigid authoritarian structure of society and class inequality.

Reading the NYT story, I was at first encouraged by quotes such as 'Brazilians like to say that the beach is their country's most democratic open space.' I though to myself, that this story was a sign of synchronicity and that it justified my plan to write about the beach in this manner. But then the article went on to suggest that 'some beaches are more equal than others.'

Perhaps, the old man on the Welsh beach should have been tuning into a different station, as apparently, the class and societal divisions of Brazilian society are just as rife on the beach.

From Tuesday's (6th Feb 2007) New York Times:

Drawing Lines Across the Sand, Between Classes

Brazilians like to say that the beach is their country’s “most democratic space.” But some bodies — and some beaches — are more equal than others.

In the Brazilian imagination, the beach has traditionally been regarded as the great leveler, “the place where the general, the teacher, the politician, the millionaire and the poor student” were all equal, said Roberto da Matta, an anthropologist and newspaper columnist who is a leading social commentator. “Their bodies were all made equally humble,” he said, by the near-naked proximity of “one body with others, all of them without defense or disguise.”

But here in Brazil’s postcard city, where the summer vacation season is in full swing, the hierarchy, in which both class and skin color play a part, is clear to all. The beaches facing the ocean in elite neighborhoods on the south side and those who frequent them rank higher than those on the north side, fronting the polluted Guanabara Bay.

In Rio, 59 beaches spread out along 110 miles of sand. Even the city’s most elite beaches, Ipanema and Copacabana, and their lesser-known extensions, Leblon and Leme, are informally subdivided into sectors, demarcated by a dozen lifeguard stations called postos, each about a half-mile from the next. Each posto, numbered 1 to 12, has a culture of its own, appeals to a different “tribe” and can be inhospitable to interlopers.

Brazil has nearly 5,000 miles of tropical coastline, and “by law, the beach is always public property and never private,” said Patrícia Farias, author of “Grabbing Some Color at the Beach,” a study of race relations on Rio’s beaches. “The discourse is always one of, ‘We all live together democratically,’ but the second, unspoken part of that is ‘but it has to be by my rules.’ ”

-Read the whole story here.

Hi-Res

'The Mythology Of Borders' by Jason Powers


I posted a low quality version of this collage awhile ago. It was done by my friend Jason Powers and it made up the back cover of an old zine I did. Anyway, I was digging through my basement the other day and found a disc full of Jason's collages and decided to share a Hi-Res version.

Looking through the files on that disc, I thought this next one, titled 'Alive With Pleasure' will fit in perfectly with FW#2. First of all, the cooling towers in the background remind me of the cooling towers at Baglan Bay, Port Talbot (see two entries prior), where Terry Gilliam got the inspiration to shoot Brazil. Apparently, Gilliam was on his way to Swansea to campaign against the city's ban against the showing of The Life of Brian (the ban was finally lifted in 1997) when he stopped in Port Talbot and went for a walk on the beach. On the beach he came across an old man with a hand held radio listening to Brazilian music. The vision of an old man trying to escape the industrial nightmare in his background, apparently was enough for Gilliam to start penning, what I consider, to be his crowning achievement. Furthermore, the final torture scene was shot inside the actual cooling towers in Port Talbot.

Port Talbot is a steel town, where everything is covered with gray iron ore dust. Even the beach is completely littered with dust, its just black. The sun was setting, and it was quite beautiful. The contrast was extraordinary, I had this image of a guy sitting there on this dingy beach with a portable radio, tuning in these strange Latin escapist songs like 'Brazil.' The music transported him somehow and made his world less gray.- Terry Gilliam

Upon viewing Jason's collages in the past, I have also felt they share a certain Pythonesque (ie Gilliamesque) aesthetic.

Secondly, Jason's collage is heavy on themes of virtual vs real experience, civilization vs primitive, nature vs technology. All themes I want to explore in FW#2. Speaking of technology, these collages were done by hand and have almost inspired me to 'cut and paste' FW #2 with scissors and glue the traditional way, but I think the temptation of InDesign will soon quell that...

Finally,Jason's collages also remind me of Gee Vaucher's work. Gee Vaucher was the artist behind the anarcho-punk band Crass, who like Gilliam dedicated much of their art to the struggle against the perceived totalitarianism of Thatcher's Britain and the approach of 1984 (on all levels). On a side note, Crass' last gig was a benefit for Welsh Miners in nearby Aberdare, during the great Miner's Strike of 1984/85. I'll be going into more detail about how this all comes back to The Beach, in FW #2. But for now let's just say a lot of great art comes from very dark places/ times. Or as I like to say, Beauty In the Filth, Prettiness in the Shittiness.

'Alive With Pleasure'

Please click on the collages for better detail.

Support Your Local Library

It just came to my attention that Foulweather #1 is now available at Multnomah County Library. It seems they purchased fourteen copies (wish I knew where from) which are now available at their various branches.

Thanks Multnomah County for supporting self-publishing and zines!

Check it out and read FW for free...

Foulweather... On The Beach

Northern Oregon Beach, photo by Pete

Bagaln Bay in South Wales, just east of my hometown of Swansea. This industrial nightmare on the beach was inspiration for both Brazil and Blade Runner. I stole this photo from the Pontarddulais Walking Club.

So I have finally conceptualized Foulweather #2. At first I was not going to bother with a theme, actually I wasn't going to bother with a #2 at all at one point, but the urge to slap together a zine has overwhelmed me again, as it usually does about once a year.

I was trying to come up with one unifying link to my current interests, reading matter, area of study, concerns, political mindset etc. and it seemed impossible. Of course, it eventually dawned on me that this unifying theme was staring me in the face the whole time.

The Beach.

I'm seeking contributions again, so if you are interested in any of the following and think you can link them to The Beach, with words, photography or art get in touch:

The Beach as Arena of Liberation, Coney Island, Venice Beach, Salton Sea, BayOcean, San Francisco's Cliff House/ Saltwater Baths, The History of Leisure, Urban Decay meets the Beach, Paris 1968, The Piers of Victorian Britain, Post War California, Miki Dora, Civilization Vs Nature, Technology Vs Primitivism... maybe you get a sense of what tree I'm barking up, maybe not... Sort of a deep musing on the cultural history of The Beach in Western Civilization and its political implications... maybe...