Tuesday, September 29, 2009

CLUBBY WANKERS OR FULL TILT LEGENDS?

Just reading an article from Surfing World (issue 290) entitled 'Surfy Scum VS Clubby Wankers' which details the long rivalry between the two sub-species of Aussie Beach Culture. When those red and yellow flags go up in front of prime surf breaks tensions flare and boards get confiscated - remember that choice stoush depicted in one of my all time favourite albatrosses 'Puberty Blues'?
This article by Jock Serong (!) quotes Colleen McGloin defining the surf lifesaver as representative of "authority, social regulation and white heterosexuality" whereas the surfer is the "symbolic larrikin". However Jock concludes that "the queasy Darwinian truth is: we grew from the same stock". He goes on to list someof the more heroic feats performed by those dudes in their kinky rescue belts and reels including a nude rescue at Coogee beach in 1911 by Harry Baker. He also cites the hit TV show Bondi Rescue and predicts an episode when one of those buff lifesavers will have "to give mouth to mouth to a huge queen in boyshorts". We await that inevitable eventuality with baited breath. 

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

COSMIC NUDE YOGA

Currently slam dunking the 'Wax On' catalogue and selecting some images to accompany the curator's essay; 'Feeling the Stoke'. Couldn't resist this page from 'The Best of Tracks' (exact date unknown because, according to the magazine's co-founder, everyone on the editorial team was too stoned to remember to print it!) - probably sometime in the mid '70s. The yogi in the lotus position seems to be manifesting Nell's meditating surf lifesaver which I went to see the other day. It's a gorgeous black and white painting of a seated figure with zinc lips and an ejaculating surfboard between its legs entitled  "He's My Blonde-Headed, Stomppie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy or Another Fucking Summer". Oh, for more ozone...