South Bay Beach Volleyball’s Willy Wonka Ticket

My beach life has been pretty blessed. I surf and body surf with many of the local guys I grew up with. I’ve been lucky enough to surf on multiple continents, and had a lot of fun. But, at it’s core Manhattan Beach is a volleyball town….The garbage cans say it’s “the home of beach volleyball,“ so it must be true. Volleyball is a big part of living in the South Bay and I enjoy it even now more than I did as a kid. I play with the same group of guys that I’ve been playing with for years, and we still play two’s on the old school larger court, with the new ball—don’t ask why or how we have concocted this Franken-version of the game, but it’s something we all look forward to from March through November, weather depending.

Other than at the venerable courts at 19th/20th, the rest of Manhattan and Hermosa have adopted four man as the game of choice. You certainly get to get more guys playing, with less down time. I played my first four man tourney, the Greg Ack Memorial, over Memorial Day at 17th in Hermosa and I was stoked to get great partners in what is always a blind draw. After that, I played 4th Street in Manhattan, and again got lucky with nice guys and a great team. Read more…

The latest stop on the journey for the perfect wallet

I’m somewhat of a creature of habit, generally meaning that if I find something I like, I stick with it, I’m loyal like that. This extends to the mundane, the same Jasmine Green Tea, from the same guy at Peet’s on my way to the same 6am yoga class—with most of the same people, the same T-shirts, the RRL washed tees—best found eBay, and the original white Jack Purcell sneakers—undistressed—the way badminton player Purcell unboxed them, that I’ve been wearing since high school. Sure transient products have found there way into my rotation, flirtations with Starbucks, Hanes Beefy-T’s, and sneaker nuttiness when the Air Jordan thing blew up.

All that to say, I’ve been around the block with wallets, from the traditional to the weird. Even slightly worn Trafalgar alligator wallets from Nordstroms would be happily and inexplicably exchanged by Nordstrom staff, so that was the chosen type for years. I’ve tried money clips—tough for receipts, and even a Gary Scott crazy titanium fold over wallet that still sees duty when on a surf trip and water/sand and wax are thrown into the mix. Read more…

Double Tube Cedar Shoe Trees from UK Based Cathcart Elliot

You may have deduced that I’m a collector….From esoteric cars, to vintage sport watches—more on that soon, to Buddy Lee Dolls.

But, without being a nut, I tend to make my clothing, suits/ties/shoes. Last a really long time.  As a UCLA student in the 80’s, I was lucky enough to work at what was SoCal’s epicenter of preppy/trad, At Ease.  With outposts in Westwood, Newport Beach, Pasadena and Tokyo, At Ease carried the best in American made Trad clothing—Norman Hilton, Southwick, Gittman shirts and Alden shoes.  While this was 25 years ago, I still own and wear a surprising number of pieces that I acquired there as an employee—shoes in particular.

Good care of my beloved Alden shell cordovan shoes is key, and as I’ve written before, I’m lucky to have discovered great shoe shines—the current favorite is Pasquale’s in Los Angeles and the amazing Saleem at Junior’s deli in West Los Angeles.  The other trick is that I’ve always been a dedicated user of shoe trees.  My At Ease boss, and dear friend, Joe Vasco, who still sells Trad at Gary’s and Company in Newport Beach, always insisted that our venerable customers pick up cedar trees with their Aldens, and as dutiful employees we did the same…The investment paid off.

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I was lucky to have parents who cared about good design. Early toys included the smooth wooden blocks and trucks from Creative Playthings. In fact, inspiration for the Creative Plaything pieces were the Froeble blocks, that caught the attention of a young Frank Lloyd Wright.

Manhattan Beach in the mid-60’s wasn’t a mecca of modern design, but Southern California was becoming one. The Arts and Architecture magazine sponsored Case Study houses had people thinking about how they were going to live in different ways, and new materials, building techniques and the cultural zeitgeist had people thinking about life in a more modern way. As an architectural history student at UCLA, I came to appreciate how cultural and political thinking was manifested in architecture, from the craftsman movement through post-modernism. The modern movement reflected the time, and new rules for design replaced the old playbook. Read more…

World Class Service, Old World Quality

As I was wrenching on the Defender 90 last night, installing a Mantec swing out tire carrier, with my friend and fellow Defender enthusiast, Barry Fein, Barry was lamenting the lack of high quality customer service and attention to detail with most of the vendors we deal with–truth be told Barry was doing most of the work, I was assisting, and admiring his skills. Barry has both a beautiful ’94 defender 90, blue, and my desired ’93 Defender 110.

Since I had time to think, while Barry was torquing, I realized he was right, service industry pride is generally lacking and in LA, while most are doing service work, as a holding pattern for what they really want to do, the customer suffers. Since the experience is rare, great service and excellent work is a luxury worth paying for.

I was introduced to Los Angeles’ Pasquale Shoe Repair by a friend, after being tooled by Beverly Hiils renowned Arturo’s—expensive, cash only, kinda rude, and not exceptional work. When you pull up to Pasquale-land, you’ve entered a Vegas-like (think Bellagio) plaza, with a cool little café, serving excellent food, they now have pizza, and an active juicer, with my favorite—orange, ginger, carrot. Mr. Fabrizio Pasquale, rules the café, while his lovely and charming wife and staff man the shoe repair. This is a whole building, not a space in a strip mall, they have their own parking—reason enough to avoid Beverly Hills and there’s easy in/out off of San Vicente.

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Of fins and memories of summers past

Southern California’s amazing monster South Swell two weeks ago brought epic surf to most south facing beaches, but left west facing beach breaks like my home break, Manhattan Beach, with massive close outs if the tide wasn’t perfect. I was lucky enough to catch the tide right for surfing–the Stretch Quad detailed before, on one of the mornings, but the low tide boomers brought me back to my bodysurfing roots.

My dad was first and foremost a bodysurfer. He was old school all the way…Never, ever wore fins, and rode in the straight down, one foot up technique pioneered on Venice beach in the ‘40’s. He brought that technique to the South Bay, and I always ride my last wave in, one foot up.

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Magnaflow Tech Center

I know I’ve been a little car crazed lately, and I haven’t even gotten around to detailing the entire stable here. But as nutty as I am for cars/trucks/bikes, it’s really the customizing thing that has me. I’ve been through the typical phases, dating back to high school, and starting with car stereo—I even had a vintage under-dash record player at one point—and through wheels, including all of the flavors of powder coating. (I was doing black wheels way before it was fashionable.)

But my taste for customizing cars isn’t strictly cosmetic. I’ve been through all of the performance upgrades as well. My main interest is getting cold air into the engine faster—it’s denser and leads to better performance, as well as getting exhaust out of the engine as quickly as possible. Well designed “cold air” kits solve the former, and the science of exhaust kits fix the latter. The latter is actually more fun, because the sound of a perfectly tuned exhaust is genius.

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Might as well have the best

“Made in America” isn’t just an uber patriotic screed imploring you to buy a Dodge Charger before Fiat gets its hands on the marque, and makes the new Fiat 500, 2010’s Mini Cooper…BTW, I love the 500, old and new.

Rather “Made in America” handcrafted clothing, luxury goods, work wear, boots and clothing have become a filter for taste-making hipsters. There are several great blog, including my favorite, A Continuous Lean,  — dedicated to the subject, and while I never thought of it as a filter for my key purchases, I’m inspired by those that are really taking it to heart. Classic brands like Alden, Hamilton Shirts, Red Wing Boots as well as independent artisans are leveraging the materials, i.e. Horween Shell Cordovan that only a few of the old timers had access to. More to come later on Alden and Horween in a future post.

That brings me to Filson. Much has been written, discussed, blogged and Style Forum’d on the sale of this Seattle company and what would become of their American made clothing bags and luggage. While some manufacturing has moved offshore, the company’s mainstay bags, leather goods and luggage continue to be produced stateside. I put a lot of miles on my bags, and while often derided by my working colleagues, I’m not afraid to check a bag…sure it adds time and isn’t as cool to do so, but I love having the stuff I want with me when I get wherever I’m going. Early in my career, I was a traveling TV syndication salesman—selling shows for Disney first, then to Fox…Shows that started with Wonderful World of Disney reruns, through A Current Affair, to The Simpsons. Traveling around the country, this was the era of garment bags and Haliburton suitcases. No one had seen wheels on luggage yet, and most people checked their bags. I’ve been through the Hartmann phase, the 80’s Cadillac of luggage, on to San Francisco’s Glaser Design bags, through North Face duffles, and now to Filson. My bags of choice are the Filson medium wheeled check in bag and the extra large wheeled bag duffle. I also use the medium field bag and rugged twill tote bag as carry ons and briefcases.

But this post is an ode to the Filson medium wheeled check in bag.

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Why natural rubber feels better, lasts longer and is just better all around

I try and find a yoga class five days a week, and it really makes me feel good and I think it’s the best full body workout. I’m lucky that I have Yoga Loft really close to my house. Honestly, I don’t even need to pedal the Kronan to get there.

I also like that beyond my mat, yoga doesn’t require any special equipment.

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Custom shirts as value and the alternative to “ironic T-shirts”

I’ve gotten to the point, and to the age, where expensive, ultra washed and “ironic” printed tees, are not only unappealing, they feel ridiculous. Sure, in this city and industry, I’m a bit anachronistic wearing a suit and tie most days. I don’t expect others to do the same, I just like it, and it’s kind of become my thing.

While many find adventure and in discovering the perfect pair of distressed Japanese denim, I’m doing the same in finding craftsmen who are still making clothing the old fashioned way—one piece at a time and with great care.

That doesn’t mean that value doesn’t matter. Custom shirts at the same price, or less than store bought, just makes good sense. This really is a story about value.

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