Undone

Beach mates

Boardies

The kind of boardies I like.

I loves ya

Uncovered

Monday!

It's Monday morning in eastern Oz.  Back to work.  And this will go on for another 10 years -- until we've paid off the mortgage.

Problem is: my "real-life" job is what pays for everything but it leaves me no time or energy to do the stuff I love.  Like writing.

Oh well.  Things could be worse!

I did a Google search for Monday morning and it came up with this, a pic of a shark scare on a Sydney beach.  I dunno why.  Shark=Monday?  Big teeth and a hideously painful bite?  Exactamento, dude.

Meanwhile, I can see that the sad fashion for boardies instead of speedos continues, to our loss.

Gorgeous

Boardies kiss

Lthon?

Actually, his name is Marlon Teixeira.  But I imagine Lthon from ElvenSword to be this beautiful, with dark eyes and dark curly hair and a slim dancer's body.

Pics from Hunk du Jour.

Boardies vs Budgies

A perennial Ozzie debate, in another article from The Age.  


Some quotes from the piece:

Halle Berry's infamous swimsuit scene in Die Another Day sent jaws to the floor, but what was more surprising was the equal amount of attention paid to Daniel Craig when he strutted his buff stuff in a pair of tight, blue trunks in Casino Royale.
Referred to as a “Euro swimsuit” by those of us living outside of the perennially frisky and fun EU, men and women around the globe were in a tizz about just how well he managed to squeeze his fine form into but a cough of nylon and spandex. Most impressive, he helped make the boardie and budgie smuggler hybrid stylish again.

and

Then we have boardies. Longer styles are also a popular choice, but make sure they sit above the knee and aren't too boxy unless you want people thinking your mum picked them out for you.

and 

One of the only upsides to our nation's crippling propensity towards developing skin cancer is that T-shirts are an acceptable and complimentary addition to this look. A blessing in disguise for those wanting to conceal the chunk.

and 

Design-wise, board shorts emblazoned with the Australian flag are standard issue for English backpackers but give off a certain bogan vibe when worn by residents. National pride is one thing but thanks to the Cronulla riots the image has now been coopted by a xenophobic contingent who've ruined it for everyone else. So, either sport it with a horrific sunburn and British passport in hand, or have courage in what will most likely be perceived as your racist convictions.

Thanks the the article I discovered two unknown (to me) Ozzie swimwear manufacturers:  Mahjii and Tribe.  

Some pics

Majorca Flats -- 246

  “I … the Mount Macedon murderer …”

“Fuck me sideways with a wet banana! C'mon let's get you out of here! Here ...” And completely unselfconsciously he took hold of Cody's hands and started to saw at the cord with the secateurs. The cord parted suddenly and Cody felt a wave of emotions fill him: gratitude, relief, and quickly following, a sudden intense determination to get his life right. Whatever happened now with him and Phillippa, with him and Luigi, he'd been given his life back. And he was going to make the best of it.

“Thank you!” he whispered. He could have kissed the other man. But he didn't.

“No worries, mate! Glad to help. Now … you need some gear. Some pants at least!” and he grinned. There's prolly a pair of boardies in the boot. Hang on.” He went round to the other side of the car and pressed the boot release. He frootled round in the boot before exclaiming, “Hah! I knew there were some here.” He chucked a pair of floral Billabong boardies to Cody. They were dusty and worn, but fitted fine. Cody was glad his gayness or bisexuality or whatever the fuck it was had made him keep on trying to have a slim body.

“Thank you!” he said again, wondering how you could ever thank enough someone who saved your life.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#245)       Next MF post(#247)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Fathers

I find fathers sexy.  All that tiresome aggression and exaggerated maleness of the male teenager is transformed by their love for their children into something that is tender and precious; and all the more so because of their maleness, their strength. 

This story was written for a dear friend and the guy he married, and both of them loved it.   It wasn't their story, but as one does when one writes, I took elements of their story and bits and pieces from other stories and combined them to create this one.  Joe's looks were based on a rather femme guy of Italian origin at the print shop we used, who was cute as.  Luke's were based on a very sexy guy who used to be a conductor on the train.  But their characters are their own. 


I hope you enjoy it.


[Image from Speedo Junkie]

Low-hanging boardies

Yum. And I don't think he's wearing anything under the boardies, either. Which is as it should be.

Surfing

Surfing used to often put me in a very meditative mood. The cool blue and green of the water, the warm sun, the way you were one with the world, the way the problems of your life were set aside, if only for a while. Magic.

Briefs vs boardies

Good bods, both of them.  Ordinary blokes.  Nice.

Still prefer the briefs over the boardies, though.

The Man Who Invented Speedos

Peter Travis, who is (naturally!) gay.

It has been 50 years since Travis designed that ultimate symbol of Australian life, the Speedo brief. Unaware of the impact his design would have on both the worlds of fashion and sport, Travis’ novel idea was simply to design a swimsuit you could actually swim in.


Speaking to Sydney Star Observer at a retrospective of his design work held at the Bondi Pavilion Gallery during NSW Seniors Week, Travis pulled out the swimsuit he wore as a young man in 1950s Manly. Made of cotton and stretching down the body like a tank top, with matching cotton shorts, it isn’t hard to imagine how liberating the introduction of some very brief briefs must have been.


“It was designed quite practically, not with fashion in mind,” Travis said. “I realised you shouldn’t have anything around your waist that would twist when you swim. The only way you could stop that would be to end the cut on your hips. It’s designed as a purely functional object.”


When Speedo Australia poached Travis from rival company Jantzen in 1960, he entered a company lacking in vision.


“When I first went into the design department, they were making all these dowdy, old-fashioned things. The man in charge really wasn’t a designer. A very nice man, and good at producing catalogues, but really their progression was about one year having four buttons on a piece, and the next year only having three,” he recalled.


“The first thing they showed me was a pair of shorts and a shirt with a Hawaiian motif. I said, ‘I’m sorry, but in the next year, everyone around the world is going to have this. A good designer never follows anyone. I will create a new fashion … I want to design a swimsuit you can swim in’. ”


Originally designed in three different sizes to accommodate different levels of modesty, the Bondi Beach swimsuit inspector was still outraged by the costume’s briefness. The inspector’s enviable task was to wander the beach, tape measure in hand, measuring people’s swimwear.


The first wearers of the now standard swimsuit were carted off on indecent exposure charges.  One wise magistrate dismissed a case on the grounds that if there was no pubic hair in public view, no harm was done.


The design has remained the choice of swimmers over the decades — real swimmers, as Travis reminded beach-goers wandering through the gallery.


Travis interrupted our interview to tell one hapless young man who had wandered in wearing board shorts, “Real swimmers wear briefs. I call those things poop-pants.”


“I’ve heard people saying things like, ‘Oh, that fat old man looks terrible in a pair of Speedos,’ and I don’t like that.


“The point is, he looks just as bad in anything else, but he shouldn’t be criticised because he wants to wear something to swim in. He’s not there for people to look at. Why shouldn’t a person who wants to swim wear that and not be criticised?”

Original article here, another blog post here.

The Garden of Love

I went to the Garden of Love,
    And saw what I never had seen:
    A Chapel was built in the midst,
    Where I used to play on the green.

    
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
    And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door;
    So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
    That so many sweet flowers bore,

    
And I saw it was filled with graves,
    And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
    And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
    And binding with briars my joys & desires. 

William Blake (1757 -1827)

Warm beach evening

This image makes me think of happy evenings spent at the beach, long ago.  Friends, conversation, laughter, companionship, and threaded through it all (for we were young) the tantalising hint of sexual attraction and desire. 

The model is Benjamin Godfre.  He has a lovely body, but that's not the only reason why I selected this image.  I love the look on his face and I love the fact that he's nude under his boardies. 

Sometimes I feel such regret for the loss of that time of innocence, where there were (for us) no mortgages, no careers (just jobs), no binding commitments to others.  We were friends together, and sometimes lovers, and we took care not to hurt each other.  We believed we were free. Of course, we weren't.   

Time to settle down.  Perhaps the saddest words an older person can say to someone young.  Yet true words, all the same.  I wouldn't change the one I love for anything.  But it would be wonderful to sometimes set aside my responsibilities and be as free as I was then.

The land of lost content.

Back from Aotearoa

The holiday started badly.  Qantas had forgotten our vegetarian meals, the onboard toilet was defective, the film was some dreadful thing starring Julia Roberts who is exceptionally beautiful (I think) but an indifferent actress.  Something about food and sex, so far as I could see.  Eat, love, vomit?  Does that ring a bell?

Anyway, the delicious champagne helped us survive these vicissitudes (Piper Hiedsieck.  Yum)  and we arrived in Auckland safe and sound despite it being a Qantas plane. In Auckland it was as usual raining.  It's always raining in Auckland, being situated on a narrow peninsula with sea all around.  The rental car was ready -- if only I could remember which car hire company I'd hired it from.  After an embarrassing troop around each car hire company's booth in the arrivals hall  in turn (my lady pretending not to know me) we found it and set off.  We spent the first night in a dreary but cheap motel not far from the airport.  At least I remembered which motel we'd booked into.

The next morning  -- early by our time, since New Zealand is two hours ahead of east coast Oz, but nine-ish by Noz time -- we started south towards Tauranga.  Auckland's suburbs, rather dull and damp (still raining) then rolling green hills with neat fields and hedgerows (like England!) small patches of pines (pinus radiata, from a small area in California -- far more successful outside California than in it).

An hour out from Auckland, we drove into a vast flat country, the silt delta of rivers rising in the heart of the North Island.  A flat landscape reminiscent of Norfolk in England, with straight lines of trees and hedges; the only straight roads we saw in Noz; drainage canals; wide estuaries filled with muddy water.  In the distance, before and behind us, smoking in the rain, were noble mountain ranges.  A mysterious and fascinating landscape.

I had decided before we left that I simply had to see the Coromandel Peninsula, a mountain range reaching out into the Pacific, of legendary beauty.  I expect it is much more beautiful in the sunshine.  It was sumptuous enough in the pouring, tropical rain.  The road winds along the coast, wide enough in places just for one car, with notices warning of wide articulated trucks, and no guard rail on the sea edge of road, numerous ominous little crosses indicating where someone had died in an accident.  My eyesight is...  not so good, and we had foolishly not signed up my lady as a driver.  So there I was, not sure how close I was to the edge (with just one working eye, I can't judge distances at all) and certain that if I went too close that would be it.  Both of us lost in the waves off the Coromandel Peninsula.  It's a romantic name for the place where you died, but all the same!

North we toiled, the road as winding as a pollie's promises, meeting several of the said wide articulated trucks going the other way.  The deluge continued.  At Coromandel town we had the most delicious salad, with New Zealand brie.  I won't eat meat or fish and I don't eat wheat (makes my intestines bleed).  There wasn't much on the menu left except said salads, though I was intrigued by mussel fritters (there were vast mussel/oyster beds in the estuary just before we reached Coromandel town).  An arty place, full of galleries, trendy clothes shops and high-falutin' restaurants --- the explanation obvious when we saw the notices:  Auckland Ferry.  A haven for trendies from the big city.  Wikipedia coyly mentions 'alternative lifestylers'.  I call them C.C.s (counter-culturals)  Why the ferry?  No person in their right minds would drive that road.  Especially not in the rain.  Only romantic idiots like me.

Having come so far we had the choice of going back (and possibly being driven off the road by a W.A.T.) or of continuing round the peninsula and going south along its eastern side.  The tropical downpour continued.  Optimistically, we decided to continue.  Only we took a wrong turning.  Noz place names are maybe 75% Maori.  And not only is the signage inadequate, but I mean how do we poor thickie Ozzies distinguish between one Maori town and the next?  So we took the wrong road.  As we drove north towards the remote tip of the Coromandel Peninsula through the thick curtains of rain, the road narrowed even more.  Charming tiny hamlets clung desperately to the narrow littoral between the sea and the mountain, divided by a single lane of deteriorating tarmac.  Eventually we concluded that we had to be on the wrong road.  So I asked.  The houses all were unlocked, most with open doors.  A handsome young man in rugby gear directed me back towards Coromandel Town, his face ill-concealing his amusement.  Where do they go to play rugby?  Is there any flat place anywhere?  Maybe they play it on a slope.  How else?  But beautiful islands rose out of the silver sea, so gloriously magnificent I contemplated not continuing the journey to Tauranga and the rellies.  Maybe we could stay with the rugby player. . . .

So beautiful.  Steep mountains shrouded in mist, covered with tree-fern forests, and the coast lined with Pohutakawa trees, their branches thick with blossom, the roads underneath them scarlet with the fallen threads from their flowers.  Across the peninsula towards Te Rerenga and Kuaotunu. The road twisting round steep mountains, up and down, in and out, impatient cars and lorries behind me as I cautiously manoeuvre over unfamiliar roads in the sort of heavy rain I last saw in Singapore.  Grief!  Every so often there was a little bay on the side of the road, obviously expressly designed for the purpose we used it, to pull off so the impatient could pass.  And all the time this extraordinary and incomparable natural beauty.   On through Tittywhanger (oh, all right, Whitianga)  Where I phoned the rellies to explain that we would be late.  Very late.

Arrive in Tauranga and remember how to get to the Palais des Rellies.  Fraught welcomes all round.  Lamentation about the rain.  In bed at night I listen to the deluge, enjoying every minute, the city of Tauranga's night lights made romantic by the softening effect of the rain.  Warm rain.  Tropical rain.

The next day we go to the rellies' holiday cottage.  Thoroughly charming showing my sister-in-law's touch, who manages always to make a homely, welcoming space wherever she goes.  Blue and white decor, small carvings of fish and sea birds stuck to the walls, pencil drawings (my s.i.l. is an artist).  The rain continues.  Later we go for a walk along the beach soaked through in the rain.  I strip to my superman undies and  walk along a deserted beach, the surf huge, the rain extraordinary.  Afterwards drive home to the holiday cottage where I try to towel dry.

The next day the rain stops.  We go for a walk along Mt Maunganui  A lovely beach, a beaut mount with Pohutukawa trees right down to the beach.  Some beaut bodies on the beach -- the women in delicious bikinis,  the men in loathsome baggy shorts concealing everything.  Good grief, the fashion for board shorts is utterly revolting.

More walks.  More beaches.  More sun.  Perfect.  From the veranda of my mother-in-law's house you can look north with mountain range after mountain range disappearing into the distance.  I counted five ranges, each one a little paler than the last, until the last one was almost indistinguishable from the pale dove grey of the Pacific, a smudge against the horizon.  From the front veranda, Mt Maunganui and the daily flight of a slim silverfish jet-prop plane from Auckland.  Sublime.  And this millionaire's view can be had for a couple of hundred thousand Noz dollars.

A creek flowing through the suburb is enfolded into a reserve, with native forest (tree-ferns and other native species I couldn't identify) plus species from Europe (lindens, oaks, alders, beech, birch) and elsewhere (Pinus radiata, Palm trees, even Eucalyptus)  Leaf mulch a foot thick, the call of mysterious birds, a wooden walkway covered with wire-netting to stop you slipping in the moss and lichen.  Extraordinarily peaceful and beautiful.  Right outside their back door.  Walks along the bay; mangroves shading into forest; convolvulus and its near relative morning glory; scarlet gladiolus; blue-mauve wisteria; sickly-sweet-scented jasmine . . . . perfect.

Then alas, all too soon the road home. 

A winding road through rolling hills, every cutting thick with tree-ferns, little farmhouses with driveways lined with hydrangeas in every shade between white, pink, purple and blue, tall hedges made from closely pruned trees 4 or 5 metres high, avocado groves, road verges thick with flowers (white -- Shasta daisies; yellow somethings; blue something elses; lupins in various colours) wild agapanthus in white and blue.  And all the time, gray mountains to the left and sparkling blue sea to the right.  Then through the Karangahake Gorge, where the road tries to fit between a river flowing over rocks and a steep mountain-side of ochre and reddish rocks.  The river could have been Scottish, so clear, and so beautiful was it.  The cliff-face next to us must have been hundreds of metres high. Unbelievably beautiful.

Back across the plains, back drearily to the airport.

And then home, to the heat of an Ozzie summer, and the fading memories of paradise.

Matthew McConaughy

Nice bod. He does yoga, works out and runs to keep his body looking like this.

I found the fact that he wears nothing underneath his board shorts more interesting. Hang lose, swing free. Especially when you're surfing.

And that's a very shapely bum, doncha think?