Want to launch yourself into something good and treat yourself, or someone you know, to a great gift? Then go get this book titled 'Blue Yonder' by Jimmy McMillan.

There's heart and soul, and the spirit of things felt but not seen, captured from the world of several decades of surf.

It is special.

And it's available at all leading book stores.

At the Manly Space Junk launch, the proud author, and what a guy, Jimmy McMillan with City Weekly journalist Jade Warne (my oldest daughter!)

Celebrities and movers and shakers above and below

To give you some idea about the author, Jimmy himself shares below what the launch was like:

"The Blue Yonder book launch/short film/art exhibitions went something like this.

Thought that it would be so simple for me to design an invite, gather my books, film and some paintings together, book a hall and rock up with all my gear.

Nope!

Beautiful people abounding, even spilling outdoors 

I had to make it hard for myself. I decided I wanted large timber framed photos times seventeen. The paintings I’d completed whilst writing Blue Yonder plus three more. Twenty colour prints of double page spreads from Blue Yonder, mounted onto matt board. Seven original paintings designed with materials I’d never worked with before and based on photos from Blue Yonder. And then there were the surfboards from Ozzie Wright, Derek Hynd and myself.

The t-shirts I screen-printed, champagne, beer and soft drinks for the grommets. And a hire-a-van to cart it all around. All this with a body that keeled over the night before the Cronulla gig happened.

The beautiful Zoe 

More bubbling beauty helping with the champagne 

It was 3am, kneeling on a paint-splattered piece of old carpet in my garage cum studio thingy, when I turned around to dip a pink brush in fresh water. Woke up with a body that wanted my Grandfather’s walking stick to lean on as I soul-arched out of my dark bedroom. Self-care out the door. Suffering for art or something like that.

The set-up took me four limping hours, and as I indulged my creative person in scribbling texta words on the tape I’d bordered the surfboards with, my first supporter walked in the door at 6pm – Mum.

Gotta love ‘em!

By 7pm there were something like 150 people cruising about in a mostly anticlockwise direction.

In the door, grab a drink, past the mounted pages, the art, the photos, the surfboards, the paintings, and then over to me.

At a book launch all you do is sign books!

I was behind a table the whole night. But it was bloody fun…I love scribbling words on glossy paper with those permanent markers! And everyone I knew was there, and more.

My cheeks were sore from smiling.

I showed the short film and there were hoots and clapping. Wow! How’s this, I thought. Didn’t quite know how to take it, so I just kept smiling.

The experience was like a drug. There was the build up, the excitement and happiness of the hit, and then the downtime.

Flash to an empty hall at 10pm. A broken man standing (crooked), staring into the emptiness of a gallery that was alive. Now dead. Funny thing was, I did it again the next night at Manly.

I might as well face it, I’m addicted to love.

Thankyou to anyone who showed and all that supported.

Jimmy

A Journey Into The Heart of Surf Culture

Today Jimmy McMillan launches his book called 'Blue Yonder - A Journey Into The Heart Of Surf Culture'.

The front cover pic gives you some indication of the blend of hard core surf and spiritual inspiration that Jimmy brings together. While the book covers great waves it is also about people, and their passions, involved in our world of surf.

The book launch is on in Cronulla this evening and in Manly tomorrow night. Details are:

Cronulla 25th October 6:30pm 9 - 11 Gasport St Cronulla, near Cronulla Baptist Church)

Manly 26th October 6:30pm Space Junk Gallery 30 Pittwater Rd Manly

Bondi 16th November 8pm North Bondi RSL Club (north end of Bondi Beach)

Ozzie Wright was just one of twenty or so surfers and artists that I spent time with between 2001 and 2004 whilst journeying Blue Yonder. When I use the word journeying I mean it in a way that, I was on a journey. I was searching. My surf shop job at the time was becoming somewhat futile. Selling surfboards? All I wanted to do was ride the things… and take photos of the waves I was riding them in, and write about the places I might go to ride them. If this dream were to manifest I thought I could perhaps make a book.

Blue Yonder, the name came to mind two years later after arriving back from Hawaii and New Zealand. Typical, as is with travel, I just wanted to go away again. It was like a travel bug but more than that. It was about the people I met In Hawaii; Buffalo Keaulana at the Eddie Aikau ceremony, tucker with the Malloys, watching Jack Johnson make music in his home studio and one golden afternoon, coming in from a 6ft Pipe session to watch Joel Tudor gliding smooth and graceful on his 9’0” Taky single fin.

Blue Yonder was about the experience. Meeting like-minded individuals who shared similar passions of riding surfcraft and ocean inspired land activities like photography, painting or writing. It was about following a dream without knowing the reason but knowing that it was absolutely right and necessary for it to happen at this time in my life. And when things did happen, sometimes synchronised and other times by fate, it was like magic. Like driving an hour and a half from Cronulla across Sydney to Newport Beach where I met and talked with Derek Hynd. He understood how I felt and so introduced me to Andrew Kidman. I became friends with Andrew and spent some time with him that summer of ’01–’02 where I met Californian surfers and artists, Andy Davis, Chris Del Moro and Steve Barilotti.

And then there was Dick Hoole, through whom I met George Greenough and spent several days with him on the far northern NSW coast, raving about dolphins, shortboards, longboards and whatever else popped into the periphery of George’s unique blond crop. The words of wisdom and knowledge that poured forth from that odyssey alone was enough to produce a book in itself.

Two years later as I began piecing pages together for a book I got a call from a filmmaker, Mick Waters. Kidman had told him what I was up to and so he had the idea to make a short film about what I was doing. Working with photos and words is a medium that I have been practicing now for about twelve years, but the film, that was a different creative process altogether. Teaming with Mick on the editing and direction was a whole new sea of fish. In the end, after months of filming and many editing sessions in Sydney, Central Coast and Byron Bay the Blue Yonder film manifested into reality.

Blue Yonder is independently produced and published. In the book you will discover lengthy travel yarns, in-depth interviews and profiles, along with some lighter backseat prose and reflection. The photos and artwork are of world class. The film, it’s a colourful journey of surfing sequences, lifestyle images and narration. The featured surfers are Derek, Ozzie and Andrew and the soul-quenching music by Andrew Kidman.

Proud sponsors 

Other surfers and artists featured in Blue Yonder include: Rob Machado, Ozzie Wright, Tom and Joe Curren, Occy, Derek Hynd, Chris and Dan Malloy, Andrew Kidman, Tom Carroll and Nathan Fletcher.

I look forward to sharing the full experience with you soon.

For further preview and book launch dates, see:

http://www.thebigmiracle.com

For more information about Jimmy check out his SURFit Bio

PAGEUP