Hamilton: “I don’t even have an age!”

Chas Smith

By

Laird Hamilton is back in the news! Controversial? Let's see!

The last time Laird Hamilton was in the news it was for saying that menstruating women are the cause of shark attacks. Oh the fun I had! Five days of nothing but Laird and periods. Five glorious, informative, fun-filled days. Did you have fun too? Don’t you wish we could have done ten days instead of five?

But we couldn’t do ten days because Laird Hamilton delivered a masterclass in what you are supposed to do when caught in a self-made controversy.

KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!

I am certain Donald J. Trump’s staff was looking west during Period-Gate and thinking, “Gol’durn. Why isn’t Laird Hamilton the President of the United States? That boy can handle his business!”

Do you think Laird might run someday? Maybe in 100 or 200 years? He tells GQ in a recent interview, “I don’t even have an age. I don’t know how I could feel better.”

And then gives the magazine “life hacks” so that we can all forget our ages. His first is…

Coffee is the only energy drink you need. So long as you fatten it up.

“I use my coffee like other people use energy drinks,” Hamilton says. “But are you getting the most out of your coffee? Probably not.” The real secret to joe, he claims, is combining it with fats (like those in his Laird Superfood creamer) that time release the caffeine, so that your energy stays constant, instead of peaking and cratering. It also makes you sharper: “You know [how] you drink coffee, you’re all jacked up, but you’re still foggy-headed? The caffeine is jacking the body up. It’s not jacking the brain up. The fat’s feeding the brain. That’s where the focus comes in, and the mental clarity.” Important whether you’re outrunning a 50-foot swell or a 50-year-old boss in search of some overdue TPS reports.

They call this bulletproof coffee, no? So many people swear by it and I once tried but watching the butter melt in my coffee totally grossed me out. I’ll keep the jacked up foggy head thank you very much. Also, I will never be President of the United States.

Also, I hate the trendy new phrase “life hacks.” Like, way hate it.

Read the rest of Laird Hamilton’s life hacks here.

The Old World is chock full of meat and potatoes!

Watch: Scotland Goes Inside-Out!

Michael Ciaramella

By

Let's embrace our mediocrity!

And really, how much world-class surfing can a person watch?

It’s quite tiresome to witness impeccable technique, seamless transitions and overall athleticism every damn day. Sometimes we need a dose of reality.

That’s where this video comes in. It features decent surfers at an exceptional wave in Scotland and makes me feel that, if I happened to be at Thurso East on a day of inside-out tubes, I could do some damage.

This video is the surfing equivalent of plus-size models. Please enjoy, fellow fatties!

Beyond the bowed knees, bogged rails and double-GoPro-action, the boys did a damn good job out there. Makes you realize that repetition and local knowledge can propel mediocrity to exceptionalism. This is why small-pronged men tend to be more faithful… or so a friend told me.

I sometimes wonder about the talent level of an average BeachGrit reader. In terms of intellect, humor, and writing ability, I’d give you guys a solid A-minus (on an industry scale, of course). When it comes to surfing ability, however, I’m skeptical.

Maybe if we could count everyone at the peak of their abilities it would be different, but considering most of you are forty-plus with families and full-time jobs, it’s hard to imagine you’d cross the C+ threshold, at least on average.

But do not fret! As they say C’s get degrees, and if it makes you feel any better, Inertia readers are on the short bus and the best surfers don’t read at all. You are the perfect middle ground!

This makes me think we should take a team trip to Thurso East. We’ll storm the coast like Braveheart and seize the lineup with our Mayhems and Sharp Eyes and Hypto Cryptos. We’ll send Wiggolly’s Paddling Style after any local rabble-rousers and take turns air dropping to a hard-earned demise. Maybe even make a tube or two.

What a glorious day that would be!

Profile: Newport’s great white hope!

Chas Smith

By

Who is the greatest surfer to ever come out of Newport Beach? Come inside!

There is a fine profile in this morning’s Los Angeles Times of Newport Beach’s Parker Cohn. The seventeen-year-old surfer was once sponsored by Hurley but now dons the RVCA (“I absolutely love what RVCA is representing at the moment,” he tells the paper. “A lot of the older guys on the team are guys I look up to, Bruce Irons, Luke Davis and Colin Moran, and the list goes on and on.”)

He is the number 1 seed in the NSSA National Championships which begins tomorrow at Huntington Beach and will be surfing with Newport Beach on his heart and mind.

“I love to represent this city,” says Cohn in the article, “I’ve lived here my entire life and I love it here. Newport Beach is practically the best place you can grow up as a surfer.”

“Could he be the next great surfer to come out of Newport Beach?” the reporter asks before answering, quickly, “Yes, he just might be the next great surfer to come out of Newport Beach.”

Which made me wonder. Who was the last great surfer to come out of Newport Beach? I’m not talking Andrew Droid Doheny, though he is very good, or Josh Hoyer or Richie Collins. Maybe Danny Kwock? Maybe Preston Murray? Alex Knost?

Oh, I’m not denying Newport’s place in the surf pantheon. It will forever be the “hottest 100 yards!” I’m simply asking, has Newport Beach ever had a great surfer?

Will Parker Cohn put the town on the map just like Kelly Slater put Cocoa Beach on it? Will they one day erect a statue of him on the peninsula?

Let’s watch and see!

(read the entire profile here!)

Shock: Great Whites Linked to Obesity!

Derek Rielly

By

And Type 2 Diabetes (the worst kind!)

The Australian government has moved a step closer to loosing its protection of the  Great White shark, a species off limits to fishermen since 1999.

At a meeting of the Liberal Party’s federal council, delegates voted for a motion that proposes to lift protection if the government’s scientific body, the CSIRO,  finds the Great White is no longer endangered. There are a few more hoops to jump through, but if the numbers, as expected, prove buoyant, keen anglers will be able to add the Great White to their target fish.

Oh it will be a bloodbath.Piers and jetties will  be festooned with the corpses of nature’s most daring and noble creature. Brave men will drag the snapping leviathans onto decks of little boats and belt their primitive brains to mush.

How do you kill a Great White? Click here.  

But lest I bury the lead (Great Whites linked to obesity) let’s peer over the shoulder of The Australian’s infinitely daring reporter and the Great White’s worst nightmare, Fred Pawle.

He writes, 

“South Australian Liberal MP Nicolle Flint said it was time to start protecting Australians.

“We must protect our swimmers and surfers and hard-working Australians like abalone divers from being attacked or killed by sharks,” she said.

“In an era when rates of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes are at an all-time high, we should be encouraging more, not less, people to be active. This means keeping them safe from shark attacks along our coastline.”

Have Great Whites impacted on your physique? Do the folds of your  stomach peel over the waistband like pleats in expensive pants… because of Whites?

Do you find yourself craving a drink, maybe you’ve got blurred vision.

Do you have sores or cuts that don’t heal?

Because of Whites?

Look at these drunk assholes!

Report: Aussie Lifesavers Are Drunk!

Michael Ciaramella

By

A man "pooed in his cap" for Christ's sake!

In a shocking report from yesterday’s Gold Coast Bulletin, Aussies have been getting super fucking wasted.

The drunkards are part of a traditional Aussie beach culture known as Surf Lifesaving Clubs. For our American and Pakistani readers, a Lifesaving Club is where adults cover their head with a funny-looking hat, wrap a hammock around their banana and play fun games at the beach. Parents then force their kids to enroll in Nippers and the cycle continues.

I don’t believe a Lifesaving Club member has ever saved an actual life, but I could be wrong.

Anyhow, it sounds like sporting ridiculous attire and rowing around in a little boat wasn’t enough for certain individuals. They wanted excitement, freedom, and a host of potential lawsuits brought on by their drunken antics. Let’s read from the Gold Coast Bulletin:

DRUNKEN patrons are using ladders to enter clubs and others are being evicted for headbutting walls as a boozy culture threatens to destroy the family image of Gold Coast life saving clubs.

Queensland’s Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation is being asked to intervene after receiving complaints about fights between patrons, alleged overcapacity at indoor venues and use of outdoor keg storage areas for supporters’ clubs.

Photographs show several young men and women using a makeshift ladder to gain entry to the deck at the Tugun Surf Life Saving Club during the national titles.

Resident Terry Camp said he and others in the street watched as patrons were ejected from the club and went to the southeast corner of the building where they placed temporary footpath barriers against the wall to use as ladders.

And this is appalling! Grown adults who dress like something out of Pee-wee Herman’s wet dream should not be acting in such a fashion. I, for one, am ashamed on behalf of all Aussies but it doesn’t end here. Oh no, this issue of drunk Lifesavers is a chronic issue in today’s world. We’ll continue with the GCB:

A Gold Coast Bulletin report in May detailed how a Queenscliff surf club member “pooed in his cap” at an event at the Currumbin RSL after boaties went on a Mad Monday binge drinking tour of the Glitter Strip during the cancelled national titles.

And what the fucking shit? Kick a wombat and call me bogan but do not insult the jimmy hat.

To poo in one’s cap is not only an affront to the celebrated history of Lifesavers, but to the Australian continent as a whole. It’s the equivalent of strangling a bald eagle in America or supporting women’s rights in Pakistan. Absolutely disgusting.

A commenter named Cathy said it best: “[Lifesaving clubs] lost their family image years ago. Booze, pokies and hot chips. Nothing to do with surf safety.”

What have you to say for yourself, Australia?

Photo: Justin Jay/@justinjayphoto
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