A joy ride with a hiccup! | Photo: six12media

Pop Quiz: Are You A Kook?

James Booth

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Take this quiz for a definitive answer.

Recently, the writer Nick Carroll made some very hurtful comments about our “ridiculous” website.

However, he also provided a checklist (for which I’m grateful) that tells you whether or not you’re an intelligent kook.

You already knew you were a kook, but intelligent?

Only this quiz will tell.

1. Do you live in a big city

2. Did you go to university?

3. Do you understand post-modernism?

4. Do you write sleek witty judgmental prose about surf culture? (Bleach’d Grit, Longtom, Negatron, That Dead Whale etc. I’m looking at you.)

5. Do you surf like a sack of shit (paraphrased)?

Congratulations! You’re either an intelligent kook, a stupid kook or a liar.

No one who doesn’t surf like a sack of shit really understands post-modernism.

We pretend we do, but every time someone mentions it, we use Google to “refresh” our memories.

Or is that just me?

Anyway, unless I’m very much mistaken, the only thing saving Nick from his own list is his surfing ability. So, Nick, let me ask you a few questions.

Nick: For how much longer do you think you’ll be able to surf half-decently?

When you stop being able to do so will you immediately retire from surf journalism?

And how badly do you want to throttle me for being such a pedantic graduate of Google’s school of postmodernity?

Not that bad? Not even an eyebrow? Read on.

Do you reckon you surf better than your brother at the moment? How long until his knee gets better and he overtakes you again?

I can’t imagine my younger brother being better than me at surfing, let alone a world champ.

How did you live with it for so long? And are you willing to give it up again?

But back to postmodernity, one last question:

Is the self-aware kook still a kook?

The Western Australian surfer Creed McTaggart, who is a a wild and natural talent. chooses to carry his board with a dramatic irony.

Faux/Real: Carrying surfboard like child!

Derek Rielly

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Are you an ironic hauler of your craft?

I can’t remember the exact moment, but I do remember roughly the year when a certain substrata of surfers started carrying their surfboards like children, tail down, nose up and gripped in the upper third.

It was 2005 and a small company called Insight had created, with its fashion-y trunks and tees and a team of surfers who were B-ish grade but photogenic, the first hipster surfers. Short trunks, sleeveless tee-wearing boys carrying surfboards with dramatic irony.

Oh, yes, we know how you’re supposed to carry a surfboard, wax out, nose down, gripped ever so slightly behind the wide point, but… we don’t care! We’re so confident in ourselves, and so contemptuous of the mainstream surfer, that we’ll do anything to separate ourselves from the jocks.

Previously, any sort of divergence from the standard manner of carrying a surfboard would’ve had you immediately, and accurately, pegged as a kook.

The insouciance caught on very quickly among what we call the freesurfers, Dane Reynolds, Craig Anderson, Creed McTaggart, Dion Agius and so on.

And for a very long time it was only the very best, and most confident, of cool surfers who carried their boards like this and so if you saw a board carried in this awkward, child-like manner, and particularly if they wore a sleeveless black tee and short trunks, you would think, oh he good. 

But, then, quite recently, the last few years and so forth, even the novice has begun to carry their board like the child thereby nullifying the ability to rate a surfer by the way he lugs his surfboard.

So.

Carrying a board like a child.

Faux?

Or real?

Tudor: “Dear WSL you are retarded!”

Chas Smith

By

Master Joel Tudor claims WSL marginalizes 70% of California's surfers!

Anger at feeling marginalized is a many splendored thing and no one but no one wears it better than Joel Tudor. The wonderful jiu jitsu master and longerboard surfer from San Diego is almost always pushed to the corner by some event beyond his control. Six days ago it was alcoholic beverages sponsoring World Surf League events (watch Mikey soar!) and today it is the World Surf League allegedly removing his Duct Tape Invitational contest from the just around the corner U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach.

But let’s let him tell us about it! He posted the following on his Instagram:

No @vanssurf @vans DTI HB This year! Our KOOK buddies @wsl asked if they could run the event without us this year! Way to kill surf history in ca…logging has been a part of contests in hb since 1959 — zero respect for its foundation!

DTI we can safely assume stands for Duct Tape Invitational. 150-odd comments followed, most praising Joel and telling the WSL to fuck itself etc. Joel responds to many. Let’s read those context free!

it’s never something we even care about ….just upset that they personally removed my event for no reason ….no longboard at all on schedule— mind you … we pay or the event and they ask for no DTI === they can eat my shorts

never needed them to begin with ….just find it funny that that they removed a successful part of the event for personal reasons – fuck those clowns!!!

working on something there for this winter – no contest …a DTI festival..like the one that just happened in Canada

turning your back on the more successful part of the event and shunning a large majority or the surfing population is not the best look when you are going for a large crowd turnout – they are retarded and need to hear it

pee in their coffee machine

we didn’t ….they asked us to not be there!!!! ……mind you we are paying for it ….just a slight slap in the face

On Facebook he also wrote…

And do you think this statistic is true? Are 70% of California’s surfers riding longboards?

I am very dubious. Very very dubious.

But what do you think? Are you Team Joel or Team Not Joel?

Also, will you miss the Duct Tape Invitational this year?

Sadistic: Shark serial killer plagues CA!

Chas Smith

By

Are the beasts evolving?

Sharks are mean and their identity politics make them meaner. Can we all just agree on that? They have mean eyes, mean teeth, mean skin and only care about mean issues. Like biting surfers at random. Until last week, though, I thought they were normal mean. Like Southern Democrats.

But I was wrong. Sharks are, apparently, also sadistic and possibly ritualistic.

There is a beach near Santa Barbara, you see, where a person is attacked during the month of October every other year. Let’s read about it!

Beachgoers have been attacked by white sharks at Surf Beach every two years like clockwork, in October of 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. It may seem unlikely that one shark could be responsible for all of these incidents, but that’s not necessarily true. A researcher told The Discovery Channel that the pattern was “eerie” because “adult female white sharks have a 2-year migration pattern, so it could be the same shark coming to the same beach every two years.”

A highly migratory animal like the shark will sometimes return to the same exact spot, on the same day, every year or two.

Here’s the pattern of attacks that has occurred at Surf Beach.

October 2008: Kyle Knapp was surfing when a shark attacked his board; he escaped unharmed.

October 22, 2010: 19-year-old Lucas Ransom was surfing when a shark bit him on the leg and pulled him underwater. His friend managed to pull him to shore, but not in time to save him.

October 23, 2012: 39-year-old Francisco Javier Solorio Jr., father of two children, was surfing when a shark bit him on the torso and pulled him underwater. As in Ransom’s case, a friend managed to pull him to shore, but not in time to save him.

October 3, 2014: Ryan Howell was kayaking when a shark attacked his boat and pulled him into the water. He managed to escape unharmed, and credits the kayak — which was stuck between him and the shark — for saving his life.

What about October 2016? It was said that the shark was out going door to door for her candidate Hillary Clinton which surprised people because Trump was widely seen by the Fake News as a more shark friendly option.

If you happen to find yourself near Santa Barbara in October, 2018 do you think you’ll try your luck at Surf Beach?

Cannibals: Flat-earthers turn on Kelly Slater!

Derek Rielly

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Flat-earthers tell Kelly, "Go find that curve with your millions or shut up!"

In a shocking turn, flat-earthers have publicly railed against Kelly Slater

Flat-earthers, of course, are conspiracy minded folks who believe, mostly, that the earth is a disc, not a sphere, with the Arctic Circle in the middle and that there’s a 150-foot high wall of ice around the edge, which is guarded by NASA employees, to stop people falling off.

For proof of the theory, watch this.

Maybe this, too.

Crazy!

Kelly Slater, of course, is no stranger to conspiracy theories, believes there’s a “lot of fishy things about” 9/11, that those pretty white plumes of smoke from jet airliners ain’t so pretty, mainstream media lies etc us etc.

But let’s read what the flat-earthers say!

Shut the fuck up or look like a bitch!

Have you ever read such passion or eloquence?

Do you think Kelly Slater should invest in the idea of a flat earth?

Photo: Justin Jay/@justinjayphoto
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