Hot: Nude (maybe) Joel Parkinson!

Chas Smith

By

Let us have a serious discussion about the male form.

Are you a hot-blooded American, Australian, New Zealander, Brazilian, Hawaiian or South African boy? Do you support, even appreciate, equal rights for people no matter the sexual preference but also get a turnt stomach at the thought of lying naked with another man? Are you proudly hetero to the point of buying a t-shirt that reads It’s Great to be Straight?

Well have I got a photo to challenge you! The great, straight Steve Sherman has such a treasured archive and I’ve been flipping through some of his images this afternoon and I stumbled across this right here.

Screen Shot 2016-03-07 at 3.17.02 PM

Look how handsome Mr. Parkinson is! That bone structure, youthfully taut skin, Caesar haircut etc. and how hot does your blood feel now?

But more seriously, is this the most handsome picture of a surfer ever taken? Put aside your childish homo talk and engage seriously, on an artistic level. Handsome? The most?

And gals, please also weigh in! Have you ever seen the male form represented more finely? Right now, if you had to choose, would it be Joel Parkinson (above) or Cristiano Ronaldo (below)?

Panic! So-Cal seas awash in superbugs!

Rory Parker

By

Disease infested feces of the hospitalised dying released into Californian lineups!

Everybody panic! The seas of Southern California are awash in super bugs! You’re gonna die!

In addition to the slurry of dog shit, motor oil, and hypodermic needles that regularly flood the garbage beach break lineups that litter the coast, now you can worry about the disease infested feces of the hospitalized dying.

According to the LA Times: “Researchers have tried for years to raise the alarm about hospital sewage. The sludge includes not just waste from patients suffering from drug-resistant infections but also high levels of antibiotics prescribed to treat them.

“As the sewage mixes, the antibiotics kill off weaker bacteria, leaving the more lethal ones to thrive. The bugs reproduce rapidly, and different species can swap genes, transferring their ability to withstand the drugs.”

In addition to the slurry of dog shit, motor oil, and hypodermic needles that regularly flood the garbage beach break lineups that litter the coast, now you can worry about the disease infested feces of the hospitalized dying.

Actually, maybe it’s not so bad. The article goes on to quote Timeyin Dafeta, Hyperion plant manager.

“…if CRE was present it ‘would be in extremely low concentrations’ because hospital sewage accounts for just 0.5% of the city’s wastewater. We have no indication the effluent is coming back to impact the shoreline.’”

Thank goodness! Dafeta knows best. The waste management plants are there to protect us all, why would they lie?

They wouldn’t, though they might withhold information.

Let’s hop in our internet time machine and take a trip back to 2002, when everyone learned, then seemingly forgot, that the Orange County Sanitation District withheld a study that showed the offshore sewage dump was washing back towards the coast.

“The Orange County Sanitation District report, referred to as ‘The 20 Meter Study,’ found that partially treated waste water from a controversial sewage outfall four miles off the county’s coast washes back to within 11/2 miles of Newport Beach–far closer than previously disclosed. Begun in 1996, the study was never seen by the public, although part of it was made available to regulatory agencies. Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and other coastal cities were not advised about the study’s findings.”

Oh my, hardly a confidence builder.

So what can you, an environmentally conscious BeachGrit reader do?

Not much, besides share the information on social media and hope it scares a few people out of the water. Because we’re plummeting towards a Trump presidency, and it’s only a matter of time before we’re focused on more important things.

Like hiding from the wrath of Trumpian stormtroopers and fighting for scraps of bread in the gutter that was America.

Epidemic: Surfer saves another life!

Chas Smith

By

Come meet Rob Bain, new hero and erstwhile poet!

This 2016 is shaping up to be the Year of the Surfer Lifesaver! It started with Andre Botha saving Evan Geiselman. Then didn’t Kelly Slater save a family? Jamie O saved a bodyboarder and I know I’m forgetting a few and now we have Rob Bain!

Rob who? I had to Google too and thank God for Matt Warshaw. He says, in his Encyclopedia of Surfing masterpiece:

Droll but friendly Australian goofyfooter from Queenscliff, New South Wales; world-ranked #5 in 1990. Bain was born (1962) in Sydney, began surfing at age 10, then all but quit at 13, not long after his father died. He left home at 16, worked a series of laborer jobs, then picked up surfing again in his late teens.

Bain finished third in the 1984 Australian National Titles, turned pro, and steadily worked his way up the ratings, finishing in the top 10 from 1988 to 1991, winning four world-class events in his career, then retired from the international tour. He continued to enter lower-level competitions midway through the 1995 season.

Bain’s wide-stanced, lateral-driving surf style was more functional than graceful, but he earned a reputation as one of the world’s best in bigger, hollower waves. His dry wit made him a favorite with the surf media as well as his peers. “There’s the druggies, the beer guys and the yuppies,” Bain explained in a 1988 profile. “Suppose I’m a bit of each.” In June 1993, Bain made a $500 bet with a friend that he could stop drinking for the rest of the year; on New Year’s Eve he bought a keg with his winnings, and described the first swallow as feeling like “a thousand angels crying on my tongue.”

Droll but friendly! A thousand angels crying on my tongue! Genius.

In any case, now that we are acquainted with dear Rob, he saved the life of a woman caught in a rip at suburban Sydney’s Whale Beach. The Daily Mail reports:

A lazy afternoon swim turned into a rescue mission for former pro surfer Rob Bain on Sunday when he spotted a young woman caught in a rip, struggling to keep her head above water.

The woman was swimming on Whale Beach when she got sucked into a rip and began to have trouble breathing, Mr Bain told Daily Mail Australia.

Before lifesavers could react, Mr Bain began running toward the water and grabbed his surfboard.

‘I went as quickly as I could to get her – I got to her first and got her onto my board and swam her to the side and out of the rip.’

The woman was ‘really scared’ when Mr Bain reached her and told him after that she thought she was going to die, he said.

‘I felt really sorry for her – it’s a horrible feeling,’ Mr Bain said.

As Mr Bain placed the woman on his surfboard, lifesavers were pictured trying to get past the roughly one metre swell unsuccessfully.

A female lifesaver was able to paddle out to Mr Bain and the young woman after a young male lifesaver was flipped over by a wave.

‘It can happen really quickly – it’s interesting to see how quickly someone can go from relatively ok to a real state of distress,’ Mr Bain said.

A hero and a poet!

But how to wake up this morning as the “young male lifesaver flipped over by a wave?” He was also in the article’s headline:

Now THAT’S how to use a board! Former surfing champ Rob Bain, 53, casually paddles to the rescue of a young woman caught in a rip… as a volunteer lifeguard struggles in a one metre swell

Do you think he will reflect on his career choices and maybe find a volunteer office job?

The struggling volunteer lifesaver!
The struggling volunteer lifesaver!

 

Do you think reevaluating life choices?
Do you think reevaluating life choices?
Dane Reynolds Craig Anderson

Surf Quiz: What Would You Do?

Derek Rielly

By

You’re the CEO of a new surf label. Unlimited funds…

Think you could run a major surf brand? Easy, no? Sprinkle a little perfume here and there, cut a few stale names, strategically jam your ads hither and yon, tighten the silhouettes of those boxy tees and pinched waist trunks and, suddenly, you’re the freshest breath in the industry.

Oh, if it was that…easy. 

You don’t think Billabong and Quiksilver have at least a few good business brains in their vast timber and glass modernist offices? You don’t think Depactus had money behind it? What about Vissla and their angle of sponsoring the hottest sub-pro’s in every town? Josh Kerr’s VNDA?

Today’s question, below, is as simple as it is complex.

You’re a Global Marketing Director for a major surf brand with a blank check in front of you. The CEO has tasked you with picking the face of the brand for the next five years. Every pro is available.

Who do you pick and why?

Parker: 6 Predictions for the Quik Pro!

Rory Parker

By

Adriano will win Snapper! Gabriel the world title!

Snapper’s almost here! Hurrah! Makes my job easier, pick apart every bad decision, none of this sit-in-front-of-the-computer-and-wrack-my-brain-for-ideas-before-giving-up-and-just-writing-about-myself. Or, you know, less of it. Little fascinates me as much as myself.

For today, let’s make some predictions.  I know I did one of these a while back, but there’s no shame in recycling ideas. Or, if there is, I don’t feel it.

If I’m wrong, oh well, I’ll just never mention it again. But if I’m right… oh boy! I can say, “See, see seeeeee! I told ya’ so.

ADS will win Snapper: The forecast looks like it’s gonna be small, the WSL didn’t revamp scoring criteria, and his #1 spot will feed him green ‘QS kids in the early rounds. He’ll build momentum, sit on people once he gains the lead, and end up shipping home a didgeridoo.
Oh, and Mick’ll go out on round tww.

Medina will win the title: With his sophomore slump behind him he’ll shake out the butterflies and go back to form. One of the best surfers on tour, a murderous grip on heat tactics, and a solid, if not death defying, game in waves of consequence. I’m tempted to give the nod to Filipe, but unless he’s spent some time with a sports psychologist in the off season I don’t think he’ll bring it at the scary stops.

Injuries, injuries, injuries: 2015 mangled bodies. Banting, Bede, Owen, JJ, Jordy, Flores, Bourez, and Simpo all missed events due to injury last year. No surprise, modern high performance surfing tears your ass apart.

2016 ain’t getting easier, and the surfers aren’t getting any younger. The only question is which guy’s gonna get drug screaming from the water with an exploded knee and a dead career. (I’m guessing Banting.)

Cali ain’t got a chance: Life’s just too damn easy if you grow up within a stone’s throw of the SoCal surf industry ghetto. You gotta be hungry to win it. Yeah, Conner and Kanoa surf real good, but I just don’t see the magic. Winning ‘QS events isn’t an indicator of success, every guy on tour won ’em. Kolohe doesn’t have it, try as he might, and Nat Young is looking at a journeyman career. Top ten finishes for life, but he’ll never clutch the top spot.

Speaking of Kanoa Igarashi, ya’ ever seen this picture of Stu Kennedy throttling him?

Great stuff! (Thanks to James B for posting this on his site. I’d’ve never known about I otherwise.)

If I wanted to be a real dick, and I do, I’m calling Igarashi a one-and-done. Too small, needs to pack on some mass before he can be a real contender. Which could happen, I guess. Young certainly started surfing better once his body toned down the lankiness.

This will be the last year we see the WCT in its current form: Grossly inflated viewership numbers aside, it’s hard to see the WSL as anything but a sinking ship. Failure to find an event sponsor for J-Bay is mind boggling. A surfer nearly got eaten by a shark last year! How can you fail to sell that angle? If there’s one thing non-surfers will tune in for it’s the chance for a taste of blood. Fiji still languishes unloved as well. And Target has kicked the women to the curb.

In it’s current form the WSL is trying too hard to be cool, blasé. But we all know there’s nothing cool about trying to be so. Hip cats don’t give a shit what anyone thinks, they just do their thing and others marvel.

But you can’t focus group that shit, so I’m calling X Games level zaniness. Explosions and brightly colored graphics, and an ever increasing level of hyperbole.

You’ll hear the words “wrap,” “jam,” and “knife” so many times it’ll make you want to smash your dick with a hammer just so you can be momentarily distracted from the total lack of vocabulary the commentary team employs. Seriously, guys, we’ve got a rick fucking lexicon and tons of proper words to describe maneuvers. I know you know ’em. Use them, please.

 

Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
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