Noa Deane does a frontside air in Mex
Guns? Aren't they part of the Great American Dream too? Of course, says Noa Deane. "I like the away they look, though not the fact they can kill," says Noa. "It's a powerful fucking thing in your hands. It's a weird feeling. You've got a gun with a bullet that can kill someone. Is it sexy? Yeah." | Photo: Morgan Maassen

Noa Deane and the Great American Dream

Guns, suds and cheap food. What more could a gal want?

Last year, Noa  Deane slipped into the USA to chase waves and photos. Based in Malibu with Dillon Perillo and, later, Santa Babs with BeachGrit’s Morgan Massen, Noa flew to Mexico twice (first, with Dillon and Sterling Spencer) and then with Craig Anderson and Dane Reynolds. His journeying was rewarded with many waves and a short film, by Maassen (a new edit is coming very soon to BeachGrit).

During his work vay-cay, Noa got to indulge in that wondrous triumvirate of American greatness: weak, cheap suds, nasty, cheap food and cheap, over-the-counter guns.

BeachGrit: You love American beer, food and guns…but why?

Noa: I love how cheap beer is in America. It must be 10 bucks for a 12-pack. It’s ridiculous. Less than a dollar for a beer. Morgan (the photographer) hates it. He was freaking out that I was drinking it. I’d make him buy me 12-packs of Pabst Brewing Company beer and take me to In-N-Out and eat hell crappy food.

BeachGrit: How many 12 packs did you mow through?

“It’s so unhealthy and cheap. It’s everything I want. Everyone’s all gluten-free and shit but it’s so hard to do that when you’re not earning a million bucks a year. It costs a lot to do that.”

Noa: Four or five. I was only there for a week. Six beers a day or something. They’re really weak do you don’t get too fucked up on ’em. I mean, you do if you have a 12-pack, but not if you have a six-y.

BeachGrit: Tell me what you like about guns?

Noa: I like the away they look, though not the fact they can kill. It’s a powerful fucking thing in your hands. It’s a weird feeling. You’ve got a gun with a bullet that can kill someone. Is it sexy? Yeah.

BeachGrit: When are you happiest in the USA?

Noa: I was bummed the whole trip because Morgan wouldn’t take me to In-N-Out Burger and as soon I get one of those burgers and one of those shakes, I was the happiest man ever. The burger’s a double double with onion and I flip the tomato off – of course, because I don’t like tomatoes – and then they got this weird, Thousand Island orange sauce with onions chopped up through it. It’s fucked up. And then the fries, you order ’em Animal Style and they put two slices of cheese on it and more of the orange sauce on top of that. And then you get this shake that’s so thick it won’t even come up the straw. It’s so unhealthy and cheap. It’s everything I want in one thing. Everyone’s all gluten-free and shit but it’s so hard to do that when you’re not earning a million bucks a year. It costs a lot to do that.

BeachGrit: Do you ever feel disconnected from Australian culture particularly after a stint in the US?

Noa: I like it more after being in the US. Going to the pub, getting a counter meal and a beer is pretty fucked up. It’s amazing. I did it last night, I probably do it a couple of nights a week. It’s cheap and the beer tastes so much better. You come back here and you get a schooner of VB or New and it’s so flavoursome. In winter, you can get the beer and the counter meal for 15 bucks. It’s a warm meal and there’s a standard that counter meals uphold, a good standard. You know you’ll never have a bad one, you’ll never have an amazing one, true, but you can trust ’em. It’s not like a sketchy Indian restaurant that you can’t trust. You can go to any pub and it’ll be good. And the beer’s the same. It’s sick

 


Ford Archbold with beer and cigarette

FORD ARCHBOLD ON: DRUGS, SERIAL KILLERS AND SEX

Who knew the Newport surfer/musician had such a limber mind?

Just recently, I saw Ford Archbold, the twenty-something surfer, musician and drinker of repute from Newport in southern California, at a bar in Long Beach. He suggested I might like a jumbo serve of neat whisky to smooth out of the edges. He bought, I drank. Who knew cheap liquor could be so satisfying? Ford does!

BeachGrit has a list of favourite surfers and Ford is very close to the top, jostling among names such as Mason Ho, Dane Reynolds, CJ Hobgood, Taj Burrow, Felipe Toledo and Kolohe Andino. But today we celebrate Ford and his excellent opinions and musings on… everything.

SERIAL KILLERS: They’re the absolute scum of the Earth. People that kill innocent people, that’s the worst thing you could do. On a personal level, I don’t really hate anyone. There’s no one I know that I hate.

RECURRING NIGHTMARES: I always get this weird thing where it feels like I’m awake, my eyes are open and I’m seeing everything around the room, but I’m paralysed and it’s hard to breathe. It feels like I’m awake but my body’s still sleeping. I get that, like, at least once a week. I’ve never been to a doctor about it, I’m just used to it now.

GALS: Whenever I see a girl, well, whenever anyone sees a girl, their thoughts are probably impure. I think about sexual intercourse.

FANTASY SEX: Going into a room, doing psychedelic drugs and just going to town for, like, a whole day. Just doing weird shit.

BEST CUM TRICK:  I think of different, older, hotter chicks. I just imagine banging em. Totally does the trick.

VIRGINITY LOST: I was actually 17. Pretty late, I know. I don’t know why it was so late. I did everything else, you know, eating chicks out, hand-jobs, headies,  but it was bad luck I guess. I was so ready for it. It just took a while to arrive.

WORST EVENT IN HISTORY OF THE WORLD: The Ice Age. We lost a lot of Woolly Mammoths.

“I actually like surfing on acid. It kinda frees your mind, you think different, it’s a nice peaceful thing to do. For me. Other people freak out. I’ll go and surf and have the best time ever.”

WORST INSULT RECEIVED: That I suck at surfing and the only reason I can make a career off it is ’cause of my dad (Matt Archbold). That one always pisses me off. But it’s inspiration, like, I just wanna prove ’em wrong.

ACID: I actually like surfing on it. It kinda  frees your mind, you think different, it’s a nice peaceful thing to do. For me. Other people freak out. I’ll go and surf and have the best time ever.

WEED: I don’t like surfing stoned. It spaces me out too much.

BEAUTIFUL AGED GALS:  I just think they’re cool. I like every chick. I don’t separate ’em. I think every girl is beautiful, every age, shape and sometimes size. Maybe not the size thing. Every shape and colour.

BEER: I fucking live off beer. Now I enjoy the taste. I like it ’cause it gets you fucked up. Throughout the day I could drink 20 f’sure. Here, the surf will blow out and I’ll drink beer all day.

IN SUMMARY: I’m pretty realistic. So many people hide who they are and it fucking pisses me off. It’s common in this world. I try not to give a shit too much. (Pause) I don’t even fucking know. Maybe I’m just confused.


Creed McTaggart duckdiving in Hawaii
"I don't strive to be unique. I strive to fucking be myself," says Creed. | Photo: Morgan Maassen

Why Creed McTaggart Won’t Pose Nude!

Surfing's most desirable 20 year old on psychic traumas and Oedipus complexes…

How much more pleasant are the simple, straightforward intense emotions of a dog? He wags his tail or he barks his displeasure. But for a young man on the make, like Creed McTaggart, lately seen in the Joe G/Globe film Strange Rumblings in Shangri-La, existence is more complex. All those stray impulses!

Here, over two separate interviews, BeachGrit attempts to unspool, via psychoanalysis, the labyrinth of Creed McTaggart’s unconscious.

FEARS: I freak out about stability. I feel like in this surfing game, you don’t really know how long it’s going to last and what’s going to happen. I see so many fucking good surfers and really amazing people that just get dropped and within months they’re just gone. I always freak out about that. I feel guilty if I’m doing fuck-all at home or partying too much. I feel like I don’t want to waste it. When you think about it, it’s like living 10 lives in one.

ON BEING UNIQUE: I don’t strive to be unique. I strive to fucking be myself.

ON COURAGE: I wouldn’t call myself a brave person. I’ve done a lot of dumb things. I fucking quit school. I wish I didn’t quit school. I really liked school.

ON THE FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: When I was 13 I wanted to be strong like him so I’d have two protein shakes a day and I went boxing training for six years. But it never really worked. By the time I was 17, I just went, fuck that.

DRIVING CARS:  It’s really scary for me. I feel like I don’t belong on the road. If there’s someone tailgating me, for example, I freak out and speed up. I’m semi-dyslexic and I always to forget to fucking turn on the lights and the windscreen wipers. All that pressure! Once you’re on the road, you’re part of a family, a whole family, but no one likes you and everyone gets road rage. It’s this one giant seething organism trying to get to this place and that place and  I’m stuck in the middle cutting people off, totally oblivious, just trying to learn. I just fuck with my own head, really. It’s probably not like that. I get really nervous and anxious.

ON COACHES: Coaches fucking piss me off. I did four ISAs and I just fucking hated it. It’s such a weird vibe. So intense. It didn’t feel real. It felt fake and I hate coaches telling you where to put your arms when you surf. I’ve always want to surf how I wanted to surf.

“I feel like I don’t belong on the road. All that pressure! Once you’re on the road, you’re part of a family, a whole family, but no one likes you and everyone gets road rage. It’s this one giant seething organism trying to get to this place and that place and  I’m stuck in the middle cutting people off, totally oblivious, just trying to learn.”

ON MARIJUANA: There’s a time and a place. Coming from Margaret River there’s a lot of kids I went to school with who got into it too hard and they smoke billies all day and do fuck all. That’s really sad. I don’t rate that.

ON HEAVEN: There’s a heaven I enjoy by myself where I’m lying in bed and it’s thunder storming outside and I’m all cosy and I’m reading a book or listening to music and there’ll be moments where I think, fuck this is heaven. And then there’s the other type of heaven with your friends, having beers in the afternoon. I get a lot of flashes of heaven. More heavens than hell, I try to make it.

 


Surfers at sunset

SURF FICTION (part two): MAN LOSES beach CONDO, BUYS GUN

When a surfer gets old it ain't golden pussy and endless summers anymore. A weekly online serial.

Fucking ukuleles. Fucking rich baby shits with their straight white teeth and trust funds lives. Strumming some faggot song with their little bitch birds hovering around a store bought campfire. Playing at being soul boys for a few days until they pack up and head north to their dorm rooms and credit cards. All a man wants is some peace and quiet and what does he find? Poseur brats with lifted trucks and boutique huaraches. Lank blonde dreadlocks woven with plastic beads, pseudo-progressive bullshit spewing from their idiot mouths.

I got fucked in Mexico. Swindled by two bit beaners, left to scrape together what I could. Sold off the condo piecemeal.  Fixtures, tile, plumbing, molding, furniture… twenty fucking grand. Twenty grand for my life’s saving. Combined with what I had left there might be enough to live off. If I’m lucky enough to drop dead in half a decade.

Listen to their little sing a long. Stupid fucking children, whole waste of a life ahead of them. I can’t wait for them to live it. The little blonde in the corner. I hope her husband beats her. I hope her womb drys up. I hope her dreams rot. I wish she was fucking dead.

I slunk back to San Diego and bought a shitty van and a sleeping bag. Found a nigger on Craigslist who was willing to sell me a shotgun for eight hundred bucks. For fifty more he tossed in some shells. It’s wrapped in blankets in the back of the van, under a board I don’t ride. I keep it loaded. I’ve never fired it.

You don’t get searched going into Mexico, not when you’re a broken down old man heading south to die. Tecate stinks, Tijuana’s nothing but filth and frat boy faggots looking to get their cocks sucked by some dried up beaner whore. A beggar brat steps in front of my van and I’m tempted to run him down.

“I read about a man named Kehoe. They took everything from him. Left him broken, destitute. He burned his farm, wired his horses’ legs together so they couldn’t escape the flames. He’d hidden bombs throughout a local school. Killed thirty-six kids that day. He filled his truck with scrap metal and dynamite and drove to the scene. Blew himself up out front, killed six more people.”

I filled my cooler in San Quintin and drove until I felt alone. Took a dirt road west and tucked in above an empty cove, nothing but desert scrub and rotting seaweed to keep me company. I had an entire day of solitude. They came roaring in. Music blaring; laughing, smiling, naive little shits with no sense of decency or respect. They made camp not twenty yards away and had the gall to ask if I had extra firewood.

I read about a man named Kehoe. They took everything from him. Left him broken, destitute. He burned his farm, wired his horses’ legs together so they couldn’t escape the flames. He’d hidden bombs throughout a local school. Killed thirty-six kids that day. He filled his truck with scrap metal and dynamite and drove to the scene. Blew himself up out front, killed six more people.

Won.

I could leave. Tuck my tail like the good beaten dog and scuttle away. Spend every day running, hiding, living like a shadow of a man. No reason to live, no reason to care. Dry up and blow away.

But I won’t, I can’t. This is mine. Here, now, mine. I let these brats beat me, where does it end? I’m worth something. More than them.

I cook dinner in the fire, canned food in the coals. I don’t bother with a light, just grab what’s at hand. When it’s ready I burn myself picking it up, and drop it into the flames.

Motherfucker. I can hear one of the brats laughing. At me. Because I’m a joke, the big funny loser joke, nothing and no one, eating his canned garbage in a shit van in some fucking desert hell hole. They make me sick.

I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I watch them play their stupid little pubescent games, nothing but hormones and hope and trust in the future. They’ve started to pair off, no doubt a few of the bitches will fill themselves with greasy little cocks before the night’s done.

One of them notices me watching. Starts to stand, then sits back down and waves.

“Hey buddy, what’s up? You want to come join us? There’s plenty of room.”

Fucking brat.  Fucking stuck up, silver spoon, daddy’s boy prick.

“Man, you okay?”

“Just leave him alone.  He’s creeping me out.”  That little blonde slut.  She’s got her hand on his leg.  Little fucking cunt.

The shotgun’s where I left it.

 


Kelly Slater at 13
"Careers of the fairer sex are transitory, born to burn bright and fade when the cruel march of sun damage and sag takes hold," writes Rory Parker. "With few exceptions our legends are male, women of influence largely forgotten. But in a different world, where chromosomal assignations underwent a diametrical transformation, what would fate hold?"

GENDER POLITICS: What if Kelly Slater (and pals) were girls?

Would their career trajectories be the same? Would Laird be a muscle bitch?

There’s nothing more engaging than gender politics. Hairless man-children cavorting for the lens, supple waxen maidens bottom turning cheeks akimbo for the stars. Regardless of sex the chicken hawks are there to feed, and, for most, a career can be measured in minutes. In a sport that’ll chew you up and spit you out, always looking for the next hot prospect to nail to a  prospectus, a few stand strong, building careers that outlast the roster cuts foreordained by purchases made in manufactured times of plenty.

But it ain’t all bread and roses. Careers of the fairer sex are transitory, born to burn bright and fade when the cruel march of sun damage and sag takes hold.  With few exceptions our legends are male,  women of influence largely forgotten. But in a different world, where chromosomal assignations underwent a diametrical transformation, what would fate hold?

Kelly Slater: Talent be damned, hobgoblins aren’t bestowed with billion dollar contracts. A fair-haired Shane Beschen, perpetual second banana to Slater’s early contention, would have reigned supreme. Slater’s career would have dwindled, doomed to a Pauline Menczer-esque slide into oblivion. It’d be a world lacking greatness, but spared so many broken dreams.

Shane Dorian: Bedroom eyes and silky smooth parts, Dorian would have been the Alana of the pre-floss era. Those same sultry qualities would have put an early end to his career, rocketing him to the B-movie heights of which he dreamed but could never quite grasp. The modern era would see no Dorian paddling Jaws, but you’d probably get to see his tits.

Laird Hamilton: An amazonian nightmare pushing women’s big-wave surfing to the heavens, buoyed by an ego on level with the mountains she rides. She would command the same respect, but lack the  funding. Shunned and derided on message boards the world over, she’d take solace in a following of muscle fetishists, flexing and grunting her way to eventual obscurity.

Gabriel Medina: Boasting the rare combination of latin swagger and sensitive mien little Gabby would no doubt flog her way to the top of the tour. Rumours abound regarding her relationship with her stepfather; would the Woody Allen tales be true?

Matt Wilkinson: A star in the junior circuit, career derailed at 18. Low-budget black leather internet celebrity, turning to ashes any chance at representation. Bitter and defeated, orifices obliterated, the backhand attack would be in absence, an attacked backside in evidence.

Mitch Crews: Lean and mean, coiffed and polished, the ingenue of the new generation.  The subject of bidding wars, on everyone’s lips. Plastered to the wall of adolescent quarters, acne addled palms rhythmically greased, pistoning into the night, leaving socks dried crackling between bed board and bulwark.

Julian Wilson: To be honest, if you grew his hair out and flipped him on his stomach, he’d be more than halfway there already. With his plump rump, pug nose and curly blonde locks, he’s oft left this married man pondering notions better left at university.