Chas Smith reads from Welcome to Hawaii Now Go to Hell. Here, Eddie Rothman slaps Billabong's Graham Stapelberg…
From the author: The extract you’ll hear comes roughly one-third of the way through the book, if I recall, and was a dream come true. I had sold the concept to my publisher based on past North Shore experience. The New York executives sat across the table and rubbed their eyes in disbelief as I described the ever beautiful but ever ominous North Shore. I sold the dream/nightmare and was hoping beyond hope that the 2011 season would live up to the hype. Eddie going to the Billabong house and having a slap while I was flying across the Pacific far exceeded even my wildest hopes. That event sent the tone for my winter of 2011. It was grandly amazing. Everyone was more tense, more scared, more weird, more North Shore. Surfers of all stripes were, quite literally, shaking as they walked down the bike path for their daily surf check. And then John John won the Triple Crown. It was perfect. It was so perfect, in fact, that I only needed 24 hrs to tell the whole story. Fortuna? She loved me that winter. She loved me lots.”
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you set the scene perfectly with the exception of one major detail. Why’d he do it??
I like you Smith, you’re a loose cannon with hair most men would sell a nut to replicate for a day. One wild Kerouac readin’ cigarette eatin’ flower stompin’ day. We’re very alike Smith, the ‘men’ over at Stab mag don’t appreciate my commentary on their posts, what they call smut, I call real-talk. Dirty dirty truth bombs riddled with as much unnecessary fantasy as insight. An offering that I am very proud of. Any who, keep spinning your verbal gold – The Chode.