Exclusive: Stuntman to trike Teahupo’o!

By Chas Smith

9 years ago

It's a mad, mad, maddo world!

You come to BeachGrit for it’s exclusive scoops, like Bethany Hamilton throwing one-armed airs and Kelly Slater buying Firewire, but you stay for its witty repartee and devil-may-care ‘tude. But then guess what? You are rewarded with more exclusive scoops!

And this time we have Robbie Maddison. That’s right, the Australian freestyle motocross rider/stuntman/daredevil is doing something that I actually dreamed about last night. He is riding a water tricycle (or maybe bicycle) over the falls at Teahupo’o!

Maddo, as friends and sponsors call him, is a “nutter.” According to his website he has “… jumped over a football, held world records for longest distance jumped on a motorcycle (with a trick thrown in for good measure!), he jumped onto a replica of the Arc de Triomphe, then just for fun, jumped back down. He backflipped over the opened Tower Bridge in London, leapt over 300 feet across the Corinth Canal and most recently jumped close to 400 feet over the San Diego Harbour with friend Levi Lavallee on a snowmobile next to him. Starting to get the picture?”

And I think whoever wrote his website’s copy meant “jumped over a football field” because I too have jumped over a football but nobody, and I mean not even JOB, has taken off on a Teahupo’o wave on a water bicycle (or maybe tricycle). Quiksilver shoe company DC is said to be behind the stunt. And to think that shareholders are calling for them to sell themselves.

Stay here to see if he survived and how amazing it is. Our sources say it is happening this very minute. Stay tuned and then read a better version of this same exact story on Stab!

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Quiksilver to sell itself?

By Chas Smith

9 years ago

Go to hell, Consac LLC!

Do you go to Boardistan.com? You should. Aside from an unnecessary adoration of that strange little thief Tony Hawk (go watch All This Mayhem. So good and details how Tony H. stole the 900 from a poor Australian boy, just trying to make his way in this world, in the most underhanded manner possible! He’s yuck!), it has the best in bite-sized nuggets in action sports.

Last week, the editors posted a story about how one of Quiksilver’s top shareholders, Consac LLC, demanded that the company sell itself. Consac’s president, Ryan Drexler, sent a letter to Huntington Beach saying they should find a buyer “in order to preserve diminishing shareholder value before conditions get even worse.” Consac, apparently, believes that Nike or VF (owner of Vans amongst others) would be the best fit.

I think Consac should butt the hell out. Do they not know that Quiksilver’s real power now resides in France and that beautiful French goods are going to soon flow into our salt-crusted hands? Have they not seen Quiksilver’s new wetsuit? Have they never heard the name Jeremy Flores? I think probably not.

Stay in the valley kooks and just watch Quiksilver rise like a glorious phoenix from the ashes. Watch share price double to $2.45 based on a fabulous co-branded Vueve Cliquot rollout. Watch share price triple to $7.35 when Brad Pitt wears a Quiksilver wetsuit to the Oscars.

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Dirk Ziff

Laird is the kook of the decade!

By Chas Smith

9 years ago

And that makes him the coolest man on earth.

I just saw this on @kook_of_the_day’s fantastic Instagram account. They write, “God damn it, knock it off Laird. #greatfootworklaird #rippingthegreens #lairddontripgreens #golfbort #hitthesandtrappussy #golfissomuchfunnowbro”

Stab Magazine writes, “Sweet dreams are made of Laird Hamilton’s Golfboard” and continues on in a very clearly ironic vein.

Surfer Magazine doesn’t write anything because the entire staff is checking online as to where they can purchase the product.

Surfline also doesn’t write anything because the entire staff is busy on kinky sex websites and/or selling each other into prostitution.

The Inertia also doesn’t write anything because the entire staff is busy doing kettle bell exercises and wishing they majored in something other than Music Therapy in college.

I write, “Son of a bitch, Laird. What are you thinking? There is no way this shit bag start-up is paying you enough to do this. Nor will it survive and keep paying you. Do you simply love being the biggest dick on earth? Wait. You do, don’t you. You would rather be a giant dick than contribute. Well sons of two bitches. Now I think I love you.”

@kook_of_the_day is both more cutting and more funny and Stab is more ironic. Surfer, Surfline and The Inertia are ???? Odd? but I am very serious. Laird don’t care. Tell me that’s not the essence of cool. Tell me that’s not what Dylan Rieder is gagging for.

BeachGrit salutes you Laird Hamilton! Keep ripping!

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The Hawaiian-born surfer Conan Hayes, one-time star of Momentum, world tour surfer, creator of RVCA. And now? “Hayes is charged with short-sale fraud on a house in Costa Mesa. In a short sale, a bank agrees to the sale of a home for less than the amount owed on the loan. The warrant says Hayes gave Bank of America false information regarding his net worth, “which was in the millions of dollars.”  

Just in: Felony Arrest Warrant For Conan Hayes

By Rory Parker

9 years ago

The founder of RVCA, world tour surfer and star of Taylor Steele's Momentum series faces felony charges for fraud…

If you’re younger than thirty there’s a fair chance that you’ve never heard of Conan Hayes. The nose-ringed, tattooed-before-it-was-hip, altitudinally challenged member of the Momentum generation was a big deal in the early-to-mid 90-s, featured alongside Slater, Dorian, Machado, Knox, and all the other Taylor Steele-hyped rippers who rode rockered-out elf-shoe boards and reshaped the very notion of what constituted high-performance surfing.

For a while Conan was everywhere. His company, Seventeen, made the coolest t-shirts of my high school sophomore year, before being killed by the pre-tween girls’ magazine of the same name.

He married Malia Jones, lost a soul crushing heat to Koby Abberton at Teahupoo (too high, too soon, scores from the judges put Malik in an uncatchable early lead despite a rising swell and dominant performance from Hayes), then moved to California and, at some point, grew a long scraggly beard.

While some of his peers went on to become dominant forces for the next two decades, and others faded away into obscurity (what ever happened to Jay Larson anyway? Last I heard the dude was selling real estate in SoCal), Conan moved behind the scenes, co-founding RVCA and using the popularity of its art/mma/soul approach to branding to line his pockets and move up in the world.

(Click here and click here for RVCA and post-RVCA stories)

But the latest news out of the hellish honky pit known as Orange County spells trouble for Mr Hayes. He is currently facing a felony warrant for his arrest stemming from alleged misinformation provided to Bank of America (Click here).

“Hayes is charged with short-sale fraud on a house in Costa Mesa. In a short sale, a bank agrees to the sale of a home for less than the amount owed on the loan. The warrant says Hayes gave Bank of America false information regarding his net worth, ‘which was in the millions of dollars.'”

Hayes wound up in a program for people suffering financial hardships, even though prosecutors contend that in the previous nine months he sold his interest in a business for about $8 million and bought a $1.39 million house in Los Angeles County for cash. The felony complaint says the bank lost $586,245 on the short sale.”

Astute readers may appreciate the irony of B of A being the source of a felony charge for fraud. The bank was the beneficiary of a $45 billion bail out, in addition to the US government assuming an additional $118 billion worth of loss on its behalf, only to be handed a fine, in 2014, of nearly $17 billion for, among other things, a policy of conducting grossly illegal home foreclosures.

A sweetheart deal to be sure, considering the fact they did an estimated $700 billion worth of damage to the US economy.

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The American Storm!

By Chas Smith

9 years ago

Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light? CJ Hobgood crushing it and Kolohe Andino so inspired?

There’s an old-sounding saying in a new-ish film, called The Imitation Game, that goes like this. “Sometimes it’s the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.” As cute as it is bulky! The particular person in the film no one imagined anything of was gay super mathematician Alan Turing. He wore his hair parted severely to the side and his eyes looked autistic. The thing that no one could imagine was busting Nazi Germany’s unbreakable Enigma Machine. The gay autistic with severely parted hair quite basically won the war for the Allies while saving millions of lives.

So too, as we head into stop number four on our beloved World Surf Tour all the American surfers dwell at the very bottom of the rankings. Kolohe Andino is there, ranked number 26 after a dismal Bells finish and sad Instagram poem. Brett Simpson is there also, ranked 29. CJ Hobgood is below him at 36 and Jack Freestone even further down at 37. There they are, huddled together, scared maybe? Hope fleeing from their very souls? “Wait just one damned minute…” you cut me off “…Nat Young is sitting 5^th and Kelly Slater 9^th, first off, and second Jack Freestone is not American.”

“Pish posh!” I angrily respond. “Prove to me that Nat Young is, in fact, American and that Jack Freestone is, in fact, not. Examine their names. Their jaw-lines. Their significant others. See? I told you. And Kelly Slater doesn’t count. He is as much from outer space as the United States.”

And back to the point. As we turn our attentions to Rio, think this. Sometimes it’s the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine. Yes, an American Storm brews in the land of caipirinha and capoeira and New York Times fascination (read here!). A red, white and blue deluge ready to pour out upon the land. CJ Hobgood is going to do the thing no one can imagine and beat Wiggolly Dantas and Gabby Medina in heat one. Brett Simpson is going to do the thing no one can imagine and score over 10 points. Jack Freestone is going to do the thing no one can imagine and be given a wildcard spot. Kolohe Andino is going to do the thing no one can imagine and win the entire event.

An American Storm cometh! And so to hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It’s irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.

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Eat beach grit spam!