Three vodka and ginger beers in, I just solved
professional surfing’s problem. Ok. Watch Bells, like right now. It
looks kind of fun, right? But watch how many kind of fun waves go
unridden. Tons! When the surf is ok, professional surfers become
pickier than attractive women. They wait for juuuuuuust the right
wave to pow all over. But what about all those pretty good looking
waves? They go unridden. All of them.
What if the WSL allowed surfers in the water during these sorts
of days to ride the pretty good looking waves? It would be amazing.
Those sitting at home on webcast could watch and either laugh at
the shit show or maybe ooooh and ahhh at the undiscovered talent. A
WSL surfer knows the wave he wants miles out to sea. He waves
everyone off and takes. And if anyone gets in his way? Pointed to
the beach and jiu jitsu in the sand. It will be like MMA and
surfing combined. Ratings through the roof! No more made up numbers
that embarrass!
You’re welcome Dirk fucking Ziff.
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Is the owner of WSL an ecological
terrorist?
By Chas Smith
Even more frightening, is professional surfing
becoming Scientology?
A new and disturbing article appeared yesterday
in the FreeRide Voice. You can and should read it here, but seeing that you are a
BeachGrit man, I will sum up. Dirk Ziff, the Floridian who
effectively owns the World Surf League, also owns a shale oil
concession in Queensland that will do massive damage to the Great
Barrier Reef.
Shale oil extraction, as you already know because you are a
BeachGrit Man, has a four times bigger carbon footprint
than traditional drilling. Dioxins, silt, etc. all flow from the
extraction site, down rivers and settle on the reef, killing corals
and sea life.
It is a very big bummer and the FreeRide Voice points
out the absurdity of owning a business that does such great damage
to the ocean and one that requires the relative health of the
ocean. Most surfers, be they far left or far right, understand the
delicate nature of the sea and our connection to it. Apparently Mr.
Ziff does not?
With such troublesome news circling, it would seem that either
Ziff or WSL CEO Paul Speaker would address the media, dismissing
the story as absurd or explaining how shale oil will free western
democracies from the tyranny of the Middle East or that extra
measures are being taken to insure the health of the reef because
surfers love reefs or something. But there is only ever silence
from the WSL.
You know who else there is only silence from? Scientology’s
leader David Miscavige. Is professional surfing the new
Scientology? Is Graham Stapelberg busily penning a follow up to
Dianetics? Should all surfers be on the Bridge to Total
Freedom?
What an even bigger bummer!
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So much of surfing is filled with flamboyant crooks and
racketeers, many of whom are also drunks and sex maniacs. And then
there is Kelly Slater, a man you want to tell at least a hundred
times how beautiful he is and how much surfing needs him… | Photo:
Steve Sherman/@tsherms
Kelly Slater Don’t Give A Fuck
By Ashton Goggans
A new clothing label, new boards, movies, cruel
jokes. Kelly Slater circa 2015 is a bird set free…
Most of them debated whether it was an April Fool’s joke, or if
in fact the 11x World Champ was retiring (last year he announced
his departure from Quiksilver on April Fool’s eve).
The post turned out to be, of course, a joke, the record
corrected, first, by BeachGrit. (Click here!)
Slater will continue to win or not win contests, will continue
to age effortlessly and beautifully.
Because here’s the thing: Kelly Slater doesn’t seem to give a
fuck anymore. His behavior over the last year, since parting ways
with Quik, has been something like an elite athlete’s version of
Tom Hanks’s life in Big. Let me lay it all
out for you:
In the 12 months since Slates announced the split, he founded
Purps, a canned energy drink that purports to provide unparalleled
natural liquid nutrition and energy, and which you couldn’t keep
out of his hands during the middle-half of last year’s tour, each
of his on-camera appearances marked by that white can with
eep-purple graphics.
He founded his own company, Outerknown. Backing him?
The Keiring Group an international clothing firm alongside upscale
brands like Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Saint Laurent and, more
closely related, Volcom. Then he spent the year wearing Veeco
boardies and Electric sunglasses which was, in our little corner of
the world, newsworthy.
Then in a year marked with barely-post-pubescent competitive
domination by a crop of youngster half Slates’ age, the Old Man
threw down one of the more absurd moves of 2014, a massive
helicopter-like 540 air in windy, messy Portuguese beachbreak and
basically broke the internet.
This year, after a disappointing finish to the 2014 season,
Slates began ’15 out with a bizarre mid-heat board change
(switching to a Daniel Thomson-designed Firewire hydrodynamic
planing hull with just a few minutes left in a heat) and proceeded
to get swatted by a rookie Brazilian.
Even in the last week he’s purchased the movie rights to a book
that chronicles surfing’s lurid affair with drug smuggling,
released a line of teenage home furnishings with Pottery
Barn/William Sonoma’s kid sibling company, PBTeen (which you just
have to go fucking see, as some of the champ’s collabo pieces are
wretchedly great); and then, as mentioned above, punked his loyal
followers with an April Fool’s retirement.
Kelly Slater and his Shoreline task table lamp
($US149) for PBTeen.
Which is to say, good for you, Kelly, you beautiful
motherfucker.
If this is the twilight of your career, as so many seem so
certain is the case, then fuck it. You do you, brother. Have the
fun you so deserve. We’ll be watching until the last curtain
closes. And probably long after that, disbelieving til the end.
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As seen tomorrow on Stab!
By Chas Smith
Kelly Slater predicts his own death!
OuterKnown is finally real because it is
finally in the New York Times. Kelly Talks about his
influences, brilliantly weaving Pete Townend into a conversation of
surf substance and style. I love Pete Townend and Kelly’s including
that brilliant little man is perfect. He also predicts his own
death, claiming that he will drown when towed into an 80 foot wave.
Why not 100 feet? Because Kelly is an enigma. He never does what
you think he will do. The piece is well written, beautifully
photographed by Morgan Maassen and totally worth a read (here).
Or, if you are overly tired, wait until tomorrow and read it on
Stab.
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Why I hate Bells. And so can you!
By Chas Smith
"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too
lightly..." says Thomas Paine. I respond, "$25? For this?"
I never meant to go to the Rip Curl Pro Bells
Beach. Its chunky, cold thing right on the heels of the
glorious Gold Coast never got me. The tour is fresh at Snapper.
Anything is possible. By Bells we know anything is not possible.
That the same names, give or take a few, make it to the quarters,
semis and finals year in and year out. It is both way to early to
care and just too late to care. The perfect blah.
One year I was cooling my heels in Bondi, having just returned
from Coolangatta and happy that I did not have to go to Victoria.
Then a little exchange that I had had with Mick Fanning on the
North Shore, a few months earlier, erupted onto the front pages of
Australia’s papers. “Damn all…” I thought “…now I have to go to
Blahs because if I don’t, everyone will think I’m chicken.”
So I went.
My first night I loitered in and around the pub, or whatever it
was, where Rip Curl was holding a party. “I can’t believe you are
here…” surf industry acquaintences would gasp, and I felt warm
inside while responding, “What do you mean? I didn’t do
anything.”
Nobody punched me.
The next day, the event was called on and I wandered to the
event site. There was some semi-truck trailer operating as a …I
couldn’t tell what until I got close. A ticket window. I looked at
the board and saw it would cost me $25 dollars to go to the beach
and watch professional surfing.
I had never been so incensed in my life.
Usually I would have found some media pass or industry hook-up
or something, but I think my media privileges had been revoked at
Rip Curl. So I just stood there staring at the ticket board. I
literally could not believe they had the audacity to charge money
to go to the beach and watch professional surfing. Charge money! To
go to the beach! And watch professional surfing! And on Easter of
all weeks. I threw a cup at a poster of Mick Fanning and stormed
out of the area. I didn’t care if people thought I was a chicken or
not. I refused, on principle, to pay money to go the beach and
watch professional surfing. I am not a cheap man. I glorify in
spending money as quickly as I can on pointless extravagances.
Going to the beach and watching professional surfing is not one of
those pointless extravagances.
I sometimes think back on that day. Was I in the knee-jerk
wrong? Should all surf events charge an entrance fee? Would
professional surfing be in a better place if it cost money to see?
And then I think “No.”
Also, the aboriginal face painting tradition seems off.
