Quiksilver: “Empathy doesn’t exist!”

But who needs empathy? Only the lazy/untalented/communists!

I was talking to my dad this morning, he’s up in NorCal doing whatever it is people do up there. Look at otters, marvel at the solitary lunatic who’s always, inexplicably, trying to surf freezing cold onshore terribleness.

Towards the end of our conversation his phones started cutting in and out, I barely understood a garbled OC Weekly and Quiksilver before he was disconnected.

Enough to Google, turns out that the OC Weekly posted an interesting article on the rise and fall of Quiksilver titled How Quiksilver Lost its Soul and Ended Up in Bankruptcy Court

The Quiksilver machine hummed noiselessly and made handsome profits for McKnight and others—he cracked $1 million in base salary in 2007, two years after McKnight had engineered a $560 million acquisition of ski brand Rossignol and a part share in Cleveland Golf in an effort to branch out. By then, Quiksilver was producing movies, TV shows and books. The company was flying Slater to remote breaks using branded seaplanes. Corporate parties got more and more lavish, and McKnight became a staple of Orange County’s society pages. But the execs didn’t let much profits trickle down. Of several dozen posts at glassdoor.com, an online discussion site for workers, almost all employees complained about Quiksilver’s crappy pay. “One of the most hostile environments I’ve ever experienced,” a former design professional wrote in 2013. “Empathy doesn’t exist.”

It’s an interesting read, certainly worth your click, with a gorgeous amount of dirt you won’t find in the surf media.


Ozzie Wright 156 Tricks

The best surf movie soundtrack…ever?

Can you guess?

Does it amaze you, as it does me, the power of song to elevate a surf film? The opening piano chords of Life on Mars for Creed McTaggart’s section in Cluster acts on my brain like a narcotic every time I hear it.

Other times, songs can feel like wedges being hammered into your neck.

And so I wondered, what is the best surf movie soundtrack, ever?

A Kai Neville film? Maybe something further down the timeline, a Jack McCoy movie?

Taylor Steele’s punk lite scores?

What songs have stayed in my head the longest? What songs accompany my own jams on a wave?

In the very distant turn of the century there was a Volcom movie, made by Australia’s Ozzie Wright, that became the template for almost every surf movie, and for every hipster, since: the super eight footage, the static landscape shots, street painting, goofy tricks.

Do you remember 156 Tricks?

With a soundtrack populated by Sonic Youth and Iggy Pop, among others? And pivoting the movie around a punk ska track called Arsehole?

It’s a ridiculous, trivial soundtrack, absurdly insignificant, that works better than anything before or since.

Here, taste.

(Oh, and there’s a song by a band called The Line in there that lives in my head, too. Goddamn, if I could find it. Anyone help?)

(The section with Arsehole, by Snuff)

And this is what Snuff look like. So not surf!

A little Sonic Youth

Yuh, yodelling…

The closing hit.


Laugh: Dan Bilzerian is a kook II!

The King of Instagram's surf saga gets even more tawdry!

This morning, I posted a story that genuinely tickled. Dan Bilzerian, the self-proclaimed King of Instagram, made famous for posting pictures of lots of girls hanging out with him and his beard and his airplane and his lack of self-esteem posted a picture of him and his beard and a strangely concave Al Merrick waxed all the entire way to the nose. The caption read “Good gettin back in the water today w the gambling surf guru @ricksalomon”

Oh how funny! But, apparently, the whole business gets even better. A wonderful man by the named Earl White informed me, via Facebook, that, “My buddy saw him take this picture then pullout a longboard to paddle on…wouldn’t say he ‘surfed’ it.”

How amazing! But really? Is true? I had to know.

“Yes.” he said. “It was at Sunset (Santa Monica). Big yellow longboard.”

And don’t social fame just cut both ways? Dan gets paid, presumably, to shill whatnots to his 15 m followers. They say things like “You live a blessed life” and “Amazing” but sometimes “You have very short legs.” On his surf post his non-followers say things like “Kook” “What a kook” and “Go back to the valley, kook.” And also bury him deeper with tales of what truly went down that day.

Happy shredding, Valley Dan!

Screen Shot 2016-01-20 at 11.09.50 AM

Laugh: Dan Bilzerian is a kook!

Come giggle at the "King of Instagram!"

I used to very much enjoy watching celebrities surf wrong. Wax the underside of board, put wetsuit on backward, put fins in backward etc. etc. “They so dumb!” I’d giggle, but the thrill dissipated over time. Surfing is, at its core, a set of byzantine bylaws always shifting, always moving slightly as if built upon sand. And so I’d forgive the celebrity his foibles as I forgave those learning on the beach and even, sometimes, my own (I didn’t start waxing my tailpad until this month! So late to the game!)

But now there is a new batch of celebrities to mock! Social media ones! These are, generally, shallow/misogynistic/pointless enough to mercilessly bash without a moral hangover. Take, for example, Dan Bilzerian. He is a trust funder who played poker, I think, then made a name for himself on Instagram, taking pictures of many women and himself being rad and cool and flying on private jets and looking at stuff. He, in fact, calls himself King of Instagram and just might be with over 15.3m followers. He wants to be an actor, loaning the movie Lone Survivor one million bucks, apparently, for eight minutes of screen time. He got less than one minute and sued.

In any case, guess what else? He is a kook! Three days ago he posted a photo of himself (he is always in the photo) gazing out at the Pacific, Al Merrick under arm waxed all the way to the nose. The caption read “Good gettin back in the water today w the gambling surf guru @ricksalomon”

(Remember Rick S? He was one half of Paris Hilton sex tape!)

And his board was waxed all the way to the nose! I was sent the photo by a very good friend and laughed and laughed at his idiocy without even a twinge of conscience and mocked and posted to Instagram. The wonderful @kook_of_the_day also posted with the funniest of hashtags including #royalflushtheyeastoutofthatsuit

I have been laughing now for one hour and feel better and better and better with each chuckle. Thanks for being a kook, Dan Bilzerian!

 


Anthony Ruffo meth
Ruffo, in court, hears his sentence. | Photo: Rocky Romano

Watch: How Meth Ruined Santa Cruz!

The former Santa Cruz pro Anthony Ruffo and his life as a dealer of methamphetamine…

(Editor’s note: The documentary Learning to Breathe, a long-form film about the former Santa Cruz pro Anthony Ruffo and his life as a dealer of meth and how it ruined his community, costs $US7.99 to watch on iTunes. For the next 72 hours, it’s free to watch at BeachGrit.)

In an uncertain world there are few things you can count on. The sun will rise and set, the tides will come and go, and meth addicts will lie with every word.

Which is important to remember as you watch Learning to Breathe: From dealer to healer. A young addict is a pathetic thing, an old one dangerous. You don’t make a decades long career of inflicting pain on those around you, and still have them around you, without knowing how to smile sincerely. Say the words, shed those crocodile tears. Deflect blame, provide a handhold, some excuse to which they can cling.

And so when Anthony Ruffo states, at the beginning of the documentary on his addiction and supposed redemption, “When I say these things there’s no justification. I’m just telling you why,” it’s important to remember that he’s obviously spun, pupils dilated.

His words mean nothing. Ruffo’s tale is not that of a young man gone wrong, it’s that of an old man desperately seeking to dodge responsibility. 

Ruffo says he was not a gang member, he merely worked with them. He was not a violent man, others committed violence on his behalf. Every admission is followed by a but or because, as though reasons matter.

A young addict is a pathetic thing, an old one dangerous. You don’t make a decades long career of inflicting pain on those around you, and still have them around you, without knowing how to smile sincerely. Say the words, shed those crocodile tears. Deflect blame, provide a handhold, some excuse to which they can cling.

He gleefully recounts successfully flushing more than a pound of meth in the face of a police raid, claims, “We all know, man, when you get involved with drugs danger lurks all the time.” Which is not true. Danger lurks when you flip pounds, when you rob people, when you forego the protections of society and chase your wants like an animal.

Director Rocky Romano pieces together an interesting narrative, following Ruffo from his 2010 arrest to 2012 sentencing. Interviews with the Santa Cruz crew, through which addiction ran amok, are surprisingly forthright. Family members of Ruffo, and other local addicts, share an insight into how they deal with the agony of a loved one’s slow demise.

Unfortunately, that insight lays bare the desperate need to find reasons free of accountability. “Drugs” are personified. They ruin lives, lead us to make terrible choices. It’s understandable, forgivable, that need to cope, to justify. Necessary when seeking to sustain the love you want to feel for a person who is destroying themselves, and you.

His words mean nothing. Ruffo’s tale is not that of a young man gone wrong, it’s that of an old man desperately seeking to dodge responsibility. 

Ruffo says he was not a gang member, he merely worked with them. He was not a violent man, others committed violence on his behalf. Every admission is followed by a but or because, as though reasons matter.

Anthony Ruffo is a charismatic man, with a broad smile and confident gaze. The type of man who can make you believe the lie you know he’s telling. The type of man who believes the lies he’s telling. But the words of his prosecutor are true, “He’s not a victim, he has victimized.”

It’s the third act that left a sour taste in my mouth, wherein we watch Ruffo attend rehab in New York, then return to Santa Cruz to begin his good works. There are tears, and hand holding. Circle session bonding, declamations of change and rebirth and hope.

It’s poignant, nearly believable, if you’ve never been on the inside of a relationship with an addict. But if you have you already know, their words are hot air in chase of desire. Experts at disingenuous dissemination. A prudent man cares enough about himself to walk away in the beginning, leave the lost to their own devices.

We see Ruffo at his sentencing, handed a relatively light sentence in the context of his charges. Not that he gets off easy, a year of freedom lost is a heavy price. Most striking is the look on his face when he learns he’s going away. Utter confusion, total surprise, as though he really believed that a year of sobriety and decency could atone for a life of depravity.

“Why put that in a cage?” he asked The New York Times. “If I come into court a changed man from when I got busted and I’m showing these positive results, why wouldn’t you want to keep that person going in that direction?”

Because redemption is a myth, a get-out-of-jail free card handed out by a lord and savior who does not exist. In this world good deeds don’t undo bad, no one has a right to ask forgiveness. It can be given, and maybe should be, but to expect it demonstrates a near total lack of insight. Nothing unrings a bell. People may still love you, but they’d be fools to trust you.