Technology: Be the surfboard!

Chas Smith

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WaveWrecker promises to be a massive breakthrough! Which surfer will first ride one on tour?

Surfboards are one of the greatest things about surfing. They are very seductive, smooth and curvy. Gorgeous, sensual even. How many times have you picked one up and caressed its rails so tenderly? Do you wish someone would caress you that way? Well your dreams are about to come true!

There is a new thing being Kickstarted called WaveWrecker! Let’s read about it!

WaveWrecker is a form of wearable technology that’s designed to make your body streamlined and able to glide through the water and ride waves with marine mammal-like ease. It also has built-in buoyancy that allows wave riders to stay in the water longer, catch and grip waves with control, and exceed the limits of bodysurfing alone.

Experienced wave surfers love using it to push the limits of traditional bodysurfing by catching more waves and performing tricks, like spin moves and windmills. WaveWrecker is also loved by less experienced riders. It shortens the bodysurfing curve for beginners, and its buoyancy helps parents feel more confident about their children’s safety in the water.

Does that inspire? Would you like to climb into one? I think you need to give some money first. Go here!

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Quiksilver: “Empathy doesn’t exist!”

Rory Parker

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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.

The best surf movie soundtrack…ever?

Derek Rielly

By

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!

Chas Smith

By

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!

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Laugh: Dan Bilzerian is a kook!

Chas Smith

By

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!