Brave Caucasian humorists sally forth!
Ironic racism is a comedy grenade. It’s maybe easiest to contain when coming from a racial/ethnic minority and delivered to a mixed crowd. Take Chris Rock’s turn hosting the Academy Awards, for example. He, a very famous very funny comedian, was able to poke and prod at the nasty racist tension embroiling Hollywood but even he got burned when joking about Asians. The Academy was forced to deliver an apology for the “pain it caused.”
It’s maybe most difficult when coming from a monochromatically white place and directed toward monochromatically white people because, generally, the already questionable “ironic” gets erased and “racism” is all that’s left.
Still, brave Caucasian humorists sally forth, undaunted! Take Stab‘s RIP (2004-2016) last remaining offspring, Stabstitch. Yesterday the appropriately named wordsmith, Morgan Williamson, wrote a piece for the site on the WSL jersey sales (remember how they are going to make $10,000,000.00?). Let’s read!
As the WSL continues to mainline the mainstream, the fanbase is growing serious. The World Surf League is currently sitting at 1.7 million followers on IG. And this is no AI Forever t-shirt, or Ke11y jazz. The adults and groms alike are dedicated to their fave surfers in a way where they’re willing to drop $65 for a polycotton soccer-jersey style shirt, with their number on it. Just as liquor during the Rodney King riots, they were torn from the shelves at Snapper.
I don’t understand the first sentence at all. Or the third one’s context. The fourth is grammatically dense but the sixth is the boom! “Just as liquor during the Rodney King riots, (Mick Fanning jerseys) were torn from the shelves at Snapper.”
Comedy gold! Right? Or?
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
fucking atrocious.
If you need this explained to you you’re a racist.
This is one of the most poorly written articles I’ve ever read. Idiot.
Its not comedy gold for sure, not even a little funny. Couple decades late to be topical. But…. its not racist. As someone who works in the Liq biz and had to go into LA in the days after to replenish the broken shelves with new liquor after the stores were looted….errrrrr…. I mean protested on, the Liquor DID fly off the shelves very fast. Probably even faster than those shirts did. It happened, its true, so bringing it up isn’t racist. but, its still not funny.
Just as well it wasn’t Kolohe’s shirts selling. “Brother’s were torn from the shelves” would’ve taken it to a whole new level.
Hey Morgan Williamson!
Is he always like this?
Am I always like this? You know I am, Nick! Incorrigibly!
Gloriously! But I was referring to Morgan Rimbaud here. Whence did he pluck this wacky metaphor? almost a genius.
Serious question…do people under the age of, say, 25 know who Rodney King is? I would have thought that a Ferguson joke would have been more timely but I do appreciate him evoking nostalgia (while Reginald Denny surely doesn’t share my sentiment).
I’ve got to assume that Morgs just watched Straight Outta Compton. It’s in there. But yeah. As a historical footnote it is pretty deep.
well but, like, but, even compared to hitler, its not very deep, let alone joan of arc or gandalf.
Rodney and police brutality go together like hipsters and Pismo Pier Rats
I think Wiggs has broken Morgan. I used love it when his analogies were wildly floral and exuberant. I mean they’re still very inappropriate and mostly nonsensical, but they’ve lost their edge. There was a time when it took me 5 minutes to work out that he was trying to tell me that Michel Bourez’s forehand hack was powerful.
Thanks mate. Really appreciate that.
They basically banned us all with hiding the comment section
Chas, white-guilt much? There’s a constant theme to so many of your articles that seems to indicate you find sustenance in pointing the “progressive” index finger of self loathing at ANYTHING remotely (albeit inaccurately) construed as racially pejorative. Williamson’s L.A. riot line was hyperbolic comedic gold, and nothing more. To headline that article like you did with KKK members in-tow was just retarded (it’s OK, I can use the word, I donate $5 to Special Olympics every year). Get off your soap-box of race relations, and go do outreach in Zimbabwe if you wanna make a difference
Ha!
Chas is just tapping into, or mainlining if you will, the online social outrage over any perceived racial slight. Who knows, if some Jezebel or Gawker troll comes to BG the story could blow up and garner hits in the millions. That outrage translates to cash, folks!
You, sir, have summed it up quite nicely. I refer to this class of people at the Perpetually Aggrieved. Always mad about somthin’.
Damn brah, pretty weak analysis of chas’ writing. Dude is legit. You sound like a failed writer with low self-esteem, and a drinking problem.
Drinking problem: check!
Failed write: check!
Washing Cars at Ducky’s; check!
Rooting your mom: CHECK!
Rooting your dad: Double check 😉
You absolutely sound like someone who gets off on banging donkeys. You little sneaker you.
A Trump voter on the Grit? Could it be?
Taking the mainline of mainstream piss out of Morgan.
Morgan’s writing is horrendously good.
You got to give it to him though, the racism is subtle, such a deft and delicate hand, that Morgan.
david f, stop commenting on stab and come to BG full time. It’s over buddy. You have some gold in those finger tips
I play both sides regularly, I’m sure it’s a matter of time until Stab sells out completely and bans most of us. I mean, I’d ban me.
My visits to Stab or Surfline have gone from daily to barely weekly. So over saturated stickers, stickers and more stickers. Here at least I get a good chuckle and have to look up a word or two! Almost educational.
Gee, nobody could tell!
Chas, why does Morgan (a wannabe you!) insist on putting Dumbass (his native language) through Google Translate? Shit is barely readable. Like, yes, those are English words, but, huh? (excuse the commas!)
I am almost totally in love with Morgs work. If he gets a little more nonsensical it’ll be real art.
True! Though, I am more concerned about what future anthropologists and linguists will think of us, should they read his writing… probably that we (the elite surfing class) are all post-industrial racists, with poor to no sentence structure. There might be some hope, I mean, it’s not like there is an equivalent to the Rosetta Stone that can help us decipher what he is saying!
Oooooh, should we make the surfy Rosetta Stone for future archeologists to find?
Yes! You should probably get in touch with the authors on that Bloomberg article. Immediately!
Thanks for the translation bit. Poor writing is like a stutterer for whom you feel very badly. It’s easy to overlook when his intentions are right (or you’re kin), but if he says something dumb and/or someone else notices the stutter, he might as well be speaking cantonese. And you definitely don’t speak no oriental.
Balderdash Ballyhoo or the Prince of Ubatuba should’ve been consulted as independent experts before publishing an article taking the piss out of Morgan Williamson’s writing. I admire your ruthlessness in trying to put the nail in STAB’s coffin but I fear that Morgan has already been “distroyed”. I actually feel some remorse.
What do you think of your brother Jed’s writing?
I once copied verbatim a surf “story” Sam George wrote for Surfer (or ing) and turned it in as my own for a college writing class. I got a C minus. Morgan is no Sam George.
Do you remember which story?
nah, was way too many moons ago. Something to do with aliens or something – creative writing class so it fit perfectly (or just below averagely).
someone ended up crying salty tears in the final sentence.
Every Sam George story ended with someone weeping.
that is hilars.
Your teacher fancied you.
Morgan obviously is Trump’s advisor