Kip Dynamite
I woke up super congested this morning. Gnarly sinus headache to boot. Fucking sucks, I really wanted to go dive. Try and kill some fish. But you can't do that shit when your head tubes are jam-packed with mucus. Or you can, but you'll only do it once. Sinus squeezes hurt like a son of a bitch.

Parker: “My tubes are jammed with mucous!”

Rory Parker

By

Fucking sucks, I really wanted to go dive. Try and kill some fish.

I woke up super congested this morning. Gnarly sinus headache to boot. Fucking sucks, I really wanted to go dive. Try and kill some fish. But you can’t do that shit when your head tubes are jam-packed with mucus. Or you can, but you’ll only do it once. Sinus squeezes hurt like a son of a bitch.

Maybe I’ll go skate. Been a while since I beat my fat ass against the asphalt. It’s raining right now, but that’s typical. Should dry up in a little while. Usually does.

Until then I’m gonna sit on my ass and watch skate videos. You seen this one? Eight minute long doubles routine. So good, so fun, so creative.

I know it’s way easier for skaters to get clips than it is for surfers. They can hit the same ledge or rail or transition over and over and over. No paddling, no waiting. No relying on swell or wind or tide.

Still, though, I wish someone in the surf world would sdump the lifestyle shots, put an end to the cookie cutter visuals. Do something different.

Maybe that’s too much to hope for. Maybe it’s just too difficult. Maybe surfers don’t really care. I don’t know. But a man can dream.

Albee-Layer-Backside-540
"Surfing is in its racing stage," says Albee Layer. "Look at a lot of action sports. Moto, mountain biking, skiing, snow mobiles, they all start as racing being where all the money and time is spent and freestyle being a side show. But eventually, freestyle is all people really wanted to watch and people started figuring out how to make competitions based around progression and not sticking to the same formula of the last three decades."

Albee Layer Lands First Backside 540!

Jake M Tellkamp

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And celebrates with shake weight and vodka cruiser!

Albee Layer spins one-and-a-half on the pineapple express. Pirouettes angrily into that sweet Maui breeze! Then takes to Instagram to tease the world what glory must lay on his laptop screen. First, a celebration with a shake weight and vodka cruiser then followed up with a video clip of him bunny-hopping his way to the beach.

Don’t you just love the comedic prince of Peahi ?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BM-h6-lgTXJ/?taken-by=johnjohn_slater&hl=en

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BM-21QdgONj/?taken-by=johnjohn_slater&hl=en

The maneuver’s completion comes shortly after an early round loss at the Jaws event. Similar in fashion to Slater’s frontside 540 which he landed after a disappointing loss at the Ripcurl Pro Portugal last year. Which to me speaks poetry!

Airs are the moves of those demanding attention. What’s getting kids off that beach in Rio? What sets Noa Deane apart from the rest of the Tweed ? How does Filipe support his family?Airs are moves that command an audience. They breathe expression. They set souls free!

Albee’s been trying to stomp the backside five for years now. In Attractive Distractions, he lands a 540 alleyoop, the first time anyone had spun to that degree.

Which brings me to my concluding thought. What matters more to you as a fan, a surfer being the first to do something, video parts or a contest victory?

Ok now from the man himself. Outspoken and always outstanding.  Albee Fuckin Layer everybody! 

BeachGrit: You’ve been racing John John to be the first to land the backside 540. How’s that feel to be the only guy in surfing who’s beaten John in 2016?

Albee Layer: John hasn’t really been trying that much. He’s, like, changed to a full comp guy now practicing power turns. I wish he was putting his heart and soul into progression like he was a year or two ago. So it didn’t feel like a race everyone seems to ignore these tricks in a way these days as some side show.

Surfing is in its racing stage. Look at a lot of action sports. Moto, mountain biking, skiing, snow-mobiles, they all start as racing being where all the money and time is spent and freestyle being a side show. But eventually, freestyle is all people really wanted to watch and people started figuring out how to make competitions based around progression and not sticking to the same formula of the last three decades.

BeachGrit: It would be sick if it were more like the Bones Brigade in skating. A full regalia dedicated to progression and landing new things. Inventing tricks taking precedence over contest wins.  

Albee Layer: Yeah I’ve been saying for a while surfing is in its racing stage. Look at a lot of action sports. Moto, mountain biking, skiing, snow-mobiles, they all start as racing being where all the money and time is spent and freestyle being a side show. But eventually, freestyle is all people really wanted to watch and people started figuring out how to make competitions based around progression and not sticking to the same formula of the last three decades.

BeachGrit: Airs to me, seem to be done best by those who are angry and don’t give a fuck about their well being. Did losing at Jaws piss you off to spin into the wind? What’s the next move your going for? 

Albee Layer: Absolutely. The double cork is next.

Note: No video proof until tomorrow! But the build up is gold! Come tomoz to see!

Hail: Dane Reynolds! Slacker king!

Chas Smith

By

John John Florence's antics ain't cool, bro. Ain't cool at all.

And look at John John Florence going and being all good at everything. Oh there he is making the most visually impressive surf film ever. And look, over there, he’s winning the Eddie in biggest/best Waimea ever. Beating men who dedicate themselves only to the giant wave. But wait, now he is winning the entire World Surf League tour, smashing the field so thoroughly in all sizes of wave that he doesn’t even need the last event even though it basically breaks in his living room and he is going to win it too and the Triple Crown and Taylor Swift’s delicate hand.

Such a phenomenon! Such a… millennial!

And don’t those damned overachievers just roil you? Doesn’t their good-at-everything always-try-super-hard deal just rub you the wrong way? Yeah, your cool like me.

We’re Generation X, bro.

It’s all so lame. Everything is so lame. Trying is so lame. Everything is super lame.

At least we’ll always have Dane Reynolds. He, like me, like us, understands the lame. Remember when he quit the World Tour? When he gots lots o money and then quit Quiksilver? When he quit basically surfing all together?

Cool like jazz and this whole thing may read ironic but it’s not. I’m serious. Like every Gen Xer though everything I write or say comes out vaguely ironic. Trying is lame.

Whatever.

Donald Trump ain’t my president and John John Florence ain’t my champion.

All hail Dane Reynolds, or whatever. Our slacker king n shit.

John John Florence Hawaiian Pro
Hell of a year for John John Florence. Wins The Eddie, wins Rio, second at J-Bay, second in Tahiti, wins Portugal, wraps up the world title with a contest in hand and, just now, wins the first event of the Hawaiian Triple Crown. "I want to win Pipe, I want to win everything," he says. | Photo: WSL/Cestari

John John: “I want to win everything!”

Derek Rielly

By

The world champ wins the Hawaiian Pro! But it ain't enough!

There hasn’t been this air of invincibility around a surfer since, oowee, Andy Irons in 2004.

Just now, John John Florence, who turned twenty-four in October, completed his inevitable win at the Hawaiian Pro, which ran in good enough four-to-six-foot waves at Haleiwa. Portugal’s Frederic Morais, a light-footed, mostly mistake-free surfer, actually tied for first place with John John but lost because the Hawaiian had a higher-scoring best wave. Morais needed a 7.34 on his last wave to win; scored a 7.33.

A fix? Not even close.

John John’s posture, his positioning, the way he clutched his hands and manipulated with deft precision his Pyzel, was surfing far beyond his peers.

The WQS-rated Hawaiian Pro is the first of the three Triple Crown events, which also includes the Vans World Cup at Sunset (also a WQS event) and the Billabong Pipeline Masters, the final event on the WCT schedule.

In a post-heat interview with Strider Wasilewski and Peter Mel, John John admitted, “I want to win Pipe, I want to win everything.”

And he will.

Just in: The Inertia hates you!

Chas Smith

By

And hopes your life is shrouded in despair!

Now, when it comes to aggregating content I am not allowed to throw stones. I love the share economy! I have two hard and fast rules though:

1) Always credit source.

Here’s looking at you Stab!

2) Never regurgitate a story that is suicide inducing.

And here’s looking at you The Inertia!

Get a load of this! I read a story in the early morning in The Los Angeles Times about an older very kind man who lived in a van with his father in Florida. His father got sick and he cared for him and then his father died and he was very sad. He decided, though, to punch through his sadness and achieve a lifelong dream of surfing in Huntington Beach.

So he drove his van where his father died all the way from Florida to Huntington, paddled out, slammed into a pier pylon and died. No one knows if he actually caught a wave or not. There is a gofundme to get his body back to Florida so he can be buried next to his father.

The levels of depression here have rarely been reached. And yet The Inertia puked it straight up under the headline

FLORIDA MAN DIES WHILE FULFILLING DREAM OF SURFING IN HB

Which makes me wonder. Does the definitive voice of surfing™ hate you and hope your life is shrouded in despair? Does it want you to feel that life has no happy ending? Ever?

So depressive! Screw you The Inertia! Screw you forever!

Always and forever!

Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
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