Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the net!
I remember so many years ago when I was a young pup in the surf game. Green as a Bay Packer. I remember writing my surfing stories and sending them via Netscape to Derek Rielly all the way across the ocean in Australia. Stories about hot up and coming pros like Nathan Webster and Luke Stedman and Luke Munro!
And then I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Until three months passed and there, in the mailbox, was my issue of Stab magazine!
Oh I would rush it inside and flip through its pages, re-reading my work and sometimes so much time had flowed by between the writing and the publishing that various subjects were either dead or irrelevant or both.
But still. The thrill!
Yet even in those early years Derek Rielly was not impressed. “Print. Ugh…” he would tell me via fax machine. “It is going away and good riddance.”
But I didn’t believe him. I believed in the tactile quality of a magazine. The way it felt, looked, could be saved and loved.
Magazines forever!
Fast forward to 2016 and Derek Rielly is, officially, right. This is the year that Surfer went quarterly and Stab went bi-curious and the rest folded or faded away completely aside from Surfing which won the print wars by lasting as a monthly-ish the longest of all even though rumors swirl about its future altogether.
The Surfer’s Journal? Oh that has always been a book, each issue to be treasured and passed from generation to generation.
And do you know what? I thought I would be sad. I thought I would miss the feel and look. The saving and loving. But in reality I could not care less. I was sent a very thoughtful care package of surf magazines recently. I flipped through the first one and do you know what it smelled like?
Death and irrelevance.
The rest went straight into the recycling bin and my heart soared. We are now untethered!
We are free!
Luke Munro exists in real time not in some stifled version of three months ago.
Luke Munro forever!
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R.I.P. Chazz Michael Michaels….the Frenchman is done.
White horses is still pretty epic. An Gra is a legend..
An what the fuck is wrong with munro’s head?
He looks like a bearded lesbian
White Horses is cool, yeah. Hella expansive to get in the US, but I order single copies sometimes.
What Youth, Monster Children, Contrast, Huck….some great art direction and interesting photos will always look great on printed paper.
I still really enjoy seeing good photos on paper? So a magazine with solid art direction and creative photography makes me quite happy. Monster Children online would just not be the same at all? Idk.
My computer printer is an enabler. I shame it all the time.
In a weird sort of irony, print has become the ultimate bullshit filter: if something isn’t good enough to be printed, there’s a good chance it isn’t worth your time either.
I totally agree in terms of The Journal or What Youth but not in terms of Surfer, Surfing, etc. To me it seems that if it ain’t relevant enough to go online immediately then it ain’t relevant.
There’s more to relevancy than simply being timely. Plus, who wants to read 3,000 words online? Nobody, apparently.
Much like the print world languishes in time-lost irrelevancy… Today’s digital mess spoils by the next tweet.
R.I.P. Neal Kearney.
J.P. Currie aka Chazz Michael Michaels. Contributor writer to the Inertia. You know the Inertia I speak of, that favorite website of Chas Smith. Check out J.P. Currie’s Instagram. J.P. Currie sure lashes out on his followers there. J.P. Currie’s alter-ego Chazz really isn’t that much different.
Cool! I’ve got my own troll! Does that mean I’ve made it?
I think you’ve made it once they attempt to take your life? I personally only ever got to the level where my troll rung my home phone directly after a heated online exchange. Of course, the old fashioned heavy breathing and no talking technique was used before he hung up.
But you gotta admit that’s some pretty impressive investigative skills from That dead Whale @.
Fuck, you guys don’t even know. One person once sent me two pieces of toast through the mail. Just toast, nothing else.
By the way wasn’t JP Currie recently shit canned on this very site after being so regally dismissed by Dane Reynolds following his InErtia Putdown piece?
Toast! What a sadistic fucker… it’s news to me today but it seems we have a double agent in the house Chazz is that JP.
Maybe it was a compliment. Nick Carroll was the butter for his toast. Some people have insane ways of complimenting others.
No wonder the cunt’s hiding behind a pseudonym
I think there’s a potential good story here Nick.
“Double Agents and Dry Toast”
I’m sure the surf industry has a handful of classic double agent stories. Plus, the toast story deserves elaboration.
Oh hell yes. For instance I have it on good authority that for a while, Brookvale’s two big surfboard blank manufacturers were both secretly paying commercial garbage collectors to go through the other’s discarded mail in a dubious effort at gaining advantage. The twist was, they were both paying the SAME GUY. This is far more interesting than some dick telling people they can’t write. As for the toast, that was in the Tracks days in like 1986 or some shit, so who knows what was going on, I would definitely not rule out excessive acid.
Oh God another one, back in the early 1990s when one of the big surf cos was making an effort to enter the very closed off wetsuit market, they got involved in some kind of confusing lawsuit with an ex-employee. A large and already extant rubber baron got wind of this lawsuit and decided to white ant it in order to undermine the market entrant. He sent in his best double agent, a man of reptilian guise and cunning. The man found out which law firm was representing the market entrant, then wheedled his charming ways into the sexual favours of the firm’s receptionist and tricked her into leaking the corporate file. She got the sack, the ex-employee lost the lawsuit, and the double agent slid out the backdoor with nary a scratch.
Fuck you’re a good story teller!
No hiding here, cunt.
Fucken out and fucken proud.
Jp Currie an the inertia can both go suck a bag full of dicks.
Lovely imagery! Bravo!
I’m not trolling J.P.. I just figured it important for the readers here to know the actual name of the author who’s article got posted. I gave Neal Kearney a ration of shit for his article but at least he had the courage to put his name on it.
That’s quite a humourous statement… you’re trolling JP behind an anonymous moniker yourself. Regardless I’m impressed at you exposing JP. How did you find out?
No skill involved. Chas recently posted comments interacting with Chazz Michael Michaels wherein Chas asked Chazz if he was JP. Chazz answered Chas by saying that he was his father, a reference further enforced by a pic of Darth Vader.. But it got me thinking. So I googled “JP and Inertia”. Came across JP Currie. But that wasn’t proof that one was the other’s alter-ego. Scrolling through JP’s posted stories, I saw the one where he bagged on women wanting to surf big waves. I was looking for the same tone in writing but what I found was far better. Being the typical Beachgrit reader I am, I often scroll to the comments first, and then read the article. In the comments of JP’s article, some chick gave JP a bunch a shit for his story. Chazz Michael Michaels responded to her comment and said a response in the first person using “I” when referencing what he meant in the article…..cause he was being misunderstood or something like that.
There ya have it.
http://www.theinertia.com/s…
Haha!! nice work…
Thanks Negatron.
Beachgrit community service. Without the orange jumpsuit.
Good work, he also exposes himself in the comments of this one:
http://www.theinertia.com/s…
Reading some of his stuff he is the quintessential Inertia kook cry baby. Chas you must act quickly and banish him back to where he belongs.
Dick Van Dyke has nothing on you.
Ha. Not that impressive considering I openly stated it in the comments of one of Chas’ pieces about my Dane thing.
now it all makes sense.
But I’m still kicking! Check out my site http://www.splitpeaksoup.com. It’s a bit sparse, but I’ve got a dozen articles saved up to dally out once 2017 begins. Also, I’ve been contributing to surfermag.com. I’d love to see some of your online writing (outside of comments). Do you have a blog or site I could check out?
Luke looks like some dude who has up a bunch of fake spreadsheets to make it look like he’s working when his boss walks by. Also, I’m surprised you aren’t still interested in Steds, considering you both happen to be leading fashionistas in surf!
I love all three of these surfers and not at all insinuating that they are irrelevant or dead. They were just the first three that popped to mind when I was thinking about those salad years.
Backpeddling
My bike doesn’t back pedal!
wut. skinny jeans and no fixie?
I’m scared I’d fall right over! I’ve never even perched myself on a fixie…
They’re alright until the stopping part. The stopping part isn’t super great really.
Oh now I’M OFFENDED, Jen
Because of the skinny jeans part or the fixie part? It’s hard to keep up around here.
Also, I’m a fan of skinny jeans generally.
That’s what it is all about pretending to be busy – then going for a meeting and going surfing. I am all over that!!!
does steds sell any of his fashion shit?
To Chas, maybe…