That my friends can chill on while I'm
rippppppping!
The sun is long up in Australia. Christmas day!
And the sun is on its way down in America. Christmas eve! Oh did
you get what you asked Santa Claus for? Will you?
I’m hoping, beyond hope, that when I rip down my stairs a Sea
Ray SLX-W 230 is wrapped under the tree!
“What’s that?” you ask.
“A mobile Kelly Slater wave pool!” I shout while jumping up and
down. “A mobile Kelly Slater wave pool!”
Watch!
But, real quick, why is Josh Kerr the only person on earth who
has made wake surfing look worthwhile? Is it inherently lame? Lame
in its very DNA or… what?
What’s going wrong?
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Revealed: Surf’s missing link!
By Chas Smith
The way to grow the money and shrink the crowd!
It is Christmas morn in Australia, eve in
America, and good cheer trickles into the even crustiest of hearts.
Do you feel joy? Merry? Oh but you should! A great gift has just
been given to us by The New York Times! A key to surf
industry growth that has eluded for years while not crowding
lineups! A way for the World Surf League to reach CEO Paul
Speaker’s heretofore absurd projections!
I was reading The Times, see, and stumbled on the story
Surfing and Sondheim: What’s on Josh Radnor’s Mind. It
intrigued me because I was once married to a musical theater
actress. Stephen Sondheim is a big name in that world, having
written the music to West Side Story, A Little Night
Music, Sweeney Todd, etc. etc. and I loathed it all.
I despised both his rhythm and his rhyme. If a piece of Sondheim
music comes on when I’m shopping, say, or out to eat I’ll start to
sweat and my eyes will twitch. I’ll feel murderous.
Suicidal.
And I did not want his cursed name near the word “Surfing.”
Josh Radnor? I looked up at his picture and saw that he was this
guy from that one show.
Anyhow apparently now he is in an Off Broadway production and
blah blah blah and the article was a list of things he was
interested in. I skimmed quickly to get to the surfing part which
read:
William Finnegan’s “Barbarian Days: A
Surfing Life”: Mr. Radnor tends to read many books at
once, “which is actually a problem,” and he was still in the middle
of this memoir. “It’s a lot about surfing, which I’m kind of
weirdly obsessed with without knowing how to do it well at all.” He
had to learn a few years ago for the Jill Soloway movie “Afternoon
Delight.” Now, he said, “I just love to sit and watch. There’s
something so meditative about it.”
And I thought “Here it is! The missing link!”
The industry/WSL should push surfing onto the masses like
meditation! Self-help and not something you do but
something you sit and watch. Beach mats would fly off the
racks as the population runs to the beach looking for meaning! Surf
watching shorts too with pocket zips that keep sand and pesky crabs
away!
The WSL would have to change the programming a bit. Maybe score
heats with Krishna Das music and lose the singlets and also maybe
lose the entire commentary team besides Joe Turpel who’s voice is
like warm honey dripped into an ear and as empty as the wind but
Paul Speaker’s billions would tune in because of surf viewing’s
restorative qualities!
Brilliant!
No?
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Shocking: “I surf better than Dane!”
By Neal Kearney
Do you believe Danger Mouse Reynolds is the best
surfer in the world? Think again!
Memory. I was a ten-year-old wanna-be competitive
surfer living in Santa Cruz. I forced my Mom to drive me
down south every month for the NSSA contests which, back then, were
like the WSL of amateur surfing, minus exploding phones and
#TourNotes.
But, National Scholastic Surfing Federation…tha
fuck?
Scholastic?
My buddy couldn’t keep a 2.0 GPA and was stripped of his
open men’s Western Championship victory ‘cause he wasn’t
“scholarly” enough. Side-note: the guy who placed second, Travis
Mellem, began listing the title on media as one of his accolades.
That’s worse than setting up a GoFundMe account to mount a WQS
campaign!
We became pretty good friends, but it was more like “I saw
that Surfing cover of you in South Africa…how
gnarly was that!” instead of “Dane! You got dinner plans?” He
was always very quiet and nice, but he and another few competitors
would hang out inside the officials’ tent in between heats. That
was weird.
Regardless, if you wanted free shit and cool guy stickers on
your board, you had to compete. Despite the association with
school, our Santa Cruz crew did our best to tip toe around that
ugly word and please our sponsors while still being little punks:
packing chews, taking bong hits in the sand dunes, wrestling and
thrashing around the parking lots on our skates. We had some
contenders, guys like Bud Freitas and Noi Kaulukukui.
Mostly, I would head back up Highway 1 with a plastic fifth
place trophy and sunburn. If I was lucky.
I did have my moment in the sun, however. I beat the star of
Dear Suburbia, of Cluster, of Chapter 11, Dane Reynolds!
Let me set the scene. I’ve known Dane for twenty years. The
first time I saw him surf in was my very first NSSA event, held at
Ventura Harbor, a truly world-class break. Before the heat I saw
this little buck-toothed kid standing around in his jersey wearing
a hole-ridden O’Neill wetsuit but with Rip Curl and Hardware
(remember them?!) stickers on the nose of Channel Islands board.
Believe it or not, this was a big deal. Fuckin kid thinks some
stickers on his board’s gonna take me out? Poser!
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!
The hooter sounded and our heat was on. Reynolds was first up.
Any notions I had about this kid’s legitimacy were silenced as I
watched from the back. Dane blew his fins out six times on a
two-foot left.
Being ten days older than Dane, we were locked into the same
division for the following seven years. As he grew in stature and
profile, the whiz kid would perform, every contest, as though he
was blindfolded and we were riding inflatable zebras instead
surfboards. Crazy, inverted backside carving 360 on a six-foot
close out at Pismo Pier. Searing gaffs and big airs. It was like he
was alien or, perhaps “touched by an angel”. I know people
have claimed this kind of shit about Slater, but when you
consistently crank out the most mind boggling shit imaginable every
time you paddle out, people are going to shout “reptilian”. So when
Dane talks about losing all the time in Chapter 11, he’s full of
shit. He could have filled a pick-up truck with all the
trophies he collected as an amateur.
So I continued to compete. I crafted a DR voodoo doll and
ritually gored it with needles. My efforts were in vain. Every
month, he’d show up, limbs and vision intact. I gave up on the
black magic and just accepted my lashes and the fact we were men
among the company of a god and we had front row tickets to his
performance.
We became pretty good friends, but it was more like “I saw that
Surfing cover of you in South Africa…how gnarly was that!”
instead of “Dane! You got dinner plans?” He was always very
quiet and nice, but he and another few competitors would hang out
inside the officials’ tent in between heats. That was weird.
Dane was gnarly. Not Geoff Brack gnarly but Kelly Slater gnarly.
However, I would have my day. I would surf better than Dane
Reynolds. My mom told me to get into yoga, to work on my
competitive strategy, meditation and maybe, just maybe, I’d get to
his level.
I didn’t buy it. The kid was just too damn good, breezing
through wins with his eyes closed. Every once in a while he’d ride
an egg or a weird fish just ’cause he could.
However, I did best himand I will carry this victory close to my
heart until the day I die. Even more than my equal seventh at the
Kustom Tahara Pro Junior in 2005 in Japan. Is Kustom still a thing?
I remember thinking it was so edgy when they came out. I mean, they
spelled custom with a K. Genius.
Back to the aforementioned victory. It was the year 2000. Eminem
was shocking the world and N’SYNC were wetting the panties. The
location was Port Hueneme in Oxnard. WhyyyyKneeMe?
WhynotSilverStrand??!! For how much quality surf on the stretch of
Oxnard to Santa Cruz, in the NSSA Goldwest Explorer Division
(whatever that hell that means), we would routinely get skunked.
This event was no different. Shit wind. Shit tide. Shit waves.
Standard issue. I had just moved up into the 15-to-17 year old
junior division. And that meant I was just a minnow among nearly
grown men. I’m not too sure of what I did to make it through to the
final, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say luck factored
pretty heavily.
The only other person I remember being in that heat was
Nathaniel Curran, who still surfs really well, likes to go fast,
and babysits the Channel Islands surfboard team. Nathaniel was
really the only one who could give Dane a run for his money. That
didn’t last too long, but in this heat, Nate Dog was Regulating. I
was surfing the peak to the south, which was providing a few chippy
lefts. Being a goofyfooter from the land of righthand point breaks,
I figured this would give me a chance to hone my frontside attack.
Actually it was just an attempt to give me some breathing room from
Nathaniel and Dane, who were surfing the rights about 100 yards
north.
Nathaniel owned the final. I remember watching in agony as he
tore the shit out of wave after wave. For once however, I was in
the zone. I caught a little wedge left and did a few snaps and
buckin’ bronco butt wiggles. Where was Dane? I saw him catch a
pretty decent right, but as the time ran out (fifteen minutes is
not a long time to catch two quality rides when it’s flat dogshit),
it was clear that he didn’t have a good backup wave.
With about two minutes left in the heat, another wedge came my
way. I scratched harder than Adriano De Souza, popped up and began
to string together another pair of gaffs with a little drop wallet
on the end section.
The ocean went dead and the buzzer hooted. I felt pretty
confident with my two keepers. Still, I saw Nathaniel murder at
least three waves and the thought of beating Dane did not compute
in my adolescent, drug-muddled mind. There were no live scores so
we had to wait until the awards ceremony to find out how we placed.
The fateful hour arrived, and Dane, Nathaniel, myself, and the
three other competitors all lined up in front of the scaffolding
for the awards ceremony.
Janice, the beach marshal began announcing the results. Name
after name began being called. Not another fifth place? My arse
puckered. Fourth place, not me. Then, by the grace of Satan, Dane
was awarded the third place trophy! I’d slayed Goliath! Of course
Nathaniel won, but for a brief moment, I had felt like I’d won the
Eddie or Pipe Masters.
Of course, I’ve never surfed better than Dane Reynolds. A random
fluke. Stroke of good luck, call it what you may, but I will carry
this result as a badge of honor until I’m pushing up daisies.
I saw Dane at Keramas in 2008. I paddled up to him to rap out
and he looked at me like he didn’t know me. Maybe it was just a
momentary lapse of memory, but I felt like it may have been due to
the fact that he was being worshiped worldwide at the point in his
career. Then again, maybe it’s due to the fact that I’m just a
cynical and sensitive bastard. After reintroducing myself, I
paddled away feeling hurt and confused. Why wouldn’t my old chum
greet me with enthusiasm and open arms?!
Wait! Maybe it was because I bested him that day at Port
Hueneme! Blood Feud?
I paddled away and saw him do a six-foot lien grab air from the
back. He looked like an alien blasting off to return to his
(reptilian?) planet. That air scored him the cover of
Transworld Surf. So yeah, for fifteen minutes, in the
shittiest of surf, I surfed better than Dane Fuckin’ Reynolds.
Me.
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Surprise: “Big Bro” hates BeachGrit!
By Adam Jara
But loves and approves of The Inertia!
Ever see the film The Big Short? Did
you walk away feeling like every financial institution perpetually
fucks over the little guy for profit? Did you wonder just how much
worse it could get? I’ve got the inside scoop that could be the
final nail in the 99%’s coffin. But first, a short story about a
dude named John.
John loves surfing. He loves all aspects of the harrowed and
beloved surf culture. John realized he couldn’t surf all the time.
Pursuing college and attaining a big boy job were necessary
sacrifices. Got the degree, began working for Merrill Lynch as a
financial advisor, still surfed, just on the seven to five grind
too.
Then tragedy strikes.
John is working at Merrill Lynch, part of Bank of America, doing
his job well. John hears that Dane Reynolds and The
Inertia are having an online street brawl via his phone. John
gets a minute or two to jump online. John knows the place to get
the scoop on the drama!
BeachGrit!
John slams “BeachGrit” into the search bar! The home
page loads! CLICKS ON THE LINK …..loading….loading….loading…cannot
find source.
John gets the feels.
John is mad.
Again, calamity has struck. Adding insult to injury, John isn’t
able to open the article, or watch a Youtube link of Mason Ho rock
hopping, or even a WSL broadcast or Surfline cam. The only site
remotely related to surfing that Bank of America permits, the gosh
darn Inertia.
John is furious.
The Inertia’s often absurd, uninspired dribble is the
only bit of surf related access John has when the opportunity for
free time in the office allows a moment of escaping the fluctuating
stock prices.
Does Bank of America really favor The Inertia’s baggy
frilled jeans and sandals look over us rebel scum?
Maybe.
More than likely the ass hats in charge of setting up the
company wide website monitoring systems don’t even consider The
Inertia a place worthy of blocking from their employees. John
may have stumbled upon the most meaningless blood feud ever but
I’ll be damned if his story didn’t compel this writer to share his
struggle.
John isn’t alone.
The big banks have already affected everyone else. Big Brother
wants you to know if Zach Weisberg’s clan of unpaid “writers” has
something to say but the derelicts here at BeachGrit are
not worthy of attention or access. Pity. John we stand with
you.
John doesn’t really want to be a financial anything anymore.
John said it’s not for him and that the whole system is pretty
fucked up. John no longer desires to contribute to perpetuating
wealth incumbency for the rich. John sums it up with a Kerouac
quote.
“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent
working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn
mountain.”
The End.
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Contest: Be our next Rory Parker!
By Chas Smith
The noted Rory Parker has left the building. Do you
have what it takes to replace him?
Do you dream of standing on a soapbox and
shouting whatever you feel at the surf world?
Of being a lovable curmudgeon?
Of getting paid to fly to the North Shore and not hanging out
with professional surfers or in the surf houses?
Well then you could be our new/next Rory Parker!
Our old Rory Parker has just broken up with us. I won’t go into
detail as to why (hopefully the boy will come back for a last
encore and explain himself) except to say that the surf journalism
biz is a tough one. It takes a hide thicker than a Miura bull to
stick around. Have you ever actually looked at Nick Carroll? At
Matt Warshaw? At Derek Rielly? At me? That ain’t sun damage, baby.
Those are callouses, scars and dried spittle!
But don’t let me discourage you! No profession is more esteemed,
more noble. And to be buried underneath a tombstone reading SURF
JOURNALIST 1976 – 2043 is the greatest pleasure a man can know.
And while the tears staining Derek’s and my cheeks re. old Rory
have not yet dried our pain is your gain.
So.
We are looking for a new voice, a fresh point of view. Someone
fun? Funny? Connected? Hungry? Oh it could be anything! The only
prerequisite is to be 63% anti-depressive.
If you think you’ve got what it takes email a 300-ish word riff
on mmmmmm the best thing in surf to [email protected] before New
Year’s day. The top three will get posted and the people will
decide.
What do you get?
The chance to be surf famous of course which is ! But also maybe
a paycheck in a few months (we’re sooo close to
profitability!) and a Matt Biolos surfboard.
Come write for BeachGrit! It’s freer than the WSL™!
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros