Get ready for Kelly Slater, John John Florence,
Mick Fanning etc. to rock some hot beach break!
Remember when surfing was officially included
in Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Games? I do like it was yesterday! Tears of
joy streamed down my cheeks as I furiously dialed World Surf League
CEO Paul Speaker so we could share the moment together.
He didn’t answer and I’ve been so hurt ever since.
I mean, not hurt. I’m totally over him now. Like, whatever
right? There are plenty of CEOs in the sea. Yeah?
Whatever. And today the International Olympic Committee
officially announced the surfing venue!
Kujukuri Beach in Chiba prefecture some 100 km east of
Tokyo!
And not Kelly Slater’s Ranch 10000 km east of Tokyo!
Have you been there? Have you surfed?
Here’s a video posted by Olympic hopefuls so you can start
training.
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The Inertia: “Dane hypocritical as
fuck!”
By Chas Smith
Venice-adjacent sometime surf website gets mad!
If you have ever visited li’l old
BeachGrit on consecutive days then you’ll know how much I
love to kick against The Inertia’s goads! I feel the crew
operating out of a second story Venice-adjacent office mostly
deserves. The Huffington-esque brand of socially
aware identitarianism they peddled is worthy of ridicule.
But this morning writer J.P.
Currie stepped up to the tofu-scented mic and got very angry whilst
calling out Dane Reynolds!
Very pointed!
Very personal!
Shall we read an abridged version? Well it wouldn’t be
BeachGrit if we refused!
Firstly, and screamingly obviously, is that everything Dane
says in Chapter Eleven – especially with regard to his
disillusionment with tying capitalism to surfing and benefiting
immensely from that arrangement – is totally undermined by
advertising his new brand “Former” at the end of the piece. Did
nobody really realize that Chapter 11 is actually just a
commercial? Ironic, huh. It’s akin to having an AA meeting then all
going out afterward to smash some shots in celebration of the
meeting. It’s short-sighted at best and hypocritical as fuck at
worst.
I also take issue with his little dismissive diatribe about
who to thank. As he says: “I feel like I should thank
Quiksilver…but who is Quiksilver? Who do I thank? Everyone I knew
that worked there is gone.”
Well, Dane, unless you mean “gone” as in dead, then
presumably there are human beings who helped you that you could
still namecheck, whether they work for Quik or not anymore. And
failing that, how about you just give a nod to the fans? An
acknowledgement to the surf fans of the world who gobble up every
meager scrap of surf meal that you deign to throw them like
desperate, pathetic little chickens. These people have made you a
millionaire because they like watching you ride a surfboard. They
deserve a little credit.
Surely the noble thing to do (if Dane truly has a deep
personal conflict with the idea of attaching surfing and his
likeness to a commercial enterprise) would be to disappear
altogether. To walk away. Get rid of that corporate monster called
Vans and the other patrons who supply that sweet surfin’ cash.
Ditch it all, look after your family, surf. Be grateful that you
made millions of dollars from surfing when you felt like it. Be
grateful that you are a rich, white man living in an affluent
coastal suburb. Be grateful that you traveled the world to surf and
have had incredible experiences. But most of all, stop pimping
yourself out in order to try to sell us stuff. If it’s truly so
conflicting, then it’s disingenuous. Better yet, why not do your
part to fundamentally change the tie between your profession and
your artistic integrity and hold your head high?
Yikes!
But refreshing? And I must tip my pretend fedora
Venice-adjacent’s way! Oh it’s not that I agree with Mr. J.P.
Currie. The issue of “selling out” in the arts has been debated for
so many ages. I harken back to Nirvana, who I loved so dearly as a
weird Oregon youth. The band’s juice came from being weird, from
being outcasts, but then fame and fortune and the outcasts who felt
kindred all of a sudden felt burned. And Nirvana wrote Rape Me.
I think Dane is also a particular sort of outcast artist and his
seemingly genuine struggle with how to marry beauty and commerce is
real. He is part of a noble history stretching from Leonardo Da
Vinci to Bobby Dylan to Zach Weisberg to Basquiat to
Albert Camus. He was lucky enough to make money and unlucky enough
to not really want it so crazy bad.
So no, I don’t think Dane is any more hypocritical than you or
me. But The Inertia throwing a grenade up toward
Ventura for no real reason is almost fun.
Throw one down to Cardiff-by-the-Sea next!
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Science: Cori Schumacher is dull!
By Chas Smith
It's an undeniable truth! A proven fact!
Oh how I have come to love the internet or
rather internet writing. I used to pen bits trying only to think
down the road. Would it be relevant in three weeks? A month? Six
months? Such a headache because we exist in surf.
Surf!
Now I only think, “Will this be funny for 15 minutes?”
Relevancy has been tossed out the window and good riddance!
Which brings us to Rory’s Wife.
Do you recall yesterday when she wrote a piece in defense of
Rory’s podcast interview with surfer cum politician Cori
Schumacher?
I don’t but let’s go over the details here!
Derek Rielly refused to post Rory’s recording because he found
it:
soft, predictable, conformist, complainist, her life story
dull and her stories anything but spectacular enough to warrant
asking our readers to give it an hour of their lives. I know you
dig her stuff, and that’s cool, but I couldn’t find one moment that
might lift the interview from complaint-fest to…
how to change the world.
If that’s what she’s trying to.
I felt like I was stuck at a party in Portland listening to
the same old tired tropes, getting drunker and drunker trying to
drown out this grim women burning my ears.
But, above all, it has zero relevance to our
readers.
And did that ever rankle Rory’s Wife! She wrote, in
response:
I could not disagree with Derek more. I found Cori to be
intelligent, articulate, and downright inspiring. We all bitch and
moan about shit that goes down in our respective communities. Cori
not only successfully defeated a giant shoreline development, she
one up’d herself and ran for local office.
She proceeded to berate him in the most passive aggressive way
and continued to gloat today apparently buoyed by the comments
underneath the story. Except comments are wonderful but science is
science and would you like to know how much Rory’s Cori Schumacher
interview was viewed/listened to?
Yeah that’s 500+ next to 10k-ish for pedestrian stories about
Gabi’s daddy. A lead balloon even by BeachGrit‘s lowly
standards.
Which says nothing about Rory and Rory’s wife. Their attempted
bedding of an unwilling participant has been
our artistic high water mark.
It just proves Derek was right. And God bless him. And God bless
Rory and Rory’s Wife for continuing the happy tradition of allowing
me to squeeze tons of juice off one fruit!
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Mason know this truism better than anyone: "You have a
little fun. You live a little better."
Mason Ho: “This Guy Macked Madonna!”
By Rory Parker
Mason Ho dazzles at the 2016 Surfer Poll
awards!
Did you watch the Surfer Poll last night? I did. I didn’t intend
to watch the whole thing, only tuned in because the lovely Ashton
Goggins over at Surfer invited me as his +1. Very kind of him. I’m
on Kauai at the moment, so I couldn’t actually go. But I appreciate
the thought and figured I’d watch a minute or two. Then I saw The
Inertia was live streaming and asking for fan questions, so I
proceeded to get very drunk and send Alex Haro rude suggestions.
They did not use any of them.
I’d begun drinking earlier in the day, so the whole thing is a
bit of a blur. But a few solid moments really stood out.
I think Eddie Ifft is funny. The crowd did not. Or everyone was
just too caught up in their own shit to let loose and laugh. I
don’t know exactly what the deal was, but I know it was fucking
savage. Dave Wassel! Who doesn’t love Dave Wassel? His speech
patterns, his expressions. The guy’s a naturally hilarious hunk of
marble. Big Wave Dave’s Surf Academy had me snorting drunken
guffaws.
But the highlight of the night was none other than Mason Ho. Big
surprise, right?
His red carpet interview with Kaipo Guerrero and Cheeseburger
made the world better. Poor Kaipo, so uncomfortable. So bummed.
Thank jeebus it was recorded for posterity. (At 1:17:30)
Hard to top that, but the Mason/Cheeseburger combo managed to
after winning Best Series for License to Chill. Good natured wasted
tirade. So pure, so true, so funny. Enough to make me wish I’d
popped on a last minute flight and made the scene.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Too much Mason Ho is
never enough.
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Attend: Gabriel Medina University!
By Chas Smith
Are you his next apprentice?
Unheard of surf industry market factors
have created a BRAZILIAN STORM of profit opportunity! Free
introductory class – Reserve your seat now!
At Gabriel Medina University, we believe the key to success in
today’s surf environment is knowledge, no matter how you define
success – whether it’s running over surfers as they duck dive,
crying or shaving your body as absolutely clean as you can get it.
With this in mind, Gabriel Medina University offers programs and
courses in a wide range of subjects such as Slice n Dice,
Cry and Shave.
The faculty of Gabriel Medina University include surf experts
from some of the world’s leading beach breaks such as Zona Sul,
Ubatuba and Buzios. In addition, our teaching staff includes Rip
Curl senior executives from surfing’s Silicon Valley. And of
course, we have distilled and integrated the insights, experiences
and practical know-how of Gabriel Medina himself.
We understand that not everybody learns the same way, so we are
delivering this right content through a variety of channels,
including the classroom at the Instituto, online learning courses,
audio-video home study programs and at WSL events. In addition, we
host a vibrant online community where you can interact both with
experts and trolls.
Gabriel Medina University is here to teach knowledge that you
can apply in the real world. The best was to deliver that knowledge
is through active education – or Learning by Doing. The value of
this approach is not only that you will have a better grasp of the
material but, just as importantly, you can immediately apply it at
your local beach break.
And the real world is ultimately where our focus lies, because
at the end of the day it is your ability to chop, cry and shave
that defines our success. Click here!