Kelly Slater gently scolds BeachGrit!

Chas Smith

By

And he is right! The low hanging fruit don't taste so sweet!

Kelly Slater is one of our favorite subjects. We have had his name in the title lock so often that a cursory Google of BeachGrit delivers a veritable treasure! Who could ever forget such classics as:

Opinion: The terrible legacy of Kelly Slater!

Kelly Slater: World’s worst pitch man!

Blood Feud: Kelly Slater vs. Decorum!

and

Just in: Kelly Slater swings at “next level dipshits!”

The man is our joy. And it my seem like we joke lots and lots because we do joke lots and lots but it is always with a hefty amount of goodwill. Public figures like Kelly Slater are wildly rare. Exceedingly rare. Scrutiny and trolls have rendered most to button their lips entirely. But Kelly keeps offering his thoughts, his feelings, his opinions and he keeps taking pokes for them.

Like when he Instagram commented on Jeremy Flores feed that the sharks of Reunion should be culled. It was a nuanced take on a very serious problem. Of course Kelly doesn’t wish for the death of sharks across the board but he recognized that a particular imbalance exists on the French isle.

But then our own dear Michael Ciaramella jumped in poking Kelly in the eye. I read his story and winced slightly. We tap dance here we try not to stomp and Michael’s bit of irony dripping with sarcasm was… heavy footed.

Kelly’s commented on our Instagram, graciously, “Tricky, touchy subject. But Reunion appears to be an anomaly when you consider attack rates across the globe. And of course @beach_grit would be the first to grab the low hanging fruit instead of consider(ing) the (emotional) context.”

Ooooh I winced again but this time fully. He is completely right. Nuance is slipping away in our increasingly polarized world. We should be encouraging non black and white responses to problems with our dance, not pushing readers, or Kelly Slater, into an either/or proposition.

And so for the second time in BeachGrit‘s wonderful history I’ll stand up and shout, “We were wrong!”

Long live nuance!

The Absolute Best Hawaii Team House!

Michael Ciaramella

By

Pipeline is nice but who's really got the snuff?

Every Hawaii season there are very many contests but one matters more than rest. It is not the Pipe Masters nor the Punani Cup nor even The Eddie. This competition revolves around which team house is the absolute chillest to chill at. Let’s break down the 2016/2017 ratings.*

4. The Billabong house is always pretty dank. It’s big, ganja green, and right at Off the Wall. What’s not to like? This season the Billy Boys threw a few impressive ragers, but the overall vibe seemed a bit edgy — like at any moment someone could bust in the door and smack the living shit out of the team manager. A fun place to get sideways, but overall not super dope.

3. The Volcom house is a North Shore staple, often producing the loudest tunes and meanest grinds on the strip (Kaiborg does a mean BBQ). Local lore dictates that you need expressed written consent to enter the premises, but when you bring a couple kegs over the boys are such legends! Weirdly none of their team riders were around, so Riddle and I just sat around and pounded a few brewskis with a cardboard cutout of Noa Deane. Pretty chill IMHO.

2. The Weedmaps house — new kids on the block! Super stoked to see some open-minded individuals penetrating the authoritarian surfing industry. What more, they got a dank-ass mansion with a pool and surround-sound speakers to blast some vintage Sean Paul! With a plethora of herbs and spices circulating the domain, it’s safe to say this was a properly irie dojo. Would chill there again. (P.S. Dirt Nasty you still owe me twenty bucks! Haha just playing he’s crazy love that guy.)

1. The RVCA house is like a crazy symphony, man. They’ve got all these majorly different dudes like Luke and Bruce and Betet and everyone seems to be on their own wavelength which is a little confusing at first but once you really listen to the vibrational cacophony you start to realize how harmonious it sounds and it’s fucking trippy, but like in a good way. Just being present in that natural amphitheater made me reconsider a lot of things I was taking for granted in my life, and for that, the RVCA house is my pick for the absolute chillest house on the North Shore in 2016/2017.

Oh and all their team riders can freaking shred that shit too. Peep this crip clip.

*Disclaimer: The author did not, and has never chilled at any of said houses. All characters and scenarios have been completely falsified for the sake of this dope (but untrue) review.

Art: The Inertia’s high water mark!

Chas Smith

By

It is an achievement of the human will!

Most artists toil in mediocrity. They have a vision, a spark, some initial drive but it all too easily and all too often gets lost somewhere between idea and reality. This dissonance, though, is what makes great art so great. It is an achievement of the human will. A rare breakthrough. A moment in time that resonates across time and space.

Let’s take for example the Mona Lisa, Beethoven’s 5th, John Kennedy Toole’s The Confederacy of Dunces, Beyonce’s Hold Up. Etc.

And The Inertia‘s Zach Weisberg just reached this plateau. This rarified air. Or rather he reached it a few weeks ago but great art is eternal.

The piece is titled CHEVROLET’S NEW BOLT EV MIGHT BE THE PERFECT ECO-FRIENDLY VEHICLE FOR SURFERS

And thus begins:

I might be the least qualified human to test-drive a new vehicle and speak with any degree of authority about the experience. I know jack about cars. I don’t drive them for performance, racing, sportiness, etc… or understand much about what distinguishes good from great. I never even learned to drive stick. I realize no self-respecting man should never commit that last sentence to print. Or pixel. But it’s true. I grew up in a world of automatics, and for the sake of transparency, felt we should get those formalities out of the way before proceeding further. I’m not an automotive expert.

And then:

…This becomes that much more interesting when framed with the question most relevant to our readership: Will Chevy’s new electric vehicle work for surfers and outdoor enthusiasts?

Which lead to:

And I was curious about this. Does this car actually work for surfers?

In a very complex form of heavy-duty, professional vehicle testing, I put one of Henry’s shortboards in the trunk. It fit! Henry says he also stuffs his 10’ paddle board into the car no problem.

Before ending:

So if you can get to the beach and kill fewer things – like your wallet and your earth – in the process, the Chevy Bolt EV is worth a serious look. Right now, the vehicle is only available in California and Oregon, though it will roll out to the rest of the country this year.

And shit! I mean… shit! Art! We have a man who cannot drive a stick shift, a 10 foot paddle board and an electric-ish car on The Inertia.

SHIT! I mean…

Read the entire monument here.

Craig Anderson Dane Reynolds
Refined moodiness, a thug silhouette. Former has everything y'little studs need! | Photo: Morgan Maassen

Buy: Former Tees here!

Derek Rielly

By

Dane Reynolds and Craig Anderson's label is open for biz! Shop now!

Last week, I think it was Thursday for I remember clouds moving in from LA’s twenty-year storm and pooling in the San Bernardino mountains thereby spoiling any chance of a late-winter tan, we saw, briefly, Former’s debut collection.

Former is the surf-skate brand created by Dane Reynolds, Craig Anderson and Austyn Gillette. Other people are involved of course, but these are the brand’s principals.

The launch was accidental and quickly shut down.

But not before we saw a collection (called Luxury 29.99) that included short-sleeved t-shirts (in black, white and coral, priced between thirty and forty-five dollars), one long-sleeved tee (bone, sixty dollars), one shirt (black, one hundred dollars), three pullovers (black, different graphics, sixty-five dollars), two pairs of trunks (one black, one black-and-white patterns, seventy dollars), a Dylan Reider tribute jacket (black, one-hundred-and-fifty dollars), a beanie, a ten-dollar pair of socks and a pack of Former patches that costs eleven dollars.

Former is the sort of thing you wear when you want to be butch enough for the beach, smart enough for school but glam enough for the club. You can wear the t-shirts tight (like Craig) or you can let them sag in a masculine way like Dane.

I had the Luxury Flower pullover, in medium, and costing sixty-five dollars, in my shopping cart but was stymied at check-out when the site was offed. Another BeachGrit reader and occasional writer Adam Jara sent his order away, was rejected (nicely!) and wrote a story about it here. 

Anyhow, now they live.

Before you shop, you can watch an excellent seven-minute short, which includes a track Reeling in the Lies from the classic eighties band Swans, as well as heavy-ish music I’m not familiar with. I’d go with Rammstein, for no other reason than it reminds me of the opening scene in Nymphomaniac. 

Former, in my opinion, is what you wear when you want to be butch enough for the beach, smart enough for school but glam enough for the club.

You can wear the t-shirts tight (like Craig) or you can let them sag in a masculine way like Dane.

It’s refined moodiness, it’s even a little thug (all that monochrome)!

Buy etc. 

“Taking food from Mexican babies!”

Chas Smith

By

The scandal at Todos Santos turns into Todos-gate!

A very wise boy once told me, “There are two sides to every story. Neither of them are true.” And let us turn our attention, once again, to the scandal at Todos-gate. We heard how San Diego surfer/shaper Gary Linden stopped motorcycle stuntman Robbie “Maddo” Maddison from riding his bike on a wave at Todos Santos, which breaks on an island just off the Baja peninsula, in order to protect the sanctity of the place.

We read Maddo’s response. That Gary Linden was “butt hurt” about not being consulted on the project and was not acting as a noble protector of the sea but rather a petulant child.

Yesterday, I spoke with an insider who happened to be there for the entire dance. He said that the real victim is the people of Baja California. The moto scene is already very big down there with the Baja 1000 drawing tens of thousands of viewers and pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the local economy. In his opinion, Todos Santos is a wave that has fallen off the scene.

He told me, “6 people were there when we were out and everyone was stoked on what we were doing except Gary and a half-Peruvian boy he had paid to be with him. He said we didn’t ask the locals’ permission? We had all 20 locals who actually live there on the payroll for the project! What makes Gary a local? Because he drives down from San Diego to surf it? All he did by shutting down the project was take food from the Mexicans’ mouths and take away a great opportunity to showcase Todos Santos again.”

“But what about the bike?” I asked. “I think most surfers are concerned that it could get dumped and end up spilling oil on the ocean floor or something else unseemly…”

“No way…” he responded. “Robbie loves those bikes so they are each completely sealed and fitted with an airbag so if it goes down it floats to the surface. We also had 2 ex-Navy SEAL divers on site to assist with any other possible accident. The bike pollutes less than a ski or the boats that sit out there.”

But what do you think? Is this a case of a crusty old man standing in the way of innovation or the case of a brave man doing what’s right in the face of vicious odds?

Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
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