If you have social media, and the data suggests you do, then it should be no secret that the Goldcoast has had a damn good autumn.
Day after day my feed is clogged with images of two, maybe three-foot perfection peeling down the Superbank. The wind is light, the water is blue, and the barrels — well they’re plentiful.
But pictures lie. They sell beauty and prestige when oftentimes the reality is much more grim. The wave-of-the-day is made out to be the standard and every drooly-mouthed surf fiend is left feeling an innate sense of loss. This is, at least, what I told myself to avoid the pangs of surf anxiety.
Then this video comes out and ruins my little fantasy. It’s called Dreamount and affirms that the Superbank’s recent beauty wasn’t just an Instagram filter but in fact a warm, soft truth. Please see below for details.
Sure, the Slaters and Fannings and (Mitch) Parkinsons got their fill, but it’s the successes of the everyman that really gets my goat. It’s like, when you see John John get a good one at Backdoor you don’t really care, because that never could have been you. But when some random guy a beat-up stick and halfa skillset gets a proper screamer — that cuts deep.
Tube envy aside, I’m quite intrigued by the machinations of the Superbank. It seems to have changed drastically over the decades. When I was a kid, it was all about Snapper Rocks. As I got older, Kirra slowly started to return and had a few incredible moments. Nowadays, it seems that Greenmount is the hot ticket in town.
Aussie friends, what’s your favorite bank to get burned, frustrated, and occasionally tubed? Are you maybe in this dream clip?
But still better than Turkey and Greece (for now)!
Did you follow, with breath bated, nostrils distended etc, the travails of the ISA world titles in France?
I think it is on every year and, although it used to be an amateur sorta thing, now anyone can enter. Last week it was held in Biarritz, France, “the California of Surfing”, as the New York Times called it. The Mexican Jhony Corzobecame the men’s world champion and France’s Pauline Ado the women’s.
France, according to the official arbiter of such things, is now the number one surf nation in the world, its winning total almost double the points totals of second place Portugal and third place Spain.
Australian, a country that forever boasts of its surfing prowess, meanwhile, finished twelfth, a handful of points ahead of England and Germany and well behind Japan, Peru and Costa Rica.
I also think the ISA is running, in conjunction with the WSL, the surfing part of the Olympic Games.
From The New York Times story.
The International Surfing Association’s president, Fernando Aguerre, lobbied the I.O.C. throughout his 23-year reign to get his sport into the Olympics.
“Our Olympic wave took me personally 22 years of paddling — a very long time paddling — but together, we’ve done it and now surfing is both an Olympic and a Pan-American Games sport,” Aguerre, 59, said, addressing surfers at the opening ceremony.
Leandro Usuna of Argentina, a two-time World Surfing Games champion, said surfers had earned their spot in the Olympics.
“We used to be seen like a rebel sport, but now people see how much we train, how much we sacrifice and how disciplined we are,” Usuna said. “Maybe back in the day, it was all rock ’n’ roll, but now if you want to be the best, you have to train like the best. That’s what the sport has come to.”
Olympic inclusion means potential new sponsors, public and private funding, support from national Olympic committees, greater demands and enhanced media exposure. Aguerre says he is not worried that surfing will become too mainstream, sacrificing its culture and its easygoing vibe.
“They say that size is the enemy of cool or that quantity and quality are inversely proportional, so I’m very aware of this,” he said. “My feet are on the sand, and when they’re not on the sand, they’re on the surfboard.”
Are you thrilled, like me, that surfing isn’t a rebel sport and how it used to be “rock n roll” but now requires all the tenacity of a Russian gymnast to succeed?
Here are the results.
Team Rankings
1 (Gold) – France
2 (Silver) – Portugal
3 (Bronze) – Spain
4 (Copper) – Mexico
5 – Japan
6 – Peru
7 – USA
8 – Brazil
9 – Costa Rica
10 – South Africa
I am back on dry land after five days in Laird Hamilton’s blueish-red ocean and sad. What in this surf world could possibly captivate me like Laird on menstruation again? Will the sun ever shine or will I spend the rest of my days wandering in periodic darkness?
But I got to see lots of pictures and everyone looked like they were having the greatest time without me. Coronas. Poorly fitted black button-ups. Tom Carroll.
And then, near the bottom of the piece, I saw it:
“No strangers to the awards, Rip Curl took out Wetsuit of the Year with the 4/3 Chest Zip Flashbomb and Mirage MF Focus 21 winning Boardshort of the Year. The Torquay company also walked away with Swimwear of the Year and Customer Service Office of the year to round out the evening.”
Customer Service Office of the Year! Phones ringing. Answering calls about duckdive induced brain injuries. Answering calls about Kim Jong Un’s real designs on the Korean Peninsula. Not answering calls about returned products because duh. Flasher and MF never get returned.
No duh on the 4/3 chest zit Flashdance and MFuckus 21. Those bangers are best in class (I assume. North Koreans demand quality) but Customer Service Office? Now that is the coup of the decade!
Customer Service Office of the Year! Phones ringing. Answering calls about duckdive induced brain injuries. Answering calls about Kim Jong Un’s real designs on the Korean Peninsula. Not answering calls about returned products because duh. Flasher and MF never get returned.
I wonder who won the best Customer Service Office last year? Now this is a story I can sink my teeth into.
So long, Laird!
Hello, Torquay!
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Justin Cameron and Lex Pedersen, founders of SurfStitch, the online retailer that scooped up FCS, Stab, among other enterprises. Now this gorgeous coupling has split. Is good? Is bad?
Founder Justin Cameron says company's future is "very unpredictable."
Do you long for glory days? I don’t.
If it ain’t around the corner, it means life is on a downward slope, ending in the grave etc? Hence the danger of nostalgia.
One exception to the nostalgia-is-death rule must be granted to the online surf retailer SurfStitch. Oh, it was on such a high eighteen months ago. Worth almost half-a-billion dollars. Tens of millions of dollars shovelled into acquisitions.
Life was a dream. But so fragile!
Last week, SurfStitch went into a voluntary trading halt in response to a $100 million lawsuit from shareholders who say the company was a little florid in its profit expectations. One old man paid $2.12 a share only to see ’em worth six cents. And even if he wanted to cash out he couldn’t. The shares are in a trading halt, one that might last until August.
And in today’s Australian Financial Review the company’s co-founder Justin Cameron, a tough, alert and fiercely intelligent biz-man who quit SurfStitch last year to organise a private equity takeover of the company, said its future is “very unpredictable, who knows if it will trade again… Significant time and money appears to be focused on litigation as opposed to managing the business.”
The company said it would explore a way to settle the legal claim “at a level that would permit the company’s continued financial viability.”
A few moments ago the company and its assets had a market valuation of $18.9 million.
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John had a huge friendly ever-present smile, but he was a shark, maybe the biggest surf media shark ever, it’s how he did what he did for that amazing 12-year run. Velvet glove, iron fist, John didn’t invent it, but it applied it better than anyone in surf.
Matt Warshaw obits on surf culture pioneer John Severson, dead at eighty-three.
On Friday, the surf media pioneer John Severson affixed his angel wings and soared to heaven, perhaps bumping into BeachGrit’sMichael Kocher in the queue.
Now, Severson, who was eighty three, really was something. A hell of an artist, a swinging filmmaker and a businessman who turned the childish act of balancing on a surfboard into a fabulously profitable enterprise via the magazine Surfer.
Obits on the old man are everywhere. But no one can articulate a fellow surfer’s legacy better than surf historian Matt Warshaw.
Let’s begin.
BeachGrit: Here’s a story you’ll like. I was visiting the office of The Surfer’s Journal, being shown around the joint by its editor when I was introduced to the owner. Oh, Mr Severson, I cried. What a pleasure it is to meet you. You’re the voice, the creator of surf media. Of course, as you know, it wasn’t Severson but Steve Pezman. So who the hell was John Severson and why does he matter?
Warshaw: You made Steve Pezman’s day. A hot young gun making a fool of himself, and the idea that he (Pez) could be mistaken for the great Sevo. Steve’s a big gentle honey bear, but he’s got some bastard deep inside, and he can be as insecure as the rest of us, so that’s a double win for him.
In 1968 when the psychedelic train pulled into town, John, who was 35, ancient, climbed onboard, rang the bell, and drove the fucking thing.
BeachGrit: Fuck, wait a minute, that’s a lazy open-ended question. I might’ve just said, how about you write an obit for free? Okay. You know him? What kind of man was he?
Warshaw:John was first and foremost an artist. Sort of like Andrew Kidman or Thomas Campbell, where the first thought every morning is to pick up a camera or a brush or a pencil and just start making something. The big difference between Severson and all those guys is that he was also a business genius. SURFER was a hit from issue #1. He spun off all kinds of things, posters, shirts, books, even mugs, and he just never seemed to put a foot wrong when making a deal. And then finally, and most spectacularly, in 1968 when the psychedelic train pulled into town, John, who was 35, ancient, climbed onboard, rang the bell, and drove the fucking thing.
BeachGrit: God he could draw, couldn’t he.
Warshaw: The early stuff is fantastic, the later stuff is sentimental shit. John was the Rod Stewart of surf artists.
Severson’s North Shore surf car, 1959.
BeachGrit: First question. Severson sure do matter. One of the first surf filmmakers. A massive influence in that regard, yes?
Warshaw:He’s famous for starting SURFER, the “Bible of the Sport” and everything, and that’s what will go on his tombstone. But he was probably a better filmmaker than he was a publisher. Or at least just as good. Pacific Vibrations is his magus opus, and it’s kind of too big a bummer for its own good, what with all the dire environmental messaging and everything. But as a craftsman, I think he was the best, and that includes Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman there.
BeachGrit: And then he started a magazine with the best name ever, The Surfer, which later became Surfer. So he kicked off the whole surf media thing, yeah?
Warshaw:There were a couple shitty little surf magazines just before surfer. Greg Noll did one, and it was fish wrap. SURFER made it stick.
The early stuff is fantastic, the later stuff is sentimental shit. John was the Rod Stewart of surf artists.
BeachGrit: He had this fabulous role call of talent, the artist Rick Griffin, photographer Ron Stoner, write Drew Kampion, and, yeah, Steve Pezman. It wasn’t as if surf media kicked off with some crummy zine. What do you think Severson’s opinion of current surf media would be?
Warshaw:He had the best eye for talent, like nobody before or since. He knew who was great and who was just merely very good, and he also knew how to develop talent. Ron Stoner was promising when he first arrived at SURFER, but John arguably turned him into the Stoner we now revere. John paid Ron, for starters, buffed him out with the best equipment, and most importantly was able to express to Ron—John himself was an excellent photographer—how to move around a lineup, try different angles, experiment. Ron needed that.
BeachGrit:You think he’d be enjoying Surfer, as is, 2017?
Warshaw:John had a huge friendly ever-present smile, but he was a shark, maybe the biggest surf media shark ever, it’s how he did what he did for that amazing 12-year run. Velvet glove, iron fist, John didn’t invent it, but it applied it better than anyone in surf. All that said, at his core John was really upbeat and positive. Loved his work, loved his hobbies, I don’t ever saw much of a distinction between the two. He viewed his life and one continuous art piece, and demanded a lot of himself and others, but also was stood back often and beamed at how it was all turning out. I think he’d find things to enjoy about SURFER today, and I’m sure he’d be thinking, always, of how he could improve it.
“He was a really fucking good surfer, big and small waves. Not above doing the dirty,” says Warshaw.
BeachGrit: Had a bitchin joint at Cottons, yeah? Did he surf into dotage?
Warshaw:He had the best beachfront house at Cottons, back when the Marines were still keeping the place mostly on lockdown. John lived next door to Nixon, and it turned out that the President either had John’s house bugged, or was monitoring all the comings and goings, and John and his family got freaked out enough by all the Secret Service guys, and the weird clicks on the phone, the whole early ‘70s paranoia, that John sold the magazine, handed the publisher keys to Pezman, and moved to Maui. Retired for good at age 36. Surfed and painted right up to the end, I believe.
BeachGrit:How do you think his iconic quote stacks up in 2017: “In this crowded world the surfer can still seek and find the perfect day, the perfect wave, and be alone with the surf and his thoughts.”
