BeachGrit principal in podcast interview. Find out who Chas wants to sink!
On a recent Thursday afternoon, the writer and BeachGrit principal Chas Smith was invited to participate on the Surf Splendor podcast.
Smith, of course, upholds the standard for candour and in this almost hour-long interview chisels dangerous topics with an assured and passioned improvisation.
Highlights
On slinging mud:
“I would invite people to write whatver they wanted about me. For fun! I could lob grenades all day into peoples’ houses, drive home and there wouldn’t be one grenade at my house. I’m confused. Why not have fun? Nobody, ever, ever. I try, I really try to get some kind of response from other surf media. But they’re lifeless.”
The host responds that The Inertia gets half-a-million clicks a month so why should they care about Chas’ grenades.
“I completely understand that reasoning. What I don’t understand is that we’re still surfers at the end. We can still have fun.”
On The Inertia:
“I would love to sink that piece of shit! It’s terrible. I would love to bring it all down. I think I can say it’s the worst website on the internet. It’s worse than Brietbart, it’s worse than the lefty version, it’s worse than anything. Why? Because it has no point of view. There’s this weird ‘We celebrate all points of views’ but they really don’t. It’s curated toward a specific goal. And not to admit it, to pretend that you don’t and you’re the definitive voice of thinking surfers, is absolutely ludicrous.”
“When I encountered him (The Inertia creator Zach Weisberg) at a party, he was throwing his own writers under the bus saying, we don’t support everything our writers say. If I wrote for you, and you were at a party and saying you didn’t support your writers, what kind of crappy thing is that? That’s awful! Whether you agree or disagree is one thing, but to distance yourself? If it goes up, you should totally stand behind it.”
At this point, the interviewer, the very good David Scales, says, “They’re catering to a guy who rides a soft top, who bought it at Costco, who lives away from the coast, Arizona maybe, but he comes out every summer and surfs.”
Chas responds,
“Do you think he does? I would be shocked if even the soft-top riding surfer from Arizona is typing in, www.theinertia.com. I’ve never met one surfer who went to The Inertia or liked it.”
More, oh much more, if you press the little yellow button. Chas Smith might be a genuine asshole, but he is a stupefyingly gifted one.