Found: Your forgotten childhood dream!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

Stab magazine is hiring(ish)! Do you have what it takes?

Here you are, somewhere near middle-age, driving a sensible car to your sensible job. Life is pretty ok. You get to meet the boyz at Buffalo Wild Wings when your team makes the playoffs, sometimes. You surf after work if the wind isn’t on it. Saturday night is Spaghetti Night. Usually.

All in all you can’t complain but some mornings, when brushing your teeth, looking in the mirror, you see something in your eyes. Some misty recollection of… something you can’t quite put your finger on.

Would you like to know what it is?

Your childhood dream of being a free fashion photographer for Stab Magazine is what!

Oh the life you would have lived! Just you, your camera, very attractive females and a bank account full of photo creds! You would have been unstoppable (as long as you could get wherever you were going on foot). Rich (with photo creds). A door wide open for future opportunities (non-paying). Respected (j/k).

Well guess what? Your childhood dream is knocking once again. Let’s read the job announcement from new Stab hire Jake Tellkamp’s Facebook page!

Any photographers in Byron Bay want to shoot a very attractive female for Stab Mag? Budget on this piece means that it would be for photo creds and not for pay, but could open a door for future opportunities. Serious Inquiries Only Please! Message me if you know of anyone who could pull it off, (and not be a creeper in the process). Cheers!

You’re not a creeper, just a somewhere-near-middle-aged man with a dream of taking free photos of attractive females for Stab Mag.

Don’t delay! This opportunity is going to be snatched up by one of these two if you don’t hurry!

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Chilling: “I love the Inertia!”

By Adam Herron

7 years ago

What's your special secret?

Howdy,

I’m a youngish man who enjoys a little BeachGrit now and then and I thought I might offer up my inconsequential two cents.

I’m a lifelong surfer from the east coast of the USA, probably not any good, but I’ve had and do have my moments and I feel like intellectually I’m decently invested.

After much internal deliberation and consideration, I have decided, much to my distress, that I love The Inertia… fuck. It is to me an essential cog in the gears that churns out the addicted and devoted, the jaded and enlightened, the modern decent son of a bitch.

Riding waves has been and continues to be the source of most of my satisfaction and conflict for a long time now. Listening and reading about Chas’ stance on The Inertia (see, “I want to sink that piece of shit!“) has got me thinking again about the industry and the idea of surfing and how it reflects on riding across waves.

After much internal deliberation and consideration, I have decided, much to my distress, that I love The Inertia… fuck.

It is to me an essential cog in the gears that churns out the addicted and devoted, the jaded and enlightened, the modern decent son of a bitch. The Inertia is almost a sort of purgatory for the hopeful masses of shit-stroking, Wavestorming yuppies, the pathetic responsible goo we were all molded from.

It’s like the choice of cups from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Amid all the articles about nutritional guides to boost your paddling and the list of the five best SUPs to really shred, there is a faint and haunting message…”this is all bullshit, but keep digging and it’s kinda worth it in the end.”

That sight is a beautiful trap for partially initiated, the half-assing yuppie that loves his tan, the inland kook all adorned in his dime store puka shell. The content pumped out of that website daily is filled with the thickest turds that truly only someone who is totally and completely committed could and want to keep themselves from drowning in that light beershits of a swamp.

The strong survive to another equally bullshit filled world of what surfing really truly is, its nuances and its importance. The rest get Laird, volume calculators and boardshort guides. Those who save themselves get Litmus, Surfers Journal, Tom Curran, and told to beat it on the North Shore.

We need The Inertia more than it needs us and we probably need ourselves even less!

Also, I’m not quite sure what Chas would do without it.

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Captain Nemo jumps on the sub and resets.

Terror: A new menace awaits WSL!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

Could a giant squid disrupt J-Bay?

I mentioned Mick Fanning’s 2015 shark tangle just yesterday, in anticipation of this year’s J-Bay event which is almost around the corner. Oh the professional surfers were very brave when they voted to head back to the world’s most famous right hand point and we are the beneficiaries of their stoutness. Where would the tour be without J-Bay?

I hope the swell is full, I hope the sharks only observe and I hope there are no giant squid lurking beneath ready slowly drag Caio Ibelli or Joan Duru down to Davey Jones’s Locker.

Just yesterday video surfaced of an injured giant squid dominating a SUP in South Africa.

Thanks to Jules Verne and his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea I am twice as scared of giant squid as I am of Great White sharks. A Great White shark attack, however brutal, seems like it would be quick and shock would so take over. A giant squid attack seems like it would be slow and very uncomfortable.

Just imagine if a giant squid slowly wrapped its tentacles around Mick Fanning and Turpel + Pottz had to fill ten, maybe twenty minutes of airtime with a play by play account?

Pottz: Oh shit. Excuse me.

Turpel: It looks like a giant squid is… trying to put Mick Fanning into comboland. He really does have a big reputation when it comes to those power moves.

Pottz: With the bump and lump on Mick’s body it seems its not going to affect the squid that much. He knows exactly what he needs to do in this situation.

Turpel: The squid is really setting up that first grab. A lot of flow in his style and approach. Driving off the neck with his second tentacle really responding to that adam’s apple section.

Pottz: The squid is using his priority. You can see how bumpy it is…

Etc.

There would have been no time to jump on the sled and reset. So let’s hope this giant squid is a one-off. Let’s hope for all of our sakes.

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Watch: A Rhythmic Dance at Deserts!

By Michael Ciaramella

7 years ago

Perfect waves ain't always easy!

Do you have a dream wave?

I did. It was called Desert Point and it resided on the northwestern tip of Indonesian island Lombok. I dreamed of meeting its tapered walls and spinning tubes with a practiced pig-dog attack. At such a wave, I would finally be able to unleash the potential of my abilities.

Then I went to Indonesia. Completely by accident, the first days of my trip coincided with Indo’s historic 2015 swell. Swell of the decade, swell of the century depending who you asked. I decided it was time to meet my dream wave.

We arrived the morning of the swell and it was roughly twenty-five feet on the face. Giant blue walls peeled down the point for a party of zero. There was not a single surfer in the water, and only ten or twelve in the beachside warung.

I learned that a swell of this size was considered “too big” for Deserts, which, at twenty feet, overloaded the reef and mostly failed to barrel. The infamous Grower section was at least thirty feet and looked like an oversized Pipeline. I searched for seashells with my lady friend.

Later on, the tide started to rise and, miraculously, the waves became somewhat manageable. My friend had just motor-biked three hours from the other side of the island and had no interest in my excuses. We were going out.

Alongside a frothing Aussie, my friend and I were the first ones to enter the water today. It was roughly 1 PM and the waves were still twenty feet. We reached the lineup with dry hair but that would be my only success of the day.

As a backsider, I found Deserts exceptionally difficult to navigate. The waves were bending out to sea, which made it impossible to peer over my shoulder and around the corner. I had no way of knowing when the wave would slow down or speed up, which led to a series of pocket-rides and foamball detonations. I think I made one short barrel throughout the entire affair.

Yan Daberkow, a Brazilian whose name rings zero bells, had a much better experience at my dream wave. See below:

So Yan’s got a couple things going for him. Firstly, when he surfed Deserts it was normal-human sized. Second, he’s a goofy and third a much better surfer than myself. I actually love Yan’s style, the way he rides up on his board and threads the liquid coffers in a rhythmic dancing motion.

His mini-tube at 2:36 impresses me most. To ride that deep in a two-footer is truly an art form.

Why don’t they make rights like this?

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Even though the Stab writer Morgan Williamson (pictured) is flashing a peace sign, he is on the path war!

Breaking: Stab goes nuclear!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

"See veteran surf writer and professional receding hairline, Charlie Smith."

I was minding my own business this evening, walking my four-year-old daughter who was walking her chihuahua when our Michael Ciaramella texted me, “You have been struck! I’m so proud of Morgan.” I clicked on the screen grab of the picture he included and read from surfing’s poet laureate in a new work titled Inciting Racial Hatred – A New Low For Stab:

So why get off on the digital shock of the web? Where does this need to draw cocks come from? Even veteran surf writers use similar platforms to incite negativity.

See veteran surf writer and professional receding hairline, Charlie Smith. His vision of surf media is one-sided warfare (ever played Battleship alone?), lobbing grenades and inviting the return. But, what’s the point? It’s a silly game with no reward. One I may be currently playing into, that clever fuck, but Satan help me if I hit my forties and am living off my wife’s salary and taking shots at surf writers I’ve never met in person, who happen to be half my age and twice as handsome.

The point is, what lives on the internet is meaningful. Cyberbullying is powerful enough to drive kids to suicide yet somehow, on the surface, there’s no personal consequence for one’s online words.

Honey, welcome to the age of keyboard decadence.

Oh Morgan, my dear special Morgan, I hope you feel good that your harsh words about me in an article that was supposed to be decrying our degraded modern polemic, bizarre grammar and all, just drove my four-year-old daughter to suicide.

Just kidding! She doesn’t even read!

Truly, I’m proud of you for trying to engage but may I give you a few pointers? Next time hit me on a specific, not some multi-tiered solo Battleship/grenade metaphor. Like, what specifically enraged you? When I remixed your words into a sort of freeform jazz? Or when I called you racist? Specifics soar.

Also, don’t tease with some 20-year-old handsome surf writer I’ve never met in person. Who is he?

Also, it would be professional with a receding hairline, I think. A person, no matter how professional, can’t be a receding hairline.

Also, I am author of PEN Award nominated Welcome to Paradise, Now….. Oh I can’t help it! All I want to do is remix your words into more freeform jazz! Ladies and Gents, without further ado I give you… Morgan Williamson….

“I think the Internet is broken,”

An era of life behind avatars, screen names and the anonymous.

inciting racial hatred.

a dick measuring affair.

Where does this need to draw cocks come from?

professional receding hairline.

Cyberbullying is powerful enough to drive kids to suicide.

Yeah.

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Eat beach grit spam!