Profile: Newport’s great white hope!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

Who is the greatest surfer to ever come out of Newport Beach? Come inside!

There is a fine profile in this morning’s Los Angeles Times of Newport Beach’s Parker Cohn. The seventeen-year-old surfer was once sponsored by Hurley but now dons the RVCA (“I absolutely love what RVCA is representing at the moment,” he tells the paper. “A lot of the older guys on the team are guys I look up to, Bruce Irons, Luke Davis and Colin Moran, and the list goes on and on.”)

He is the number 1 seed in the NSSA National Championships which begins tomorrow at Huntington Beach and will be surfing with Newport Beach on his heart and mind.

“I love to represent this city,” says Cohn in the article, “I’ve lived here my entire life and I love it here. Newport Beach is practically the best place you can grow up as a surfer.”

“Could he be the next great surfer to come out of Newport Beach?” the reporter asks before answering, quickly, “Yes, he just might be the next great surfer to come out of Newport Beach.”

Which made me wonder. Who was the last great surfer to come out of Newport Beach? I’m not talking Andrew Droid Doheny, though he is very good, or Josh Hoyer or Richie Collins. Maybe Danny Kwock? Maybe Preston Murray? Alex Knost?

Oh, I’m not denying Newport’s place in the surf pantheon. It will forever be the “hottest 100 yards!” I’m simply asking, has Newport Beach ever had a great surfer?

Will Parker Cohn put the town on the map just like Kelly Slater put Cocoa Beach on it? Will they one day erect a statue of him on the peninsula?

Let’s watch and see!

(read the entire profile here!)

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Shock: Great Whites Linked to Obesity!

By Derek Rielly

7 years ago

And Type 2 Diabetes (the worst kind!)

The Australian government has moved a step closer to loosing its protection of the Great White shark, a species off limits to fishermen since 1999.

At a meeting of the Liberal Party’s federal council, delegates voted for a motion that proposes to lift protection if the government’s scientific body, the CSIRO, finds the Great White is no longer endangered. There are a few more hoops to jump through, but if the numbers, as expected, prove buoyant, keen anglers will be able to add the Great White to their target fish.

Oh it will be a bloodbath.Piers and jetties will be festooned with the corpses of nature’s most daring and noble creature. Brave men will drag the snapping leviathans onto decks of little boats and belt their primitive brains to mush.

How do you kill a Great White? Click here.

But lest I bury the lead (Great Whites linked to obesity) let’s peer over the shoulder of The Australian’s infinitely daring reporter and the Great White’s worst nightmare, Fred Pawle.

He writes,

“South Australian Liberal MP Nicolle Flint said it was time to start protecting Australians.

“We must protect our swimmers and surfers and hard-working Australians like abalone divers from being attacked or killed by sharks,” she said.

“In an era when rates of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes are at an all-time high, we should be encouraging more, not less, people to be active. This means keeping them safe from shark attacks along our coastline.”

Have Great Whites impacted on your physique? Do the folds of your stomach peel over the waistband like pleats in expensive pants… because of Whites?

Do you find yourself craving a drink, maybe you’ve got blurred vision.

Do you have sores or cuts that don’t heal?

Because of Whites?

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Look at these drunk assholes!

Report: Aussie Lifesavers Are Drunk!

By Michael Ciaramella

7 years ago

A man "pooed in his cap" for Christ's sake!

In a shocking report from yesterday’s Gold Coast Bulletin, Aussies have been getting super fucking wasted.

The drunkards are part of a traditional Aussie beach culture known as Surf Lifesaving Clubs. For our American and Pakistani readers, a Lifesaving Club is where adults cover their head with a funny-looking hat, wrap a hammock around their banana and play fun games at the beach. Parents then force their kids to enroll in Nippers and the cycle continues.

I don’t believe a Lifesaving Club member has ever saved an actual life, but I could be wrong.

Anyhow, it sounds like sporting ridiculous attire and rowing around in a little boat wasn’t enough for certain individuals. They wanted excitement, freedom, and a host of potential lawsuits brought on by their drunken antics. Let’s read from the Gold Coast Bulletin:

DRUNKEN patrons are using ladders to enter clubs and others are being evicted for headbutting walls as a boozy culture threatens to destroy the family image of Gold Coast life saving clubs.

Queensland’s Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation is being asked to intervene after receiving complaints about fights between patrons, alleged overcapacity at indoor venues and use of outdoor keg storage areas for supporters’ clubs.

Photographs show several young men and women using a makeshift ladder to gain entry to the deck at the Tugun Surf Life Saving Club during the national titles.

Resident Terry Camp said he and others in the street watched as patrons were ejected from the club and went to the southeast corner of the building where they placed temporary footpath barriers against the wall to use as ladders.

And this is appalling! Grown adults who dress like something out of Pee-wee Herman’s wet dream should not be acting in such a fashion. I, for one, am ashamed on behalf of all Aussies but it doesn’t end here. Oh no, this issue of drunk Lifesavers is a chronic issue in today’s world. We’ll continue with the GCB:

A Gold Coast Bulletin report in May detailed how a Queenscliff surf club member “pooed in his cap” at an event at the Currumbin RSL after boaties went on a Mad Monday binge drinking tour of the Glitter Strip during the cancelled national titles.

And what the fucking shit? Kick a wombat and call me bogan but do not insult the jimmy hat.

To poo in one’s cap is not only an affront to the celebrated history of Lifesavers, but to the Australian continent as a whole. It’s the equivalent of strangling a bald eagle in America or supporting women’s rights in Pakistan. Absolutely disgusting.

A commenter named Cathy said it best: “[Lifesaving clubs] lost their family image years ago. Booze, pokies and hot chips. Nothing to do with surf safety.”

What have you to say for yourself, Australia?

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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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Eat beach grit spam!