Great literature explains retirement strategies of best surfers.
A literature teacher once told me, “All the original plots have already been done. The modern stuff is just a new way to tell an old tale.”
Example. Beowulf as Superman.
If the World tour is the spotlight, then every player needs a way to exit stage.
Let’s examine!
The Dane Reynolds/Jean-Paul Sartre (No) Exit strategy:
Treat yourself to a copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit. Thirty-eight pages of pure emptiness that will leave you hollower than a trust fund kid’s responsibilities.
Five sentence synopsis: Three people (who realize they are dead) locked in a room. It’s furnished in Second Empire style (think red velvet couches/chairs and long drapes – ouch), with no windows and one door. They realize they are in hell and wonder where the torture devices are. Pleasant conversations quickly escalate to arguments and screaming matches. They soon realize hell is… other people. ( Or maybe a room furnished in Second Empire style.)
Dane saw a room with no future. His hell was five people locked in a tower with torture devices numbered on a scale from 1-10. Or maybe he just couldn’t appreciate the bliss of spending 18 hours in transit only to be judged in 30 minutes on your two best good deeds. Either way, he showed other worker bees there is life outside the hive and honey can be found through two-minute Vimeo clips.
The Kelly Slater/Ernest Hemingway Old man and the Sea strategy:
The Old man and the Sea was Hemingway’s 100-page suicide note. (He killed himself via shotgun after winning the Nobel prize for the book shortly after.)
The old fisherman had plenty of success, but in recent months hit a string of bad luck. He eventually lands a huge marlin. He can’t fit it in the boat, so he straps it to the side of his skiff only to have sharks tear it apart piece by piece on the way back to shore. He returns left only with the skeleton to prove that he caught it. No glory.
If Kelly were to write us a farewell note, at this point, it would be the length of War and Peace. The GOAT has caught 55 trophy fish, and has also had a run of bad luck. His sharks take bites via Twitter and claim his boards are skeletons under his feet. In the end, the Cuban fisherman dreams of seeing lions on an African beach. Our king dreams of subduing young lions on beaches through cold stares before heats. Regardless of his current relevancy, when the GOAT leaves, he takes a piece of every surf fan with him.
And the WSL ship takes on water.
The bottom third/blue-collar/desperate immigrants/The Grapes of Wrath exit theory:
If the last 12 seeds of the tour needed an anthem, then John Steinbeck is their maestro. Stienbeck’s novel tells the story of desperate migrant blue-collar workers who seek a better life as field hands in California only to find the state oversupplied with labor and harsh working conditions.
Did Steinbeck ever surf windblown two-foot slop in Japan? QS groveling could be the equivalent of picking grapes in a California pasture, but the end result for our laborers is far more glamorous. When they hit the game there are plenty of harsh working conditions via low seeds and lack of experience. You gotta toil and sweat to make it out of the helpers’ quarters. If not, there is no shame in saying you made the spotlight, broke some hearts, and got sent home.
It makes for great campfire stories with the grandkids at the Drew Courtney home.
Nice read Giancarlo
haha!!! u hitting Lido tomorrow???? wind is W-E-S-T…… !!!!!
Interesting, comparing the greats and the bottom feeders of surfing and the greats of literature of two totally different genres. Enjoyed it. What else you got coming?!!!!!!!!!
surely dane / craig anderson would be Our Lady of the Flowers . (no judgment!)
….it’s a good point…… Existentialism and dead fish don’t pay what they used too…. but i’m sure there is a bearded group in Brooklyn surrounded by a cloud of vape smoke who would love this shit…..
One of my all time faves! The Kid! Good on ya Mullet!
whoa
What about ex STAB owner exit strategy?
STAB takes the high ground here: http://www.thebusinessofsur…
Is this no less than Hamlet!
How is that for a sentence: “STAB” and “high ground” in the same sentence.
A podcast with derek and sam in the same room reading passages from Hamlet?
Hamlet has no place in the comments section DA. Oedipus Rex maybe, but not Hamlet.
The Joad’s were not blue collar workers but mid west white American farmers forced of their land by drought and depression.Dane could just hang out with mac and the boys on cannery row catching frogs if former becomes another former surf mark .the Goat should not be asking for whom the bell tolls.
Fuckin Slater’s done himself a mischief and Nat Young will be in the rest of the cunting events fuck it all to hell.
Spot on. Worst part of less Slater…..more Damian Hardman…i mean Nat..
Giancarlo Guardascione! It’s like a Brazilian and an Italian ran into each other so hard they became the same person
my mom always speaks fondly of a Brazilian plumber …. When she does, dad stares at me kinda funny
Some good analogies there for sure was a good read. But the GOAT story would be War and Peace coupled with Game of thrones and Lord of the Rings – when he adds to the story his wave pools, slater designs, OKnown and owning the WSL in due time!!!
The psuedonym plot thyckens…
Exit strategy? Fuckers are only going to hold on tighter as this race for the bottom intensifies. Gravy trains almost over boys, yewwwwww!
Loved the bit where the Judge makes his own gun powder.
A rich vein of thought: Irons as Achilles. Porta as Iago. Speaker as Shylock. Chas as . . . ?
a) Hunter S. Thompson
b) Jack London
c) Kent Brockman
Mmmm. Jack.
Jack was too butch surely?
Although Chas did get in the ring.
Hunter S. obviously. Well it would be obvious if he ever gets this ‘alleged’ cocaine book out.
john kennedy toole
Along with most American writers, he inhabits an embarrassingly large penumbra in my mind. I must illuminate my ignorance.
Interesting article until the last sentence. You didn’t need to drop that name.
Who the fuck are you to judge anyone?
Your name suggests you never stood on a surfboard in your life.
Too scared to touch someone in the public eye that’s sponsored by one of the brand’s that feeds you hey, so you pick on someone who is not around to defend themself. Cowardly “journalism”
You seem angry today Superworm? first bile on the Beschen story, now here… If you need chat or a cuddle I can search the IP addresses and get the nearest commentator to come around with a dozen to talk it out…
On the note of IP addresses… Is “Joiny” the stab commenter that everyone jumps all over Chas? The way the comments are written its either a pro surfer or a surf writer taking the piss. He writes in a complete opposite style to Chas so I thought it might be his little alter ego.
Chas wouldn’t find the time to post stories here if he was Joiny/let’ssurfing… Interesting you should say that, as Derek had a suspicion he was a staffer at STAB.
It’s definitely a surf writer playing the surf kook…
The dude’s Disqus history is open, comments on Christian sites and stuff. I doubt he’s a surf writer, just an autistic/genius troll. He’s kinda brilliant to be honest.
PS. Down to be Superworm’s big spoon
There’s no doubt he’s a troll and like you say he’s unique and very good at it. I’d bet money he’s a stab staffer and he uses the comments to generate more comments.
Speaking of StaB I went there today looking for Mikey C’s articles and I couldn’t find anything.
Has he gone already?
Chas Smith, the Hillary Clinton of Surf media. Once they leave they suddenly disappear
http://stabmag.com/news/wha…
I did bite awful hard for a worm👎
2 articles today picked low lying fruit to hang shit on, when there’s so much current stuff out there that warrants the attention and gets bypassed or worse, swept under the rug.
Writers can do better.
Warsaw’s neg on Beschen was his typical way of stabbing people in the back to get himself in the spotlight and sell his website.
Damn! Poland is neg on Beschen too? Tough break
yeah because writing is such a big-money scam.
I do run away from a lot of shit. but good point. … from the looks of Drew he could surely bitch slap my skinny (ugly) ass. To be honest, i’m a bigger fan of the bottom 12.
You are Giancarlo?
that was quite a fun read.
‘Tis (though i’m far from Irish) . thank you.