Did you arrive at surfing late? Do you eat up
ridicule?
How did I miss this film? Did you see it when
it first appeared eight years ago?
Oh it cuts the meat right off the bone.
The Surfer was made by Dominic Coleman, funded by
the British government, and was inspired by “a chance conversation
I had with a really funny guy at a beach in South Devon in UK. He
was a SUPer,” DC told Liquid Salt
magazine.
The story is good.
“He and his wife were carrying his massive paddle board across
the car park to his brand new VW T5 van with all the flash wheels,
tinted windows, and body kit. I asked him if he’d had a good surf
and he launched into a monologue about how his surf had been. His
wife and daughter then attempted to carry his board to the van
whilst he stood chatting to me. He also told his daughter who was
about eight to mind that she didn’t damage the board which I
thought was hilarious… He struck me as being one of the new breed
of surfers in the UK where suddenly you get someone not
traditionally associated with the activity really getting into it,
spending thousands of pounds on it and becoming an expert on it.
We’re all like it to an extent.”
DC adds, “I am painfully aware that the irony of this film is
its really close to me. I live in London, I’m a middle-aged,
middle-class bloke who’s got into surfing really late.”
As an aside, what does middle-class have to do with a man’s
ability in the water? If you are poor, or very rich, can your
idiocies be excused?
Do you think, if he was interviewed now, DC would’ve added the
helpful epithets “white” and “straight”?
And, tell me, do you recognise anyone you know in The
Surfer?
But watch here! It’s good.
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It's a revolution! You'll never ruin your board with
crummy ding repairs ever again. | Photo:
@boardbandages
Do you have surfboards with holes but don't know
how to fix? I know the feeling!
Five weeks ago, ish, a New Yorker turned Dana Point
transplant, Brad Pierson, entered my mailbox with a
proposal.
He asked, would I accept advertising from his little company
Board Bandages? I examined his
website and I discovered the company makes colourful band-aids for
surfboards. This appealed to me very much.
Periodically, I’ll try to repair a hole in my surfboard, buy all
the ingredients, pursue with gusto and so forth, only to ruin my
pretty sleds with waterfalls of resin, destroy a patch of grass and
be thirty bucks down.
As it happens, a photographer pal of
mine had wanted to produce a
BeachGrit-branded metallic ding tape, sourced from Japan
where he had worked as a professional model. I thought it a fine
idea and I don’t know why we didn’t pursue it.
Brad Pierson, who is thirty five years old “but my joints say
sixty seven”, and who stands at a paltry
five-foot-seven-inches, told me he liked BeachGrit
very much (flattery always succeeds) and I asked if he could send
his product to me for testing.
The board bandages come in a sheet, which you peel off and apply
to your surfboard.
It’s so easy I only marginally screwed it up fixing a busted
tail.
I like it. Yes! We take your money. I’ll even throw in an
advertorial interview!
Which is here.
BeachGrit: Tell me
everything!
Brad: I started developing Board Bandages almost a
year ago but, only brought them to market two months ago. The idea
came from using random stickers as ding repair and a pure hatred
for Solarez. I kept replacing stickers on the same ding over and
over again after they’d peel off, crack, etc. When I gave that up
and went to use some Solarez I had bought a month or so
prior, I found it exploded in my trunk all over a brand new set of
Futures. My now business partner and life-long friend had told me
of an amazing adhesive he had developed for some stickers and we
just kind of started kicking around the idea. We then developed the
textured top sheet for the bandages and voila! (For the Millennials
in the room that means the idea was “lit” and we were “ ‘bout that
lyf”)
Talk me through the specifics of ‘em. What are
they made of, how big a hole can you fix?
When you pick them up you’d notice similar qualities
to a thick sticker. What sets them apart is our proprietary
textured top sheet and incredible adhesive. The top sheet’s texture
allows for the Board Bandages to be waxed almost better than your
actual board. However, it is also extremely hydrophobic so water
beads right off, making it perfect for any ding, anywhere! Our
adhesive goes on and stays on! (Do I sounds like Billy Mays yet?
Well, before he died.) The original test bandage has literally been
on one of my boards for a year. Hasn’t faded. Hasn’t peeled. Still
cute (Derek’s words not mine). Plus, when you’re ready to take your
board to your shaper they’ll come off without leaving a mess or
residue.
But wait! There’s more!
We also offer the ability to brand Board Bandages
however you’d like. So, if a shop wanted their logo on it, we could
do it. If Chas wanted the Stab logo so he could channel
anger before every wave, we could do it. If Derek wanted a photo of
Chas being angry at Stab to channel joy before every wave,
we could do it. Just use our little template and send it over. As
far as size goes, we make them in two packs right now: Shortboard
and Longboard. The Shortboard pack contains four unique shapes to
accommodate dings on almost any part of your board while the
Longboard pack contains the four Shortboard shapes as well as two
much larger, longer shapes. We’re currently developing a SUP pack
as well. Ya know, just in case some period blood gets on Laird
while he’s shredding and a shark takes a nibble. We got you and
your scientifically sound logic homie! On top of that we’re
currently producing a custom Board Bandage to protect the entire
hull of a ten-foot boat.
Get ’em with logos etc.
What was the process of turning your idea into
an actual biz?
Once we had finalized the material, shapes and first
round of packaging, we put together a few demo packs and started
handing them out to friends and local shops for feedback. Once we
felt set we basically did all the boring crap people do to set up
businesses. Come to think of it, I’ve never gotten any completed
forms back. So, who knows, maybe I’m not an actual business.
Is it all yours? Did you have to kick in much
money? Is it a full-time gig?
It’s just me and my business partner and we both have
other gigs for now. The goal is to make this my only gig, employ
all my friends, buy 42 Album Surfboards and go on a twenty-three
year bender.
Yesterday you were treated to a rare interview
with Stab magazine’s co-founder Sam McIntosh pulled from
new website The Business of
Surf in which he became very publicly angry with
BeachGrit for its general tone.
He felt it is a “shitty look” to talk about an ex in business,
that Derek and his “little biz partner mate” get “giddy” poking
holes in Stab, that we get more pleasure from veteran surf
writer Nick Carroll rolling in and throwing punches than we do
making money, that Derek is not saving the environment or following
John John Florence’s each and every move but rather “fixated” on
the business he sold a decade ago.
So super nuclear!
But there was a giant chunk right in the middle of the interview
that I missed because it was a pull quote. I generally pass pull
quotes over, assuming they are in the text somewhere, but this one
was not and so Derek gets a bonus thumping in the question:
Are you and him (Derek Rielly) still mates? Theres
often a few digs at STAB via Beachgrit but is it all fair in love
and war?
Let’s read!
The stories about Stab whirred back to life almost
immediately, however, and it hasn’t really stopped since. So it’d
be strange if I were close to someone whose biz was publishing so
many stories about my business so, no, we’re definitely not
friends. It’s pathetic, it really is.
Right in the gut!
Oh of course it goes without saying that Derek has never written
a negative word about Stab on BeachGrit. Sure he
covers the demise of Stab’s parent company SurfStitch but
his work on that matter is cool and detached. He also regularly
asks me to tone it down on the Stab matter but I don’t
listen because, and again, I long for the yellow journalism days
when Pulitzer fought Hearst and the world was entertained while
whole wars were accidentally kick started.
But maybe I am wrong.
Maybe it is not fun at all. Maybe it is truly pathetic to joke
about Stab, The Inertia, etc.
Is it pathetic?
Am I the only one having fun?
I’m actually asking seriously!
And Nick Carroll…. could you please stop rolling in and throwing
punches and give me some money instead?
Yesterday, it was reported out of Western
Australia that a well-known property developer from Perth, Luke
Wyllie, fractured vertebrae, ribs and lacerations after smashing
head first into the reef at Gnaraloo. The West
Australian writes:
Prominent businessman and pilot Luke Wyllie could spend up
to three months in a body brace after a serious surf accident that
nearly claimed his life.
Mr Wyllie was knocked off his board at the notorious
Gnaraloo break, roughly 120km north of Carnarvon, and smashed head
first into a reef on Sunday.
The father-of-two now faces a long rehabilitation after
suffering fractured vertebrae in his neck, cracked ribs and
lacerations to his head.
“I’ve never really been too concerned about Lukie,” Mr
Wyllie’s wife Samantha said. “He’s a bit of a cat, he’s got nine lives and he always bounces
back.
“This is the first time it’s shocked us all and it’s really
worried everyone.”
The father-of-two had to be evacuated out of the remote
location after the freak accident before he was flown to Royal
Perth Hospital for medical treatment.
Etc.
He is set to make a full recovery which is wonderful news, but I
must say, the story stopped me in my tracks. Doesn’t it seem
miraculous that these sorts of incidents don’t appear multiple
times a day in papers around the world? The best waves generally
break onto shallow reef or rock, of course, and surfers of varying
skill paddle out to try their hand from Fiji to Indonesia to west
Australia to northern Chile.
I’ve witnessed spectacular rides over the falls. I’ve also taken
some. Last month, for example, I was in southern Mexico surfing a
very fun point. The takeoff spot was sucking out behind a large
rock, all very normal etc. and fun and I got pummeled a good two
times just inches away from that very large rock, completely
mistiming the drop, without even a thought.
Aren’t you surprised that more surfers don’t break their necks,
rip their faces off, etc?
Aren’t you surprised that you have never broken your neck?
Aren’t you surprised that I’ve never broken mine?
It truly does seem like a miracle.
Mr. Wyllie seen here resting
uncomfortably.
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Stab co-founder Sam McIntosh adjusts his tie for
battle!
The boiling rage behind a pained smile is
something I’ve been addicted to as long as I can remember. It is
part of why I stuck myself into the middle of Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah,
Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, Russian mafia parties as a slightly
younger man.
Part of why I went to Mick Fanning’s North Shore Micktory party
as a slightly older man.
I love conflict and don’t think it is a bad thing but rather
something that lubes the spirit, challenges the staid narrative and
creates dramas that everyone can enjoy.
Which is part of why I crashed Stab magazine’s booth at
the Agenda trade show in Long Beach, California a few short weeks
ago. It was a sad place with only one lonely boy sitting
cross-legged on the floor but it thrilled me much. Not because of
its social failure but because I got to reconnect with Sam McIntosh
and his little biz partner mate Tom Bird and their most pained
smiles that I have ever seen in my entire life. Pained, angry,
frustrated. Hurt. Rigid.
Livid.
Oh you know some of the history between us all. You know that
BeachGrit founder Derek Rielly co-founded Stab.
You know that he brought me on more than a decade ago to write for
Stab. You know that I regularly poke fun of Stab.
And you know that Stab mostly stays publicly silent.
What you maybe don’t know is, behind the scenes Stab‘s
other co-founder 41 year-old Sam McIntosh purportedly calls surf
companies and tells them they’ll be left out of SurfStitch’s
glorious offering. Tells them that advertising on
BeachGrit will be bad for their business. In legal terms
that’s called tortious interference and very naughty, suable etc.
But all’s fair in love and war and I’ve never written about…
…until Sam went on new website The Business of
Surf and went nuclear! The interviewer asks:
Are you and him (Derek Rielly) still mates? Theres
often a few digs at STAB via Beachgrit but is it all fair in love
and war?
And Sam McIntosh responds:
I approached Derek when these stories started appearing and
told him I thought it was more damaging to him than me. But the
stories continued. So I called him. I said: “We talked about this.
You know it’s a shitty look in business talking about your ex,
yeah?”
We always had a rule not to trash talk competitors on Stab
and it served us so well.” And we made a deal. I said you will
never read a negative word about you or your business ever on Stab
– you have my word. It’s far classier for us both.”
And I’ve stood by that.
This is a gifted writer, brilliant even, 50 years old,
getting giddy with his little biz partner mate, poking holes in the
business he used to own on a public forum. This is part of the
foundation for his last big swing in business! And validation
doesn’t come in commercial success but when other veteran surf
writers like Nick Carroll roll in to throw punches! Think about
that objectively for a second: a 30-year career writing about
surfing and you’re fixated not on the world tour, or commerce, or
the environment or John John but the business you sold a decade
ago!
Little biz partner mate? Little biz partner mate?
THAT’S ME!
Little biz partner mate. Oooooooooh. I fear that Sam
misunderstood the laughs that I was making toward Stab
here, the “stories that started
appearing” the “giddiness” as
the full force of my capacity to rage.
Uh oh!
I have many stories. Many many many funny stories. And now the
cold war has turned hot. Unfortunately for Sam he mistook “online
surf publishing” for “business” and mistook his “word for truth” as
truth.
Oops.
Now it is on on.
Or as the great fighter William Tecumseh Sherman said:
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It
is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks
and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance,
for desolation. War is hell.
Welcome to paradise Stab magazine.
Welcome to paradise.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
