Listen: Kelly Slater talks death, raising
Chihuahuas!
By Derek Rielly
One and a half hours of Kelly Slater!
Two days, two podcasts. I’m starting to feel
it. I still believe podcast broadcasters need to cut and shave
their interviews a little more, think talkback radio instead of
meandering late-night conversation, but as muzak, it works.
Today, I cleaned the house, edited a story on the noted shaper
Maurice Cole for The Surfer’s
Journaland incited a fight between a
cavoodle and a baby French bulldog whose big head had got stuck
between the pickets of my backyard fence, all while listening to
Kelly Slater on Firewire’s podcast, The Wire.
In this episode, Kelly, who owns Firewire
remember, meanders, but does so in a compelling and
likeable manner, on subjects as diverse as death (Kelly recites two
good stories about a woman who was found frozen on a doorstep but
was brought back to life, another is about a brain-damaged child
prodigy golfer) Bill Murray learning to surf at low-tide Padang,
his Gamma surfboard, Outerknown, Dane Reynolds, the damn busted
foot and so on.
“So many people I know have died. In all sorts of different
ways, two committed suicide last year, lost a lot of friends to
cancer, random things, murder, disease, car accidents,
drowning.”
“Is drowning ecstasy? I’ve heard that but how does anyone truly
know? I spoke to Aaron Gold and
he didn’t say that. I talked to Evan
Geiselman and he didn’t remember anything.”
“At Pebble Beach, Bill Murray would stay on the green and sing
Beach Boys songs to me.”
Listen here!
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Analysis: John crushes Gabriel Medina!
By Chas Smith
Who is the world's most popular surfer? Let's dig
in to real numbers!
I am usually not a stat nerd but when it comes
to the unmeasurable like “popularity” or “likability” I can’t get
enough. Maybe its the artificiality of applying the science of
numbers to something so fleeting. Maybe its the codification of “in
crowd/out crowd.” Maybe its just another tool to make some people
feel quantifiably better than other people. I don’t know but
whatever it is the boys over at empireave.com crunch the
information and give me what I needs.
Like today!
They went and examined the “fans” for the top ten most popular
surfers in the world for 2015, 2016 and the first six months of
2017.
Shall we look?
Any surprises for you? Maybe that Shane Doz cracks the list?
Maybe how “popular” Mick Fanning was but how his rate of growth is
showing steep decline? Maybe Kelly Slater’s steadiness?
Gabriel Medina appears to be king of all surfers. He has as many
“fans” as the entire rest of the entire list combined. Are you
amongst them? I think probably not and I think you might feel a
little sad for the second runner up but best surfer in the entire
world John John Florence.
Do you feel a little sad for him?
Well don’t!
If there is one thing social media has taught me since the
founding of our little BeachGrit it is that big numbers
might make people feel good but the real art is in engagement. How
do the people respond to the material you share?
And cue the engagement slide!
Booya!
John John Florence has almost twice the engagement as anyone
else. Gabs, on the other hand, falls dead last.
Scientifically what can we deduce from these hard numbers?
People who like Gabriel Medina tend to be shallow and prone to
distraction.
People who like John John hang on his every full-bodied
turn.
If we could actually invest in professional surfers I would mark
Gabs as a “sell” and John as a “buy.”
Don’t you wish we could actually invest in professional
surfers?
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Are you: A Kook or Tom Curren?
By Derek Rielly
Podcast follies with David Scales and Chas
Smith…
Recently, BeachGrit principal BeachGrit Chas Smith and
broadcaster David Lee Scales made the fourth of their
bi-weekly podcasts.
As I may have said before, podcasts are an oddly unabbreviated
medium where length seems to trump content, the longer the
better.
As enthralled I was to Rory Parker’s West Coast baritone, and
back when he was a contributing editor to this website, after
twenty minutes I was headed for the exits. Where print, and online,
demands a ruthless edit, for even one misplaced word will be
pounced upon, podcasts seem to be a modern
stream-of-consciousness.
Unformed thoughts, thinking aloud are native characteristics of
the podcast extending thirty minutes of good interview beyond an
hour.
Oh, but then the commute, the trip to the mountains, down the
coast. Kendrick gets you so far. Since falling asleep ain’t the
option, I’ve come to live on these things.
I’ve thrown David and Chas’ shows on back to back to back and I
find that the queer lassitude of Chas is the perfect foil for
David’s spring blossom, fierce-about-everything persona.
In this episode, which was recorded at Album Surf in San
Clemente, California, Matt Parker loans Chas an asymmetrical board
and explains he design theory and why it’ll help Chas shred harder
than ever. David and Chas then discuss purchasing and reviving the
greatest surf brand of all time, whether or not puka shells are
ever acceptable, punching your heroes in the face, naming your chid
Barrel (yes, someone did), and a Power Rankings of B-list
pro surfer’s wives.
The highlight, of course, is Kook or Curren.
Click below etc.
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Yemen: War in Heaven!
By Chas Smith
Chapter 4: Boys arrive in the land of knives and
dinner jackets.
(I am writing a series about Yemen because what is currently
happening there is terrible beyond. My inaction disgusts me and so
I am going to introduce you to to the country because… the place,
people, culture all deserve to be saved. Catch up, if you wish, on
the links below…)
At this moment in history Sana’a, Yemen’s
capital, is a prototypical den of human despair. Skeletal children
peer through photojournalist lenses. Fathers weep over dead
daughters surrounded by dust and rubble. Mothers die of cholera
hooked up to saggy IV bags. Saudi bombs, sold to them by the United
States, explode hospitals, orphanages, schools. 125 today. 276 dead
tomorrow. We, all of us, too busy, too inundated, to care. Last
year Venezuela, the year before that Sudan, perpetually Haiti.
Misery is numbing.
But as my British Airways flight began to descend from Los
Angeles to Sana’a International via London almost 15 years ago I
was glued to the window.
Enthralled.
I had no idea what we would find. Had no idea if there was surf
or if we’d be able to get to it. No idea if we actually had visas
to enter the country. But it was an adventure and adventure for its
own sake is valuable enough. If we succeeded then great. If we
failed then we would do so spectacularly. Or at least that’s what I
would tell Sam George if Yemen’s security services allowed phone
calls from immigration jail.
And then we broke through the clouds and the city sprayed before
us in its earthen glory. And then the pilot barked something in
English about preparing to land and then Arabic.
And then the wheels skidded onto the tarmac.
J., N. and I gathered our surplus military backbacks and headed
out into the… relatively cool? It was to be the first surprise of
ten thousand. The expectation when landing in the middle east
during the month of June is blazing heat. Cairo in June is
unbearable. Dubai in June is a few degrees cooler than the sun.
Satan himself vacates Djibouti from June through November.
But Sana’a was cool. Pleasant. And I had not taken into account
its elevation. The city rests at a comfortable 7000 feet above sea
level and boasts summer highs of 78 and lows of 63. I adjusted the
collar on my Op Classics button-up, winked at J. though my
wrap-around Spy shades and felt ready for whatever fate would
bring.
I don’t recall any other foreigners on that flight and we
shuffled behind the locals toward the single story terminal. Inside
men wearing floor length dresses, thick woolen dinner jackets giant
belts with even bigger curved knives attached jostled up against
the immigration desk. J., N. and I stood off to the side. There was
not a woman to be seen. We decided to jostle too even though
woefully underdressed.
And then we were at the front, pushing our dark blue American
passports at a man with a giant wad of tobacco* in his cheek. He
stared at them, thumbed their pages, looked back at us with a blank
look, thumbed their pages again, looked up and said, “Where’s your
visa?” in Arabic. J. muttered that ours were being taken care of by
someone important in his formal UCLA Arabic. I probably added
something in my laughably broken Egyptian Arabic. The man was not
amused.
We retreated while he gestured angrily toward his boss and the
two of them incredulously flipped though our passports together. We
looked at each other and felt the sort of comedic helplessness that
strikes any traveler who dares venture outside a packaged tour.
Suddenly, a very handsome military man pushed through a door and
marched straight up to us. In perfect English he said his name was
Khaled, he was there on behalf of H., and apologized for being
late. His uniform was immaculate. So was his Don Johnston
stubble/moustache combination. Arab military men love the Don
Johnston stubble/moustache combination.
He strode over to the immigration officers, grabbed our
passports, gesticulated wildly then walked back over to us.
“Do you have any bags?”
We told him we did and he pushed us through a side door and into
the baggage claim area/entrance hall. I looked back at the
immigration officers. One was slightly incredulous. The other
seemed indifferent.
Khaled stood next to us while our two giant surfboard coffins
and cooler filled with film were pushed out. We gathered them, he
escorted us to a newer Toyota Landcruiser and had a taxi put our
coffins one-third in the trunk, two-thirds hanging into the exotic
wilds.
And then we were speeding down a wide boulevard with many
pictures of the president waving and many military trucks and some
donkeys. Khaled explained that H. had been delayed in Dubai for a
few days but that he wanted to see us before we left Sana’a and so
was taking us to an apartment.
I was glued to the window, taking it all in, the gingerbread
houses, the men in dresses with dinner jackets and curved knives,
the no women, the mosques, the mosques, the mosques. Taking
everything in until we screeched to a halt in front of a modest
three story building two miles outside the old town. Khaled
escorted up to a three room apartment that felt like the lap of
luxury to boys that thought $5,000.00 was a fortune. He said he
would be seeing us soon and left.
And we were in Yemen.
Without passports.
*I would learn later that it was not tobacco but qat. An almost
perfect drug.
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Quiz: What’s the best/worst board you’ve
ever owned?
By Derek Rielly
Giddy highs, depressive lows.
Some years ago, and just before discovering Matt
Biolos, I was en thrall to a surfboard shaper whose
designs were famous for their experimentation.
Because I occupied a position within the media where the
occasional favourable story could be dripped, perhaps he even
viewed me as a friend, I would, for a cost price of three hundred
dollars, receive custom hand-shapes.
One board, I remember, convinced me I’d mastered surfing.
Where to next, I wondered? A new sport? The tour?
This feeling was short-lived, of course, and never returned.
But, oh, those dimensions, those magic pre-literage dimensions:
six-one, eighteen and five-eighths, two and five sixteenths,
fourteen inches at the hip, a flat bottom curve under the front
foot and into a slight double tween the fins.
I chased that feeling over and over from this shaper but never
came close to replicating the feeling of absolute mastery of man
over board. As if to punish me for my hubris, the boards became
increasingly harder to ride until, one day at Huntington Beach, I
told my wife I wouldn’t be coming in until I rode a wave properly.
Determination has never been my strong point, when the going gets
tough, quit, is generally my motto, but that day, I had a problem
to solve.
That was at one pm. At eight she was roaming the beach in the
dark asking the last surfers coming in, if they’d seen a guy still
out there.
I think I rode sixty waves that day and didn’t come close to a
satisfactory experience.
From the best board I’d ever ridden to the worst. Same shaper.
Same design theories.
These days, I know what works for me. Biolos shapes, mostly, the
all-time best board I’d ever owned was one of the early round-nose
fish, although a Slater Designs Sci-Fi made in Carlsbad just before
the big fire has been a revelation.
I have an echo chamber of boards, all low-rockered, wide, thin.
My ability to surf in the pocket has completely atrophied but every
time I catch a wave I can get a little buzz on.
For me,
Best board. Five-nine round nose fish by Lost.
Shaped by the Hawaiian Brian Bulkley while on a working holiday at
Pukas Surfboards in Spain. Narrower than is the norm now (19 7/8″)
and a vicious little pulled-in tail.
Worst board: A radical front-foot vee into
a deep, deep concave underneath the fins. I was surfing at Lennox
one day at little Dean Morrison paddled over to talk.
Yours, he said.
I surfed like I was riding on the back of a distressed bull, up,
down, up, down, before vaulting the horns. I could’ve cried. I
repeated the process three times.