Nuclear: Apple tries to kill surf!

7 years ago

Computing giant wants you to eat up calls between sets. Revolution or apocalypse?

When I was a little boy my friend’s dad took us to eat at the nautically themed Gladstones Malibu, where Sunset Boulevard meets PCH. Diners get their leftovers wrapped in the form of a gold foil duck. Clutching their shiny gastro-trophies, they head back to their red Sebring convertibles and they’re off to LAX, or Irvine or wherever.

During this lunch I heard a faint ringing coming from a box thing sitting on our table. I was awakened. This was something exciting. As my friend’s dad opened the lid, the ring got louder.

“Hello,” he mumbled. I believe he was a psychiatrist to the stars.

I looked at my small friend in a new light. His dad had just taken a call at our table. I was in awe.

That call was a welcome distraction from the odor of tired lobster tank water and the dim hum of seagull cries. That call was the greatest thing to happen to our lunch. It broke the mold!

I had a similar moment making my first call from an airplane. Why not? Certainly better than staring at a bad movie on a tiny low-resolution screen. Calls on airplanes. A bit of an intrusion at first. But, OK. I could deal with that.

Why?

Because I knew there was one place left on earth where a phone call could never happen. The one sacred temple where I would never have to listen to a guy named Kirk from sales walk through his Powerpoint with the VP of Purchasing.

Until now.

So I’m an Apple guy. The design, the aesthetic. The form, the function. I’m all in.

But to tout the answering of a phone call while surfing?! Have they no concept of the magic of humanity? The bliss of nature?

I die.

We all die.

This reeks of Microsoft.

Targus.

Excel spreadsheets.

Bluetooth earpieces.

Polo shirts.

FILA Skele-Toes.

SUP.

The water cooler.

Conference calls.

Everything that is bad.

And what will happen next?! Will the waters be patrolled by Jan from HR?

Will there be violations issued for things?

Ticketing perhaps?

If so, then we must fight fire with fire. I hence propose a county ordinance to stem this apocalyptic tide.

Violation 3357 (c) (ii): Placing or Receiving Phone Call While Surfing, Swimming, Paddling, or Stand Up Paddling, While In Ocean.

No person shall engage in a telephonic communication, either through the placing or receiving of such transmission, while engaged in the act of surfing, swimming, paddling, stand up paddling, or any other activity performed while in an oceanic body of water.

Such act shall be punishable by $12,500 fine and slow death.

No Apple, we will not answer that call.

I pray.

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At the beginning of the trailer for the film a voice says: “Surfing is not relegated to the shoreline. It’s not just a breaking wave over reef. It’s anything that brings you into that moment when you’re completely there and truly alive.” Is going to the strip club and getting bottle service and many lap dances surfing? What about chicken fighting?

Is a lap dance (with bottle service) surfing?

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

New Kai Lenny film says maybe yes!

Kai Lenny’s new film Paradigm Lost drops onto Red Bull’s website on October 2, less than one week away, and are you excited? Did you feast your eyes on the trailer all 4K and Red Bully? It certainly is richly colored and the full range of Kai’s many talents are on display.

He is uniquely gifted no doubt.

And while I very much hope the film is a success let us use it, for one quick moment, to discuss the idea of relativism because who don’t like an 8th grade philosophy discussion first thing in the morning?

At the beginning of the trailer for the film a voice says:

“Surfing is not relegated to the shoreline. It’s not just a breaking wave over reef. It’s anything that brings you into that moment when you’re completely there and truly alive.”

And is this true for our current time? Oh I know that “surfing” has been used for sometime in conjunction with sleeping on people’s couches, being on the internet, etc. but do our dictionaries now really read:

Surfing: Anything that brings you into that moment when you’re completely there and truly alive?

Is going to the strip club and getting bottle service and many lap dances surfing?

What about chicken fighting?

Do you think Donald J. Trump would be angry at this new turn if he caught wind of it? Do you think he would take to his red Bully Pulpit and decry the ambiguity of language? Would he scream that we’re all too politically correct to call “surfing” an activity done on waves while riding a foam and fiberglass surfboard that has either three or four fins and a pointy nose?

Has our culture slipped far down the hole to hell that cultural warriors have been warning about for 50 years?

I’ll answer for Jerry Falwell Jr.

Probably.

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Jordy Smith, according to Kolohe Andino (the most diaphanous of all San Clemente's nymphets), is goofy, humble and innocent!

Watch: “The boy with the guinea pig face!”

By Derek Rielly

7 years ago

World #1 Jordy Smith looses short film! Scrutinise here!

I can imagine many of Jordy Smith’s peers would like to take a running kick at his rump. For, even at a canter, running at, let’s say fifty percent, the six-foot-three South African with the guinea pig face has swept easily into the world title lead.

This ten-minute short from Jordy’s masters at O’Neill, note the lingering logo shots on wetsuit leg, the affixing of wetsuit closures in macro focus and so on, reveals his freesurfing at his new home in San Clemente, and in South Africa, where he was born, as well as his pair of tens at Jeffrey’s Bay.

Although well-watched already, the vision of his old friend Chad Du Toit hollering “Tens all day long!” and his pappy Graham looking as happy as a fat boy with his own ice-cream mixer, still excites.

I think this movie, which is actually called Beyond the Tour, is a transaction you should complete.

For although there are no surprises, there are very few surfers in the world with the native talent of Jordy Smith.

And did you know he turns thirty next year?

How the years fly…

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Revealed: Jordy Smith gets manicures!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

What is your position on male pampering?

Stab’s Stab in the Dark feature is a very exciting event, don’t you think so? The concept is simple. Eleven shapers shape anonymously for one professional surfer who then rides the boards and chooses his favorite and that shaper wins… applause. And if the surfer accidentally chooses a different shaper than the one he normally rides then the surfer wins… shitty boards for the next year.

This year’s event was shot in Indonesia and the surfer was supposed to be a secret but highly paid sleuths guessed it was one Jordy Smith from South Africa. Current world number 1.

I, anyhow, read this morning’s piece and looked at the pictures and one thing stood out to me above all others.

Jordy Smith definitely gets manicures.

Look at those nail beds, look at the uniformity of trim, look at the glisten on the surface. Most certainly buffed by loving Vietnamese hands.

And what is your position on male manicures? The only I’ve ever had were from my four-year-old daughter so don’t really know if they are amazing or not but, I’ll admit, generally look down on men with shiny nails unless they are rappers or ladies’ shoes salesmen.

Am I wrong to look down? Should I begin to get?

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Extravagant: Surf with your chef!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

A top-tier experience you have to see to believe!

I often read about things that wealthy people do and think “Hmmmm.” Like they get massages and their golf bags Fedexed by their secretaries and stuff. And I think “If I wasn’t a man of the people would I do these things?” The answer is usually no. I don’t like massages because my arm pops out of socket and Michael Ciaramella used to be my secretary but went to work for Stab and so even if I wanted to Fedex my golf bag somewhere, which I don’t because I don’t have one, I no longer have someone who can do for me.

Being the people is basically a full time job and it is difficult.

Sometimes though, I read things that wealthy people do and think, “I would pay good, hard-earned money not to do that.” Like surfing with the man who just prepared my breakfast. Let us read about this extravagance in the Los Angeles Times.

Go surfing with the chef at Park Hyatt Aviara Resort, Golf Club & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. The resort offers a three-day outing that takes guests from the kitchen to the beach as Pierre Albaladejo, the hotel’s executive chef, shares his two biggest passions: cooking and surfing.

The program, called Surfing With the Chef, begins with a morning in the kitchen with Albaladejo, who’s from the village of Dax in southwestern France. The chef will prepare a personalized breakfast before giving you surf lessons at a Carlsbad beach.

The day concludes with dinner prepared by the chef and served toes-in-the-sand-style on the beach.

The next day, participants visit San Clemente to tour legendary surfer Greg Noll’s Surfboard Workshop, where they’ll collaborate with designers on a customized board. Noll’s boards, new and vintage, are considered the best around.

The cost is $3,500 per person, including a two-night stay, surf lessons with Albaladejo and your own Noll Surfboard to take home.

I’m sure Greg Noll surfboards are very fine but I would pay $300 not to do any of this. What about you? How much would you pay to not do this? And do you think they will offer this service at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch when it opens to the “public?”

Will they keep the ranch theme and serve t-bone steak and bourbon mashed taters?

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Eat beach grit spam!