A beautiful texture, lingering notes of Pacific, with hints of bramble, blackberry, boysenberry, Don Cherry and Frankenberry.

Wanted: Surfers’ Fecal Samples!

Steve Rees

By

Relief and scientific advancement!

Growing up, some of us thought that the best way to Live the Life was to shirk the demands of school.

Others see more than a swell or two ahead.

Take, for example, BeachGrit’s  Chas Smith, a degree in advanced linguistics and a former UCLA teacher, or Aaron James, author of Surfing with Sartre. James holds a PhD from Harvard.

And now, Cliff Kapono, a surfing doctoral candidate at University of California, San Diego.

Cliff, like Chas and Dr. James, uses his job as a foil to sustain a life of surfing. Cliff’s little scam includes traveling around the world — serendipitously to serious breaks — to do his research for the “good of mankind.”

Recently, Cliff was interviewed by the New York Times. 

Let’s examine.

LA JOLLA, Calif. — On a recent trip, Cliff Kapono hit some of the more popular surf breaks in Ireland, England and Morocco. He’s proudly Native Hawaiian and no stranger to the hunt for the perfect wave. But this time he was chasing something even more unusual: microbial swabs from fellow surfers.

Mr. Kapono, a 29-year-old biochemist earning his doctorate at the University of California, San Diego, heads up the Surfer Biome Project, a unique effort to determine whether routine exposure to the ocean alters the microbial communities of the body, and whether those alterations might have consequences for surfers — and for the rest of us.

Mr. Kapono has collected more than 500 samples by rubbing cotton-tipped swabs over the heads, mouths, navels and other parts of surfers’ bodies, as well as their boards. Volunteers also donate a fecal sample.

Did you guess? (Hint: It’s the last paragraph. The whole last paragraph.)

While we all applaud Kapono for making waves part of his work, we probably wouldn’t want to shake his hand.

“Volunteers also donate a fecal sample?”

How far is too far to Live the Life?

My friends and I use to frequent a research hospital on weekends to finance trips to Tamarindo. Charming blue-checked medical gown, some TV, ping-pong gambling, a couple of injections of whatever and a $750 check to cash on Monday.

Easy money. 

But can you imagine waiting on the beach to ask, “Hey, can I have some of your poop?”

And, therefore, the question of the day is, what would you do for cash?

How far have you gone? 

 

Too bad Gerry ain't regular.
Too bad Gerry ain't regular. | Photo: WSL

Breaking: Kelly Slater makes a left!

Chas Smith

By

His eponymous wave pool also swings the other way!

The World Surf League just released footage of Mr. Pipeline, Gerry Lopez, having a languid little cruise in Lemoore, California. Barrels n turns n such. 100 miles from the nearest beach. 500 miles from the nearest barrel. 1000 miles from Bend, Oregon. 5000 miles from the North Shore.

Let’s turn to the League for a description.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYd91jfguKs/?taken-by=kellyslater

When Kelly Slater and his crew completed construction on their latest version of the wave, they revealed a perfect left. When it came time to deciding who would ride the first wave, Slater knew exactly who he wanted to give the honor to. “I really wanted Gerry to ride the first left, just to say thanks for your commitments and what you’ve given to surfing over the years.”

Gerry, who’s been operating on a higher plane for decades now, is a longtime believer in tapping into surf energy wherever it can be found, whether that’s a speed reef in Indonesia, a river wave near his house in Bend, Oregon, or the Surf Ranch. So what did he think after riding a few gems?

“That’s the future, bro,” he told Slater afterward. “That’s it man.”

I have nothing to add at this time, though am chasing leads and… interviews (just kidding. I’m mixing a cocktail). Tomorrow we’ll discuss in gret depth (just kidding. I’ll be hungover).

In truth though, is this really the future?

Like really really?

Like really really really really really?

More as it develops (just kidding. Unless “as it develops” refers to my alcoholism).

A smile money can't buy!
A smile money can't buy!

Endorsement: The full nude surf change!

Chas Smith

By

Want to feel free? It's easy!

This morning I went for a surf on my new asymmetrical surfboard from Album. The waves were small, walled and dumpy. I had a fantastic time and will discuss the revelation of asymmetry soon but in the meantime we have something very important to consider.

The pre-surf change.

I had forgotten my towel, you see, and stood there behind my car in black APC jeans looking at my trunks. What to do? Get my car, close the doors and try to be discreet? Use my shirt as a makeshift towel? Not surf?

Then I thought back to the very first time I visited Derek Rielly in Australia. I had come to write something for Stab and Derek and Sam picked me up at the airport, said there were waves and we were going surfing. Nothing but nothing beats washing off a transpacific flight like salt water so I was happy. We went to some beach south, or maybe north, of Sydney, got out of the car and the waves looked fun.

Derek proceeded to get all the way naked in order to get into his wetsuit. I can’t remember what Sam did but I do remember thinking “Wow! Australia is so much more progressive! So much less uptight than America!”

I assumed that everyone naked changed in Australia and only realized this was not the case days later when, in Bondi’s carpark watched Derek get full nude again and watched the upset stares from passersby.

In any case, Derek was progressive and as I stood behind my car I thought, “Fuck towels (except Leus who make an exceptional product)” and got nude myself.

I stood for a minute, out in the open and felt… free.

Then I went out and had a fantastic time in slop.

When I came in I saw all manner of men changing from wetsuit or trunk to pant or short and vice versa. Some had normal towels. Others had long dumb panchos. Some were standing on mats with their towels. Others were standing on the street with their panchos.

If they only knew what true liberty really felt like. If they only knew that shame needn’t control their lives. If only we could all be free.

You won’t find me in a towel again (unless its by Leus). I encourage you to be bold too.

Question: Why does surfing hate tennis?

Chas Smith

By

Nothing raises a surfer's hackles like the racket and the ball!

One long ten days ago I asked, right here, who is surfing’s natural enemy? We all need an enemy. Someone to kick against. Someone to really oooooooooooh just hate. And as I thought about surfing it felt like we didn’t have one.

You, of course, were so helpful suggesting mental health, work, chaffing, self, $2 parking, etc. and I would gladly accept any of these and form committees to combat and write hate messages about on my surfboard. But just this morning as I sat down with my delivered daily copy of Olympics.org that surfing chose an enemy six short years ago and has been chaffing against ever since.

Tennis!

Oh you recall the original harangue. It is in our hall of fame!

And since then I have read various passive-aggressive bashes against tennis culminating in surfing’s Olympic ambassador, the reason our boys will fight for gold in three medium years. Reef’s ex-owner, Argentina’s own Fernando Aguerre just today!

He told Olympics.org:

“We had paddled out but there were no waves,” Aguerre said. “We kind of figured out that waves were going to come at some point but we didn’t really know when they were going to come because they were out of our control.”

“Then he got elected and started talking about Agenda 2020 and it was approved and then I realised this looked like real waves.”

Suddenly things began to tumble into place. First, in 2015 surfing was unanimously voted on to the programme for the 2019 Pan American Games, in Lima, Peru. And then came the big one, in Rio de Janeiro, on the eve of the 2016 Olympic Games.

The “real work” has started now and the high is, for Aguerre, clearly still intoxicating.

“Now they (young people) don’t need to become tennis players or track and field athletes, they can be surfers and Olympians,” the Argentine said with obvious pride.

But I don’t get it. What makes tennis so bad? It’s played outside, the scoring is not subjective, the men are handsome, the women are beautiful, the money is good. It’s both easy to understand and enjoyable to watch.

Is surfing just jealous? Is that why?

Help me understand!

This is the dream, of course. Coiled up with a pretty thing in a timber accented van, tailgate opened to reveal startling vista.

Watch: #Vanlife for old men!

Derek Rielly

By

Not all surfers living in vans are pretty things blogging for cash.

The images of #Vanlife that ripple across our little telephone screens ignite an insatiable fire, equal parts lust, travel, freedom.

Do you remember when The New Yorker wrote about all these pretty surfers laying around undressed in camper vans, doors open to reveal startlingly beautiful vistas?

Like this?

The reality of #vanlife, of life, is vastly different.

If, at a certain point, and age, you’re living in a van, it’s not because you blog for cash and have a gorgeous thing to share it with.

It ain’t #van life. It’s living in a van. No hashtags.

The job disappears. You get divorced. Maybe you make a bad decision, get in fight, a lover’s spat turns into a court case, and you spend a year or so in the can.

All the money goes. It ain’t easy to cover rent. So you figure you’ll spend a few weeks in your car until the storm passes and life rights itself.

But it doesn’t.

And then you start to like the freedom that only hitting the bottom can bring. Work when necessary, as little as possible if we’re going to be honest, and days spent swept up by the ocean, not by the office cube.

Like Bob, here, who lives in the most rudimentary of vans and calls the Avalon beachfront carpark home.

I wouldn’t call this film an inspiring call to arms, more a terrifying example of what happens if you don’t get your shit together while you’re young.

And, yet, as a document of a man trying to get by in life as best he can, handed lemons, makes the metaphorical lemonade stand, it really is quite beautiful.

 

Photo: Justin Jay/@justinjayphoto
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