Whenever it's a damn drizzly October in my soul, I
imagine riding this artist's water colour of a Kelly Slater wave
pool! As submitted to the Palm Beach County in application
docs.
2019 Opening for Slater’s Florida
Pool!
By Derek Rielly
First dirt to be shucked next year!
Earlier today, while I was wrapped up in cuckold
dreams and Chas was negotiating terms for his book
Surfing and Cocaine: A Love Story with a Los Angeles
publisher, Kelly Slater announced the imminent construction of a
wave pool in Palm Beach County, Florida.
The WSL is gonna build the 600-metre long tank on 79 acres at
an inland industrial park off the Beeline Highway in
north-western Palm Beach County. It’ll have a 3000-square
metre surf club, a 1500-square metre training centre and room for
160 cars.
According to the WSL’s zoning application, “The project, named
Surf Ranch Florida, will be proposing to construct a
world-class, man-made surfing lake which will provide consistent
waves and a safe environment for public recreational and
competition purposes.”
And,
“It is anticipated that one to two events may be held on a
yearly basis attracting up to 60,000 people. The events would
be planned to be held in the summer, providing for an opportunity
to aid in tourism and fill hotel rooms in a typically slower time
of the year.”
The WSL says the project will create 307 jobs and $45
million in economic impact during construction and 236 jobs
after the build.
Slater, obvs, is thrilled.
“Now I can move back home now and surf as much as I want!”
The WSL’s multi-billionaire owner, Mr Dirk Ziff, lives a short
drive away on Sea Acres Way in North Palm Beach.
Last year, the nearby Ziff family compound (“The epitome of
opulence”) and the sixth-most expensive house in all of America
(thirty bedrooms, fifty shitters), was listed last year at
$195 million. It was reduced by thirty mill this year for a quick
sale.
An easy thirty mill hit.
And people are curious how long Ziff is gonna keep bankrolling
surfing?
Surfing mag staffers prepare attack on Surfer with
ass-tainted cake.
Fierce: More Great Surf Mag Stunts!
By Derek Rielly
Surf mags turn on surf mags! It's elegant, graceful
and entertaining!
A few days ago, Bez Buckley revived the ancient art
of gags between surf mags with a brightly executed
sledgehammer attack on The Inertia, and of which we’ve had
terrific fun with.
Cuckolding, which Bez called his brilliant hack, is an activity
I’m familiar with. One older surf writer, who was otherwise very
kind to me, cuckolded me twice.
The first cuck I caught with my own eyes. The girl, whom I was
courting, was found mounted atop the bathroom sink of the women’s
toilet at a Jan Juc bar, breasts loosed from blouse with one being
enthusiastically fed into his mouth. The second cuck was revealed
via a dramatic post-fact description from the girl and included the
words ‘unutterable ecstasy’. The writer failed on his third cuck
and I was so thrilled I married the woman.
The ancient, and surprisingly arousing art of cuckoldry aside,
Bez’s gag reminded me of other great inter surf mag gags.
Wait.
Actually it didn’t.
It reminded the BeachGrit reader Preston of other great
surf mag gags and the owner of the comment suggested placing a call
to the surf historian Matt Warshaw.
Which I did.
Warshaw reminded me of two fabulous moments, reprinted below
from the Encyclopedia of
Surfing, which you can subscribe to for a few
shekels a month or if you complain loudly enough, for whatever
pennies you can muster.
#1. First-place prank, surf industry division.
Surfing mag was tanking in 1969. Missed pub
dates, advertisers jumping ship, newly bought by a company
headquartered in Sparta, Illinois. The mag was published out
of New York—30 years before that was cool. SURFER meanwhile had
just hired intellectual stoner-poet-jokerman Drew Kampion as
editor. Drew, today, is an energetic ruralist up here in
Washington state, a lover of Whitman and God and environmental
causes. But he used to have a mean streak, and was competitive as
hell, and Surfing was a gently lofted softball for Drew to
clobber into the next time zone.
He got out an oversized padded envelope. Inside the envelope,
neat and tidy, he put a plastic-protected sheath
of reject Ron Stoner transparencies, shot at Hammond’s two
years earlier. On top of the photos he added a single-page
prose-poem titled “The Inner Tubes of Hammond’s Reef.” One passage
read:
Sleepy village / Silent sea / Silver tubes and solitude /
Waiting for the soul in me / Will my board and I travel
thee?
A little further along:
My good Karma was really working today / Karma waves / Karma
days / Karma brain in purple haze / I’ll always cherish these
days.
One more:
A wave approaches beckoning to all my skill / I, a surfer,
an artist of the sea, am drawn to its hollow bosom / Breast of the
sea / That comes to me / Whose fingers are like snow / Takes me
into her womb / Revealing secrets I must know!
On top of the slides and the text, Kampion placed a cover
letter, introducing himself as writer and photographer Dru
Anderson, along with an author photo.
Surfing bit. Hook, link, sinker. The article ran in the
July issue, five pages, without so much as a comma change. On the
contributor’s section at the front of the mag, Dru Anderson
was introduced as a writer who “gets away from traditional form.”
The author photo shows a young man, smiling broadly, with
tousled brown hair. Handsome devil. It’s SURFER founder John
Severson. They didn’t know what it was, but the surf overlords of
Sparta felt a hot breath of laughter on their necks.
#2 A week after I left the SURFER house during my last
visit to the North Shore, this would have been in the mid-‘90s, the
guys woke up to find a nice pink box of donuts on the front porch.
A young photog kissing up? Something like that. Nobody asked
questions, and a half-hour later the box was empty. On the front
porch the next morning there was a photo
of Surfing mag’s North Shore crew, lined up in a row,
bent over, donuts wedged in their butt cracks, with the pink box
laying open in the foreground. “Hope you enjoyed the donuts!” or
something like that, written on the photo. Steve Hawk told me the
story, and I was delighted. Hawk was too, even though he ate a
donut. Solid prank, and Steve’s a guy who gives credit where its
due. But for him it also it was like, Yeah, I ate a glazed
donut that was in Skip Snead’s ass—and it was totally delicious.
But you, Skip, had to go in and wash sticky glazed
sugar out of your crack. Winning by losing.
It may seem like I’m beating a dead horse here
but you have to believe me when I say that I’m totally not. I just
think it is important that we consider some important facts that
might become obscured in the Stab + The
Inertia lovers tiff.
Mostly that dolphins and surfers have a lot in common.
Stab writer Brendan Buckley brought up some wonderful
points though, mainly that dolphin and surfer brains are the same.
Let us read a passage:
On a neurological level, the reason we become addicted to
surfing is due to the chemicals your brain produces during and
after. Boring, I know. There are scientific explanations like that
for everything in life. Isn’t it better to think about love as love
rather than breaking it down into a million molecules, for
example?
Well, yes.
But the reason I bring this up is because new research
proves that our surfing soul mammals, dolphins, may ride waves for
the same reasons.
A new study conducted by the Marine Biology department at
the University of California, Santa Cruz exhibited a spike in the
part of a dolphin’s frontal lobe that processes emotion when they
ride waves. While charts have shown similar spikes when they are
chasing prey, this spike was shown when the dolphins’ behavior
wasn’t suggestive of hunting, rather when they were simply riding
waves.
I don’t think this “new study” was actually commissioned but we
don’t need it because we surfers see dolphins riding waves all the
time and know they are shredding for shredding’s sake.
Like us. Like surfers.
But would you like to know what else they do like us, like
surfers? Have water orgies!
Famed surf photographer James “Jimmicane” Wilson was recently
cruising his drone outside Lowers when he stumbled upon, you
guessed it, dolphins having a water orgy! Lowers has been the site
for many famous surfer water orgies. Who could forget… all of
them?
Not me.
We live in enlightened times don’t we though?
And raise a glass to dolphins and to surfers. To The
Inertia and to Stab.
Slàinte! And may you all stay forever young.
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Best of: The Inertia love letter to
Stab!
By Chas Smith
Love is a many splendored thing!
I’m sorry… I know this isn’t “content” but I
just can’t get enough of The Inertia‘s love quarrel letter
to Stab. I mean, am I the only one here who thinks this is
even better than a Gabriel Medina victory? Even better than 10
Gabriel Medina victories?
A quick recap.Stab wanted to contribute to its partner (like
BeachGrit contributes to Surfer) and the very funny
Brendan Buckley wrote a piece suggesting dolphin and surfer brains
are wired the same. The Inertia published. Stab
giggled while back-peddling. The Inertia got hurt and
founder Zach Weisberg wrote a letter.
Here are my favorite lines.
1) At 10:21 PM Friday night, just after I booked a flight
home to the East Coast for a funeral for a family member I love
very much, I was notified that our neighbors at Stab had played us
for fools.
2) In my estimation, life’s too short for that
nonsense.
3) We are not the guys snickering in the back corner of the
bus pointing and laughing and high-fiving at other’s
expense.
4) I was taught at a very early age that it’s not fulfilling
to shit on other people for your own amusement.
5) And while celebrating a fake contribution that slipped
through our system is a dickish thing to do, I want to thank Stab
for doing it.
6) I’m sure the sweethearts at Stab are clinking beers and
smiling at how they succeeded in making us look like
assholes.
7) Starting today, we will enforce a series of stricter
protocols for contributions, which will slow that process but will
ensure a higher caliber of quality and accuracy in our
content.
8) For too long, (surf) seemed to be dictated by a small
group of white men in Orange County obsessed with the fleeting and
vacuous nature of “cool,” which we believe undersold the rich,
diverse culture of the sport.
9) I sincerely do not give a fuck.
10) If you and your embittered shadow choose to perpetuate a
mindlessly exclusive mentality that spits on bright-eyed
participants who stand outside imaginary lines drawn in the sand,
that’s your prerogative.
11) I sincerely do not give a fuck.
12) We believe the coolest thing we can do is treat people
with kindness and respect, approach work with optimism, and pursue
things we care deeply about with curiosity and an open
mind.
13) I sincerely do not give a fuck.
14) That’s our promise.
……….I’m sorry. I am laughing so hard I can’t breathe and have to
stop….
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Portugal: “Gabriel Makes the Dead Rat
Dance!”
By Longtom
And if you think Medina can't beat John Florence at
Pipe you mad.
Can you cast your mind back to this exact moment last
year? Pyzel in tears, global jubilation, the rightful heir
claiming the throne. A feast at which “all hearts opened and all
wines flowed” etc etc.
Then Pro surfing died. Died like a dead rat. A dead stinking rat
that Rory Parker had to then cart around and try and make dance for
our amusement at the Pipeline.
Which violates the Golden Rule of surf journalism as told to me
by Nick Carroll in 1962: You can’t make a dead rat
dance.
Rory tried but in the effort he self-combusted and deserted his
post in the biggest capitulation since the Fall of Mosul.* You are
brand new to BeachGrit? Welcome comrade, as you will see
sometimes the action behind the curtain rivals that in front.
But no dead rat now. Now we go to the Pipeline with a live title
race. Pro surfing breathes a sigh of relief. I desperately wanted
to be entertained as the muted violence of a bruised Portugese sky
framed a high-energy lineup of rippy close-outs to start the Final
Day.
Violent anti-climax followed.
First Julian Wilson flubbed his way to victory against SeaBass
in a low-scoring encounter that set the tone.
The battle of the chinbeards followed. Either could have doubled
for Scott Weiland
pre-heroin. John Florence with a world title in the
offing got nothing. Then nothing and more nothing.
Kolohe squeezed out of a frothy pit for a seven. A muted crowd
expecting fireworks murmured, an online audience praying for
something like Hagler/Hearns round one – please take three minutes
and savour what competitive sport can be – got a dull
non-event maimed by the most soul-destroying phenomenon in pro
surfing: the European closeout.
Florence, the best surfer in the world and current world
champion finished the quarter final with a heat score of 3.8.
Fanning, a three-time world champion, finished with 3.17 in a
losing score to Medina.
Finally, something caught fire. Kolohe and Wilson exchanged
tube-rides and aerials, with the judges over-cooking the spread to
put the result a bridge too far away for Kolohe.
That keeps Julian in the title race as a rank outsider. Medina
brutalised Kanoa Igarashi like a hyena scavenging a carcass on the
savannah. It wasn’t pretty. It was pretty dire actually.
But not according to Joey Turpel.
According to Joe, the drama and the action was almost unbearably
exciting. It, and some of the judging – Medina got a high six
yesterday for a wave I could have easily exceeded, an aged,
semi-amateur receding hairline hetero-normative piece of shit bus
driver from Lennox Head – seemed to put us deep down the rabbit
hole into a wholly separate reality.
Now I know Hunter S Thompson is the most used and abused and
badly copied writer in the surf journalist canon* but if we could
just bring him on board as expert witness for a moment I would
be very grateful.
In his book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail,
written about the ’72 American election, he ascribes the weird and
savagely surreal behaviour of candidate Ed Muskie to a powerful
hallucinogen called Ibogaine. HST colorfully described the effect
of the drug on Muskie, “Given the known effects of ibogaine…
Muskie’s brain was almost paralyzed by hallucinations… he looked
out at the crowd and saw gila monsters instead of people”.
Is Joey Turpel seeing rainbows and spirit animals when he looks
at Portugese close-outs, Richie Porta seeing high-sixes for a
performance an intermediate could dish up? Has the common frame of
reference, the one that enables Pro Surfing to be understood, been
lost? Is it now like Wittgenstein’s famous lion, that even if it
speaks we cannot understand it?
Has Pro Surfing crossed the Ibogaine threshold? Is Joey Turpel
seeing rainbows and spirit animals when he looks at Portugese
close-outs, Richie Porta seeing high-sixes for a performance an
intermediate could dish up? Has the common frame of reference, the
one that enables Pro Surfing to be understood, been lost? Is it now
like Wittgenstein’s famous lion, that even if it speaks we cannot
understand it?
Thirteen minutes to go in the final and with Medina sitting on a
pair of fives and Wilson a pair of ones I’m pining for a Pro
Surfing Brexit.
Why can’t we be in the Mentawais or even Bali? Can you tell me
John Florence is going to get a three surfing Canggu rights or
Macaronis?
Fuck relatable conditions, fuck close-outs, I want my mind
blown. Give me 20 JJF World Titles, give me tea for the Tillerman,
steak for the sun, wine for the women who made the rain come.
Fuck relatable conditions, fuck close-outs, I want my mind
blown. Give me 20 JJF World Titles, give me tea for the Tillerman,
steak for the sun, wine for the women who made the rain come.
With the rat on life support and Medina falling on nine waves, a
sudden burst of action with five minutes to go. Julian threw a
tail-high reverse for a high four then speared the only barrel of
the final, a running left for a low six to take the lead. Medina
responded with a flurry of lefts and the final was won. Medina
takes a red hot streak and a hyper live rat ready to dance to the
Pipeline.
If you think Medina can’t beat John Florence at Pipe you
mad.
*Jokes Rory. You ain’t a real surf writer unless you get sacked
by a site or quit in the kind of blazing glory Fante describes in
The Road to Los Angeles: “I’m tickled to be leaving. I’m
sick of your drooling, elephantine hypocrisy. I’ve been wanting to
abandon this preposterous job for a week. So go straight to hell,
you dago fraud!”
**Just need to put in the canon the greatest opening line of
surf writing ever, published in The Inertia yesterday by
writer Shawna Baruh. “This morning I was called a cunt”. Bring it
to Pipe Shawna.
