Failed online retailer's innovative approach to
biz!
You know the old joke. How do you make a
million dollars in the stock market? Start with two!
SurfStitch, one of the Australian stock exchanges’
worst-performing IPO’s in recent memory, who is currently facing
class actions for hundreds of millions of dollars and is in
administration and a trading halt after its share price collapsed
from two bucks to six cents, today continued to double-down on its
innovative buy-high-sell-low strategy.
You’ll remember that Stab and Magic Seaweed,
bought for millions, were sold for
pennies.
“We see Surfdome as being very complementary to SurfStitch,”
said the company’s founder Justin Cameron at the time. “We are now
the No 1 player in all the areas we operate.”
The other founder of SurfStitch, the
slightly-less-photogenic Lex Pedersen, celebrated his recent
release from the company he created by helping to launch Periscope,
a “strategic, digital business delivering world class strategy,
consulting, infrastructure and services to ecommerce. Through
vision, expertise, experience & people we help our partners
e-commerce better. Our goal is to make every partnership
priceless.”
Priceless!
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Married: Surfer and BeachGrit!
By Chas Smith
A union they never saw coming!
It is the end of the work day in Southern
California, the sun golden and dappled. The Mexican gardeners
blowing leaves from driveway to driveway then back to driveway. I
am sitting with a cold Stolichnaya and coconut water. Refreshing my
weary soul.
Would you like to pull up a chair and refresh your weary soul
too? Great. There is more than enough for the both of us and I have
something to tell you. A revelation. A love story.
And it features Todd Prodanovich. Surfer magazine’s
editor-in-chief Todd Prodanovich. Do you remember when I wrote lots
of mean things about him here? Do you remember when I wrote that he
had red hair and called him Todd Marinovich and… ummm… etc?
Well I was wrong (about everything except his red hair). I was
so very wrong.
I considered my one-sided war with Mr. Prodanovich whilst on the
cobbled stone at Trestles. I thought, “I have never met Todd
Prodanovich for myself and have thrown many invectives his way.
Many rude invectives about his hair color and possibly once being
the quarterback for the Oakland Raiders etc. This is not the way
that the people behave. The people are generous of spirit. The
people only judge after a full accounting.” And so I invited
Surfer’s dear leader to a drink.
He accepted.
Can you even believe?
I couldn’t to be quite honest. It is rare for for a man who has
been ruthlessly and uninvitedly dragged through digital mud to
respond. Zach Weisberg wouldn’t even take a picture next to me.
But Todd showed up at a very dark bar and drank gin and tonics.
I drank unfortunate beer. We talked. We talked and talked and
talked about surf, about love, about relationships, about his
iconic family, about the future.
We had so much fun that we drank again one week later downtown
San Diego, this time both of us on choice mescals and we talked
some more and do you know what happened?
And also toast me n Todd. And that cute waitress with a million
dollar smile. Things are going to get very fun.
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France Day 1: “Julian Wilson choked
out!”
By Longtom
Professional surfing is back with surprising highs
and unsurprising lows!
What do you believe in my friends?
Existentially. God? Dead.
Sure, it’s taking a while to bury the body but deady bones. The
Ocean? Even though the transcendent Steph Gilmore told us the ocean
is magnetic, now we know the Not-Ocean is the future.She said so.
Liberalism, humanism, secularism, communism, feminism blah blah?
All about to be crushed under the heel of techno-utopianism and
algorithms. It’s a done deal, shipmates.
The cruellest shattering of illusion? Now we can’t even believe
in the perfectly meaningless entertainment of watching fit
young(ish) men and gals gyrating on waves for our pleasure. Head
judge Richie Porte has confirmed that the magnificent broadcast
from the WSL (Speakers’ enduring and crowning achievement), all
those glorious slo-mo’s and different angles, are nothing more than illusions offering
unreliable testimony with no relation to actual reality. He said
so.
What the fuck is real now that Pro Surfing has declared war on
reality? Sharks? Opioids? Waitresses?
You know the sound of gallic indifference? A shrug of the
shoulders and the deflating tyre through pursed lips:
pfffftttt. That was the first four heats of the Quik Pro
France held in new swell on a gloomy Atlantic as wobbly as fresh
set gelatine.
Enter Italo Ferreira, with the charisma and machismo of an
Australian fast bowler on a 70’s tour of the West Indies. He threw
ham on a rye baguette at the French sky on his opening wave, a huge
rotation landed clean as a whistle to underscore his critical
underdog status for CT 2017. Not just criminally underscored at
crucial junctures but misunderstood, by Pottz in particular. Martin
thinks he sees something but sees nothing more than his own
misperceptions when it comes to Italo.
John Florence answers back with a straight air sticking a thorny
landing and using what he termed “composure” to start hacking away
at clean french walls to overtake Italo. Two thoughts: 1. Thanks be
to Allah that accidental champion Keanu Asing didn’t upset Florence
again and 2. there will only be one true and unassailable travesty
come the ASP banquet at Turtle Bay this year, and it won’t be Kelly
Slater’s dress sense. It’ll be someone other than John John
Florence hoisting the World Title trophy skywards. I will lose my
composure if that happens.
I tend to think of the European leg as the hardest slog for
spectating, with the French myth in particular as one of the worst
oversold hype jobs in the surf world. More often than not it’s
brutal closeouts and low percentage dross winning heats. Not today.
By Jordy’s heat the sun was shining, spray rainbowing seaward of
groomed walls….buttery. Dreamy. Jordy put his body into it like a
springbok flanker, translating body mass into displaced water, for
a convincing win.
Everyone has their weaknesses. Big Jordy’s is heavy water,
Gabriel Medina has sleepy starts to the season and a fiery temper
that throws him off balance. Mine is waitresses. I’d swap all the
qat in Yemen for a sharp tongued , snaggle toothed waitress with a
well thumbed copy of Simone De Beauvoir in a rucksack who looks
like she’d been messing where she shouldn’t be messing. French or
Southern Californian. Oh I’m only speaking theoretical, friends. I
have my gal and my keikis and I wouldn’t risk that love for all the
waitresses in the world. That is one thing I share with Joel
Parkinson. We keep tight with our fams.
Parko has gone greybeard but he still laid down the smoothest,
most classical arcs. Diary of the working man as artist, the Joel
Parkinson Documentary will be ready for theatrical release Fall
2019. Investors welcome. In the interim, he proceeds.
Rewinding, Gabe Medina applied lethal force to sculpted french
beachbreaks, very much underscored on a final wave that didn’t
affect the result to escort Leo Fioravanti and Jeremy Flores to
round two. Toledo shuffled off after an indifferent heat in pain
with a hip/rib injury that spells the end of his Title
aspirations.
Seabass got shacked in the shorebreak, Ian Gouveia plugged away
and Ace surfed better than Kolohe and Zeke in a thirty minute
period in the south of France. The Lofty Backhand Float was the
manoeuvre du jour.
Twelve heats and not one mention of The People. The Outsider has
become the most coveted position in surf writing, in fact the
default position – Je suis L’Etranger – a stance I
look upon with wry amusement. Sure, it’s not just surfing and surf
writing, Trump took the Whitehouse playing it. The cultural
takeover was complete when Joey Turpel referred to a non-descript
ride from Connor O’Leary as a “working man’s wave”. Ladies and
gentlemen, our work is done. Whats happening with the WSL/media
boycott? I never got the memo. (Ed’s note: It is on for the
final’s day unless otherwise noted.)
Ps: Rnd two. Marc Lacomare chokes out a listless Julian
Wilson.
Owen Wright knocks out the last year’s winner Keanu Asing. I am
relieved. Not because I have anything against Asing. It’s just one
less honest meat and potato slugger to knock out John Florence. I’m
a traitor to the people because I loathe the honest slugger.
Fade to unconsciousness.
Quiksilver Pro France Round 1 Results:
Heat 1: Stuart Kennedy (AUS) 12.00, Adriano de Souza (BRA) 10.77,
Conner Coffin (USA) 6.33
Heat 2: Nat Young (USA) 11.00, Bede Durbidge (AUS) 9.17, Owen
Wright (AUS) 7.20
Heat 3: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 13.77, Wiggolly Dantas (BRA) 12.50,
Josh Kerr (AUS) 10.76
Heat 4: Ethan Ewing (AUS) 15.57, Caio Ibelli (BRA) 15.33, Julian
Wilson (AUS) 9.13
Heat 5: John John Florence (HAW) 15.67, Italo Ferreira (BRA) 15.60,
Keanu Asing (HAW) 5.10
Heat 6: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 16.10, Marc Lacomare (FRA) 12.70, Kanoa
Igarashi (USA) 10.47
Heat 7: Joan Duru (FRA) 18.00, Filipe Toledo (BRA) 11.43, Miguel
Pupo (BRA) 9.14
Heat 8: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 15.86, Jeremy Flores (FRA) 15.27,
Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA) 13.26
Heat 9: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 13.20, Jack Freestone (AUS) 11.96,
Michel Bourez (PYF) 11.40
Heat 10: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 12.74, Jadson Andre (BRA) 10.74,
Connor O’Leary (AUS) 10.57
Heat 11: Ian Gouveia (BRA) 15.57, Mick Fanning (AUS) 15.27,
Frederico Morais (PRT) 12.16
Heat 12: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 15.60, Kolohe Andino (USA) 10.63,
Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 10.60
Quiksilver Pro France Round 2 Results:
Heat 1: Marc Lacomare (FRA) 13.27 def. Julian Wilson (AUS)
12.23
Heat 2: Owen Wright (AUS) 13.60 def. Keanu Asing (HAW) 11.17
Heat 3: Adriano de Souza (BRA) 15.97 def. Josh Kerr (AUS) 13.00
Heat 4: Miguel Pupo (BRA) 12.27 def. Filipe Toledo (BRA) 8.50
Heat 5: Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA) 14.60 def. Connor O’Leary (AUS)
11.87
Heat 6: Frederico Morais (PRT) 15.26 def. Jack Freestone (AUS)
11.37
Heat 7: Kolohe Andino (USA) 13.50 def. Jadson Andre (BRA) 12.60
Heat 8: Mick Fanning (AUS) 13.20 def. Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 12.84
Remaining Quiksilver Pro France Round 2
Match-Ups:
Heat 9: Michel Bourez (PYF) vs. Kanoa Igarashi (USA)
Heat 10: Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs. Italo Ferreira (BRA)
Heat 11: Conner Coffin (USA) vs.Caio Ibelli (BRA)
Heat 12: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. Wiggolly Dantas (BRA)
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Revealed: Santa Cruz’s dirty secret!
By Chas Smith
Will surf's other city be forever changed?
Santa Cruz is a fantastic town, one of
California’s greatest, with a surf history as storied as any. I
think it was two Hawaiian princes who first brought surfing to the
cold kelp and the locals took to it with gusto. Many years later we
have Steamer Lane, O’Neill, Pleasure Point, The Big Dipper,
Maverick (kind of) and methamphetamine. Surfing would be a dull
penny without Santa Cruz.
But guess what? Things may be changing for it has been revealed
that Amazon, the biggest company in the world, has opened a secret
office in Surf’s Other City and let’s read about it in CNBC:
Santa Cruz, located 75 miles south of San Francisco, is a
popular surf town best known for its nice weather and beachfront
amusement park.
But soon we may start associating the city more closely with
one of the largest tech companies in the world: Amazon.
According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, Amazon has
been quietly growing its presence in Santa Cruz over the past two
years, now employing over 100 people in a 40,000 square feet office
space.
It’s unclear what exactly the team there is working on or
why Amazon has picked Santa Cruz as an office location. But the
report says the office has a group of engineers working on the
Alexa voice technology and could possibly expand up to 200
people.
I would way rather have a meth problem then an Alexa problem but
what about you? Are you a fan of voice activated robot help? Or,
like me, do you prefer methamphetamine? If the nerds take over and
Santa Cruz becomes like Venice Beach and Venice-adjacent then…
well… then it will be a very sad day indeed.
Real quick… do you use any voice activated robot help like Siri
or Alexa or anything? I never have but should I?
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Guarantee me a tight back door, daddy?
Watch: Kelly Slater hosts “Only in LA”
By Derek Rielly
Champ drags gimp foot along for behind-the-scenes
romp at the Hurley Pro!
Last month, Kelly Slater hosted ESPN’s
Only In LA segment with a behind-the-scenes look at
the Hurley Pro, which was held at Lowers, in San Clemente.
Although too smart to achieve the vapidity required of the
modern television host, Slater, first, engages in riveting dialogue
with the 1988 world-champ-turned-commentator Barton Lynch (Kelly
tells Barton he has a photograph of him being beaten up by US
marines in Japan).
He then surprises Joe Turpel and Martin Potter in the broadcast
booth. Joe’s startled look is a chilling portent of what goes on
behind the scenes.
Kelly takes the viewer through the competitors’ locker room
where Matt Wilkinson, affixing his contest jersey, appears on the
brink of tears.
Ultimately, Kelly delivers his prize – an interview with the
iconic photographer Steve Sherman, whose pencil moustache sings of
padded booths in dirty bars and drinking Crystal with a sloe-eyed
beauty in a tight pink dress.
