You would think we would all be used to this by now. Desensitized. Numb. But when the news trickles in it always feels like the same motherfucking punch.

Vegas: Chas Smith reports from strip

Chas Smith

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What are we supposed to do with all this tragedy as surfers?

Tragedies are like hideous snowflakes, each one unique, special, different but they all share similar gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, traits. You would think we would all be used to this by now. Desensitized. Numb. But when the news trickles in it always feels like the same motherfucking punch.

I was in Las Vegas last night and was supposed to be at the Mandalay Bay with my wife and four-year-old daughter at 9:00 PM for a show that would have dumped us out at 11:30. Just after the hail of gunfire began.

I chose to buy tickets for another and so was just slightly north and oblivious.

This town means something to me and I get a bigger and bigger thrill each time I come, not gambling or shopping or… watching French Canadians perform physical magic but… I don’t exactly know. Las Vegas is untethered and I love the untethered. I love the surreal.

Las Vegas.

I’ve fallen slowly in love with this town over the years.

The first time I ever came I hated it thoroughly. I thought it was a human cesspool. A midwestern genetic backwater. But now I love it beyond almost any other. I was married here in a strange swinger hotel on the windiest night in recorded history. Derek Rielly flew all the way from Australia, last minute, to stand on that stage. Dion Agius danced under the pale moonlight.

This town means something to me and I get a bigger and bigger thrill each time I come, not gambling or shopping or… watching French Canadians perform physical magic but… I don’t exactly know. Las Vegas is untethered and I love the untethered. I love the surreal.

Last night Sin City became all too human.

And what are we supposed to do with all this tragedy as surfers? As notoriously shallow, barely connected surfers?

I have no idea but when I woke up today I took a cab. The driver told me that his brother was there, at the scene, and ferried a woman to the hospital. She died enroute and he was detained until six in the morning. When he was discharged he went to give blood.

I took another cab and the driver was at a dance club right next door. He was dancing with friends until the bar manager turned on the lights and told them it was all over. Some nightmare was happening outside. He went home, filled his car with snacks and water and started giving people free rides.

We both chatted, joked, laughed then left on our separate ways.

I am now chatting, joking, laughing with people who were at the concert, who hid behind dumpsters as bullets rained down and I guess this is just it. Human beings are a disastrous bunch. We are fickle, selfish, mean. But we are wildly surreal.

And I love you you all.

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Kalani Robb
“The way that it all started off is that I literally saw a suit and thought it would be pretty silly and pretty creative,” said Kalani Robb. “I picked a picture out that I liked. I sent it to Andrew at 7TILL8, and 24 hours later I had the suit.”

Kalani Robb reinvents biz suit rubber!

Derek Rielly

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Have you ever come up with a fantastic idea years after it was already invented?

Do you remember when Quiksilver Japan loosed a wetsuit you could wear in the salt, and in the dank, stale, filthy air of the office boardroom?

As BeachGrit‘s intern Ash Goggans reported at the time, 

Today my life changed. Today all is right in my world. Because today Quiksilver Japan unveiled their new wetsuit/apparel mash-up: TRUE WETSUITS!

Quiksilver Business Suit Wetsuit
Gorgeous and slim! And 2015!

That’s right, modern suits, complete with crisp-looking button down and and a tac-sharp tie. They even offer a tuxedo model! I can’t imagine how Bondian one must feel getting barreled in a tuxedo!(Come to think about it, they should sell the suits with flasks! That’s my second grievance with surfing! There’s few options available for mid-session boozing! And I surf so much better shithouse drunk!)

Yesterday. in a sponsored post on TheInertia under the headline, Kalani Robb Wears a Badass Suit To His New Job,  the wetsuit company 7Till8, which is under the creative command of the former world tour surfer and sometime actor, has come up with…exactly…the same idea, but two years later.

As reported,

One day in the not-too-distant future, lineups might look a lot different. A lot more fun, to be precise. Right now, it’s black wetsuit, game face, game time. But if Kalani Robb, who just took on a new role as Creative Director at 7TILL8 Wetsuits, has his druthers, surf spots are in store for a little spice. Enter business suits with red power ties, movie-themed suits, unicorn and rainbow graphics, and generally happier people riding waves. It’s simple. Just change the uniform.

7TILL8 Wetsuits, which began in 2016 as a custom-tailored wetsuit business, brought Robb on board in July to tap into the trademark good vibes that he’s made a staple. Think Catch Surf escapades meets wetsuits. His first project: the business suit, of course.

“The way that it all started off is that I literally saw a suit and thought it would be pretty silly and pretty creative,” said Kalani Robb. “I picked a picture out that I liked. I sent it to Andrew at 7TILL8, and 24 hours later I had the suit.”

Is this a case of great minds colliding by coincidence?

Have you ever come up with a fantastic idea years after it was already invented?

Is it a straight steal?

Does TheInertia have only a very short memory?

And who does it better? Quiksilver Japan in 2015 or 7Till8 in 2017?

Here’s Kalani.

And here’s how it was loosed in Japan!

 

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Help: Find a poor brother’s eyeball!

Chas Smith

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We're all part of the same tribe!

We’re all part of the same tribe, as dear Kenny Powers once said, and it is true. Sure we may bitch and moan and complain about crowds, we may appear to actually hate each other but deep deep deep deep deep deep deep down inside there is love. We’re surfers. Brothers!

And a brother in Florida needs our help. Let us learn of his plight.

A Florida surfer’s wife is asking beachgoers to be on the lookout for her husband’s missing prosthetic eye.

Carolyn Pandolfi told WKMG her husband Raymond Davidson was surfing at Daytona Beach Wednesday and wiped out when he encountered choppy water. His prosthetic eye disappeared in the ocean.

“It would be amazing to find it in the ocean,” Pandolfi said.

Pandolfi said her husband had the prosthetic for 20 years. “It is a hazel green color and looks like an Eye he was surfing in front of the band shell,” she said. “These things are expensive so if someone finds it can you please message me.”

Daytona beachgoers were sympathetic to their predicament. One stranger was kind enough to start a GoFundMe account to cover the cost of the eye. The goal is to raise $1,800.

According to WKMG, Davidson has an appointment with an eye doctor on October 6.

Do you live in Florida? Can you help? I’m sure it won’t be too difficult to find just one.

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OBX
"Every  single wave spat its guts out, sometimes more than once," says Justin Cote, the slightly more robust and rugged of the famous Cote brothers from Encinitas. 

Little Namibia Comes to the OBX!

Derek Rielly

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Come ride a user-friendly version of Skeleton Bay!

Two weeks ago, and a day before a surfer was pulled dead out of the water in the same spot, the Superbrand team lit up a left that was, how do you want to call it…

Exhilarating? Transfixing? A little Namibia?

The Outer Banks, if you didn’t know, is a fabulous two-hundred mile stretch of sandpits between North Carolina and Virginia. Real famous as a shipwreck graveyard. The Wright Brothers got their bird in the air on the OBX too.

If you surf, it’s where you got to get shallow, sand-bottom tubes. At the end of September, the Superbrand team flew across the USA to Virginia to get some of it, waves powered by Hurricane Jose.

How good?

“Every  single wave spat its guts out, sometimes more than once,” says Justin Cote, the slightly more robust and rugged of the famous Cote brothers from Encinitas.

This short film is their triumphant account.

 

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A little tail-whip or throwing the tank? Who deserves to be lit with nines?

Beschen: How to score backhand surfing!

Derek Rielly

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A note to the judges from a former world number two.

Just two months ago, Shane Beschen, a former runner-up to the world title and a regular foil to Kelly Slater, was described here as “the least huggable pro of all.”

“Like Medina with less fucks given,” said the surf historian Matt Warshaw. 

Beschen, who was on the world tour between 1993 and 2005, had a bit of the Bobby Martinez’ about him – poisoned by the feeling he never got the deals or results he deserved and quit the tour a few years too early.

“I feel like a black person in South Africa 50 years ago, and all the judges are white,” said Shane in 1998.

What we may not appreciate about Shane, who is forty-five years old or one week older than Kelly Slater if you want perspective, is how lucid he is about technique and competitive performance. His two boys, Koda and Noah, are all products of a pappy who knows the game.

And, yesterday, when Beschen lip up Facebook with a note to the tour’s judges on how to score backhand surfing, well, it behooves a man to listen, don’t it?

“I have posted 4 photos starting with the highest degree of difficulty and working down to the lowest,” wrote Beschen. “Julian Wilson demonstrating an extreme throw tail where his entire board is out of the water and only the tip of his nose is touching. This is an ‘excellent’ backside maneuver with the highest degree of difficulty.

“The second photo, to the right of Julian, shows a backside throw tail in which half of the surfboard is out of the water. This is also an ‘excellent’ maneuver with a high degree of difficulty and should be the starting point in which a maneuver is deemed progressive.

“The third photo is called a backside release and as you can see there is very little if any of the tail out the back of the wave. This should be deemed a ‘good’ maneuver as the ‘degree of difficulty’  is much less than the first two photos.

“The fourth photo is a backside carve and although it could still be deemed a ‘good’ maneuver it is much less difficult than the first three photos.

“In conclusion. To further push the level and excitement of surfing within the WSL there should be a points cap on ‘good’ surfing. A combination of  ‘good’ turns should never be rewarded an ‘excellent; score. If competitors know they can reach an excellent score with good surfing they will not take unnecessary risk.

“Solution. A cap of 7.5 – 8 points should be set on good surfing so competitors will push their performance to achieve excellent scores. An excellent score should have at least one excellent turn performed during the ride. In turn, the @wsl and all of the fans will enjoy more exciting performances from their favorite surfers. This can only be a positive for the @wsl and its loyal surf fans.

“Please leave your thoughts and keep them constructive.”

You like it? I do.

And no need to be constructive.

Fight it out, y’sonsofbitches.

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Photo: Jack English
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