"At some point, when the money is flatlining, you gotta say the market has spoken and get out."
Two days ago, the custodian of recorded surf history, Mr Matt Warshaw, announced he would quit and take his archive with him if thirty thousand dollars wasn’t donated immediately.
Thirty k seemed a very arbitrary number, a figure pulled from the jaunty cap of a boy who’d shift, suddenly, from adorable to jaded.
What happened? How did we suddenly find Warshaw on the precipice?
I had to ask.
BeachGrit: What precipitated this sudden lunge for thirty gees? Did your wife say you’d have to go out and get a real job if you didn’t make some cash?
Warshaw: Jodi and I made a deal in 2011 that EOS had to be in the black — expenses paid, me earning 30K a year minimum — by 2012, or I go back to print. I got five extra years. But here we are. Time’s up.
It’s humiliating to be 57 and making what I make. It feels like a judgement. EOS, I think, does a such a good job at showing the world of surf in full. Look at us, maybe the most fucked-up wonderful interesting thing on the planet, it’s all here on the three sites I’ve made, in photos, video, and words — and for building that I get less than I did as a SURFER intern in 1985.
Does it feel a little odd that you, the custodian of the sport’s history, one of the sharpest writers in the game, can’t peel off a living from a multi-billion dollar industry?
Well, you and I made that decision a long time ago, right? Anybody who’s ever asked me about going into surf writing, I say some version of “keep your day job,” or “marry well.” In 2017 you’d have to do both. But I love the work. Ever since the sites went up; this is the happiest I’ve ever been just in terms of doing the job. Not just the writing, but doing video and working on photos and all the back-and-forth with readers. I literally throw the covers off in the morning and run to the computer. I will happily do what I’m doing for 30K a year. But less than that — and I don’t know why 30K seems like the magic number —but less than that and my mind wanders to the place you mention, to a darker place. It’s just kind of humiliating, to be 57 and making what I make. It feels like a judgement. EOS, I think, does a such a good job at showing the world of surf in full. Look at us, maybe the most fucked-up wonderful interesting thing on the planet, it’s all here on the three sites I’ve made, in photos, video, and words — and for building that I get less than I did as a SURFER intern in 1985. It’s humbling. When I step away from the computer a few hours and think about it, I can get depressed.
Anyway, why thirty grand? It’s a very arbitrary number…
The subscribers I have right now, as it happens, pay just enough to cover EOS expenses. The 30K will go to payroll. Which is me.
Two days in, what’s the balance?
Two days in, 12 grand. Which is great, more than I expected. But these things burn hot at first, and cool off really fast. The numbers are going to drop today, I’m sure. The trick will be holding some momentum for the rest of the month.
What if you hit 20? That enough to keep it going?
Before pulling the plug I’d probably get in touch with subscribers and see what they think of a rate hike, from say three to five buck a month, something like that. That idea actually came from a subscriber. But I don’t really know. At some point, when the numbers are low enough, when the money is flatlining, I think you gotta say the market has spoken and get out.
What happens, like seriously, if you don’t get enough cash? What’s going to happen? Are you going to pull it offline? Would it turn into a print product?
The last real money I made, $125K, was the advance I got for History of Surfing. Which I think was 12 years ago, and I know book publishing is the sick man of media, but I’ll go back anyway and make deals for EOS and HOS. Whatever I can get. Those are the two projects I feel really strongly about. I’d much rather have them online, but they’re still in print already, and if I can do new editions to keep them circulating, that’s fine.
Who’s dropped the biggest donation so far and how much?
Sam McIntosh, one-thou. It came in like three minutes after the donation button went live.
Sam always was a generous boy, and I certainly don’t mean it in the facetious way it might be taken. Anyway, we’ll match it, wait…one…thousand…dollars? How about we drop five c-notes into your hole when a certain 120-day overdue invoice gets paid?
Maybe not in my hole, but yes!
Now, you said, Jodi, your wife, gorgeous thing by the way (how’d you land someone so terrific and ripe?) gave you until 2012, and then gifted five more years. Did she come home from her serious job one day recently, see you in your pyjamas and dipping biscuits into your bowl of Lucky Charms and…fuck this?
She’s not much for the salty language, and I was wearing my Team Body Glove track suit, but in so many words, yes.
In September, you said, in regards to Surf Ranch, that we’d traded “magic for perfection.” With the passage of time, and obviously further contemplation, what’s your current position?
Upon closer inspection, my current position is . . . Kelly Slater could solve EOS’ financial problems with one click. Let’s you and I make a date to talk about the Surf Ranch on February 1. Full disclosure. Deal?
Describe your current mood.
Tyler Wright when the donations comes in. Sally Fitz the rest of the time.
And listen to Warshaw perform on this very good podcast here.
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Cool end product, but I’ve got news for you Matt. Surfing doesn’t owe a damn thing to anyone. Go get a real job. Not our fault you chose a super time consuming hobby that pays nothing. So tired of people in the surf industry asking for handouts.
it’s not a handout, you dweeb. it’s paying for content.
Isn’t $15 bucks an hour now de rigueur ( government mandated) in all the groovy west coast enclaves? There’s your 30K a year, barista in training
you need to make at least 19$ and hour to survive where I live. 15$ is poverty level.
I agree. Ain’t nobody owe nothing to nobody in this world of biz. Best you can hope for are small dignities. The pleasure of independence is the greatest luxury a man can have, or a woman and you got to hustle so hard for that.
So hard. Every single day you have to suit up and go to war.
You can be on the right side of history and still be on the wrong side of capitalism. So many greats died without a penny. Fucking Melville couldn’t peel off a living as a writer, spent the last 20 years of his life as a cube monkey customs inspector.
I wish Matt all the very, very best. I am racking my brain thinking of how I can help in a material way. Alliances, allegiances. Plan B down to Z. Something must work.
It is truly the greatest luxury.
Like I said before, Seatown ain’t cheap nowadays. If I wasn’t so deeply hypnotized by the first class cabin mood lighting at the end of the yuppie tunnel I’d take the 7 figures my house is earning, move to Vashon and do whatever the fuck I felt like doing all the time.
It’s funny, Amazon has fairly ruined Seattle as a cool city, but also, God damn them, all of the employees they’ve drawn here are such fabulous salt of the earth people, so fucking earnestly nice and family-oriented, that I can’t seriously think about moving. They’ve surrounded us like some sort of benevolent amoeba: full social calendar; sure, go ahead and borrow our house and cars for your holiday guests even though you didn’t even ask; and other such aggressive neighborliness. Literally, there are a dozen families in a one mile radius to whom without second thought I’d give my kid if the wife and I were dying of cancer. These kindly fuckers have trapped us here, for better or worse.
Probably you too. Maybe suck it up, ask around for a real job that you know your cache of Seattle professionals will throw at you like Mardi Gras beads if you had DD’s. Join the world of high-salary wage slave grown ups. It certainly could be worse …
Thank you for sharing that. I have never felt more of a small town community in such a big city then when I visit Seattle. Dogs are in bars, families are in parks, people hold the door open, people wait in line at the bus stop, small biz thrives, etc.
We like Seattle too thanks! Easy to forget that it’s a big city though and let your guard slip. Plenty of gangs, barroom sucker punchers and other assorted dangerous goons who’ll penalize you eventually if you think this place actually is Mayberry 🙂
ya that’s what it’s like in a community full of gainfully employed people
Dane should stop making clothes in a saturated market and just bank roll the whole thing. I mean for fucks sake, lipstick?
Also, as much as I wish I could afford to donate, I can barely afford to feed myself lately. If I disappear it’s because my internet has been cut off and I’ve pawned my phone…
Broke surfers get in free. Email me at [email protected]
Good on ya!
Matt Warshaw, truly a man of The People™.
Also I just realised it was nail polish Dane was working on. Not lipstick
So bummed, amazed to read all this Matt. I moved to Seattle a year ago after living in San Fran for 7 years. I had read you lived here and I was warmed by the thought that I was in the same city as this dean of surf writing. I had enjoyed EOS, and the blog in particular which I felt was the best/most enriching surf writing going. I didn’t sign up when you made it for-pay as I thought the price point way high–but to see the reality that you can’t even make intern money off this extremely impressive and valuable body of work is crazy. It’s an absurd and distorted economy we live in. I will go and give the moderate donation I can afford from my yuppie, clean-tech industry lifestyle. Good luck!
^ That alone got me in.
by design, but realistically its an age or era demographic representation that will show more interest in what was.
If the surf media and the approach it has taken since the Slater era began is not to blame for the destruction of surf culture than what is? Greed ruins everything it touches. I have a massive collection of Surfer Magazines going back to the late 1960s. The change that occurred in the 1990’s is disgusting.
I’m intrigued Ck T, can you be more specific about the changes.
where do I begin? can you be more specific about what aspects of the changes you are wondering about?
I’m unaware of them, so no. Just a few dot points would be fine.
surf culture was ruined by the massive amounts of people who began to participate in the sport
I agree, the leash was brought forth by satan. But how can you separate the level and approach of media hype from the amount of people drawn toward the hype? Surf forecasting sites have also diminished the commitment it once took to catch good swells and be an actual surfer.
Ha, SURFER in the 90s was the best it ever was. Steve Hawk at the helm, Parmenter slinging barbs, D. Hynd chiming in — those were the heydays.
Best issue of Surfer Magazine ever was April 1989.
North Shore Winter of 88/89 issue with Tom Carroll on the cover at pipe.
Second best was July 1989 that has a great interview with Miki Dora.
The advertising was classic in the 1970’s,
I see that tragically everything progressive is is on trend with many in the surfing community including the surfing media, there’s almost an aggression towards anything that isn’t promoting progression in surfing, progression in design…No reflection…or even appreciation for the diversity in surfing. Its a shame, it appears to me that there’s quite a level of not giving a fuck about where surfing’s come from and how its got here.
Don´t forget the Journal
You’re kidding right? Fishes are more popular than they ever have been, everyone is riding retro shapes. Logging is considered cool. Guys like Alex knost have literally convinced themselves they are living in the 70s.
No…I shit you not my Bavarian friend! Whilst I accept your point that the hipsters are happening, how many people that have a fish have heard of Steve Lis? Most of what many call fish, aren’t, other than a similar outline. I don’t see “everybody is riding retro shapes” definitely not where I’ve been surfing. My is point there’s a real culture of “haters” and in large numbers, surfers that Hate Alex Knost and what he represents, People that hate long boards, mids etc and would rather die than paddle out and enjoy 200m rides on a waist high roller running along point. Even a lot of the “Hipsters” wouldn’t have a clue about the design traits of the boards they’re riding – The hipster trend has created more of a division and a hell of a lot of crew love to hate hipsters and what they ride and by default thumb their nose at Surfing folklore.
Case in point ….I was recently at a friends house, great a well respected surfer in the area , Short boards only. He had a Book on his table with the Epic Photography of Leroy Granis on the table. One of the other guys there (late 20’s) threw it across the table saying “what’s this shit?”
That’s the type of thing I’m pointing out.
I look at this way. If you drive an old car it doesn’t give you an appreciation for the history associated with it, and there’s more people nowadays saying, what a bucket of shit as opposed to what a cool car
You must live in a dogshit place.
OK…..ill try anything once.
Well fuck it, I’ll say what Matt is way too decent and polite to say. Surfing is not culturally anything like it once was. It now has its very own .01% of very rich people. Eye wateringly, unnecessarily rich people. I hear about new ones every day. Most recently I heard about a near-billionaire ex tech guy who takes his chef and sommelier with him on surf trips, on chartered planes, and pays skilled older surfers to go with him too. Another one who has several people on permanent retainer combing the world for the best next surf trip he can take. Elsewhere this .01% is busy re-shaping the sport wherever they can, making it go to the Olympics, putting it on show in lakes, doing pretty much everything except just fucking leaving it alone. Here’s a thought for the .01%. You wanna be the modern Medicis of surfing? Well then be patrons. Fund the work of Warshaw and people like him. Don’t buy them, back them. Give everyone else in surfing a reason to like you.
PREACH.
Reading between the lines, you’re suggesting a career change from website owner to sommelier? That might actually work.
No disrespect.. Paddle across to Grubby Clark’s San Juan refuge and twist his skeg for a donation. At this point its part of your life work doubt you are going to run it in the ground regardless. Pass the torch when the time comes. Saw a great documentary last night “Chasing Coral” even bigger fucking problem. Met a young man in a surf shop the other day whom was retarded. Wish I could find a better term to describe.. Had a fun exchange/connection laughter. Great moment for all involved made my day.
Approach a funding body – with a heritage scholar in tow? Look outside USA for that funding body e.g. target EU heritage funding explaining how you will be focussing on EU history for the duration and use work to-date as evidence of what is doable. EU loves cultural heritage. Think beyond surf industry. The scholar can help with bureaucratic grant writing ‘language’. Let me know if you would like to know. Best of luck, champion.
missed it by ten years
Matt- can you accept Paypal? Didn’t see that option and would prefer not to use a card.
Are you one of the skilled, older surfers invited to be his toy?
Imagine paying some cunt to surf with you. The self loathing on both sides of that transaction! Talk about missing the point.
Using your wealth to improve your surfing sounds intelligent to me. And if someone wants to pay me to coach them to surf better than I would gladly take the job.
What about being their chef? Would you do that too? Look mate, these people aren’t using their wealth to improve their surfing. You don’t need money to do that, you just need to go surfing every fucking day. They’re using their wealth to make other people do demeaning shit for them. It reminds me of Ernest H’s great short story about the “great American boy-man” who hires the hunter to take him shooting in Africa. That story ended when the boy-man’s wife semi accidentally shot the boy-man, hoping to get off with the hunter. “The Short Happy Life Of Francis Macomber.” Go read it, I bet longtom has.
It’s the most brutal cuckolding in literature. As you can imagine we’ve explored the theme at length,
http://beachgrit.com/2016/0…
I would expect nothing less
Agree with you Nick that our super rich surfers and industry heads should become ‘modern Medicis’ by being better patrons for those, like Matt Warshaw and others, who work hard producing worthy stuff but get fuck all for it. But i have to disagree with your point about being a chef and getting paid to work for and surf with somebody rich. I have cooked for traveling surfers and was stoked getting paid good money. Lots of surf chefs would gladly give up the intensity of their kitchen to travel with a small crew and be looked after while surfing in exotic locations. It is a surfing chef’s dream job, not unlike sponsored touring professionals on the world tour today, never mind the paid surf media, commentators, writers, judges, minders, coaches, managers and so on…
Im not saying you are wrong, im just bringing up a different perspective.
I have read “…Francis Macomber.”
Isn’t that the nature of capitalism? Using ones wealth to make someone else do demeaning shit for you? Have you ever read Orwells, “Down and Out in Paris and London” or “The Road to Wigan Pier”, about poverty and the bleak conditions of the working class. Most peoples working life sucks and would be grateful for the opportunity to work such a cushy job. So it’s the system that creates these situations that is the root of the problem. Corporate capitalist greed killed surf culture. It destroyed the tribal community in pursuit of money from the masses.
Fritz Lang’s futuristic movie ‘Metropolis’ in 1927 expressed the same sort of notions you mention about capitalism. Despite the huge population boom of surfers globally, especially since the invention of ‘kook cords’ ie – leg ropes/leashes, i remain hopeful that surf capitalism and industry heads will become Nick’s “modern Medici”. They can do so by, not only acting as patrons for the deserving Warshaws of our surfing world, but also saving us all from the plague that is overcrowding. Not by funding wave pools, but by investing in simple reef enhancement programs on coastlines all around the world. There are countless potential good surfing locations that only need a few well-placed boulders here and there to fill a few gaps and holes to make these reefs and sandbars more conducive for riding waves. Surfng’s modern Medici must work in conjunction with governments and third level education institutions to implement these ‘enhanced surfing reefs’ world-wide. Surfers, as coastline custodians, evolving as we all learn to help and better take care of the amphibious world we love so much.
This vision is one I am already in love with.
Yes, we need a world-wide reef enhancement program to be implemented if our blue planet is going to accommodate more and more surfers. I see it as the best way possible to thin growing crowds and allow the stoke of riding waves to thrive. Enhancing reefs can be done at a fraction of the cost of creating wave pools. Plus its working with nature. Captains of industry and wealthy surfers coming to the party as Nick’s ‘modern Medicis’ shouldn’t be the only people asked to help. We should invite the Chinese and other governments with citizens new to surfing to enter the fray too and help finance and organize it through their national surfing bodies with educational institutions. But it should be old surfing nations like Hawaii, USA and Australia leading the way. If they don’t, well, the long term future doesn’t look good for our tribe. Short term – enjoy waves without crowds while we still can.
I like your optimism but the sooner you let go of this idea the better. We have ruined enough reefs without an attempt to modify them. Move somewhere colder, you will find empty waves.
I live in a cold water location and surf empty waves. Reef enhancement programs wouldn’t have to ruin any existing reefs.
The individualistic nature of surfing is some what antithetical to the goals of the Chinese government. Nothing points out the glorious freedoms provided by “western” democratic culture like surfing does.
Yeah, that’s why i am intrigued with what’s going to happen as the WSL makes further inroads there and Peter Townend keeps coaching the Chinese to get them up to speed for future Olympic Games. It’s going to be really interesting to see how modern ‘Capitalist China’ deals with surfing and its individual freedoms as the sport takes off there. The magic surf genie is out of the bottle. Energies of Dragon and Phoenix have new interplay. I don’t think the Chinese authorities have yet fully realized the kind of revolution that has been implanted upon them. We shall see…
Cool movie, I just watched a little bit of it. Countless hours i’ve spent thinking about all this. You all seem optimistic about the future of surfing. I wish I could share those sentiments with you and I hope your surfing Medici comes true some day.
Feels like you need to write about this at length. Perhaps infiltrate one of these trips and give us the inside scoop. That would be a mag article worth reading. Get SJ on the horn!
Actually it’s not a bad gig if you can get it
A better gig than surf writing.
Agree with everything. But what has that got to do with Matt’s situation? What do wealthy ‘surfers’ have to do with a business based on ‘micro transactions’?
I think most average surfers do their own thing, unfortunately to the detriment of warhorse and the so called ‘legacy’ of surfing…
I grew up surfing Aussie beaches and slabs and keep being reminded/reprimanded by the wsl that I should respect and revere Hawaii and Hawaiian surfers.. fuck off.. has no bearing on me waiting for a shitty east coast low with (hopefully) a nor’wester blowing.. I do respect the history but it’s got fuck all to do with why I chuck sickies and get in domestics with the missus…
Well! Here is something to think about old chap, while we both sit around waiting for this combo ecl-easterly swell. Hawaiians turned surfing into a Thing partly, well more than partly, because they had invented one of the most leisure-prone lifestyles in human history. Pre-colonising, Hawaiians worked an average of about four months in a year. This meant they were set up to just go when there was a swell — which is as we all know, what you gotta do. But this kind of spur of the moment, fuck-everything-time-to-surf thing is in powerful conflict with Western cultures and social conditionings. Surfing almost died on contact with the West, not because of religion so much as because the new bosses inflicted Western style working hours on Hawaiians. But it didn’t fucking die, did it. It somehow struggled through on the back of the 20th century booms in sport and tourism and eventually babies. And so today you’re chucking sickies and getting in fights with the missus because 300 years ago, Hawaiian people could just bail without a care when a south swell hit. It’s also why Australians got so good at surfing, because we are the best bludgers on Earth.
YESSSSS!!!!
I like the idea but reckon it’s a bit of a stretch! I think surfing would of made it’s way some way, some how. Isn’t there evidence of surfing in Chile? Also the old clubbies back in the day surfing the row boats. It would have evolved.
Should I start demanding respect from non westerners that use electricity? It’s a western invention and I want respect goddamn it!
Peru. Peru invented surfing..
Its clear that Surfing was invented by the indigenous peoples of Australia at a place called Hyden in West Oz. You need to brush up on your history.
I salute this most Australian of posts! Enjoyed the hell out of it.
“Look at us, maybe the most fucked-up wonderful interesting thing on the planet”
Love that. Surfing history is just so frickin’ ripe with incredible characters. Forget Inertia, Slater and Fincham Pools. Look at surfers from decades ago living on coconuts, squarely giving the middle finger to mainstream society / middle America. There IS magic there, worth remembering, and perhaps rekindling
and what do you think they would say about the value of surf media?
Don’t think the guys living on coconuts really gave two fucks about anything mainstream, including the media
They were just too busy having fun doing their own thing
that magic has been so thoroughly picked through, not much left on the bone, I’m afraid
It’s bullshit to see such an intelligent, sweet man beg like this. I’m in. After I cancel my monthly Amnesty and Medecins Sans Frontieres donations. Those guys be OK?
The United States Airforce has got Medecins Sans Frontieres all covered, it’s all cool
Ponied up my 3 bucks