A gathering of VPs and directors.
A gathering of VPs and directors.

Rebuttal: I raise Longtom an OC!

Where did the surf industry begin? Exactly.

Steve “longtom” Shearer is the greatest writer in BeachGrit’s now longish history and it is only by some sick metaphysical twist that he is not universally famous. I look forward to his offerings like I once looked forward to The Dukes of Hazzard and he has never not once disappointed me. Yesterday’s Opinion: Chas’ Worst Story Ever! might have been his finest. In one fell swoop he eviscerated me while making a strong case for sweet Australia.

As a quick summary, I published a piece a few days ago professing my own love for the Lucky Country but also claiming its ruthlessly enforced status equalization makes for a place that is perfect to live but impossible to become someone. To invent… anything. Longtom unsheathed his sword and parried:

We invented the surf industry! The very self same surf industry whose grave you dance on with such bonhomie.

We have invented so much that has made the world great. The surf world could not function, would not exist without Australian dreams and Australian dreamers. Off the top of my head, and there are many others I’m sure, we are responsible for: twin fins, hippies, the shortboard, thrusters, legropes, bucket bongs, the retro movement, Indonesia, finless surfing, sideboob, feminism, gender fluidity, androgynous free surfers, beard oil, hipsters, surf travel, leashless log riding, pro surfing, online surf retail, vertical integration, surf media liquidity events, renewable energy, taxpayer subsidised surfing contests, celebrity trash and the internet etc etc etc.

He is totally right except about one small trifle. Australia didn’t invent the surf industry. Orange County, California did.

Orange County, California. The land of Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and… Irvine. Orange County, California. Home of Quiksilver, Hurley, RVCA, Vans, Gotcha, Op, Robert August. Orange County, California. Birthplace of the bro.

Yes, Australia did conceive of so much that makes the surf world function but it took the Orange County bro to make it an industry. The Orange County bro, you see, is as pretty and as vapid as his Australian counterpart but he is also a stone-cold business back-stabber such as the world has never seen. The Orange County bro, his father an executive at a bank, his mother a graduate of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication. The Orange County bro who smiles inwardly when his best friend in the entire world is fired as VP of Brand Activation because he knows he’ll be able to make a lateral move if he slides those duties into his own portfolio.

The Orange County bro. As ruthless as his Australian counterpart but instead of enforcing status equalization he only strives to climb the business ladder. There is no distraction for him, no pleasure outside moving from from the VP of Digital Marketing to Senior Director of Brand Communications. The Orange County bro. Infected with Orange Lung.

Without him there would be no industry at all but only collection of people having a bit of fun making surf things and what good would that be?

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In the piece, which you can read here, Chas spent a year in Australia and fled because we hated winners, chopped down dickheads, sorry tall poppies and lacked the full flavour of essential human elements like vanity, judging our neighbours, coveting our neighbour's wife and envy. In short, silly shallow convicts who could not build a decent building, write a pome and were doomed to be the poor white trash of Asia. Well Chas Smith, let me tell you that is a very bad read. A very, very bad read on us, except for the poor white trash of Asia bit. We are definitely that.

Opinion: “Chas’ worst story ever!”

Australia story "slithers under low bar of recycled cliches!"

The greatest thing ever written pertaining to surfing is to be found in the opening paragraph of a novel called the Rider about (ironically) bike riding by the Dutch writer Tim Krabbè.

Reproduced for your pleasure it reads,

“Meyrueis, Lozère, June 26, 1977. Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from side-walk cafès. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.”

Roll that phrase around in your mind for a second or two. The emptiness of those lives shocks me. If you haven’t felt something like that, nameless until now, strolling back into real life among the legions of the unjazzed with a song in your heart and a sled under wing after riding waves then you ain’t a surfer.

Second best thing ever wrote was by BeachGrit principal and author Chas Smith while covering the Quik Pro on the Gold Coast for Stab. I paraphrase but he described the atmosphere upon arrival on the Gold Coast as stinking of skin cancer and teenage pregnancy. Brutal, visceral truth.

Among the worst, slithering under a very low bar made mostly of recycled cliches melted down, also belongs to Chas. Due to an upbringing as a regional deadshit I think in Australian phrases and after reading Chas exposition on Australian culture and mindset the one that came to mind was: Hmmm, this smells like mouldy dickcheese.

This smells worse than mouldy dickcheese.

In the piece, which you can read here, Chas spent a year in Australia and fled because we hated winners, chopped down dickheads, sorry tall poppies and lacked the full flavour of essential human elements like vanity, judging our neighbours, coveting our neighbour’s wife and envy.

In short, silly shallow convicts who could not build a decent building, write a pome and were doomed to be the poor white trash of Asia.

Well Chas Smith, let me tell you that is a very bad read. A very, very bad read on us, except for the poor white trash of Asia bit. We are definitely that.

But no striving? No entrepreneurial spirit?

We are responsible for: twin fins, hippies, the shortboard, thrusters, legropes, bucket bongs, the retro movement, Indonesia, finless surfing, sideboob, feminism, gender fluidity, androgynous free surfers, beard oil, hipsters, surf travel, leashless log riding, pro surfing, online surf retail, vertical integration, surf media liquidity events, renewable energy, taxpayer subsidised surfing contests, celebrity trash and the internet etc etc etc.

We invented the surf industry! The very self same surf industry whose grave you dance on with such bonhomie.

We have invented so much that has made the world great. The surf world could not function, would not exist without Australian dreams and Australian dreamers. Off the top of my head, and there are many others I’m sure, we are responsible for: twin fins, hippies, the shortboard, thrusters, legropes, bucket bongs, the retro movement, Indonesia, finless surfing, sideboob, feminism, gender fluidity, androgynous free surfers, beard oil, hipsters, surf travel, leashless log riding, pro surfing, online surf retail, vertical integration, surf media liquidity events, renewable energy, taxpayer subsidised surfing contests, celebrity trash and the internet etc etc etc.

I can only think America has given craft beers, excessive and irrational localism, adult learners, Tom Curren, Dane Reynolds, Scientology and legalised marijuana as gifts to the world of surf. There may be others but they pale into insignificance compared to the Australian contribution.

We have writers and thinkers. Les Murray, a fellow subhuman redneck, is the greatest living poet and a tremendous fan of pro surfing. Henry Lawson a peer of Chekhov or Sherwood Anderson in the short story. Patrick White rested a Nobel Prize for literature on his mantelpiece before pushing up daisies. He was the equal of Faulkner in every way.

Are we not vain? If you cut us do we not bleed?

In Australia the bald man is so reviled and suffers such a lack of sexual congress that even a national living treasure like our very own Nick Carroll has been publicly rumoured to be considering auctioning off his quiver of collectible surfboards to afford a custom toupee.

Wayne Rabbit Bartholomew OAM, 1978 World Surfing Champion and ten-year president of the ASP owns a rags-to-riches backstory that would make Horatio Alger blush. He also counts among his possessions a combover so luxuriant it is only shaded by the 45th POTUS, Donald J. Trump.

On the wall above the CEO of the government-funded High Performance Centre just south of the Gold Coast is a plaque with the words: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a bald man to join the CT” inscribed in gold brocade.

We have not and never will allow a bald man to become a pro surfer in the antipodes. It would be an affront to our national sense of decency.

There are no strivers, no social climbers, no-one as status obsessed to equal the Australian urban middle class. Which is to say, ninety percent of the country. Mick Fanning is the son of a single mum who battled to raise a brood of boys. Joel Parkinson, the son of an honest bricklayer. Dean Morrison slept rough as a kid because his dad found it tough to keep a roof over his family’s head. By the time they were twenty-one all three lived in McMansions with garages stuffed with V8 utes, jetskies and other rich boy toys. No one does nouveau-riche better than an Australian from the wrong side of the tracks who comes into money.

No accoutrement aids overseas travel like an Australian accent, a good one with smooth vowels, like RonDog Blakey, not some squeaky mess like Glen Hall or Occhilupo. No nation travels like the Australian nation. The Australian accent adds 20 IQ points to a person’s intellectual endowment and plays well both sides of the Pacific, as well as the Eurasian landmass. The Hawaiian nasal twang makes a man sound both whiny and ultra-aggressive, the Californian drawl suggests a mild cognitive impediment. The Kiwi accent is worse.

The Hawaiian nasal twang makes a man sound both whiny and ultra-aggressive, the Californian drawl suggests a mild cognitive impediment. The Kiwi accent is worse.

We don’t back winners? We backed surf! West Wyalong sits on the edge of a desolate plain west of the Great Divide in NSW. It’s harsh, hard scrabble country that breeds tough men and tougher women. One afternoon, I parked a HG panelvan with a nine-foot Brewer on the roof outside the Royal Hotel and drank in the public bar with a man named Tom. He had a bit of blackfella in him he said, bit of Afghan, bit of Irish. Wiry and tough as a slab of ironbark. You could stick him in a hole and string barbed wire across him and he’d still be there in fifty years. Impervious. His Irish father flogged him so hard as a kid he was left to die. By the time he was fourteen he’d driven cattle 1400 km’s across the middle of the country on a droving run.

As the sun dipped down into the treeless plain Tom, looking out at the surfboard atop the roof, spent a schooner of beer explaining why Cheyne Horan coulda, shoulda won a title or two if he only “got off those fucken single fins” and rode a thruster. That’s a measure of surf, of how far surf has permeated into the core of the Australian consciousness, like no other nation on earth save Hawaii.

I was shocked upon listening to Rory Parker’s podcast with Nick Carroll to hear that Rory has never been to Australia. You can’t write surf, understand surf without study and understanding of Australia.

Chas, how could someone so righteous get it so wrong?

Time to go clear?

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Here Kelly dances with Dirty Gabe. How many partners has he had?
Here Kelly dances with Dirty Gabe. How many partners has he had?

Conspiracy: Kelly secret Hurley agent?

Did Kelly Slater spend years cheating on Quiksilver?

The great Kelly Slater and Quiksilver were one of the finest duos in surf history. Each achieved maximum thrust through the 1990s and 2000s. Each became singularly iconic. Kelly, with his handsome tan skin and twinkling eye. Quiksilver with a logo/team/size that made pure mockery out of Billabong, Rip Curl, Hot Tuna. What would Kelly have been without Quiksilver? What would Quiksilver have been without Kelly? We sort of have the answer now, I suppose. Kelly would have been aesthetically lost. Quiksilver would have gone bankrupt. And while it is sad the two split up we’ll always have those 20 years.

How much do you think Quiksilver paid Kelly during that run? $20 million? $40 million?

Is it possible that Kelly was also secretly riding for Hurley some of that time and collecting even more money?

That would be singularly scandalous but maybe it is true. Derek Rielly pointed out the moment in the latest #tournotes the moment. Let’s recall.

First, he (Kelly) makes a crack about not being sponsored and asks whom I presume to be Bob McKnight from Quiksilver’s kid (surf industry people, correct me if I’m wrong) for money as he’s currently not sponsored.

“As you know I don’t have a sponsor…technically… any more and you know your father has sponsored me for years,” says Kelly.
The man opens his wallet and says, “I don’t think there’s much in here.”

I watched the moment twice and it is certainly not Quiksilver founder/legend Bob McKnight’s wonderful son Robbie. No. It is Hurley founder Bob’s eldest son Jeff.

Now, I guarantee that Kelly knows Robbie very well. I am certain that he wasn’t confused. Which leaves us all with only one possible conclusion as to what Kelly was talking about.

He was sponsored by Hurley for years and that sponsorship would have overlapped Kelly’s Quiksilver sponsorship. A sordid hidden affair only revealed in an unscripted, off-the-cuff moment. The fact that Quiksilver and Kelly have been broken up for some years now lessens the pain maybe, like the husband who finds out his wife was cheating post-divorce, but I must wonder if the Hurley x Kelly affair still smolders?

Do you think the greatest surfer ever will officially kick OK to the curb and join John John, Julian, Filipe and Kolohe further strengthening professional surfing’s strongest gang?

All is fair in love and war.

Watch at the 1:30 mark and note the complete lack of confusion from Jeff Hurley when Kelly says, “Your father has sponsored me for years.”

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Podcast: “The Legend of Dirty Gabe!”

Is he your favorite surfer yet?

I was invited to attend a performance at the local high school, when I was five, because my father had a role in it. I remember sitting on the hard wooden bench in the gymnasium. I remember being transfixed my the cheerleaders. I remember wishing I was in something other than bellbottom overalls.

The show was fine enough, a cowboy sort of thing where my father played Black Bart, the maudlin bank robber. There was much exaggerated shouting and big arm movements. Eventually the sheriff and Black Bart met in the town square for a duel. The sheriff shot. Black Bart fell to the parquet. And next thing I knew, the cheerleaders were all surrounding me, begging me to come and give Black Bart the kiss of life.

I was very frustrated that I was in bellbottom overalls and really not wanting to be the center of attention but it was one of those moments that couldn’t be escaped and eventually I was dragged toward my father’s “dead” body. I kneeled down, kissed his cheek, he came back to life.

It might have been that moment, there, that I started cheering for the bad guy. For Darth Vader, Cal Hockley, the marines killing those damned Na’vi. Would you like to know a secret? I cheered for Gabriel Medina too. His antics, two days ago, put him in rare company. Dropping in on Kelly Slater then trying to milk an interference? Dirty. Sitting on Jeremy Flores and not letting him paddle? Dirty.

I would kiss his cheek, if I could. Maybe someday I will.

In the meantime, here is another podcast that speaks to Gabriel Medina’s essential role in the World Surf League pantheon, the poor quality of WSL judging and the last days of Turp n Pottz. Listen if you feel like. I don’t know how good it is, frankly. I was hungover and my brain was not working well.

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Kelly to Gabs: “What are you doing? There’s no left here!”

Kelly on Gabriel's bullish fade and John John Florence's world title celebration!

Is it too much to manipulate the teats of the Pipeline Masters one more time?

In the final episode of #TourNotes, Peter King’s WSL-funded contest wraps, we are gifted a reasonable insight into the machinations of the WSL’s stars behind the scenes.

Kelly Slater stars of course, a man as beautiful as they come, but unable to drift silently into the shadows. And there is no wasting of his good electricity.

First, he makes a crack about not being sponsored and asks whom I presume to be Bob McKnight from Quiksilver’s kid (surf industry people, correct me if I’m wrong) for money as he’s currently not sponsored.

“As you know I don’t have a sponsor…technically… any more and you know your father has sponsored me for years,” says Kelly.

The man opens his wallet and says, “I don’t think there’s much in here.”

We cut to the Gabriel and Kelly almost-collision, which Kelly theatrically enlivens with a double shaka.

“Gabby trying to pull a slick one and turn into him,” says Ross Williams, exhibiting a candour missed from the commentary booth.

“I was stoked because I knew I got a score and didn’t get an interference,” says Kelly. “I needed an eight…”

“How did you…know… you didn’t get an interference?” asks King.

“Because I didn’t interfere on his wave… on his scoring potential. He turned left into me and and hit my feet. And I was, like, what are you doing? There’s no left here!”

The episode then shifts to John John and to the celebration of his world title that was missed during the contest webcast.

However hokey the individual angles, the modernistic yammering, the total effect is supple and structured.

Watch here.

 

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