Insane: “Daredevil” surfers “defy”
authorities in Hawaii!
By Chas Smith
In these rare moments, surfers are the best!
Scott Bass, very famous podcaster and founder
of the Boardroom Show, is known for popularizing the phrase,
“Surfers are the worst.” Oh it is a sentiment that rings true,
don’t you think? Grumpy locals. Snappy locals. Grouchy locals. The
enemies of the people.
We know how inconsiderate surfers can be because we are surfers
and inconsiderate but on rare occasions surfers are the absolute
best. Like anytime a hurricane is about to make landfall
anywhere.
Usually this phenomenon occurs on the eastern seaboard where
hurricanes are a regular occurrence. There on the beach, clad in
expensive all-weather gear, a newscaster will be worriedly updating
the situation, wind blowing, rain falling, death and destruction on
the horizon.
Then, without exception, a surfer will trot by smiling in
nothing but trunks. The newscaster will throw back to the newsroom
where anchors crow about the dangers and irresponsibility of such
brazen selfish acts.
In these times, surfers are the best. Like yesterday on Oahu
when Hurricane Lane was about to make landfall but surfers headed
to Waikiki instead and news organizations crowed:
As Hurricane Lane approached the Hawaiian islands this week,
residents made different preparations. Some boarded up windows.
Others rushed to stock up on water and food. Others decided that
the best thing to do was grab their surfboards and head out into
the waves.
Hurricane Lane has landed in some parts of Hawaii, bringing
landslides and flooding — but some people didn’t seem to mind the
approaching storm, and spent the day surfing instead.
Islanders have been taking advantage of the rough conditions
brought about by the category-3 storm’s approach, and hit the waves
even as storm sirens were sounding behind them.
Etc.
Surfers are nothing if not single-minded and perpetual
non-surfer surprise is a joy to witness. Don’t you think?
Don’t you think surfers paddling out while others worry about
loss of life and limb is a happy trait?
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Discovered: The WSL’s perfect unicorn!
By Chas Smith
She is 70 years-old, lives in Eugene, loves
watching professional surfing and has never touched a board in her
life!
Last night I read a portion of Cocaine +
Surfing (buy here on
Audible!) to the two people in Eugene, Oregon’s Barnes
& Noble. Oh it was a intimate gathering, no doubt, though not
unsurprising. Instagram stole my voice so now I just show up places
and hope that, by some miracle, other people also show up.
This was not the case in Eugene but it was a wonderful time
nonetheless. One of the two was a professor from the University of
Oregon who was knowledgeable, kind, interesting and interested. We
chatted about cocaine and then about surfing.
The other was a 70 year-old-woman and the miraculous future of
the World Surf League.
Since the Association of Surfing Professional transitioned to
the WSL some years back and Herr Paul Speaker was installed as CEO
it was clear that the future of professional surfing rested on the
backs of non-participatory fans.
There are not enough surfers in the world, the thinking goes, to
sustain a whole tour and so others in Chicago and Des Moines and
Alice Springs and Munich and Zurich and Brasilia who have never
touched a surfboard have to fall in love with the spectacle too.
They must begin to follow the exploits of Gabriel Medina and Julian
Wilson. They must begin to thrill at interference calls and
priority. The differences between a 6.8 and a 5.4.
I’ve openly mocked the very idea. Who on earth could give two
shits about professional surfing other than addict, derelict
surfers? The very thought on a non-participatory fan would keep at
night as I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.
But those laughs turned to muted coughs in Eugene, Oregon as the
70 year-old sat and listened to me read. I assumed that she somehow
got lost in the bookstore and accidentally found a comfortable
chair in a virtually empty space so asked when I was finished,
“What brings you here?”
“Oh I really love watching surfing…” she responded. “It’s
mesmerizing.”
“Do you surf?” I wondered.
“No…” she said. “I have never gone surfing in my life but I
really love watching the competitions.”
We chatted about who she liked to watch, favorite surfers etc.
but I could barely hear her answers as shame pulsed though my ears.
I made so much fun of Herr Paul Speaker and the rest of the WSL lot
but they were right and here was their unicorn.
I did not laugh that night. I felt mortifyingly embarrassed for
drawing two people to a book reading. I felt mortifyingly
embarrassed for being so wrong about the future of professional
surfing.
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Lemoore: Introducing a billboard for the
people!
By Chas Smith
"You don't have to be a surfer to love
BeachGrit!"
The Surf Ranch Pro in Lemoore, California
couldn’t be any closer and excitement crackles in the
bovine-scented air. Athletes and sports fans from around the world
will soon descend upon the small agricultural town some 120 odd
miles from the nearest beach. They will meet at the Tachi Palace, a
largish hotel and casino, order whiskey sodas from one of the two
bars which will be served in delicate plastic cups, whistle though
their teeth at the marvel.
At the future of professional surfing.
Surf Ranch, just down the street and around the corner from the
Palace, represents the hopes and dreams of so many with its
patented plow technology and secretly contoured bottom. With its
control tower where buttons blink and an operator trained in the
fine arts of pleasure presses them to create waves out of nothing.
Out of simple agricultural run-off.
It is a technological marvel and I oftentimes wonder what the
locals, living nearby, think of it. Are they thrilled to possess
land and double-wide trailer homes within spiting distance of the
future of professional surfing or do they feel ignored? Locked out
and confused by this behemoth that moved into town under the banner
World Surf League?
Well BeachGrit, as you know, is a place for the people,
all people, for locals and sports fans alike, and the Sydney bureau
came up with a plan on how to reach everyone coming to Lemoore with
our benevolent message.
I wasn’t there for the brainstorm between Derek Rielly and James
Prier but can recall exactly what I was drinking when the text
message came through.
“We are getting a billboard between the Tachi Palace and the
Surf Ranch itself.”
A billboard.
And I poured myself another vodka coconut water as the sheer
genius washed over me. Of course, a billboard, and in this future,
in this day and age of technological marvels sometime the simplest
tool is the most effective. A note handwritten. A record played on
turntable.
But what would our billboard declare?
After some back and forth it was decided.
“You don’t have to be a surfer to love BeachGrit.”
And a photograph of the World Surf League’s brave Chief-Marketing-Officer Beth
Greve, enjoying a day at the beach with her surfboard
fins inserted backwards.
Yes, you don’t have to be a surfer to love BeachGrit.
You can be a cow farmer, a kid who lives with salt in her hair,
Kelly Slater, a satanist or a progressive CMO trying new and
wonderfully different methods.
We are a big, beautiful family stretching from sea to shining
sea and the lands in between. All those driving from the Tachi
Palace to the Surf Ranch itself will be warmed, I think, by this
message of inclusivity.
By this great embrace.
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Revealed: Why Bruce Irons Missed Maldives
Invitational. “A story so outrageous I wouldn’t believe it if
someone told me!”
By Derek Rielly
Ain't nobody tell a story like the great, the
beautiful Bruce Irons…
Two weeks ago, the Australian Josh Kerr won the Four
Seasons invitational contest in the Maldives, an event
that tests the savvy of surfers on singles, twins and
three-packs.
Also in the event, and in order of placing, were Alejo Muniz,
Fred Pattachia, CJ Hobgood and local wildcard Abdulla
‘Fuku’ Areef.
A sixth competitor, Bruce Irons, was a notable absentee.
Earlier today, I spoke to Bruce, who is thirty-eight years old
and living in Salt Creek in southern Orange County, about the chain
of events that led to his withdrawal from the event.
I tell him I’m the now the biz partner of a best-selling author
(buy Coke and Surf here, free
worldwide delivery); Bruce says he’s had two
months out of the water, all of June and July, after laser
eye surgery. A pterygium made it feel like “someone had spit in my
eye. Last winter, I’d drop in late, pull up and all of a sudden
lose my balance. I looked like a fucking kook. I spent thirty years
not realising it. It was like looking through a glass bottle.
Towards the end it was really bad, like, does she have fuzzy skin?
Do you have…scales?”
As for missing the Maldives, well, that’s a three-pronged
story.
The last time Bruce was in the Maldives was with old pals Chris
Ward and Shane Beschen.
“Chris tried to do a Muay Thai kick and he slipped over and
split his head in front of me,” says Bruce. “I went to kick in his
face and slipped and got a huge bump on my elbow. He got up in the
morning and we got into it again because he thought I’d punched
him. He broke my boards and my mini-DVD player, back when they were
a thousand dollars out of Singapore. It was Beschen’s Bombay gin
that started us.”
So what happened on this trip?
“It was a string of fucking…okay…it’s partially my
fault. I was moving out of my place, I was hotel hopping, I had all
my fucking stuff in storage, a car full of shit, and I got my
boards sent to a friend’s place in Venice. As I was driving up
there, I grabbed all my stuff. And I open it all up and I’ve only
got a double board bag. It was, like, shit, crunch time. Plane to
catch. I needed to open up the bag, go boom, boom, boom.
Oh my fucking god. This is not going to work.”
(Flight to Dubai missed.)
“Next day, I get there three hours before the thing opens. I
call this service on Yelp where they come and pick up all your
luggage so I don’t have to sit there with all my stuff. (Later), I
call the guy and I say, ‘Alright, boom, drop off my shit,
I’m over here.’ The guy comes up and tells me he doesn’t take
credit cards. Cash only. I have a credit card, that’s all I’ve got.
I tell him, ‘Fuck, I’ve got stuff I can give you, what the fuck?’
He doesn’t budge. Me and this dude are going back and forth… for
fifty dollars. Everyone was losing. I’m going to miss my flight,
he’s going to lose his fucking job. I tell him I’ve got GoPros,
sunglasses, shoes. He asks me if I have any perfume.
Per…fucking…fume! I gave him a GoPro to get my stuff. And
I missed my fucking flight. Now…you’re not going to believe
this.
“The third thing.
“So I go back to the motel. Next day, I get a taxi to the
airport, my luggage is in the back. The driver gets into me for
going so short a distance. A twenty-buck fare. He’s mumbling shit.
Want me to get out? Right before we get out he tells
me he’s from Ethiopia da da da. Whatever, all good, he’s talking,
talking as I get out and then he takes off with all my luggage. Are
you fucking kidding me? So I Uber back to the taxi bull pen. Eight
lines. Fifty cars. They’re all yelling at each other. And I tell
’em, one of your taxi guys has my shit, the Ethiopian dude. The guy
there says there’s so many cars and so many different races and I’m
standing there going fuck, fuck, fuck. Then, because my iPad was in
one of the bags, I tracked it to Hollywood. I go to my car and I’m
flying towards Hollywood where this fucker is and then he comes
back to the bull pen, turns off my iPad, but I’m already back
there. I’ve fucking got him. The motherfucker. I tell him,
what’s up motherfucker! You turned off my iPad!
He said he didn’t know whose it was.
“(The trip) just wasn’t meant to be. It sucked. Those stories
seem outrageous don’t they? I wouldn’t believe it if someone told
me. Really? Really? So I’m sitting there, baffled, the
fight leaves at one in the morning, the cops are there, and I grab
my shit and get to there (check-in) with fifty minutes to go. The
chick doesn’t let me on. Then it’s two in the morning and it’s like
the Twilight Zone. I gotta get back to my car with my board bag,
the car is filled with shit, and on top of it, I’m looking for a
hotel in fucking LA, and everywhere is booked out. I find this one
place, drove up to it, and there’s a dude on the porch,
this full trap house, holding
a bottle of hard alcohol, full gangsta, and I just did a full
u-turn.
“I blew it. There was a string of events but you know how it is.
I’m justifying it to myself. If I had a chick, this probably
wouldn’t have happened. They’re all organised. I’ve been running my
own shit. At the end of the day it’s my own fucking fault. I spent
a lot of money. The first fight they paid for. I spent probably
spent six grand and didn’t fucking go anywhere.”
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Champagne time: The surf industry
apocalypse is over*!
By Chas Smith
It's a great day to be alive!
It was a miracle of modern economics. The surf
industry, which first began to fall out of the sky some 20 years
ago kept up an extremely impressive nosedive even through the
longest bull market in history.
That’s right. While global markets have added trillions and
trillions of dollars, especially during the last decade, surf has
bucked all trends, going its own way, down, down, down.
Companies like Billabong, which used to be worth well over a
billion dollars, shed value like it was the hottest game in town.
Scratching its balding pate as the money dried up, collaborating
with Andy Warhol, money drying up, collaborating with Iggy Pop,
money drying up, scratching its balding pate, very confused until
given to onetime rival Quiksilver for free.
The same Quiksilver that had just exited bankruptcy protection
under the guiding hand of Oaktree Capital Investments. A firm
specializing in “distressed assets.”
There were few bright spots. A brutal bloodletting. But now, 20
years on, it’s time to pop the even more vintage bubbly because
according to Apparel News and Lost’s Joel Cooper WE’RE BACK
BABY!
Let’s waste no more time with Andy n Iggy. Let’s get straight to
the good
stuff!
ActionWatch’s findings are good news for the surf business,
which over the past decade has been pummeled by high-profile
bankruptcies, changing tastes in youth fashion and a new retail
landscape.
The tough times paved the way for a comeback, said Joel
Cooper, chief executive officer of Lost International, the parent
company of the popular surf brand …Lost.
“The great thing about the surf industry is that it never
goes away. It’s cyclical,” Cooper said. “We’ve gone through bad
times. It is slowly improving.”
Some reasons for a rebound is the fashion cycle is turning
back toward surf and more women are interested in the category than
before, Cooper said. Bankruptcies of major surfwear companies,
including Quiksilver and Billabong, have forced the bigger
companies to streamline operations and work more
efficiently.
After Quiksilver emerged from bankruptcy, it renamed the
company Boardriders Inc. and acquired the troubled Billabong
surfwear brand.
With bigger companies working to save their businesses,
there was more room for entrepreneurs to introduce new brands,
which paved the way for more variety at surf shops, Cooper
said. “The business is coming back at a core level. Maybe we’ve
turned a corner,” he said.
Lost might be benefiting from better tides for the surfwear
industry. It recently opened its second boutique in Hawaii, giving
the company seven full-price boutiques.
Quick question here, are you going to have your champagne with
OJ, a peach purée or straight?
Oooee!
*”Over” is a relative term.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros