Yes! Yes! and hopefully!
Oh I won’t lie. It makes me weep with pure joy when Kelly Slater, world’s greatest surfer, 11 x champ, Pam Anderson/Cam Diaz/Gisele Bündchen/Slater Designs/OuterKnown etc. swings by BeachGrit for a chat. Of course he has better things to do, it goes without saying, but it shows that he still cares about our little dance. That, at his core, he is a grumpy local too.
Yesterday, on our Instagram account (follow here!) he posted his feelings about our new Lemoore billboard in three succinct sentences.
@kellyslater Funny. Cheap. Character revealing.
Oooee and very to the point. Very Hemingway-esque but would you allow me to ramble on a bit in response? Kelly, would you mind if I went point by point in a drifting sort of Melville-ian way?
Thank you.
Funny.
I think so too. Very funny. I have giggled about it every single day for two months.
Cheap.
Now I assume Kelly means “cheap” as in “low.” Others have felt the same. That it is needlessly bullying a poor woman who happened to make the honest mistake of putting her surfboard fins in backward.
My retort?
It’s funny. And funny covers a multitude of sins but also it’s not “some poor woman” it’s the Chief Marketing Officer of the World Surf League, an organization that has been utterly dismissive of the wants/needs/hopes of its most diehard fans since it transitioned from the ASP. The image is a perfect symbol of the league’s deafness. Of its complete unwillingness to engage the workaday “grumpy locals” who love pro surfing in spite of themselves.
I begged for an interview with Beth when the photo first broke and it would have been the perfect opportunity for the WSL to show its sense of humor. The story would have been, “We’re all beautiful kooks!” and a list of all our regular transgressions. But, just like in the ex-CEO Paul Speaker era, the Santa Monica office locked its doors and frowned angrily.
Surfing ain’t an angry frown. It is funny. It is ridiculous. It is the most absurd yet joyful dance on earth.
Character revealing.
I hope so. BeachGrit, like surfing, is a place to laugh and have fun and not be serious and partake in the absurd joyful dance. The world is melting down around us and I’ll be damned if I let surfing melt too by getting turned into some furrowed brow’d empty but successful business.
To hell with that.
We need surfing more than we ever have before and that is the truth.
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Agree Chas! Billboard is funny as fuck unlike Robert ‘serious’ Slater
oh the joys when I wake up in the morning and read a beachgrit article like, this is gold
Chas makes surf journalism fun. So does Matt Warshaw–the Hemingway of Surf History. Seems like the media world we live in thrives on controversy so maybe Chas and Kelly are just doing their part for the commercial sustainability of pro surfing. Mo’ attention means mo’ eyeballs means mo’ money. for them. Me, I am just a humble old man longboarder trying to catch a few.
From what I have read from everybody who has actually been to the Surf Ranch, they say it was fun as all hell (except for Chas who dug a rail and broke his neck.)
Moving on to the perverted side of things, is that Beth chick single? I’ll twist her fins around if you know what I mean (and I think you do.)
Ex ?
The London/Kanga influence?
BG with the billboard, STAB with a scissor lift. if any other online grumpy old bastard surf gossip sites exist, they are really going to have dig deep to take the crown at the next KS wave co event. I am looking forward to it.
NO idea that was the CMO if the surf league, so many talented marketing guys out of work in socal that have surf industry experience but no……they choose “let’s do a survey and offer a free day at lemore and then run data analytics on the responses. And than send and AI/Bot message to each individual based upon a pre-set marketing algorithm, yeah that will get great engagement and score high for authenticity.” WTF is happening……. Longtom for President.
I love BG!
If your into hobbits
Cheap – Isn’t it possible that Kelly Slater recognizes a good media buy when he sees one? Waiting for details on the ROI for what is surely the Surf Media Buy of the Year.
Nias ?
Chas is unwittingly cock blocking Salter from being interviewed by David Lee Scales.
I’d happily listen to that if DLS promised not to softball it. I don’t mean be a dick, just not dribble beige-itudes.
He would do a great job I’m sure. His ratings would be pretty high.
How do you reply to that billboard? That fucking billboard, right there next the flawless (but financially flawed) wave you spent years developing? Are there enough tech millionaires eager to fill the expensive time slots to keep it all financially afloat? Holy shit, I did not think a perfect on call 15 second barrel would make barrels boring to an audience. Nobody predicted that, who doesn’t want perfect 15 second barrels, everyone still wants it even if they don’t want to watch it. Are there anymore famous athletes and movie stars out there who can actually surf it, (helping ad to the high priced mystique on the cheap)? Perfection and all it’s problems, and now there’s that billboard, how to reply to that fucking billboard?
I thought Kelly gave it a good off the cuff swing, he might have even connected a little with some lint like remnant of a grumpy locals conscience. Maybe laughing my ass off at that billboard every time I thought about it was mean spirited. That waves been a huge investment of time and money, and poor Beth getting the rousing that beginner surfers can get, but on a billboard, so public. Character… Beachgrit wont hesitate to call out Kelly, it’s fair for him to do the same.
Character revealing, well it takes guts to put that billboard there, to be that annoying little thorn that won’t just go away. It takes drive, follow through, grit, you’ve gotta be ready to field the blow back that comes with poking fun at power. Kelly was right, it is character revealing, all that takes character.
haha I got this. Controversy. Up the ante. All publicity and will get more eyeballs to the comp. BG sneak bastards. Tix give it away.
Not bad,
I’ll swing with that.
Upvote.
Holy Subversive-Advertorial Batman!
But then… maybe they ARE biting the hand attempting to feed.
my tin hat is going off!
…methinks the thrill has gone and menopause has taken its hoary grip upon the shiny pate…oh broken brittle bones…cracked yellowing aged teeth…the Assyrian has headed towards the hinterlands only to be blinded by the desert sun…
Chas, you guys better put a deposit on that billboard because once your ad comes down, guaranteed KS is going to reserve that board for the next 10 years
The Tachi Palace are counting the days they can get their ‘All-You-Can-Eat Seafood Buffet’ advert back up there! I think we slipped on in when they forgot to renew
classic
You’re the greatest Kelly! Now go away
Shit, Chas has me all fired up and ready for an opening kickoff or somethin’.
I wonder if having multiple riders on the same wave would provide enough unpredictability to make Lemoore interesting?
3, 2, 1…RELEASE THE BABE RUTHS!!!
well……I think everyone takes themselves too seriously these days…..I am with you Chas…lets laugh out ourselves and at others. Kelly, aka, the GOAT, is the most amazing surfer in all history. When I was a teenager the Kelly Slater Black and White movie came out and I bought it and watch that Video a million times or so. It was the the most amazing surfing I had ever seen. But now 11 WT’s later and at the age of 45, Kelly has matured into being a massive Dickhead. Fucking retire. Let the new, younger guys come through…Mikey Wright !!!. I will bet you a $1000 bucks KS competes at KS wave pool in Sept. Barrel or Nah…….massive Nah. Kelly can say all he wants about MRI’s and doctors etc…..he still comes off like a Dickhead if he surfs in this comp.
46 🙂
Ali, Jordan, Slater. Hang it up mate.