Pathos! The impossible-to-manufacture drama of the Pipe Masters. It's 2013, Kelly Slater has just won the Pipe Masters, beating John John Florence, but lost the world title to Mick Fanning. Justin Jay/justinjayphoto

Warshaw: “I’m going to hate-watch Surf Ranch Pro and hope it fails so badly Sophie flies to Hawaii and restores Pipe Masters!

Derek Rielly

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The custodian of surf history Matt Warshaw discusses, with a wonderful frankness, non-surfers in surf…

It’s been a few months since the custodian of surf history, Matt Warshaw, lit up on the Andy Irons documentary (“Kissed by God disturbed me”), the loss of the Pipe Masters from the tour (“Pipe is the crucible!”) and far too long since his fabulous obit on filmmaker Bruce Brown, “No drugs, no booze, no pussy!“

Over the weekend, Warshaw and I back-and-forthed on the involvement of non-surfers within surf.

Why do they do it? What kinda kick do they get? What do they bring to the game?

And so forth.

BeachGrit: You know history. Tell me the most famous non-surfers in surfing.

Warshaw: Fritz Kohner, Austrian-Jew newspaperman, fled Europe just ahead of Hitler, landed soft in Brentwood, California, and wrote Gidget. Put him at the top of the list. Not just because Gidget was so huge, but because Fritz liked surfers, liked the whole scene. The book is great, much better than the movie. It’s raunchier. It’s a hundred times more real, to me, then Breath. The surfers in Gidget are broke horny hedonists, mouthy, funny, loud, drinking wine on the beach, you want to slap them the way you want to slap your 18-year-old self. But you can tell Fritz likes them. He totally gets why we’d want to be on the beach all day, wearing shitty cut-off trunks, riding homemade boards, free as can be. It’s the perfect opposite to what he’d seen and lived through 20 years earlier in Berlin and Prague. He went from Fascism to Moondoggie. Fritz never touched a surfboard, but he dug surfing, and he was a fellow traveler.

The idea of non-surfers getting into the game has always fascinated me. Sophie G as CEO of WSL, Greville Mitchell as sugar daddy for the ASP, Laura Inman as head of Billabong, the photographer Sarge. I always think…why?

I don’t know who Greville or Inman are, and have no comment on Sarge. But if you’re motivated by trend-based business, I supposed it doesn’t matter what you’re dealing in. Surfing, CBD oil, fidget-spinners. The thing itself is just a unit. The rush comes from growth and expansion. I don’t think that’s fundamentally wrong. Or maybe I do, I’m not sure. But part of me thinks that if you’re going to do the job right you would in fact want, demand, the deepest possible understanding of the product you’re involved with. Just so that you could do the job. Sophie Goldschmidt doesn’t understand surfing, and I don’t think she listens, not seriously anyway, those who do. So here we are, getting a web-streamed version of surfing which, often as not, is pretty well perverted.

How do you mean?

Removing the ocean. In our sport, there can be no transgression to compare. The ocean is the whole show, it’s the only thing that our sport different and interesting. Build the pools, sure. Give us the choice to embrace the novelty, or not; to jump in and train and practice, or not. But a world tour should not only produce a champion, but represent the best of surfing, the truth of surfing, and that truth lives in, was born in, depends on, the ocean.

You’re fired up!

You could list another 50 ways, big and small, the WSL had gone wrong. But Lemoore is upon us, and really all the sins of the WSL can be rolled up and poured into that one place.

How do you feel, as a surfer, nothing else, when you see a non-surfer as frontman for the WSL at the Pipe Masters and various other events? I know our mutual pal Nick Carroll is thrilled that Sophie’s out there but I get this…odd… feeling. Maybe your heart soars?

It doesn’t automatically bother me when non-surfers get their hands on our sport. We’ve fucked it up often enough ourselves. The Allentown wavepool contest — that was created, endorsed, and fully signed off by a world tour staffed by surfers. A really smart non-surfer could do wonders with the WSL, if he or she had a feel for the sport the way Fritz Kohner did, and also if they had enough sense to listen to people who deeply understand both the pitfalls and potentials of presenting surfing in an authentic way.

Back to Surf Ranch for a moment. For the very first time in history, surf fans, writers, and so on, can’t surf near or around the event. No paddling into the lineup after the final heat, no early sneaker sessions, no interaction with the pro’s. Is this non-surfing thing going to become pro surfing’s…motif?

I don’t think so. I hope not. I’m going to hate-watch it, and hope it fails so badly that Sophie flies to Honolulu and throws signed checks at the feet of the powers that be to restore the Pipe Masters. On the other hand, there’s a real chance that pro surfing has moved on to a place where I don’t belong. The WSL may have insight to pro surfing’s future that I don’t have. They may be playing a longer game than I can imagine. And if we end up with a more tanks on tour, well, that’ll be sad, but I’ll just close my laptop and not watch. The fight in me these days doesn’t run that deep. I’ll take what I’ve been given thus far, surf-wise, and be more than happy.

Is there an irony, for you, in Kelly Slater as the surfer who’s won the most Pipe Masters …and… as the architect of Surf Ranch?
Kelly’s life as a surfer of incomprehensible talent, in and out of the contest arena, at this point seems completely divorced from his life as a surfing entrepreneur. I can’t square the two.

Insane: “Daredevil” surfers “defy” authorities in Hawaii!

Chas Smith

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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:

Hawaii’s Daredevil Surfers Grab their Boards to Ride Hurricane’s Epic Waves.

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.

People in Hawaii Calmly Went Surfing as Storm Sirens Sounded to Warn Them about a Devastating Hurricane

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?

Discovered: The WSL’s perfect unicorn!

Chas Smith

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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.

Lemoore: Introducing a billboard for the people!

Chas Smith

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"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.

Ain't nobody can tell a story like Bruce Irons. | Photo: @RVCA

Revealed: Why Bruce Irons Missed Maldives Invitational. “A story so outrageous I wouldn’t believe it if someone told me!”

Derek Rielly

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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.

Well, first, hoo-ee, it’s been three years since I spoke to Bruce, since he told me he was jumping back on the qualifying series, so there’s a little bit of catch-up.

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.

First, Bruce was psyched to go.

“I wanted to go and fucking wax Freddy P. We had a vendetta. In our last little matchup in Bali I smoked his ass. We were staying together. He got second and I won. I knew he’d be coming with his A-game. As for Kerr, I knew he was going to win. I saw him surf that single fin in that Rusty vid, doing airs, and alright, well, yep, he has his shit down. So… I was bummed. Fuck.”

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.”

Bruce’s Lost quiver for the event.

(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.”

Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
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