Digital manipulation @theeedforshutterspeed

Question: How much would you pay to watch John John Florence vs Gabriel Medina?

Or Italo vs. Toledo or Reynolds v Anderson or any surfer-on-surfer matchup you can imagine?

It was announced today that the upcoming pay-per-view matchup pitting Tiger Woods against Phil Mickelson will be priced at $19.99. If you are unaware of this unique sporting moment, Tiger and Phil are golfers with a historic rivalry. The Professional Golf Association powers that be decided to trim the field down to the both of them for a one day banger and let’s read a little more about it from ESPN:

The match, which will be played on the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend at Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas, will begin at noon locally (3 p.m. ET).

The winner will take home the entire $9 million pot.

During the match, Woods and Mickelson will make side challenges against each other, with winnings being donated to the golfer’s charity of choice.

Sources said fans won’t be able to watch the matchup live in person, as there will be no on-site tickets sold.

So there you go and if the World Surf League is not forking over $19.99 to observe then I am writing directly to Fiji c/o Erik Logan because ain’t this exactly what we want?

Now, the golf tour is not getting cut or curtailed. This is a specialty event custom made for fun. I don’t know exactly how the format would work for surfing. Three 45 minute heats a day? One three hour super session? Something mobile? Start at Snapper end at Burleigh? I don’t exactly know but there is something here no?

Something exciting?

My question is, which matchup would you pay for and how much would you pay?

Please address your comments to Fiji c/o Erik Logan.

Load Comments

Meet: The world’s greatest boss and yacht surfing stud Dan Price!

Hopefully the World Surf League's next hire!

I’m on day… four I think it is of fever induced sobriety and have never been so clear headed. It’s like the future is stretching out before me and I can see with my blistered but not bloodshot eyes the moves that need to be made. Can smell with my raw but not from cocaine nose all the right measures.

The future of surfing is now.

But we need other true visionaries to help tug this thing along. To help us reach our bliss and, as you know, the governing body of professional surfing has made an grand new hire recently, pulling Erik Logan away from Oprah Winfrey and setting him up as the President of Content, Media and WSL Studios elect.

He’s a step in the proper direction and we’ve have fun getting to know Elo but his Instagram feed has gone a bit quiet lately because I think he’s traveling to Fiji for a 385 day surf trip so I’ve been navigating around the social media application, searching for fellow travelers.

Today I found one.

His name is Dan Price. He is the co-founder of a credit card slider thing company and could not be better.

Dan likes himself…

Burning Man…

himself…

long hair…

…but most importantly…. Yacht Surfing.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl8To2Bnvr6/?taken-by=danpriceseattle

I’ll show myself out.

Load Comments

Blood Feud II: Joel Tudor says “Y’all some gossip bitches! I’m giving (Noa) shit for biting his uncle’s stuff”

And Shawn Stussy enters the fray!

Did you wake this morning, as I did, to a bona fide blood feud between Joel Tudor and Noa Deane,  the first of its sort in what feels like months?

The noted San Diego longboarder and “competitive grappler” Joel Tudor was “angry with Noa Deane…for artistic appropriation and, quite possibly cultural appropriation too.”

See here.

(And read the story here.)

Joel, who is forty two years old, is no shrinking violet.

When Chas Smith posted the story on the Instagram account @surfjournalist Joel didn’t spare the horses, as they say.

Man y’all some gossip bitches begging for content and follower – we’re both friends …I’m just giving him shit for biting his uncle’s stuff so quickly – piss off troll pages like these. JOEL TUDOR

Man y’all some gossip bitches begging for content and follower – we’re both friends …I’m just giving him shit for biting his uncle’s stuff so quickly – piss off troll pages like these.”

No sense of humour?

“You are the spice surfing needs! How boring would today be without this?” Chas replied.

Ok ok …I’ll give ya a pass haha ..this is true ..surfing is way to soft these days,” Joel wrote back.  “But please remember Noah is like a nephew to me …I’ve known him since diapers …still love him – just disappointed.”

Readers were less disappointed than confused as to who the wronged uncle is.

Is it the Hawaiian sort of uncle, meaning any elder close to the family, which I suppose is Joel, or is there an inter-continental blood link as well as a blood feud between Joel and Noa?

Anyone got the juice?

And, to further augment the tension, should we bring the designer and shaper Shawn Stussy into the feud?

His label is called SDouble; Tudor’s is Double S.

Load Comments

Wave pool arms-race: Does the new Occy tank “flush” the competition?

Is the wave pool arms-race officially over?

It officially is a wave pool arms-race now. I’d have BeachGrit take credit for coining the term “wave pool arms-race” or “wave tank arms-race” or some such variation but I have not listened to Del the Funky Homosapien’s entire catalogue nor have I thoroughly studied Native American pre-colonial recreation facilities.

The Atlantic, anyhow, made it official by doing a story titled The High Stakes of Surfing’s Wave-Pool Arms Race and it’s a good read. Here’s a taste.

But as Slater grabbed headlines, something else was happening. Consortiums of engineers, scientists, and financiers were building other wave-generating technologies around the world. Slater’s company wasn’t only generating fake waves; it was spreading an infectious enthusiasm for the very idea. And there was potential gold for whoever could do it best: In 2016, the International Olympic Committee voted to include surfing in the 2020 Japan Games. First to market in Japan meant an introduction to the world.

A race was on.

Please read the rest but, and this is an important but, the piece appears to have been written before a young man died from brain eating amoeba after surfing the pool in Waco, Texas and also before the reveal of the plunger and chlorine utilized by the Occy/Lynch fronted Surf Lakes in Yeppoon in Australia’s Queensland.

Of course we haven’t seen the pool yet but between the plunger and the chlorine I’m ready to declare it a clear winner.

Surf Lakes for President? Can we rename it something a little more… youthfully edgy though? Like, Fucking Surf Camp for the Holmeses or something?

Read all about it here!

Load Comments

Chippa Wilson
Nobody hucks like Chip.

Essential viewing: Chris “Chippa” Wilson in “Jeepers! Does this thing go backwards?”

The best film release of 2018!

Has it really been ten years since little Chris Wilson, barely out of his teens, appeared on my boxy laptop screen? I remember the moment well for Chris, who was nicknamed Chippa after the ’60s TV show My Three Sons (kid in the show was cute-as-a-button Chip Douglas),was a competitor in a talent contest my magazine was running and it was if he atomised every other surfer with the one clip.

“This is like seeing Dane Reynolds for the first time,” I said aloud.

Of course he won the contest, which was called Little Weeds, by the most stupid margin and has gone on to make a career as a pro surfer.

Last week, Chip released an eleven-minute film called Video Number Four and it’s as if we’re seeing the now thirty one year old for the very first time again. The surfing contained within is scarcely believable. Chip takes you in a choke-hold and and refuses to acknowledge your tapping hand. It is graphic and thorny and, let’s be honest here, the best surf film release of the year.

Or am I missing something?

Watch! No, really. Watch. 

(Five years ago, I interviewed Chip on all manner of topics. Read below.)

BeachGrit: What do you do for kicks?

Chip: I’ve been working on a new motorbike at home, an old 1977 Kawasaki 100 road bike. It’s black and green with army green tank and fenders. It’s a good little bike, super rare. My friend at Byron at Thrills, Ryan, he Instagrammed a photo of it and I jumped on it. Hustled it down a bit and got it. I’ve also got this project in Cali where I’m chasing a 400 Honda and a big Ford van, somewhere you can toss your moto in the back and just cruise. That’s the dream.

Motos are great for kicks. And they kick back. It’s addicting! I’m getting my license this weekend. I’ve been riding but I don’t wanna lose my license before I get it. And, yeah, it’s dangerous and you can kill yourself. That’s a setback. I’m going to be dressing to crash, f’sure.

What do you love and what do you hate about where you live? Everything is so… easy. Just so green. It ain’t too overbuilt yet. I’ve lived there since I was one so it’s home. What do I hate? I hate it when there’s no surf and the surf’s shitty. But, pumping today, and yesterday, so all good in the hood.

Tell me all about your frontside 540, your new trick… My goal is to nail it by the end of the year.

Is it an air reverse kinda flat spin or an alley oop spin? Air reverse flat spin. It’s not inverted so it looks more crazy. From there it’s only one more tweak to a 720, two full revs… A 720 is gnarly, a 540 is weird enough. That last 180 is fucking trippy. You’re doing a 180 when you shouldn’t. Although the more you practise the more normal it becomes. Every time I’ve gotten close it’s been a pretty big wave, with a lot of speed, and a good wind. You need power and push to buck…

Were you bullied as a kid or did you bully? When I was super young, like at primary school, I had a strong lisp and I got bullied. But then, that’s what kids do. They’d copy what I was saying and tease me. Same old shit. Poor little Chippa, eh?

He’s doing alright now. Ha! I ended up fixing the lisp myself.

Did you ever bullyNo way. I wasn’t into that. But, yeah, all kids do it to a certain extent.

What’s the meanest thing you’ve done to somebody? Shaved eyebrows when the boys have been passed out. Dumb shit. But nothing real mean. I kinda sound like a pussy. I’ve been in a fight or two. Maybe a punch in the head is the meanest thing I’ve done.

How does a situation in your life escalate to conflict? I only fight when I really have to, me getting punched in the head or sticking up for myself. I’ve only really been in two fights and the last one I blacked out, full of rage, and won. I was in Bali and some dude smashed his beer into my fish bowl drink. I got up and punched on. I remember I was on top of him on the ground. All the bouncers came and I got up and walked out of there.

Do girls ever send you explicit letters with accompanying photos? I feel like you’ve gotta be in the game to get that stuff from crazy creeps. I’ve got a gal so I deleted my Facebook.

How about our new pal Snapchat? …that why I haven’t got it. That’s where it’s going to happen.

What about those tattoo gals? You’re a pinup for self art. My friend Ben Grillo, he’s a real good tattoo artist from California, he made a few tattoos on my knuckles and he put the portraits on Instagram and he tagged me on the photos. I had 20 completely tattooed gals hitting me up, liking all my photos. Super weird.

What do you think about yourself?  Mellow. Tatted up. Shy. Put me on a stage with am microphone and I’d choke up and walk off.

Do you care what people think of you? Everyone does. If they have a strong opinion, it’d be good if they told you. If they got it wrong, I do kinda care.

What is your favourite season? Right now. Autumn in Australia. I like cold nights and cold mornings. I dig winter too so from here until a little after August. Nice offshore winds in the morning, full suits, coffee, it’s insane. I can’t stand summer here. It’s way too hot. In winter you can always find a place to get warm. In summer you’re completely fucked.

What’s been your most memorable experience ever? Getting my first house and moving out of home. I went thirds with my older brother and a good mate and we all moved in together. I always had so much respect for my mum and dad’s house and it was always in the back of my head if I brought people back. In our house, it was a free for all. You come home and you can make a mess, have fun, party, drink all night and turn the music up loud.

What do you do when you feel sad or depressed? Lately, it’s been the crazy fucked up shit going on in the world. That’s sad and that’s depressing. I was in America when that Boston stuff happened. And on the way over on the plane there was a lady sitting in front of me with a Boston Marathon t-shirt and a tiny little kid. She was flying over to do it. As soon as I saw the news, I thought about her and that little kid. That type of weird shit gets me sad.

What’s your favourite time of the day? Morning. I like to see what it brings. Some days I get up and I have no motivation to do anything. But some days are good and you get up and surf and you’re super productive.

What’s your bad quality? I get lazy on the internet and having to write back to people. If I don’t do it when I have to, It’s going to take a while.

If there is one thing you’d die for, what is it? I’d die for a coffee right now. I’m sitting across from Gloria Jeans and it smells that good.

Who has had the most influence in your life? I’m always looking up to people who are ahead of me. I’ve always looked up to Craig Anderson. I could see how good he was. He was king and he’s still killing it. It’s insane. My old man’s been good. He’s a carpenter and he’s still working so goddamned hard.

Do you solve many problems in the car? No, but I make a few phone calls which can solve things.
On a scale of one to 10, rate me as an interviewer… I’m going to toss you a nine. You actually talk back and not talk like you’re reading off a teleprompter. I get some where it feels like I’m talking to a computer.

Load Comments