Listen: Legendary shaper Maurice Cole and
the surf industry apocalypse!
By Chas Smith
Love, loss, failure and victory!
Maurice Cole has been one of my favorite surf
personalities ever since I was ten years, lounging on my Coos Bay
bed, gazing at his lines. Oh they were perfect. Sensual even and
they fired a youthful lust that infects me to this day.
You know the poster.
And ooooooee, it still gives me shivers.
Maurice has rare charisma in this surf world. He’s not afraid to
butt heads, to tell it like it is, to change the game and then
change it again. He has been through multiple iterations and yet is
still a visionary. It is why I was so desirous to hear his chat
with David Lee Scales.
David Lee you know, of course, from the Surf Splendor Network
and our biweekly chats. He has always been a wonderful host but has
also developed into a crackling interviewer. He takes his craft
seriously and is able to dig gold from his subjects.
Here, the two discuss tragedy and compromised integrity. Failure
and stress and cancer and why publicly traded surf brands are
destined for failure as soon as that IPO floats. It is a fantastic
episode, well worth a listen between today’s madness.
It is the best show yet.
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Ahisma is so isolated you can do whatever you please,
damn the law, public morality etc.
Buy: Owen Wright’s Mountain-Beach Hideaway
for $A1.2 million!
By Derek Rielly
A life so isolated the law and public morality
can't touch you!
I doubt if we’ll see a family like the Wrights within
surfing ever again, at least in my lifetime.
Three surfers on the tour, including a duel world champ, and all
of ’em with their own aesthetic. Three unleashed virtuosos
romping through a program of standards. What’s not to love?
Lesser known is Owen’s taste for real estate. His portfolio
contains a beach house near Lennox (with an
indoor swimming pool that meanders through the living
room) for which he paid $A1.4 million as a
twenty-year-old in 2010, a Federation-style joint in Byron Bay
($A975,000), a townhouse in the surf town of Thirroul on the NSW
South Coast ($605,000) and, this, the sprawling mountain hideaway
Ahisma, on the NSW South Coast, bought for $A765,000 two years ago
and now listed for sale at $A1,190,000.
From the brochure:
The ultimate nature escape, ‘Ahimsa’ offers complete
privacy, stunning views and private creek frontage. The perfect
place to breathe, unwind and appreciate nature.
The home has been designed to embrace the natural beauty of
its environment. A full wall of bifold doors open your living space
out to the large ironbark deck, the kitchen offers a servery window
out to the covered deck area and even the shower can be open to the
outdoors.
Other than the cleared land around the house, the rest of
the property is natural rainforest, with your own private path
meandering down through the rainforest to Brogers Creek. With very
little maintenance required on the property, it is the perfect
retreat to relax and enjoy the peace and beauty the property
offers.
Even on a cold rainy day, you can snuggle up by the wood
fire watching the ever changing landscape from the comfort of your
lounge.
While the home embraces nature, modern conveniences have not
been forgotten. Power and phone are connected, there is Telstra
mobile reception and the kitchen features quality appliances
including a dishwasher, gas cooktop and electric oven.
If you’re looking for your own piece of paradise to escape
to, you can’t get much better than this.
C’mon, let’s do a little walkthrough.
Like it?
Do you dream of chucking in the big-city life for an existence
punctuated by the morning call of native birds, a honey-skinned and
undemanding gal lolling around on the futon massaging her clitoral
branches, and empty reef breaks?
7. Erik "ELo" Logan (holding SUP in hand): The World
Surf League President-elect of Content, Media and WSL Studios came
in speaking softly and carrying a big stick. Hailing from The Oprah
Network, this adult learner stand-up paddler is ready to
re-make surfing in his own image and we will be cheering from the
lineup.
Revealed: BeachGrit’s Most Influential Surf
Persons of 2018 (ten through six)!
By Chas Smith
These five people changed our very landscape!
2018 is almost in the books and this means only
one thing. A list. This list, unlike other lists, is better because
it is ours and very likely incomprehensible to someone not here, on
BeachGrit, every damn day. It is a list for you. For The
People.
There are ten most influential surf persons in 2018 and we shall
discuss numbers ten through five right now.
10. Ashton Goggans: 2018 was a banner year
for surfers calling the police on other surfers and it all began
with Stab magazine’s
editor-in-chief Ashton Goggans. Without his phoning
the Orange County Sheriff’s department after a minor scuffle during
a podcast and trying to press assault charges we would never have
had The World’s Lamest Surf
Assault or Leash-gate.
Here’s praying the trend continues in 2019.
9. The Wright Family: Australia’s Owen, Tyler
and Mikey kept the surf world titillated and/or confused with
confusing
injuries, confusing wildcards and more confusing
injuries. Never before has one surfer baffled the
masses, much less three, much less three siblings. It’s almost
impossible that this saga can get any more head scratching but
there’s always hope!
8. John John Florence: The world’s favorite
surfer didn’t really compete but he did keep us fascinated. From
sailing
adventures to well-timed video drops
to “will he or won’t he” debates regarding The Pipeline Masters in
Love Me Tender Memory of Andy Irons, John John made us chat
endlessly with no real insight or information. The sort of chatting
we love most.
7. Erik “ELo” Logan: The World Surf League
President-elect of Content, Media and WSL Studios came in speaking
softly and carrying a big
stick. Hailing from The Oprah Network, this
adult learner stand-up paddler is ready to re-make surfing in his
own image and we will be cheering from the lineup. Cheering until
the leash on his infinity SUP Blurr V2 pops and breaks our hands
and decapitates our heads.
6. Jack Freestone + Alana Blanchard: These two
should have been
higher but our Instagram is a den of adult learnersocial justice
warriors, not Jack + Alana’s target demo, and didn’t
stuff the ballot box like they did for the Surfer Poll Awards.
Stay tuned for numbers five through one!
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From the talk-story Dept: Ex-pro skater
goes to Hawaii as young boy, does cocaine with surfers!
By Chas Smith
You'll never guess who!
Tell me honestly what you think about
skateboarding. Are you fascinated by its urban gritty culture and
bloody-knee’d boys or do you snigger when you see a gaggle standing
around, sweating and breathing heavily?
Me?
I’m relatively indifferent, though certainly appreciate it as
both art form and very difficult pastime.
It seems, though, that many in surf wish that our culture
reflected skate with is seemingly devil-may-care ‘tude and rock ‘n’
roll lifestyle.
With this in mind let us watch a man named Dustin Dollin talk
about his first trip to America as a 14 year-old boy. The podcast
is called The Nine Club Club and is very popular amongst
skaters.
We’ll drop in after a long segue about Dustin growing up in
Australia in a safehouse for shotgun totting bank robbers with a
step-dad who had claws for hands. Right before, he describes
getting sponsored by Volcom and being flown out to Oahu then
getting picked up in a van by heavily tattoo’d Hawaiians and
getting offered cocaine.
“I land, get the immediate coke offer and realize, ‘I’m with the
party team.’ But before that I’d done coke with Andy Irons and Ozzy
Wright… maybe you don’t know who that is.”
The hosts know Andy Irons and Dustin tips his Stella Artois in
honor.
And there we have it. Heavily tattoo’d Hawaiians, cocaine and a
14-year-old boy.
Who’s more rock ‘n’ roll now?
Feel free to watch the other two and a half hours for insights
and inspiration. And if you want to read a little more? Try this!
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Sailor boy Florence, swings into Hobart ninth
across the line. Chris Bryan/@chrisbryanfilms
John John Florence about to cross line, top
ten, in world’s most prestigious open-water yacht race!
By Derek Rielly
"My goal is to sail around the world," says John
John.
The annual 600 nautical mile Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race
ain’t for sissies or cry-babies.
As those precious hunks of carbon and aluminium and fibreglass
move off the coast and mainland Australia they hit Bass Strait, an
irritable body of water known for its “high winds and difficult
seas.”
Boats sink, people disappear.
In 1998, five boats sank, six people died. Of the 115 boats that
started the race, 44 finished.
This year, the two-time world champion surfer, John John
Florence, who turns 27 next birthday, joined the crew of Winning
Appliances, a fine sixty-footer that was built in Dubai.
The boat is currently 50 or so nautical miles (57 regular miles.
See, nautical miles are based on the circumference of the earth,
each mile equalling a minute of latitude) from the finish line
where it is expected to finish ninth.
John John ain’t no stranger to boats.
Earlier this year, he bought the snowboarder Travis Rice’s
totally off-the-grid, 48-foot catamaran, Falcor, a boat Travis once
sailed from North Carolina to Hawaii via Panama and Tahiti.
“My goal is to sail around the world,” says John John.