These four made our spirits soar.
It really has been a hell of a year, as they say in the merchant marines. A hell of a year and has John John Florence basically convinced you to give up surfing and take up sailing instead? I can speak from a bit of experience here. Sailing requires nimble fingers (for knots and things) and a nimble mind (knots etc.). Surfing requires neither. I imagine we could all cut off our fingers, in fact, replacing them with foam-stuffed Darkfin gloves and be just fine.
Also there are no brains required but the next four most influential surf persons of 2018 showed an uncanny ability to swing with the times. To put their very mark on the thing we used to love before sailing came into the picture and let’s not waste anymore time. Let’s meet them directly.
5. Steve “Longtom” Shearer: What would professional surfing have been this year without him? I’ll tell you. A soft-boiled egg. One of those soft-boiled eggs that you ask for but when the waiter brings it and you crack the shell all that viscous clear slime oozes out and know that you will be infected with salmonella. Longtom elevated the tour to a state of high art. I don’t think that has ever been done before. Matt Warshaw? Nick Carroll? Correct me please but there’s no way I’m wrong. Longtom hit it out of the park day after lousy day. He turned heats between Wade Carmichael and Willian Cardoso into poetry. Imagine doing that just once. Then imagine doing it across an entire year. Steve? I’m raising my bourbon to you right now and in the sincerest honesty. Thank you.
4. Bruce Irons: Yes he is high up the list but also high. Or low. Or whatever falling asleep in a Newport Beach gas station and getting woken by the police before flying to Oahu in order to attend the Eddie opening ceremony but missing it but making TMZ instead is. Bruce continues to be watchable after all these years. A throwback with a devil may care attitude and enough credibility to go all in every single time. You’d crave him if he wasn’t here and of which other professional surfers can that be said?
3. Kelly Slater: Oh yeah. It can be said of Kelly Slater. Around and around and around we go but son of a bitch if the greatest surfer of all time, the greatest athlete of all time isn’t a bucket of fun contradiction. What if Tom Brady got on Instagram and endlessly debated flat-earthers? What if LeBron James announced his future retirement the day after Kobe Bryant did? I’ll tell you what. Then the NFL and NBA would be that much more entertaining. Our GOAT knows how to pull focus and wants it, demands it. And how fabulous is that?
2. Beth “Backward Fin” Greve: It has been a longtime dream of mine to make it into The New Yorker and the World Surf League’s ex-Chief Commercial Officer made that happen. Oh sure it wasn’t in the way I imagined. I thought I’d maybe write a story but beggars can’t be choosers and how many deep bellied laughs did we have about her ill-fated Balinese adventure? So many! She was invited to join, of course, but refused thereby rejecting our core ethos that “the best surfer in the water is the one having the most fun.” I hope she has great success wherever she lands and also frames that issue of The New Yorker on her wall. It’s truly a proud moment.
Tomorrow we reveal who BeachGrit’s Man of the Year is. “Man” is of course gender fluid. It’s almost 2019!
See you tomorrow!
“on the map”
And he overcompensated swellegantly.
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“on the map” And he overcompensated nicely.
More Ben Marcus!!!!
He’s a ray of sunshine!
Much like your commentary Ben, you’ve already posted that multiple times.
But congrats! you’ve relevant again in 2018!! Bring on 2019 to change that!
Cocaine’s a helluva drug
“you’re relevant” not “you’ve relevant”
And relevance is a diminished concept.
Everyone is relevant these days.
You’re not relevant, but maybe too revealing? In your work?
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This Ben Marcus character is something special! Never have I heard someone so vigorously toot their own horn. What’s even more head-scratching about his approach here is that he currently lauds himself for his previous involvement in the surf industry, during a time in surfing when you were viewed as an absolute fucking kook for such behavior.
Did you hear that Evan Slater, Nick Carroll, Jamie Brisick and Derek Hynd?
This absolute fucking kook from Team Wave Storm reckons if you worked at surf magazines in the 1990s, you were an absolute fucking kook!
The surf industry was actually fun then. There was lots of money around and the cool dudes who started the companies – Fernando, Hurley, Michael Tomson, McKnight, Woolcott, Pat O’Neill – still owned the companies.
Now everything is corporate-owned and lame.
No money. No spirit. Blah.
Although the Ziffs are fun.
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Kook is the new ‘cool’
Apparently so., from the tone of this website.
And BitchGripe is the Kook Bible of the Sport.
One thing I cant stand is people chiming in, stirring the pot then deleting their comments.
I’ve never liked the term “moderator” as it implies some sort of moral code one should adhere to. Hence me removing the moderator badge next to the “mods” name and replacing it with whatever tickles my fancy.
I see myself as more of a friendly chubby bouncer at a seedy bar and one that doesn’t mind giving the punters a quick knee in the balls if they get too lippy. But i’ll help them back up with a smile and of course never rough them up in the alley out the back, like a gentleman I’d do it in plain sight on the street frontage.
So in the spirit of that, I’ll be reposting Ben Marcus’s deleted comments below.
Please note: Im not doing this because they’ve actually interesting or even relevant, we’ve certainly heard them all before from Ben… just because I’m indulging my inner arsehole and its seems a shame to waste the time Ben put into the last couple of hours…
Chas Smith should be #1 for getting hurt – at Surf Ranch(?!)
“your first quotation mark” and not “you first quotation”
Surfing great again? Capitalized?
Surfing Magazine went out of business.
That’s not so great – although justified, as they were always the lower-priced spread.
And you have a comma before the exclamation point = again,!
Remember: Proper spelling and grammar are what separate us from the mongrel race
hijack” not “highjack”
Longtom elevated the tour to a state of high art. I don’t think that has ever been done before. Matt Warshaw? Nick Carroll? Correct me please but there’s no way I’m wrong.
Are you joking?
Did Coos Bay not get home delivery postal service in the 80s and 90s and you did not read Surfer Magazine?
Derek Hynd.
Geez man.
How old are you?
Twelve?
If I may use an Aussie-ism: “Longtom isn’t worth the steam off Derek Hynd’s shit.”
Derek was missing an eye. You apparently are missing both.
Self-congratulatory much?
I know that BitchGripe.com isn’t meant to be credible – but that’s incredible.
This dude knows what’s up: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
You utter “non-surfing” as if it were a curse.
It’s interesting to see how pro surfing is evolving with non-surfing professionals – executives who don’t cut and run whenever the tides or winds are aligned.
Surfers – you may or may not have noticed – are not always the brightest bulbs on the tree.
Indeed many surfers are self-righteous, self-satisfied screwups, and in groups are prone to what I call “thrusterfucks.”
Looks like Sophie done good here. Picked up her own fumble and turned it into three years of Pipe Masters – if I can use a “non-surfing” term.
Maybe cut her some slack?
You are indulging yourself in a canard.
Longtom is writing on the shoulders of greatness.
See that’s why older people get grumpy.
They see the younger generation re-inventing the wheel, thinking they are doing something original.
They aren’t.
There is no comparison.
Derek was original.
You don’t remember Derek’s top 44 evaluations at the end of the year?
Longtom is following that path.
And Chas, you got injured surfing an artificial wave that does the exact same thing, over and over again, and you’re giving other people shit?
Really?
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Yep I said that to Bob Hurley today.
Shane Dorian teased me about my choice of music – I survived.
But it’s also true that if they liked you, they made fun of you.
If they didn’t like you, they ignored you.
So Brock must have liked me a lot.
I did good work with some of those people, even if they were a bunch of stuck up snotty surfers.
I think they used some video I shot on Bega Island in that Momentum movie – shots of Machado surfing in front of the village and meeting some people.
Surfers left that island in small boats to go out to Frigates Pass but I don’t know if the people in the village ever got to see surfing.
A small swell kicked up inside the reef and there were little waves in the village and Machado was the best small-wave surfer at the time, so he put on a show.
KS invited me to his 10th World Title party, many years after I had been long gone from Surfer. Which was nice of him. He has good manners.
And I thanked him by almost crushing his $100,000 car.
Doesn’t matter.
I did that job to put NorCal on the map and travel for free.
It was fun.
And my friends liked it.
At the time it was a big deal to work at Surfer Magazine – not no more.
Anyone who cares what a bunch of snotty surfers think – or worse, surf writers – is wasting their time.
DH was doing this when Surfer was the #1 voice in surfing.
When each issue was religiously read by 300,000+ people – every month.
Derek’s words carried a lot more gravitas.
Now Surfer is lost in a tower of babble.
Too many voices.
BitchGripe is just one of many – a sideshow of a sideshow.
And Derek was probably a much better surfer than Longtom – and may still be – and was also a pro surfer.
Experience matters.
Naw, it doesn’t matter.
The sum total of all the opinions on bitchgripe.com and $4 will buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
I get bannd on Reddit all the time for defending Elon Musk and Tesla.
It just doesn’t mean much, does it?
No, it doesn’t.
Remember this dude? It’s still true.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
won’t be around long, but there’s no way I’m gonna let some dude from Coos Bay, Oregon put Longtom over Derek Hynd.
Profoundly, deeply, criminally untrue.
BitchGripe.com is a sideshow of a sideshow.
Wrong.
Derek was more credible because:
A. He was a former pro surfer.
B. He was a better surfer.
C. Surfer was the main voice, and it carried more weight. I don’t know what the numbers for bitchgripe.com are, but Surfer printed 100,000+ copies a month and the passalong rate was like three or four to one.
Which means a couple hundred thousand people hung on Derek’s word every month.
And the pros always got mad at Derek.
Do the current pros even know bitchgripe.com exists?
Different world.
Are you like that Wiggoly guy? A “shit cunt” he called himself?
Surfing is great. Surfers suck.
You’d be surprised how many of the top surfers think like that.
You need to go look at some back issues of Surfer.
And is Longtom actually at these contests, or just writing from the webcasts?
Shame.
Derek is more credible as a pro surfer, certainly.
And he’s still a remarkably good surfer, for a guy with one eye.
And you didn’t answer the question: Does Longtom actually go to these contests, or is he writing them off the webcasts?
I wrote one of the Eddie’s off a telecast – the one Noah won – but I felt dirty doing that.
You’re dead wrong about Longtom vs Derek.
There is no comparison, sorry.
Traitor.
Longtom is writing off webcasts, isn’t he?
Shame.
You’re forgetting.
“you’re back”
“an alert”
I don’t know what “First Growths” and “Premier Cru” refer to. Is that hipster food?
And no alerts, I look at bitchgripe.com occasionally, against my better judgment.
But when I see some guy claiming this Longtom dingaling holds a candle to Derek Hynd, I must protest.
Nobody cares what anybody on bitchgripe.com thinks.
So I’m in good company.
Writing about contests off a webcast is the future?
That just seems like cheating.
And it’s all a bunch of vapid nonsense anyway, isn’t it?
ou’ll take LT because he writes for your website.
If LT wrote for Snatch.com or Finertia.com or whatever you call them, you’d write him off like everyone else.
This guy knows what’s up: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
But you don’t know shit about anything, do you?
DH had a fixation with Tom Curren for the same reason Kelly Slater and the Momentum Generation had a fixation with Tom Curren – he’s probably the most beautiful surfer of all time.
There is a shot of Curren at J Bay at the start of that Momentum movie.
Curren is lovely, fast, graceful, stylish and worthy of fixation.
Breathtaking, really.
Which is why Slater copies him, kind of.
Shakespeare wrote about the ocean well though.
Ever read The Tempest.
Lord Byron was a surfer, even if he wasn’t.
“Longtom elevated the tour to a state of high art. I don’t think that has ever been done before. Matt Warshaw? Nick Carroll? Correct me please but there’s no way I’m wrong.” Anyone who writes about surfing who writes a sentence like this and excludes Derek Hynd has serious serious credibility problems. Is BitchGripe.com meant to be taken seriously? Surfer Magazine was. Derek Hynd was. He was cryptic, but he was accurate and knowledgable. We had to be and we got things right, or we heard about it. Or is bitchgripe.com just a dumb little snarky, self-satisfying wank, for wankers? They can say anything and no one cares because – no one cares?
I was there 10 years, 130 issues.
That was long enough and in retrospect, I got out of there while the getting was good.
When we did Surfer it was somewhat independent, and it was a lot of fun.
When I started at Surfer it was still Kodak film and manual focus, for fook’s sake.
And Surfer was the #1 voice – the most important voice. Not no more. Not even close.
We dreamed up the Surfer Video Awards, Hawk hired David Carson, did the Comedy Issues, etc.
Now Surfer is part of some Enthusiast Group of some umbrella corporation.
Like most surf companies now, all part of some corporate umbrella – gross.
Are the guys at Surfer Enthusiast Group playing ping pong in the warehouse with Brock and Kelly? (I beat Kelly once. Not easy.)
Unlikely.
If you handed me Surfer Magazine with a red ribbon around it, I would hand it back.
The magazine isn’t remotely as important as it was and is probably going to fold at some point, lost in the Internet.
Surfing Magazine already died. Soon it will only be the Journal in print. Want to see a surf magazine that is independent and still run by surfers?
Go walk into the Journal. They still play ping pong in the back.
Enthusiast Group. Severson is rolling in his grave.
Everyone is a surf journalist now.
Everyone is a surf photographer.
There’s a couple dozen people all writing about the same thing.
It’s dumb.
I was lucky to be there in the 1990s.
Is that passionate enough for you?
oh my god
Nice TR quote Negs.
That.
Wasn’t.
Negatron.
Negatron wouldn’t know Teddy Roosevelt if he jumped into bed with him.
Although he’d probably think it was his wife.
I have to agree with Negs here. After DH stopped writing the top 44 evaluations and some clown or clowns tried to pick up the baton, that lasted what one time?
Negs writing on behalf x
Lewis Samuals top 44 ratings were pretty good
Lewis who? Pretty good Iike not so horrible? I have no recollection of him and no offense to him, but isn’t that Neg’s point? I think you are in fact supplying corroborative opinion.
Yo dude wake up, these comments are not from Negatron.
Negatron’s a sad, divorced plumber dude from some obscure corner of New Zealand and is neither that worldly nor clever of a dude.
He wouldn’t know a “canard” if it jumped into bed with him.
Probably a knee-boarder or something.
Negatron is – for some sad reason – a dude who is repeating posts put up by this other dude.
Ben Marcus.
Is that the dude who writes for The New Yorker?
The bald dude?
This dude: http://benmarcus.com/
He writes “surreal fiction” which is another word for “nonsense.”
Not the New Yorker dude who won the Pulitzer for the surfing book.
That Pulitzer dude is Bill Finnegan.
Anyway: Dude these posts aren’t from Negatron.
He’s not that clever of a dude.
Surfers not the brightest bulbs on the tree? What a revelation Negs!
Every time the WSL interviews a pro surfer after a heat I feel like I have an epiphany. Want to grow the sport? Stop interviewing fucking pro surfers or allowing them to talk, like ever…
I watch golf so I can instantly fall asleep. I hit mute before any WSL broadcast of an interview with a pro surfer after a heat so I can maintain my delusion that they can’t all be that fucking inane and incapable of thought.
Thats what was great about the surf film Let’s Be Frank. A surf movie where the dude never even spoke . Although who knows he might be some sort of genius but we’ll never know. Oh well.
“Surfers not the brightest bulbs on the tree?”
Ummmm, you’re living up to that, right now.
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Bathroom photos all round!!
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Those bathroom photos are everywhere!!! Men at Work!!!!!
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I like this one.
My first board.
A seven foot Haut.
Walked from Seabright (near the NHS factory) to Cowells with that board every day for months.
Past Hells Angels and Black Panthers and over the bridge the vampire hung from in Lost Boys.
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Strange opinionated little fuck hey.
Yes! and that’s fine.. I like varied opinions at the dinner table!
I agree. Nothing like a total dick at the dinner table to make yourself appear suave. X
You like dick at the dinner table?
Gross.
You a homelysexual or something?
Na it’s gotta be you negs
Nice cover deleting then reposting
Genius !
Excellent work, mate.
If Ben Marcus still works he should be able to take that record straight to his doc and get signed off.
Bravo Negs! You are the longtom of comments!
You should stand more. This isn’t a good look. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Who is Ben Marcus? Constant references and no presence. Can we get a feature and a head shot please?
I think he’s a bitter ex boyfriend or sumthin.
Ben Marcus is tall and dorky with a hyper-active brain.
Very self-referential/reverential. Relentlessly so. Kind of tiresome.
Some say he desperately wants to be cool – but… no. Not happening. Tries too hard.
Writing in first person and nothing but first person used to be considered gauche – but now it’s the go, but of course we live in a time where the vulgar is acceptable.
Like tattoos.
Tattoos used to be just bad taste, but now they are “cool,” they are truly vulgar.
Ben has a tattoo of Karl Marx on one side of his neck and Cher on the other – but young Cher, cool Cher. “Life After Love” Cher.
A thoroughly average, slow surfer who wishes he had talent – is somewhat tortured by the lack of it – so spends way too much time ragging on surfers who actually have wings on their feet – are gifted.
The one time he surfed Surf Ranch he tried to shoot through what he thought was the pier and got hurt when he bounced off the grating.
Dude got hurt. On an artificial wave. What a hammerhead!
No wonder he rags on it and the people who built it, and the billionaire who financed it.
Ben writes books. He will never be a billionaire. Or a thousandaire.
That hydrofoil almost tore him in half and they had to shut down for half a day to realign it.
The other people there were pissed. They wanted to ride the damned thing, not wreck it.
Ben is from Sequim, Washington or somewhere up there in the land of ice and snow.
Came all the way down to So Cal to see if he could be in with the in crowd and write about surfing – thinking it was viable or valuable.
Super derivative of Hunter S Thompson.
But that’s how hipster doofuses think: They’re doing something that’s been done many many times before, but think it’s something new.
Just reinventing the wheel that was rolled better by others.
The whole ironic “I! I! I! ME! Me! Me!” thing has been done, but it’s the surfing world – his audience has a combined IQ of 100, no one’s really paying attention or is literary enough to realize he’s a ripoff.
Wanker. Big time.
Ben needs killin’. Too bad Surf Ranch didn’t do it.
Here is your outer arsehole, also an indulgence. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Damn, should’ve trademarked that.
If it’s a man I’ll be appalled.
A mix of both Ben. I have reported live from very many surf contests. Including the Code Red Tahiti swell/comp.
I agree DH is the far superior writer. I’m proud to call him a mentor and a friend. I love the way his mind works, his dense and sometimes confusingly Joycean prose.
You can get far superior coverage using the webcast now: much more information to analyse and put into context. Just moving with the times. As most sportswriters do, including those at the game live.
It’s very nice though for Chas to give me a little testicle tickle. I’ve been feeling very depressed lately and this is a fine shot in the arm.
If you had poured half the passion into your work at Surfer as that you pour onto BeachGrit’s comment board, you’d probably still be working there.
Such wit. You’ve turned me around. I agree with your cult of one.
not true , I write him off here and the other halfwits
cause they hate the woozle,
fuckin traitors to pro surfing lovers.
That’s true.
I don’t give a fuk what I think either, so its all good
Ha! You win!
Iim sure theres someone
who gives a fuk what you think ,sweetheart
The person who listened to David’s tape of the pillow fight and OK’d Ashton to qualify for an emotional support dog?
We live in the future!
I assume BeachGrit has already presented a blank cheque to Longtom in return for a full year CT commitment. Anything less would be an insult to him and a disservice to readership.
Shakespeare was a shit surfer.
Admit it…you all watched Kelly at The Pipe Masters.