Revealed: Matt Wilkinson rains hell on
unsuspecting cows!
By Chas Smith
And what other professional surfers did for
Christmas!
What a wonderful day Christmas was filled to
overflowing with cheer. I hope you had as much fun as I did with
the presents and the unicorn poo slime and the snowboarding and the
bourbon with very good friends. It was one for the record books but
part of me wonders if former World Surf League Championship Tour
competitor Matt Wilkinson didn’t have even more fun.
Instagram revealed he spent the day hitting golf balls at
defenseless cows.
I’m certain that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA) would be furious about that Christmas Day activity and still
might picket the Rip Curl stores spread across the United States’
many outlet malls but I imagine the cows enjoyed it. It takes a
giant spike driven into their skulls at maximum velocity to turn
them into meat. Golf balls from Matt Wilkinson’s club must have
felt like a gentle pressure-point massage.
His day did make me wonder how other professional surfers spent
theirs.
A quick perusal of the top 20+ revealed that most don’t post
Christmas greetings. The ones who do are flanked by loved ones…
…except Italo Ferriera and look at him here.
Italo might have even had more fun than Matt Wilkinson
cruising for babes on his brand-new dirt bike. Getting in and out
of trouble. Doing donuts in the parking lot. Slamming some Sunny-D
and doing it all again.
I shall start calling him The Dirt Bike Kid and I recommend you
call him that too. Italo “The Dirt Bike Kid” Ferriera.
It has a ring no?
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"(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.
Holiday Repeat: Bruce Irons’ Fantastic
LAX-LAX Round-trip!
By Derek Rielly
"Those stories seem outrageous don't they? I
wouldn't believe it if someone told me."
In August, 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.
Shortly after his non-appearance, 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.
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.
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.”
(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.”
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Merry Christmas dear BeachGrit family from
Chas Smith!
By Chas Smith
Lift your bourbon glass!
I am sitting in the mountains, snow falling
heavily, so heavily in fact that the internet has been
wiped out entirely and while my gorgeous family is drinking hot
chocolate and listening to Justin Bieber croon carols to shawty I’m
thinking about you.
I couldn’t find a surf story worth posting today, before the
snowfall and loss of internet so I shined it.
Has honestly nothing at all happened by near any of the seven
seas today?
I could tell you about the time that Sal Masekela told me that
he gave Nike’s very first toe dip into surf, Nike 6.0 (the 6.0
representing the six extreme sports), its credibility and without
him Nike would have been laughed out of the surf market entirely
but I was thinking about saving that for your Boxing Day
present.
I learned that there’s a surfer in Cornwall who hates sewage but
can’t care.
The World Surf League’s note-perfect propaganda film has already
been praised.
I could tell you about the time that Sal Masekela told me that
he gave Nike’s very first toe dip into surf, Nike 6.0 (the 6.0
representing the six extreme sports), its credibility and without
him Nike would have been laughed out of the surf market entirely
but I was thinking about saving that for your Boxing Day
present.
I texted Derek, “I got to WiFi and no ideas!”
He responded, “Your highlights of the year? Cheesy but…”
And I thought, “Boom.”
You wanna know my highlight of the year?
You.
All of you.
I chuckle everyday at the banter. I truly thrill at our
conversation. This year alone between
Backward Fin Beth and Ashton Goggan calling the
police and Ben Marcus going on a grammar tear and the
world’s lamest surf assault and leash-gate and the President-elect
of Content, Media and WSL Studios Erik “ELo” Logan and things I
can’t even remember…. this year has been fun.
All thanks to you.
So I lift my bourbon glass and say Merry Christmas family.
And thank you.
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Progressive: The World Surf League releases
stirring propaganda video!
By Chas Smith
"Dear General Secretary Sophie Goldschmidt resounds
the marching drums of the powerful, prosperous League."
Three days ago the World Surf League released
its first propaganda video via Instagram and I don’t know why it
has taken me three days to get to it.
Our dear General Secretary Sophie
Goldschmidt appears on camera wearing a comforting
yellow and recounts the unvarnished successes of the year from Mick
Fanning’s retirement to the Surf Ranch Pro to equal pay amongst all
surfers.
A true workers’ paradise.
Inspirational music plays in the background and when the WSL’s
Ministry of Culture finished editing I’m sure they bowed slightly
to the framed picture of ex-General Secretary Paul Speaker hanging
upon the wall then threw very tight shakas in each other’s
direction, shouting, “Job well done comrade!”
Was President-elect of Content, Media and WSL Studios Comrade
Erik Logan overseeing the work even though he is yet to officially
take the position?
Maybe.
And if this is a representation of his art we are in very good
hands.
Though some degenerates didn’t love.
ed_geb64 wrote: “WSL get a real CEO not a Facebook
sister…..bring back the aloha spirit. There are other ways to make
money rather than force us into FB. WSL should be from surfers to
surfers!”
ndsearing wrote: “If you can’t admit the Facebook
failure and correct it for next year you need to resign. Surfing
will never be a mainstream sport. It’s not built that way. When you
alienate your core base of fans (surfers) to pander for $ and
viewership your sport will suffer long term.”
The World Surf League quickly mustered ranking members like Joel
Parkinson (ok sign, praying hands) and Conner Coffin (raise the
roof raise the roof raise the roof) to suppress the small
insurrection with beckgard adding, “Ignore the Haters
Sophie…this middle-aged, land-locked, non-surfer LOVES following
the WSL…men & women.”
Re-education camps will be set up forthwith Surf Ranch
adjacent.
Now let us sing our anthem:
By exploding the mental strength of the united heart of our
billion fans.
Dear General Secretary Sophie Goldschmidt resounds the
marching drums of the powerful, prosperous League.
Let’s go, great World Surf League from bright and pure Santa
Monica.
Let’s drive unbelievers and degenerates into the
sea.
Or maybe drown them underneath the never ending perfect
waves of Surf Ranch.
Hail General Secretary Sophie Goldschmidt.
Hail the World Surf League.
May it rule for 10000 years!
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From the we-still-do-lists dept: The Five
Best Things About Surfing in 2018!
By JP Currie
Including why Italo Ferreira equals dangerous sex,
Gabriel, rape fantasies and why Conner is tantric lovemaking,
beautiful yet simultaneously frustrating…
Let’s start with the positive, shall we? Get
the hard stuff over with. A bit of festive cheer before I revert to
type.
These are the Five Best Things about Surfing in 2018.
1. The WSL Portrait Photographer
I’d love to name this individual, really I
would, because they must have a cunt of a sense of humour.
What sort of a photographer could take 37 (mostly objectively
handsome men) and transform them into a Crufts
line up? A bloody genius, that’s who.
The best of anything can’t be imitated.
Razor-sharp commentary, genius mixing, classic cameos, and just
simply funny as fuck. Nearly knocked me laughing off a high ladder
this summer.
I suspect some people don’t really get it, and that makes it all
the more appealing. Cali-centric surf media is a blight.
Best surf podcast going and it’s not really close.
Fair play to Scalesy for his efforts. I still listen, mostly,
but it’s hit-and-miss these days now that there are too many cooks.
Some things don’t scale, no pun intended.
And a nod to ONE HALF of Lipped. Can’t stomach
the we’re-really-smart-and hardworking-and-no-cunt-appreciates-us
tone anymore but Cahill Bell Warren, at least, is a man deserving
of a voice and a great job somewhere – coaching or commentating
most likely. Seems like a thoroughly bloody good bloke with a lot
of insight and a lack of ego. His breakdowns and analysis of
competition surfing are perhaps the best I’ve heard. Take note,
WSL.
But Ain’t That Swell. How fucking good is it?
3. Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson
Mick Fanning. I love him, I do. Couldn’t fault
him. And I can find fault in pretty much anyone. I love
his surfing to bits. What’s not to love about precision and power?
Did he ever make a mistake? I’ve never met him but I know I’d love
him as a man. Definition of a legend. Knocks Slater out of the
park, in my opinion.
HE’S MICK FANNING…HE’S THAT FUCKIN GOOD.
And Parko. My first real surf crush. The first guy I looked at
and said “I want to surf like That Guy.” Smooth and beautiful. As
precise as Mick but with his own stamp. So often made it look too
easy. Bloody grateful he got the title he did. If he’d thrown his
hands in the air a bit more and added a few hip jives he might have
had five. But again, I’m bloody grateful he didn’t.
Dear Santa, for Christmas please can I have many, many future
Parko and Fanning collabs. Cunts have a shit lot of great surfing
still to do. And good on them for having the whereabouts to go out
on top.
Stone cold legends, the pair of them. I know they’ve had all the
plaudits going, but I truly believe we might never see their likes
again. You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.
Cynical bastards will point to the lack of evolution in their
surfing over the years, the not really developing an “air game”.
But those wankers probably add water to whisky.
4. My Favourite WSL (Male) Surfers
Most of you won’t know this, but my day job is actually
as a teacher. It’s the reason I write under “JP” when
everyone IRL calls me Jamie. People who call themselves by initials
are utter wanks, but it’s my penance. It’s a thinly veiled
disguise, but at least I haven’t been hauled in front of the
headmaster again for shit I wrote on the internet.
The reason I divulge this now is because last week, in one of my
classes, (a bottom set first year) I made a throwaway comment to a
thick-set boy in the class which stitched me right up.
Let’s call him Bob.
“Bob,” I said.”If you were a vegetable you’d be a mung
bean.”
Well. The next thing I know the entire class has turned into
Lord of The
Flies and rounded on poor Bob (Piggy), roaring
with laughter, pointing at him and chanting demonically…
“MONG BEAN! MONG BEAN! MONG BEAN!
“No, No!” I cried, helplessly. “I said MUNG bean!”
But it was no use.
I calmed them down eventually, but only after I explained what a
mung bean was (not as straightforward as you might think to
low-ability twelve year olds) and promised to give the rest of them
vegetable nicknames for next lesson.
So in that spirit, and with neither the will nor the words to
justify my favouritism, I thought I’d just assign my favourite male
surfers types of sex.
Italo Ferreira = Choke sex. Or any kind of dangerous
sex that exhilarates in a way that will push you right to the edge
where you’ll either die or have the time of your life.
Gabriel Medina = Rape fantasies. You’re getting fucked,
one way or another. You don’t want to like but you probably
will.
Zeke Lau = Pounded with full eye contact. You’ll be too
scared to move.
Conner Coffin = Tantric. Beautiful yet simultaneously
frustrating. But when it goes, it goes.
Griffin Colapinto = First time sex, probably a few
tears. There’ll be moments of pleasure, the potential is there.
You’ll cry because there are so many more levels to hit and you
just hope you reach them.
I love you guys. You’re why I watch.
5. Honourable Mentions
Indecision is one of my greatest foes, and I’ve already
written too much, so here are some bulletpoints of other
great things.
Steve Shearer, AKA Longtom’s contest wraps and writing
in general. After what we’ve seen this season, I genuinely
feel you’ve got the stamina to go a few rounds with Zeke Lau,
maintaining eye contact throughout. I suspect you won’t take up the
mantle again next season, and WCT contests will be duller for it.
Your words sing, my friend.
Jordy’s nipples going over the falls at Pipe.
Did any moment in pro surfing history sum up so succinctly the gulf
between one surfer and another in the competitive
arena?
Caroline Marks. Will be world champion, likely
multiple times. Literally surfs and looks like Occy.
Rob Machado. I love Machado. I want to grow old
just like Rob, but with a better van and a fucking
haircut.