And, who are the thinking surfers?
Eight years ago when Derek Rielly was editor-in-chief of Stab magazine he emailed me about a brand new website called The Inertia and asked me to write a piece on it. The following has lead to an almost decade long affair…
Come to adult website theinertia.com and be accepted into the warm, hairy, bearded embrace of the “thinking surfer”…
There is a place, online, that amazes. And it is called theinertia.com and it is the planet’s largest network of thinking surfers. The best kind!
The topics endlessly fascinate. Some recent include, “Understanding the Alaia and Finless Revolution” “Life is Better When You Surf” and “Man Dies Surfing Near Hollister Ranch.”
The humour is side-splitting. The health tips practical. The watchdog role it takes related to the rest of surf media so necessary!
But, and again, it is the constructive critical thinking embodied in each post and each comment that amazes. Thinking surfers!
And, who are the thinking surfers?
Thinking surfers have shitty haircuts and wear lousy clothes. Thinking surfers are dogmatic about pointless contrivance. Thinking surfers can and do write endlessly about minutia. Thinking surfers are zealots. Thinking surfers are Leninists. Thinking surfers are out of touch. Thinking surfers are old both mentally and physically. Thinking surfers love to read their own words so much. Thinking surfers feel picked on.
Thinking surfers only support progress that aids old men catching more waves. Thinking surfers hate making money. Thinking surfers complain that they don’t have enough money. Thinking surfers take themselves more seriously than anything on earth. Thinking surfers hate that they aren’t taken more seriously than anything on earth.
Thinking surfers are socialists. Thinking surfers like you, if you are a thinking surfer. Thinking surfers don’t like you, if you make money and/or disagree. Thinking surfers don’t rip. Thinking surfers are Trotskyites. Thinking surfers hate popular films. Thinking surfers hate French shoes. Thinking surfers hate French films. Thinking surfers hate fruity cocktails. Thinking surfers love bad, thick coffee. Thinking surfers believe in George W Bush’s vision of democracy taking root in the Middle East but attribute the vision to T.E. Lawrence.
Thinking surfers are hypocrites. Thinking surfers don’t know how to synch their fundamental belief in the poor working class with their desire to have a home on the beach. Thinking surfers don’t know how to synch their communist ideals and their belief in George W Bush’s vision of democracy taking root in the Middle East. Thinking surfers cry while watching The Cove. Thinking surfers mock those who cry while watching Valentine’s Day. Thinking surfers drink beer at a party. Thinking surfers complain if the beer at a party is not from a small batch brewery. Thinking surfers never bring beer to a party.
Thinking surfers are Marxists. Thinking surfers would be social Darwinists if they were fit.
Thinking surfers are the exact sorts of people that flourish underneath the fluorescent lighting and prepared bedside meal deliveries and incontinence and visiting hours of nursing homes. They are the exact sorts of people that flourish when nobody, except for people exactly like them, is listening. How fun! How the best kind!
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If I had three hydroflasks they would be filled with beer(and or a cocktail), coffee and water in that specific order. freshly poured from my brita as long as I remember to fill the stupid thing.
“Thinking surfers don’t know how to synch their fundamental belief in the poor working class with their desire to have a home on the beach.”
#VANLIFE
I surf gluten free non-gmo kale kombuchas
I surf Laird Hamilton’s colonic juice
I surf SUP yoga
I surf Kelly Slater’s philosophy on life
I surf The Inertia
Ok… so… Backwards fin Beth… Elo… thinking surfers or not thinking surfers?…
And they are only heard because of publications that reinforce what they stand for and think. Take their media outlet away and they become obsolete. After reading this I have decided I am not a thinking surfer. It sounds tiring and boring. But then again I never was and have learned that the less u say the smarter u come across. Thanks Chas for the enlightenment and reminder to not take myself to seriously. Oh and if you want to interview me cuz I really think what I have say is really important let me know.
It sounds like you are a woke surfer.
Well OK then, who IS a thinking surfer?
I demand an example!
Occy?
Anthony Abbott?
I do love to read my own words. Fail?
I think you got that back to front?
I think the impending merger will create a frightening and unholy internal comment war between the Thinking Surfer/Adult Learners and the typical Stab troglodytes.
The new hybrid comment survivor will be like J***y on steroids + a black belt, rinse kit and paddle.
True story.
My son is down Torquay caravan park for the summer, and I drove down last Saturday to take him to a muay thai session at TopTier muay thai in Geelong. Picked up my first issue of the Inertia under a pile of old mags and it was the one with the story of Chas in it. Ha!
Speaking of thinking surfers…
I’m watching the replay of this year’s J-bay event which I missed in July, and I’ve just seen Kelly’s hijacking of Joel’s retirement announcement. So awkward and cringeworthy!! He deserves every bit of the inevitable slow and menatally angonising decline that he’s brought upon himself.
theminutia.com
I think I may be a thinking surfer’s thinking surfer. What do you think?
Do Thinking surfers from Cape Town wear academic gowns or western capes ? Just thinking …… more black or cape colored ?
I’ve got nothing! It seems Jordy’s brain is punned out for 2018. Ok, I have ONE pun left in me, but it hurts the tired Jordy brain because of it’s inherent contradiction: There’s nothing left in the (think) tank…
I was on the beach at Lacanau in 92 when Carl Roux put on a winning performance in the final of the world amateurs but the ocean denied him up against 3 Aussies in the final . ( Frost , Phipps and Margo ) . Asked my mate Van de Mewe where Carl was from and he informed me he was cape coloured but I reckon after that summer in France I looked way darker than him ?
Hmm, just gotta check before I bring laughs and/or abuse upon myself – are you using “van der Merwe” as in “an Englishman, an Irishman and van der Merwe walk into a bar etc etc”?
And Van der Merwe said …….No he is a real Van der Merwe nicknamed Jokes from that part of the world ! Cape Town that is …
Van der Merde?
Far from it.A very talented goofy footer and charming bastard ,as blonde as I am dark ,and we often found ourselves knee deep dans la merde chasing skirt from La Torche to Biarritz .
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Oldy, but a fuckty.
the more ya think the worse ya feel. sit down shut up, get in it and fucking drive.
I think therefore I surf, I surf therefore I am! The First Principle of the adult learner! Rene Decartes would write boring articles on this for the inertia, but they have Woke woman instead! Nietzsche would have wrote for Beach Grit, but we have Longtom so that’ll do!
I am blaming Chris Bystrom and Blaiseing Boards for bringing Pascal’s Wager into the Surf or not to Surf Question and the realm of decision and probability theory ?
And this year’s Beach Grit 2018 Thinking Surfer of the Year Award goes to………….. drum roll please and the winner is OXY yes fuckin yes my boy OXYMORON. OXY get up here and tell us how you feel .
Thanks Chas , Dez well as figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction I would like to thank all the Thinking Surfers for their kindness , generosity and their capacity to be humble and laugh at their own inadequacies . It’s been a great year and remember You too can be a Moron ? # oxymoron
Occymoron
Whatever one may say about the man , Occy is a surfing genius and the best 13 year old surfer the world never saw ( by a country mile having seen his fins near my head more than once at that time ) . What he did on the red railed Huzza Wuzza and the Black Banksy is etched deep in my cortex , long before he lit up J Bay a few years later on the Rusty door or won Pipe at 18 , never to be forgotten !
13 yr old Occy vs 13 yr old Pottz vs 13 yr old David Eggers vs 13 yr old Nicky Wood vs ???
I was lucky enough to see a 16 year old Pottz who stayed with one of the families who took me in and surfed against an adolescent Nicky but David’s flame , which had burned so brightly , never made it to Oz ( ? ) and I only got to see a few photo’s in surfing and surfer of that epoch . Both Pottz and Occy were big powerful kids so they never looked gangly ,trying to grow into their bodies , which may have given them the advantage over Nicky and Dave ? One thing is for sure , they all spent countless hours each day in the water . I would throw Gold Coasters Butto and Sam Watts with that bunch from the pre Slater period .
You’ve got some good stories in ya James. Why not pass some on to Dez, for The People?
David Eggers! Go big and then go down in a ball of flames and broken dreams. Nicky Woods next.
Then Occy and then Pottz. But I like surfers who go hard out, no fucks given. Party hard. That’s why I respect Occy too for his Phoenix like rising from the ashes world title. He went big, but then got his shit together and got a title. And I had to say Eggers because he’s a hometown hero. Maybe we need more radical guys on tour who really like to tune it up when the sun goes down? And keep on a roll for the surf fans amusement. Could be good, entertaining stories for BeachGrit/TMZ too.
We need a high-profile surfer to have a Britney Spears meltdown to really generate some tabloid fodder and increase WSL interest. Someone to shave their head and attack a car with an umbrella, caught on film!
Wait, Slater’s super famous and already shaved his head! Somebody get that man an umbrella!!!
I’m going with Occ, I dunno if anyone has ever got so good at surfing so quick
You left a few things out… thinking surfers drive Subaru’s with “Keep Tahoe Blue Stickers” in the back window. Thinking surfers wear Patagonia wool socks, and carry autographed Gerry Lopez yoga mats in the trunk of their Subaru’s, thinking surfer espousee the virtues of SUP Yoga, thinking surfers carry 3 Hydroflasks everywhere they go, and lastly, thinking surfers who can afford it drive Mercedes Benz Sprinter Vans, and cross step on their brand NEW, retro single fins anywhere and everywhere. Oh and one lore thing, they wear lousy toupees on their faces disguised and beards and mustaches
Party Chairman there is a slight possibility that you have confused Thinking Surfers with Cunts ?
” I then tuk my takenplace lying down, I thunk I told you.”
-some reJoyced Cunt.-
Is that a New Zealand accent I detect?
It’s from James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake”. A trewd tolled tayl of an Irish australian cot in sumb dreamsteight while qat chin NZzzzz’s
There’s this really cool and clever sticker that says coexist spelt out with all the emblems of the different religions where it pleads for all of the religions to get along. I just put it on my prius today before soft-topping the breakers.
I prefer the one where its an assortment of ammunition.
Thinking surfers don’t believe in afterthoughts. Thinking surfers afterthought better than anyone. Thinking surfers wish they had a think tank like Kelly.
I surf the afterthought.
I am a renaissance-man adult learner thought leader and social justice warrior and I approve of this message.
Does that make you a value-led surfer?