Taj Burrow, in tux, with DJ FISHER, wife Rebecca Jobson and Fisher's girl, Chloe Chapman. | Photo: @followthefishTV

Taj Burrow marries baby mama for second time!

Stars flock to Yallingup for wedding rematch!

Last December, the retired pro surfer Taj Burrow married his baby mama, the former Bondi model Rebecca Jobson, in a remarkably modest ceremony.

Modest, because as anyone who’s ever circled in his orbit knows, the forty-year-old owner of a beer company ain’t afraid of a good time.

And, as a man who put pals before world titles, before…winning…it ain’t a stretch to call him the most popular surfer, among his peers, and fans, of all time.

Big call?

On Saturday, pals flew in from around the world, including grammy-award nominated DJ FISHER (who would forget his passport and miss his private plane home),  nightclub wrangler Shane Moran, Stab founder Sam McIntosh, photographer John Respondek and trainer-to-the-stars John Gannon, for a wedding rematch at Black Brewery Co in Wilyabrup, Western Australia.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtpRBZPFH-S/

https://www.instagram.com/p/Btkbtv4F6tn/

Right about now is where we cue up a few of Chris Rock’s married jokes.

Like,

“Those are the choices you’ve got in life, man. You can be married and bored, or single and lonely. Ain’t no happiness nowhere.”

“Whenever I go out with other married couples, I like to bring along a single crackhead. Just spicing up the activities. ‘Come on, tell us some of your cracky tales, please!’ ”

“Fellas, once you get married you become your wife’s pet. Cause women like to get their husbands together, that don’t even know each other, and have like a grown-man play date. Put you in a room with some other married motherfucker, and go ‘he likes baseball just like you’. Then you’re in some room with some fucking stranger, going ‘I like baseball.'”

It don’t gotta be like that, and a man like Tez, who’s seen it all and eaten most of it up, was never going to marry poorly.

“Reflecting on the wild wild cards that are on my table right now and going into the new year knowing that nothing matters more than the wonderful people you surround yourself with. Hold those close to you and hold them tight, tell them you love them 150 times a day and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. Like sitting on a grassy hill by the ocean, sipping a gin and tonic with your nearest and dearest and watching the waves and the clouds roll in,” Jobson wrote after that first ceremony, which was held so her sick mom, who has now passed away, could see her daughter get  married. “Life is one crazy ride and I’m so lucky to be surrounded by the best breed of humans. Thank you for looking after me when I need it most. Be safe everyone, hoping you have a ground breaking earth shaking 2019.”


Inspirational: Kelly Slater emboldens once great golfer to live his best life!

"You have to enjoy the uncomfortable spots..."

Few here will ever achieve the sort of greatness that Kelly Slater has. We joke, sure, about his quirks and -isms but underneath funny, cheap, character-revealing smiles bubbles a never-waning fount of wonder.

Once great golfer Adam Scott was allowed to dip his tin cup into that fount, yesterday, and taste the secret of eternal competitiveness.

If you follow the game of golf you may remember the name Adam Scott. He won the Masters in 2013 and held the “number 1” spot for sometime after but has failed to win any major victories in years and has one foot dangling in the slough of irrelevance.

Well, yesterday he played a few holes with Kelly Slater at the Pebble Beach course ahead of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and let’s read from The Sydney Morning Herald about his experience together.

But as 38-year-old Scott continues his climb back up golf’s world rankings following a lean 2018, he says he learned some lessons from Slater about longevity.

Slater owns the record for the youngest (20) and oldest surfer to win a world title, last claiming it as a 39-year-old in 2011.

“His record speaks for itself; the greatest in every sport does things no-one else can,” Scott said.

“There are phenomenal athletes and I compared [Slater] to Tiger [Woods] in our sport for a while.

“There is a competitive drive inside and they refuse to let age hold them back.”

Searching for his second major title to go with his historic 2013 Masters victory, Scott said Slater inspired him to take more risks when in contention this year.

“It’s just a reminder, even to play golf, to win tournaments, you have to enjoy the uncomfortable spots,” Scott, whose winless drought stretches back to March 2016, said.

“You can’t play it safe all the time and expect to perform at Kelly’s level or even the levels I performed at in golf.”

Playing it safe totally is for the birds. I’m going to pretend that Kelly Slater whispered that into my ear too, down the back nine, and do my very riskiest, most uncomfortable work yet this year.

Maybe Tales of a Fucking Genderqueer or something.

Inspired.


Mergers and Acquisitions: What happens to Surfer magazine now that it has been sold?

Let's ask an expert!

I surf, a lot. I am one of those perpetual advanced intermediates who can surf, but doesn’t turn any heads. I wish I could say I was in the surf industry, but I cant. I have spent the entirety of my professional career as a mergers and acquisitions attorney.

I have been part of natural growth companies, start-ups, consulting firms etc. I know the model well. None of that knowledge has helped me “be part of the conversation” in the surf world but when Chas broke the news on Beach Grit, shortly followed up by his conversations with David Lee Scales on The Grit Podcast, I thought I would reach out to Chas to help him play a little insider baseball with what is most likely going to happen to a once shiny and revered publication because, well, it is my time to shine.

There are many types of exits a company can have. For instance, the entire goal of startups is to exit. Startups, or at least the good ones, take on several rounds of Venture Capital (rather than growing organically) with the specific intent of spending as much money as possible to grow and expand as rapidly as possible, avoid paying income tax, and selling to a much larger company to get a [hopefully] big pay day. Other exits/acquisitions, like the one Surfer is going to experience post acquisition, are far less pretty.

In situations like what we are seeing at Surfer, this acquisition is a outward signal that Surfer Magazine is in significant financial hot water. Companies that grow organically, like Surfer, are highly unlikely to sell. They, after all, have a vision, a customer base, a product, and a culture they want to retain. In situations like these, the general consensus is that the profits are negatively impacted by bloated operating models or mismanaged finances that are ill equipped to react to pivots in the customer base or delivery model. In this particular circumstance, my best guess is that the old “Print Media Is Dead” tag is sprayed all over the downfall of Surfer Magazine and they got bought not because they wanted to sell to the National fucking Enquirer, but that it was the only way to keep the magazine above ground and without a tombstone.

From where I am sitting, the Surfer acquisition will like this.

1. You’re all fired (except the authors)!!!!
a. When a company is bought because they are on the rocks, the first thing that always happens, without fail, is that people in departments that do not generate revenue (ie HR, AP, AR, etc.) are axed and rolled into the new parent company’s processes. Why have multiple cost centers when you can have one?

2. Authors, if you were on a W2, you’re now a contractor!
a. Benefits, employment, payroll taxes, and PTO are expensive. You can get a lot more authors on a per word basis than you can paying them all salaries. Think of The Inertia- I have no first-hand knowledge but If I was to guess, I would say they have 12 full time W2 employees, and they’re all non-writing executives. The thousands of dog shit articles on The Intertia about feelings and humping dolphins is all provided by “contributors” scraped from the dregs of professional Surfing. As a result, surfer loses its voice, and we get another Inertia.

3. Your office is closed!
a. For the same reason as above, bye-bye office.
4. We’re throwing your operating model away!
a. It is very likely that if the print content does not present a huge revenue upside for the National Enquirer, they are going to redesign the entire operating model. I imagine that this will mean either the magazine will get pared down to a rag like The Enquirer so it can run as a loss leader that points people to blown out and more expansive online.

5. We’re only here for the IP! And most of it is ALREADY SOLD!
a. My guess is that the ONLY reason National Enquirer wanted surfer is an EXPANSIVE amount of surf related intellectual property. Surfer had nearly 60 years of pictures, prints, articles, videos, and surf related assets that NOBODY else had. The Enquirer is probably going to sell most of these for a proft and keep only a very small portion of what made up Surfer. Wilbur Kookermeyer? Sold! Covers? Licensed to be turned into cheap posters! The Surfer Bar? Sold to a restaurant group! 60 years of pictures? Getty Images!

So the writing on the wall is, Surfing is dead. The issue in your mailbox is the last issue (or close to last issue) you will receive. You are going to see a huge dumping of Surfer assets for you to buy cheap and from China. Your friends that work there probably won’t anymore once the deal is done. Does this suck? Yeah, but THAT’S CAPITALISM BABY. And let’s be real, you and I haven’t bought an issue since we got nifty glowing pocket hypnoboxes in our pockets.

So really, this is all our fault, but mostly yours Steve Jobs.


From the VAL-and-proud department: Movie Tough Guy Revealed as Vulnerable Adult Learner Surfer!

VAL Matt Damon joins the toxic stew at Australia's most dangerous wave!

Surfing the Pass, that kooky sand-bottom right in Byron Bay, is hard work. Like, really hard.

Imagine every surf craft that has ever existed. Then imagine fifty of each of them crammed into a lineup a couple of hundred yards long, piloted by a lottery-ball selection of humans who have never stepped foot in the ocean before. 

Here’s Susan, 45, Iowa, waiting patiently to be collected by the next wall of foam on her 8’6″ soft board. There’s Akumi, 33, Tokyo, flying down the line on a 7’ aliia, screaming for the gods as she locks into a decapitation death spiral.

Here’s Levi, 23, Melbourne-slash-Byron, awkwardly soul arching through the entire mess, leashless on his 14″ double ender. 

The Pass easily surpasses Bondi, and is close to three-foot Snapper Rocks, as the most dangerous surf spot on the east coast of Australia – if you rank danger by chance of collision occasioning  actual board and bodily harm.

For the everyday surfer it is a write off. A world-class wave buried under a blanket of narcissistic greed. A sad indictment of the human race’s propensity to make too much out of a good thing. 

And to that toxic mix you can now add Vulnerable Adult Learner Jason Bourne, safety crouching a two-footer, ready to put you into a sleeper hold if you dare drop in. 

As reported by The Daily Telegraph, 

Matt Damon and his wife takes (sic) to the waves in Byron Bay family holiday

Hollywood superstar Matt Damon can’t get enough of the land Down Under.

Back holidaying in the northern NSW beach town of Byron Bay, Damon, was snapped hitting the waves for a surf on Thursday afternoon.

The Damon’s (sic) also met up with their good mates, the Hemsworth’s (sic), who often host their fellow A-listers in Byron Bay.

(Read the story here if you can get past the dang paywall.)

It begs the question.

Would you burn Jason Bourne? Keeping in mind he may even have Thor as backup water patrol? 

I think I’d pass.


Revealed: BeachGrit is the most “popular surf tabloid” amongst polite society!

Raise your brandy.

I don’t mean to brag here BUT your li’l ol’ BeachGrit got mentioned by The New York Times yesterday less than two months after appearing in The New Yorker, the only two publications read by every single person in polite society.

You certainly recall in December when Pulitzer Prize winning author William Finnegan wrote:

“BeachGrit, an Australian Web site that delights in trolling the W.S.L., blew up the image to billboard size and installed it on a freeway in Lemoore, just in time for the Surf Ranch Pro. The billboard shot zoomed around the surfing Internet.”

That was in The New Yorker.

And yesterday, in The New York Times, National Magazine Award winning author Daniel Duane wrote:

“Chas Smith, a founder of the popular online surf tabloid BeachGrit, told me that other male big-wave surfers complained about women at the time.”

Oh it’s no big deal, really, it’s just… I don’t know, should I try wearing a monocle now? Do you think Spy makes a monocle with Happy Lens technology?

Or do you think I’d look better in a tweed jacket with leather patch’d elbows?

Think on that for a minute.

The New York Times piece is an in-depth look at women and big wave surfing. We’ll get in and dissect it later I just really need to know what to wear while doing. What about spats? Do polite socialites still wear spats?

Any other ideas would be appreciated.