And we need you…
(I drove up from bucolic Cardiff-by-the-Sea to Santa Monica yesterday and parked across the street from the World Surf League’s headquarters. It didn’t look like a High Castle at all. More like a Low Bungalow. It was impossible to find the entrance but when I finally did was let in and sat on a supple leather couch near a reclaimed metal coffee table. After a few minutes I was taken out back and severely beaten.
No, I was walked through a parking lot then to another back building which was, in fact, the High Castle. The WSL is full of tricks. I waited in a glass box conference room and then BOOM though the door strode Erik “ELo” Logan. We will chat soon on podcast and you will hear the answers to my questions (why the hell do you insist on SUP? etc.) but for now, I’d just like to write a letter to him if you don’t mind.)
Dear Erik Logan,
You had me at Opie and Anthony. I never listened to their radio show but was vaguely aware of their proto-shock jock antics and of course aware of Howard Stern, your other charge, the man who changed American media. The man who brought unfiltered steam-of-consciousness to the main mainstream.
And because of that, because of your dirty roots in naughty radio, I know you’ll understand.
Laird Hamilton is a kook.
Yes, he got very barreled at Teahupo’o, paddle not even able to reach cascading lip. Yes, he made the cover of Surfer magazine under the unfortunate “Oh My God” headline. Yes he owns Cloudbreak.
Yes, he is likely the greatest “surfer” to ever walk and/or surf the earth but he’s still a kook and that’s the beauty, the glory, of our little backwater.
Of surfing.
Talent, skill, ability, pedigree, strong jaws, epic tans aren’t what actually matter and, to be honest, I don’t know why. Laird should be our god but wiggolly’s paddling style is instead. Phat-wan kerr, dogsnuts, nug, ScottSanDiego are instead of Laird “Handsome” Hamilton with the legendary surf step-father and North Shore of Oahu classroom are and why?
Because surfers are shitbags. Surfers are incorrigible. Surfers don’t use paddles. Surfers are beastly and only looking for selfish fun and afterward an easy laugh.
To paraphrase Scott Bass, voice of surfing on San Diego’s local NPR affiliate, founder of The Boardroom Show, “surfers are the worst.”
But the damned Grumpy Local is your friend and you know it. Underneath all the Oprah, Hollywood executive, Power of Now rhetoric you are infected. Oh sure you ride a SUP and it’s as inexplicable as it is unforgivable but you left your legitimate job at a legitimate network, forsaking, no doubt, a hundred better jobs to come here.
To come to surfing.
Because you are diseased.
You are one of us, unfortunately for you, unfortunately for us. Your apple-cart-upsetting inclinations, your desire to smash the current product, is exactly right.
More opinion. More individuality. More fun. Less control.
More surfing (but not “more” as in longer competition windows… as you know).
You’re right and you’re a fucking Oprah Hollywood Laird Hamilton kook. Probably what we need, to be honest, because professional surfing don’t sell itself and begs for help. Because you feel it. Because you are deeply afflicted down the very core of your Oklahoma heart.
You are the first person from the World Surf League iteration of professional surfing to reach out, in any case, and your greatest inspiration is here.
Oh not me. I’m a kook from Oregon and not Derek, he’s from Perth, but from our Nick Carroll.
Just kidding and don’t worry, Erik. Nick knows he doesn’t belong to BeachGrit. He belongs to Kuuuurungba, or whatever shitbag blog he currently writes for but professional surfing is BeachGrit’s world and it’s time for the people who take time out of their workdays, who commit to damned professional surfing to own it.
What do they want to see? What do they want to read? Who do they want to cut from the roster?
I’m so happy we got to meet today but purely for them because, Scott Bass is a damned liar. Surfers are the best and will make this thing the thing you want.
And when we don’t?
Oh, no worries!
Fewer folk in the lineup!
Ain’t it hell to be part of a business where success counters success?
Welcome to surfing and I can’t wait to keep this conversation going.
Love,
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Chas Winfrey
Here’s a thought why don’t they just shit can the whole live broadcast and then the only way you can watch an event is to go to it , like you know experiance it live the whole nuts and bolts.
Fuck this is epic reading your mind works like my dick one tiny bit of inspiration and it’s like bam fuck this I’m up and about and going to root what ever is comes through the door first.
Interesting take on Laird Hamilton and the term Kook in general. Such an interesting and intricate word with so many meanings and iterations.
I would like people to openly and honestly give a fuck. Like compete, bleed, suffer, laugh, cry, hate, love, triumph, fail, and do shit people shouldn’t be able to do, in public, revealed as they are, and not suffocated beneath a blanket of faux positivity. To then talk with passion and intelligence and even wit about their craft and themselves and the nature of what they do.
It’s all there. Let it out!
Nice slap!
I fucking mean it bex whatever. The whole surfing world is being shortchanged right now. Pro surfing is way more fascinating than it is currently being presented. It’s all very well for longy to write about what’s going on inside his head while watching the CT online. The fact that it (what’s happening inside long tom’s head) is more interesting than how the WSL is presenting the ACTUAL THING ITSELF should tell us all how thin things are right now. These guys think they are the NFL, well, post-game interviews with the NFL players, watch them some time, they completely blow away anything the League is currently extracting from its superstars. The NFL players are relaxed, funny, intelligent. They talk to the ivs like they’re talking to you or me.
I must be the only guy here that reckons it’s good. But I’m not cause every dick here watches it
Its a tough gig. No certainty with venues, dealing with the elements and whatever.
It was nuthin to me until about ten years ago and it’s got better for the viewer every year.
What exactly do you want?
Everyone likes watching then reading a good report from a good writer
I used to watch heaps of sport but now the comps are the only thing I’m into cause the venues and the surfing are the stars
I couldn’t give a shit about what the surfers personalities are like
I just like the sport of it not the fluff
There’s no sport without character bex. What people go through under pressure, how they produce their great performances, the cadence of those performances, how they come about, that is not fluff, that’s what it is. I dunno, I have been watching closely for very many years and it has always struck me that pro surfing’s ticket into the future has always been its sheer magnificent weirdness as a sport, the effects it has on people and the places it puts us. It’s original in a way most sports kind of aren’t. I mean look at that pic of Michel by Leroy Bellet, you must have seen that, the shot from behind Michel coming into the end bowl at Teahupoo, no other sport goes to places like that. There’s no future in trying to make it fit into some sporting box, that approach just gets you onto El Ocho with the dodgeball.
That picture of Michel is quite spectacular. But the photographer sat on it for 2 years! Because Red Bull was working on some how-they-get-the-photo project. Surfing had best find a way t to take moments like that and immediately deliver it. You can’t sit on magic like that these days. The public want to be awed now, not yesterday.
Still, it is a beautiful picture.
It’s crazy too cause the brief moments i’ve been around pro surfers they were all SUPER funny, personal, just classic characters. Granted a lot of what was said was def not suitable for broadcast but shit, at least somehow meet in the middle. I used to see a little glimpse of that via classic Tour Notes but that’s been neutered.
Bottom line, this bland presentation is the result of who’s running the show.
I agree with all that but
If you haven’t been tubed you can’t appreciate it.
Its lost on the general public. Whereas everyone has hit a great drive or smashed a winner, scored a great goal in the park.
We should shoosh and let Dirk give us what We want and enjoy it while we can.
Its all live on Foxtel and has been for a while now so that’s saying something. You know what I love, when they get interviewed some of them are so amped from the waves you can’t shut them up.
“It’s original in a way most sports aren’t–Michel coming into the end bowl at Chopes, no other sport goes to places like that.” Very, very well said, good good good points Nick, really, really–but here’s the rub–if you’ve never ridden a wave–your never gonna get it, the weightless feeling of the drop– the tube–the spit–the rush–the good ocean vibes. As far as most of the general population goes, you might as well be trying to sell AC units at the North Poll….
To be honest I thought you were giving a slap to CDog
ok ok, bottom line Nick, it just seems there is no ‘viewing market’ outside of ‘existing surfers’ for ‘competition surfing’. And without mainstream inland viewers the Wsl will never be profitable
. Extended Forecast:: Dirk will keep thowing more money at it leading up to the Olympics with the hopes of some cosmic turn around in viewership. When, if, that doesn’t happen, who knows–it seems Dirk enjoys throwing money away……
Ha ha samwaters here is a radical notion, a worldwide sport can do just fine even if mainland American viewers aren’t engaged with it. I think that’s kind of an old idea actually.
Hahaha, dream on Nick, without Dirk’s millions, billions, Pro Surfing would probably be dead in the water by now. (You don’t remember Quick, Rip, Bong., seemed they couldn’t get rid of the tour quick enough and basically gave it to Dirk for pennies). Dirk then hired the football guy Speaker and Slater’s agent first, then the tennis chick, Sophie, then the Kick boxer, and now the Oprah dude–plus a vast array of others–spending millions just on each ones salaries. Three years now of their therapy–with “No observable progress”.
Sorry but what is the actual metric for success that you mention
good cake is good cake and it really shouldn’t matter how it is served but I sometimes feel that the WSL is kind of fucking up the cake by putting too much bland, PC icing on it in attempt to make it look better and ruining the true taste.
and Cote in the booth is like finding a pube on the top, its not enough to make me put my fork down completely because I am a fat cunt, but it does detract from the experience.
Amen, brother.
Yes. More real. Less faux humble super excited inclusive blather. Watching the tour is as painful as watching televised squash. Turn down Turpel and Potz and let the mongrels howl. On that theme, I’d pay good money to watch with an alternative audio feed, even simply the sound of the break.
Dancing with the Devil Chas? This dude (Elo) is gonna do Dirk’s dirty work for him–including trying to hustle you…..hey, Chase, thanks for rembering Matt Johnston…..
For fucks sake
Can you just mention Channel Bottom once
Have you seen his current state?
He gives his all and for what? Fuck dog nuts and his gang of sycophants.
Ya can’t even give a shout out to your kiwi donators on their darkest day.
Its just you ya fuken transgender mate who’s transd back and ya fuken shades.
Bexy. It’s ok man. Don’t sweat it on my behalf. I’m not worried. I’m not here to get mentions from the dark lords of surf journalism. I’m here because A: it’s funny as hell sometimes. B: this is the nearest thing I have now to a group of mates (#saddo, #nofacebork) and C: it’s kinda therapeutic ( see B)
All good boyo, but I love you for your support! You need some pats on the head more than I do I reckon.
That thing you pointed out about the graph which JordyP made had me in stitches at work and I still burst out laughing in public on my bike occasionally when I remember that “nasty woozles” thing about the dog.
Get well soon Bexy!
You know that Chas guy ain’t so bad
I just got this mean streak in me for him,.
I guess if I hang in there I’ll come around like all the other dingbats.
I just want him to fail.
Fuck I’m doing it again
Up the mighty Woozle!
Maybe, my dear Bexy, you are taking it all too seriously.
Please remember the ideal (perhaps romantically imagined) point of jesters within a King’s court was to be a publicly appointed fuckwit, but casually drop ye olde truth bombs on judicious occasion, without threat of punishment.
No one has appointed BG the jester but CS has volunteered. There is no official king (or queen) but there are many who have seemingly anointed themselves as royalty.
Ok sure; long live some incarnation of the Woozle (established in 1976 apparently). For entertainment doth it offer.
But by golly, long live BG and all who sail within her. For poor is the realm absent of humorous critical voices.
If we don’t laugh, we cry.
And dammit if there isn’t enough to cry about in the world these days.
well said. we all need more Jester/Trickster in our lives. I was sorta taught on that surfer/ jester, from the 60s onwards, and then it seemed to leave. Its weird, I keep coming back here, and have stopped visiting news sites lately. Plus figuring out just what the heck you guys are talking about in the comments is challenging! Lots of googling weird terms. ha!
you still haven’t tried that new board have you?
Ha! No…
Life’s timing and nature have not been lining up for me.
This morn not totally bad out there but I have a weepy daughter with ear infection. The board will keep.
I was semiJOKING
come here Chas ya long drink drink of water
Give us a kiss
No tongue.
You’ve got a semi for Chas?
Yep got a full halfa
Oh I’m failing daily. Honestly and literally. And someday, somewhere, I’ll buy you a drink or lots and then we’ll kiss good.
You know in Aus we can’t let anyone succeed without giving em shit.
Be honored
Pervert
The comment I remember that I was proud of was
When longtime said he was nervous about approaching the Syrian
I said to go rub up against his sweetheart for a while then approach.
But negs thought it too much and smoked me then banned me.
Mean while your mate from Mexico goes
He’s a fucken cunt
She’s a fucken cunt I’m a fucken cunt
Now worship me
See ya tomorrow
Maybe.
Oh Channel Bottom….I truly love you and everyone here. Very honestly. It’s why BG works. Why it is fun. And why it won’t ever change. Thanks for sticking around.
All good!
It certainly does work.
Wait, are you seriously Don Quixote-ing ?!?!?!?!
Ok: Don Quixote thinks he can make a difference fighting “dragons”!
Chas May think he can right the boat of “surfing” by upping EL0?
My metaphor sucks!!
Also I replied to myself!!!
This story upset me too much!!!!
Mega kooky. Question: which of you gurgled the other’s goo first? flip a coin ..or a pair of Happy Lenses for the honor?
Over tossed!
Take every wave. Unwatchable
well needed publicity for the folks of beachgrit. lets face it chaz, As soon as the cool kids lets you hang out with them… you leave the rest of the gritty boyz behind and plant yourself next to the “in crowd”
no lies id do the same – i hate kelly for dangling his fresno fevered wavepool, but ill kiss his feet and take out my kelly posters from the trash if he invites me. heck ill do it for less, like being acknowledged by the king.
yes surfers are the worst – i hate you because youre the worst for jumping on the elo bandwagon – and i hate myself because excited to click that elo joined the grit experience.
You think I’m on the bandwagon? Oh it’s easy for me to say, I suppose, but don’t worry. But….. it’s true! Watch!
Is ELo in charge of event sponsorship? Cuz these dudes getting air time between heats at the Burton Automotive Pro are really a step up from the WSL of yesteryear: https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Also, I’d like him to launch an official inquiry into whether it’s racist or not that Jadson is sponsored by “Ale” and not “Pale Ale”: https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Adult Learner Enterprises
more importantly can we have an official inquiry into who would want to sponsor jaddy
Jadson is fucking sponsored by an oil company. !!
So it’s racist and destructive to the environment! I demand he negotiate monetary support from Pale Ale BioFuels!
Hoyo is classic in booth and should be there at all events!!!
these guys are way better then any jeep commercial.
Don’t you too surf the interstate highways, the alley where the trannies hang out, the turnpikes, the pay-to-park beach lots in LA?
I’d like to visit LA, but I’ve heard it’s a shit hole.
I like visiting shitholes
The big fella, Hoy & Hages..
The big fella used to be on an ad with MR and Layne. There’s a hell amount of Newy on the grit in the last 48. I like it. 1st and only comment, “10 out of 10 for retardation” Stay gold internet.
https://youtu.be/qIsruvJHW1A
David Lee in Australia! As soon as he’s back but Elo ready to spill and I ain’t pulling any punches.
Isn’t he away for a month or so? If so this might be one of the worst teasing cases yet. Get on the program and produce it yourself or get an intern to. Please.
Elo looks like the old guy in the line up who is always stoked even when its been onshore and 2ft for months.
you just want to punch them in the face
Yep. Could be.
They seem very err, chummy in that pic.
Hahaha – perfect. They just need to relaunch that product and rebrand it
C-Dog
Lack of virtue signalling.
Just goes to show that the American dream is alive and well, ie, two kooks that can’t surf for shit are somehow near or at the helm of modern surfing (Elo from country-ass Oklahoma and Chas from cold as fuck Oregon). Good lord. My happy lenses broke, so maybe I’m being a bit “cup half empty” right now. Ok, “cup half full,” here we go: the podcast could lead to us actually liking this Elo Kook, and then Chas and Elo might make out, resulting in the WSL actually listening to many of the great ideas brainstormed on BG, ie, more diverse commentary, more insights into how the competitors really are (all we see of them are the stupid post heat rambles), and maybe even a cool WSL shirt – those jerseys are dumb, surfers don’t wear jerseys, but maybe we’d wear a cool shirt? Fuck I don’t know. I’m trying here.
That’s cup all the way full!
Joking aside, congratulations! Can’t wait to hear the podcast.
WSL change towel I suspect.
GOLD