Opportunity: Become the next famous face of
Hollywood surfing!
By Chas Smith
Casting call!
There have been many famous faces of Hollywood
surfing and you know them all. Jan-Michael Vincent in Big
Wednesday, Patrick Swayze in Point Break, Matt Adler in North Shore
and maybe there is going to be you or someone you know.
Are you a surfer who wants to act and also wants to be a famous
face?
Well, Hollywood is currently looking for a young man who is
supposed to be sixteen, in the show (scripted), but eighteen or
older in real life. The character is an “eccentric, non-conformist”
(hello, BeachGrit reader!) who surfs, of course, but
doesn’t have to surf at a pro level, obviously. Also, the young man
doesn’t necessarily have to be a fantastic “actor.” Many theater
kids have tried to bag the gig, apparently, and they just don’t
have our glorious cadence.
Lastly, the whole business is taking place on the Outer Banks.
Do you know there? Are you familiar with Salt Life? Can you catch a
fish with a hook?
I can’t, and I don’t look sixteen, and I can’t act and I
spending all my days writing which means I now surf below adult
learner level.
“It looks like one of those crazy waves you see in the Caribbean
or at the Newport Wedge,” Chris said yesterday. “Two waves come
together and it makes a solid eight-foot vert quarter-pipe looking
thing. We didn’t even miss with it. It’s so gnarly looking. There’s
a lot of punch in those waves and it’s shallow so it’s not like
you’re carefree. You still have to mind yourself. Everyone we
surfed with got slammed at least once. It’s not a joke. It’s
powerful enough to get your juices flowing.”
Wanna see it?
(The noted LA-based pro surfer and producer Oliver Kurtz is
filming; Kauai’s Sebbie Zietz is on the wave.)
Modern Sexuality: Venice-adjacent’s other
favorite “surf” website tries to out Chris Cote!
By Chas Smith
Stab? You are officially on the clock.
Are you tired of our modern milieu where gender
and sexual orientation and lack of gender and lack of sexual
orientation define absolutely everything? I sure am. I’m exhausted,
to be honest, because who cares? (for one) and I don’t (for
two).
Well, apparently Venice-adjacent’s sometime river rock hopping
online portal The Inertia does care and a lot because
founder-in-chief Zach Weisberg, proudly educated at USC though not
directly implicated in the recent
scandal, just tried to full-on out longtime surf
personality Chris Cote.
Now, if you ever paid attention, even for 30 seconds, you’d know
that trying to out someone even semi-privately is wrong. Why? Oh,
don’t ask me. I’m exhausted, remember, but it is I think and
extremely wrong.
Like, very very frowned upon.
Did The Inertia care when narrowcasting to its
seventeen daily visitors?
No.
Always one to flaunt societal norms in defense of “the world’s
most sacred spaces,” Venice-adjacent’s sometime aggressive parkour
online portal just asked surf’s very last personality…
Can we put the record straight? Are you gay, bi or straight?
Is it something that people know about? Is it something that you
feel ashamed of or are you happy for being you?
Shame on The Inertia, though. The last bastion of toxic
masculinity. Giving river rock hoppers and aggressive parkourians a
very bad name.
Shame indeed.
Stab? You are officially on the clock.
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Come fly with me!
Revealed: Kelly Slater is a renowned
silverware thief and found LA “dirty and gross!”
By Chas Smith
Come see the world through the eyes of a very
accomplished professional surfer!
Travel is a great and wonderful thing. A gift
bestowed upon the 1%, who fly around in gilded private planes, and
the poorest of the poor, who use their tired feet to walk hundreds
of miles. A present given to middle class families, who wedge into
economy class seats, parents watching The Big Bang Theory re-runs
while their children toss biscotti at each other.
Kelly Slater, world’s most accomplished professional surfer,
travels more than most and sat down recently with Conde Nast
Traveller to share his secrets. Anything you didn’t already
know?
Maybe.
I, for example, didn’t know that Kelly Slater was disappointed
by the City of Angeles, the greatest city in the world in my
opinion…
What is a city that least lived up to the
hype?
Los Angeles. Don’t get me wrong, I love L.A. It has great
food, a lot of my friends live there, and there are plenty of
things to do. But the first time I flew into the city, I was just a
kid, and I remember sitting at the window of the plane and
descending through this layer of smog. I thought it was so dirty
and gross—I didn’t want to breathe the air when I landed. Then
there’s the traffic, which is just horrendous. You really do have
to schedule your day around it. But there definitely is some good
with the bad. Like, for example, the coastline. It’s nice as you
get out to Malibu.
Nor did I know that he has a kink for dirty silverware…
Confess to one thing you’ve taken from a hotel
room.
I used to collect the silverware from room service—that used
to be my thing. For a long time, I had this mishmash of cutlery.
And then, you know, if I need a towel and a hotel has a really nice
towel, then maybe I’ll grab one.
If you get it right I’ll make sure your family has plenty of
biscotti next time you wedge them into economy class seats.
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Waco back in the bad ol amoeba days. Now cleaner and
with new improved super wedge (not pictured).
Waco reopens with outrageous new wedge
called the “Freak Peak!”
By Derek Rielly
"It looks like one of those crazy waves you see in
the Caribbean. Two waves come together and it makes a solid
eight-foot vert quarter-pipe…"
Five months since state and federal officials found
evidence of brain-eating amoeba at the BSR cable
park, the famous wave pool has re-opened, at least to
media (regular folks can swing by on Friday), with a
million-and-a-half dollar water filter and a deadly new wedge
called ‘Freak Peak’.
The commentator and podcaster Chris Coté was one of the first to
ride in the new filtered water, with the new wedge, and says after
a day-and-a-half in the tank he felt as if he’d been on a ten-day
surf trip.
“I’m sore, I’m tired, surfed out and stoked. It’s ridiculous,
ridiculously fun,” he says.
“It’s truly a dream. You can sit out and there and surf for half
an hour on a Lowers’-style right, then surf for half an hour on a
Lowers’-style left and then you can, literally, call up the guy
controlling the wave, this dude named Brian, just hold your arms up
like an O, and he sends you a barrel.”
Still, “I would’ve gone either way,” says Coté. “We showed up
and the water was nice and clear. I’d heard before that the water
was slippery and I was mentally prepared for that, but it felt
totally normal.”
The wave?
“It’s truly a dream. You can sit out and there and surf for half
an hour on a Lowers’-style right, then surf for half an hour on a
Lowers’-style left and then you can, literally, call up the guy
controlling the wave, this dude named Brian, just hold your arms up
like an O, and he sends you a barrel. It’s crazy how fast it all
is. I mean, how many waves did I catch? You catch a wave and by the
time you get back to the takeoff there’s another set coming.
There’s no wait. You get back out there and you keep going. If
someone falls you turn around and go. You end up catching dozens of
waves. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, who knows? And it depends on
the setting. The barrel is a one-wave set, so it comes every minute
or two, then there’s the three-wave sets and if you’re surfing with
a couple of friends, you’re going in full rotation. You never sit
up. You keep catching waves over and over.”
“If you’re surfing with a couple of friends, you’re going in
full rotation. You never sit up. You keep catching waves over and
over.”
As for the Freak Peak, “It looks like one of those crazy waves
you see in the Caribbean or at the Newport Wedge. Two waves come
together and it makes a solid eight-foot vert quarter-pipe looking
thing. We didn’t even miss with it. It’s so gnarly looking. There’s
a lot of punch in those waves and it’s shallow so it’s not like
you’re carefree. You still have to mind yourself. Everyone we
surfed with got slammed at least once. It’s not a joke. It’s
powerful enough to get your juices flowing.”
I ask Coté, who has ridden Kelly’s pool, which he prefers.
“Kelly’s wave is perfect but it’s a finite resource. You’ve felt
the pressure. It’s so perfect but there’s only so many opportunity.
But at Waco there’s no pressure. You can have forty, five reps a
day. At the Ranch, maybe twelve.”
