Listen: “I hereby challenge Laird Hamilton to a sauna-off!”

“Joe Rogan and Laird Hamilton are little wimpy sissies!”

Derek Rielly has been on such a BeachGrit heater lately that last night I felt very bad. He’s posted story after story after story all while being shuttled around Australia giving interviews in the wake of the iconic Bob Hawke’s passing.

As you well know, Derek wrote the definitive biography of the beloved figure in his inimitable style. It is a gorgeous book. Profound, moving, original and illuminating. I have no doubt that it will win every important Australian award this year which made me feel even worse.

Derek is a literary juggernaut, a lion, and still posting story after story while I sit home, henpecking an indecipherable book about the Global War on Terror and failing you.

In order to rectify, I hurriedly googled “surf” then clicked “news” to find something.

Anything.

And there sat Laird Hamilton across from Joe Rogan.

“Perfection!” I thought, poured myself yet another vodka soda and clicked play, ready to do the hard yards for you. For us. For Derek.

I hated every second and turned it off after 20 minutes.

I understand the concept of eating healthy and working out. What I don’t understand is talking about eating healthy and working out. Or, worse still, listening to someone else talk about eating healthy and working out.

For two plus hours.

In any case, Laird n Joe started talking about saunas near my capacity and how 225 degrees Fahrenheit is, like, crazy hot and difficult to handle.

“Sissies!” I thought. “Joe Rogan and Laird Hamilton are little wimpy sissies!”

Now, I’ve never had occasion to think this before but I could out sauna those two in my sleep. I’ve spent a good third of my life in the world’s largest sauna (the Middle East) and could sauna those two under the table with one arm tied behind my back.

I somehow need to make this happen. It could be for charity and maybe I’ll reach out to my pal Erik “ELo” Logan, the World Surf League’s President of Content, Media, Third Party Licensing Rights, Etc. for Laird’s contact info. Maybe it should be a WSL sanctioned sauna-off.

Speaking of ELo, I met with David Lee Scales at the Surf Heritage and Culture Center and we spoke of the Shellacking in Santa Monica, David Lee’s ripping, surfing with your partner and many other important things. Then David Lee’s computer died and the whole thing got erased so we started over and did it again.

It is our best show yet two times over!

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Breathe: Laird Hamilton appears on the Joe Rogan Experience to peddle soft science!

"The human body craves fast food cheeseburgers!"

Do you love and believe in science? Are you what the “mainstream media” would call a “scientist?” Well then you’ll love the latest episode of the Joe Rogan Experience where famous professional tow-surfer Laird Hamilton swings in to peddle super hot saunas, super cold ice machines and the glories of nose breathing.

What is nose breathing?

Oh, simple. Breathing through your nose but better than that it makes your body invincible, I think. You can run across the entire contiguous United States of America then fight a man and still win if you nose breathe.

You can have stunningly blonde hair with all sorts of gorgeous accents and be seventy-years-old if you nose breathe and you don’t believe me?

I mock you while exhaling through my nose. The worst sort of mock.

Learn you ignorant beast. You non-220-degree-ice-bath-taking fool.

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Kelly Slater, candid: “I want to take (Filipe’s) head off!”

The day before his epic quarter-final at Keramas with Filipe Toledo, the 11-timer shows his tonsils are in fine form…

Tomorrow morning, afternoon, depending on your geo-tag, Kelly Slater and Filipe Toledo are going to tee off in the first quarter-final at Keramas.

Waves? Two foot, maybe three.

Don’t tell me this is a heat you’re going to miss.

With nobody in his corner, nearing fifty and in zig-zagging form, Kelly Slater is going to see if strategy and experience can beat the man who has so far seemed unbeatable in Keramas’ little righthanders.

In an interview yesterday, Kelly was in fighting form.

Salty, challenging, philosophical… loose.

“Well, its obvious, like, I’m not going to go out and let him win. I’m going to go out and do my best to smash him. And if I lose who cares? On the Gold Coast at Duranbah, I surfed like crap. Everyone wrote me off, I probably killed my own confidence.

“People forget that’s it’s a marathon not a spring and there can be days where somebody looks totally unbeatable, uncatchable, going to win everything and then they lose.

“Look, I love Filipe. I think he shreds. I think he’s probably the best small-wave surfer that’s ever lived. And, he’s outscored me in every round of the year so the chances of me beating him are very slim. 

“I got no delusions about that but I’m going to see if I can figure out a game plan to beat him and get some high scores for myself and get the right waves and hopefully it’s six-foot and barrelling. 

“Filipe is probably the gnarliest guy you could ever have in a small-wave heat, especially in rights, but basically in any small waves. But that doesn’t mean I have to sit here and praise him before we surf, you know I want to go out there and take his head off. 

“But, it’s nothing personal. 

You just to have to have that mindset as a competitor and leave it all in the water. And I have a little bit of confidence now and I’m going to try and use what I got to win a heat and win a contest.”

Tell me: who’s going to have tear-stained cheeks tomoz?

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

 

 

 

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Safe Space: Cape Cod activists get “horribly inappropriate” shark merchandise off shelves!

Send more tourists... the last ones were delicious.

Is there any cultural corner left where militant activists won’t come swinging in, demanding that it be turned into a safe space? Any oasis from weaponized hurt feelings? I would have thought that cute cartoon shark merchandise being sold in Christmas Tree Shops in New England might be that one perfect intersection.

Who could possibly be offended?

Enough people to get that “horribly inappropriate” stock removed while writing stinging rebukes on Facebook and let us turn our attention to Cape Cod, the picturesque Massachusetts town best known for its connection to the Kennedy family. Let us read together from the Boston Globe.

Merchandise making light of shark attacks has been stripped from the shelves of Christmas Tree Shops around Cape Cod because of complaints from residents who said the language and images on the items were inappropriate following two serious incidents last year between people and the apex predators — one of which resulted in a man’s death.

One of the items removed from the stores was a notepad featuring a drawing of a smiling great white shark. At the top of the pad it said, “Send more tourists,” and at the bottom, “The last ones were delicious.”

A second item no longer for sale was a kitchen towel that pictured a great white shark popping out of the water, below the words “Shark Week.” The bottom of the towel read, “Nice to Eat You.”

CapeCod.com, which first reported on the removal of the items, also documented a shirt that said “Come to the Shark Side Cape Cod” and another that read, “Cape Cod, Massachusetts — Dangerous Summer — Shark Patrol.”

Heather Doyle, co-chairwoman of the Cape Cod Ocean Community, an active online group focused on “surveillance, deterrence, detection, and Community awareness” about sharks off the Cape, said members pointed out the items in a discussion on the group’s Facebook page recently.

Members mobilized — not in a “militant way,” she clarified — and reached out to the chain’s corporate offices about what they deemed inappropriate products.

“Our reality is going to be sharks on everything; sharks on this — but when you start to personify sharks as evil animals that are hunting people and smiling . . . it’s probably not a lane we want to go down,” said Doyle, who went to two of the stores to see the products for herself and take pictures.

“It’s really not that funny,” she said. “It’s horribly inappropriate and insensitive to those of us who live here.”

Is there anything you’d like to see removed from shelves? What about little shot glasses that have “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor” written on them? If we muster our Facebooks do you think we could get them banned from kiosks since they encourage excessive drinking and/or perpetuate an incorrect spelling of the word “four?”

Let’s try!

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Report: Sunny Garcia “surprising doctors!”

The clouds part a little in Portland, Oregon…

It’s been three weeks since Sunny Garcia, world champ and perennial Triple Crown winner, was found unconscious at his home in Oregon, almost dead, and supposedly by his own hand.

In the interim, a drip-feed of reports of his condition have come from the family.

Five days ago, we heard that Sunny was off sedation, but still in a  coma, with doctors treating his kidney and liver with dialysis (an induced coma, where the body and brain is anaesthetised often results in further complications).

Today, we received the news that Sunny is “surprising doctors as he continues to get better.”

According to our source, despite the pessimism  of doctors, Sunny is breathing on his own and responding to stimuli.

When asked if there was news of any permanent damage the source said,  “No report. THAT’S the question.”

Ten years ago, the filmmaker Mike Oblowitz set out to document Sunny’s life in a film called Death and Taxes. A lot can change in a decade.

“During the 10 years of filming, Sunny has lost so many people close to him. Marvin Foster, Andy Irons, Buttons, Jay Adams. People so integral to his life and that’s just so hard,” Oblowitz told BeachGrit’s Chas Smith. “I regard Sunny as one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Where he came from and what he achieved? I mean, a lot of great, great surfers came out of Makaha but only one of them won a world title and what Sunny had to go through to get it, the racism, abuse, cards stacked so high against him, it is a tremendous work.”

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