Listen: “A pack of already boozed surf
journalists, accountants, firemen and historians walk into a
bar!”
By Chas Smith
Injury-inducing pornography!
I got in big trouble on today’s podcast, our
51st, for raging against the World Surf League’s Wall of Positive
Noise without having a stable, well-thought, good-ish enough
concept of how to replace it. Kevin Miller, worshiper of President
Erik Logan and co-founder of the Florida Surf Film Festival was
incensed, outraged that I dare destroy instead of build.
Oh, my response to him was too easy. Destruction is the skill I
have. Construction is for others but we (read: you) cannot
construct without first punching giant holes into Santa Monica.
The Encyclopedia of Surfing’s Matt Warshaw joined and provided
historical clarity. You must please donate to his
labor of love, our memories here. Scott Hulet of
Surfer’s Journal fame also sat behind a mic hating every minute but
also providing the best of them. Kevin Miller and Florida Surf Film
Festival John Brooks were also in the bar.
John, a fireman, had just come from an emergency situation where
a man was masturbating so heavily to big-screen pornography in his
house that he fell off his bed and hurt himself to the point of
calling 9-1-1.
Our best show yet? With that nugget I don’t know how it couldn’t
be.
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Massive shark eats man celebrating birthday
in Reunion; grieving wife identifies remains from wedding ring on
severed hand!
By Chas Smith
A particularly egregious mauling.
I am writing today from the shark bite capital
of the world, New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The weather is currently a
touch gloomy and threatening rain but the surf this morning was
very fun. Peaky. I rode a Machado Seaside and it went fast and
loose though was not good for all the Gorkin Flips I was attempting
in honor of New Smyrna’s first son Aaron Cormican.
I failed to land one.
I’ll admit to thinking it would be fair if a shark bit me out
there, thinking that it would even be valuable because imagine the
damage I could do as a shark bite victim. Think of outrage I could
manufacture. The undiluted outrage.
Alas, I was not bitten but a 44-year-old Scotsman celebrating
his birthday in Reunion with his wife was. Not only bitten but
completely eaten in a theoretically “shark free” swimming pond and
it is our solemn duty to read the very latest from Scotland’s
favorite newspaper Daily
Mail.
A British tourist eaten by a shark was snorkelling in a
designated ‘safe’ Indian Ocean lagoon – and was identified by his
wife who was shown the wedding ring found on his severed hand in
the beast’s stomach, it was revealed today.
Richard Martyn Turner, 44, and Verity Turner, from
Edinburgh, were staying at the five-star Lux Réunion resort in
Saint-Gilles on the paradise island of Reunion – 100 miles from
Mauritius.
The civil servant was reported missing by Mrs Turner and she
identified his remains after reportedly being shown his wedding
ring found on a finger attached to his severed hand and arm pulled
from the 9ft-plus shark.
The Foreign Office declined to comment on the victim’s
identity yesterday. DNA tests are being carried out on the remains
found inside the tiger shark to confirm that they belong to Mr
Turner, it is understood.
The other three sharks will also have their stomach contents
examined.
The Hermitage Lagoon was deemed safe for swimmers thanks to
its calm, shallow waters of less than 6ft and its dense coral reef,
which serves as a barrier that helps keep sharks out.
Damn those “man-eaters.” Heartless. Heartless each and every one
from the Great White to the Tiger to the Hammerhead swimming around
in theoretically safe lagoons and man-eating husbands. I think it
is not safe for anyone else to surf today, especially married men.
I think this particularly egregious mauling will inspire other
sharks to perform copycat attacks.
Again, no surfing today.
Or tomorrow.
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Watch: “I am the voice of the voiceless, a
Gandhi-like figure to oppressed professional surfers
everywhere!”
By Chas Smith
The time for words is over. Action is now
demanded.
Two days ago I stumbled across one of the most
insidious throttlings of personal freedoms to ever appear on this
green earth. No, it was not in some new edict issued by North
Korea’s Kim Jong Un nor was it related to China’s Politburo. It
sprang, rather, from the World Surf League’s very own rule book.
From behind Santa Monica’s Wall of Positive Noise itself and let’s
read Article 189 together again.
Individuals bound by this Policy shall not engage in any
conduct which could cause damage to the image of the sport of
surfing. For purposes of this Article, “damage to the image of the
sport of surfing” is defined as any act, regardless of time or
place, which casts the sport of surfing or WSL in a negative
light.
The words seared my eyes as I read and forced a groan from my
chest. Professional surfers, our professional surfers, are gagged,
bound, held captive. Forced to head to Lemoore, California yearly
and forced to say they like it and no.
Yesterday, I rode it to the post office on my bike and mailed to
him.
He now has nine days, or maybe eight days to respond before the
next act of civil disobedience happens. I was thinking of going
old-school and picketing the World Surf League’s Santa Monica
Global Headquarters this on Nov. 16th until I realized it was a
Saturday so we should shoot for Friday Nov. 15th instead. Would you
join me there? We’ll set a time that works for you and I’ll buy the
cocktails afterward plus will provide light refreshments during the
picketing so we don’t cramp up. Bananas and such. Maybe coconut
water.
After that, if President Logan’s ears remain closed, what should
we do? I’m running out of ideas and so you should join with me on
Discord, a new social media thing that pokes the World Surf
League’s evil partner Faceboook in the eye. A private link is at
the end of the video.
And keep professional surfers in your thoughts and prayers
today. Julian Wilson, Kolohe Andino, Kanoa Igarashi, Gabe Medina,
etc. may look like they have everything; looks, skills, beautiful
wives and girlfriends, money but without freedom it is all
worthless.
All but filthy brass.
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The Get Sent-esque void of repartee between
Cote and O’Connell. Pat looked like he’d just rolled in from a
Tijuana bachelor party. Chris looked pained. There were mistimed
high fives. Forced humour and positivity.
Wall of Positivity report: “Elo is serving
us a breakfast television schmaltz double down, fronted by twin
Ellen DeGeneri and supported by compliant Labradors”
By surf ads
This isn't sports programming. This is morning
TV.
Chas already broke the news of the WSL breaking the news
that they actually had very little news to break at all
about next year’s tour schedule.
We already knew about G-Land.
The Freshwater subtraction we were hoping for didn’t
materialise.
Added together it equalled continual disappointment for surf
fans. The arithmetic of failure.
Snapper, Bells, Margaret River, G-Land, yada yada. Are we 2019
or 1995?
Have you watched the video in full? The entire thirty minutes of
overproduced, self-congratulatory onanism that should have been
pissed into the wind as a Friday afternoon press release?
Here’s what the WSL’s own fans thought.
Jeff • 2 hours ago
Get rid of Freshwater… back to Trestles for crying out loud, enough
already. Straight snoozer.
john • 3 hours ago
No Cloudbreak , well you are not putting your surfers in the best
waves . Some contests this year were pathetic .
R.A. • 3 hours ago • edited
just skip to the 29 minute mark so you don’t have to watch all the
BS.
Bring back Trestles and get rid of the Freshwater Pro!
kolbyp • 4 hours ago
No more Trestles, No more Fiji…. Missing some of the best waves in
the world. Freshwater pro is boring, reminds me of the beginning of
the movie, North Shore. I understand why they go to Rio, huge
market. More rights than lefts, it seems like the destinations can
use some improvement.
Teddy • 4 hours ago
Chris Cote is the single reason why I stopped following WSL.
Jo • 4 hours ago
“The best breaks in the world” — and you put in Rio! 🤣🤣 👎👎
Where’s Cloudbreak? Fiji’s out, and we ALL have to suffer Rio!
“Best breaks”… we’re not all suckers! 👎
The Wall of Positivity/Schmaltz shows cracks from the
inside!
And my thoughts?
Watching, I imagined Chas as Colonel Kurtz, stuck like a prize
pig by Chris Coté after being lured to some supposedly conciliatory
pre-screening in an abandoned Santa Monica warehouse, slowly
bleeding out, gasping in his last breaths, “the schmaltz, the
schmaltz,” while Coté stands over him, bloody shiv in hand, and
calls E-Lo on his flip phone to let him know, “It’s done.”
The “crosses” to the live booth for each reveal, which had Rosie
and Strider and Pottz and Pete (no Ronnie) appearing as floating
upper torsos forever trapped in their timber-panelled prisons, the
stilted looks on their faces screaming ‘nuke the entire site from
orbit, now!’ As one of our commenters asked, do you think they were
just sitting in a room next to Chris and Pat? Either way it was
L-O-L stuff.
The muzak for each location reveal, which sounded like the
playlist in a noughties TV executive’s rape dungeon.
About half way through the broadcast it dawned on me.
This isn’t sports programming. This is morning TV.
E-Lo is serving us a breakfast television schmaltz double down,
fronted by twin Ellen DeGeneri and supported by a coterie of
compliant Labradors.
Bright lights. Upbeat music. Smiles! Smiles! Smiles! It’s all
cream and no coffee. All pastry and no meat. All yin and no
yang.
This is surfing’s soul, gutted, with extreme prejudice.
And now I see it’s not just Chas lying bloodied on the floor,
but Derek too, and LT, and Jen, and JP, and Warshaw, and Negs, and
Wiggoly’s Paddling Style, and Nick Carroll, and Maurice Cole, and
Hynd, and Samuels, and Pezman, and Kidman, and Fletcher, and
Reynolds, and Martinez, and Drouyn, and Dora, and Mike Boyum, and
Banks, and Lynch, and they’re all crying out in unison: the
schmaltz, the schmaltz!
… and I rejoice because I realise, what would a part time,
amateur surf writer rant about without the continual misfirings of
the WSL?
They… complete… me…
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The shaper Dan Mann has a pedigree of super
user friendly surfboards in the Firewire line. Notably, the Potato
range. He credited intuition with creating this board for Kelly,
which he did on spec. It sat unridden for two years before Kelly
shredded Trestles on it and it entered the Slater Designs range.
And he does shred on it, just like he did the 90's potato chips
that Matt Biolos claims “stole the buzz from surfing”. By turns the
modern shortboard has become more user-friendly in the last decade.
Rec surfers can easily ride pro level boards, if sized correctly.
The FRK, at least ridden as recommended by Kelly, is a return to a
much more elite state of affairs.
Board review: Longtom on the Slater Designs
FRK, “A board for teenaged kicks or Peter Pans who can’t let go of
their youth!”
By Longtom
The modern shortboard has become more user-friendly
in the last decade. The FRK, at least ridden as recommended by
Kelly, is a return to a much more elite state of affairs.
I ain’t one for conspiracy theory, as a general
rule. So when 11,000 scientists say we are in a climate
emergency (today!) I tend to listen.
When I look around the normally verdant, sub-tropical paradise
of Lennox Head and see something that looks more like Dustbowl
Oklahoma than remnant Gondwanan rainforest I get twitchy. When the
joint has been ringed by bushfires for two months before summer
even starts, ash covering lineups, smoke-filled skies, air as dry
as the Sahara I think, whoa, maybe we’ve cooked the goose here.
Hence the question: what the fuck can I do, what should I
do?
A conundrum then, when I received the Slater Designs FRK,
shipped from Thailand.
What if I kept that testing local? Reduced the carbon footprint
per wave.
“The climate crisis is closely linked to excessive consumption
of the wealthy lifestyle,” said the scientists and seeing as Kelly
has one of the biggest lifestyles and a massive per wave carbon
footprint at the tub, maybe I could offset some of his
eco-footprint for the sake of future generations.
Kidding, but totally serious.
To do that meant some simple rules. No car travel. Obvs no
flights, new keikis, or imported exotic foods. No new clothes etc
etc. Walk or bike ride to the surf. Eat local foods. Easy crew.
The board itself. Is narrow, thin, foiled. Quite a departure
from modern shortboard theory and a very big departure from
the Cabianca DFK I was riding. That departure further
exacerbated by the LFT construction, being EPS core and epoxy glass
and following Kelly’s recommendation to go one size smaller than
you would normally ride.
Been sucked into following Kelly’s board advice before, and I
did it again. Mixed results, generally poor, as you might have
guessed.
The 5’10” came in at twenty-seven litres, but felt far less
under the arm. Very foiled rails. I walked past twin-fin
doyen Torryn Martyn on the way to the opening session
after a short bike ride to the Point and said, “Reckon you could
ride this?”’
In the case of the FRK: Nothing that’s nice. I kooked the first
half-dozen or so waves I caught. Juicy, head-high runners, lots of
bottom tension. With the thinness, narrowness, low volume and LFT
construction I had very little of the things I like in a HPSB:
drive and control. Stuck behind sections, mostly.
Late in the session I managed a little backside finner. Very
loose in the lip.
Couple more surfs followed: local points, a longish ride and
paddle across a shark-infested river to a wedgey left were
conducted with low carbon footprints per wave but confirmed initial
impressions.
I’d been sucker-punched by Kelly, again.
Taking advice off anyone on surfboards is fraught with danger
but please, do not take Kelly’s advice and buy this board
under-sized. It’s wizard level trolling if he’s done it on
purpose.
Look, I made this board work. But the hit rate was low.
It needs a steep, bowling wave. Most of my local points have
side-wave energy running through them as incoming swells rebound
and run back through the line-up. That makes wedges and “knuckles”
– but flatter areas where you need to run “up hill” to get into the
next wedge.
The LFT/FRK hated any kind of lateral surfing like that. Stopped
dead.
It’s a board for teenaged kicks or Peter Pans who can’t let go
of their youth. Hardest shortboard I’ve had to ride. Sizing it up a
little and a change in construction and this thing would probably
work fine, for me. Changing up fins didn’t effect my ride much,
because the problem was an undersized hull.
I wonder if Firewire might not start to embrace different
constructions. Hayden Shapes, a fellow traveller on the EPS/Epoxy
road has intro’ed PE technology, PU blanks with epoxy resin. Rusty
has embraced the same. Polystyrene has come under environmental
scrutiny and these headwinds as well as the ride might force a
change back to PU cores. Or at least something a bit more solid,
like their earlier builds.
He credited intuition with creating this board for Kelly, which
he did on spec. It sat unridden for two years before Kelly shredded
Trestles on it and it entered the Slater Designs range. And he does
shred on it, just like he did the nineties potato chips that Matt
Biolos claims “stole the buzz from surfing”.
By turns, the modern shortboard has become more user-friendly in
the last decade. Rec surfers can easily ride pro-level boards, if
sized correctly. The FRK, at least ridden as recommended by Kelly,
is a return to a much more elite state of affairs.
Outlier or new beginning? I say outlier. Kelly’s equipment
choices have never really suited anyone but himself, with few
exceptions.
Although this board didn’t work for me, I do credit it with
inspiring perhaps the lowest carbon footprint session since Pat
Curren in 1959.
Pre-dawn at the base of the Point. Bagged a ten-pound
Giant
Trevally on a stick bait. Stashed it in a rock pool
and went surfing. Rode up to the Melaleuca swamp and peeled off
some paperbark. Came home and cooked it wrapped in paperbark with
warrigal greens.
With carbon intensive industries and lifestyles in the
cross-hairs if we all lived more simply we would, in effect, be
allowing Kelly to live his resource hungry life for as long as he
lives. Entertaining us in the process.