Welcome to Stratford, just a fifteen minute
bike ride to the gates of Kelly Slater's Surf Ranch!
Shocking: Little town right next door to
Kelly Slater’s Lemoore Surf Ranch goes thirsty!
By Chas Smith
Sustainability at work!
As you most certainly know, California, home to
Disneyland, Seaworld and Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch, has/had been
gripped by a devastating drought over the past many years. Rain
does not fall upon this arid land, or at least not until last year
when there was much rain but it did not fall everywhere evenly,
particularly not in the state’s central valley. Those flat lands
are our industrial breadbasket where cows guzzle much water and
crops drink much water and World Surf League professionals/rich
businessmen surf much water.
As you most likely know, Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch is a
“sustainable” facility in that it serves chia seed pudding for
breakfast, uses upcycled surfboard foam dust for paving stones,
harnesses “wind” power to pull the massive train through that
precious water which is, according to SF
Gate, being “conserved.”
Boy howdy, I bet the good folk in Stratord, just six miles from
Surf Ranch’s reclaimed wooden gates, are very envious of all that
conserved water. I bet they sometimes ride their bikes up 19th
street there and peer over that reclaimed wooden gate to watch
Kelly Slater and pals splash and giggle and hoot.
I bet they ride their bikes home, tuck their wheezing, thirsty
children into bed and sing ancient lullabies about the end of the
world.
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An open letter from a bodyboarder: “You
whored out your culture and identity for money and now it’s being
taken from you!”
By Dan Dob
"You sold your flagship companies to corporate
raiders, your peak governing body to a New York billionaire, the
very experience of riding waves to those celebrities and moneyed
types who can cough up $80,000 for a day…"
Hi everybody, I’m a bodyboarder.
Remember me, I’m the guy you used to make fun of and hate,
before you hated longboarders, hipsters, SUP riders, foil-boarders,
SUP foil-boarders, VALs and
anyone else you deem not as surfing core as you.
I copped the insults, the derision, the board flicks or
“delayed” turns, the occasional punch or slap. Nobody, but nobody,
was as cool as surfers in the eighties and nineties. And nobody but
surfers were to be allowed into their self-nominated cool kid’s
club.
You would sell the ideal and the image to non-surfers, confident
that surfing itself was too tricky, took too much dedication,
required too much skill and patience and daring and bravery and all
the other glorious adjectives you assigned yourselves, for the
poor exploited suckers you were marketing to too ever
actually take up surfing itself.
The cool kids club mortgaged their image, their style, their
language, and their culture out into the mainstream world, and grew
rich and successful of the back of it.
You would sell the ideal and the image to non-surfers, confident
that surfing itself was too tricky, took too much dedication,
required too much skill and patience and daring and bravery and all
the other glorious adjectives you assigned yourselves, for the
poor exploited suckers you were marketing to too ever
actually take up surfing itself.
They would have to make themselves content to just ape the
aesthetic and hope that some of the cool kid’s club cultural
credibility would rub off on them.
That was one of the big problems you had with bodyboarding. It
let the masses short circuit the narrative, skip the years of
skill acquisition and dedication required to join the
lineup.
It gave those masses outside the cool kid’s club the opportunity
to open the door and come in.
And you tried to push it back closed with the mockery and
violence.
You sold your flagship companies to corporate raiders, your peak
governing body to a New York billionaire, the very experience of
riding waves to those celebrities and moneyed types who can cough
up $80,000 for a day at your biggest identity’s wave park. You
created Luxury boat charters for doctors and lawyers.
Now, the financial good times didn’t last forever, but the
economic beast you’d created to fund your lifestyles still had to
be fed. Maybe if you opened the door just a little and let
only a select few, preferably with money, from the outside into the
cool kids’ club, it would be ok.
So, you sold your flagship companies to corporate raiders, your
peak governing body to a New York billionaire, the very experience
of riding waves to those celebrities and moneyed types who can
cough up $80,000 for a day at your biggest identity’s wave park.
You created Luxury boat charters for doctors and lawyers.
European backpackers can own a little piece of replica heritage
with longboards and fishes copied from surfing spiritual heyday for
$1500 each.
And the cream on the top? You get to go to the Olympics!
But, here’s the thing.
Now that the door is open just a little, the masses of aspiring
surfers you created by selling the cool kids club aesthetic want
in.
The weight of numbers has become too much. They’re crowding up
your favorite breaks, they’ve gain control of your governing
bodies, they’re diluting and reshaping your culture, and recreating
the cool kids’ club in their image.
The surf school graduates, the #Vanlife influencers, the VAL’s,
the ELO’s, all those exploited but previously excluded, WANT
IN.
The weight of numbers has become too much. They’re crowding up
your favorite breaks, they’ve gain control of your governing
bodies, they’re diluting and reshaping your culture, and recreating
the cool kids’ club in their image.
They’re telling the world, “This is surfing now”.
You whored out your culture and identity for money and now it’s
being taken from you.
The masses are coming for you again, but in this new age, you
can’t respond with open mockery and violence against their assault
anymore.
So, you wring your hands, try to give credence to “grumpy
locals” as the only true voice of the cool kid’s club, create silly
performance pieces about satirical insurgencies.
You’re trapped in a nightmare of your own making.
And I’m over here, watching all this unfold, reflecting on the
choices the surfing world has made, the actions and the behaviours
that have led you to this point, and thinking to myself, “He who
laughs last, laughs longest”.
Enjoy your future, cool kids.
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Miracle: “It’s insane…” professional
surfers gush “…to come to a pool and press a button and there’s
world-class waves!”
By Chas Smith
Can you believe it?
There’s been a bumper crop of wave tanks coming
online this month with two, Bristol and Melbourne, opening to
the public already/very soon and only the grumpiest of locals isn’t
slightly intrigued by these latest, both utilizing Cove technology.
The pools’ ownership groups are, I’m sure, thrilled that all the
heavy construction is over, water spigots turned off, last bolts
tightened down. Now it is time for the money to come rolling in but
first, an opening-day party.
Melbourne’s included such stars as Chris Hemsworth, Julian
Wilson and Sally Fitzgibbons and let’s go straight to Australia’s 10
Daily for the absolute latest.
Australian Pro-Surfer Julian Wilson told media this morning
that the surf park was pretty groundbreaking.
“It’s an exciting time. The waves are perfect and they’re
on-demand, so I’m feeling pretty spoilt this morning.”
“We’re one of the strongest nations in the world for surfing
so I think this should only help,” he said.
World number four Sally Fitzgibbons also shared Wilson’s
praise for the park.
“It’s insane! To come to a pool and you press the button and
there’s world-class waves just pumping through — there’s nothing
better.”
“We needed this facility to keep up with the rest of the
world,” she said.
Ok, I’m feeling a little worried about our professional surfers
and not just because they don’t have basic human rights. I’m
worried about them for having to continue to manufacture wild-eye’d
excitement every time they attend a pool’s opening-day party. To
over and over again have to gush, “No way! Unbelievable! Perfect
waves at the push of a button!” etc. They’ve all seen and surfed
many artificial waves now and I fear the expected reaction, bent
slightly at the waist, mouth agape, gasping for air will lead to
mental illness.
Are you feeling a little worried too?
Also, is Australia one of the strongest nations in the world for
surfing?
Yeah?
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Just in: Dem Prez Candidate Tulsi Gabbard
interviewed by Vaughan and Jed on Ain’t That Swell!
By Derek Rielly
And to hell with you, dirty ol muckraking Hillary
Clinton!
Gabbard is a surfer, lives in Hawaii, loves to shred.
Vaughan woke up one morning to a DM saying, “Hey guys, love the
show, love to come on sometime.”
Vaughan’s nostrils were almost fatally distended by the
presidential perfume.
He replied,
Tulsi didn’t reply for a couple of months.
Vaughan thought he’d blown it.
Then, when he was putting together a “Power Women” show,
featuring Jodie Cooper, he figured he’d give it another shot.
“She didn’t flinch, said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it right away’,” says
Vaughan.
Couple of weeks went by while the call was set up (“I got the
vibe they were checking me and Jed out to make sure we weren’t
complete psychopaths”) before they connected.
Listening back to the interview, Vaughan says his voice is a
whole octave higher than normal.
“I was fucking gushing, it’s hard for me to listen to,” he says.
“Did we handle it well or not? It felt unfuckingbelievable
that someone in her position, running for the job she’s going for
fucking had a sense of humour and wanted to be part of what we’re
doing.”
Tulsi performs well, she references other episodes of Ain’t
That Swell and patiently remains silent as the broadcast is
diverted by Jed on his many wonderful little rants.
“I got off the phone buzzing off my head,” says Vaughan.
The beauty of the interview, he says, and beyond anything, is
the acknowledgement that there’s still a filament that connects
people who surf.
“That accessibility to someone like her, it sounds weird to say,
only came through surfing,” he says.
Listen here.
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Summer Vacation: Great White shark loving
photographer takes two-year-old daughter to visit “the politest
predators on earth!”
By Chas Smith
"Most people think I have mental problems, clearly
they are projecting their own fears and insecurities - I love
that."
Oh child abuse is a many-splendored thing. It
can make one man weep and yet another man sing but let’s be honest
here, between us, between just you and me… is feeding a
two-year-old baby girl to “man-eating” Great White sharks one step
too far? A bridge across the river Kwai?
Please, don’t get me wrong, I love going on ill-advised
adventures with small children, having just sailed to Mexico with a
boatload plus zero permission slips from their mothers, and also
know that Great White sharks generally man eat, not baby girl eat,
but… still.
I feel disconcerted.
Stomach churned.
Off.
Maybe I’m just overly-sensitive. Maybe I’ve got the wrong idea
and the young baby girl will go strong and viral but… I don’t know.
Let’s read the serious Daily
Star piece then discuss amongst ourselves.
One man’s campaign to get up close and personal with great
white sharks has seen him take his young son and daughter diving
with the deadly animals.
Andy Brandy Casagrande says sharks are often misunderstood,
and humans need to respect them in order to coexist in the ocean.
And cinematographer Andy has taken his son Ace, who’s six, and
daughter Nova, who is just four, diving with the sharks to teach
them all about the giant ocean predators.
“Sharks are the politest predators on Earth, but you also
need to have a mutual respect with them,” Andy says.
“Most people think I have mental problems, clearly they are
projecting their own fears and insecurities – I love
that.”
With a career that spans over 20 years, it’s not hard to
understand how Andy secures such eye-popping photographs, but
what’s even more compelling is the relationship now being built
between his children Ace and Nova and the ocean.
Great Whites are the world’s largest predatory fish and can
weigh up to a staggering 357st.
They can tear an adult apart in a single bite.
But even their intimidating rows of over 300 razor-sharp
teeth haven’t stopped Andy from introducing his kids to the king of
the sea.
“We took our two kids Ace & Nova to see Great White Sharks –
and even cage dive – at the ages of 2 and 4 years old in South
Africa,” says Andy.
On and on the story goes but… I’m just going to come right out
and say it. Why in the world did the Daily Star use an
ampersand between Ace & Nova in a completely normal news story? Are
Ace & Nova a brand?
A brand sold at Target or H & M?
I don’t think so.
It should be Ace and Nova but also Great White sharks
eat people for breakfast. Especially people who have just taken up
surfing.
They can smell fear of failure.
More as the story develops.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros