"I didn’t want to close my surf shops, shaping
facilities, glass shops, warehouse and lay off dozens of employees,
but I did. It's the law. Even if I may disagree and call Newsom and
Diane Feinstein Communists."
It’s been a while since the Bear Jew, San Clemente
shaper to the stars Matt Biolos, has come out of his cage
to play.
For the past decade Biolos, who shapes under the moniker Mayhem,
has crafted a new image as a statesman of the game, well-respected,
successful, a man of the industry, a world away from his punk image
of the nineties.
Of course, now that armageddon in the form of a poisoned gift
from China, has finally arrived Matt can afford to loose those
once-famous lips, or as you’ll soon read, those fingers.
A few days ago, Matt let it fly at out-of-towners who had
brought the authorities’ attention to Lowers, San Clemente’s
premier wave, by hitting the place en masse. He’d already shuttered
his iconic surfboard company, Lost, at the behest of the state’s
“Communist” governor Gavin Newsom and the possibility of losing
access to his favourite wave was one bridge too far.
In a screed posted on Instagram he wrote,
Seriously,
Hundreds of people from all over So Cal showing up at
Trestles. (In large groups even) all weekend.
Read the rules that the Governor sent out! It doesn’t say “
Drive out of town , up n down the free ways, and look for waves!”.
I didn’t want to close my surf shops, shaping facilities, glass
shops, ware house … ALL ASPECTS of my business’s AND lay off dozens
of employees, but I did.
We did.
It’s the law.
Even if I may disagree and call Newsom and Diane Feinstein,
Communists.
BUT many around here are not obeying. @lostsurfboards and
@catalystsanclemente are. Much to the sorrow of my friends and
workers, and to the quick demise of our business health. Read the
mandate from the Gov. We are allowed to ride our bikes, walk, walk
pets, buy food, exercise ( ie surf ). This means in our local
areas. Beaches and parks close to our homes. To see the local
beaches here still being invaded by hundreds of out of town surfers
all weekend (which we put up with in normal times) who think this
is a holiday!
The Police were taking photos of the scenes at Trestles
today. If it doesn’t mellow out they are going to close the
beaches. Maybe it doesn’t matter and they will close them anyway,
but I was told my the multiple officers that Trestles is a problem.
Please give us a chance to enjoy the outdoors in and around our
town …and stay within a bike ride if your homes. Or…buy a home
here, pay property tax, and support the local economy, business’s
and school districts. And be part of the community. Please don’t
ruin it for those of us who are.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-DYc5WnKFn/
He’s got a point, but so do the surfers who don’t, for whatever
reasons, have a beach they can call home.
My history with Matt goes back twenty years.
He talks, or writes, I listen.
I don’t also agree, but that’s what make a friendship work.
In the French summer of 2000, I fell for his shapes following a
five-nine fish I’d swiped off the racks at the famous Pukas
factory, midway between Mundaka and Hossegor and very close to the
area’s famous men’s relaxation centres.
The years passed, as they do, and we became friends, the
connection surviving even the machiavellian dagger of a vengeful
enemy.
I once asked Matt what he fucking hated about shaping and he
said, “The grind, the battle of managing production and running the
back-end and the financial strain of biz… I also hate that no
matter how many great boards you make, no matter how many deadlines
you hit or how many miracles you pull off, there’s always some one
not happy or someone whose board got built wrong or took too
long.”
Matt’s road to relative security wasn’t paved with gold. Lost
had come close to the brink a few times and, at one point, after
selling the license to make Lost clothes to a third-party he was
driven so mad by the direction he hocked everything, including his
dream house at Cottons, to buy it back.
This ain’t no billionaire getting rich on the back of the
working man.
Like most small-biz guys, he’s thrown the dice, worked hard,
networked, mortgaged the farm and spent plenty of nights haunted by
the spectre of the ruination of his business.
Well, it’s here, thanks to the horror of China’s wet markets and
the obfuscation of the mostly faceless Communist government.
From a piece in London’s The Telegraph,
Beijing may take umbrage at Donald Trump’s constant
reference to the outbreak as “the China virus” or “the Wuhan flu”,
but the American president is simply stating the obvious, namely
that the worst public health crisis the world has witnessed in a
century originated in a Chinese wild animal market at the end of
last year.
Moreover, the slow response of the Chinese authorities in
dealing with the outbreak, together with the ruling Chinese
Communist Party’s initial attempt to conceal the true extent of the
crisis, may well explain why it is Europe, and not China, that now
enjoys the dubious distinction of becoming the pandemic’s
epicentre.
One of the CCP’s guiding principles is that nothing can be
allowed to undermine its supremacy. This would explain why, rather
than heed the warnings of Dr Li Wenliang, the doctor who first
identified the terrifying threat posed by COVID-19, the Chinese
authorities denounced him for “rumour-mongering”, and either
ignored or played down the risks until well into January.
So, don’t get Matt talking about a social order that veers hard
left, as one commenter found out.
From:
@releepseveer
Your workers have paid a lot of their income into unemployment and
workers comp for their whole lives just as you have. You don’t get
a cookie for that. And you don’t have a greater right to use the
beach because you’re rich enough to live closer to it. It would be
cool to see you loudly supporting a massive worker relief fund (at
least loudly as you are loudly complaining about people using a
public beach that wasn’t closed).
Matt replied,
No cookie requested. Now listen, you can critique my treatment
of our employees.( All of which were taken by us on all expense
paid surf trip this summer, by the way) And you can preach your
socialism ( which always has failed ) and claim your foam ball
rides (when your actually in front of the tube) on your feed, I can
re-iterate how the local government is telling people to practice
safe out door exercise “within their own communities” on my feed. I
won’t harass you and your idealistic ways, and you don’t harass me.
and my horrible ways😂.
You can always simply in un-follow me and go ride your Asym in
Cuba with the rest of the commies.
Then,
@releepseveer
Nobody is harassing you, I’m critiquing your gross classist
derision of regular people who don’t own multiple homes or live by
the beach. Also i’d love to go to Cuba, they have a longer life
span than the USA. And thanks for noticing my asym, I made mine
before Lost did lmao
And so on.
Now,
You hate the commie bastards, too?
