Join Chas Smith and Steve “Longtom” Shearer on Dirty Water, episode seven…
In today’s episode of Dirty Water, which is episode seven, and hot on the heels of our capitulation to WSL CEO Erik Logan who left Chas and I crumpled on the floor like drained wine-skins, we bring in the razor-sharp analysis of BeachGrit‘s best writer Steve “Longtom” Shearer.
Longtom you know for his ability to turn even the gloomiest of round one at a WCT event into a work of literature and for his reporting on such matters as the Slater-WSL billion-dollar wave pool and canal estate development on Sunshine Coast wetlands and the mat-rider v former world number two assault case at Lennox Head.
Many topics are covered in a rambling sorta conversation including a recent incident at Lennox Head where Kelly Slater set the town “aflame” after, allegedly I suppose since I wasn’t there, fading a local grommet who is the kid of the joint’s great enforcer and ending with Kelly promising the kid a private surf session in Hawaii.
There is conspiracy talk.
“Kelly’s a libertarian conspiratorialist,” says Chas, before Longtom interjects with a little game.
“Bill Finnegan is going to write a hundred words on Kelly Slater, what’s going to be in the first sentence,” asks Longtom.
Greatest surfer of all time,” says Chas.
“Loves Instagram,” I say.
“What else?” asks Longtom. “Starts with E.”
“Empath?” says Chas
Longtom booms, “Environmentalist! That’s how the world knows him!”
Chas retorts, “Everything Kelly does has an eco-centric point in it. But, for reals, Kelly Slater has done more damage to the earth than any non-politician of the last decade. That man has travelled, spewing carbon into the atmosphere, the amount of surfboards he’s chewed through, he’s the most damaging human of the last ten years.”
“And draining the Coolum wetlands to build a canal estate makes him number one with a bullet,” says Longtom.
It goes on, and then on some more.
Finishes with lovely story about roosters and a tortured John Fante poem.
(Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, TuneIn + Alexa, iHeartRadio, Overcast, Pocket Cast, Castro, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Podchaser, Deezer and Listen Notes.)