Listen: Catastrophic injury leads heretofore mean and hurtful surf journalist into tailspin of self-reflection!

Also, David Lee Scales got barreled.

I think I broke my heels yesterday in a freak playground accident and now cannot move, or at least walk. Punishment for calling Dirk Ziff and Kelly Slater the world’s biggest hypocrites on yesterday’s chat with David Lee Scales?

Likely.

Both Dirk and Kelly share that… aura. Like Dr. Magneto in X-Men. I have not watched X-Men but feel likeDr. Magneto must have some sort of aura and that people who cross him, either physically or emotionally, are dealt swift, asymmetrical  discipline.

Or maybe they are more like Dr. No.

Well, sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.

In other news, David Lee Scales and I spoke about linguistics (my specialty), Dirk Ziff, Kelly Slater and his (David Lee’s) recent visit to the Palm Springs Surf Club.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CB1sQVaHhLa/

It’ll send even the biggest wave pool hater directly to Tablet to see if there are any nearby design hotels available at Covid-19 prices.

Listen here.


Jeremy Flores, two-time Pipe Master, at left, Dez, laughing a little too loud, right.

Listen: Jeremy Flores on how he partied for two years after winning the Pipe Masters; the ruination of Reunion Island via drugs and sharks and smearing his brains on a reef in Sumbawa!

All guns and all fun.

Early last year, and in response to a post somewhere by Conner Coffin where he said surf media should write more long-form interviews, I figured, yeah, good idea.

I thought about it.

Who would I really want to spend a few days following and writing about?

I narrowed my list down to two surfers: Italo Ferreira and Jeremy Flores.

If we could get their sponsor to cover the airfare, I’d fly anywhere in the world to interview ‘em.

I got Italo and he went on to win the title.

Today, I get Jeremy, a man who is barely thirty-two but has been on the tour since 2005.

In interviews Jeremy gives out more heat that a goat’s butt in a pepper patch and, given his fearsome reputation, if he were to lift his own kimono you’d imagine it to reveal a pair of black silk panties exquisitely embroidered with fire-shooting dragons.

He is all guns and all fun.

If you do listen, you might pick up two mistakes in the intro. The first two readers to pick ’em and leave a note in the comments get one of each of our three new tees, arriving soonish.

Leave a review on Apple podcasts, good, bad, five stars or zero, just gotta be entertaining, send us the link and we’ll send you a tail-pad, anywhere in the world. A few other things in there, too.

(Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, TuneIn + Alexa, iHeartRadio, Overcast, Pocket Cast, Castro, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Podchaser, Deezer and Listen Notes.)

Share here.

Direct link. 

Or just hit the button here.


"Who is ready for their surfing?"
"Who is ready for their surfing?"

Health: Scottish scientists testing saltwater as possible Covid-19 treatment launch trial after “groundbreaking find!”

Good for what ails you!

But you clearly recall the terror, just months ago, injected into our normally peaceful surfing community by Kim Prather, an atmospheric scientist in San Diego, who postulated that surfing could help spread the novel Coronavirus as it gets floated on the misty spray from all our sick wraps, carves and whacks.

Oh the troubles, the tribulations.

Ms. Prather backed slightly away from the assertion, days later, claiming she was partially misquoted but the damage had been done. Surfing banned. Surfing outlawed. Eating Asian-fusion cuisine near the beach banned too.

Well, as it turns out, a new study from Edinburgh, Scotland suggests that not only is saltwater not a virus super spreader it may, in fact, be part of the cure.

Gargling salt water, specifically.

The original study, discussed here, tested the salt water gargling theory on people with common colds, not novel Coronaviruses, but found such promise that it will now be tested on the latter.

Does is excite or did you already know, in your heart, that our surfing always holds the keys to health and happiness?

Though not announced as part of the trial, there has also been some curiosity as to the effect of saltwater on erectile dysfunction.

More as the story develops.


Kolohe Andino on a CI Happy. | Photo: @ciatreiser

Swinger’s Ball: Conner Coffin is officially out of Channel Islands’ hometown door but is San Clemente’s Kolohe Andino pouncing through crack like a sexy cat?

Championship time?

You…… you are a grown woman. You have fallen in love and fallen out of love and fallen back in love then rudely shifted your eyes around wondering if you should be back in love or maybe there is something better.

Conner Coffin, sweet Santa Barbara boy, is currently in the throes of a very public breakup with hometown surfboard maker Channel Islands.

We, of course, remember Channel Islands surfboards via Tom Curren and his Black Beauty, Kelly Slater and the only boards he ever won on (a huge shame that he left in retrospect), Dane Reynolds and… Conner Coffin, I suppose.

Conner was never a household name but did make it on to the Championship Tour with a beautiful turn and gorgeous personality.

Now he is gone, from Channel Islands, but will the only American with an actual shot at the title fill his slot?

Maybe.

Kolohe Andino is the greatest surfer dyed red, white and blue of the last decade. A proper star even today but with so much left in the tank.

And rumor has it that Kolohe wants to fill that tank with Channel Islands boards. An undeniable pedigree, impossible to beat pedigree, if we’re honest.

Also what meaningful has Matt Biolos won?

Think hard.

If Kolohe does indeed jump to CI then will a championship follow?

Much to ponder.


Conner, always pretty on the eyes at at J-Bay. | Photo: @wsl

Conner Coffin quits Channel Islands for JS; world #20 to become the face of Australian company’s push into USA!

Thanks for the laughs!

Lovely Conner Coffin, whose over-easy haircut rivals Strider Wasilewski’s for lesbian chic, has quit his board sponsor of sixteen years for the greener pastures of Jason Stevenson’s eponymous brand JS. 

It ain’t a great surprise, despite Conner being pivotal in the design of two of CI’s most popular surfboard models, the Fred Rubble and the Fred Stubble. 

JS ran a contest a couple of weeks back offering a board if you could guess who his new team rider was going to be. The clue was a silhouette photograph and Conner’s blunt-cut waterfall was a dead give-away, at least to anyone who has ever walked out of a hairdresser’s salon in tears.

Ain’t no other CTer with that sorta blunt cut.

Our sources say Conner was searching for something a little different, a secret weapon to elevate him from the tour’s fringes and into the top ten. He shopped his schtick around and landed at JS.

In a statement to his fans Conner writes,

“I was fortunate to get my first CI around age 10 through @baresco and then worked my way up to a childhood dream of Al shaping my boards for around 2 years. His ability to transform feedback into board design to help me grow as a surfer was amazing. I clearly remember a few boards that took my surfing to new levels within a few sessions. Then I got to work with @mike_andrews3 who was all time and we gave birth to the Fred rubble and Fred stubble, A board that was borderline life changing for me. Then I had the privelage of working with a long time friend and brother in @mike_walter . As a relatively new shaper mike was fired up and had a nack for the “al rail” that I was looking for since he left. We had a blast working together which led to qualifying for the tour and a year at 7th on the CT.”

Conner will now become the face of JS’s push into the direct-to-consumer market in the US, his style which might be linked to the rippling of a kimono so sinuously as to suggest two women making love, a compelling sell to cutback aficionados all across that brave land.

Parker Coffin, Conner’s naughty little brother who shakes his hips and mimics a femmie boy on waves, meanwhile, will remain with CI, his star rising on the success of his Fishbeard model.