Watch and Thrill: World Surf League releases nominees for “Wipeout of the Year” including Keala Kennelly’s World Title winning tumble!

By Chas Smith

4 years ago

"Boom goes the dynamite!"

The mainstream media appreciates two, and only two, things about surfing. 1) Laird Hamilton Superfood plant-based coffee creamer and 2) wipeouts. Thankfully for the Santa Monica-based World Surf League, an organization under siege, it is that time of year when “Wipeout of the Year” nominees are loosed on an entertainment-starved public.

You can watch the top five, below, which include: Felipe Cesarano at Nazaré, Jerome Sahyoun in Ireland, Torrey Meister, Francisco Porcella and Keala Kennelly all at Jaws.

Yahoo! News declared “Cowabunga!” while Time magazine settled on the more prosaic “Boom goes the dynamite!”

Do you have a favorite? You can vote but, to be honest, there’s only one real option. Keala Kennelly’s magnificent Jaws tumble. It is one of the heavier and also part of what made her Big Wave World Champion. The heart, the will to put her head down and go.

A wonderful, defining moment in our shared history.

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Breaking: Stab magazine recognizes error of ways, deletes post describing world’s greatest surfer Stephanie Gilmore as “coke-head with OCD!”

By Chas Smith

4 years ago

Stab magazine Editor-in-Chief Ashton Goggans may be Amber Heard.

How quickly do the wheels of justice turn these days? Three, literally three, minutes ago I posted a story regarding Zoom adjacent to Venice Beach Stab magazine decision to describe the world’s greatest surfer Stephanie Gilmore as “a coke-head with OCD” on Instagram.

The offering received mixed results.

Many thought it was funny and “edgy.”

Many more thought inappropriate and odd, especially for a property that consistently makes a point to fall on the side of “woke” clearly “the right side of history” in our current culture war.

As is its wont, Stab disappeared the offending post within a literal three minutes of a fine BeachGrit offering which… ouch!

Not even 24 hours of fun?

12 hours?

But also, is a media property truly “woke” by what they choose to leave live, swinging on “funny” and “cool” when the spirit strikes, or does a media property actually have to be “woke” and only post “woke” offerings?

I don’t actually know.

I’m perpetually confused by deleting anything.

History judges us and look at how it judged Johnny Depp.

A fun derelict.

Stab magazine Editor-in-Chief Ashton Goggans may be Amber Heard. Or…. whoever that other girl is.

More as the story develops.

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Blood-ish Feud: Stab magazine conflicts commenters by describing world’s greatest surfer Stephanie Gilmore as a “coke-head with OCD!”

By Chas Smith

4 years ago

Is a once proud surf title officially cancelled?

The wokest of all surf media, we know, is The Inertia. Venice Beach’s other adjacent officially woke surf media so woke that it had an awkward time poking fun of modern satan Mark Zuckerberg culturally appropriating white culture by hideously mocking whilst on an electric foil surfboard.

Second place, of course, belongs to Venice Beach’s other adjacent officially woke surf media Stab magazine swinging between “edgy” and “aggrieved at inequity” etc. per our time and per the wonderful winds of thoughtless hypocrisy.

How wacky is our time?

Protesters rounded up in Portland, Oregon. Stephanie Gilmore, greatest surfer in the world, described by Stab as a “coke-head with OCD.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CC36PUYlR21/

Oh.

I’m sure there were many chubby salchicha high-fives over the “progressive” caption (socially distanced via Zoom of course) in Stab magazine’s now metaphorically Venice Beach Adjacent’s office but ooooooeee!

Does Steph Gilmore cocaine?

Does she obsessively-compulse?

Commenters were mixed.

Many pointed out the hilarity of the caption.

Many more pointed out the inappropriateness. The making light of both drug abuse and mental illness.

A war being won, in terms of “likes” by the later.

Will Stab survive?

Due quarantine, I don’t have eyes on its Editor-in-Chief Ashton Goggans who may either be 450 lbs due a lockdown addiction to gluten-free nacho cheese chips or 359 lbs due genetics but what do you think?

Is this the end of a once proud title?

More as the story develops.

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In extremely controversial move, Facebook founder and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg emerges from quarantine donning “white-face” on an electric foil!

By Chas Smith

4 years ago

"It sends the wrong message."

Fraught times. Scary times. The end of times? I don’t want to sound any unnecessary alarm bells here but two signs of the apocalypse manifested themselves over the weekend. The first, masked, badge-less federal agents throwing people into unmarked mini-vans in Portland, Oregon and disappearing them.

Disappearing them to where?

Unclear but possibly to strip clubs or donut shops where donuts are served with pieces of bacon on top for “re-education” on how to “Keep Portland Weird.”

The second, Facebook founder and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg emerging from quarantine donning white-face and riding and electric foil.

While white-face has yet to be socially criminalized, there is a growing number who believes it “sends the wrong message” and “should be avoided.”

Zuckerberg was unavailable for comment.

He appears to have learned the foil on the island of Kauai from his friend and super cross-over water person Kai Lenny.

Disturbing but the most intriguing detail is neither the white-face nor the electric foil but rather the size and shape of Zuckerberg’s bottom.

Whoa.

Baby certainly appears to “got back.” Is it a natural side effect of electric foiling? Of destroying the bonds between human beings around the world? Of being friends with Kai Lenny?

Much to ponder.

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White devils!

Problematic: Big-wave surfer Shane Dorian slammed by woke fan for ‘racist’ post, “You are a truth speaker and I can’t be silent.”

By Derek Rielly

4 years ago

Precious.

Y’heard of a book called White Fragility.

It’s number one on The New York Times bestseller list, ahead of So You Want To Talk About Race and The Color of Law.

Real important book ever since George Floyd got choked.

Talk-show hosts swoon over it.

White liberals clutch it in their tremulous hands as they take to knee and beg, “How can I do better?”

It’s racist as fuck, of course.

Superhuman whites keeping the weak black man under his jackboot and so on.

“Few books about race have more openly infantilized Black people,” writes John McWhorter (and he ain’t white) in The Atlantic. “DiAngelo’s outlook rests upon a depiction of Black people as endlessly delicate poster children within this self-gratifying fantasy about how white America needs to think—or, better, stop thinking. Her answer to white fragility, in other words, entails an elaborate and pitilessly dehumanizing condescension toward Black people.”

Anyway, hold onto that thought.

Last month, Shane Dorian, a deer and big-wave hunter from Hawaii, posted a photo of him and Kelly Slater, plus son Jackie and pals, on their bicycles with the caption,

“Non-threatening biker gang.”

Can you see the racism?

Try again.

Give up?

It took a Dorian fan to reveal the devil in the detail, so to speak.

Non-threatening because there ain’t no blacks. Of course!

What’s better, y’think?

The lunge for racism at every turn or Dorian’s couldn’t-give-a-fuck comeback?

I’m for the latter, if that isn’t obvious.

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Eat beach grit spam!