“Bad Grandpa” Joe Biden picks “Top Cop”
Kamala Harris as his running mate creating 1988 Republican dream
ticket!
By Chas Smith
"Dems never forget to really bore their base."
You have, by now, read the news that Democratic
presidential candidate has picked California’s own “Top Cop” Kamala
Harris as his running mate and in the process creating a 1988
Republican dream ticket.
Moderate old-timey values, extremely tough on crime, bold
international leadership…
One tear each rolled down Bob Dole and George Herbert Walker
Bush’s cheeks as they gave each other a quick side hug in heaven
when the announcement became official.
“It certainly does have a musty old, boring public library in
the afternoon feeling.” My political insider said when reached for
comment. “Dems never forget to really bore their base.”
Mondale/Ferraro.
Dukakis/Lloyd Bentsen.
Gore/Lieberman.
Kerry/Edwards.
Hillary Clinton/Kaine.
Biden/Harris
Ahhhhhh.
Like a pair of old, brown lace-up loafers. Like late night
Public Television specials on traveling in Holland.
The Orange County
Register, which happens to be the surf industry’s
paper of record, took an adversarial position re. the ticket,
remarking: “During her tenure as California attorney general and
San Francisco district attorney, Harris turned a blind eye to
potentially dirty Orange County cops and refused to order DNA
testing that might exonerate a condemned man. In a scandal that
rocked the foundation of justice in Orange County, Harris
slow-walked an investigation into corruption among sheriff’s
deputies, basically doing nothing.”
Mmmmmmm.
Like chunky bifocals. Like a Buick Park Avenue featuring a
plush, red velour interior.
The future!
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Skateboard legends share their surf VAL
experience: “A couple of times I punched my steering wheel hard
with watery eyes like, ‘Why can’t I do this?'”
By Chas Smith
Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Aren’t we all, here, #blessed to have learned
to surf as small little children and/or gangly pre-teens? Yes, and
we bathe in that warmth daily with stories of vulnerable adult
learners who become inspired by the water dance later in life and,
therefore, must learn an entire language non-natively.
I would imagine some adults are less vulnerable than others,
though, and might even have so much natural skill as to not need
that small childhood/gangly pre-teen experience.
Some adults like legendary professional skateboarders but, as it
turns out, they are not immune to the pain, the torture.
In a recent Jenkem magazine piece, 90s skateboard legends shared
their experience learning the Pastime of Kings. It is long and
thorough, definitely worth a full
read, but shall we sample one sentiment from each?
Chico Brenes: Sometimes I kick myself for not
starting surfing sooner. But I never imagined that I would be that
dude getting up at dawn because I knew the waves were gonna be good
at that time. When we were young we got up at noon to skate EMB and
stayed up late every night. Never in a million years did I think
I’d become that guy.
Elissa Steamer: I went with my friend Lucas and
got a wetsuit and paddled out that day and I got a sweet belly
ride. And that’s when I got hooked. I was like, “I’m gonna do
this.” I thought, “In no time I’ll be ripping.” But that’s not the
case. It’s been 12 years and I still don’t rip.
Max Schaaf: I’ve stopped caring what people
think and I’m on my own deal. There’s some clip that people keep
sending me of a dude doing like a finger flip on a surfboard. It’s
so wrong. There’s no soul in it. I think with surfing, this sounds
so cheesy but there’s a soul to it. I think the rules come from a
place of taste and time spent doing it.
Rob Welsh: I have a hard time sitting back and
letting the wave do its thing. I feel like I need to go somewhere.
I’m trying to pump it or something to get speed, tick-tack, or
whatever. And you’re only riding for two seconds sometimes.
Beautiful, especially the bit about finger flipping
surfboards.
No?
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Shock: Major literary website publishes
kind review for new Chas Smith book Reports from Hell; describes as
“Howlingly funny… a journey into dangerous territory!”
By Derek Rielly
"Gonzo meets Hezbollah in this unlikely—and
delightful—work of journalism."
Today, August 11th, is the official release date of
Reports from Hell by
mid-length aficionado Charlie Smith, whom some
of you already know.
You have read excerpts here and
here and may
be tired of Charlie shamelessly promoting the work but shameless
promotion is part of the job, as they say.
“Books are wild things. Beautiful things. Maybe antiquated but
never for me. I love Camus, love Waugh, love Murakami, Knausgaard,
Wolfe, Thompson, Mailer, Didion… but I am no literary titan. I am
but a surf journalist,” says Charlie. “Still, I can’t stop writing.
Flipping the computer’s lid open, dropping headphones over my ears,
dancing with words. I’m generally a little blue when the final
draft comes back from the editor because then the journey is
over.”
This review, which you can read below, comes from Kirkus, an
American book review magazine founded in 1933, which isn’t always
kind.
Gonzo meets Hezbollah in this unlikely—and delightful—work
of journalism.
What to do when al-Qaida strikes and the twin towers fall?
Grab a surfboard and make for the Middle East, of course, the
strategy followed by Smith and companions Nate, “who happens to
look exactly like Steve McQueen playing Frank Bullitt if Frank
Bullitt wore a bleached fauxhawk,” and Josh, given to sage analyses
of current events: “This is the way history works, bro. Convulsions
and spasms. To imagine any different, to imagine that we are
somehow removed from the long bend, is ludicrous.”
Smith opens with a howlingly funny interview he conducted
with David Petraeus, who delivered “easily digestible,
easy-to-understand drips of Middle Eastern insight that I imagine
rack-rate conference-goers crave.”
During that encounter, Smith had been prattling on about a
car that is as central a piece of equipment in this narrative as
the suitcase full of pharmaceuticals in Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas, very much a kindred book.
So is just the right T-shirt, the right board, and the right
amount of sangfroid when, in Lebanon, the loopy journalists were
kidnapped by actual terrorists, just as they’d feared, occasioning
another Jeff Spicoli–ish remark from Josh: “These Hezbollah bros
are something we know. We can figure this out.” Underneath all the
goofiness is utterly serious intent: In addition to seeking to
better understand the radicals’ point of view, the author is
committed to providing plenty of shades of gray in a world that
“had never been more black and white or more polarized.”
(Readers will hope he covers the U.S. in the same
spirit.)
Funny and sharp, Smith is also a master of the tossed-off
phrase that is just right for the job: “Early-2000 Dubai felt like
Blade Runner might if written and directed by trust-funded Saudi
Arabian boys who loved robot porn.” A lively and entertaining—and illuminating—journey into
dangerous territory.
World surfing champion Kelly Slater opens
new front on Instagram; opines on noted LA shaper-artist, “Must be
great to be in your mid-late 60’s, on drugs, sexually confused and
dying for any kind of attention.”
By Derek Rielly
"Wonderful example to promote," says world champ in
latest instalment of multi-year blood feud.
Only four weeks ago, the eleven-time world champion
surfer Kelly Slater proved, again, that the pen is mightier than
the sword when he slayed an historically inaccurate Instagram troll
who had accused him of racism after a post on Chinese
fishing in the Galapagos Islands.
Earlier today, a new front was revealed with Kelly’s riposte to
Peter Schroff, the noted LA-based shaper and artist who has made
turned his hate for Asian-made surfboards into performance art.
In 2019, the San Diego-by-way-of-the-Philippines-and-New-York
shaper Mark Polintan had given his Happy Battles shop to a Schroff
show where a Slater Designs board was cut in half by Schroff using
a chainsaw.
When Polintan reposted a photo of the tee on his Instagram
account @happy.battle, Kelly sent a pointed direct message.
“Hahaha. Must be great to be in your mid-late 60’s, on drugs,
sexually confused and dying for any kind of attention. Wonderful
example to promote.”
Polintan replied, “The shaper you’re referring to who happened
to be gay is not sexually confused. How (is) being gay sexually
confused again? Get your head out of your ass.”
Two years ago, I interviewed Schroff, then sixty-three, where he
said he was “a stick of dynamite…The methods that we’re using is to
ridicule Kelly and Mark Price and to have local people be too
embarrassed to buy the boards. That’s the strategy.”
Paradoxically, in an interview in Surfer magazine in
2019, Schroff revealed himself as a Slater fan.
“Kelly Slater has never
stopped surfing and that’s why he is still the best surfer alive,”
said Schroff. “Even at 47 years old. Sure, maybe not as much in
contests anymore, but his surfing is so stylish, it has so much
character and, shit, he’s so driven. Nobody else has ever come
close to that drive. That’s part of his style. He’s like Marlon
Brando’s character in Apocalypse Now.”
Good times etc.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Pat Curren, from the 2006 Andrew Kidman film
Glass Love, also starring Joe and Tom Curren. Andrew Kidman
Pat Curren’s second most-famous son Joe
responds to claims he abandoned surf icon Daddy to the caprices of
market forces: “We have always run into a major road block.”
By Derek Rielly
"It’s sad to see the negative comments being said
from people who don’t know the whole story."
Two days ago, it was revealed that eighty-eight-year-old
Pat Curren, big-wave surfboard pioneer, father of three-timer Tom,
was living in his van in an Encinitas carpark with his
wife and special-needs kid.
The goal was a hundred gees to help Pat fix up his ruined teeth,
get the fam off the food relief train and so on.
Schmidt wrote in part,
Pride can be a beautiful thing. The pride Pat has taken in
his work which bears his name is evident to even those far outside
the surf world. But when we are in moments of dire need, when we’ve
exhausted all viable options on our own, it is through simple acts
of honest vulnerability that we can open ourselves to the inherent
kindness in each human being’s heart.
Today, August 9th, Pat turns 88 years old. We have an
opportunity to lift up and support someone who has devoted his
entire life to being the very thing others have commodified, and
packaged, and sold, and made millions feeding to the surf-hungry
masses.
While most of the surf world went the way of carbon copy
machine cuts and overseas production outsourcing, Pat chose to do
it his way. He has stood as a guiding light for the younger
generation of by-hand board builders, of which I find myself a
part, for 70 years. 70 years and hardly a penny to show for
it.
Mary told me once, “What people don’t understand about Pat
is that he would give somebody the shirt right off his back with no
idea if he’d get another one.
A common theme from readers was, why aren’t his kids Tom and Joe
helping the old man out.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions and
reading stories about a go fund me campaign recently set up for my
dad asking for $100,000 to help him with financial issues. Yes,
it’s true he’s struggling financially. The truth is, this has been
going on for a long time. I speak for all of the Curren family when
I say we love and care about my dad very much. My brother Tom and
I, my sisters Anna and Malie, my dad’s brothers Mike and Terry and
the entire family have all have been quietly trying to help him,
doing the best we can, for years and years. It has been challenging
and complicated, and we have always run into a major road
block.
We don’t know the person who started the go fund me. We
first heard about the campaign Sunday morning on my dad’s birthday,
after it was launched. We were surprised and disappointed that we
were not notified about the campaign beforehand. We’ve always
respected my dad’s wish to keep this kind of stuff private. Now
it’s gone public. Its nice to see the positive statements being
made about my dad. It’s sad to see the negative comments being said
from people who don’t know the whole story. We hope my dad gets the
money, he deserves it.
Interesting enough, but more revealing is the friction between
Joe and Paul Schmidt.
paul.surf
@joecurren it most certainly is – a world where we are more
connected than ever to the broader community of surfers and those
who’ve been inspired by people like your father, and yourself. We
are grateful to be a part of it and to see all the compassion and
support for your family
joecurren
@paul.surf We’re all having a difficult time understating why we
weren’t contacted before this was launched.
paul.surf
@joecurren I don’t think you are, I fully understand, and have
explained in my past correspondence with you that this was a
gesture made on behalf of your father and Mary, who are my friends.
I was given permission by them to create the campaign and to post
the story. They have had a hand in every step of the process. It
was not my place to contact you, as I do not know you. If either
Pat or Mary wanted to contact you, I imagine they would have. 50k
and counting 🙂 we are excited for Pat and Mary to received some
no-strings-attached help from all of the people in the community
who support and care for them. 🙏
paul.surf
@joecurren I’ll be sure to pass that message on to Pat and Mary for
you.
joecurren
I speak for the entire Curren family when I say, it would have been
the right thing to do
paul.surf
@joecurren not sure why you deleted your original comment, but
again, I’ll be happy to pass that message on to Pat and Mary.
A few other readers turned on Schmidt, one writing, “Gag me with
a spoon.”