Listen: “The Anti-Birthday Party is a political machine ready to sweep both Democrats and Republicans out of office!”

Can I count on your vote?

Last night brought us the official nomination of “Bad Grandpa” Joe Biden as Democratic Party nominee and official close of the Democratic National Convention in Zoom, Wisconsin.

Were you on the edge of your Barcalounger?

Excited?

Monday will kick of the Republican National Convention, in Zoom, North Carolina, and will be much of the same except slightly weirder. Donald J. Trump will accept his party’s official nomination then off to November where Biden vs. Trump will dominate the national narrative.

Are you pumping with energy?

Thrilled?

And it is a good thing absolutely nothing is happening in the larger surf world for it allows me and David Lee Scales to problem solve real issues during our weekly chat. I came up with a new political party, for example. One that is certain to get the lion’s share of the vote in the coming decade.

The Anti-Birthday Party.

It has no position on immigration, human rights, guns, taxes etc. but promises, with enough elected officials, to ban the public singing of “Happy Birthday.”

Such an egregiously horrible song and the whole of the United States of America will be 4% happier overnight with its disappearance.

Have you ever heard anyone hit the high note in an appealing way?

Have you ever been moved either singing or being sung to?

Of course not. The Anti-Birthday Party will bring tangible change and can I count on your vote?

David Lee and I also discussed Kelly Slater and hickeys.

Listen here.


White people (pictured) being awful.
White people (pictured) being awful.

Revisionism: Surfing was not “revived” by devil-like white people, as previously held, but practiced continually by proud Hawaiians!

The root of lasciviousness.

And the hits just keep coming for men and women who belong to the increasingly degraded “white” race. Body blows as each new day brings with it sordid, ugly details of historical, and modern, crimes committed by those who descend from Europe.

Microaggressions, melding the narratives of majority and underrepresented groups, inhibiting perspective-taking, forcing stereotypes that cluster into especially prevalent myths like the one that holds surfing, an ancient Peruvian dance, was revived by benevolent Caucasoids after going extinct on the Hawaiian islands.

Well, according to new research that narrative is simply not true.

The old theories held that missionaries coming to Hawaii in the early 1800s declared surfing an unhealthy pastime, the “root of lasciviousness” due its time-wasting, mingling of the sexes etc. and “stamped it out” by 1847.

Hiram Bingham declared that it, like all other heathen sports on the islands, had “disappeared. Nathaniel B. Emerson Lake and Palmer backed up that account in 1892, stating that it was impossible to find a surfboard on the island.

Uncovered histories, though, from British travel writer Samuel Hill show that surfing was being practiced on the Big Island in the 1850s and even on Waikiki as late as 1891. Likewise, those prancing the naughty jig shared it with others. James Apu of Kauai, for instance, traveled to San Francisco in 1893 and put on surfing exhibitions for slack-jawed locals.

So there we have it. Surfing was never crushed only to be brought back to life by progressive whites. It was, rather, practiced continuously by Hawaiians and stolen by us.

By the end of the decade, I fear it will be revealed that the only things white people actually made were Cheez Whiz and Salty Crew.

Maybe pre-paid credit cards too.

Sad.


Cancelled: Fox sports broadcaster Thom Brennaman caught calling city “one of the (naughty anti-homosexual slur) capitals of the world” though doesn’t specify which city!

"You're _ _ _ _ _ _ _ out."

Sloppy journalism really gets my goat, especially sports journalism. There is a fine tradition there what with the greatest of all time George Plimpton, Norman Mailer, Arnold Hano, Hunter S. Thompson… I could go on all day, but what I’m saying is that I wish surfing, too, was a sport. Mainly, though, there is no room for slop.

And maybe you’ve heard by now that sports journalist and Fox broadcaster Thom Brennaman was laid bare last night while calling a baseball game between his Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Queens when a hot mic caught him calling an unspecified city “one of the _ _ _ capitals of the world.”

He was instantly fired from his National Football League duties, suspended by the Reds, probably fired too and pounced upon by national media for his indiscretion.

What I want to know is which city? Clearly not Cincinnati or Kansas City. San Francisco? West Hollywood? A sneaky Waco, Texas?

Excellent branding opportunities are being left on the table here, due sloppy journalism, and I would certainly petition my wonderful longtime friend and business partner Derek Rielly to move BeachGrit’s operational hub to whichever libertine capital Brennaman was referring.

Bondi?

Bondi, Australia?

Are we already there?

Fingers crossed.

Also and mainly, though, are Joe Turpel, Ron Blakey, 89, 88 and the rest of the boys (and girl) so thankful that they know a collective 17 words?

A hot mic will catch any of them saying, max, “And that should go near the excellent range.”

Always a silver lining.


Breaking: President Trump tests new nickname for “Bad Grandpa” Joe Biden on night three of Democratic National Convention signaling rare panic ahead of election!

Introducing "Slow" Joe.

President Donald J. Trump of these United States has very many detractors. People who say he is narcissistic, incompetent, obese and disinterested in governing. Corrupt etc. But those who despise him most must grumblingly admit that he has a skill in calling people names and getting those names to stick.

He undid his 2016 opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, with one simple moniker.

“Crooked.”

It belies an enviable dexterity, an ability exceedingly useful in the art of surf journalism.

Here we have “89 world champ” Martin Potter, “Co-Waterperson of the Year” Dirk Ziff, “Backward Fins” Beth, “Hello Sheriff I’ve been assaulted” Ashton Goggans, “The great and powerful” Kelly Slater etc.

All very fine but none as instantly wonderful as “Little Adam Schitt.”

And so, Republicans must be very worried that on night three of the Democratic National Convention in “Milwaukee” that Trump has yet to land on a nickname for his 2020 opponent Joe Biden.

He has dabbled with “Sleepy” Joe, “Quid Pro” Joe and “Creepy” Joe though none have that patented zing. Last night, Trump took to Twitter to beta test “Slow” Joe.

“WHY DID HE REFUSE TO ENDORSE SLOW JOE UNTIL IT WAS ALL OVER, AND EVEN THEN WAS VERY LATE? WHY DID HE TRY TO GET HIM NOT TO RUN?”

Hmmmmm. Ok but no “Bad Grandpa.”

The fact that Trump is struggling in his element does not bode well for the campaign.

“Cruiserweight” Ashton Goggans. “You looked like Gerry out there” Ashton Goggans. “Rings on fingers and rings on toes” Ashton Goggans.

It ain’t easy but when it works, it sings.

“Ashton” Goggans.


Surfboard shaper and artist Peter Schroff responds to Kelly Slater’s shock “on drugs and sexually confused” smear: “Kelly’s gotta get a backbone over this kinda thing!”

"Kelly, as a business man and a national hero, could make better choices. So, yes, I am a thorn in his eye."

One week ago, the eleven-time world champion surfer Kelly Slater proved, again, his willingness to unholster his telephone when he opened a front on Instagram with bête noire Peter Schroff, the noted LA-based shaper and artist who has turned his hate for Asian-made surfboards into performance art.

(To see Schroff’s body of work on Instagram click Blood Feud: Schroff v Hayden Cox, Relentless: Schroff’s War on Mark PricePeter Schroff Does Yellow Face, Modern: Peter Schroff Doubles Down and Three-Way: Dorian v Tudor v Schroff.)

The owner of San Diego surf shop Happy Battles, Mark Polintan, had posted a photo of a Schroff t-shirt commemorating a 2019 show where Schroff had used a chainsaw to destroy a Slater Designs Sci-Fi. 

Kelly responded with the pointed 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.”

Earlier today, I interviewed Schroff, sixty-six years old and living in a gorgeous shack in San Pedro, a neighbourhood on a little peninsula next to LAX and the Wilmington Refinery. 

Schroff asked, “What do I owe this dubious pleasure, too?”

There was a pause and he laughed, 

“I’m sure I know what it’s about.” 

So we got into it,

Schroff beginning with, “Kelly, hands down, best fucking surfer that ever lived and I’ll tell him that til the day he dies.”

I’ve been doing this work (making surfboards) for over fifty years, I have a lot of friends in the industry and I’m trying to preserve a dying breed, an endangered species. I think Kelly, as a business man and a national hero, could make better choices. So, yes, I am a thorn in his eye.

Brief pause. 

“Thing is, he’s a national hero and where he plays the world plays. I’ve been doing this work (making surfboards) for over fifty years, I have a lot of friends in the industry and I’m trying to preserve a dying breed, an endangered species. I think Kelly, as a business man and a national hero, could make better choices. So, yes, I am a thorn in his eye. Kelly has a lot more to lose than I have to lose and, you know, I’m going to die soon, so I don’t give a fuck. What I do won’t affect me. I don’t make enough surfboards. The battle with Kelly killed my business. I don’t get any benefit. I’m just sticking to my guns. Every board is handshaped and sprayed. I back up my words.”

A light laugh, as if he’d just spilled milk on his little frock. 

“It’s fun, like playing a game of pool. Everybody gives it their best shot. Each year I keep praying that Kelly wins his twelfth world title, to show how great he is. My favourite saying is, Kelly is like Marlon Brando in Apocoplypse Now. He’s off his rocker but he’s amazing. Then again, I’m off my rocker, too.”

After a brief foray into the cosmic occurrence of the number three, Schroff continues.

“Kelly’s board designs are brilliant, his surfing is brilliant, but going to Thailand to have ‘em produced? That’s my only gripe.”

And?

“Kelly’s just gotta get a backbone over this kinda thing. Life is great. No fucking shit.”