Surfer Magazine shuttered overnight, staff furloughed, after proud 60-year history defining the Sport of Kings.

RIP

Surfer magazine, the “Bible of the Sport” and cultural touchpoint, has been officially mothballed after an iconic 60-year run. Word began leaking yesterday afternoon that the staff had been notified of impending furloughs and that the title, along with many other extreme sport titles in parent company A360Media (née American Media Incorporated) portfolio.

Founded in San Juan Capistrano, California, 1960, by high school teacher and surf film maker John Severson, the title was home to some of the greatest surf writers, surf photographers and graphic designers to ever toil under the glorious brine-filtered sun.

AMI had purchased Surfer, along with the entire Enthusiast Network, a little under two years ago. Staff was slashed but production continued until yesterday when the final decision was made.

Peter Taras, one of the greatest photo editors to ever do it, announced via Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF3J4vkHYyT/

It’s with great sadness that I write that today was my last day at SURFER. Between Transworld SURF, SURFER, and SURFING, that was half my life. 21 years between the three. It’s really hard for me to put into words right now the feelings. I’m a weepy mess. I taught. I was taught. I cared so much for all the creatives I worked with over the years. We were family.

Stab magazine, based near Venice Beach, California, erroneously suggested that the decision to take Surfer offline was tied to the staff’s recent decision to endorse Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. An easy assumption seeing that A360Media is President Donald J. Trump associate David Pecker but entirely without merit and wrong.

The sort of very poor surf journalism regularly practiced by fully grown men under five feet tall who furiously back-peddle, weeping, when gently confronted over social media by Ace Buchan.

In truth, Pecker was generally unaware of Surfer and the move to furlough staff and shut down the title, along with others in the Enthusiast Network portfolio, had been continuously broached at the upper levels of management for months.

The issue just on stands will be the final one.

The end of an era and sad for anyone who ever laid on a small twin bed in an overcrowded childhood room, flipped through page after page exuding the greatest life possible and dreamed.

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Listen: Movie director Michael Oblowitz on surf fights, being a celibate bisexual and his yet-to-be-released Sunny Garcia documentary: “I have a very clear view of the last days of Sunny’s life and what happened…”

“Sunny was one of the loveliest people I ever met. And when he wasn’t, I steered clear of him…”

Today’s guest on Dirty Water, episode thirty-one, is the South African-born movie director Michael Oblowitz.

He is the king of straight-to-DVD films including two thrillers with Steven Seagal, both shot in Eastern Europe, and the vampire schlock film The Traveler, made in Canada, with the once very famous Val Kilmer.

More to our purposes, Oblowitz, who now lives in Sherman Oaks, California, created the two greatest surf documentaries the world has never seen, Sea of Darkness, about the birth of the surf industry via drug trafficking, and the ten-years-in-the-making Sunny Garcia: Death and Taxes.

Over the course of seventy-one minutes, Oblowitz talks about surf fights, being a celibate bisexual and about life for Sunny after his failed suicide attempt.

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Two-time world surfing champion Tyler Wright attacks big-wave icon and co-founder of pro surfing Ian ‘Kanga’ Cairns’ “privilege”, claiming “(I’m) a direct recipient of sexism, homophobia and inequality.”

Legend shoots back, "Don’t preach to me until you have 50 years of service under your belt."

Yesterday, as the US burned from coast to coast, Surfer magazine, Bible of the Sport, endorsed the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket over Trump-Pence for the Prez/VP combo.

(Read here.)

Comments on IG lit up, including a fiery exchange between Ian ‘Kanga’ Cairns, a still-squirting fountain of testosterone even at sixty-eight, and Tyler Wright, the two-time world champ who dropped a knee at the Tweed Heads Pro last month for four hundred and thirty-nine seconds in solitary with Black Lives Matter, the number representing “one second for every First Nations person in Australia who has lost their life in police custody since 1991.

Cairns’ crime?

A comment that read, “There’s a reason that Surfer has not been in politics and that’s because surfing is a place where we can retreat from name calling and shit-fuckery over politics, race, gender, religion etc you just shat where you eat. Surfing is about a great family where all that bullshit doesn’t matter. It’s one of the last places where we collectively agree about one thing: are the waves great.”

Pretty innocuous, you’d think.

The two-time champ, howevs, lit up.

“You may have the privilege to retreat however many don’t.”

(To which, one wit commented, “says the girl who retreats by galavanting around the globe on jets to surf in any paradise. Put your money where your mouth is then, quit surfing and “retreat” 100% to your cause.”)

Cairns wrote,

“Yes, mate, I’ve spent my whole life supporting surfing and will continue to do so until I drop. You’re a direct recipient of the work I’ve done. Don’t preach to me until you have 50 years of service under your belt.”

Wright,

“Yeah, a direct recipient of sexism, homophobia and inequality. Appreciate it.”

The holy trifecta of intersectionality!

“It should never happen, you’re a great surfer,” wrote Cairns.

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New York surfers rejoice as Rockaway set to become destination for millions: “You can’t just make a surf break. It’s either there or it’s not!”

Come one come all!

Rockaway, the very famous peninsula jutting off New York City, has long been a relatively lightly trafficked stretch of beach even though it is merely a subway train ride from Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn. Millions upon millions of people right there but generally ignoring it because there has been no place to stay or really eat or much of anything to do.

Until now.

CNN just published a story sure to thrill the local surfers titled: New York City’s only surfing beach is finally primed for overnight tourists.

Surfers, as you know, are lonely and enjoy making friends and get sad when there are no friends to make. Those frown town Rockaway days are over, though, as D.F.Ders (down for the dayers) can now stretch those single days into multiple days and paddle Wavestorms around the inside and go straight on the outside.

Per CNN:

It’s actually the only legal surf spot in all of NYC, and, perhaps more importantly: it’s the only beach that gets a surf break.

“You can’t just make a surf break. It’s either there or it’s not,” Jon Krasner, one of The Rockaway Hotel’s partners and owners, explains. Terence and Dan Tubridy, brothers and third-generation Rockaway residents, are the hotel’s other partners, along with Michi Jigarjian.

Not surprisingly, expect to find the requisite surf shops and surf crowd who have either decamped permanently to the Rockaways to divide their time between well, surfing, and whatever work will keep them afloat (sorry, not sorry!) or who won’t hesitate to play hooky if the surf looks promising.

“I had three friends today call in late to work, to come surfing in the morning and then they jumped on the ferry to go into work,” Krasner says.

Putting this past summer aside, Rambaran doesn’t understand why the Rockaways hasn’t gotten more attention worldwide: “it’s baffling that the area isn’t more of an international destination.”

Well, now that the surf life is easier than ever and regular life is easier than ever, millions in the water are almost guaranteed.

Many new friends for existing surfers.

Thrilled and thrilling.

But also, you can just make a surf break FYI. It’s called Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch or, actually, WaveGarden.

Fun.

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World #25 WSL surfer-turned-porn-maven Ellie-Jean Coffey releases bombshell claims against surf industry: “I was spat on!”

Important developments… 

Four days ago, the former world #25 WSL surfer, Ellie-Jean Coffey, spoke to the Rupert Murdoch site news.com.au of abuse in the “toxic”, “misogynistic” and “male-dominated surf industry.”

The accusations were vague enough to accuse everyone and no one and a compelling pointer to her XXX-subscriber-only website where, for money beyond the ten dollars a month subscriber fee, lonely men might access posts such as “Blowjob doggystyle… my favourite position while sucking (lips and eggplant emoji)” and “NIPPLES and PUSSY. Full NUDE in the shower.”

Another post beckons, “CUM to me daddy.”

Today, via Instagram and in three seperate videos, Coffey goes into detail of the horrors suffered, which you can watch below.

(Part one, “I was spat on!”)

 

(Part two, eight-minute diatribe, “I was constantly subjected to dangerous situations.”)

 

(Part three, tearful attack on surf industry, relatively vague but emotional, with neat segue into porn site: “There’s a part of me that’s always been sexual or promiscuous… I think you’ve all seen that. It’s good to share that with people and have one-on-one chats. It’s brought me happiness.”)

 

More as it CUMS.

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