Come for Warshaw’s sizzling prose; stay and save surf culture from the Great VAL replacement… 

I’ll begin this story with an obscenity: the surf historian Matt Warshaw, sixty years old, earns twenty-five thousand dollars a year as the custodian of the sport’s entire media catalogue.

Ain’t it crazy?

Earlier today I asked Warshaw, if he ever dreamed that, one day, he’d be earning the majestic sum of twenty-five thousand dollars a year.

Warshaw, whose brow is marked by a thousand anxieties, is, necessarily I think, good humoured about his modest stipend.

“Last week I was trying to figure out if I’m earning more now, at 60, then when I was a 25-year-old sub-editor at SURFER,” he said. “Same pay in terms of dollars, but adjust for cost of living and I’m way down in 2020. That’s okay. Jeff Bezos pays (wife) Jodi, she lets me do EOS, I take our kid to all his orthodontic appointments, and let’s call it even.”

Now, seeking funds to expand the reach of the Encyclopedia of Surfing, he’s asking for a little help.

The EOS 2020 fundraiser is 100% dedicated to raising money to buy more work hours. The site should be growing faster. Just look at the Surfboards section. Seven boards posted so far. There should be 100 on there by now, and more added weekly. The Contest section is way behind too, and I know a lot of you aren’t into competition but if you open those pages you will find some amazing little time capsules. (Try the 1959 Makaha Championships, and don’t forget to hit play on the video clip.)

Finally, there is a staggering amount of material—magazines, books, movies, video, photos, and more—that needs to be collected, digitized, archived, and databased. This is a project unto itself. Ultimately, in fact, it is the most important part of the EOS mission. A huge number of surf movies and videos are yet digitized, for example, and will vanish forever if we don’t grab ’em. SURFER and Surfing magazines, and dozens of other titles, have not yet been scanned. This is the tedious but incredibly necessary work that will continue long after I hit “send” on my final Joint, and the more we get done now, the better.

So let’s raise 30K. EOS needs another pair of hands. Two pair would be even better. I’d like a small raise, too, if I’m being honest. 

Here is a shameless feel-good EOS clip designed to trigger the credit-card extension reflex. 

Donate here.  Subscriber or buy a gift sub here.

When I asked Warshaw what satisfaction the site gave him, he said,

“It’s like moving into a house and figuring out where all the furniture and art goes. You like doing that or you don’t. I love it. Although I don’t expect anybody to understand how or why the job is as satisfying as it is. My first date with Jodi, we were walking to Cafe Claude for lunch and I was going on and on about databasing, as I’d gotten on top of Filemaker Pro, which means you’ve defeated the First Boss in the surf history game. We got past that very awkward moment, had lunch, and got married.”

Thirty bucks a year to subscribe. Terrific value. 

"Strong drinks and games of chance and idols and divining of arrows are only an infamy of Satan's handiwork."

Shocking news just in from the Jakarta Globe. Powerful Islamic parties, who control a third of the seats in Indonesia’s House of Representatives, want to ban the sale, production, distribution and consumption of any beverage containing alcohol.

Indonesia, of course, has become a repository for the some of the world’s keenest drinkers, the tropical heat and endless open-air bars, particularly in Bali, making the consumption of booze an all-day ritual.

Roughly one third of Bali’s tourists come from Australia, who also enjoy its conduciveness to street-fighting, silly pranks and so on.

Indonesia is also the world’s biggest Muslim nation, home to thirteen percent of its almost two billion Muhammadans and booze, ooowee, it haraam.

Muhammad, y’see, said alcohol’s potential for sin outweighed its medicinal value, something I think is very easy to agree with.

Peel open your Qur’an to Surah Al-Maidah where Allah says:

“O ye who believe ! Strong drinks and games of chance and idols and divining of arrows are only an infamy of Satan’s handiwork. Leave it aside in order that ye may succeed. Satan seeketh only to cast among you enmity and hatred by means of strong drink and games of chance, and turn you from remembrance of Allah and from (His) worship. So will ye not then abstain?”

Al-Qur’an 5:90-91

Who hasn’t lost a telephone to a cross-dressing pixie while boozed in Bali or tried to annihilate a wall of night-club bouncers, confidence inflated by arak-based cocktails?

Bit of push-back from bar owners and politicians in Bali, that little Hindu enclave east of Jakarta, as you can imagine.

The head of Bali’s regional legislative council, AA Ngurah Adi Ardhana, said the proposal was “shallow and a piece of Islamic self-interest” and that it is “too superficial; Bali will definitely reject it. We are a unitary state built on diversity, and the potential economic impact involved is unacceptable.”

Tributes pour in for popular tour surfer, manager…

The diminutive former world number nineteen and jiujitsu black-belt, John Shimooka, whose motto was “life is too short to be serious” has reportedly been found dead at his Sydney home. 

Shimooka, a suave motherfucker with excellent hair who had just turned fifty-one, quit the tour in 1999 to move from Hawaii to Cronulla, in Sydney’s southern suburbs, and raise his son Brandon with his Australian wife Lisa.

“When I looked at my baby boy I knew it was all over… I finally found out what we’re really put on earth for, to reproduce beautiful little human beings like Brandon. I have loved children all my life, and to have one of my own is the ultimate. He’s my jewel,” Shmoo told Hawaii’s Star Bulletin. 

Shmoo won a tour event in Japan and was runner-up to his best pal Sunny Garcia at Bells in 1995, riding an ultra-fast Greg Webber. He circled the tour for a dozen seasons, finishing nineteenth in 1995.

A gaming card from 1992 said Shmoo “dances to the beat of a different drummer. His reputation as a party animal may overshadow his abilities in the water, whether tearing the tops off Ulu barrels or going airborne at a California beach break, but does he care? Of course not, as long as he has a chance to speak his mind. In which case he would probably say life is too short to be serious. Shmoo lives the classic surfer’s lifestyle: surf the best you can and have fun while doing it.”

After leaving the tour, Shmoo got deep into jiujitsu and became a manager for popular surfers Craig Anderson and Jordy Smith.

Two months ago, on the first anniversary of his wife Lisa’s death, Shmoo posted a moving tribute on Instagram. 

Last year, Shmoo spoke at a surfing contest organised by another former pro, Kurt Nyholm, to raise money for Head Space, an Australian charity that provides mental health support for 12-25-year-olds.

“Shmoo spoke of his struggles and the dark places they’ve taken him,” another tour surfer Toby Martin said. “Now we have Sunny(Garcia). So it has to stop, and we need to find ways to help. This event offered a passive way for surfers to reach out. It was a platform so surfers could let their guard down. That helps stop guys from becoming isolated, which I know from my own personal experience is where the problems start.”

"Selfish. Creative. Rebellious."

An encouraging letter received this morning from Hossegor, a surf-rich town in south-west France and a favourite of BeachGrit, less so for shaper Matt “Mayhem” Biolos who describes the joint in winter as “like the Blair Witch Project.”

Worldly readers will have read of a spike in COVID-19 infections in France, the Republic’s president Emmanuel Macron warning the country risked being “overwhelmed by a second wave that no doubt will be harder than the first”. Kinky Manny “My bodyguard is not my lover”, who began dating his teacher, later his wife, when he was sixteen, said that France must “brutally apply the brakes” to avoid being “submerged by the acceleration of the epidemic”.

Our reader, broadydaz, writes,

On the 28th of October, things started to get shitstain-in-your-pants serious in France for surfers.

The President had just announced the country was locking down for another month from Friday morning. Surfers started to lose their mental biscuits as the thought of being forbidden from surfing: It had already happened once this year earlier in March and it lasted for two months.

(Editor’s note: Read “The last time armed men imposed curfew here, the 3rd SS Panzer division Totenkopf was patrolling Bayonne!”  and “Vichy gendarmerie bring down jackboot on rogue VALs!”)

Apart from a handful of crafty and courageously selfish surfers who got an occasional fix the majority of the surfing population went dry.

It was a heavy lockdown and even driving around was risky.

This time however there were loopholes and the biggest one was the beach was open. Albeit only for the privileged minority that lived within one kilometre. Also for a sportsman who needed to train.

Boom, loopholes.

The last day of the freedom was only accessible for the few who would brave Belharra. The Friday (day one) of the lockdown was primed to be all-time and after watching the forecast closely for ten days it was maddening everyone to tears.

Day one dawned and the webcams proved the forecast correct.

They also witnessed something else. Startingly or perhaps not at all, surfers were surfing.

How could there be so many professionals! At every spot.

Paddling out at Hossegor’s prime big wave location La Nord punters were surprised that it was crowded! Even more surprising was the atmosphere, surfers were happy to see other surfers.

Safety in numbers. Solidarity. Rebellion. Revolution.

Macron had said the forces of law and order would go easy on everyone till they returned home from holidays Sunday night.

Rumours were rife. The police were sending reinforcements and they would arrive the following Tuesday.

Surfers were frenzied over the offshore conditions for days. Fines were to be 135€ and surfers starting calculating how much a three-hour session of six foot waves should cost.

Then dividing sessions into 135€ Tuesday came and no sign reinforcements.

New loopholes surfaced.

Medical certificates could get you a surfing pass.

Surf Instructors had the greenlight.

Then more rumours.

Everyone was abusing authorities and the beaches would be closed from Wednesday to everyone till February. It freaked the surfers out so they surfed more. Others that hadn’t been surfing gave up and went surfing.

Doctors recorded an increase in surfers needing prescriptions to surf.

People were very sick, troubled, needed to surf. New rumours that medical certificates didn’t work and instructors weren’t allowed resurfaced.

Soon no-one would be able to surf.

The surf got better, the wind went more offshore.

More swell. All sorts of size. Big waves, small waves, hollow and fast waves.

More rumours. Second fines would be 3000€. First fines would be 3000€.

Surfers discussed their different certificates.

Surfboard builders were professionals too. They needed to test the equipment.

Every surfing parent needed to train their children.

Surfing became for those few weeks a revolution for some.

It spoke of the passion they had inside their hearts.

They were selfish. Creative. Rebellious.

The beaches would close. But still, they surfed.