Danny Kim courtesy of The Bodyboard Museum.
Danny Kim courtesy of The Bodyboard Museum.

Listen: The best fins-free surfer the world has ever known is not the great Derek Hynd but rather standup boogie king Danny Kim!

Sliding and gliding.

The great Derek Hynd is, objectively, a legend, our Surfads recently writing, “(He) has worn so many hats over the last five decades it can be hard to keep up. Competitor. Writer. Coach. Contest director. Administrator. Free friction advocate. He is a field of constant motion. A spinning maelstrom of progression.”

Ah free friction advocate and the best to ever slide sans skegs?

I think the argument both could be, and has been, made.

Hynd, or more broadly finless surfing, came up on this week’s Grit! podcast. David Lee Scales was sitting in his Orange County home. I was sitting at a bar on mainland Mexico. And we were discussing Jack Coleman surfing finless when I became angry with finless surfing altogether, raging about it being an abomination and whatnot, until recalling Danny Kim.

Do you remember Danny Kim?

The boogier who would stand up and get barreled on his BZ wearing A.P.E.’s sponsored by Op?

Man, he was effortlessly cool.

If you could trade all your shortboard talents in and be a serviceable standup boogier would you do it? I would and in a second.

Lookin’ all sick.

David Lee and I also discussed many other things though I think I called the American flag “boring” which may trigger some this Fourth of July weekend. Oh yeah, I also said if New Jersey’s Ben Gravy swapped places with Duke Kahanamoku and was surfing’s ambassador then our favorite pastime would rank the same as hacky sack today.

David Lee said it would be the same as snakeboarding.

If sensitive, don’t listen.


Who didn’t want a piece of 3904 Michael Avenue, there at the junction of Venice, Mar Vista, and only a short drive from mythical Ladera Heights, black Beverly Hills, a domesticated paradise, palm trees and pools etc, and a brisk stroll from the Venice beachfront?

Venice home of Surf Shack creator Matt Titone, “California’s best Airnbnb”, sells within minutes of appearing on world’s biggest surf news website!

Who didn’t want a piece of 3904 Michael Avenue, only a short drive from mythical Ladera Heights, black Beverly Hills, a domesticated paradise?

Two days ago, it was revealed the Los Angeles home of Surf Shacks creator Matt Titone had been thrown onto the market for a little over one-and-a-half mill. 

Who didn’t want a piece of 3904 Michael Avenue, there at the junction of Venice, Mar Vista, and only a short drive from mythical Ladera Heights, black Beverly Hills, a domesticated paradise, palm trees and pools etc, and a brisk stroll from the Venice beachfront?

Beat-up ol garage turned into dreamy studio.

Turns out it was sold five months earlier for $1.55 mill, forty gees less than its sticker price, and its owner, Matt Titone and his wife Courtney, had split the city for Silver Strand in Oxnard. 

Figured I’d ask Titone about it and the shift from LA to Oxnard.  

Y’sad about selling the best Airbnb in California?

I don’t know about the best Airbnb in California, but we had fun whoring out the back house to renters and the occasional photo shoot as well. We definitely came away with some funny stories from doing all that… Similar to what they say about owning a boat: selling that house was one of the happiest days of my life.

It was real pretty, sorta joint I’d imagine living my days out in, a little degeneracy in the hot tub, warming spent limbs in front of fire pit and so on. 

Thanks man! Yeah, it was a great place. I bought it in 2008 as a young bachelor. It was actually a pretty sketchy foreclosure that was barely standing up back then. All my friends thought I was crazy to wanna buy it. My girlfriend at the time (now wife), Courtney moved in and cried when she first saw it — not tears of joy. There was cloth wiring throughout the house from the 1940s (huge fire hazard), mouldy, termite infested walls, and a total crack-den shanty shack in the back yard attached to the garage. I even had to come over with one of my bigger/ tougher friends with baseball bats during the escrow period to chase junkie squatters out. It was pretty gnarly.

Long story short, it was pretty much a ten-year process to get the place looking all fancy like the photos you see today. We just took it one project at a time over the years as we could afford them. Courtney was really the driving force behind every single renovation project, she has a great eye for that stuff. Then when my brother Sam graduated from architecture school, he convinced me to let him redesign the garage into a guest house situation for him to live in. So we took out a new loan and went for it. Sam even did pretty much all the finishing work himself (with our friend Tyler Canali and my help). That was obviously the biggest project we did to the house and the reason it’s getting any attention at all.

The back yard was definitely my favorite part with the outdoor shower, hot tub, fruit trees and fire pit. It was a sweet lil oasis among the nightly police helicopters, traffic, and Venice High School bustle just across the street.

But you sold!  

You know, a lot of love went into that house over the years, but I was extremely happy to move on. We have two young boys now and the house was only 890 square feet with one small bathroom — stylish, but no bathtub even. The back house was amazing, but after my brother Sam (who designed it) moved out, we mostly just rented it out and didn’t use it ourselves. As a family of four, we simply out-grew the place and were not cool enough to keep up with LA living anymore! We’d been wanting to move north ever since our first son was born almost five years ago, so I was stoked when it finally came time to pick up sticks last year.

And you swung north to Oxnard. Tell me the diff between LA living and Reynolds country? 

Yep, we’ve been in The Nard for over a year now. We love Ventura County in general, it’s way more chill than LA, but still super close if we ever want to visit. I think the biggest difference is really access to more nature, and less people.

You see Reynolds around much?

Ha! No, not really… I’ve seen him out in the water ripping a few times here and there though. It’s always cool to see the pros out in the water, it makes you feel like you made the right choice surfing the right spot at that time — then you realize how bad you actually are at surfing when you see them. I also saw Bobby Martinez and Tom Curren out a couple times when it was big last winter. That was pretty special to watch those legends do their thing in proper, pumping surf.

You been to the Silver Strand Fight Club yet? 

The first rule of Silver Strand Fight Club is you don’t talk about Silver Strand Fight Club.

You see our tees? 

Haha! No, but I want one!

I like your Surf Shacks series, very much, achingly beautiful and so on. Do you ever want to photograph a house of ordinariness? No artfully placed photo books, racks of brightly coloured surfboards, gorgeous wooden decks etc but beige carpets, department store furniture, the stink of nicotine, shattered dreams, hopelessness? 

While the books end up having more of an “aspirational” (I hate that word) edit to them, we have covered our fair share of more “average joe” or slightly sloppy surf bro shacks you allude to in the series over the years. They’re definitely not all Dwell-worthy abodes.

To me it has never been all about how nice and stylish the actual house is, rather I have always been more focused on the personalities featured in the series. I only focus on surfers who do something creative for a living (or as a passion) that I am interested in. It just so happens that these folks more often than not have really rad, stylish homes that reflect their creative personality — whether it’s a cheap salt box rental, their van they live out of, or a high end coastal property.

(Titone has photographed a few beautiful shitholes in his time. See, here, and, here, and here.)

But yes, I actually have wanted to feature more homes like that — they just can’t be too ordinary. I really wanted to shoot my friend Rick Massie’s place in Venice for the second book because I felt like there were too many high-end homes coming together in the final edit and we needed to balance it out with some more “realness.” There just wasn’t enough time to get it done in the midst of Covid lock-downs, etc. He has a full on rusty outdoor gym in his back yard where he does ding repair and airbrushing for most Angeleno surfers. There is always a funny scene at his place with random folks picking up their boards and homies slamming Tecates, talking story every afternoon. Rick is a super funny, interesting, creative character though so he fits the series perfectly, it’s not necessarily about what his actual home looks like (if that makes sense?). Maybe save it for Vol. 3 someday.

Rick’s ding fixing and sprays.
Rick Massie’s outdoor gym. Nothing stainless steel here.

And, tell me, Surf Shack you’d most wanna live in until your dying breath?

I can’t really decide on one. For me it’s sort of a toss up between Jeff + Kara Johnsons A-frame in the hills of Santa Barbara, the McKinley Bungalow in Montauk, and the Goodwins Kauai compound. Those are three of my favorite places and all three are really beautiful homes that are totally my style. If I had a ton of money, I’d wanna just buy those three homes and rotate among them depending on the season.

Taste Surf Shacks here, volume one, volume two. 


Breaking: South Africa’s Jordy Smith officially withdraws from surfing’s Tokyo Olympic debut citing knee injury!

Heartbreak.

ESPN has reported that South Africa’s Jordy Smith has officially pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics after just being accepted by an independent review panel citing knee injury.

In a media statement, the current world number 7 said, “It was tough to make the decision to withdraw. I’ve been looking forward to the Olympics a long time now and my build up was going so well. However, this decision is the only way to ensure I have a long career in professional surfing and reach my ultimate goal of winning the WSL Championship Tour.”

Smith had elected to have knee surgery in just weeks ago instead of waiting until after the Olympics, stating that if he would have waiting he would have had to have a full knee construction telling the international sporting outlet, “At that point, it would have been anything from eight months to a year and a half out after that, as opposed to a month and a half to two months, maybe three months max — and that’s [for] your average person. So I opted for the repair. I’ve got 10 years plus of my professional surfing career and my entire life that I want to continue surfing. I wanted to keep my knee in its most original state instead of having full knee construction. At that point, who knows how long things are going to take? It would put next year out for me. It would put a lot more at risk for me. I think the biggest goal for me is to be able to surf for as long as possible in my life with a healthy knee.”

The move, while very sad for South Africa, guarantees Italy’s Leonardo Fioravanti will surf.

Also, the Office of Journalistic Integrity is looking into the World Surf League’s bald-faced steal of “more as the story develops.”

More as the story develops™.


Relief: The world collectively exhales as Kolohe Andino, John John Florence, Jordy Smith, Kelly Slater officially ok’d for Olympics by independent review panel!

May the Games continue.

The world let out a collective sigh of relief, yesterday, as it was revealed that nine Olympic hopefuls were allowed to continue on their Tokyo journey despite not fulfilling the proper and august requirements. According to a tersely-written press release:

Surfers that did not meet the minimum Olympic qualification requirements were entitled to submit appeals to an independent review panel appointed by the ISA Executive Committee. On hearing an appeal and considering all factors involved, the panel was empowered to rule whether a surfer is eligible to participate in the Olympic Surfing Event Tokyo 2020. The panel considered all extenuating circumstances including, but not limited to, medically proven injury or illness preventing participation at qualifying events.

Kolohe Andino (USA) – accepted
Johanne Defay (FRA) – accepted
Joan Duru (FRA) – denied
Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA) – accepted
John Florence (USA) – accepted
Lakey Peterson (USA) – accepted
Kelly Slater (USA) – accepted
Jordy Smith (RSA) – accepted
Nikki van Dijk (AUS) – accepted

Not listed were the surfers – rejected

The panel consisted of :

Ms. Justine Dupont (FRA) – Chair. ISA Athletes Commission
Mr. Jakob Faerch (DEN), President, Danish Surfing & Rafting Federation
Dr. Lee Rice (USA) – Chair, ISA Medical Commission
Mr.Gonçalo Saldahna (POR) – Member, ISA Medical Commission

For the United States team, Andino’s ankle sprain and Florence’s knee surgery were clear. Slater’s years’ old foot injury that allows him to surf good waves but not El Salvador was less a certainty but I would imagine Mr. Faerch of the Danish Surfing and Rafting Federation weighed all those circumstances properly.

Thank goodness for rules and independent review panels.

May the Games continue.


Nature at play: Great White “finishes off a seal it wounded earlier” ten feet from shore of popular Cape Cod beach!

Wounded seal swims into jaws of Great White at Race Point Beach…

It’s Great White season on Cape Cod, that hook-shaped peninsula in the Atlantic facing US state of Massachusetts.

The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy (AWSC) has reported increasing numbers of the fish since Whites were designated as a protected species in Massachusetts state waters in 2005.

In 2018, a boogieboarder was killed by a Great White at Newcomb Hollow Beach and, in the same summer, a swimmer was badly injured after being by a Great white at Truro Beach.

In 2019, researchers reported tagging more sharks on the Cape than ever before, calling it a “banner year”.

Now, in terrific footage unloaded to YouTube two days ago and accompanied by the delighted squeals of children on the beach, a Great White moves in for the kill on a little seal it had hit earlier and which, inexplicably, had climbed back into the ocean after parrying the shark’s initial assault.

Surprisingly bloodless.

Feel your lungs inflate with joy at the onrush of nature etc.