"You're my boy, Stevie!"

Obituary for world’s best surf contest analyst, “He watched so we didn’t have to!”

Our beacon of literary chops in a roiling, putrid sea of shark stories. Our unanimous sage. Our lynchpin. Gone.

It is with deep sadness, friends, that I must report our friend, Longtom (née Steven Shearer) has left the building.

Our clear-eyed purveyor of pro surfing, who watched so we didn’t have to.

Our beacon of literary chops in a roiling, putrid sea of shark stories.

Our unanimous sage.

Our lynchpin.

Gone.

Some may wonder what took him so long. Some may wonder what pleasure he derived from watching Ian Gouveia long into the wee small hours, just to sling a few pearls before swine.

But, as Chekhov teaches us through the lunatic hallucinations of Andrei Korvin, it is indeed a fine and dainty dance between madness and genius.

Before the birth of BeachGrit and his renaissance period, Steve Shearer spent an undetermined number of years traipsing the outer reaches of surf media like Denzel Washington’s Eli, clutching old surf mags and spit-flecked fury ignited by Nick Carroll and Sean Doherty articles.

His BG arrival was announced with “5 RULES FOR THE GOLDEN AGE OF SURF WRITING!” which decried traditional surf media and hoisted the likes of Rory Parker and Chas Smith onto a pedestal. In hindsight, perhaps a claim that has aged less well than his rules for surf writing, including numbers three on his list: “Don’t be a comment coward”.

Is there anything lamer than someone who can punch in the co-ordinates but can’t deliver the ordnance in the comments section?

Answer: Nein, non, nyet.

Surf writer, you ain’t Moses strolling down from Mount Sinai delivering the Ten Commandments on stone tablets. So wipe that smug grin off your face. Everything you say is contestable and maybe completely wrong. The article is just the entrée, foreplay and nothing else.

Like Orwell’s stubborn refusal to prolong his life and put down the pen under doctor’s orders and in the death throes of tuberculosis, ol’ Longtom’s commitment never waned. He has always walked his talk and weighed in below the line.

It’s still worth reading.

It finished with a somewhat controversial list of the 10 greatest surf writers of all time. Upon publication of the seminal piece, surf history gatekeeper Matt Warshaw was aroused to Tweet: “I don’t know who Longtom is, but I think he’s just made his own list.”

And with that, the floodgates opened.

Steve “Longtom” Shearer found his groove in contest reporting. A grim, thankless task from which he somehow elicited high art.

Like an inky Spartan he relentlessly deconstructed the WSL with a two-pronged Grecian attack. With one hand, a pathos that would make Emily Dickinson weep; and with the other a bathetic rendering that left us unsure whether to laugh cry or cry wank.

Whilst not ashamed to scythe through the performance of the athletes with plain, beautifully brutal truths in the tradition of Derek Hynd or Lewis Samuels before him, Longtom saved his most choice lures and lethal barbs for the power brokers of professional surfing. Notably, those who came from the outside with designs and delusions of transforming the game he loved so deeply.

Sophie Goldschmidt fell. Backwards Fin Beth fell. Elo remains free falling.

All not so much gaslit by Longtom as flung on a roaring pyre as we danced around and squealed with glee.

Kept in check and on time by DR’s silken-gloved fisting, it’s fair to say he over-achieved and undersold at BeachGrit.

Imagine him now, if you will, cash-strapped and cold-shouldered by Charon, doomed to wander the shores, muttering something about the Oi Rio Pro and Nick Carroll.

Flirtations with serious journalism never quite sang with the same sweet symphonies of Lennox lore, big fish tales or his unique brand of pro surf prose, but far be it from this necrologist to judge.

One suspects that his afterlife might not be quite as much fun as here.

The adulation will be the same, I’m sure.

The money unquestionably better.

But it will be constricted. The liberty to coil up those words and sling the noose will not be the same.

He’ll be here, I’m sure. Hopefully not just lurking like the many ghosts of surf industry past, but opaque and present.

I would have liked to revisit some of my favourite Longtom work, to roll in it like a happy dog in autumn leaves, but I’m not scrolling through a few thousand Chas Smith articles to find it.

Can we have a searchable Longtom archive by way of memorial? A shrine, if you will.

We can only hope that manuscripts for the promised but unfinished memoir Big Tits, Blue Water are coherent and forthcoming from his estate.

Longtom leaves us having published zero books to Chas Smith’s three, and with a legacy of surf contest reporting that will never be surpassed let alone attempted at that hourly rate.

If we’re honest with ourselves we knew it was only a matter of time.

To paraphrase Ellis Boyd Redding, some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.

Favourite memories, donations, thoughts and prayers below.

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In setting out to create perfect high-performance wave, world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater accidentally stumbles upon longboard paradise!

Surf Ranch is for nose walkers.

Surf Ranch, nestled in the abjectly terrible California Central Valley, was to be Kelly Slater’s crowning achievement. The apex of fevered dreams. A reflection of his ego that would dominate surfing long after his body has been cryogenically frozen.

A perfect wave. A perfect wave gurgling up from beyond the plow then growing, racing, reeling into a barrel, opening back up, barreling again and ending with a high-performance air-reverse section.

The World Surf League, rabid, purchased this chimera instantly knowing that it would profoundly change the future of professional surfing. Believing it would push progression to the limit of human capacity.

Except a funny thing happened on the way to radical. Six-odd years since the Lemoore facility was first revealed, it has become clear that Slater did, in fact, create a perfect wave but a perfect wave for longboarding, an ideal canvas for nose walking etc.

Tell me it is not the gorgeous Stepford Wife to South Africa’s handsome Cape St. Francis.

To that end, the WSL will host the Cuervo Surf Ranch Classic at the world’s best longboard wave beginning today, airing live tomorrow.

I asked Devon Howard, professional longboarding’s commissioner, what made it so fine and he responded, “I think the way that wave works makes so much sense for the longboard. It favors a horizontal surfing as opposed to up and down, or top to bottom.”

Don’t agree? Think otherwise? We will be airing live tomorrow and can discuss in the comments.

More as the story develops.

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Pandemonium strikes paradise as two Hawaiian Airlines flights forced to prematurely land within hours of each other; one passenger punches attendant, another refuses to cover face with mask!

Tourists gone wild.

The beautiful, magical, treasured Hawaiian islands have been hit and hit particularly hard during these long Covid years. Oh, I’m no epistemologist so cannot speak to the toll of the actual disease on the chain but, as a surf journalist, am more than qualified to weigh in on the social price and it has been high.

Initially, as travel restrictions waned, tourists came roaring over the Pacific and in such numbers that Governor Ige and woke locals, or “woke-als” combined forces to beg them to stop.

Stop they did and the hospitality industry reeled as hotel rooms went unfilled, seafood buffet lines un-stood.

And now absolute havoc is being wreaked in the skies as not one but two Hawaiian Airlines flights were forced to land within hours of each other due poor passenger conduct.

On a flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Steven Sloan Jr. allegedly punched a flight attendant in the head. The plane circled once, landed back in Honolulu and Mr. Sloan Jr. was escorted from the plane by law enforcement. He appeared in court, yesterday, and remains in custody.

Then, hours later, on a flight from Honolulu to Seattle, two hours after take-off, a passenger ripped her mask off, refused to put it back on and the pilot decided to u-turn out of the World Surf League’s patented “abundance of caution.”

Jai Cunningham, Department of Transportation spokesman, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, “We have zero tolerance for disruptive and dangerous behavior in our cabins and have banned or denied boarding to 98 passengers so far this year.”

Imagine being on that flight, two hours in the air, 4-ish hours to go, and a “adult female” is refusing the mask.

How angry would you be?

Jiu-jitsu mad?

More as the story develops.

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Surfing powerbrokers, from left, Jessi Miley-Dyer, Sophie G and Stephanie Gilmore. | Photo: WSL/Poullenot

Beloved former CEO of World Surf League Sophie Goldschmidt replaces Tiger Shaw as new President and CEO of US Ski & Snowboard!

Smashing the patriarchy one key role at a time… 

In a timely and positive win for gender diversity and the annihilation of the ghastly white man from positions of power, Sophie Goldschmidt has been announced as Tiger Shaw’s replacement at US Ski & Snowboard, America’s governing body of Olympic ski and snowboarding. 

Goldschmidt, a “global business executive”, worked at Adidas, the WTA, the NBA, Rugby Football Union and the PGA before her highly regarded role at the WSL (2017 to 2020). 

Upon her appointment, WSL money spigot, the billionaire Dirk Ziff, described Goldschmidt as “exactly what the league needs”, and said her “experience, strong leadership and winning and inclusive management style would further elevate the league and grow engagement among fans around the world.” 

Despite having “barely heard of” the sport, Goldschmidt would be remembered, wrote Longtom in his obit, “Most for her push to gender equality. Whether her hand was forced by the publication of a podium shot featuring male and female winners with different size cheques or had the intent all along is irrelevant. She made it happen.”

Goldschmidt was on the wrong side of history, howevs, with the raft of Surf Ranch events that were birthed on her watch. 

“We’re only scratching the surface of how this technology can be applied,” said Sophie, “and it is completely game-changing for the sport. If you can imagine in future, we’ll have world-class waves, ten-foot-plus waves, coming towards an audience with a stadium coming up out of the water, with amazing broadcast and camera angles, just an electric atmosphere, it can be floodlit at night – it’s just a beautiful thing and it’s so interactive.”

Lost Cloudbreak as a tour event, too.

Ironically, her replacement at the WSL was the whitest man alive, Erik “Elo” Logan.

Goldschmidt steps into her new role at U.S. Ski & Snowboard next month.

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Felton and Slater, titans in their respective games. | Photo: @sensitiveseashellcollector

World’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater revealed as hero who saved Harry Potter star Tom Felton after star’s shock collapse on golf course, “Kelly is really humble and hasn’t posted about his selfless actions but Tom is grateful for his quick thinking”

"Tom was at the 18th when he collapsed. Everyone was stunned and taken aback but what cameras didn't see is that Kelly jumped straight into action."

A British newspaper has revealed eleven-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater to be the quick-thinking hero who saved Haz Potter star Tom Felton after the star collapsed during last week’s Ryder Cup in Haven, Wisconsin.

Slater, who is forty-nine, was playing on the US Team (the Ryder Cup is a golf event that runs every two years with teams from Europe and the US), when he saw Tom, thirty-four, hit the dirt. 

“Tom was at the 18th when he collapsed. Everyone was stunned and taken aback but what cameras didn’t see is that Kelly jumped straight into action,” a source told The Sun.

“He ran over to Tom and immediately put him in the recovery position well before medics were on the scene. He then stayed with him keeping him calm keeping him as safe as possible. Kelly is really humble and hasn’t posted about his selfless actions but Tom is grateful for his quick thinking.”

Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy, “a cowardly bully who tricks and hurts people to get what he wants” in JK Rowling’s wizard franchise, is out of hozzy doing ok etc.

“Bit of a scary episode really, but I’m on the mend and people have been taking really good care of me,” Felton told his fans, “so thank you very much to anyone who has sent messages to get well soon. I’m officially on the mend.”

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