Dirty Water: “Chubby” and “bearish” Maurice Cole talks death, the decimation of Australian surfing and the joys of being broke, “I’ve had the millions and I was a dickhead with it. Poverty is a state of mind. It keeps me hungry!”

"I got a borrowed car, no money, no assets but I own a couple of great guitars. I've never been happier."

Today’s guest on Dirty Water, Maurice Cole, is described in the encyclopedia of surfing as “chubby”, “bearish” and “with a hair-trigger temper”.

Cole, sixty-seven, was there at the birth of the surf industry in Torquay in 1969, first sewing wetsuits for Rip Curl, then as a sponsored shredder for offshoot boardshort company Quiskilver. 

In 1976, and shortly before a two-year stint in jail, he was Australia’s most highly paid surfboard shaper. 

Through the seventies and into the eighties, with black hair long-bobbed and flying, he was one of the world’s best surfers. 

Long before it became a byword for beach break barrels he moved to Hossegor, France, and it was here he met an American ex-pat, a soon-to-be-world champ called Tom Curren. Their friendship peaked with Curren’s 1990 World Title on Cole’s boards and the reverse vee design of 1991.

He pioneered tow-in board design and surfing wild offshore reefs with Noah Johnson and Ross Clarke-Jones and, for a time there, with his happy koala bear logo, was the most in demand shaper in the world, Kelly Slater a vocal fan. 

In 2003, Cole became a part of the mega-surfboard company BASE, which would collapse eight years later, millions of dollars in debt, and leaving our guest, in his own words, “disillusioned, bitter and twisted and in a very dark place.”

Perhaps his most marked characteristic is his extraordinary ability to go right to the heart of a problem and reduce difficulties to their right proportion. 

Note to listeners: the interview ends suddenly due to audio blow-out.

 


Online sleuths converge to discover which professional surfer is the most “hideously rude, irredeemably entitled” professional surfer of all time!

Unforgivable.

Now, entitled behavior in the face of beautiful service employees is always rotten but in the day and age of Covid, when service employees are taxed to the maximum?

Well oh my goodness.

Unforgivable.

Yet even so, a professional surfer has allegedly pushed a hotel front desk employee to the maximum by pretending to be “passed out” after finishing 2nd in two surfing competitions with hideously rude, irredeemably entitled behavior.

Per the Reddit /TalesFromTheFrontDesk sub:

Hi all, first time poster long time lurker.

A little info before we start this lovely tale, we have been having issues with our reservations teams reservations actually making it into our system. (we don’t take walk-ins so all reservations are through the reservations team or online)
So this situation happened about a week or so ago. People included in this story is Myself, and Surfer guy (SG for short)

SG: Walks up to the desk huffing and puffing holding his surfboard. “Hello, I have a reservation. Make it quick please. I’m super super exhausted. Just finished 2nd in two surfing competitions”

Myself: “I’ll be as quick as I can. May I see your ID, card and vaccination card?”

SG: Huffs some more and hands it over.

It’s during this moment I don’t see the name on the arrivals list and have a feeling the same issue that’s been popping up the last few nights has occurred. After a few questions asking if It could of been under some other name, and for the confirmation number he starts to get pissed off.

SG: “I just got done with two surfing competitions and now I have to deal with this?? Of course It’s under my name. I just got done with two surfing competitions and I’m very tired. I am going to pass out. Can you give me a key to my room and we can figure the payment out later? I just got done with two surfing competitions.”

Myself: “Unfortunately, Sir, I am unable to provide you with a room unless I have a payment method. I’m going to contact reservations and see If they can transfer the reservation over. I apologize for the delay.”

SG: “This is embarrassing! I’m never staying here after this.”

He ends up walking over to one of our couches in the lobby and flops down, head resting against the backboard. Within a few moments I was able to have the reservation sent over, and printed out the form for him to sign. (just agreeing to our policies)

Myself: Hello, Sir. I have the reservation now. I just need your card and your signatures and we’ll be done.
He continues to pretend to be passed out. To prove a point of how tired he is? I’m not sure. It’s obvious he’s awake as his eyes are only partly shut and I can see him blinking. It takes a few moments before I am able to “wake” him up and get him to sign his forms.

SG: “I’m never staying here again. This is humiliating and cruel. I just got done with two surfing competitions and you didn’t allow me to go to my room. I’m about to pass out.”

Myself: “Have a good evening!”

Ok.

So which professional surfer was this?

We for sure know.

Two competitions, second place.

The only clues we need for public flogging.

Which surfer pretended to pass out?


Big mama want feet meat.

Southern California authorities sound alarm as monster 17-foot Great White Shark circles menacingly through popular surf spots: “She’s not your everyday juvenile; she’s a massive adult that you should avoid!”

Chilling.

Surfers, bodyboarders and standup paddleboarders residing around the Southern California gem Santa Barbara were given a shocking warning, Sunday morning, as authorities issued an alarming note declaring that a monster 17-foot Great White Shark was skirting the coast off El Capitan and hungry.

Michael Domeier, Executive Director of the Marine Conservation Science Institute, breathlessly declared, “She is not your everyday Southern California juvenile; she’s a massive adult that you should avoid.”

Terror immediately rippled through the surf community, with those who had been out in the water sharing stories. One surfer, who had been maybe straddling a Channel Islands’ Twin Pin, responded that he had seen a dorsal fin in the water that very morning “as big as a traffic cone.”

Another, probably astride a Ryan Lovelace, swore he had seen an orca out in the water because it was much too big, in his mind’s eye, to be a shark.

Still a third searched for a silver lining, stating, “I’m more scared of the juvenile curious taste test than the adult who knows that we don’t have much meat on us.”

A classic blunder assuming children are less intelligent than grown-ups.

Domeier quickly splashed water on that theory, responding, “Juvenile white sharks eat fish, stingrays and other sharks. Adult white sharks eat seals, sea lions and porpoise. Adults are more likely to bite a person than a juvenile.”

Ageism goes both ways.

More as the story develops.


300-pound superstar rapper Action Bronson talks surf with heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson, “It’s like flying, it’s like you’re f*&king superman! It’s like when you hit the DMT and you blast off!”

It’s that sound of silence and then… euphoria.

A podcast with the sixth-best heavyweight boxer of all time, ear-eating, bong-throttling Mike Tyson has taken a surprising turn with Queens rapper Ariyan Arslani aka Action Bronson explaining to Mike the thrill of surf.

Surprising ‘cause ol AB hit the scales at four-hundred pounds last year (181 kilos, oowee), although has whittled a hundred away and now stands at 300 pounds or 136 kgs.

Still, take a lot of water to move a tank,.

Scroll to five-and-a-half minutes of Hot Boxin‘ and Bronson, thirty-seven, and famous for his Viceland show, Fuck, that’s Delicious, as well as hits Baby Blue (with Chance the Rapper), Dmitri and Actin Crazy, reveals his biggest thrill is riding his Tom Morey-created boogie board.

Tyson asks him what he’s been doin’.

“In the water a lot. The ocean, really into riding waves, man.”

What’s that like, man, says Tyson.

“Flying, it’s like flying, it’s like fucking Superman. It’s like you’re just flying through the air but you’re on water, you’re seeing the wave curl right in front of your face and somehow you’re in it.”

Tell me what happens in that, says Tyson, it like a vortex.

“It is like a vortex. It’s like when you hit the (psychedelic) DMT and you blast off. It’s that sound of silence and then… euphoria. Its like, man, I can’t believe I’m fucking taming this natural element like this. I’m not great but, you know, when it happens it’s next fucking level.”

Tyson asks Bronson long he’s stayed on his board for.

“The rides aren’t that long, probably fifteen seconds the most. You see these dudes, the pros, they can keep going. It’s reading the waves. You have to be a weatherman, a media man, you have to be able to read the ocean. It takes a while, but it’s a beautiful thing. I like to connect with the earth.”

The podcast has sent a shockwave through the Malibu surfing community as it ponders the recent anointing of movie sex symbol Jonah Hill as patron saint of VALS etc. 

More to come.


Aloha.
Aloha.

Surfer stunned after mistakenly receiving an invitation to join “The Inertia Family,” reels at bald-faced cultural appropriation in welcome note!

Aloha.

But you have certainly seen, by now, the video gone viral of a California math teacher whooping it up like a cartoon Indigenous-American. According to reports, “The math teacher was allegedly trying to teach (her students) SOH-CAH-TOA (acronyms for defining sine, cos, and tan angles using the hypotenuse, adjacent and opposite sides) by using the Native American dance as a device. However, the dance was deemed as racist and insensitive by some online.”

This sort of thing is officially unforgivable and the teacher was immediately put on administrative leave while angry mobs gathered at her virtual door.

Cultural appropriation.

A foul modern sin even worse than talking about Jonah Hill’s body.

And so you can understand the shock, dismay, of a surfer who mistakenly received an invitation to join “The Inertia Fam.”

His welcome missive read thusly:

Aloha!

Thanks for joining the (party) wave! It’s on!

We’ll keep you in the loop with the latest news, exclusive offers, original films, new courses and monumental gatherings to make sure you’re the first to know about the most important updates in surf and outdoors.

As an official welcome, we wanted to share a few of our favorite features since The Inertia’s birth in 2010.

Since the beginning, we’ve approached the natural world and its devoted culture with curiosity, optimism, and respect, and the following features offer a tasty aperitif to give you a better sense of the fam you just joined.

We firmly believe the oceans, mountains, and outdoors are for everyone – best enjoyed together. We’re glad you’re here. Let’s hoot you into a set wave.

The victim, left reeling, could only respond, “‘Aloha’ – really c*nts?”

Textbook inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, language, etc. Taking Hawaiian ideals and affixing them to the palest notions of “surf and outdoors.”

Party waves.

It is unclear, at time of writing, if The Inertia has been placed on administrative leave.

More as the story develops.