Blood feud: Tom Morey’s estate vs owner of
Morey bodyboards over Limited Edition Mach 7 with Morey’s
“signature” released after his death, “We do not appreciate this
thief in the night action of this corporate move… Tom’s grieving
wife and family are in shock!”
By Derek Rielly
Morey vs Morey!
Three weeks ago, the free-thinking inventor of the
boogie board and surfing hall-of-famer Tom Morey died,
aged eighty-eight.
Ol Tom wasn’t in the best shape. He was blind and broke, pretty
much, despite the outrageous success of the boogie board, which
celebrated its fiftieth anniversary this July.
Now, with Morey dead, InterSport Corp, owners of the Morey
trademark, which Tom sold in 1977 before the design took off, is
taking pre-orders for a limited edition re-release of his classic
MACH 7, priced at a surprisingly reasonable one hundred and
ninety-nine dollars.
From the promo,
“This board is one of a kind in the Morey family. The MACH 7
Commemorative Edition is the only Morey Boogieboard that has Tom’s
signature.”
All pretty nice, money to the fam etc.
But fans of Tom, as well as the family, have slammed it as a
cash grab.
From Tom’s FB page,
“This is the Morey Family and WE DO NOT APPRECIATE THIS THIEF IN
THE NIGHT ACTION OF THIS CORPORATE MOVE. THERE IS NO CONTRACTURAL
AGREEMENT HERE TO MOREY FAMILY FOR THIS TYPE OF CORPORATE FINANCIAL
GAIN IN THE MIDST OF OUT LOSS. TOM’S grieving wife and family are
in shock. Why would someone post at midnight a pre-order for a
board that Tom had no contractural agreement. Our hearts are broken
as we continue to work on arraignments for him to Rest in
Peace.”
A few choice cuts from the comments, mostly from high-level
bodyboard pro’s, all with a penchant for caps lock, so high rides
the emotion, I suppose.
“BE WARNED! Morey family do not want this sale to occur. AT VBC
(Vintage Bodyboard Collectors) we respect their wishes and
recommend no one buy this board.”
“No, FUCK YOU GUYS. NO WAY WILL I BUY THIS OR ANY PRODUCT FROM
YOU, EVER, YOU FUCKING SOULLESS PARASITES.”
“Just disgusting.”
“FUCK MOREY!!! Other than the name, this company no connection
not the great man, our sport or to the community. Support the
companies that give back and have true connection and
relevance.”
Abbruzzi might be the most famous shop owner
alive today. Maybe not famous-famous but surf-famous, at least. His
grey ropes of hair and tattoed body are more Pagans Motorcycle Club
than surf icon. A model of the underground hero, Abbruzzi don’t own
no clean Vans. Scars run down both legs with mehanical hip
replacements caused by over fifty years of proper vert
skating.
The most famous surf shop owner in the
world is seventy years old, skates vert and rides a six-one, “Part
animal, part machine, part idiot!”
By Steve Rees
How many documentaries have been made about surf
shop owners?
I caught Sid Abruzziight, owner of Water Brothers Surf
Shop, after a solid head-high morning session at Ruggles as
Hurricane Ida ripped by Rhode Island.
He is seventy and riding a 6’1”.
We talked about the documentary in production about his life.
Water Brother: The Sid Abbruzzi Story is set to release next
year, a jaw punch of a flick.
Check out the sizzle reel here.
How many documentaries have been made about surf shop owners?
Abbruzzi might be the most famous shop owner alive today. Maybe
not famous-famous but surf-famous, at least. His grey ropes of hair
and tattoed body are more Pagans Motorcycle Club than surf icon. A
model of the underground hero, Abbruzzi don’t own no clean Vans.
Scars run down both legs with mehanical hip replacements caused by
over fifty years of proper vert skating.
Part animal―Part Machine.
But this isn’t an advertisement for his Water Brothers shop,
that brick-and-morter citadel in Newport, Rhode island. Even if it
was, you’d be outta luck. Abbruzzi doesn’t keep a website.
Part animal―Part machine―Part idiot.
Sid isn’t living for money, and he’s beautiful because of it.
Abruzzi’s lost countless dollars from shunning major brands,
preferring to stick with five-to-ten grand of inventory: Buell
wetsuits and select custom boards.
Moms come in. “Do you have Billabong t-shirts for my son?’
“Sorry” Sid says.
But he’s not.
Like Andy Warhol at a Manhattan dinner party when asked why he
wasn’t dining on the feast before him.
“I only eat candy,” Worhol deadpanned.
Abbruzzi only eats candy, too.A shop that exists to support
his own skating and surfing. Everything else is broccoli and he
says the hell with that.
Sid started selling surfboards in his basement in ’69 then
opened up a little beachfront surf shack down the street, the first
Water Brothers. And a shack it was.
“I dug a little trench between the shop and the bar next door.
Dropped an extension cord in it to get juice. For years, that’s
where we sucked our electricity from. Every time a car drove over
it in the beach parking lot, though, we lost power. We had a
pot belly stove. It was a blast. We had it for twenty years. From
‘71 – ‘93. Never had a lease. We paid three-hundred a year to the
landlord.”
It was Sid’s way from the get-go.
He says, “If you ever want to do anything, don’t ask. No games.
Just do it.”
Case-in-point. Sid wants to build a full-sized halfpipe in the
lot next to the shack. Does it―sans blessing. The landlord shows
up. Sid explains that it’s part of a project for their Explorers
Troop. (A division of the Boy Scouts: changing boys to men, one
ascot at a time) They were not, of course, Explorers. To cement the
tale, Sid had uniforms made complete with a made up troop number
patch set on the shirt sleeves.
―And part genius.
Sid moved into a larger store front in the ‘90’s but still held
onto that independent streak.
Water Brothers have hosted countless surf and skate royals over
the years: Curren. Fletchers.Even actor Bill Murray, who
once dropped down on the shop couch for a week during the shoot of
Moonrise Kingdom.
Like many surf traveler, Murray knows the spot to go when in
Newport. Skip the Cliffwalk mansions, hit Water Brothers.
For Sid, however, ignoring the mansions of Newport has never
been an option. These Gilded Age estates sit in front some of the
best waves in all of the North East, Ruggles in particular. But as
more surfers started to dot the lineup, the police began plucking
them out, clearing the oceanviews of the proletariat.
“It was Millionaire’s Row. They didn’t want us there.”
Sid grew tired of the hassling.
“One day, I stayed in the water. All of a sudden there’s one
cop, two, cops, five cops. They yelled that they were going to tow
my car. ‘Go Ahead!’ I yelled back. I finally came in when I was
done. There was no love.They arrested me. Went to court. Found
guilty. Fined. I took it to appeals court. And while we were
waiting for trial, I was still surfing there. The judge said that
banning surfing at Ruggles was unconstitutional and that was that.”
Abbruzzi admits the victory stings a bit now. He says the
water’s infested.
On a good day, there can be a hundred guys in the water but only
a couple dozen from Newport.
“Ruggles is still our spot, though. We still give a little elbow
to the ribs, you know what I mean?”
Sid wears his Newport pride like a hood ornament.
“In the seventies, there was a bouy that separated surfers. If
you were knowledgable you’d surf on one side, and the other side
was for full-blown kooks. I wouldn’t mind havin’ that back
now.”
Sid is more hands-on in Newport than a priest in a Catholic Boys
School. He was at the heart of a campaign to save the break by
keeping a pair of wave-crushing jetties out of the water,
recommended after Hurricane Sandy. He’s put his weight behind a
proposed skatepark at Abbruzzi sports Complex (named after his
father.) The skatepark has just been green-lighted.
When it’s flat, you can find Sid at Water Bros. But when it’s
on, he’s in the lineup, all seasons.
“I’ve surfed 55 winters. I refuse to wear a 6/5. I’m out every
time there’s waves.”
If you’re ever in the Newport area, I highly suggest a visit to
Water Brothers so you can touch Sid.
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World’s greatest waterman Kai Lenny
conducts second most exciting surf-adjacent gender reveal of
all-time out at big Jaws: “I’M GONNA BE A GIRL DAD!!”
By Chas Smith
Let's hear it for the GIRLS!
Kai Lenny can do no wrong and this is one thing
VALs and grumpy locals can both agree on. The brave Maui local,
whom Derek Rielly
describes as “a daring twenty-seven-year-old
multi-discipline surfer with sea-spray eyes shaped like pecans,
skin the colour of buttered cocoa and lips as red as if he’d just
applied a fresh coat of pomegranate lipstick” has, this week,
helped drive Facebook stock
to a five-year low and, yesterday, conducted the
second most exciting gender reveal of all time at his home break
Jaws.
Lenny, wearing iconic Hurley springer, was towed into a large
wave holding a pyrotechnic device that, when activated, released a
spray of red smoke indicating that he would soon be a father of a
two daughters, having just announced days ago that twins were on
the way.
“I’M GONNA BE A GIRL DAD!!” he captioned the post, tagging his
partner Molly Payne.
A who’s who of surf glitterati, featuring Anastasia Ashley,
Nathan Florence, Mark Healey, Brett Simpson, Lucas Chumbo etc.
weighed in with many hearts and well-wishes.
All very well deserved and much love to the Lenny family.
As a father of two daughters, though not twins, I can say they
are by far the best. Better than absolutely anything including, but
not limited to, Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse.
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Norwegian beach handball team defeats
“antiquated Mad Man-esque chauvinism,” will no longer be forced to
compete in revealing bikinis!
By Chas Smith
Times are a'changin.
We surfers, we lovers of the ocean and her
waves, are an open-minded bunch when it comes to dress in the
lineup. A man, or woman, is allowed to wear a wetsuit, a wetsuit
top, a short-sleeved wetsuit, a long-sleeved short-legged wetsuit,
a full swimsuit, a bikini, trunks or a tankini. The only item of
clothing expressly forbidden is the baggy short sleeved turtle
necked rash guard but, otherwise, a cornucopia of options.
Our beach brothers and sisters have not had it quite so well
with beach handball players, for instance, forced to toil under the
sun in bikinis.
Well, no longer. The sport’s governing body just ruled in favor
of allowing women to now wear “short tight pants with a close fit”
and a “body fit tank top” in lieu of bikinis when competing after
the Norwegian team complained that it was sexist and was duly
fined.
Norwegian Handball Federation (NHF) President Kare Geir Lio
told NBC News
that the new change is a “real and symbolic step” toward fighting
gender inequality in the sport and also that “it’s good for the
game, but first of all, it’s good for the women, and it’s good for
how we treat each other in sports.”
Bravo.
Baggy short sleeved turtle necked rash guards are really the
worst, though.
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World surfing champion Gabriel Medina makes
estranged father Instagram official in wake of “nuclear” family
feud with mom and step-dad, “Happy birthday dad! I love you!”
By Derek Rielly
The step-daddy, Charlie Serrano, the ubiquitous,
unsmiling, ever-supportive pillar behind his equally taciturn
looking son for two of his world titles, must be feeling badly
shortchanged…
The three-time world surfing champion, Brazil’s Gabriel
Medina, has made his estranged father Claudinho Instagram official
with an emotional post to his almost ten-million
followers.
Medina, who is twenty-seven, posted two photos of the pair
embracing and with both holding three fingers aloft to indicate his
three world titles and a short video where father and son dance a
touching pas de deux.
The step-daddy, Charlie Serrano, the ubiquitous, unsmiling,
ever-supportive pillar behind his equally taciturn looking son for
two of his world titles, must be feeling badly shortchanged by the
post.
Earlier this year, of course, Brazil media reported that Medina
had split, in a professional as well as a private sense, from his
mammy Simone and Charlie.
The split was driven, it was said, by Medina’s surprise marriage
to thirty-three-year-old actress and
Swimsuit Illustrated model Yasmin Brunet, parental sadness over
losing their lil man, the ol’ empty nest syndrome.
A month-ish ago, mammy and Charlie put the Gabriel Medina
Institute which they got in the breakup deal onto the market,
seeking two mill or so. As well, Gabriel slashed mammy’s
allowance from five to three-and-a-half gees a month.
“She was really crazy at a party at her condo in Rio. Drunk, in
the parking lot, doing this to a guy and then throwing up,” Simone
allegedly wrote to her son.
Dias reports Yasmin and Luiza are suing Simone for
defamation.
According to our sources, as well as the Medina Institute,
Charlie and Simone got a luxury condo and a small house they all
lived in before Medina got his first title. Simone also got a
little under a million US in cash as part of the deal.
Medina got to keep the six-unit luxury condo he developed with
Charlie and a house in the middle of a forest where he lives with
Yasmin and a dozen adopted dogs.
His real daddy, Claudinho, lives in one of Medina’s houses.