Environmentally conscious surf brand Patagonia abandons New York storefront once home to The Cramps, Misfits, Ramones, Agnostic Front!

Chas Smith

By

Last wave.

Any surfer even vaguely aware of music has, at the very least, heard of the New York venue CBGB. The bar, which opened in the Bowery district in 1973 and named “Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers,” or CBGB & OMFUG for short, quickly became the place for the hot New Wave and punk sounds of the time.

A veritable who’s who played on its cramped, darkened stage from Elvis Costello to Patti Smith, The Ramones to The Misfits, Reagan Youth to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

CBGB became an iconic Mecca but closed in 2006, becoming occupied by designer John Varvatos and environmentally conscious surf brand Patagonia.

An odd fit?

Maybe as Patagonia feels more… I don’t know… not Phish but maybe something like Phish to me. Journey?

Allman Brothers?

In any case, according to the local Bowery Boogie newsletter, Patagonia is no more. Per the report:

The Patagonia Surf shop on the Bowery rode its last wave.

Corporate pulled the plug on the Lower East Side outpost at the end of October, leaving a retail vacancy in an area that has been upscaled in a big way over the last decade. Store signage was pried from the facade, and the interior scraped bare.

Ready for the next occupant.

Patagonia signed a ten-year lease on 313 Bowery back in 2012, but Hurricane Sandy postponed the launch by a year. In its prior life, this address housed the CBGB Record Canteen, the annex which later morphed into CB’s Gallery in the late-1980s, hosting shows of various genres.

And there we have it.

Coldplay?

Dave Matthews Band?

I’m really struggling to musically cast Patagonia.

Can you help?

Not peak.

Surf journalist blatantly ignores personalized digital fitness and health coach leading to a series of unfortunate decision making!

Chas Smith

By

Not cool.

Last evening, at roughly 8:30, my personalized digital fitness and health coach instructed me that if I hoped to achieve peak performance the following day, I should consider going to bed.

My life partner, Derek Rielly, maybe sensing shakiness in the quality of my life after an ill-conceived suggestion regarding a three-time surfing champion, also advised that I “focus on sleep” and calm my humors.

Not ever liking to be told what to do, I blatantly ignored the both of them, went out for a late night Korean barbecue feast, came home and watched a World War II drama featuring a small Dutch town getting brutalized by Nazis into the wee hours.

A mistake.

WHOOP knows me better than I know myself, knew I needed that shut eye as “sleep is one of the most important things a person can do to improve recovery, boost the immune system, and make fitness gains.”

The stylish black strap “recommends hours of sleep needed for optimal recovery and tracks sleep stages, disturbances, respiratory rate, and more.”

It takes nightly measurement of when light sleep is engaged, when REM, or “the mentally restorative sleep stage where a body consolidates memory and learning,” is entered, when slow wave sleep, or “the physically restorative sleep stage where a body restores muscular, cellular, and skeletal systems,” is embraced.

A modern miracle but did I listen?

Did I heed?

No.

And I barely woke up for a pre-sunrise surf, drank too much coffee and gave myself a good case of the jitters, forgot my wax, chose the wrong board for very small Great White shark infested Cardiff-by-the-Sea, went left on a right, dropped in on a SUP pilot without care, told a kindly Brazilian to buzz off then felt bad when he sweetly apologized, calling himself a “newb” in the process, came home, wrote this story then rushed off to bark at children for not employing the break-apart strategy in mathematics.

A series of unfortunate decision makings and the day has still just begun.

Performance not peak and tonight I will listen to my personal sleep coach, whose feelings are hopefully unhurt by this poor showing due intransigence.

I will be a better me tomorrow.

But don't spear White, heavy fines and possible jail time apply if successfully prosecuted.

Surfline cam records “massive” Great White breaching at San Onofre on the same day three-time world champ issued urgent warning to San Diego county surfers advising “crazy numbers” of the protected maneater!

Derek Rielly

By

“The thing was huge and it made an incredible splashing sound.”

Just two days ago, the three-time world surfing champion Joel Tudor issued an urgent warning to surfers, sharing video of what appeared to be a Great White breaching in a Cardiff lineup.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Joel Tudor (@joeljitsu)

Shea Lopez, a former top-rated pro, responded that a pack of Great Whites had been seen at Lowers, site of the WSL’s Finals Day event which, as fate would play it, was forced into a holding pattern when a Great White breached in the lineup.

Juvie Great Whites have become a fact of life around Lowers and surrounds.

“I’ve seen three breaches out here,” said Kelly Slater.

In May, drone photographer James Glancy showed just how close the Whites get.

“The further south I go (in California) the more sharks seem to enjoy the surf,” said Glancy. “They’re right there next to humans most of the time… the humans sharing their home have no idea.

Now, and captured, sorta, by the Surfline cam on the same day and witnessed by a local surfer, is the breaching of a Great White at San Onofre, thirty miles north of Cardiff.

“The surf was good and I was having a blast,” says Gilbert Bonales. “A nice set came in around 7:35 am. I have seen sharks in the past but I have never seen a shark that size breach at San O. Thing was huge and it made an incredible splashing sound. Only a couple of us surfing farther out actually saw the breach and the splash.   To tell you the truth, it was a bit scary but it’s been sharky at San O the last couple of months and I am getting used to them being around.”

White makes an appearance in the middle right of the screen. Squint for best effect.

Great Whites have been protected in Californian waters since 1994, although their presence around popular southern Californian beaches is a recent phenomenon.

Around 2015, an El Niño year that warmed coastal waters in SoCal, juvie Whites suddenly changed their migratory patterns, forgetting the usual winter hit to Mex, instead staying around San Diego.

DiCaprio (pictured) questioning life's choices.

Thailand officially re-opens beach made famous from handsome actor Leonardo DiCaprio witnessing horrific shark attack that forced him to renounce ideals of international backpacking lifestyle!

Chas Smith

By

You little beauty.

If there is one thing I profoundly dislike, in this life and every other, it is the international backpacking community. White rasta pastas who turn the same shade of brown, wear baggy hemp, stay in hostels, sometimes have breed-less dogs with thick leather collars, flaunt woven hemp jewelry, smell like patchouli, harbor vague neo-hippie ideals, etc.

Blights each and every one though almost celebrated in the 2000 film The Beach starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

I went to see in the theatre because I very much enjoy the work of director Danny Boyle but was horrified during the first third when I thought that it was a celebration of that misbegotten lifestyle on a pristine Thai island.

Thankfully, three Scandinavians became attacked by a shark, two dying horrific deaths, shattering the ideals and leading to more death, if I recall.

Satisfying.

In any case, the picturesque beach on Phi Phi Leh where the shark attack took place is being officially re-opened to the public, this January, after being shuttered due “severe deterioration caused by tourists.”

Per CNN:

The reopening comes with several caveats. Boats will not be able to enter the bay. Instead, drivers will have to drop passengers off at a pier set at the back of the island away from the famed cove.

Only eight speedboats will be allowed to dock there at a time, and visits will be capped at one hour, with a maximum of 300 tourists allowed per round, from 10 a.m.-4p.m daily.

Very cool.

I, myself, visited Phi Phi Leh and “the beach” in the early 2000s in order to lay a hemp wreath on the grave of international backpacking.

It simply read, “The hostel has closed. Forever.”

Celebrity author of Miki Dora bio David Rensin on the fetishisation of a flawed soul, Dora’s supersonic criminal life and Leo DiCaprio optioning the movie rights to it all, “Was Miki an asshole? At times. Racist? I don’t think so”

Derek Rielly

By

Was he or wasn’t he? Nazi bastard or button pusher?

Today’s guest on Dirty Water is celebrity author Davis Rensin, whose book All For a Few Perfect Waves laid out, without exaggeration or censure, the supersonic life of Malibu anti-hero Miki Dora.

Rensin transcribed one million words in the pursuit of the truth, relatively speaking of surfing’s great Voodoo God, a man who was style in the water, suits out of it, convertibles, Hollywood and movie stars.

Dora was also a thief, a scammer and an impossible loner who travelled the world chasing adventure and empty waves, his only real friend a King Charles spaniel called Scooter Boy.

A couple of years back, The New York Times ran a piece called The Long Strange Tale of California’s Surf Nazis which held Dora as the poster-boy for white supremacism in surfing.

Dora often used racial slurs and advised acquaintances to put all their money in gold before Mexicans and blacks poured over the borders and ruined the economy. While serving prison time, Dora (who had been convicted of both check and credit-card fraud) wrote to a friend that he loved American Nazis. Dora eventually relocated to apartheid-era South Africa.

In a 1975 interview with Phil Jarratt, Dora, who acted as a surf double on a couple of Hollywood beach films said, “The Jews come down to the beach, they shoot their movie, sell it to the Kikes and they all make a pile of money.”

Dora.

Was he or wasn’t he?

Nazi bastard or button pusher?

Let’s ask!