World’s most famous surf shop owner and “voice of the people” Sid Abruzzi reveals secrets to ageing disgracefully, his drunken surf reports, getting married at sixty and giving hell to billionaires!

And wait til he lights up on the east coast's own VALmageddon!

Today’s guest on Dirty Water is described by BeachGrit writer Steve Rees, as the “most famous surf shop owner in the world” and “Part animal―Part machine―Part idiot.”

While other surf shop owners obsequiously lick the boots of the clothing majors, for this is where the cash is, he sticks to his Buell wetsuits and custom boards.

If you don’t know where his little surf shop is in Newport, Rhode Island, well, good luck finding it. He don’t have a website.

He is seventy years old, still rides a six-one and he is a skilled persuader for he knows how to worm his way into a tired heart.

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Photo: ABC
Photo: ABC

Surfer hero describes pandemoniac tableau as boat’s capsize on reef leads to dramatic rescue: “I thought they were going to die for sure. The scene was just carnage.”

"It was such a dangerous position..."

It is often said, and very often by famous podcaster Scott Bass, that “surfers are the worst” but in my experience upon this blue globe surfers are generally “pretty ok” and if in some sort of oceanic trouble “valuable assets.”

Well, the old “surfers are valuable assets” adage played out, once again, on Australia’s south east coast last weekend when a boat capsized in the surf zone off Waniora Point in Bulli. Sean Brokman, 32, was out when he saw the mess.

“A few men were holding onto the boat without life jackets and they were obviously in serious trouble,” he told Yahoo! News. He and five others paddled over, assessed the situation and realized there were more people trapped inside.

Selflessly all of them ditched their boards and began diving under.

“It was such a dangerous position. If we had been hit by a wave we could have so easily been caught under there ourselves. The visibility was poor because of all the fuel and debris in the water but by some miracle I could see an air pocket in the bow of the boat with some legs, so I just went up and plucked that guy out.”

The unconscious man was full of water and sunk immediately after being pulled out but Brokman was “somehow managed to grab him and kick our way to the surface — I don’t know how.”

Another brave surfer, Sebastian James, meanwhile freed three more trapped men all by himself.

At this point in the harrowing tale Australian lifesavers on sleds arrived and began hauling the victims to shore where emergency teams had set up CPR stations. Three had gone into cardiac arrest and were rushed to nearby hospitals while a fourth was unable to be revived but it would have been a total loss if not for the selflessness, the strength of surfers.

The best people on earth.

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WHOOP, also a digital diagnostic tool.

Medical emergency averted after surf journalist uses fitness strap to monitor vital signs of suspected overdose!

WHOOP ain't just a personalised digital fitness trainer!

It’s over. The little kid is asleep and his makeshift bed in a vestibule is being painted by a light sea mist delivered by a spring onshore. 

A few hours earlier, the house had been the site of a moderately wild teenage bacchanal, although nothing out of the ordinary. 

A dozen or so of ‘em sending it, I’m later told: boys with their synthetic cannabinoid products and girls upending bottles of pink moscato, whispering gossipy stories loudly, sweating as they twirl and laugh and dance, all of ’em sucking hell out of their Mango Tango and Watermelon Wave vape pens. 

The boys posture as tough, slightly dangerous, devil-may-care characters, drinking and smoking more than their most of ‘em can handle. As the night wears, pools of spew, in hideously abstract shapes, decorate the garden. 

One kid hits the synthetics more than he should, drinks more than he can, hallucinates, panics, heart is bouncing out of his chest. 

I’m doing my midnight rounds of Bondi, searching for inspiration on these lonely walks, cataloguing various mistakes and ways of repeating ‘em over and over, when the party pours out onto the front lawn. 

Someone yells to call an ambulance. 

A kid collapses on the front lawn. 

Can you doing anything, they ask as I stop, mistaking me for someone capable. 

He says it’s his heart. 

Heart. 

I throw two fingers at the usual pulse points.

I ain’t no doctor. It feels fast. Is it 120 or 220?

Who knows. 

I claw at my WHOOP, wrap it around the kid’s little wrist and open the app. 

Heart at 140, hitting wild 170 bumps. 

Will he go into cardiac arrest? 

I ask the other kids if he’s had any pills. 

No, no, no, of course not, they chorus. 

Yeah.

I tell ’em it’s time to be real. It could mean keeping your pal alive. If it’s pills, the kid is going in an ambulance. 

They swear it’s weed and booze.

It’s a good sign.  

Doing something, and having a little knowledge, is the key in these sorta situations according to my pal who makes tourniquets for surfers. The simple act of having something to do, he says, takes away the panic, lets you take a step back, assess matters. 

I hold the kid’s head, keep a reassuring hand on his back. 

You’re good, you’re good, I tell him. 

I watch the heart-rate steady at 140 and the spikes subside. 

Gradually, it dips below 100 and sits on sixty, sixty-five as weed-induced panic turns into a deep sleep. 

An elderly neighbour says the kid can sleep in the front room of her joint. We get his parents’ number and call ‘em. They’re thirty away. 

I stay with the kid, monitoring the heart steady at fifty-nine now, until his parents arrive. 

Much thanking, shaking hands and so on. 

Forced to rip my personalised digital fitness trainer off kid’s wrist as he’s carried to car, however. 

There’s a limit to this Good Samaritan bullshit, right? 

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In exciting surf-adjacent news, handsome actor, face of BeachGrit Leonardo DiCaprio publicly cuckolds world’s second richest man Jeff Bezos at event celebrating under-celebrated wealthy people!

Electric feel.

This is not surf adjacent news, on its face, as the two principals in the story neither surf nor SUP nor foil nor pretend to, unlike the world’s fifth richest man Mark Zuckerberg, but… Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the two principals, regularly features as the face of surf news on this very surf adjacent website.

Usually from his role in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Sometimes from his role in Django.

Once, maybe, from his role in Titanic.

Never from his role in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.

And so surf adjacent we go but did you see DiCaprio publicly cuckold Lauren Sanchez, significant other of the world’s second richest man Jeff Bezos, at the LACMA Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles over the weekend?

The event celebrates under-celebrated wealthy people, I think, but just examine the photo of DiCaprio’s interaction with Sanchez and Bezos.

Whoa.

And now, has this sort of thing ever happened to you?

A public cuckolding?

How did you react?

Like Jeff Bezos showing off muscles and a Mark Zuckerberg-adjacent sense of humor?

Share and you just may receive a new badge.

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"Take this, Kelly!"
"Take this, Kelly!"

Ex-employees of Kelly Slater’s outerwear brand OuterKnown savage business on job search website: “Non-toxic and sustainable clothes, super toxic work culture and unsustainable work-life balance!”

One star.

The world’s greatest surfer, Kelly Slater, has long dabbled in the business arts launching companies like energy drink Purps, overseas surfboard manufacturer Slater Designs and sustainable outerwear brand OuterKnown during the course of his illustrious career.

Very smart to diversify portfolio etc. but what is it like to toil under the 11x World Champion’s yoke? Is he a gentle leader or a tyrant? A P.T. Barnum or a Steve Jobs?

Well, popular New Zealand career website Glassdoor.co.nz provides much insight, at least into OuterKnown, as many ex-employees have posted about their experiences. What do they say?

I loved working at Outerknown because their mission and purpose align with my passion for sustainability and environmental awareness. My fellow colleagues were amazing and I felt my manager did a wonderful job of listening to me and she always had my best interest in mind. Leaving Outerknown was an extremely tough decision, but I am happy to say my experience taught me so much that I will take with me as I grow in my career.

Prepare for Long Hours and Potential Burnout. Stressful work environment. You’re expected to do the work of several people/departments. When you ask upper management to hire additional help, your requests go ignored and nothing changes. Be prepared for burnout and long hours working here.

Management is not the worst I’ve experienced but absolutely mediocre at best. CEO is out of touch and so is the entire executive suite. Such a shame that HR is not able to help with the real problem, simply bad management and outdated leadership style.

Non-toxic and sustainable clothes, super toxic work culture and unsustainable work-life balance. Top-down “leadership” style driven by whatever hashtag social cause can make them money, instead of pushing for any meaningful change. Post a black square because it’s trending, and then fire non-white employees. Any challenge to the status quo is met with aggression and fragility. Incredibly toxic work environment with no clear paths to promotion. Inequitable pay with no transparency. Old-fashioned executives who like to think they’re progressive, but it’s the same boys club of every industry who prefer nepotism and blowing things up rather than fixing what’s right under their roof. High turnover and low pay, HR is a joke.

Outerknown requires Covid vaccine. Outerknown requires the covid vaccine. Sustainability is not a huge concern. This company does not promote from within.

OuterKnown requires a Covid vaccine?

Whoa.

Read more here.

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