Malibu realtor Andy Lyon holds up his WSL award for
"Saltiest Local."
Dirty Water: Malibu realtor dubbed
“Angriest Man in Surfing” details wild struggle as First Point
enforcer, “People think I’m crazy but I’m trying to regulate a
crowd of f$#king idiots!”
By Derek Rielly
“My blood pressure? Dude! It’s f$#king through the
roof! Are you kidding me? It’s nuts!”
Today’s guest on Dirty Water is Andy Lyon, the Malibu
realtor and First Point surfer of fifty years who achieved a
considerable notoriety recently when he threw a rock into
another man’s surfboard following an entanglement, the video of the
event going viral.
He lost his job, had his address published and a beat-down was
suggested his kid Glider.
Lyon represents a vanishing era where lineups were harshly
policed with a clearly defined pecking order, a limpid simplicity
greased with the underlying threat of violence.
The highlight, for me, of this interview is our guest’s reply to
the posit that Malibu is a sissy wave for old men and girls, not
sissy old men who beat up on girls.
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"These dang kids!"
Question: With sitting surf champ Gabriel
Medina taking year off to traipse through internal garden and
former surf champ John John Florence purposefully sailing around
next event is World Surf League in deep trouble?
By Chas Smith
Did Kelly Slater get it all wrong?
A real and mostly undeniable truth that has
hovered over the World Surf League née Association of Surfing
Professionals for the last two decades plus is that the best
surfers in the world are on tour. Sure, there are wonderful Ben
Gravies and Jamie O’Briens and Clay Marzos and etc. but the cream
of the crop, in prime, has surfed the tour for the last two decades
plus.
Three decades plus?
Certainly fantastic specimens have grown tired, “retired” early
like Tom Curren, Dane Reynolds, Bobby Martinez and others from
greater Santa Barbara but doesn’t this iteration of competitive
professional surfing feel… different?
Gabriel Medina, sitting champion, elected to sit out most the
year in his prime before becoming injured and not seeming to
care.
Former champion John John Florence, became injured too but
instead of heading to much rehab, posted to social media, chose to
sail the high seas while purposefully avoiding the next WSL stop in
Tahiti.
Clearly cost to benefit has been weighed and for two still young
surfing mega-stars the tour doesn’t matter so much.
What does this mean overall?
Will the next batch of prodigies chart different non-competitive
courses? Building fanbases upon jaw dropping clips, film releases,
art?
Or is this simply a hiccup?
Did Kelly Slater get it all wrong?
Please discuss.
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Off this unceded wave, kook.
White settler living on stolen California
land eviscerates modern surf image: “Surfing has a reputation for
embodying all the most annoying and violent aspects of white
masculinity!”
By Chas Smith
Bleak and ugly but is there hope?
Surfing, man. A toxic stew featuring bashed singlefin:
yellows, locals onlies, back paddles, angry glares,
frustration, rigidnesses of mind, body, style, substance but has it
always been so and must it always be? For the intellectually
stilted, I suppose status quo rules but a scintillating new essay
directly challenges the norm.
Maya Weeks, who describes herself as “a white settler writer,
artist, and geographer living and working on unceded yak titʸu
titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash land,” which I think is
California’s central coast, pulled no punch in smacking us all in
the mouth. “Surfing has a reputation for embodying all the most
annoying and violent aspects of white masculinity, and for good
reason,” she writes before really digging in.
Contrary to its roots as a kānaka maoli (Native Hawaiian)
cultural practice, modern surfing as widely distributed by white
men has been a font of rugged masculinity, hyperindividualism, and
conquering (especially when it comes to big waves). I’m thinking of
white locals in my hometown telling visitors “we grew here, you
flew here”; of white men stealing the waves of people they don’t
know; of the way professional surf contests as late as the 2000s
were set up to give women the worst conditions to surf in as well
as far-from-equitable prize money; of white American men leasing
private islands to capitalize on as surf resorts; of literal surf
Nazis. I’m thinking of how in the early 20th century, the Manhattan
Beach, California city council used eminent domain to take the land
from the Bruces, a Black family. Of how it took the Bruce family
nearly a century to recover their land.
Bleak and ugly but is there hope?
Thankfully, yes, as Weeks discusses promising developments such
as women getting an equal shot to surf Mavericks even though that
contest hasn’t ever run, the lineup becoming more diversified
and:
Crucially, since time immemorial, the lands and waters of
what is currently called the Central Coast of California have been
the home of the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe.
The proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary will
reinstate some Chumash sovereignty over these waters in a protected
area that will extend from the Channel Islands National Marine
Sanctuary to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Ocean and
climate scientist Priya Shukla points out that the sanctuary will
not only restore “decision-making power to the original stewards of
these natural resources” but also “[elevate] Chumash
‘thrivability’, which values the interconnectedness between the
natural marine environment and local human community members.” I
can’t wait to surf in it.
Me either except for the cold and
angrier-than-completely-necessary elephant seals.
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I don't think that is Ricky Martin (left) but those
must be his kids. Photo: @ricky_martin Instagram
Heartthrob songbird Ricky Martin forms
masculine counterpart to chanteuse Shakira as surf darlings able to
heal discordant times: “#surfing #surfingislife!”
By Chas Smith
We are the luckiest enthusiasts in the world.
Disagreeing with one another has become sport
in these fractured days. Folk entrenching in this or that position,
digging in deep, throwing grenades at others entrenched in that or
this position. Becoming angry. Becoming filled with rage and
uttering statements of disbelief at dinner parties amongst
likeminded friends about various family members or co-workers and
their idiocy for thinking unapproved things.
Tense.
Thankfully, though, the entire world can agree that Shakira is a
wonderful example of how to be beautiful and healthy and move
through life’s ups and downs.
And you recall, the chanteuse’s relationship drama recently
became very public as her partner of many years, footballer Girard
Pique, was alleged to have cheated.
Instantly, she became a surf darling. The modern face of our
beloved pastime.
One, though, is the loneliest number so the universe has
provided a wonderfully masculine counterpart in songbird Ricky
Martin.
The multi-platinum recording artist just took his sons surfing
and lovingly penned, “¡Tremendo día de playa! Empieza para mis
hijos mayores su semana de cumpleaños. Gracias a mi hermano Alecs
por la buena vibra del día y enseñarle a Matteo y Valentino a jugar
con las olas @lipsmacksurf Soy el padre más afortunado del mundo.
#prouddad #Surfing #surfingislife”
In English it reads, “Great day at the beach! It begins for my
older children their birthday week. Thanks to my brother Alecs for
the good vibes of the day and teaching Matteo and Valentino how to
play with the waves @lipsmacksurf I’m the luckiest dad in the
world. #prouddad #Surfing #surfingislife.”
I can just see the cinematic retelling of a great love story.
Shakira mending heart. Ricky building family bonds. The two meeting
out in the lineup, singing songs about surfing, healing the
world.
Erasing divisions.
La vida loca.
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Lyons (pictured damaging surfboard) now
fired.
Malibu realtor dubbed “angriest man in
surfing” who lost his job and was hit with death threats following
board-smashing incident reveals the positive side of anti-fame,
“People say it ended his career, it’s like, no, shit is taking off!
I may not have to sling houses at all!”
By Derek Rielly
"It’s pretty amazing how stuff goes like this…I’ve
become sort famous I guess.”
The Malibu surfer Andy Lyon, whom you’ll hear on a Dirty
Water podcast in a couple of days, was the star, victim,
whatever you want to call it, of a viral video shaming that cost
him job, got him doxxed and his kid threatened.
To recap, Lyon and a retro-riding cowboy get entangled, Lyon’s
board gets smashed; he retaliates by taking to the nostalgia craft
with a rock before paddling it out beyond the Malibu pier.
A TikTok video and Instagram account @andylyonsisakook soon
followed.
Standard sorta stuff and very good entertainment value.
Lyon, who is fifty-nine, and who has been surfing the joint for
fifty years, is upbeat when BeachGrit calls despite the death
threats, having his address published and a warning his
five-year-old kid is going to get beat up.
“You know, it’s a good ride right now,” he says. “Fucking
dealing with all these little punks, keyboard warriors. It’s pretty
amazing how stuff goes like this…I’ve become sorta famous I
guess.”
The incident, and the response of both sides, marks the changing
shift, I think, in modern surf culture. On one side you got on the
original cats, good surfers, still riding short boards, who grew up
with the unwritten code that if the locals don’t get their waves,
hell gonna break loose.
It’s unpleasant but crowded lineups greased with the underlying
threat of violence have at least a semblance of order.
The prevailing mindset, howevs, is that all surfers are equal,
beginners, SUP riders, even celebs being pushed onto waves on giant
foam surfboards by their sherpas, and that retaliation belongs in
the distant ugly past.
As for being doxxed, supposedly cancelled and so on, Lyon says,
“I’m embracing this. People say it ended his career but, it’s like,
shit’s taking off. This is the beginning!”
Lyon does press to clear the record about the supposed kid
traumatised by the ordeal.
“He was in his twenties and about a foot taller than me,” he
says. “He was no fucking kid!”
Full story via the Dirty Water podcast, out in a couple of
days.