“King of the waves” Julian Wilson reveals jaw-dropping debut clothing range that’s part golf, part-surf, part-motocross, part-aerobics in deal with mercurial online retailer!

Derek Rielly

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"Rivvia Projects has a vitality that mimics its creator and that can be measured at the root of the belly where the phallus rises thick and arching!"

If you hadn’t heard, and I’m not entirely sure you would’ve given its soft-soft launch, Julian Wilson has released the debut clothing range of his brand Rivvia Projects in a deal with the online retailer SurfStitch. 

Rivvia, which is a portmanteaux of the names of  his two kids River and Olivia, is an “an expression of myself, really, and all the things I’m into and passionate about,” Wilson told Monster Children, listing his favourite things as golfing, motorbiking, skating, and mountain bike riding.

Wilson follows Dane Reynolds/Craig Anderson and Luke Egan into the rag-trade, Reynolds’ and Ando with Former and Egan with Depactus, a brand that flew a little too close to the sun before the glue holding its wings melted and it was bought for a song by SurfStitch. 

The Rivvia Projects range, which you can examine in its entirety here, has a vitality that mimics its creator and that can be measured at the root of the belly where the phallus rises thick and arching (many apologies to DH Lawrence.)

Rivvia Projects sits on a price point that is closer to Billabong than Outerknown or the very high-end apparel being pushed by Hayden Cox. 

Very different animals, of course.

Cox, you’ll remember, partnered up with online men’s retailer Mr Porter for his eponymous surfboard brand’s debut clothing collection, which is called Acetone, and which must not be confused with the magazine by Andrew Kidman and Sam Rhodes, which was designed to offset the WSL’s “utter bastardisation” of their beloved sport.

Rivvia Proj on SurfStitch.

 

San Clemente man grows irate while driving, repeatedly spits on woman’s car; outed by integrity sleuths as surfer thanks to his core t-shirt: “You see, Jeff, the surfing community is a very small community!”

Chas Smith

By

The long arm of the internet.

Surf rage has, apparently, moved to the roads in California’s beach towns. And San Clemente is where we lay our scene, picking up mid act as a black SUV piloted by an irate man pulls up next to another car, driver unseen though identified by our narrator at a Hispanic mother with two-year-old daughter along for the ride.

It is uncertain what caused the severe frustration, but the very angry man begins spitting on the car before pulling in front of it, stopping and marching to the window, mad.

Apparently, the woman was refused police help and so the internet took over in seeking justice.

Integrity sleuths finger the man as a surfer, thanks to his core surf t-shirt, with the narrator declaring, “The surfing community is a very small community so when they saw you wearing this shirt they immediately identified you.”

He is then dragged through the public square.

A few questions, why does the woman roll down her window to allow for the spit to come inside?

Now that surf rage has moved to the roads, will it move to the skies next?

Does it bode poorly for the World Surf League that “the surfing community is a very small community?”

Currently more questions than answers.

Courtesy: @jennabhager Instagram
Courtesy: @jennabhager Instagram

Daughter of US ex-President George W. Bush viciously and publicly savages twin sister, daughters, for riding soft-top surfboards, accurately though archaically decrying as “sissy surfing!”

Chas Smith

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Heavy slam.

Core surfers found an unlikely ally in the ongoing war against cheaply made soft-top surfboards. The Wavestorm front has witnessed victory after victory since the beginning of the Covid epidemic with that Costco bestseller, and others of its ilk, clogging lineups around the globe leaving the aforementioned grumpy local low and sad, sunk to mid-chest on his pointy thruster.

But maybe a turn in tide?

Coming absolutely out of the blue, Jenna Bush, ex-United States President George W. Bush’s daughter, viciously and publicly savaged her twin sister and own two young daughters for participating in the soft-top life.

In a post to Instagram featuring the Bush twins and girls standing on the beach in wetsuits surrounding two large soft-tops with a third lying flabby on the sand.

It was simply titled “Sissy Surfing!”

While the word “sissy” has fallen out of fashion, being identified as “sexist” in guidance issued to United Kingdom schools and described as “just as unacceptable as racist and homophobic language,” in the United States, Bush’s message was loud and harshly clear.

Will the slur be enough to retard soft-top sales?

Fingers, everywhere, are crossed.

Toledo, right, in the LA Times.

World number one surfer Filipe Toledo becomes unwitting face of San Clemente feticide furore as council overwhelmingly rejects“god-ordained” resolution declaring city an “abortion-free zone”!

Derek Rielly

By

“It appears to me to be a document that could have been written by a Taliban tribunal."

Remember that wild anti-abortion resolution set to go before the San Clemente council three weeks back? 

The world number one surfer Filipe Toledo, a Brazilian immigrant now living in San Clemente and who is a married Catholic with two children, became the unwitting face of the debate after featuring in the story, “Push to ban abortions in San Clemente faces headwinds even in conservative OC.” 

In the main and only image, Toledo, who is widely expected to win this year’s world surfing title despite performing poorly in Tahiti, is pictured crossing the railway tracks at Lowers with a pal. The caption reads, “Surfers cross the railroad tracks near San Clemente’s North Beach. San Clemente Councilman Steve Knoblock has proposed that the city become a ‘sanctuary for life.’”

To recap, it ain’t a secret that the pretty surf town of San Clemente, home to the cream of American surfing, including Kolohe Andino and Griffin Colapinto as well as “cool mom that will let everyone drink at the house as long as no one’s driving” Matt Biolos, leans to the right politically. 

And, ever since Roe v Wade got iced, giving states the right to allow, or more pointedly, disallow, abortions, San Clemente’s pro-lifers have come out swinging. 

Councilman, Stevie Knoblock wanted the Council to formally agree that it “considers life to begin at conception” and to push back against Planned Parenthood health centres or anywhere the unborn are killed. 

“There probably isn’t a family in America that hasn’t been impacted by abortion,” Knoblock told the LA Times.“The [resolution] will get people thinking about what society has been doing for 50 years.”

San Clemente’s mayor Gene Walsh, also red, said he was “appalled” by the resolution, “It appears to me to be a document that could have been written by a Taliban tribunal, and I’ll say that as a conservative, pro-life Republican.”

Anyway, the whole thing stunk to hell and back and council voted three to one to withdraw the proposal from the agenda of an upcoming meeting.

Not that it mattered one way or the other.

The resolution, even if had passed, was symbolic. There ain’t an abortion clinic or hozzy knocking off bebes anywhere in town. 

“The fact is, California is a state where abortion is legal and there’s nothing the San Clemente City Council can do about that regardless of whether we are pro-life or pro-choice,” said Walsh.

Not me but also not not me.
Not me but also not not me.

In day and age of unchecked surf rage, surf journalist confesses to screaming in the face of a 76-year-old woman: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone (into a single fin, longboard, foil, Wavestorm or board of choice)!”

Chas Smith

By

Rage, rage against the dying light.

It is undeniable that we live in a day and age of heightened surf rage. From La Jolla to Malibu across the grand Pacific to Snapper Rocks, and back again to San Francisco, “out of control violence” is our currency. Why? Difficult to say but I think easy to blame Covid, Costco and… I don’t know, something else that starts with a “C.”

Climate change.

In any case, David Lee and I received a call from an irate TikToker today during our weekly chat. He was furious that the anonymous account he made to denigrate surf rager Andy Lyon, dubbed “the angriest man in surfing,” did not get the mob action he was hoping for, that David Lee and I didn’t interview the “boy” victim who turned out to be a twenty-year-old man, or bystanders.

That Lyon basically skated.

“And you call yourself surf journalists…” he seethed into the phone.

David Lee immediately distanced himself from the “surf journalist” moniker but not me. Sure, my form of reportage isn’t “rigorous” or “good” sometimes not “accurate” but it does get to hearts of matters every so often which brings us back to surf rage.

No act of of it is ever “right” but who amongst us, here, hasn’t sinned?

I’ll throw myself straight under the bus first. A few years ago I was surfing out the front. Being that it was out the front, in Cardiff by the Sea, I’m certain that it wasn’t epic but epic is neither here nor there. So here and there I was out with a small knot including a very elderly woman on a longboard. A wave came, I caught it, she dropped right in front of me and failed to exit the wave even after I whistled. Another wave came, she dropped right in front of me and failed to exit when I hooted. Another wave came, she dropped right in front of me and failed to exit when I screamed and so I paddled up to her and hollered, “HEY! What’s your deal? You have done me wrong three times in a row!” She, confused, responded, “I was paddling first.”

Oh how my blood boiled.

“You were paddling first? Yeah? That does not matter at all! I was in position and you are an absolute idiot and dumb!” I exploded right in her face, peppering with many swears.

Now, of course I was surfing in a spot enjoyed by old ladies and getting burned by one, all embarrassing for me and my surf rage only made the scene more embarrassing but surf rage I did because that’s what we do.

Not acceptable, a blot on my ledger, I cursed out an old lady but, again, who amongst us is spotless?

Do the new crop of Covid, Costco, climate change surfers live for party waves? Do they hate the greatest surfer ever Kelly Slater for dreaming of days when fins were punched out?

Listen to the full conversation, now or later, and share your favorite indiscretion below.

Photo: Jack English
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