Hunk needed.
Yesterday’s reported mass sacking of surf industry employees was but the latest in an unfortunate series. Sixty employees slashed from Boardriders’ (parent company of Billabong, Quiksilver, RVCA) Australian bureau. One-hundred and fifty disappeared from the U.S. a week earlier and right before the usually happy holiday season.
The troublesome part of all this blood-letting is that surfing, as a whole, is coming off one of the biggest booms in its illustrious history. The pandemic opening the door to millions upon millions of new participants. Aside from purchasing soft-topped surfboards and tuning into World Surf League broadcasts, though, these millions upon millions have clearly not been purchasing Billabong, Quiksilver, RVCA-branded t-shirts, hoodies, etc.
No mountain and wave covering heart.
The reason? Well, have you heard of “pretty privilege?” The concept has been around for some time and basically suggests that traditionally attractive men and women have an upper hand in life and also lead people towards imitation, trying to look like the beauty set. Now, when the surf industry had its initial spike, in the mid-1980s, it did so on the gorgeous backs of dreamy Laird Hamilton and Kelly Slater. The early 2000s, another lush time, brought the likes of lantern-jawed Andy Irons and Neco Padaratz, steamy Luke Stedman and Rizal Tanjung.
The good looks from the Momentum Generation, alone, could have lit Manhattan for a year.
Each of these men, these surfers, an absolute pin-up and surfwear sales exploded through the roof.
But these days?
While Gabriel Medina and Kanoa Igarashi form one half of a world-beating boy band, they are backed up by… jack. Oh, Filipe Toledo, Griffin Colapinto, Jordy Smith etc. are all decent appearing men, serviceable, but none come close to touching In God’s Hands’ Shane Dorian much less Laird Hamilton’s Cool Water.
Surfing is in desperate, desperate need of a hunk.
Will you answer the call before surf-branded sweatpants are but a faint memory?
Please do (if you have a lantern jaw, dewy eyes, plump lips etc.).
a face only a stepmother could hate
Starting to look like George Orwell. Keep the Aspidistra Flying.
Jonah “The Tatted Kosher Whale” Hill is the new face of surfing!
Yes.
If Kelly hadn’t gone bald, had like lairds or andys mame, at least half the world would be following surfing now….. But, as fate had it, to the non surfing world, which is most the world, ks was just another scary bald guy.
plowin thru the haze!
Chas Smith needs to keep his Tinder wish list outta his columns. And you jack hats need to stop fueling his flames by dropping surfer names he can Google, along with the saucy alpha male talk. All the hot guys were gone by ’91. Everyone knows that. FFS
Maybe one of the old heroes could return and couple with a beautiful siren from the fashion industry maybe that could save surfing.
Well played Sir… my supply of Bubblegum pop is no match for the hardest working man in Rock and Roll.
“I was sleeping and right in the middle of a good dream
Like all at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking at my brain
Before I go insane I hold my pillow to my head
And spring up in my bed screaming out the words I dread
I think I love you (I think I love you)…”
David, what a dream boat!
Why do you build me up (Build me up)
Buttercup, baby
Just to let me down? (Let me down)
And mess me around
And then, worst of all (Worst of all)
You never call, baby
When you say you will (Say you will)
But I love you still
I need you (I need you)
Geez Chas, sometimes when you and DR start talking about anything that happened pre about 1995 you get everything wrong.
Mid 80s, Kelly Slater was just some 13 year old kid in Sundek ads and Laird Hamilton was this guy with weird stance that occasionally got in photos with Ken Bradshaw and Mark Foo.
Mid 80s it was Stuart Bedford-Brown and Graham “Ces” Wilson who were the heart throbs.
Ummmmm…. Jackson Baker??? Helllllooooooo
The real reason for the decline in the industry, despite the boom in the water, is that the boom is coming from people who are not surfers. They “surf” (read: get in the way) but they are not surfers. They have no need for more than one softtop, one wetsuit and one bar of wax per year. On this an industry cannot survive.
Not sure there’s any sadness in this, just fact. Meanwhile, the changing-towel-smock-thing industry is booming!
1. Truth. But Salt Life pulling like $400 mil.
2. Those beach burkas have got to go. I hate the changing Snuggies/cult robe. It’s time to invest in beach towels, blankets or a new design.
3. I’m kinda okay with the little changing mat but isn’t that what seat covers and car washes are for? Plus how much wet sand can you truly get off rubber by shaking like a lab?
Whew, thanks, that felt good.
Salt life is exactly the problem.
12 man heats…all featuring Santa Claus wannabes and one woman assigned as a Santa’s helper…for equality of course. Salt Creek. Golf Tournament to follow to raise money for The Twelve Tribes.
https://www.ocregister.com/…
I nominate St Barty Claus https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
nothing to say…bells going off in the city…festivities abound…THE CENTERFOLD~
U r more flexible than I imagined DSSS.
ha. never pulled that off. have vertigo and meditation helps. physical therapist say I should meditate standing on my head. told him to fuck off!
Lol. Happy Thanksgiving.
“There must be some kind of way out of here”
Said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion
I can’t get no relief”
Businessmen, they, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None will level on the line
Nobody of it is worth, hey, hey
“No reason to get excited”
The thief, he kindly spoke
“There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke, but, uh
But you and I, we’ve been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely, now
The hour’s getting late” Hey (Dylan)
“Oh, I could hide ‘neath the wings
Of the bluebird as she sings
The six o’clock alarm would never ring…”
“we were once heroes…”
https://i2.wp.com/standupjo…
Jack could pull his board up a cliff face and dive off into a drop. He can be legend.
come again?
He wasn’t just a pretty face or hot body.
handstands on the cliff with a 1-1/2 twist leaping to join his already tossed-in leashless board…cowells, later, Jack’s/
what’s your wavelengethengtht?
Board? 6’10. Wave? Whatever can be ridden.:) But got nothin to prove so smaller waves are okay as long as they aren’t flat or mushy.
wanna co-write a screenplay with JenSee and the couch potato?
What would it be about?
active women surfers: each with a domesticated male servant…who can cook, clean, and sew?
no?
Jack was good looking, but more than that. Guess I just miss how it was and who was in it.
I nominate DR. He’s a hunk. Into all genders on the spectrum, too. Pretty fucking smart bloke, to boot.
DR, please post in new mansions for sale section? bought it on the lowdown, need to sell it high…https://outdoorlivingtoday.com/wp-c…
Dekka might just bite, it’s got that rapey vibe he does so like.
And the koolest thing, he never forgot his 7th grade creative writing teacher, Ms. Hulling ,102, command, “you Never start a sentence without mentioning the subjects age”…
Don’t worry, Chas, I’ll do it. Just let me get my board out of th… whoa, this bag is *cough* dusty.
Okay, but you’ll have to be known as Karl Von F and naturally you will be romantically linked to Kat Von D for all time. And you will show up in Beach Grit for your cuddly hi-jinx and sultry dating escapades, real or not, while your surf style is completely eclipsed and eventually ignored all together. You know where this goes, bro. We all do. Just saying.
Sounds like a win to me. The less people think about my style and how badly I surf, the better.
😂😂😂