"It’s funny how you portrayed one of the nicest pro surfers as the 'worst' without any explanation of why."
It has been a heck of a week for surfing’s most premium blog Stab. Heck of a week.
Things got off weird, just five days ago, when the subscription-based outlet delivered a cashmere cuddly “interview” with the World Surf League’s Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer which succeeded in not asking any difficult question. Fans instantly revolted but instead of taking it on the handsome chin, co-founder Sam McIntosh decided to double down with a throaty defense of “access journalism,” wherein Stab purposefully babies its subjects in order to be friends.
It all might have ended there… except the entirely loved, and just released, second season of How Surfers Get Paid did former Championship Tour stalwart Jack Freestone dirty.
The episode under the microscope features surfboard shapers discussing trade secrets and also fingering Freestone as a “difficult customer.
Stab, as it is wont to do, attempted to avoid fireworks by claiming the lantern-jaw’d Freestone was “in on it,” penning, “Also, a big thanks must go to Jack Freestone. This episode featured some loose ends and ‘off the record’ quotes from our talent. We interviewed Jack and he was gracious, good humoured and totally unperturbed to have a few jabs by shapers let in.”
Well, in a wild escalation of the blood feud, Freestone’s better half, and surf star, Alana Blanchard weighed in, excoriating Stab after its recent Instagram post captioned “Loyalty is a two-way street” with, “I’m surprised you have the word ‘loyalty’ in your vocabulary. It’s funny how you portrayed one of the nicest pro surfers as the ‘worst’ without any explanation of why. And not too mention you twisted it so it looked like he knew everything that was said about him. #dobetter”
Ouch and especially when an entire business model is built upon being as soft as a down pillow.
Access journalism, I suppose, tricker than previously thought.
As stated before, I spent fifteen or twenty minutes with Freestone in Lemoore and found him to be nothing but open, honest and charming. I am absolutely certain I would feel the same way about Blanchard.
BeachGrit in the Park.
Any publicity’s, good publicity.
The Freestones are back baby!
Stab will do an apology piece & she’ll have a shiny new Krispy Kreme nose sticker on her beige mid length in time for Xmas
Exiting times Stab, how much is a sub again..
*Exciting times
NB Truth is currently negotiating with JP for a BG comment proof reading contract.
DD is being conducted with JPs new found self importance.
Exciting times.
Poor Chad. Sam lives rent free in his head. But why? Is it because he charges and you’re a kook? Because he’s handsome as you weirdly always mention, and you’re creepy? Because he’s a humble dude and you’re kind of a dick? Or because he’s self made and you’re a handbag (and, sometimes punching bag)? Please explain…
Think comparing her to Circe would be better.
Don’t think that Stab video had anything to do with Jack!
wonder. is the mother-in-law a looker? the future may look bleak.
Surely Jack was more upset when Stab tied a piece of steak around his neck…. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Rachel Madcow…
Alana Blanchard and Jack Freestone used to be important surfers, particularly Alana with her social media followers, the kind of surfers STAB would bend over backwards not to offend.
Not so much anymore. Time to look for a real job –
Influencers are easily hurt. Their feelings live in front of everyone one on insta-brag. It’s a lot of pressure. Plus Jack used to have a hot baby mama and now she is just a baby mama. That’s got to such for bot of them. Shame on STAB.
Isn’t this the same social media duo that twisted Alana’s sponsorship loss as a result of a slow decline into irrelevance and the fact she hadn’t done any work recently into a feminist campaign against the malicious and oppressive patriarchy?
Glass ceilings!
The standard conservative critique (SCC) posits that historically marginalized communities contend that every decision is connected to their historically marginalized status rather than the realities of current economic and world events.* The problem with the SCC of course is that some decisions are in fact motivated by bias against such communities.
Layered on this reality is the further complication that humans are complex creatures with both conscious and subconscious motivations for their decisions, such that it is nearly impossible to disentangle whether any given decision is, in fact, motivated by conscious objective factors such as economic realities — or motivated by subjective, unconscious factors, such as bias against a historically marginalized community.
But wait, the SCC suggests — a society cannot function if objective realities are not given primacy over subjective unconscious mysteries. The observable world cannot be subjugated to unknowable ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes,’ otherwise chaos would ensue.
But wait again responds the HMC: what is objectivity if not the world as framed by the template constructed by the historical ruling (and current) dominant factions?
Which is to say that the fundamental complaint of HMCs is not, in every case, purely a distinction between objectivity and subjectivity but rather an assault on the fundamental nature of objectivity itself.
Again, the SCC response falls back to crying foul, conjuring scenes of chaos and anarchy, a world with no standards or values, at least as defined, ironically but not coincidentally, by the very progenitors of the SCC. A dystopian future, they say, one without gods or angels.
To which one might respond, ‘welcome to 2023, bitches.’ Which response of course generates SM engagement and maybe even clout but in the end does not put cash in sponsor’s bank accounts.
All of which leads to the realization that the fundamental realities of the universe, which cannot be questioned, are these: i) cash is king, but ii) rich men are going to hell.
*(All content and citations to RL: A historical and ahistorical critique regarding the existential nature of ex pro female Hawaiian surfers’ complaints re: sponsorship loss, Sept. 2023)
Hang on, if I was marginalised by the French and the Vikings when they invaded (not to mention the bloody Romans) does that mean I am from a Historically Marginalised Community?
as a person with an entire ancestry line going directly to Norway and further back to the Viking days, let me be the first to apologize for all the pillaging. And yes, you might have HMC status, but that and a dollar will get you half a bar of used sex wax. Cash is king, in every corner of the globe!
ha! I pillaged first. Alana scent candles coming soon!
Vikings weren’t very good at reparations. And no, they didn’t wear horned helmets. I’m a descendant and can sail…but never could shoot an arrow straight. Otherwise, Alana would be pillaged.
I want a Viking funeral so would I be appropriating their culture or supporting their genocidal tendencies.?
Valhalla is very welcoming!
I hope so!
The Patriarchy always wins.
“How’a the wife and kids?”
BG should totally do an Alana interview , lots of pictures in bikinis please , ( for research purposes )
Just open your phone ya perv, you can find Mrs Freestone and a thousand dime a dozen more that aren’t much different. At least they have the balls (according to DR) to show you the goods.
bringing in the reclaimed wood coffee table………. ready to be hurdled.
It’s personal for Chas. His audience is himself.
The reader is like his therapist, sitting in a chair nodding. You want him to move on but you just sit there staring at the ceiling, looking at your watch.
But he keeps the McIntosh monologue going until he tires himself out.
Me: OK, that will be $500.
Chas: That was worth every cent.
Me: See you next Tuesday.
Chas: I’ll be there.
Me: One thing, Chas. I think we’re just scratching the surface. I want to challenge you to branch out beyond Mr. McIntosh.
Chas: Sure thing. How about Sam George?
So it’s Chas’s fault Stab and Sam put their collective foots in their mouths kissing WSL ass and angering c level surf stars. Internet fodder at its highest these days which does not say much.
I have to occasionally critique the master critic, a nervous student standing up in class to question his esteemed professor, otherwise I feel like a Chas fan boy. And Chas would say that’s not a barrel so the formula to remedy that is that 25% of my comments must be critical and 75% laudatory .
Tuesday is light years away
The header Chas wished he developed…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk…
Proofreading, I suppose, tricker than previously thought.
Chas, who once mocked Sarah Brady for her inability to move on from her neverending trove of Jonah Hill posts, has newfound sympathy for and solidarity with the spurned lover. Bc getting revenge is sweet and sometimes it’s hard to stop. You know you should kick out but you don’t want it to end. So you keep going and going until it closes out and takes you down with it.
I don’t think the glasses loses any sleep over how well he sanded it!
Shaper doesn’t even need to put the channels in – they let Mason do it himself.
Those two gronks must be about due for round three.
Handy Hint Of The Day
Put a dead goldfish inside the cover of a library book.
The smell will remind you when the book is overdue for return.
(a similar handy hint for internet article subject matter is long overdue)
Actually very sound advice, cheers.
Haha, I’ve just subscribed and enjoying the content! I feel dirty! But a hot kinda dirty reoooow.
Xox
As a victim blamer, was the surfboard asking for it?
Chas, any chance you recently sold your soul at the crossroads?? Hard to imagine any other explanation for this run of events.