Online sleuths with magnifying glasses show Kelly Slater using BeachGrit as a special in-your-pocket encyclopedia!
You don’t have to dig too far into the ol archives to realise that Kelly Slater, greatest athlete of all time with the possible exception of Rickson Gracie, ain’t a fan of your ol pals at BeachGrit.
Anyway, online sleuths, have foiled Kelly Slater’s supposed avoidance of all things BeachGrit in an Instagram post by Bob Hurley, the “razor sharp surf magnate”.Kelly Slater and his guilty BeachGrit-lovin’ telephone.
It’s an innocuous enough post.
Kelly Slater talks about a surfboard Florida’s Matt Kechele had made for the Typhoon Lagoon wave pool, which is now in his possession. It is five-foot five long and featured on the cover of Surfing in 1988. Subsequently, it was owned by the Malloy brothers and used as a learn-to-surf tool by their kids.
Adam Fincham was a research professor from the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, at the University of Southern California. When Kelly came knocking in 2006, swinging his idea of a barrelling man-made wave.
Fincham had worked mostly in Europe and didn’t know who Slater was. But Fincham “pulled together a team of colleagues and undertook a pilot study in 2007.
They decided that, yes, it was possible.”
Two years later, Fincham was director for science at KSWC, working out of a lab in Culver City, just of out of LA, and using a 1/15th model scale for testing.
Kelly Slater referencing BeachGrit while at his pool? His essential guide to all things surf? Kelly Slater’s portable reference tool?
Readers ask: does this suggest better days ahead for the two spearheads of surfing?
Sixteen years ago, Dorian Paskowitz said, "God will surf with the devil if the waves are good.” He was wrong.
Like any other Israeli surfer, me and my bro Alex’s life revolved around the surf and skate park at Hilton Beach in the eighties and nineties.
But that childhood as an Israeli surfer had a wild background, a background of a country seeking peace on one hand and constant threat on our lives from the other.
Our dad gone for months in the early eighties to fight radicals in Lebanon.
The scud missiles being shot from Iraq in the early nineties.
Buses exploding in the heart of Tel Aviv in the mid-nineties. Stabbings and shooting on the streets in the 2000’s.
Always the feeling, what next?
But there was always a great trust in our protective might, the IDF army and its leaders and the eternal motto of the Jews “Am Israel Chai” or “The people of Israel live.”
In August 2007, two years after Israel disengaged from Gaza, forcefully evacuating Jewish families who lived there, the people of Gaza chose Hamas, whose very charter called for the extermination of the Jewish state, as their democratically elected rulers.
It was a true volatile situation, even worse than before if that was possible.
The animosity on both ends always existed but we believed we could create a little love in people’s hearts and show them that at the grassroots level, with no politicians, we could make a change.
Maybe it was only in our hearts to start with but we hoped we were planting the seeds of trust through surfing.
We are not clueless nor oblivious to the ongoing situation or history. Our Dad owned a restaurant that employed workers from Gaza and at times if needed they would stay in Tel-Aviv due to blockades and sleep in our beds.Yes they were our family!
But they also stole from us. We always kept in mind, do the best you can to show you’re willing to co-exist but know who the other side is.Our parents raised us on the values of mutual respect and that giving starts the receiving process.
The bottom line of this story that most Israeli’s strive for peace until we cannot anymore and war is inflicted up on us. The world points the finger at us but the river of anti-semitism flows through the capitals of the world.
After all these years we realize this hate is on a subconscious level. We see student clubs from top universities in the US protest against Israel all the way to LGBTQ organizations and porn stars, people who would be executed in Gaza.
We see Greta Thunberg protesting against Israel, without even understanding who Hamas is.
We do believe that both the world will eventually say NO to radical Islam and appreciate the effort made by Israel, the only liberal nation in the middle east and the only productive nation in the region.
Our people created a miracle in the desert in 75 years. We do not believe we are the chosen people but we are chosen now to sound the alarm of the risk of radical Islam to the world.
Wake up and smell the dead bodies of October 7. The bodies mutilated. The women raped. The children shot.
With our country again under threat let me ask. Will the atrocities of October 7 free the people of Gaza?
The dream is dead.
When we stood at the Erez Crossing with the boards in our arms Dorian said, “God will surf with the devil if the waves are good.”
Sixteen years later, I’m happy Dorian can’t see this because the devil doesn’t want to surf.
Instead the devil chants, “From the river to the sea” which means erasing Israel.
That Devil is now fuelled by an open river of antisemitism of the non-Muslim world which justifies the Hamas actions, people rejoicing after October 7.
The only question left is, how will you react when evil breaks down your door.
Editor’s note: Posted above is a little movie I made on my first trip to Israel in 2014 to document the little state and the Israeli surfer. Shortly after it was released, I split Stab to start BeachGrit with dear ol Chas Smith, whom you know. After supposed pressure from readers, Stab cut the opening couple of minutes of the film which included footage of the death camps and the 1948 War of Independence, there as a little scene setting to explain why the joint was created in the first place, along with two important quotes.
First, from JFK: “Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom” and, second, from the Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Amin al-Husseini on Radio Berlin, “Arabs! Arise as one and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you.” Gotta remember, the mufti’s quote came before Israel existed.
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Glitch fixed. Photo: Office Space
Surf industry magically discovers nearly 100 more people to fire!
In a move shocking business analysts worldwide, the surf industry has magically unburied nearly 100 more people to fire. The Orange County Register is reporting that Authentic Brands Group sacked 84 souls. The New York City based management company completed purchase of the surf industry less than two months ago. Quiksilver, Billabong, RVCA, DC Shoes and more.
The acquisition celebrated at Costcos country-wide.
Before the sale, “Boardriders,” as the surf industry was then called, canned what it thought was everyone. Nearly 7000 hard-working surf industry employees sent to the bread lines.
Surf industry questions swirl
As the dust settles, business analysts are wondering where the 84 were hiding. The human resources operative in charge of handing out pink slips insists that all bathroom stalls were thoroughly checked. Also underneath all desks and break room closets.
Covid work-from-home rules might be to blame. Quiksilver, Billabong, RVCA, DC Shoes and more managers still practicing “an abundance of caution.”
One likely culprit may be the warehouse where Kelly Slater’s K brand stored its unsold wears.
Now that the entire surf industry has been fired, business experts are wondering if #surfonomics will also disappear. According to the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association, “The surf industry is driven by a growing, passionate, and vibrant customer base of participants in the United States. #Surfonomics is how we define the financial scale and impact of surfing on the global economy.”
It seems extremely likely.
Here, in any case, is a collection of inspirational quotes by people who have been fired.
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. -Steve Jobs
My mom kicked me out a couple of weeks before my 18th birthday. I had a job for about six, seven months at a supermarket, and they fired me for being late. -Cardi B
That should do. I hope you feel better now.
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Griff Colapinto, bullish going into hip surgery. | Photo: @griffincolapinto
Surf world rallies behind Griffin Colapinto after title contender endures same hip surgery as Kelly Slater
"I got an MRI and now I’m waking up today with a fresh labrum surgery from one of the goats Dr Warren Kramer."
Only one month ago, Kelly Slater revealed he’d just undergone gruelling hip surgery for a “shredded” labrum.
The hip labrum, if y’didn’t know, is a ring of cartilage that lines the rim of the hip joint socket. It deepens the socket, which gives stability to the joint, acts a sorta shock absorber when you rum and jump and helps lube the joint. A small but real important part of the machine.
Slater, who’s fifty-one, said his hip has been real bad ever since he did the splits on a wipeout at Sunset thirty-two years ago and thought he’d snapped his femur. A few years later he was towing in Tahiti and doing flips off the back of waves when he landed weird, hurt his hip, and then in the summer of 2000 he went in for surgery to clean up the mess.
Slater employed the noted orthopaedic surgeon Warren Kramer for a complete Labral reconstruction, the doc using a dead man’s labrum to replace Slater’s old beat-up cartilage.
“Warren got in there and said it looked like a war zone, said he had to get in there and chop through the woods,” said Slater.
Last night, the world title contender Colapinto, who is almost thirty years younger than Slater, got his Labrum surgery from Kramer, too.
So, turns out this last half of 2023 I’ve been surfing with a torn labrum in my right hip. I did it during one of my heats in Wetsern Australia when I hit one of the scary Margaret River end sections and as I landed I compressed the bone up into my laybrum tearing it from 11 to 1 o’clock. The pain wasn’t that bad so I thought it was something to do with my muscle, and maybe it was a pinching thing going on but obviously I’m no doctor haha.
I surfed the rest of the season trying to figure this thing out until the season finally finished I got an MRI and now I’m waking up today with a fresh labrum surgery from one of the goats @drwarreng . Thank you @drwarreng 🙏. So word on the streets is recovery could be anywhere from 2 to 4 months for athletes. So now ill start a new journey to hopefully come back better than ever and ready to compete at pipeline with my brothers in 2024!
Surfer killed in terrorist raid on civilians described as "like ISIS on steroids".
Back on October 7 Hamas commandos went on a wild Jew-killin’ spree, ostensibly as as strike on their Zionist enemy, but also ‘cause Hamas sure do like killing Hebes.
Little boys and girls shot dead while cowering under tables families burned in piles, dancers at a music festival gunned down like hogs as they fled the killers, a terrorist rage described as “like ISIS on steroids.”
It drove the west nuts, but not as you’d expect – sympathy, let’s catch the bastards – but in a frenzy of Palestinian pride.
In front of the Sydney Opera House lit up with the Israeli flag Australians screamed “Gas the Jews!”
In Times Square, an African-American preacher delighted at the killing of “hipsters.” Stores in London vandalised. Green and red fireworks filling the night skies in all cities.
Even trans-in-sports and equal-pay-for-gals activist Lucy Small got into the action, posting vision of a Hamas gunman in his paraglider en route to slaughter innocents with the caption, “Palestinians in Gaza made history as they escaped the world’s largest prison”.
Anyway, all that don’t matter to fifteen-year-old Carmel Bachar and his mum and dad. As he lay bleeding to death, Carmel asked to be buried with his surfboard and alongside his mama, Dana, also killed by Hamas.
His Dad Avida, who lost both his legs in the attack, arrived to the double funeral of his son and wife, in a wheelchair.
