Meryl Streep (pictured) barreled. Photo: Mama Mia
Meryl Streep (pictured) barreled. Photo: Mama Mia

Film Icon Meryl Streep shouts out Palm Springs Surf Club in moving award show speech!

Chas Smith

By

"Surf that wave, kids."

It is, officially, award season in Hollywood. That wonderful time of year when actors and actresses, directors and producers dress in lavish black tie and fill ballrooms or auditoriums with their glamor. Plebes, at home on Hungry Man Salisbury steak-stained La-Z-Boys watch the proceedings on free-to-air television and dream.

Last night, you certainly know, was the Golden Globe awards. Host Jo Koy gave what was universally described as a “cringe-worthy” performance though it hardly dented the joy winners Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon), Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers), Sarah Snook (Succession) or Beef felt whilst hosting their participation trophies.

Now, the Golden Globes are certainly wonderful but the official award season kick-off occurs days before in Palm Springs, California which hosts the annual Palm Springs International Film Awards.

That affair was wonderfully luxe but also sprinkled with wave tank magic. The Palm Springs Surf Club, which opened January 1st, has been top of mind for those traveling to the desert and dominated the proceedings.

Singer-songwriter Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas won “best song” there for their Barbie hit “What was I made for?” Film icon Meryl Streep, handing them the gilded miniature Liberace piano, had other thoughts to share, though, declaring “You have delivered the Barbie love bomb. You saved the movies last summer, all of our jobs. You’ve delivered joy to countless generations and genders of people,” she began before pivoting, “And you should surf that wave, kids – until you’re old and deserve to be jaded like me.”

Billie Eilish and Finneas certainly should surf that wave, we all should, but what setting do you imagine they’d select? A slabbing barrel to air or something a little more user friendly? Whatever they chose, I don’t think it can go wrong. They can listen to inventor Tom Lochtefeld share and make an informed pick.

Surf that wave.

Joaquin Del Castillo breaks hip in Pipeline wipeout
Joaquin pieced together hip, inside and out, after Pipeline wipeout.

Peruvian surfer who shattered hip in Pipeline wipeout pleads for help with $100k medical bill!

Derek Rielly

By

“That wave must’ve just drove you straight into the reef.”

Christmas Day held little joy for the Peruvian surfer Joaquin Del Castillo, a surfer known for the kinkiness of his aerial game as well as a proven ability to impound himself in the Pipeline palace. 

Joaquin, who is twenty eight, suffered ten, yeah…ten, hip fractures after a catastrophic Pipeline wipeout, a wild old run for the joint which already has six scalps hanging off its belt only one month into the season. 

World number four Joao Chianca was dragged unconscious from the water at Pipe by teenage surfer Jake Maki, Teahupoo kingpin Eimeo Czermak lost the use of his legs and got belted with a concussion after going over the falls at the Vans Pipe Masters, Koa Rothman left a little of his face on the coral, a helmeted Pipe novice was pulled from the water on a pretty four-foot day after a wipeout that knocked him out cold and, most recently, Kai Lenny was concussed after splitting his helmet open on the reef during his SUP heat at the Backdoor Shootout.

In an Instagram post, Joaquin shows the x-ray of his pieced-together hip, along with the swinging fullness of his ball-bag, the scar, and asks surfers and any fans to continue sending cash into his GoFundMe account ‘cause he limped away from hozzy with a one-hundred gee bill in his pocket. 

So far, he’s raised around twenty gees.

“Two weeks into my operation after breaking my iliac bone in 10 pieces surfing Backdoor, I’m already at about 20% of the total Hospital amount,” he writes of life post-Pipeline wipeout.

“I am home @tubos_surf_school on the North Shore where I will continue my recovery with the goal of walking again for now and eagerly waiting to get on a plane and go home to Peru.”

Throw a shekel (or Sol) into the pot here. 

 

Clark (insert) approved.
Clark (insert) approved.

Maverick’s pioneer Jeff Clark claims recent monster swell produced “best ever footage” from iconic big wave break!

Chas Smith

By

Big talk from a legend.

Now, I have never met the Maverick’s pioneer Jeff Clark, personally, though I have heard things. Namely, that is grouchy. And grumpy. Grousy. Cantankerous. Crotchety. Querulous. Etc. Certainly not the sort to make superlative World Surf League-esque claims about “biggest” or “best” or “the momentum of professional surfing being real.”

And so, when the 67-year-old curmudgeon told the San Francisco Chronicle that the recent super swell event that blessed the entirety of California was the “best Maverick’s footage of all-time” it is worth consideration.

Clark, famously, paddled Maverick’s alone at the age of seventeen, friends refusing to join him, and proceeded to surf the beast alone for the next fifteen years.

Then, one morning, a teenager snuck into Clark’s van and secretly came with him to Maverick’s. After discovering him, and being cantankerous, Clark agreed to teach the young man the “foundation pillars of surfing.” These involved treading water for 40-minutes and being able to hold breath for 4-minutes underwater.

Though not thinking his charge ready, Clark was proved wrong after the kid followed him into the lineup and impressed with both fearlessness and rail control. Clark told him to keep the break secret, but his notebook accidentally fell into the wrong hands and the next time the two went for a surf it was crowded with many boats etc. While Clark was frustrated, none of the surfers could ride successfully until the kid paddled. At first he wiped out too but gave it another go, airdropped to sick bottom turn and everyone got super stoked.

In any case, here is the footage. Not that your opinion matters, since Clark already claimed it was the best of all-time, but what is it?

Also, why don’t big wave surf contests exist anymore?

Something to ponder, maybe.

Bracken P Darrell and Sean Penn, Vans
New Vans CEO Bracken Darrell (from the WSJ) and Sean Penn, who kicked it all off by belting his stoned skull with a pair of Vans checkerboard slip-ons. | Photo: Fast Times/WSJ

Troubled surf-skate giant Vans turns to former Old Spice exec as company debt balloons to $6.7 billion

Derek Rielly

By

New boss Bracken Darrell says Vans gotta bring back that “f**k you attitude”

It ain’t no secret that your favourite shoe co Vans, a brand that still has some cache about it and don’t make you embarrassed to wear, is bouncing on the ropes. 

Last week the Gudauskas brothers, proud ambassadors for Vans for almost the entire 21st century were shown the door, Mikey Feb is still hunting a contract from ‘em and Nathan Florence, surfer of the year, is in a sorta limbo land waiting for confirmation of his new offer. 

Just before Christmas, five hundred workers were fired as part of the company’s plan to “speed up the turnaround of the company’s Vans division and (parent company VF’s) overall North America business.”

Vans were also responsible, partly indirectly, partly by design, for the destruction of the Pipeline Masters, pro surfing’s most prestigious cultural relic. 

Now, its new CEO Bracken P Darrell, the sixty-year-old former CEO of Logitech, Whirlpool and senior exec at Old Spice, has stepped in to turn the ol’ ship around.

It ain’t gonna be easy.

Parent company VF’s net income has gone down ninety percent in a year and shares are down three-quarter since 2021. If you thought throwing your precious savings into VF shares was gonna make you rich, oowee, it’s been one of the worst buys on the market.

Debt is now almost seven bill US.

So what’s Daz gonna do?

Acording to the Wall Street Journal,

“Darrell spends much of his time at Vans’s Costa Mesa, Calif., campus trying to diagnose its problems and figure out how to fix them.

“He visits stores to talk to customers and works in the company cafeteria, where he shares his mobile number with employees. He plans to steer more investment into the brand and is pushing executives to develop new products faster. He is urging Vans employees to recapture the outsider mindset that many current and former employees say has slipped away as the brand has gone more mainstream. As one senior executive has told staff, “bring back the fuck you attitude.” 

“Darrell said Vans, which was founded in 1966, had become too reliant on five classic styles that it has sold since its infancy—including the checkerboard slip-ons worn in the movie ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High‘ by Sean Penn.

“Darrell is pushing executives to move faster to churn out new styles that are more in tune with current trends and has examined the designs for every product that Vans plans to introduce over the next three seasons.”

We’ve all been wearing Vans for years, know that it swings in and out of fashion, and that nobody wears anything but Authentics and Old Skools.

You gonna wear a pair of quasi-Nike Vans?

Or a style with foot-to-floor cushioning?

Or they gonna bring back the fabled Vans wool shoe, pushed by execs, refused to be built by designers?

 

Chubby fifteen-year-old Latinx girl off miniature motorbike and socking Ian Ziering. Photo: TMZ
Chubby fifteen-year-old Latinx girl off miniature motorbike and socking Ian Ziering. Photo: TMZ

Surf adjacent’s Ian Ziering opens up about getting pounded by gang of chubby teenage Latinx girls!

Chas Smith

By

"The incident has left me deeply concerned about the growing boldness of such groups who disrupt public safety and peace."

I frankly don’t know if any actor is more surf adjacent than one Ian Ziering (save Keanu Reeves and Matthew Perry). The now 58-year-old got his start on the 90s program Beverly Hills 90210, which was, itself, entirely surf adjacent. After a ten season run, Ziering, who played Steve Sanders, went into C-list purgatory until 2013 when the absurdist Sharknado became a surprise hit. Again, very surf adjacent.

The platinum blonde continued to draw a paycheck from subsequent spin-offs though slowly re-entered the aforementioned limbo until six-ish days ago when he decided to fight a gang of chubby fifteen-year-old Latinx girls on miniature motorbikes.

The wildness all went down a week ago on Hollywood Blvd. when video captured Ziering getting out of his Mercedes-Benz and swinging wildly at a gang of chubby fifteen-year-old Latinx girls on miniature motorbikes.

For some reason, Ziering decided to address fighting a gang of chubby fifteen-year-old Latinx girls on miniature motorbikes by taking the offensive instead of burying his head in shame.

“In an attempt to assess any damage I exited my car,” he wrote. “This action, unfortunately, escalated into a physical altercation, which I navigated to protect myself.” Unstated “from a gang of chubby fifteen-year-old Latinx girls on miniature motorbikes.”

He continued without shame or irony, “I am relieved to report that my daughter and I are both completely unscathed, but the incident has left me deeply concerned about the growing boldness of such groups who disrupt public safety and peace. This situation highlights a larger issue of hooliganism on our streets and the need for effective law enforcement responses to such behavior.”

His co-star on Beverly Hills 90210 Brian Austin Green, taking to Instagram, shared, “My boy Ian Ziering got in a fist fight on Hollywood Boulevard with five dudes* and f—ing beat them… did it, did his thing. He’s a monster. He’s f—ing incredibly fit.”

What a day and a surf adjacent fight that rivals the great açaí slap of 2018, or whenever that was.

Very cool.

*A gang of chubby fifteen-year-old Latinx girls on miniature motorbikes

Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
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