Paddle over the proverbial ledge with friends!

"Lewd, crude and totally rude."

It is almost summer season in the northern hemisphere with all the joys therein. Long sun-dappled days, warm dreamy nights, gossip pages filled with stories of celebrities enjoying Montauk’s famed Surf Lodge and even some of them stand up paddling out into the brine on inflatable craft. “Surfing” as it were.

Ahhhhhhh.

Down under things are different, of course, with the calendar flipping to winter but that has not stopped an unnamed younger Australian woman from slamming the country’s surf shops as “creepy” in a blistering attack.

Taking to Reddit, the very flustered Victorian declared,

“I was in Queensland recently and it drives me nuts how surf shops only stock high waisted bottoms. I’ve looked thoughout Melbourne and a few regional places. I spent time in Maroochydore and Brisbane. I used to only buy surf bathers as they were cheap, decent quality, and looked cute. I understand there’s a demand for high crotch now but why is it so hard to find normal bottoms in store?”

An offensive picture was included for reference.

Shock and outrage immediately followed with some wondering “Why can’t surf shops sell swimwear that appeals to a wider range of personal tastes?” and others trying to wrap minds about the perversion, declaring, “Agree! I want something a little more modest for myself but I type ‘modest’ and get the other end of the spectrum. Why can’t there be a middle ground?”

One Reddit user, trying to be helpful, offered, “I love Unepiece, Alulu, and Infamous Swim – all online,” though more rage followed as she excluded Kelly Slater girlfriend Kalani Miller line Mikoh (shop here).

Over to you, though.

Do you find the high waisted-bikini trend to be lewd, crude and totally rude or are you on board?

"Essentially worthless."

Stab Magazine has added another page, as it were, to its gilded literary history. The subscription surf blog famous for declaring modern surf media “essentially worthless,” is certainly being shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize after publishing a glowing profile on onetime surf brand Hurley.

Hurley Can Now Legally Rent a Car begins thusly:

Surfing’s noughties industrial powerhouses had to adapt to survive.

Perhaps none so more than Hurley.

The brand who crashed onto the already-hot scene in 1999; reached the upper-echelons in lightning time; brokered bar-none the biggest takeover deal in surfing history when they sold to Nike in 2002; spearheaded the surfing tech revolution; signed the biggest athlete deal in surfing history (John Florence in 2016); then weathered the blur of crashes, mini-crashes, famines/floods and a plague on all of our houses, to emerge in 2024.

Still here. Still Hurley.

The author, unnamed though will hopefully reveal himself at the Pulitzer Prize Award Ceremony, goes on to describe in lush detail how the brand came into being and how its new owner, Bluestar Alliance, is actually cool and core and that beard oil, pool toys, fingernail clippers and deeply discounted men’s tech pant Costco drops are the future. Or, in his words, “Hey, that work/life balance birthed the surf industry the first time around. Who’s to say it won’t work again?”

Stab fans, and lovers of the written word, are relishing passages like… “Then along came this plucky, all-American surf brand from ‘Surf Mecca’ called Hurley — hand, meet glove.” And… “So you’ve got a stellar team — including two recent World Champs — a mix of new and old talent on staff, and a whole treasure trove of technical gear to reference and re-purpose, in a time when the world’s mad for technical gear.”

Reading them back and forth in reverential tones.

Essentially worthless indeed.

Huzzah.

"We regret that an event that was meant to be a conversation to celebrate an iconic movie instead became a platform for political views."

Surfers are a diverse-ish group ranging slightly in age, sex and race though all, everywhere, consider Richard Dreyfuss a hero. The 76-year-old actor has brought many wonderful characters to life though none more inspirational, to surfers, than Matt Hooper. Yes, the brave oceanographer who correctly identified that a massive great white shark was hunting ocean players, later crawling into a cage in order to poke it with poison, is a patron saint for wave sliders, many wearing his visage around their necks in small medallion form.

You can imagine the shock, then, when days ago, Dreyfuss attended a screening of Jaws, arriving in a flattering floral dress and proceeding to break into what is being described as an “anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+” screed. The event was scheduled in the small town of Beverly, Massachusetts and supposed to be a simple chat with the Hollywood icon with tickets running $300.

The subject matter, which also included a takedown of Barbara Streisand, was not appreciated by all.

Sarah Hogg and their partner, Jonah Hoffmann, attended but marched right out in protest, Hogg telling the Boston Globe, “I’m queer, I’m nonbinary. This is personal to me. It’s one of those moments where you feel like you’re having an out-of-body experience. It was horrifying.”

Cheri Ziegra forwent the media and took her disgust straight to Facebook, penning, “Apparently (I found out too late), he has a reputation for spewing this kind of racist, homophobic, misogynistic bullcrap. … We did NOT get what we paid for (which we all assumed would be a light, fun evening listening to stories and anecdotes about RD’s time on the Vineyard making ‘Jaws.’) This was offensive and we demand a refund.”

Theater director J. Casey Soward, feeling very bad, declared, “We regret that an event that was meant to be a conversation to celebrate an iconic movie instead became a platform for political views. We take full responsibility for the oversight in not anticipating the direction of the conversation and for the discomfort it caused to many patrons. We are in active dialogue with our patrons about their experience and are committed to learning from this event how to better enact our mission of entertaining, educating and inspiring our community.”

Surfers mortified.

The Dreyfuss team has yet to address the matter but will hopefully before the Tahiti Pro kicks off in under 24 hours.

Exciting.