Kai Mckenzie burning on the guitar, left, and tearing
up little Port Mac on his one stilt.
Surfer Kai Mckenzie who lost leg in Great
White attack releases epic shoe-gaze single he wrote in
hospital!
By Derek Rielly
Come for the Great White porn, stay for the dreamy
guitar textures and buried vocals!
The Rage teamdrider Kai Mckenzie, a surfer described by Noa
Deane as “tough as nails” has made even more lemonade from his
harvest of lemons with his latest gambit, an epic shoe-gaze
single he wrote in hozzy called Your In My Way.
“Then I got together with two of my good mates in a band called Roxferry (the brothers
brothers Clay and Jake Teiffel) and had a couple of beers and got
it down,” says Kai.
Kai, whose right stilt was bitten off by a fifteen-foot Great
White, all of it captured on video (don’t watch), creates a wall of
sound with layers of dreamy guitar textures and with his growling
vocals buried low in the track.
Aside from the unfortunate typo, but here we play loose with
grammar and punctuation so who are we to hurl stones, Kai
demonstrates he’s more than
just a pretty face, a tough cunt and a spectacular
headline.
Surf great Kelly Slater offers sage advice
after undergoing special forces weapons training
By Chas Smith
"When your brain is in the way, it slows you
down."
Kelly Slater’s surf bonafides need not one bit
of burnishing. Seven-time Pipe Master, one-time Pro Pipeline,
eleven world championships, one Eddie and this is not to mention
multiple “Surfer of the Year” nominations plus magazine covers. His
legion fans are also well aware that the almost 53-year-old is a
golf whizz, guitar master and sings like an angel.
Not yet witnessed is Slater’s skill with a gun. Rootin’,
tootin’, shootin’. Thankfully, the Special Forces Charitable
Foundation put a pistol in his hand and let him rip the range.
Afterward, the father of two opened up about the experience,
sharing “(Shooting) is not familial to me, shot when I was a kid
but haven’t shot in decades. Have to make it your natural
environment in order to compete at 100 percent. When I surf I don’t
think, my brains not in the way. With anything else, your brain is
in the way and it slows you down.”
Wise words.
But how would you rate your own skills with lock, stock and
barrel? Would you beat Kelly Slater in a shoot-off?
Would you gloat?
Rude.
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Surfers (pictured) doing surfing tourism. Photo: Surf
School
Surfing tourism market forecasted to
explode to $12 billion in five years!
By Chas Smith
Invest today!
Once upon a time (six years ago), a terrible
cough/sore throat combination swept the globe and forced people to
get healthy, isolated outdoor exercise. As playing horseshoes and
hopscotch required partners, surfing quite naturally became the
obvious activity and millions upon millions of enthusiasts were
born.
These adult learners, many vulnerable, purchased boards and
wetsuits, leashes and wax and sent the surf hard-good market
booming. Ding repair operations did brisk business as well as no
one knew the rules nor cared to learn. There they paddled out, en
masse, near their homes, socially distanced but one in spirit.
It appears, though, that they might be wanting a touch more
social distance as new economic analysis has forecasted the surfing
tourism market to explode in girth through the decade.
Currently valued at $9.58 billion, surfing tourism will blast to
$12.31 billion by 2028. That is a 6.5% compound annual growth rate
for the junior economists out there.
Gains will be spread
across “Surf Schools And Lessons, Surf Camps And
Retreats, Surf Resorts And Accommodations, Surf Tours And
Expeditions, Equipment Rentals And Sales” and include
“LineUpEXplorers GmbH, The Perfect Wave Travel, Channel Islands
Surfboards Inc., Body Glove International LLC, World Surfaris Pty
Ltd, Firewire Surfboards LLC, Costa Rica Surf Travel Company,
Wavehunters Surf Travel Pty Ltd, Waterways Surf Adventures, Nomad
Surfers, Atoll Travel, The Ocean Spell Surf Travel, True Blue
Travel, BruSurf Inc., Great Ocean Road Surf Tours, INTRO Travel Pty
Ltd, Mojosurf Pty Ltd, Go Overseas Inc., Driftwood Mentawai Surf
Travel, Surf and Sun.”
Champagne corks being popped in Kelly Slater’s Thai surfboard
factory today.
With this entirely bullish outlook, are you considering quitting
your current job and hopping into the surfing tourism industry?
Remember when bitcoin was at $27,000 and you were tempted to buy
in?
Go with your gut this time.
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Interview: Jed Smith on Tulsi Gabbard’s
switcharoo to Donald Trump
By Derek Rielly
"You’ve got Tulsi, ex-Democrat, Elon, ex-Democrat,
Joe Rogan, ex-Democrat, Robert F Kennedy Jr, ex-Democrat, Donald
Trump, ex-Democrat…the Republican Party is run by old school
Democrats!"
In 2019, Ain’t That Swell podcasters, Jed Smith and
Vaughan Blakey, spent forty-five minutes on a Skype call to the
then wanna-be democratic nominee for the presidential
race, Tulsi Gabbard
Vaughan woke up one morning to a DM from Tulsi, a surfer,
saying.“Hey guys, love the show, love to come on sometime.”
Vaughan’s nostrils, you’ll remember, were almost fatally
distended by the presidential perfume.
Tulsi performed well on the show, she referenced other episodes
of Ain’t That Swell and patiently remained silent as the
broadcast was diverted by Jed Smith on his many wonderful little
rants.
But fast-forward five years and Tulsi is the new Director of
National Intelligence under Republican President Donald Trump. It
was a hell of a switcharoo and one I knew my ol pal Jed Smith would
have an opinion on.
So I call up Jed, thirty-seven now and living a thousand clicks
away from his Bondi neighbourhood. I figure he’ll hit me with some
socialist and wildly anti-capitalist bullshit, which I’ll secretly
enjoy and mostly agree with, and tell me Tulsi’s a turncoat, a
sell-out etc.
He don’t.
“I’m loving her,” he says in the same recognisable Australian
drawl that brings in tens of thousands of listeners to his and
Vaughan’s podcast. “She’s exactly the same person. It’s so
interesting, man. You’ve got Tulsi, ex-Democrat, Elon, ex-Democrat,
Joe Rogan, ex-Democrat, Robert F Kennedy Jr, ex-Democrat, Donald
Trump, ex-Democrat…the Republican Party is run by old school
Democrats! A vote for change is a vote for the Republican Party
which is run by old school left-wing people.”
Jed says Tulsi hits all the points you should care about, like
the looming spectre of nuclear war.
“She’s anti that shit. She’s been calling out the threat of a
nuclear war for years and years. That’s her main thing, stopping
America’s imperialist interventions abroad. She wants to quell the
fucking threat of nuclear war. What could be wrong with that? I
don’t give a fuck if she’s wearing a red hat or a blue hat. I don’t
want the world to go up in smoke. She’s a veteran and when you’re
part of that military culture, a shit kicker, it’s a brutal
truth-telling culture, same as the bottom end of the working class.
You call a spade a spade and the fact she’s in the Republican
Party, well, that’s fucking epic. The Democrats black-balled her.
They weren’t going to give her shit and they shut out Bernie
Sanders. The Democratic Party is a write off. You’re mad to have
any faith in ‘em.
We talk a little about why Hillary Clinton claimed Tulsi was a
Russian asset. Jed says it’s ‘cause Clinton’s a stooge of the
fabled military industrial complex; I think it’s ‘cause Tulsi, hot
as fuck, a little colour in her skin, smarter, a vet, a woman, was
stealing nasty old cuckquean’s thunder.
I tell him, you should get Tulsi back on Ain’t That
Swell. Director of National Intelligence v Jed and Vaughan.
Tell me that won’t get the needle firing north.
“I should hit her up again but I don’t like my chances. She’s
one of the biggest hitters in the world, one of the most famous
people in the world. Mate, it was crazy when she was on the show.
Forty minutes. She cut deep, straight to the bone. Didn’t shy away
from anything. And we get blowback from people when they listen to
that interview now. Messages saying, how can you support her? I’m,
like, what do you mean? What is your problem with her? We get these
die-hard Californian Democrats telling us we can’t support her. We
hate you. You’re out of the club.”
Ol Jedaum sighs the sigh of a man, a good man, a surfer and not
the new sort that has little crumblings of baby powder in his
underarms from his anti-rash regimes.
“The culture wars are so nauseating. So spun. You know, it’s so
simple. Most people want dignity for the poor and an end to
poverty. Fundamental common sense shit. Decent housing. Good
quality food not full of poison and plastic and fucking vaccines
that aren’t going to fuck us all it. It’s all pretty fucking
reasonable. Who fucking wouldn’t want that?”
Jed pauses.
“Fuck!”
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John Milius (center) sharing opinions. Photo courtesy
Encyclopedia of Surfing
Surf cult Big Wednesday director John
Milius unloads on anyone who dared vote for Kamala Harris
By Chas Smith
"He thought the concept of Kamala Harris being
president… he has a very over-the-top way of putting things…"
There are only a small handful of films with a
surfing subject matter that can be considered “cult.” The Endless
Summer, North Shore and Big Wednesday and that is maybe all. The
latter, a sort of rambling late-1970s homage to Malibu, follows
three friends as they attempt to dodge service in Vietnam whilst
surfing and malingering on the beach. A decade, or such, later they
are reunited for a super swell and, if I recall, they are all
vaguely bummed that the best of life has passed them by.
Its director, John Milius, was moved to the beach at 14 and
called surfing his “religion” he would go on to write the
screenplay for Apocalypse Now before co-writing and directing Big
Wednesday, following that with Conan the Barbarian and Red Dawn in
1984 which, 40 years later, brings us to Milius today who happens
to be overjoyed that there was no proverbial red dawn in these
United States.
Milius’ daughter, Amanda, described her father as Donald Trump
patient zero, telling Fox, “My dad’s
been a Trump guy, honestly, since 2014. My dad has been on Team
Trump since, like, the moment you could be.”
Though the Academy Award-nominated auteur suffered a major
stroke in 2010, he maintained enough fire in his belly to loathe
Democrats. “He hated (Harris)!” Amanda continued, “I mean, he was
just laughing at the idea of it. He just thought it was ridiculous.
He thought the concept of Kamala Harris being president… he has a
very over-the-top way of putting things… but he basically said that
anyone who would consider voting for her for president was just an
idiot. He’s like, ‘There’s no – there’s no way this can be
serious.’ Like, it was just as unserious as Joe Biden. It was the
whole thing was unserious. He had, I think, a bit more vitriol for
Hillary [Clinton] because, you know, she’d been around longer and
he’d had more time to form opinions about her. But he was not
impressed, I guess we can say that.”
Fun.
Did you maintain that much political vitriol in your guts?
Me?
Well, I don’t wanna be a star. Have my picture in magazines,
have a bunch of kids looking up to me. I’m a drunk, a screw up. I
just surf ’cause its good to go out and ride with your friends.
