"The Toecutters, Australia's most murderous gang, was named after the way they tortured and killed the only father I'd ever known.”

The once cute-as-a-button Australian surfer Larry Blair, who famously won back-to-back Pipe Masters titles with long flaxen hair sprouting from the middle of his crown, back when the Pipe Masters meant something, has revealed the gruesome torture and murder of his step dad, and his family’s life on the run.

In a new book titled The Outside, written with his pal Jeremy Goring, Lazza says his Daddy, the bank robber Frank “Baldy” Blair, was part of a gang that stole almost six hundred gees in a robbery of an armoured van, one of the biggest heists in Australian history. It was the equivalent of nine mill in 2024 cash. 

The robbery would inspired the 1978 film Money Movers, directed by two-time Academy Award winning director Bruce Beresford.

“Dad and his two new Melbourne comrades, Steve, the Bomber, and Al (Alan Jones) from the Oshey, followed the armoured van to the bank then watched it stop at the usual luncheon spot in the adjacent car park. As always, after a half hour or so, the van door opened and one of the guards got out to dump the rubbish. At this point, Dad, the Bomber and Al, who had been crouched behind the van, pointed their silenced pistols at him and ordered all three guards to let them into the van or else they’d blow their fuckinging heads off. The only violence that occurred was when one of the guards had his glasses broken.” 

Larry’s mama, Patricia, was a hot as hell jewel thief and he says she kept the family together as they kept one step ahead of his Dad’s pals who wanted to kill him for his share of the cash. 

They got him in the end.

“They asked my father where the money was and to give up his share. Word has it that Baldy wouldn’t tell them anything. To get him to talk, Kevin Gore blowtorched his testicles and other parts of him with his trusty oxy-acetylene torch. He then lopped off his toes one by one with the boltcutters while Billy held him down. Frank “Baldy” Blair, the womanising bully, died of his wounds, and The Toecutters, Australia’s most murderous gang, was born: named after the manner in which they had tortured and killed the only father I’d ever known.”

Larry says his Dad’s corpse was dissolved in a barrel of acid and buried at Sydney airport. 

Amid all this Larry was finessing his surfing and when a scam with his mum was foiled when he was fifteen he jumped a plane to Hawaii.

Five years later he’d famously win the Coke Surfboard at Manly, followed by Pipe Masters wins in 1978 and 1979. 

Many wild stories! No trannies but still, very good. 

Buy the book! 

Owner of the three-level palace overlooking the surf at Laguna has taken a two-mill haircut after the joint fail to sell earlier this year.

The surf industry titan Joel Cooper, CEO of Lost International and co-founder of iconic eighties surf brand Gotcha, has listed his Laguna Beach compound, for twenty-three million dollars. 

Cooper’s house, which has been styled in the form of a Balinese villa hatched on Californian shores, turtles in little ponds, antique Balinese day bed, heavy wooden doors, slate roof and so on, is in the “ultra-exclusive” gated Irvine Cove community there and stares down the canyon at pretty Laguna. 

It was built in 2002 and squats on half-an-acre of dirt, has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a guesthouse, spa, soaking tub, cabana and a kid’s cubby house.

Cooper has been trying to sell or rent the joint for the past ten years. Back in 2017, you could’ve scooped it up for a reasonable enough nine mill. In March, 2024, Cooper was chasing twenty-five mill. Now it’s back to twenty-three.

“One of the goals of building this house was to be able to experience living in Bali and yet living in California,” says Cooper. “As a young child growing up in South Africa, I always dreamed of coming to America. My second dream was to build a home and there was one place that represented everything that I wanted in a home, and that was Bali.” 

Cooper says he wept when he got the keys to the finished house and says it was a moment he’ll never forget. 

Bit of history on the owner. 

Along with his pal, the pro surfer and coke aficionado Michael Tomson, Cooper co-founded Gotcha in 1978. The brand quickly became iconic, pioneering a shift in surf culture and fashion. 

Under Cooper’s business acumen, he’s got a degree in accounting, Gotcha’s sales escalated dramatically, reaching $200 million in annual revenue.

After he split from Gotcha in 1997, Cooper hooked up with BeachGrit’s fav shaper Matt Biolos’ Lost Enterprises Inc, where he became CEO.

Buy the joint here. 

Curvy white dude plays John Candy-esque role in latest shallow wave edit!

The BIPOC surf hero Mason Ho, spawn of the great Michael Ho and nephew of the even greater Dez Ho, has gone YouTube official with his latest guy-pal Baby Bear.

Mason, thirty-six, from Sunset Beach and described as surfing’s “Queen of Crazy” intoxicates his legions of surf fans with a impossible to dislike shuck and jive on explosive short-lived waves. 

Often, these videos include his close friends. 

There is Sheldon Paishon, who was homeless on Oahu’s westside for most of his life and whose documentary you simply must watch. 

There’s Keoni “Burger” Nozaki who says, “Mason just absorbs all that positive energy from his dad and from his Uncle Derek.”

In today’s video a curvy white dude called Baby Bear is unveiled. The role BB plays is as an excellent theatrical prop, a Chris Farley, a John Candy style physical comedian, although he seems relaxed in his vulnerability at this dangerous shallow wave.

Pioneering and essential.