Pennywise (pictured) ready to put you in the mood.
Pennywise (pictured) ready to put you in the mood.

Forever young surf fans rejoice as Pennywise and other nostalgia acts announced for revamped Vans Warped Tour!

"We can’t wait to get our old Dickies shorts back on and rock this summer!”

There was a time, precisely thirty years ago, when chain wallets were a marker of exquisite taste, plaid could be mixed and matched with many other plaids, male hair was best in shades of dayglo plus spiked and music selected by the surf film impresario Taylor Steele formed the soundtrack of our lives.

The golden middle-1990s through middle-aughts. A decade of carefree livin’ and immature lovin’.

Well, those who miss their salad years will be thrilled to learn that the distressed cobbler Vans is bringing back its Warped Tour for 2025 and stocking the show with wonderful nostalgia acts. Simple Plan, Bowling for Soup, Dance Hall Crashers, Miss May I, Chandler Leighton and Pennywise have already been announced, but festival heavies plan to announce new acts each day over the next thirty.

Dates, thus far, include, Washington, D.C. (June 14-15) at the Festival Grounds at RFK Campus; Long Beach, CA (July 26-27) at Downtown Long Beach Shoreline Waterfront; and Orlando, FL (Nov. 15-16) at Camping World Stadium Campus.

Kevin Lyman, who founded the Warped Tour in 1995, told Variety, “Putting together a lineup is never an easy task, but each act, both new and returning, plays an important role in delivering an unforgettable experience for fans, especially at the price point we’re offering. We collaborated closely with the bands to create some exciting surprises, exclusive content, and more for fans to enjoy. So follow along, soak in the journey, and who knows—you might just discover your next favorite band!”

Simple Plan drummer Chuck Comeau added, “When we started hearing rumors that Warped Tour might be coming back in 2025, we were so excited! Warped has been a huge part of our journey as a band – from playing the smallest side-stage back in 2001 to the multiple cross-country treks over the years, the Warped Rewind at Sea cruise, Warped Australia and the final run in 2018, Warped has always felt like home. We’re thrilled that so many pop-punk fans will get a chance to relive their best teenage summer memories one more time and that an entire new generation will get to experience what our scene is all about. Getting the chance to be a part of such an iconic festival once again is a privilege and we can’t wait to get our old Dickies shorts back on and rock Washington DC this summer!”

Will you be attending?

Please buy tickets here.

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Jojo Roper (pictured) not afraid.
Jojo Roper (pictured) not afraid.

Surfer shares horror story of receiving curse from noted big wave hellman

"You better go on this or you will never catch a wave here again grom!"

Last week, David Lee Scales and I enjoyed a live version of our weekly podcast at the Belly-Up in Solana Beach. The stars of the eve were the great Rusty Preisendorfer, Taylor Knox and Jojo Roper who shared stories of truth and grit with an impressive and engaged audience.

It was all more personal for one man sitting amongst The People™.

Mr. Hand, you see, had once, long ago, encountered the aforementioned big wave hellman at a scary San Diego slab. What happened in the water haunting him to this very day.

Here is his story.

I want to thank you guys for a wonderful evening at the Belly Up. My wife and I went and had a lovely time.

Now for something not so lovely. I have a Pros in the Wild regarding Jojo Roper and to be clear the not so lovely part is in reference to me, not Jojo.

This was back in 2008 when I was a junior in high school and was filled with the unmerited confidence that many high schoolers have. What better place to prove myself than the legendary La Jolla reefs.

That winter I had some fleeting successes at this break to add to my unmerited confidence, so I was especially pumped to see a decent swell in the forecast. The big day came; the crowd was heavy and the waves were even heavier. Knowing my place, I relegated myself to the shoulder and picked off any scraps that would come my way.

After hours of shoulder sitting, the session changed. People went in, the tide sucked out and what was left were staircasing slabs on nearly dry reef, myself, and a handful of guys including one Jojo Roper.

I looked over the edge on a couple but only saw barnacles below. At this point I knew I should not be out there. The remaining crew, Jojo included, were making drops I could never dream of and getting absolutely barreled. But my young hubris would not let me go in until I caught one of those monsters.

A set was approaching and it was swinging wide – right to the shoulder. Jojo was paddling back out and he could clearly see my timidness. Jojo looks me straight in the eyes and says “You better go on this or you will never catch a wave here again grom!”

Heart racing, I put my head down and paddled as hard as I could. I felt the wave start lifting me up and I saw the water sucking out below, but I was too late. I pulled back. Being called into a wave by a local legend would be a high schooler’s dream, and I blew it. I didn’t even look back as I started the ultimate paddle of shame.

I have come back to that spot a few times over the years but haven’t gotten any more than scraps and eggy crowds including high school groms who can actually shred. Jojo’s curse has stuck.

Fast forward 16 years and I am sitting in the audience with the buzzed-head sorcerer himself. DLS has opened the mic for questions I have the prime opportunity to have the curse mercifully lifted. But, just like how I pulled off that wave, I stay lips sealed, nervously glued to my seat as DLS announced last call for any questions echoed in my head.

Jojo’s curse will endure and I will continue a living a life forever on the shoulder.

Brave to share. but do you have a similar story? Out in a rising sea, trembling internally? Did you stiffen your spine or shame paddle?

You are amongst friends.

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Teen surfer scooped by a twister on the Gold Coast
Teen surfer scooped by a twister on the Gold Coast

Happy end to story of teen surfer caught up in in wild “Wizard of Oz” Gold Coast twister

"I am the kid taken away by the twister. Now I have no board to surf with my friends tomorrow."

Wild vision of a tiny surfer being caught up in a Wizard of Oz-style twister on Australia’s Gold Coast, his lil surfboard ripped out of his arm and sent to the heavens, went viral a few days back.

The kid is running along along the eastern facing escarpment at Point Danger, the ridge that overlooks D-Bah, as the storm cell hits at around nine in the morn. The wind is so strong, gusts hitting one hundred clicks an hour – 4500 lightning strikes would be recorded and a car would be crushed and trees felled, all electricity out etc –  the kid is lifted up and hurled by the invisible hand of god with his his surfboard torn out of his hands.

 

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A post shared by BOGAN (@bogans____)

The Instagram account Kook Slams, which is not to be confused with the original surfing wipeout account Kook of the Day, offered the kid in the clip a free surfboard at which point a bunch of kids put their hands up for the prize, deftly weaving tear jerker stories in an attempt to win the new stick.

Kids want free surfboard

Eventually, the legit kid, Benny Wineera, who bears a passing resemblance to on-fire women’s world champ Caity Simmers, was found and presented with a brand new five-o from Jason Stevenson’s house of shred.

The presentation can be found below, the lil man stunned by the verbosity of his interlocutor.

 

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A post shared by Kookslams (@kookslams)

 

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The Surfival Train is leaving the station!

Hop aboard the world's richest fantasy league before it's too late!

Surfival League sign-ups are closing soon (the Pipeline hooter may blow in exactly 24 hours) and if you’ve been sitting on the sidelines thinking, “I’ll get to it later,” now’s the time.

Here’s the deal.

Surfival is simple, fun, and cutthroat.

You pick one surfer to survive past the early rounds of each event. Just one. If they advance, you stay alive. If they don’t… well, it’s game over. Oh, and here’s the kicker: you can only pick each surfer once all season. Strategy matters. Gut instincts matter. The Colapinto Curse matters.

But here’s what makes Surfival special: it makes early round heats incredibly entertaining. You know that surf group text thread you’re in? It’s going to be blowing up in the Round of 32 (reminder to tell your friends about Surfival).

Plus, where else are you going to turn $25 into a boatload of cash and PANDA Surfboards?

Signing up takes two minutes—tops. And once you’re in, you’re in for the season (until you’re not). From the first horn at Pipeline to the Finals at Cloudbreak, it’s you versus the world. Or at least you versus your buddies, CJ Hobgood, coworkers, and that one cousin who swears they know more about surfing than you do.

So here’s the big takeaway: sign up. Right now.

Don’t wait for some magical reminder.

Don’t put it off until tomorrow.

The Surfival Gods are waiting.

Sign up here!

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Heroin and needles found, woman dead, after migrant boat flips near popular San Diego surf spot

"If I was still a junkie I would’ve thrown it in my wetsuit and run up to the car.” 

A BeachGrit habitué from San Diego has told of harrowing scenes at Ocean Beach after a vessel carrying illegal migrants flipped, trapping two inside the boat’s hold. 

(See photos here.) 

Boats filled with new Americans making audacious beach landings have become such a staple of everyday life in San Diego County, although Malibu is also popular, it now surpasses border town Tuscon, Arizona, as the hottest migrant hub in the union.

A short time after the Ocean Beach landing, the US Coast Guard intercepted two boats, each carrying 15 suspected illegal migrants.

Four days earlier, 26 new Americans were taken into custody after their panga-style boat ran out of fuel one mile offshore from Oceanside Harbour. 

And a few days before that, another panga was intercepted twenty five miles off Point Loma, with 15 new Americans from China, Uzbekistan, Mexico, Ecuador, Vietnam and El Salvador arrested.

Anyway, boats everywhere. 

And our BeachGrit was doin’ a little surf check this morn, seven thirts, when he saw a Mexican couple walking up from the beach, holding hands, broad smiles, completely soaked.

He looked further afield and saw a cabin cruiser, thirty feet or so, flipped over in the shore break after taking a wave broadside on the way in. His pal, who spoke a little Spanish, found out everyone had split leaving two souls trapped in the boat, an old man and a woman.

He says it took lifeguards six to eight minutes to top the boat back over . The old man was pulled out, hypothermic but ok, but the woman was dragged onto the sand where lifeguards performed CPR.

“I watched her die in front of me,” he says. “It was so heavy. I’ve never seen anyone die. They did CPR for ten minutes but couldn’t revive her.”

After, as fire crew and cops mingled on the beach, our reader and a pal picked up trash, gas cans floating in the water and a neat little plastic bag filled with heroin and a handful of needles. 

How’d he know it was heroin and not dirty coke? 

“Twenty three years ago I was a heroin addict. I know heroin when I see it. It looks like coke, basically, but heroin when it’s in really good form it looks like a tan version of coke. When it’s shitty Mexican tar heroin it’s gooey, when it’s in a good form it’s like a light tan powder.” 

A pause. I can hear our pal smile. 

“It was the good shit. If I was still a junkie I would’ve thrown it in my wetsuit and run up to the car.” 

 

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