Surf journalist Chas Smith “has the most slappable face in surfing”

“I totally understand where Ashton Goggans is coming from…”

Charleston, SC, USA (traditional home of the Kiawah, Edisto, and Yamassee peoples) is a reverse boom town.

Meaning it’s going through now what Florida and California went through decades past: skyrocketing prices, land being flipped daily by dirt pimps, a Starbucks on every corner, microbreweries sprouting up like mushrooms, stag and hen nights, a top 10 shopping corridor on King Street, and all the tensions between locals (if you’re not 5 generations deep, you’re not a local), tourists, and Boomer Yankees moving in to retire that you’d expect. 

In short, it’s Disney World for rich white people.

The other thing Charleston has is one of the most gorgeous ecosystems on this sweet planet Earth: the intertidal marsh. The marshes here are some of the most biodense ecosystems given the pluff mud (what a perfume, especially at low tide), spartina reeds (their tannin as they decay makes the waters here a muddy brown and helps all the bacteria that form the vibrant trophic pyramid), oysters (millions of them filter feeding and cleaning the waters, and you can hear their shells open and close as the tide shifts), dolphins and turtles and egrets and fish and sharks and shrimp, and all the over-60 wannabe pirates playing pickleball and listening to Jimmy Buffet in their khakis and loafers and trucker caps while out on their boats you can shake a mint julep at.  

There’s also a surf scene.  

Hard to imagine this, as the waves suck. Dogs drinking out of a dog bowl generate higher waves with more power. Men aged over 50 suffering through colonoscopies every 5 years are getting more consistency than the weak shit here, outside of hurricane swells which are as dependable as Gamecock football tearing up the SEC. 

Despite this utter lack, there’s still a surf scene, with accomplished shapers, photogs and videographers, surf shops, surf brands, and a handful of short and longboarders who are regionally competitive and, if given some sponsorship opportunities to travel to real waves, would actually do some damage on the QS, men and women, both. 

It’s this scene I’ve been on the far periphery of going back to the 1990s when I moved here to finish out high school, and the vortex of Charleston that has sucked me back in off and on ever since, and have seen evolve over those years.  

Same shitty waves breaking the same shitty way, but somehow feeding a community of stoke.

And I ventured into this community Thursday night, as Cam and Kelly Richards were invited down from Myrtle Beach to talk shop with David Lee Scales for his Surf Splenor podcast.  And along for that ride, half of BG ownership, Mr. Charlie Smith.

What’s it like to stalk someone you don’t consider a hero, and who only exists in your mind as a BeachGrit provocateur but who, I must admit, gives 100% at work (10% on Monday, 25% on Tuesday, 40% on Wednesday, 20% on Thursday, 5% on Friday, off on Saturday and Sunday…light a candle)?  

In shame I admit not only did I go to this event (all things being equal, Cam Richards has to be a legit top-10 surfer on the planet right now), but that I stuck around after and introduced myself to Charlie.  

Here’s what I learned:

1. He’s tall. Should be running point guard on a men’s over-40 league pick-up team.  
2. His hair. Half of his body movements are spent pulling the hair out of his eyes from this one little set of locks in the back of his head that hang down over his eyes.  But maybe it’s some literary affectation where he can tug at it while dropping in some reference to an author no one else except maybe Longtom has read.  Personally I wanted to take a razor to it and just ease his self-inflicted pain.
3. His face–entirely slappable. I understand where Goggans was coming from.
4. Sense of style–accomplished, in a living out of a suitcase way. Slip ons, button up shirt with top buttons open (waxed chest), but the cologne…my wife asked me if I’d been out with another woman upon my return home.  
5. MC capabilities–very quiet, actually. Spent more time hoovering beers and dropping an occasional f-bomb, than anything else.  Voice is much more high-pitched than expected, too, given his height. And, surprisingly, Kelly and Cam took Chas and his few questions seriously, but that was probably their Southern hospitality coming through.
6. Family–loves his wife and daughters. Came out often. A fierce and eager love.
7. Surfers–The People. Not the pros or industry. The People. It came out that he also fiercely and eagerly loves this little community of anonymous misfits that have aggregated around him and DR like barnacles on a boat in Charleston Harbor. What’s crazy is that some in this community love Chas and DR and BeachGrit so much they will even fly in from New York City for a one-night live podcast event in Charleston, wearing a vintage BG hat (respect, BG brother).  

I’d personally not go that far (see #3, above), but I would suggest that if Chas is visiting your town for an event, to track him down. 

He’s outgoing, patient, and even, I daresay, kind. He’ll listen to what you’re saying, not lord over you that he’s probably twice as smart as you and has been to all the cool cities of the planet (and to Yemen), and will cheer on your surfing stories.  

In this world of AI pish, masturbatory surf bro-culture, and overcrowded lineups, it’s nice to still have a little grit. While his online persona is one thing, Chas’s real life presence is actually that of an open, respectful, and patient listener while sprinkling some of that grit into an industry that takes itself too seriously, an industry that does so at the expense of realizing most of us do this surfing thing because we just love being in the ocean, and being around people that feel the same. 

My guess is Chas does all of it because of that same love.