What have we gotta do to make you love us?
We are coming up on a very important anniversary, here. Ten marvelous years of ultra hard surf candy. For it was on January 24, 2014, that Derek Rielly and I, sitting at a weathered zinc countertop, pressed “publish” for the very first time on BeachGrit. We toasted champagne, or maybe white wine, not knowing where the journey would take us.
Who could have guessed all the adventures we’ve been on, together and by “together” I very much mean you too. From blood feuds to backward fins, Kelly Slater saying this to Kelly Slater doing that, the transition of the Association of Surfing Professionals into today’s World Surf League, Covid, ELo, Surf Ranch, Ashton Goggans of Shire Gogganses, historic zero point heat totals at Teahupo’o, Olympic medals, surf equity.
A decade of Jen See, JP Currie, Steve Shearer, VONR, Negatron, Pauly, Ricmatic and good times.
Alas, tears flowed in Cardiff by the Sea, California and Bondi, Australia overnight when blog lord Lewis Samuels detonated it all in a devastating interview with Stab.
Samuels, you certainly remember, launched the notorious PostSurf decades ago, providing a very refreshing, critical take of professional surfing. His wit and candor drew thousands of fans and those fans grew wildly depressed when he turned off the lights in order to focus on his career at search giant Google.
Rielly recalled meeting him in a piece published five years ago, noting:
I spent a night with the one-time most notorious surf writer in the world, Lewis Samuels, then in his late-thirties. I fed Lewis pastry and crème patissiere straight from the spoon which he described as “gay.” Soon, his mouth was open and he was begging for the eclair, greedily rimming the spoon. He wore a red flannel shirt, some sort of oversized pants and rectangular spectacles usually worn by English women who search for romance in Kenya.
I, unfortunately, blew my opportunity to share delicate desserts with Lewis. I had been in San Francisco, not long after BeachGrit’s launch, and somehow we connected, via text. We made a time to meet at his Google office. I assumed it was for the next day and woke up bright and early, excited to meet the man behind the myth. He was nowhere to be found and the office was strangely quiet. After waiting a few moments, I texted. He replied, “Nobody works on Saturday” and seemed, rightly, grouchy about my absentmindedness.
In any case, overnight, Lewis sat down with the premium surf organ in a wide-ranging interview on all things surf.
When asked, “Is it becoming harder to be critical of professional surfing — especially behind established platforms — nowadays?”
Lewis answered, “I don’t know if anyone’s doing it. There’s people on BeachGrit that are super critical of professional surfing, but frankly, I don’t know if I’d consider them an established platform.”
Ten years-adjacent?
Six published books between the two principals?
Getting called a “bad dog” by The Inertia?
Blocked multiple times across every social media account by Kelly Slater, Filipe Toledo and others?
What have we gotta do to make you love us?
What have we gotta do to make you care?
What do we do when lightning strikes us?
And we wake to find that you’re not there.
So sad etc.
At the end, Samuels did praise the aforementioned Currie and Shearer, though.
Champagne being sent to Scotland and Lennox Head.
