It’s back to reality for me starting next week. Off the road, behind the monitor, staring at “real work” instead of “PostSurf,” billing hours instead of being billed.
As a consultant, my professional life has the binge and crash rhythms of Amy Winehouse’s personal life. I stay up late doing everything infront of me, become increasingly crazed, and eventually wrap up my commitments and get paid in a lump sum. Then I’ll get on a plane and burn through my earnings loitering on some foreign shore. From the literal zone to the littoral zone.
Meanwhile, PostSurf keeps humming along in the background. Almost daily, I’m accused of “selling out” and “profiteering” via the bashing of poor, innocent pro surfers. If there is a revenue stream that I’ve failed to identify, and the money is piling up somewhere, unbeknownst to me, well… someone please ‘beknowst me where the fuck that living wage is hiding.
If the present is any indication of future trends, I’m hoping that my compensation for PostSurf fuckery will come 20 years in the future, when Retro Surf Blogging is the next big trend.
All I need to do is put this fucker in the wine cellar and wait for my shitty writing to become “epic!” as viewed through the smudged telephoto of nostalgia.
The great thing about banking on Retro success is that it matters not whether your work is acclaimed in the present moment. Remember those totally lamo neon boardies Quik made back in the day? The ones you’d flip though on the rack and think “who would buy THESE?”
Well, now those boardshorts are hip and profitable.
Ditto for shitty old surfboards, and shitty old surfing.
I can only hope that the questionable effort put into PostSurf will one day result in a self-congratulatory documentary a la Echo Beach.
All-Timer’s disease will save me in the end.
Until then, I suppose I need to just keep hanging on, waiting for the Retro cache to kick in.
Boardshorts aside, there are reason why they don’t make those boards still.
They sucked back then, and they suck now.
you should gets some ad banners on your blog… some surf tourism ad like visit puerto rico (surfer had it) or maybe an airline like air asia or an american one. how about redbull or even magic seaweed. travel the world, surf, and blog. fuck man you must get 2,000 visits a day?
Lewis, why don’t you do some Hot and Cold picks for Brazil? It’s a natural complement to your power rankings, but pre-contest. Groundswell and a couple other dudes do a half-ass version over at fantasysurfer but I’m guessing people would respond a lot better to your version… FASL and FS users love that shit…
I’m trying to let my hate of the whole “retro” trend go (did you know that word is an abbreviation of the french “rétrograde”? The more you know…). Every generation needs a trend or two, and for surfers, it has always been about maintaining that all important counterculture status. This has always been difficult given that the vast majority of surfers are middle to high income white men who regardless of what they do, can’t seem to shake themselves out of the upper echelons of society. Surfing always seemed like a safe bet — the rejection of all those terrestrial norms and values for something a little more, fluid, shall we say. Of course, good, nay great capitalists that we are, once we found a way to package and sell the concept of “extreme” to 15 year old boys around the world, our little counter culture suddenly began to look a lot more like the status quo. Ergo, RETRO. It’s the counter culture savior of our sport, a return to a time when it was all still soooooo authentic man.
Pity. The truth is though, surfing has always been a ridiculous, over-romanticized, poseur filled shit show second only to the art world for sheer pretentiousness. The retro movement imitates a 70’s/80’s movement that imitated a 50’s/60’s movement that stole a sport from ancient Hawaiians before deposing their monarchs, thumbing the rhetorical nose at their culture and saying, “Welcome to the USA, baby, complaints will not be tolerated”. It’s a copy of a myth that was never true to begin with. Sure it’s stupid, atavistic, it’s…get ready for a hefty name drop…a great example of what Clement Greenberg would call Alexandrianism, but surfing needs it, because most surfers, myself included, need a schtick. Otherwise we are just just silly apes stuck in an endless cycle of paddling and riding and never yet never moving beyond the littoral zone.
Of course, there is still truth or “authenticity” if you prefer, in surfing, but it’s elusive and not one of those things that sounds very eloquent when written down. You know it when you feel it or perhaps see it. All the rest is Kitsch.
Hahaha I hate retro and I hate how they try to make it “cool.” It sucks and I still look at those “new” retro styles in the shops and magazine adds and still say to myself ‘who would wear this?’ But then I walk down to the beach and I see the kind of people sporting the 1980’s Occy boardshort and look at them and say…. ‘oh ya douchebags where these!!!’ That’s right…douchebags. Rich little fucks who have nothing to do but steal money from their distracted alcohol induced parents to buy cocaine and party and spend the shit over their credit card limits that mommy and daddy pay for so they can be “cool.” Well I say fuck them and let us all stand up together against this decrepid style and beat down those fucking “Donovan-like Hippies” and kick them in the balls and punch them in the throat.
And Lewis, your not selling out you’re just trying to make a living like the rest of us. Anyone who says that your selling out is fucking idiot who jerks off everynight with a noose around his neck because his haggard chick won’t touch his little 3 inch penis. Keep up the great work and I hope you land it rich soon =)
Who else thinks Quiksliver will have problems making ends meet trying to flog more of the retro crap that currently sits molding on retailers shelves?
Lewis, remember how months ago you were shown the door at your previous employer for mentioning the truth about Billabong?
What would happen today?
After a recent plant explosion stopped production of Slim Jims,
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/conagra-targets-stable-profit-after-slim-jim-blast?dist=bigcharts
we all are currently using the discretionary income on retro neon tees and bordies.
@Ted
I like what you said. There was one small problem, and I hate to be bothersome, but for all your fancy writing, I thought you might want to know.
“a great example of what Clement Greenberg would call Alexandrianism, but surfing needs it, because most surfers, MYSELF included, need a schtick.”
Ted, one should never refer to himself as “myself” unless describing some action taken by ones self to ones self. For example, I jerked myself off, I blew myself or my favorite, I shat myself. “Me” or “I” can be included but never “myself.” So your sentence should read “me included”(in needing a schtick).
Originality is dead, embrace it!
Lewis, your too idealistic to be good at making money.
@Lance:
What you got against Donovan brah? He surfs good, he’s a good man and he’s a class act. And he gave his kid the coolest name he could’ve possibly given him: Hendrix. It’s so sad that surfing has become so mainstream that it attracts conservative OC republican bro-brah idiots with raised trucks, hats worn to the side and thin boards they CANNOT ride. Fuck that shit. Surfing is now reaching maturity with being able to reach back to its past and re-appropriate. Classic music never goes away. Classic cars never go away. Classic movies never go away. Why should classic boards go away? There is nothing like a quad modern fish at a point break, or anywhere really. I can do anything on a fish that I can do with a short board and I can do it with flow and style, drawing interesting lines rather than huntington hop to the next section only to try to hit the lip and fall like so many of you bro-brahs do.
@ Lewis
You live in CA right? I think you should open a marijuana dispensary and get advertisers for your blog. That should set you up right.
shut up and surf. all of you. me too.
go surf lewis! the waves are free! or maybe you should bribe the pros . most pros have cash and no moral
Grr. Nothing worse than a grammar mistake is there? I’ve also been know to carelessly confuse “its” and “it’s” and “your” and “you’re”. Now that I’m on the subject, I famously managed to put a spelling mistake into the first paragraph of a thesis I wrote a few years ago. Well, se la vie.
Man, brands like Volcom should sponsor your blog!!!
it is called “fate”
@ Ted
Although it was neither hurtful or mean that was the best comment we have seen in days, next time just try to hurt another posters feelings somewhere in there we have a reputation to uphold.
I just love the feeling of pulling into a big ole wide open barrel, adjusting the rail slightly then gliding back out into the sunlight. It makes it easier to get through a tough day.
Everything else is just bullshit.
Do those ZQK retro boardies come with those old school snaps that get all rusty and gunked up with wax? I also seem to remember that the snaps always left welts on my stomach when I was young. I can’t wait for some retro boardie rash, I’m on it.
Mark, you’re talking about surfing, right?
Damn Lewis, the posts have been fun as shit to read lately. Thanks for the daily hook up and I haven’t even been reading all the tweaked out commentary babble either which has made me a little more productive. But every now and then I still read some good shit from all the post surf clones which is worth the extra 10 minutes of life lost.
Lance is pissed!!
Lance wants a big laka up his okole. Smoke a bowl and put it on a rail. That’s what I’m about to do right now. Aloha!
Amen Mark.
I think more people should bash pro surfers, and their fans. Lewis’ writing and the comments here are the perfect antithesis to the illiterates who write for ‘er,’ing, etc. Especially that retard named Bass. Have you seen his movie about the Viet Nam era? The fucktard should have taken at least one basic film making class, ya know?
Complaining about retro is not just beating a dead horse, more like flogging a fly-infested pile of turd. I’m going home to listen to a Stones record on my turntable. Turntable’s new btw. Record’s nice and old.
The Retro generation desperately clings to fashion while ignoring performance. That’s the result of mass marketing against the sports internal best interest and luring millions of kooks to the party. The youth “culture” is dead, nothing new to say and will discover Nirvana again soon and grunge will rule the next few years…. again.
I’m waiting for bong or ZQK to take the retro trunks all the way back, to where the trunks are so short that a testicle hangs out on side when you sit down, and you have to finger it back inside the pants and hope the other one dosen’t droop out the other side.
@ Mike-a certain radio station in sd plays nirvana 24/7.
JimG=cumdumpster.
@ Lance
Wow, I love how you try to label people by calling them “cool” or “Donovan-like” hippies and then you try to promote some fucking lemming mentality of banning together to punch them in the throat, classic. Oh man, then you pay tribute to Mr. Samuels nutsack in an entire paragraph. Seriously? “I hope you land it rich soon” topped off with a cute smiley face at the end. Yea, be sure and get the taint while you are down there buddy. FUCK
Hugh G.,
I can’t help but comment. You rambled about Ted’s “myself” but twice forgot the possessive apostrophes on “ones”.
Trauzersnake,
That radio station has never stopped playing Nirvana, though. So, in their defense, it isn’t merely to cater to any retro fad.
@Erik
yeah, but you still have to listen to nirvana, and the clash, and devo, and rage against…….and JimG= Cum Dumpster…
What Lance forgot to mention was the fact that Lewis IS a sellout. Ye Gods!!
Like the rest of us pious commentor’s, I’m assuming all of the cries of “sell out” are from people who live off the grid in their own self-sufficient compounds, producing everything they need on their own and taking nothing from society? Right? Otherwise, you’re not simply nothing but a leeching sell-out, too. Or, does that make us all sell outs?
I’m so confused.
Or maybe those dissing Samuels’ as a sell-out are really working on something awesome that they’re not going to show anyone, because sharing it with the world would be selling out?
If so, please, oh please get back to it.
Stat.
That doesn’t really sound like Blashemy Rottmouth but if it is then ” F you B Rot!”.
I have being so confused copyrighted bitch!
BTW my mom is fine. She has adjusted quite well since you guys split and has even started dating again. She saw Peter Perfect last Friday night for dinner and a movie then had Sunday brunch with Trauzersnake.
She said that getting dumped is one thing but getting dumped for G.T. is really weird. Anyway she is a class act and wishes you and Greg all the best.
Why is BR still here? Has anyone yet found where he poached/reconfigured his last comment from?
It seems original, but we will never be sure. That’s why he should disappear. I’m sure there are plenty of uber-lame (a la HotChicks w/ D-bags) sites for him to frequent instead.
Bye Bye, BR..
Stat
@Young Suckling’s like Confused:
Like I said… what seems like vast epochs of eons ago: I don’t take any responsibility for what someone else posted on another site. If some steezy blogger lifted from the same paper as me, then good on them. As such, they probably merit a good penile sookling on my behalf. You all should know well by now, that I would never visit a site with the name ‘chicks’ in it. What would my precious goats think if I were to cheat on them with some underage chickens?
Would I say, “Yea, fuck you – insensitive poultry bastards??” Perish the thought!
Would it also hurt your fragile psyche if I lifted the name F. Murray Abrahambone from a semi-famous actor? Or, if I copped the moniker A.I.’s Dealer from a friend of mine in Honolulu, who’s personally sold ‘white lies’ to at least six individuals named Andrew on the island of Kauai?
Would it shock you if everything I wrote in the previous paragraph was fabricated by a paraplegic leopard who could only speak through the sweat glands on his shoulder blades?
The resounding answer to the question above is: No. But, you already knew that, which makes you only slightly less narcissistic than a preening stinkbug farting into a recycled Trader Joe’s® paper bag.
Same as there ever was with you leeches. No witty banter in response. No sharp or humorous comments on your behalf. And ironically, you provide no insightful look into the world of surfing. Nope, just suspiciously typical responses from ‘those that should not be.’ Next thing we know, you may even throw in the ‘faggot / homo / gay’ accusation to bolster your sandstone arguments.
Ahh. Like all good hagfish and lampreys, I suppose you are the necessary evil to what the rest of us call: ‘a good time.’ We the doers vs. You the takers.
So, with that in mind, sookle on, young parasites.
Sookle on.
P.s.:
The fat you glean from those wiser than you, may eventually navigate its way through your convoluted digestive track and manifest itself as a single, miniscule, sharticle of hope for every stunted shore-punter in our midst.
Go ahead… Google it, bitch.
Angry BR not funny. Must have had one too many fingers of whisky.
@Confused:
I must apologize, but I can’t wait until Saturday for a response, so I’ll assume your soon coming correspondence is mind-numbingly acute in its detail and wit. It will be as incisive as a diamond-tipped blade churning its way through a slab of bologna. And, as such, I shall feverishly fade forever from your hauntingly-horrid midnight hallucinations.
Until then, the almond-shaped openings at the end of my road are beckoning… meet me in the channel bra!
@Thurston:
Your name is brilliant. Wish I could have entertained you more this evening, but I have a screenplay deadline to meet. And this silly LA County SW swell ain’t working magic for my wand. I’ll be back home in four days and enjoying the shacks of my youth like Mark making sweet, passionate love to his sister under the harvest moon of Alabama.
In short, I’m pissed.
Deal.
Listen, Mr. Zodiac.
You can wow the masses with meandering metaphors- scripted sleights of hand.
But it does not eradicate your errors.
The fact is you “lifted” from someone else’s paper. (”I don’t take any responsibility for what someone else posted on another site. If some steezy[SIC] blogger lifted from the same paper as me, then good on them.”)
As mentioned above, the moronic masses, momentarily meandering on Postsurf, will snicker and giggle at your overuse of “lewd”, manatee, lamprey, and references to ocular cavity copulation. Like naive children they will find you “fuckin’ nuts” when you toddle tangentially.
Yes, ignorant of your heavily formulaic fustian fluttering, those immune to recognizing patterns and painful stimuli, leper-like, will continue to find you readable.
The rest of us know the artless algorithm that generates the repetitive and reproduced (funny how it came back to that) scrawl.
Have another Jameson. You’re lonely, out of shape, and played out.
@Confused:
So, my cock tastes that good eh, mate? At least try to mask your obsession a little next time.
I’ve had stalkers in the past, but none this uncreative.
Then again, I always enjoy some strange.
Someone, quick, go suck a cock
confused, you are messed up. lewis has game.
i thought his ‘that hansen is so hot right now’ brilliant
talk like a man! it doesn’t sound smarter, it just sounds fake and pretentious
much love to lewis. surfermag.com come on, hire the dude!
Fasi Fuckwit.
I have nothing against Lewis. I ,too, liked the Zoolander allusion.
BTW,
The Lewis = BR conspiracy is ridiculous. Are some of you that gullible?
Confused = ehhh, Confused?
Would someone please make the connection between the names used by some of alter-ego’s who post here?
Or is that to tedious a task?
Magnum, what happened to that screenplay?
Confused = Almost caught his own tail.
Confused = Liked Zoolander, lol.
Lewis knows Zoolander, lol.
In ten minutes, BR will write,
“Hello? Anybody there…?”
Lonely, fat, used to surf.
@Confused
Aren’t we all…
…not confused, I mean.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Heh. Heh. Heh.
These “too short to post” messages remind me of the time Mark’s sister first dropped her panties for me in kindergarten…
You ought to do a book for the coffee table in time for the holidays ‘09 Lewis. Or something quasi-disposable like what The Onion does for the shitter. Anyways, it might be the only book you ever sell and, you know, strike hammer while iron is hot.
Mark, Stu, Mike, TZsnake, BR, and all of the “fuckery” crew could then become part of your legacy, an ember or ash in your erstwhile success or demise. And for a better America too! Right? If one is going to sell out or burn out it wouldn’t hurt to do so in an effort to promote literacy and kick start some relevant critical thinking. Imagine Groms Attacking Bartelby.com and Wikipedia, hounding their English teachers and struggling to link obscurities like Clement Greenberg and Alexandianism (WTF??, H.G. Rection) as opposed to merely studying clips of Jordy, Yadin and Dane to learn how to link tubes with monster alley-oops (sp? Ted). Although, admittedly, the latter might just be a shade more entertaining. No ted, not you. The alley oops. Imagine groms questioning their world and not just which iPhone app to download or which pro’s image to emulate. But in all seriousness, this would be high interest reading material for kids to indulge in. Surfing? Comedy? Bagging? Fighting the System? That IS high interest.
And now I’m fired up Lewis. Market your underdog badboy underground image well! No more look at me, poor beat up, comedic, too smart for his own good, messianic “Power Rater”, Jewish Lewis who was let go of by Surfline with a black eye crap. Take the bull by the f-ing horns like a surfing Danny Zuckerman would! Get a good agent and Be a god damn writer for better or for worse. Make a video with a few famous… no wait… you and some of the regulars surfing at xxx resort wearing yyy trunks and abc glasses in support of save qqq’s NGO, send that shit into surfline and BAM, that IS Surf News according to Sean Collins right? Dude, dude-man! You’re in! That’s what it takes to put the sell in sell out. Selling out is just a good idea as mishandled by vampires and profiteers who, just like you, want to fund their next surf mission and feed their family above all else. Wait, is their anything else? Oh, and you don’t yet -do you?- have a family so…
What-evrrrrrr….. I stand by the first paragraph. Consultant? Don’t be a pussy Lewis. Fuck that. Consultants, editors and analysts are someone else’s bitch. You are a player! Be one.
And the link is for inspiration. Retro critical thinking exercise - or excorcsim
i meant nathan zuckerman, not danny
postsurf is weak reinterpretation of Vice’s weak reinterpretation of attitude, discuss.
LOL @ Erik busting the grammar cop, who never seems to get it quite right.
lewis,
what you need to do after in cashing your iphone 4.0 user experience check, oh wait you’re probably not on working on that one . . . sorry
anyhoo, what you need to do is get a clip of you surfing and post that. ’cause i’m pretty sure you’d in up in the “shitty old surfing” category.
peace ho,
Makuka
PS
anyone want to meet in the urinals by pier 39 this weekend?
http://www.aspworldtour.com/2009/
for the Owen Wright - Gadauskas final.
Mucho de Airs.
It’s not retro if you are just replacing a favorite pair of trunks cause your mid section is now wider along with your wallet, life perspective, experiences with sex and dimensions on your new surfboards.
I’ve seen Makuka surf - he’s not good. I guarantee you won’t see Makuka post a video here.
Jordy’s rodeo was in a critical section and done with speed, Pat G’s was on an end section that most of us would have kicked out on. While it was technically a flip, it lacked any drama.
Watching the highlight reel, I was impressed by how radical these guys are throwing things, but most surf very back foot, steering and Pat was the only one throwing water. I’m impressed, but not. One should expect more polish at that level and the one trick pony moniker fits more than not.
@ God…. Thanks for hating all those bad religions and condemning those people who weren’t good enough to be white. Also, thanks for perserving the sanctity of my marraige by hating the people who choose to be gay. As your followers, we will wage war on everyone else in your name and discriminate openly those who don’t agree with us. Thanks for giving us the moral high ground to preach from while we poach the items from your book that justify our devotion to financial avarice. And Lastly, thanks for being so insecure and for having all of humans worst character traits so that we know we are created in your image. God Bless America, Evangelical Christians and Walmart.
God Bless Super Walmart, each and every one.
You are welcome, Mike. Are you a Kiwi? I know deep down they hate me. They think they’re so big with their little green fruit, funny little birds and stupid accents. I’ll show them, you just wait and see.
By the way, Mike, I don’t hate anyone. It’s you dummies down on Earth who think I’m so closed-minded. Relax and go surfing - I promise you’ll end up in the same place as even the most fervent nutcases, I mean, believers, when your time comes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceA9-qCvd-E
this kid is the best ever.
I certainly blessed him with some talent. Hopefully he doesn’t kill himself or, even worse, end up dating Layne Beachley.
Dear BR et al, typing this on an iPod is excruciating, just like reading the drivel that’s going on in my absence. BR, you’ve either given up or are working with a disability. And by that, I mean Mark the shit salesman. While I’m ready 4 Brazil I’m keen 2 see Kelly surf a pizza tray and crap out.
WTF Peter Perfect? Shit salesman? What the hell did I do to make you so bitter? I was kind of missing you until that comment.
It doesn’t really matter anyway. This site will be toast within a couple of weeks. I have insider information that Lewis has been hired by a major surfing website to post his power rankings and his various rants etc. but part of the deal is no more Post Surf. I reckon Lewis figures it is worth it because now he can give up his stupid consulting gig because of all the money he will soon be making.
I have enjoyed my time spent here but to be truthful it has been a bit boring lately. Kooks like Hugh Jass and Bob Dobbs and God etc. have spoiled the pureness that was Post Surf in the early weeks. I suggest Lewis come up with a Post Surf Greatest Hits Edition before it is over.
Aloha to all.
Love it. Shit salesman.
And you want to be my emigration solutions sales man…..
Bongiorno Lewis!
Come up to da Nascar race dis a weekend in da wine country, we a show you how a real business is run wit our nascar drivers eh?
Ciao
Massimilano
Still waiting for the brothers to take over surfing. That’ll take care of the upper-class crackers owning surf breaks. They’d out-paddle everyone AND scare you out of the water if you got near them. Or at the very least provide a lot of entertaining youtube videos. Then, and only then, will surfing be cool again.
Lmfao @ Cyrus 3:32pm
Fucken twin fins suck