Creamed
The following article is the last (potentially) in a series by blindboy.
It is hard to put a date on exactly when surfing allowed itself to become a milk cow for the entrepreneurial class. At some point the balance between the power of the corporations and the power of the surfing communities from which they sprang changed. Where once they had served our interests we, quite suddenly it seemed, began to serve theirs. Our vulnerability was always obvious and any claim that the exploitation was anything but premeditated and coldly calculated should be treated with contempt for it wasn't just the cream they wanted, it was everything, except what? Some dry skim milk powder perhaps.
There was, from the beginning, something anarchic about surfing. It required no hierarchical organisation or specialised infrastructure and it used what was then a substantially neglected public space, so its associations were always weak. This was the source of our vulnerability. As the corporations increased in size and wealth there was never a counter balancing power. Our amateur associations being competition based, never attracted the bulk of surfers. Our clubs were weak for the same reason and there was nothing else.
If you think this doesn't matter, contrast surfing with any other sport. Fan clubs, player associations, powerful clubs, amateur associations and other users of the infrastructure contest the ground with sponsors. So as our little cartel of businessmen sit on their piles of cash, regroup and consider their next speculative financial venture, the surfing community has every right to ask some hard questions. Remember all that money you made out of surfing? What did you ever do for us? Where are the clubhouses? Where are the coaches for our non-elite youth? Where are the university scholarships for the academically talented members of our communities? Where are the resource packages to help environmentally educate our youth? Where is the superannuation of all those piece work and contract workers? Where are the lobbyists to put our case to the various levels of government? Where is the leadership on managing the hyper crowded conditions so essential to generating your wealth? Where are the support structures for those who turned out to be vulnerable to your culture of cocaine and excess? Or those, more numerous, too easily influenced by the images, so prudently managed, of that culture?
Over the decades the techniques used to maintain their power changed little. Essentially they subverted any potential opposition with the conjoined twin temptations of status and money. Conjoined because, in the world of the entrepreneur, money is status. So the honourable, for the most part, were swept along with the dishonourable until they were indistinguishable. And those who stood outside were, more often than not, simply crushed by the advancing juggernaut of their marketing power. I can only speak first hand of the beginnings but even then, amongst that class, it was always about one upsmanship and, whatever their public utterances, good business always gained more status than good surfing.
If you doubt that, look at them now when all of them are rich enough, and have been for decades, to spend the rest of their lives surfing. Instead they continue to play their status games, forming new entities, manipulating the old ones, looking for new avenues of exploitation. Their pathetic self-description as "surfers" undermined by their own behaviour. It was never about surfing. It was always about money, status and power. Surfing was simply the medium and those exploiting it would have been just as happy exploiting something else.
In the absence of other avenues, they drew the talent to them and bent it to their own ends. Few resisted. What was the point? You played their game or you played no game at all. But in a mass culture talent is nearly always disposable and rarely needs to be given access to the main game. It can be well rewarded in the short term but in that world loyalty has no place. When talent has served its purpose, it is discarded. Every surfing community I know has its victims, those drawn in and spat out, damaged and disregarded. Of course nothing was ever easier than to blame them for their own downfall, while the true cause, that culture of cocaine and excess to which they had been exposed, continued unabated from generation to generation.
But times change and greed is often enough its own undoing for us to hope that the coincidence of image and opportunity that drove the expansion of the surf clothing industry no longer exists. And other things have changed too. Surfing's anarchic nature has lessened. With the coming of the hyper crowd and the increasing variety of over-sized and inappropriate surfing equipment, surfers have greater motivation than ever to form structures that can exercise power proportional to our numbers and in the service of our real needs rather than the interests of the corporations. Think local and take care of your own people and your own interests because you can be absolutely sure "the industry" won't. //blindboy
Comments
Not again?
Some good points here BB, but you undermine yourself at the end by taking (yet another) dig at anybody who isn't riding the 6'0 thruster which you consider to be the only "appropriate surfing equipment".
If what you say is true, that a lack of cohesion and organisation is the source of the vulnerability of surfers and surfing to corporate exploitation, then factionalising and dividing the non-corporate surf community along the lines of what surfcraft they ride seems to be counterproductive.
Yeh BB you were traveling cool then till you hit the board bump. It's never the board I find as a lover of design and the multitude of different boards and different ways to surf a line, its always the attitude of those upon the board that cause any trouble in the water. So edit out "boards" and replace with "attitude" and the picture becomes clearer does it not? Surely you can't be that prejudice about what you consider appropriate to surf.... Can you?
However, while pointing to historical facts, such points you make might get overlooked as fiction by those not steeped in surfings background. Maybe put yourself out there a bit more and explain deeper.
I agree on a whole blind boy but I think the structure for professional sports such as league, afl, union soccer etc. has been in place much longer and was around before the corporate interests became so profitable.
Perhaps bad timing for surfing, perhaps surfers attitudes where a lot more relaxed making it easier for the leeches. I wasn't around when these changes took place. I have a choice how I let the current situation affect me however.
I'm a little confused about the multiple references to cocaine. Am i missing something? Your last 2 articles weren't enough another crack at the whole board volume issue and your article starts to take on the whole sensationalist vibe so common on every blog/press release/current affairs show.
But to be fair I think this is your best so far. "Potentially" i'd like to hear more about what surfing was like not what you hate about it now.
agree with the comments above BB
Lets start hearing some of the stoke,
and for fuck sake go bay a mal and a short fat wide board [ you might start having fun in these average conditions we are getting]
peace
I say we crowdsource the money to buy a mal for blindboy. The fellow can indeed write but he has a blindspot (see what I did there?) for alternative surf craft. A sweet ride on a 9'0" Tak and we may just get some great surf lit.
Fun idea... There's some guys that have turned up at my very crowded local and who would fall under BB's label of Hipster and they friggin rip the bag out of it without one verticle turn involved. It's all done with line and style.
Well as Frank Zappa once remarked "I is what I is!" so don't hold your breath for a change of attitude. You know I am still waiting for a reasonable defence of capable surfers riding OS equipment in crowded conditions. To say that we all have the right to ride what we like is true but it's no justification. Nor, as I said in the original piece, can I see any performance benefit in the vast majority of conditions other than wave catching ability. Read the ads, that's what they say "catch more waves" what they should add is "..... than you deserve." I think this is a growing issue, we have escalated from mals to SUPS with powered boards on the way. Where do we stop?
As for the idea that the only boards I find acceptable are 6ft thrusters that is merely an inference that turns out to be wrong. People I know ride a range of equipment from 5'0" twin keels, through your standard range of short boards with some of the less fit guys on 7'+ with extra width. The key is "appropriate". If you are so unfit that you need a 9ft plus board to cope maybe, for your own safety, you should do some training.
Lines BB, its all in the lines. While I could ride like wise to yours and mates have made them for me and said here try this, can't get the lines I want outa a concaved overly tail lifted, square hard edged rail, foiled out, surfboard that makes surfing difficult and unenjoyable for a man of my want and experience.
That clasify's as a reasonable defence of a 6'6. 21. 3" convex bottom, soft rail round tail wouldn't you say.
It's all in the line BB, the places I want to go and how I want to get there. And therein lies the beauty of surfboard design.
AND ... Wow its opening up again after so many years of narrowed thinking..... Bring it on....
I'm down BB mal riders and SUP people are a lower form of life.
It's got to be 0.5ft or you should be in your sixties to excuse riding that slow crap.
I like this blIndboy stuff, it's a little depressing but he's the only industry guy who tells it like ir is, rather than the usual chummy version of events
Sypkan totally agree. Interesting as it is though its only the thin end of the wedge he is giving us. As you can tell by my earlier post I'm doing my best to encourage BB to open up .... Subjects like who put Cassidy in charge of the asp and why??? .. who put Al Hunt in the judges box and why??? Where are yesterday's surf hero's now??? Interview with say, Wayne Lynch, Larry Blair re '78 Coke, as he's already pointed to the judges box in another thread.
Up to this point everything has been so in house re surfing, a real boys club, and mostly it still is.
But here we have a forum and a writer in BB who could open the room and let in the fresh air and some light... Who is BB? .... a guy who knows some shit for real.
Lines, lines u say? U can draw the exact same lines on a shorty(plus 100 other things u can't do on a bog(log)) but their are many more goals to achieve than simply standing there with no effort, this reflects your lazy-obnoxious character(loggers).Any board over 6-7(6-3 really but I'll let u old guys have a break on that one) on the East Coast is just too big, all riding anything larger than that are 'dopes on ropes' STEALING all the waves. Anyway there are 50 other things they do un-ethically & have lame excuses for but you'll never learn till u get choked under water for 4mins & your car & board sledgehammered. All surfers now days think they the shiz even at the beginner level, funny psychology on that one. My mate is an absolute kook & every day he tellin me how he rips.
Only a consumer knows the feeling(patent pending).
Blind Boy, u da man, u don't give a fuck what people think, u just blog from yo heart & I love it. I only buy my clothing from China & Vietnam now, they are all quality products that are in perfect condition after 5yrs, at 1/6 the price. Fuk the uber excessive industry, $80 for a pair of boardies made in India for 5c each? What a fukn joke. What's your view on purchasing boards though? Should I support small local business or buy from Bali?
How many articles are you folk going to write on the surf industry? You must be bored, shit the average surfer couldn't give two figs but Swellnet, like a teenage groupie, seems over the top obsessed. Give us a break and write about something else.
Luker, put on the dunces cap and go sit quietly in the corner and listen up.
A line is the arc and the distance from point A to point B on the wave vertically or horizontally (or through the air for that matter) and is mostly governed by rocker curve and length, and planshape curve.... though rail shape has a part to play too.
So no you can't get exactly the same lines on any shorty... Your ignorance on design is speaking there.
But you should'nt need a guy like me to point that out to you,, just sit on the beach and watch all the different boards react differently in line and arc.... Just because an arc is long doesn't mean its not verticle. Just because its short doesn't mean it is etc etc...
There are surfers out there who's board designs and surfing have purpose behind them that you are just not seing.
Now take your cap off and come back out of the corner.
History bob, BB is speaking of history. I can appreciate that history doesn't interest you, but ive always loved the history channel and what gets unearthed and discovered and rediscovered. It most always throws light on things and sometimes gives us a way to a new direction. At worst, history often gets us thinking about our past and questioning our future...
And surfing will have a future.... I wonder what it will be?
Geez, who put Mighty Mouse on a high horse and declared him the great authority and final word on all ? My guess is him.
Thanks green. I've been waiting for someone to challenge. I was beginning to think it wouldn't happen, so just kept pushing the boundary's. Authority? Well if the hat fits....
But na, like all here just a guy sprouting. Just happens that you will find mine strong and you can put that down to work I've done and the life I've had in surfing.
Some will get something out of how I go about things, others like yourself will go wtf!
But test what I say re design or any matter I've touched upon by a study of the facts available to you by research and nail me to a cross when you find me totally wrong.
It's all spice to the stew of stu.
Cheers
MM. True, I know squat on shaping but I still got the 1up on u as far as Malibu's un-ethical respect code & lack for exciting variety of movement. 90% of loggers could not draw these lines u speak of anyway but if u can then props to u. When I surf a cluttered peak I will share & politely express to all that there is an established line-up in progress here. This always works & when there is a disgruntled member in said line-ups they get beef with the whole crew & decide to leave the peak. Be RESPECTFUL of others, don't surf a cluttered peak(find an isolated beachie to hone your skills b4 dope on a roping superwank) if u can't do a turn or floater/bash & communicate politely, you'll b amazed how far this will get u.
Blind Boy is absolutely correct in everything he says and if rubber nob doesn't give 2 figs then what does that say about his outlook on life. We have a shaper down here who single handedly ran the Junior Pro, and I mean single handedly including the BBQ. He got zero help from the Big Three and in the end he ran out of steam. A real pity as it brought the cream of the junior crop together away from the comfy east coast. The industry only want to sponsor the big events or something in Bali where it is cheap as chips. Let's face it they are just and only another series of corporate entities and shouldn't pretend to be anything else. I agree with BB, grassroots is the way to go and mals should be only used on tanker wakes (sorry couldn't resist).
Couple of things outa kilter there luker...
Firstly sorry bout the cap and corner bit. In my corner of the world a payout is the first line your greeted with and is not always derogitry ... as I said in another thread, I have six sons, so payouts fly around the house non stop. But in saying that, as green pointed out, I over steeped the mark there.
But mate don't ride Mals. Yeh I'm an old guy, 58 actually and thanks to a healthy and relatively fit body con surf asbgood today as I did at thirty, though I have to admit to some inconsistency creeping in.
My point was about the art of surfboard design, which has been somewhat lost in the current practices of mass production and buying straight from the rack of a surfshop by sales people who truly are untrained and know very little about the subject of surfboard design and how to match surfboard with surfer.
As I said in that earlier post, some people are out there with things under their arms that we all might look at and wonder what the fuck they are thinking... Yet those their surfing and their designs and are going at it with a purpose.
Yep and then of course there are those who you rightly point to. But we have to be careful on who we are judging until we understand the full picture is what I'm calling.
Eg.. I know an old man with a huge mal. No one pays him any respect when he paddles out. I watch him get snaked, I watch him get dropped in on at the take off etc etc. Then finally he catches a wave to himself an ripps the bag out of it.... After a wave or two, the lineup begins to take notice and you can hear wtf going on... The surfers name is Midget Farrelly.
"What did you ever do for us? Where are the clubhouses? Where are the coaches for our non-elite youth? Where are the university scholarships for the academically talented members of our communities? Where are the resource packages to help environmentally educate our youth? Where is the superannuation of all those piece work and contract workers? Where are the lobbyists to put our case to the various levels of government? Where is the leadership on managing the hyper crowded conditions so essential to generating your wealth? Where are the support structures for those who turned out to be vulnerable to your culture of cocaine and excess? Or those, more numerous, too easily influenced by the images, so prudently managed, of that culture?"
All questions you can ask yourself BB, as well as the people who did made money with surfing or who just enjoy surfing. Better yet, provide answers, that will make you more interesting then all the billarippasilva dollar boys.
BB,
In your view, who's setting the bar today in terms of good corporate governance? Ie. where should the surfing brands' be looking to for inspiration?
Interested in your take on that since you're clearly suspicious of the profit motive where BBG, ZQK etc are concerned ... do you evaluate other sector participants by the same criteria?
And secondly, without needing to divulge anything confidential, where do you invest your Super? I'm again curious to know whether or not your calls for improved corporate governance apply only to the surf co's, or if you're really living this one.
Cos for me, as Nebasha pointed out above, direct action counts for a lot on this stuff. Talk is cheap after all.
Cheers,
Mick
Thanks for the comments. Lots of intersting stuff there. I am in transit at the moment and probably won't get back here for a day or so Iwill comment more then.
BB been considerering your opening lines... Maybe it started with the Bronze Aussies. It just might be that's where it took hold. Sure they fell over but they gave other's an idea to build on??? Not long before that Gordon M was just a guy driving up and down the east coast selling board shorts. The Quicky boys were handing out boardshorts on the north shore just to get guys to surf in them hoping to get on the cover of Surfer... that entrepreneur thing the BA's had going its said was what made Mark W uncomfortable enough to leave the BA's. Surfers just didn't do what those were doing re image etc. So maybe it began there. ???
The bronzed Aussies now there is a nightmare not worth reliving. Arsehole Cairns and is smug mate Townend both deserve to be in the States so glad we got rid of those two. Re Mickj no super here just land investments something I can see with no smoke and mirrors. Old school is sometimes best school. And another whinge about the surfmeganauts, do they ever employ talented and experienced designers for their apparel? Seems to me they think it up over a few stubbies. The difference between the packaging and design from Deus customs and any one of the big three is night and day. Both are all about image but the former is in another league.
Nightmare? Yeh I thought so at the time and even more so looking back on it. It's about the same time Skyhooks were trying to sell the line Ego is not a dirty word..... Ha!
Hey Memla,
Okey doke, if you're 100% invested directly in land (and not through a listed property vehicle) then that does partially mitigate my question to BB. Which is why are so many people suspicious of normal corporate behaviour when its carried out by a surf company, yet most working Australians support exactly the same behaviour via their super funds being large holders of Australian equities.
Guess the 'greed or not' question would still apply to anyone that holds an asset of value though (and is separate to the 'smoke & mirrors' point, which ASX listed firms can't generally get away with anyway), whether shares or property. What are you going to do when you sell? Highest price possible?
Cos if so, and again most people would look to maximise their returns in such a way, that's an entirely consistent personal approach with that taken by BBG and other such corporations. They should be good corporate citizens (and certainly most large public Australian companies would qualify as such on a world scale) but they're not essentially doing anything different from individuals - looking to profitably grow an asset base. Just on a larger scale, and with shared ownership.
Of course, you may well be a philanthropist of sorts and will offload your property assets to a local Community group for a discount and if so, good on you. You're a better man than most in that case, including me.
Cheers,
Mick
Mickj... The points you raise are in arguable if that be ones practice. But no, its not mine personally. Fool I might be, but I bought the ethos of the times I was born into lock stock and barrel. Live by it whether I want to or not as it has became a part of something not separate from what you would know as me, if you were to know who I am.
Personally speaking, and also speaking on behalf of others who made the choices I did and who I know, we didn't see the sucker punch coming. Most of us got behind the wheel at some stage to drive the bus. Then like our swell net BB, at some point we saw the slight of hand being used and got off the bus, never thinking that these company's would do what they have done.
As BB points out, they swapped a culture for a hat.
If you were not living it, it might difficult to comprehend, and my explanation that follows may not make it any clearer, but I will try.
Imagine Australia prior to Capt Phillip. A bunch of little communitys with varying cultural slants all doing their own thing in there own way, but still all a part of something that was a whole, complete. Then comes Phllip sailing in in a tall boat. Looks good and impressive at first so you greet him. Your completely unaware of Phillips agenda nor the common cold he brings with him. By the time you work out he's not a god and him coming to your place was not such a good thing, most of your tribe is dead from the flu and what is left has lost its grip on its cultural values.
Sorry if that comparison seems a bit over the top and melodramatic but I don't feel it is.
And what I find intriguing and interesting and what keeps me coming back to this site, is I reckon that the point where BB is writing these things from.
I'm not aware of anyone else who is approaching this subject like BB is and coming out and begining to make points and raise questions, and who is doing so with his obvious writing talents. But he is also a little unsure of himself in this subject matter or testing the waters to see how far he can go before he does open heart surgery.
Either way we can learn from the subject matter he is exposing here.
Like this nation we now know as Australia, surfing can't go back, it can only go forward.
How we go forward as a culture will be detirmined by how clearly we understand our past. And not many have a clear understanding of how we got to where we are and why, so any one in BB's position, which is one of knowledge and a forum to express that knowledge, is in a unique position today.
These new media mediums can assist to unlock some petty heavily locked doors.
Mighty,
Yeah I guess for me though:
- Surfing culture is far from dead. Sure its changed since the 70s but so has everything else.
- I have zero issues with surfing corporations acting like corporations. Where BB sees exploitation, I see creation.
- Surfing is a very open, dynamic and meritocratic community in my view. I'd save the Grand Inquisitions for when they're really required myself.
So to summarise, while I admire the strength of BB's convictions (and the effort he puts into this Forum) I respectfully disagree with almost everything he has to say. I don't recognise his version of the truth at all.
Happy to leave it there, but Stu has my personal email if you guys want to discuss it further offline. Always pays to examine your own opinions in detail I think, just don't wanna smash this chain any further.
Otherwise, have a good one.
Cheers,
Mick
Mickj,
Great to see you put your thoughts down - its your opinion, and BB has his. Who is right, and really who has the authority to say who is right is beyond my knowledge.
So what if the big brands are soulless, aren't most of the big brands in other areas a similar style - money above everything?
Its just that surfing is close to our heart, except for this morning where the southerly ruined any chance of me getting a decent wave, or even getting wet!
Mickj....
Not dead but not healthy either.... Doors and livelyhoods are closing by the day.. debt is heavy most everywhere in the industry.
Internationally our world is currently under threat from corperate agenda. (See Avarez)
Exploitation by corperations are regular news bulletins.
Current surfing industry/communities are antagonistic toward each other. They are in competion against each other for the same dollar.... Which is shrinking.
Facts are interesting and stand without requiring an opinion.
Standing on the inside looking out obviously is a different view from outside looking in.
Where ever you stand mick, all the best.
Mickj....
Not dead but not healthy either.... Doors and livelyhoods are closing by the day.. debt is heavy most everywhere in the industry.
Internationally our world is currently under threat from corperate agenda. (See Avarez)
Exploitation by corperations are regular news bulletins.
Current surfing industry/communities are antagonistic toward each other. They are in competion against each other for the same dollar.... Which is shrinking.
Facts are interesting and stand without requiring an opinion.
Standing on the inside looking out obviously is a different view from outside looking in.
Where ever you stand mick, all the best.
Hi mick sorry to be so slow getting back here but I am travelling and have only had brief Internet access. I think the essential difference between the surfing corporations and others is in their use of the image of surfing which is not their property. My belief is that having used this image to generate substantial wealth, something I do not think was wise in the first place, they owed a substantial debt to the communities that created it.
As for not holding other equally rapacious industries to the same standard well give me a forum and I will do my best. In my view we have entered a period of appalling corporate and political standards in which both government regulation of corporations and the traditional ethical standards to which they used to hold themselves have been under-mined by vested interests on a global scale. What has happened in surfing is a tiny example of this but one that is useful in this context, partly for its own sake but also because it may start people thinking about the behaviour of other corporations.
It is hard to the point of impossibility not to be compromised to some degree. Whether it be surfing or any other aspect of life it is difficult to avoid adding to the wealth and destructive power of the parasitical class. That said, what superannuation I have is invested in an industry fund whose members keep a close watch on its investments. To do more than that would involve me spending way too much time doing something I hate.......thinking about money.
Great article Blindboy. Please write more. You wrote a fantastic opening line. "It is hard to put a date on exactly when surfing allowed itself to become a milk cow for the entrepreneurial class."
Maybe in your town (Gold Coast? Torquay?), but not at my beach. Maroubra Surfers Association celebrated 50 years. The clubs assets are few, the tent leaks in the rain, sticky tape holds the PA together and the BBQ ran out of gas 6 months ago. I am not really into contests, but i rejoined my local club because i care about surfing culture and my community. I am trying to do my bit, which may not be much.
My point is, surfing culture is, and always was, controlled by local surfers. I think we need to get over this expectation that surf fashion companies will provide for us. There is no free ride. Fashion brands rise and fall in cycles, to be fair to them, they spread their wealth, employ people, pay taxes, pay gst to the public purse.
If the bigger issue here is rights, surfers rights. It needs to be grass roots, say like a political party got up, The Surfers Party and got a seat in the NSW or Federal Senate.
Surfers Party ?? Now there's an idea that has been raised before on these forums.
Candidates please step forward....
@fong. hi fong don't know where you exist in surfings time line, but there was a strong surf culture before the 3. It was centred on the beaches and around the surfboard industry.
It's that culture, and the image that culture had produced, that those fledgling company's used to build their brands...
I don't know that the real beach culture of surfers today is tied up with these brands anymore, and if they are maybe its only with a minority.
It's been decades now since those brands have centred their sales strategies on surfers. Their hunger to get fat took them to Siberia to sell boardshorts and tee shirts.
By doing so they lost their cred with the surfing culture that was their roots and therein I see is the cause of their current issues as a business.
Now I see my nineteen year-old twins who grew up on the beach and obviously go surfing steer far away from surf gear and especially the 3 in their fashion and only use their hard core products like their wetty. I got four other boys and none of them wear surf fashion either.
So I'm thinking the spilt has been made already and that the culture, at least to some extent, is separating itself naturally.... , the division has been made, these brands have lost their cool, as pointed to in another thread.
If I'm right I think we can make that separation easily, and In fact see that we are in that process now. Will it stick or will those corporations fight back and get us to believe they represent surfings culture? Well as they have chosen to only really represent pro surfing and not surfings diversity, I doubt it.
Thanks Andrew. Sounds like Maroubra is a twin of my own club and the reasons you give for belonging are the same as my own. I am not suggesting that we should be dependent on the surf companies, only that in the circumstances they should have done much more. It's interesting that you mention employment because there was a much higher percentage of local surfers working in surf related jobs 30 or 40 years ago than there is now so if they created employment it doesn't appear to have been in local surfing communities.
As far as taxes go I would want proof that the wealthy in the surf industry are paying their share given the ease with which they can be avoided. As for GST if the bulk of the money goes to the already wealthy it gets invested rather than used on consumption so the GST would not apply.
A political party is an interesting idea but probably not viable, particularly after the procedures for the Senate are modified in the near future. One way to generate influence would be by the clubs changing direction and becoming much more inclusive. The problem is that in my experience this is the last thing they want since it would dilute their identity and I completely understand that. Another would be to form a recreational surfers association like Surfrider but without the environmental component, a long and difficult task requiring some high profile support I would think.
Sympathizing with the surf corporations because they're just as filthy as non surf corporations is hard to fathom.
People may purchase their products like their wetsuits and enabling them but that's no reason to put them on the same level as scumbags getting rich exploiting poverty stricken slave labour.
You vote Labor or Liberal you vote for laws to be put in place to protect these corporations and laws to be put in place to fuck ordinary people over everyday.
fong, I think all cultures are derivative to varying degrees. Australian surf culture, as you say, has taken much from California and Hawaii but also a lot from mainstream Australian culture particularly that larrikin streak we are known for. If you look harder you would probably find other influences too. As for the interaction with the big three my point is that they took the imagery and identity of that existing culture and used it commercially without sufficient compensation to the communities who developed it. I don't know where you are but where I surf we can trace the surfing culture back to the 1940s. The surf industry did not start marketing to non-surfers until the 70s and the surfers they used in that process did not come from nowhere. Every single one of them came out of a highly competitive local environment without which they never would have attained their performance levels. They also depended on shapers and designers who had learnt their skills from an even earlier generation.
good article Blind boy, I agree completey with everything you said. Corporate ideology is trying to ream the skateboard world too. How cool are vans shoes right now. Makes me puke. Surfing is gayer than aids right now. Still love the water though, just not all the chumps who create all these subcultures of surf cool and wankery. I just ignore all the gits these days and burn anyone who dosnt play the water etiquette game nicely. There are still heaps of G.C's who surf, but they are getting harder to find.
Here is a lovely track to keep your surf groove on in a positive way.
@BB, @ font. As the fifties and sixties Australia was heavily weighed to the old style working class who's families gave birth to Midget, Bob Pike, Robbie Lane, Richie, Spenser, etc, I believe you would find if your spoke to those guys, they drew very little from the OS surf scene in terms of culture definition. Ideas for design, surfing style and manoeuvres of the day yeh, but when it came down to "how we going to live this out, make something of it for ourselves".....
These guys built from the ground up..... as a kid living up the road from Midget and his sister being our family baby sitter, I got a real close up view of that culture being built. Then of course I walked straight up the road they had carved.
The yanks were very middle class at that time and their surf culture reflected that. The Aussies were very working class and we reflected that.... and that fact alone developed a very different surf culture.
Now we come to BB's point. The image of that culture got sold to the world. The whole world fell in love with it..... those that developed that culture, those that gave their lives to develop that culture, those communities that developed around those cultures have been shafted . It's been all take and no give.
But they sponsor surf contests and surfers I hear some say.... They sponsor their own advertising I reply..... Not one beach community benefits from that without any strings attached, that I am aware of.
Sorry BB. & fong, I'm on the HTC ph and they make writing on these things difficult... Specially if you press the wrong button.
So as I was saying, because of how these three companies chose to do things, its hard to feel for their current state of problems as really, what have they done to respect and preserve the culture that they were born in.
These companies will tell you that not only have they respected and preserved the surfing culture, they have grown it all around the world......
But I measure such claims against the words of those I know that built the Aussie surf culture and against those words the three companies claims fall very short indeed.
Our is not a world were Perfect lives. That being so it was always going to be a short lived ideal that surfing hung out as a carrot to change a society and the options it offered as a way to live, when as a culture it began to galvanize. But those of us that got a taste of that perfect ideal of surfing your life away, of living outside of the main stream middle of the road mediocrity that is the normal social currency, will always look at those that pulled surfing into main stream social culture and out of a rebellious sub culture, and hate them for it.
Well said mouse! The beach areas in Sydney, with few exceptions, were unfashionable until the 80s. Then there were Newcastle and Wollongong which were solidly working class. You didn't hear too much chat about real estate prices or the stock market in the water back then! You could add a whole stack of names to that list of surfers but I'm not sure many of the businessmen could claim the same background.
@BB. Ha ha.... I laugh at the use of the word hate. Dramatic effect overkill.
BB, I'm going to kill off the mouse. Love the fact your willing to put yourself out there and tackle touchy subjects that are often taboo. No don't let this article be your last, look at all the likes this stuff gets.
The mouse will leave you all with a bit of history to consider.....
Back in the day when all this going pro stuff and getting paid to go surfing by surf companies was on the table and being debated, a lone voice from a little corner of the Manly surfing contingent put in his dollar's worth and said, "don't do it, it will change everything" and he got shouted down.
Now some forty years later as a crippled surf industry flounders and the interest in pro surfing is at an all time low on any beach, I get asked to deliver a message from one very high profile surfing identity to another who was instrumental in building the Aussie surf culture, and the message goes like this... " Sorry, you were right, I was wrong. I never
saw what you already knew from your experience at that level".
Sorry to see you go mouse but you know where I am if you ever want to catch up.
Cool.BB, I will keep my eye out for your articles. But best I go as I notice the mouse doesn't actually contribute to debate, the mouse shuts it down. I'm not a skilled writer as yourself and as green pointed out earlier in this thread, the mouse can sound like an authoritarion school teacher and therefore debate is stiffled rather than opened up.
These things you point to should be opened up and discussed at a deep level with all who see themselves as surfers and wish to contribute to the surfing communities of the future.
Me , I've had my day, done what I did and if I had my time over again would only surf more and go harder.... what I've experienced and learnt re surfing is quiet extraordinary when I look back over the years.... Cheers.
BB - do you really think they got cream, not skim milk powder?
"It is hard to put a date on exactly when surfing allowed itself to become a milk cow for the entrepreneurial class. "
Perhaps when Geoff and Cheyne were shafted in the race for those world titles? When one era gave way to a new and the corporate surfing completely took over...
MM is so right on this thread when he says:
"Lines BB, its all in the lines. While I could ride like wise to yours and mates have made them for me and said here try this, can't get the lines I want outa a concaved overly tail lifted, square hard edged rail, foiled out, surfboard that makes surfing difficult and unenjoyable for a man of my want and experience.
That clasify's as a reasonable defence of a 6'6. 21. 3" convex bottom, soft rail round tail wouldn't you say.
It's all in the line BB, the places I want to go and how I want to get there. And therein lies the beauty of surfboard design.
AND ... Wow its opening up again after so many years of narrowed thinking..... Bring it on...."
I'm in exactly the same place MM, 6'3 x 20 1/4" x 3", convex bottom, soft rail rounded swallow; and the lines are incredible, and the hold is amazing, and the directional ability is savage, and the stability is so strong, and the sheer neutrality of input to output is in perfect balance - the experience is like a great opening up of possibilities that were hidden 30+ years ago... The Cream on the Cake!
6'2" x 20 x 21/2
..........................lots of concave through the tail, rocker through out, large side fins and a small tail fin, probably not the fastest thing afloat down the line but surfing Sydney it's worth exchanging a little down the line drive for greater mobility on the face. I'm all for people surfing what suits them but not at the expense of the rest of the crowd and I'll never be convinced that there is any advantage beyond wave catching in malibus.....with the exception of those days too tiny and weak for most of us to be bothered with.