The Outsider: Raging Bull
"On the day when crime dons the apparel of innocence, through a strange reversal peculiar to our age, it is innocence which is called upon to justify itself." Camus.
I dropped my daughter off at school bright and early and headed north to the bright lights and seamy underbelly of the Gold Coast. The plan was to head to Burleigh, sniff around and talk to any eyewitnesses of the Flores/Garcia/Burleigh local beat down that went live and put surfing back on the glittering main stage where it belongs.
I had one main question to answer: how does a man assault another man in front of thousands of people, captured on camera, and walk away without being charged in a modern democratic country that professes to live by the rule of law?
A quick digression to set the emotional tone. I confess a deep and visceral loathing for what the Gold Coast has become. It is a soulless, desperate place covered over with a patchwork of cookie-cutter, middle class, legoland slums populated by carpetbaggers, hucksters, slumlords and real estate agents, heroin addicts turned born again Jesus freaks, scumbags, gimlet-eyed washed-up drunks, has-beens and never-weres, net porn addicts with bad B.O, leather-skinned whores walking into grim Soviet-style whorehouses, hock shops full of stolen goods, used car salesmen, deluded dreamers hawking some snake oil or other, obscenely wealthy plastic surgeons and lawyers who charge by the hour with epoxy SUP's on gleaming new BMW X 5's (baby seal white or jaguar black) and every other kind of stooge and dreg of human society.
The Gold Coast is proof positive that evolution does not always work in one direction, sometimes there is regression. In this case on a grand scale. The skyline is dotted with ugly high-rises whose lower floors contain retail stores flogging the worst kind of asian made junk and useless trinkets, as well as low rent supermarkets where several generations of semi-literate morbidly obese bogan families wallow in the aisles, blood flowing like turgid rivers through sclerotic arteries jammed with cheap margarine and other trans-fatty refuse. Great clots of ghoulish old people stagger like zombies through the promenades with chunks of dripping flesh protruding from bandages where plastic surgeons have carved out malignant skin cancers.
What's that shipmates? You think I'm being too kind? I assure you the place is a monument to greed, short-sightedness, vapidity, vanity of every stripe and flavour, narrow fanaticism, monumental ignorance, idiocy, drunken and meaningless violence, local thuggery and faux spiritualism wearing the cloak of commerce; a vast, jumbled consumer wasteland created by pre-human or sub-human monsters in a delirium of greed. It is the very essence of the fake, the shallow, the meaningless and artificial. Even the very sand that lines the pointbreaks has been mechanically pumped over by great belching machines.
The surf is a clusterfuck of biblical proportions. Millions of tanned and tattooed rats tear each other to pieces to relieve the tension momentarily as they spazz their way over the wave they so viciously fought for. As a general rule of thumb I would rather take a jewess to Auschwitz on a date than take a surfboard to the Superbank. We note in fairness that the surf occasionally produces the most mind-numbingly perfect sand bottom tubes on the planet, with a water so perfectly blue and glowingly iridescent that it is capable of momentarily absolving the litany of sins and transgressions so far listed. There are surfers of sublime grace and casual skill fully capable of threading these blue caverns. History is clear on this fact.
Perched in the heavens atop this modern day Gomorrah, like the tower of Babel, stands the Surf Industry, with it's glittering showrooms full of shiny merchandise via which means pliant surf magazine hacks can be gently persuaded to continue to propagate the almighty myth of the Gold Coast (amongst other money making myths). A dream which has quite clearly turned toxic and insane.
In the words of Captain Willard: "Yes Sir. Quite clearly insane."
I arrived at Burleigh Heads at 10.36 am QLD time. The merciless QLD sun was beating down on me like Gods own blowtorch. I was lucky to get a park on the hill under the shade of a Norfolk Island Pine. Just to my left I saw Cheyne Horan talking to two elder Burleigh locals who shall remain nameless. One may or may not be a surfboard shaper of over 30 years, and the other may or may not be one of the best surfers Burleigh has ever produced, a contemporary of MP, Pro Surfing pioneer and a guy who saw it all go down. He's a large man of strong physique, barrel chested, slightly past his prime but with a piercing blue gaze which admits of excellent health and good spirits.
I greeted Cheyne, who I have known for many years and asked the local who I'll call Mr X if he saw the guy getting bashed...
"Hell yeah," he said. "I broke the fight up. I'm a friend of both Sunny and Adam [the local]. I knew Sunny was going to get into the shit again and I pulled him off and said, 'Sunny, we've got to get the fuck out of here'".
"What happened, who started it ?" I said.
"Oh, it was nothing. Weekend at Burleigh. Bit of fun and games that went too far. Few words. Adam and Flores took it into the sandbar and were having a few love-slaps. Sunny saw his son standing close by and thought he was in the fight. He wasn't. Sunny went in and gave Adam a little hug and a few love-taps"
"Fuck, it looked a bit more vicious than that on the footage." I countered.
"Nah. Adam didn't have a mark on him, just a bit of a sore neck."
Adam, by the way is a 21-year-old local surfer. Stone, Sunny's son, is 16. Flores is in his early twenties. Sunny is in his early forties.
Mr X went on, "Stone was telling his Dad, 'he didn't touch me Dad, he didn't touch me'. It was just a case of mistaken identity. I was pounding Sunny on the chest trying to get him to listen. His eyes were white. I thought he was gunna deck me," he laughed uproariously.
"So what about the Brazzo camerman?" I said.
"Well, when Sunny was in the shower, the guy came up with his camera and started mouthing off saying 'Hey Sunny you think you in Hawaii...how bout you go back to Hawaii?'"
"Sunny said, 'You fucken make me.'"
"Well the guy kept mouthing off and Sunny charged him. The guys courage deserted him at the last moment and he turned tail and ran (never seen a guy run so fast....bahahahahhha). Sunny caught him on the carpark there and pushed him and you saw the grazes. Sunny calmed down, looked at me and said, 'What the fuck have I just done...shit'"
I nodded.
Mr X continued, "Storm in a fucking teacup. Few of the local boys were like 'Fuck Sunny, we're going to fuck him up' but I said, calm down boys we've got a good thing going with the Hawaiians...lets not fuck it up. Remember what happened when D(local enforcer) punched Dane?"
I assumed he meant Dane Kealoha. Cheyne nodded sagely and added, "No need to make things difficult for the boys over there".
"So Sunny got together with Adam and they sorted it out. No fucking drama." And with that Mr X considered the matter closed. Others did too, as I was to find out later.
"Now Cheyne, you out there or what?" said Mr X.
Cheyne nodded. There were some fun chest high peelers on the rock break. Cheyne turned to me, "What about you Shep? Coming for a paddle?"
"I'll get the scraps of the scraps after you guys have finished with it. Got a board for me to ride?"
"Only one of these learner boards. I'm gunna ride one."
Cheyne runs a surf school and we went to his van and pulled out two 8 foot long canary yellow soft boards.
Mr X rode a finless board and fucking dominated with some tasty trim lines and side-slips.
I sat wide on a bright yellow soft board. The perfect weapon to blend unobtrusively into the Burleigh line-up with it's cadres of dirtbags ready to punch on. I went in to the line-up and hustled for an inside wave. It looked unattended so I caught it and delayed a bottom turn to set-up a little inside tube-ride. I caught a rail and out of the corner of my eye I saw a board fly past my head. What the fuck, there must've been some goon take off in the whitewater. I came up eyeball to eyeball with a tattooed tough-guy.
"Sorry mate. I dead-set didn't see you."
A frosty atmosphere descended on the line-up. Was I about to taste the famous Burleigh hospitality? I sat on the board. To be honest, I had the superior and more stable fighting platform. And a faster means of escape if things turned ugly. The local shrugged and paddled away with a shake of the head.
Cheyne thought it hilarious.
"So, you going to the ASP awards night Shep?" Cheyne asked.
"Mate, Julian Assange'll be having cups of tea in the Whitehouse before the ASP invites me to one of their shindigs."
It was time to go visit the Plod and see how the official investigation was proceeding. Actually the case had been dropped but I wanted to find out why. Hadn't the assault been captured on video and made the lead story in the nightly news? Surely the police would proceed just under the weight of the video evidence.
I stopped at a second hand book-store in Burleigh to find directions to the cop shop. Picked up a lightly thumbed paperback copy of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment while I was there. It might make a nice present for Sunny if I ran into him. Figured he hadn't read it.
The Brazzo camera-guy had dropped his charges and the police had announced they were halting the 'investigation'.
Why? You are about to find out readers.
I drove around the back streets of West Burleigh hoping to talk to someone in the Gold Coast CIB. Ended up driving down Taliban Street. I shit you not, sports fans; you can't make this stuff up. I parked opposite the cop shop still dripping wet. Personal hygiene and grooming have never been my strong suits. My back-up career plan is to move to Ventura and try for bit parts as a homeless drunk in Dane Reynolds' videos.
In bare feet and mouldy boardies I entered the police station. My relationship with the QLD Police force had not always been harmonious, I was hoping my 'paperwork' was in order. The constable came to the front counter. She was a petite brunette who was a dead ringer for Ali McGraw in The Getaway. The day had taken an unexpected turn for the better.
"Can I help you?" she said.
"I'm a freelance journalist trying to find out some information about the Sunny Garcia/Jeremy Flores incident on the weekend," I said. (Damm my black-hearted soul if I wasn't thinking something more lascivious).
She took a long look at me. I shoulda at least worn thongs.
"We have a media liason office which answers enquiries in this matter"
"Um, I was hoping to talk to a detective on the case".
She fixed her pretty little mouth into a rockhard grimace. "That won't be possible, I'm afraid. Here is a number to call".
I called the media flak catchers on the way to Coolie. I meant to stop at the ASP HQ on the way home to Byron with hopes to catch Brodie Carr on his way to the cubicle. A little conversation is all I wanted. Maybe ask him why the ASP was continually looking like amateur hour and couldn't seem to understand why it's inaction looked so hopelessly impotent.
I ran a red light at Palm Beach due to the fact I was on the phone to the Plod's media liason office. Yes, the flak catcher told me, the charges had been dropped. But why, I wondered, had the investigation been scratched. Surely the video was strong enough prima facie evidence for the cops to make a charge? Well, the spin doctor explained to me (he was a lovely chap named CJ...true!) assault cases were assessed on a scale from common assault to GBH and only in serious cases would police continue with an investigation.
Yes, I said. But have police taken the video into account in their deliberations?
"Ummm...." he said. "Which Video?"
"The damm thing was the lead story on Channel Nine News," I exploded.
"Not exactly sure but I think they have made their assessment based on that," he said.
"Sounds like you have to stab more people than Brutus before the police will act," I said.
"Huh?"
"Nevermind. Thank you CJ, you have been most helpful." I put the phone down.
"NOT!"
I could see now why so much of journalism had been reduced to reprinting press releases. Goddam spin doctors and flak catchers controlled everything. It's not evil so much as depressingly banal. No wonder Assange feels so compelled.
I was at Coolie by now. Running through the shopping mall in bare feet to reach the upper levels where the ASP controls the future of Pro Surfing. Or not, as the case may be. At the front desk an attractive dark haired woman asked me in a heavy french accent if she could help.
"I'm looking to talk to Brodie Carr," I said.
She looked at me, at my bare feet, with naked disdain. "Ees not ere."
"OK. Do you know where he is?"
"Ees in a meeting"
"Fine, do you have a phone number for him"
"You email im."
Great. I took a business card and left the building. School was getting to ready to break and I had to pick up my daughter. On the way home I called the ASP number. The French women answered. I got a strong impression she remembered me. No, Brodie still wasn't there. OK, how about Dave Prodan. Dave's the media guy for the ASP. I met Dave in Taheets. He's a friendly fella. He didn't return my email but he took the call and I thank him for that act of humanity.
"The police investigation is closed Dave, so why is the ASP delaying it's disciplinary decision?" I asked.
"Oh, they're not delaying it...it's just that they've been in meetings and haven't reconvened yet"
"OK, what options are available to them?"
"Options? Bans, fines, expulsion, that sort of thing," Dave answered.
"Do you know if any of those are being considered here?"
"Uh, not to my knowledge."
"OK, the ASP has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to violence. Could you explain what zero tolerance means?"
"Well it's in the rule book so it means the organisation doesn't accept violent behaviour."
"Hmm...OK."
"Is the ASP aware of the depth of outrage over this incident in the broader surfing community?" I asked.
"I'd say they would be."
I was at the Byron Bay turn-off. A car cut in front of me. I waved my fist and shouted abuse. He gave me the finger. I slowed. He slowed. I felt a murderous rage rising in my chest. Christallmighty shipmates, Sunny isn't the only one with anger management issues.
I got to the school exactly on time. Christchurch was in ruins. Tapis and West Texas Crude were skyrocketing in price. Libyans were being threatened with mass murder by a tinpot dictator. Amidst this chaos I felt supremely peaceful, like a statue of Buddha deep in a remote forest.
"Hey Dad, how was the Gold Coast?" My daughter cheerily enquired.
"Aw, you know, just another day at the office."
"Hey," I said, "fancy a pie at the servo? I've got to pick up a new pair of thongs."
Postscript:
What have we learned from this mess shipmates? That human beings are incomprehensible monsters? Oui. Well, it's a spectrum of course. We'll put Jesus and the Buddha up one end and Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler and every other murderous dictator up the other. But even Buddha abandoned his family and Jesus hung out with whores and tax collectors. You get my drift? Morality is a funny old game...the rules seem to depend on who is playing it.
Sunny's been called out by a million anonymous internet heroes whos courage has ran fiery hot on the keyboard. A dumb thug is the most common refrain. But if we cast a cool and dispassionate eye over the 'recovery plan' from this incident we see strong evidence of a first rate mind.
His first port of call was to hire top Gold Coast criminal lawyer Chris Nyst. Nyst is an author of crime fiction, a screenwriter and has represented talents like Pauline Hanson, Joh Bjeke-Peterson and Peter Foster. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying he is the go-to guy if you've got cash and have royally fucked up. Like, serious jail-time fucked up.
We can be almost certain from Nyst's body of work and reading his fiction that his first advice to Sunny was 'shut the fuck up, don't talk to anyone. Let me handle this'. This advice doesn't come cheap though. While Nyst didn't tell me, industry figures confirmed his billable hours would come at around $500/hr.
What inducement was offered to Adam Clarke to ensure he didn't press charges and kept his trap shut? We'll probably never know but whatever it was, if anything, it has worked exceptionally well, so it was probably a good one.
I rang Nyst in his office yesterday to ask him. I spoke to several secretaries who did an excellent job of screening my call. I left my number and went to check the surf. I was shocked to discover when I got back that Nyst had personally returned my call. I quickly called him back. I introduced myself. He had a voice as smooth and deep as a piece of aged wood. "Where are you from Steve?"
"Lennox Head."
"So you're not the guy from the newspaper."
I thought to myself, 'You mean that kook Fred Pawle'.
"Nah, I do independent online stuff."
I asked Chris if he could confirm if there had been any monetary inducement offered to Adam Clarke to persuade him not to lay charges or if there were any civil actions now pending against Sunny. Nyst sounded just ever so momentarily taken aback...I heard him inhale. He told me he'd have to ask Sunny whether he was authorised to talk to me.
I tried one last tack. I asked him if there were now doubts over the official story that Sunny was protecting his son from 'assault by a larger man' when all the photo and video evidence clearly showed the fight between Flores and Clark.
He chuckled a little. Sorry Steve, I'd have to ask Sunny whether I could answer any questions. "Well," I said "I'm pretty sure I know what he'll say to that request".
"Thanks for your time Chris."
If Dane Reynolds were here none of this would be happening.
Comments
No matter how deep into the shit the day delves, this will keep me smiling.
Cheers!
Again, a good read to start the day.
Saddens me though because I concur with every word written. Havn't surfed Burleigh in years and havn't surfed Snapper since it was, well, Snapper.
I remember being able to walk down to the shop near the Pink Poodle to buy lollies as a kid, Friday night take-away from the Jolly Chinaman up at Mainie, my first stand up wave inside Tally creek.
Then it all seemed to change overnight when that fucken Casino went up. Or maybe I just grew up?
wow, fear and loathing on the Gold, never read such an extensive onslaught to our sunburnt city; could you right to Allconnex for me?
shame that if Sunny and Clarky (I don't know either of these guys, please forgive the familiarity) are mates again that it is not in the news hogging the same spot as the apparent assault. It would certainly help with 'closure' to this ugly incident.
Welcome back Steve! I might be missing something but it seems the whole thing has been resolved through old fashioned standover threats of Hawaiian violence
Steve's own reference to Mr X discussion makes this pretty clear: "calm down boys we've got a good thing going with the Hawaiians...lets not fuck it up." This is confirmed by Cheyne: "No need to make things difficult for the boys over there"
Reinforced by Brazilian cameraman's quote in paper: He now plans to ''lay low'' in his native Brazil until the surf rage furore dies down.
''I'm too scared to press charges,'' the photographer said yesterday.
''Garcia could go to jail and then people would want to get me. At the moment I just don't feel safe.
''I've had threats on the internet I don't know how I'd protect myself and my family if something happened."
So it seems to me that local boy Clark's refusal to press charges would have been less induced by $$$ than by a collective fear of violence and assault on Australian surfers in Hawaii.
Sheeeesh!
That was one hell of a white knuckle ride Shep ! But how can you leave me this way?
....what do you mean "if Dane were here" .....No biff?/ no corruption?/Goldy all kosher?/you in gold Havaianas.... With Ali's number!?....And you can't seriously re read C&P and not come out more unhinged after that crazy trip ?
And am I so fcuked up by the bootleg to feel Sunny has this ' you know he's an malevolent carnt, but like Tony Soprano, could give him a big hug air' about him?
A hug off between him and the local WOULD be a dream outcome and photo op for all (powerbrokers mind you) concerned though, no?
Can't wait for the next installment.
... perhaps the most astute treatise of the Gold Coast written.
Thanks Steve.
Why aren't surf mags this lucid? I sometimes get the feeling that most of the mags are the media arm of the ASP. I used to love reading Mario Muridello (I think that was the pesudonym) in surfing world back in the early 80's about the tour as it was then. Steve follows this tradition and takes it to new levels. By the by, a mate from Winki said Garcia was the only pro to drop in on him and when he complained told him to 'f' off with a look of menace in his eye.
Just watched an interwiew with the Asp lawyer after the incident between Sunny and Neco at the 2007 Pipe Masters.Definatley worth a look!
Well isn’t this just special. A special load of donkey cock. Utter rubbish!
Once a fan, Freeride, I’ve turned quite in the opposite direction, and have become repelled by your words. I return to be disappointed at the genuine lack of coherent thought and writing ability. As is to be expected, you perpetuate the stereotype of the surfer as being dense, insipid and immature. I am appalled that Stu lets you soil these hallowed pages with your filth. In fact, I am penning a hate letter at this very moment that will be delivered via rock-tether through his living room window. May you be the gracious recipient of a Sunny Garcia knuckle sandwich on your next trip to the North Shore.
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Kidding! Bra-fucking-vo!!
Fuck, I'm gonna have to up me Ritalin dose if you keep up these epics. Can't you do a podcast or some shit? Even though I suspect you've got a voice like an antipodean David Beckham, the sort of voice that'd make a brown dog wince and crack crystal goblets, I'd rather hear you whine than read you write.
how the fuck are you going to top this one shearer.
Hey Outsider
When are you going to remove those rose coloured glasses and really get stuck in?
Making your own boots hard to fill.
Ahhhhhh! The truth! Wont it be great when they drop Chopes and Pipe off the tour and get Huttington back as a venue on the WCT. Maybe finish the tour there! Fuck it lets get an event at Bondi in spring.
Front side air reverses rule!
Great stuff as always Steve. Pity you had to call Fred a Kook but whatever.. Funny thing is he read it and thought it was great too..
Think something will be up re the Sunny saga on the Aus site later today or tomorrow..
"Julian Assange'll be having cups of tea in the Whitehouse before the ASP invites me to one of their shindigs." This is gold sheep! keep it up!
Excellent work, you deserve a wider audience than swellnet's literate surfers. The quick digression reminds me of a seventies map drawn by the creator of Captain Goodvibes, titled Pigs Paradise. Good luck.
littleb, are u sayin Swellnet viewers can't read or write proper?
the surf is a clusterfuck of biblical proportions, that paragraph is gold. boom surf media put that in ya pipe and smoke it !!!!
Forgetting the Sunny incident (who really cares anyway - violence is a widely accepted and tolerated part of both Australian & Hawaiian culture and shouldn't come as a surprise in either location) your description of the Gold Coast is lacking one key insight - that despite your seemingly accurate assessment, the coast doesn't pretend to be something it's not.
For my mind the north coast has come to represent everything I hate about human self-delusion. A considerate, social and environmentally conscious haven for everybody? How about a hotbed of violence, apathy, social stratification, 'cookie-cutter suburbs' and un-affordability. Exactly which north coast surf break doesn't suffer heavy localism, aggression and overcrowding? Which north coast town isn't over-run with drunken meaningless violence, ignorance or insipid drug abuse (as opposed to 'drug use')? Which north coast town hasn't fallen to real estate greed and provides a good balance of income to affordability so that regular people have a chance to own their own place and enjoy some money left-over from their labours? The modern day north coast is paradise lost yet still deludes itself that the utopian ideal is in play. My advice - don't point your finger till you've looked in your own backyard.
Again, I am not necessarily disagreeing with your assessment of the coast (it is what you make of it after all) just that your assessment misses one key feature that the north coast doesn't have - its residents are under no delusions of paradise. They may be shallow, superficial and vapid, but at least they are honest and accept it.
PS. 'insert literary quote here'
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Hunter S. Thompson
hopefully swellnet is remunerating you sufficiently Steve!
keep it coming!
UFC on oneHD tonight for a little inspiration!!
Fark thats good stuff, made me join up. Like prawnhead I hope they're fillin' your pocket with some silver.
From the Kook..
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/video-of-fighting-pro-sufers-...
Hey Mk1 Maclean is still pretty cheap real estate.
Stinks a bit after the floods though and you have to like bagpipes.
Hi Nick. We haven't even put the gunpowder in the musket yet and fired a shot in anger.
Maybe a journo bitch fight in the shorey?
Baker's turned Buddhist, so that leaves Pawle or Chas.
I'll stand on the sidelines with Nyst's number on speedial.
@MK1
Oh you do not want to know what's in Freeride's back yard. Especially the shed. No sir. That man has personally invited me to see it for myself, and I do not recommend looking anywhere remotely close to his backyard.
Fucking spiders.
{{shivers}}
Sounds like you have to stab more people than Brutus before the police will act, I said.
Huh?
Well, coppers aren't known for their love of literature Steve. That line was worth the story alone.
A wider audience than swellnet's literate surfers.
that's a good 'un littleb. As in more than 3 people. Swellnet's literate surfers, fuck that's an exclusive club. ;-)
You lot can read? I just looked at the lovely photos. Isn't this a promotion for gold coast real estate and lifestyle? If it is not, what is it about and is it important?
Hey Steve. It's actually Tabilban street, not Taliban.
Turns out you can make this shit up, if unintentionally.
couldn't go past this quote from the original movie!
So give me a stage
Where this bull here can rage,
And though I can fight,
I'd much rather recite.
That's entertainment."
careful clif , (you lot can read, i just looked at the lovely photos)...
you might, (as we call'em in the trade) confirm your status as a terrestial dolphin
highly intelligent but unable to communicate!
shearer shearer shearer. just you wait and see what I've got for you buddy.
"The hauteur of the aristocracy" might be a suitable description
I will be up there this evening. preparing for my unexpected and no doubt stellar turn as part of this event's broadcast commentary team...complete with "Access All Areas" pass and Quiksilver Pro Uniform...and will thus report not from the Outside... but from IN.
oh dear. somebody's gonna regret this and I hope it's not just me.
and gra! one of the street-name signs on Tabilban Street actually calls it "taliban". A tribute to the Gold Coast City Council's spelling abilities.
I take umbrage at that Prawnhead. Us dolphins can communicate. But can you hear?
As for NC getting Shearer a pass into the beer tent, well, that is going to end in tears (laughter AND pain). If Shearer accepts said pass, does this mean he is a sellout? Or is he the cat amongst the pigeons? Will there be a debt to ASL or just Nick personally? Will Shearer finally get into Dane's ants or will Slater's jealousy prove too much? Will the 'Tabilban' blow the lot of 'em to kingdom come? How will all this play out?
I tell ya, you couldn't make this shit up.
Oh, I meant "Dane's Pant", not his ant farm.
ps. what is the hashtag for twiiter of this manly gossip. New Idea and TMZ and the Daily Sun ain't got nothin' on this shit.
Don't worry Nick, I will be bringing an A-Team with me of washed up ex-pros and loose cannons who will be draining my expense account dry in exchange for protection.
If you see us with our noses pressed against the glass of the "all access" area do be a Sport and come and say hello (pref. with a cold Corona for us workers in song).
Hey Gra!
The pink stretch Hummer in the second photo is dedicated to you and all the others advocating cultural progression on the Gold Coast. Think you know what I'm talking about.
Come on Outsider, you’ve poured acid on everything except where it counts.
Next time rather than tip toeing around the severity of Garcia’s actions stand up and hang the figs out …tell us what you really think.
A mate of mine did time in the state Pen for not ratting on his mates.
This seems a bit more serious if you ask me.
But I'm already choking on my own hypocrisy.....
Shearer, Carroll and Gra. hhhmmmmmmm. Just needs Peel to turn up and you've got a regular lawn bowls team, complete with bald heads, bad backs, faulty memories and that old short arms/long pockets syndrome.
I'll book a lane for you fellows at the Burleigh Bowlo.
I owe you a beer Freeride.
Might be able to pay one at Bells.
So, Mr. Carroll? What you're essentially saying is you get to see more dicks hanging out of towels in the proverbial ASP locker room? Every journos dream Nick.
I Kid...I Kid...
Yeah be a good story with an even better blatant area bash, but the old dick lives half hour down the coast at quite possibly the more culturally retarded venue of Byron Bay,,,,,, Put ya grass hat back on bro and go and have another triple soy machiato grande: At least the gold coast knows its the devil, Byron just dances soporifically in the voidic wasteland created by the decompostion of its once genuine authenticity... By what means? Exactly the same as that which has corrupted the integrity of the goldcoast, A soul superior mentality and the desire for The greenbacks Overflowing Central bank Sundry> > > > The Goldy might be your hell on earth but Byrons gotta be close to being Pergatory limbo::: AYE
rozwell, The Outsider ain't from Byron Bay.
Word Roz.
What a self indulgent verbose diatribe. Well you've nailed your 'outsider' title. As an outsider you've managed to publish an insulting and opinionated take on the Gold Coast based on your short time here as a visitor.
This is the work i've come to expect from the pens of Stab writers, something that instead of leaving me pumped to go surfing, actually makes me feel depressed. So 'outsider', seeing you're banding around cliches, how about this one. Leave your own, washed-up-old-wine'o self loathing for your auto biography, let a bit of air out of that big head of yours and maybe open your mind up to some positive words rather than rambling on with your own uninformed opinions of a populous you really know nothing about.
Better yet, seeing you hate the place, hate the contest, hate the surfers, hate the journo's and from what I can tell, hate yourself, how about you jump back in your 'middle class' vehicle and drive back over the border to Lennox, where you can see out your days toking on your bong and grumbling at children as they walk by pointing at the has-been in the funny hat.
Hey Rossi, loved your response. Seriously.
But two little points of fact: I lived for many years on the Goldy and know it back to front, inside out and any which way it gets served up.
And I quit the bong a long time ago.
If you like it bright and breezy you've got plenty of choice out there.
I'll keep calling it as I see it.
Cheers.
I liked it Steve.
you are a miserable turd, steve. it blows me away how many people bitch about the goldy (yes, it's nasty - but i live here and love it), then keep coming back. if you dont like it, piss off - simple.
Thanks Ezmon. I said I loathed what the Goldy had become, not what it once was. Ask Wayne Deane, Bugs, Thornton or many other lifers what they now think of their "little surf town". Coolanghetto.
Sorry if you don't dig reality.
of course it has changed, like so many other places including your neck of the woods. what i don't dig is the utopian carry-on. its the 'good old days' throwback syndrome - sure i think about it too sometimes, but i'll be buggered if i'm getting hung up about it. reality? here's one you might understand - live in the moment, steve. it's a colourful place in many ways.
Hang on Ezmon, just a sec.......OK got 'em. Thought I'd lost those Rose-coloured glasses.
Ahhhh, thats better.
Everything's perfect again now.
We are speeding towards the future and all is well.
nope, not perfect - and that's the point. i sincerely don't want your idealistic frustration to give you an ulcer steve.
The only ulcer I got Ez was when the Gold Coast Tourism Board sacked me from copywriting the latest Tourism brochure.
Can't for the life of me figure out why.
mine went away when i realised that shades of grey suck. as for sunny, a career knucklehead - not worth arguing about that one, eh steve?
Nah, not unless your getting paid by the hour and with a fat retainer.
nope, me either...necking a schooey at the cecil
sent from my iphone
The Gold Coast isn't all that bad. Maybe I'm looking at it from a less negative perspective than the outsider but I live in Surfers and life is actually pretty good. You can live in a good sized apartment with full resort facilities overlooking the surf for a fraction of the cost of renting a shitbox in Sydney. Yeah the beachbreaks on the north end can be average but I can surf twice a day and can still try push the career forward working for a global company. Within walking distance you have work, surf, coles/woolies, bars, clubs and a bunch of other entertainment, a huge amount of restaurants serving up global cuisine for under a 10 bucks. I barely have to drive my car anymore. There are babes from all over the world here for a good time not a long time. The city has world class universities, an international airport, a sports team in most major national competitions, plenty of hospitals and more infrastructure projects in the pipeline. The water is warm, there is plenty to do. Sure, there are wankers of every description around, but show me a city or even a town that there isn't? It's not the chilled little surf town of Rabbit and co's day. But that's not what everyone is looking for....
Jeez manners, at this rate you'll have the GC tourism board knocking on your door in no time. You sure it's not a 'global' PR company you work for?
Your right, maybe I talked it up too much. But after the negative rant from the outsider the thread needed a little bit of balance and I like where I live....
The times they are a changing
Take any city, town or region in Aus, and you could coalesce all manner of raging rants to form something akin to what Steve has written above regarding the Gold Coast. I've never been there. It is irrelevant. The negatives described are resident to a greater or lesser degree in nearly any urbanised region in this country (to leave the complications of foreigh comparisons out of this for the sake of simplicity). Resident also to each are the positives, many of which manners mentions, plus many more unique to each individual area. It is all a point of view.
I think Steve is simply presenting his own subjectively outraged view of how the gold coast, and the most visible aspects of its surf culture, have come to embrace and thus represent the contemporary illusions of fulfillment through mass greed and narcissism. Embracing these facets of the lies sold to us the world over obviously herd many towards oblivion via myriad paths. This happens, in one guise or another, everywhere throughout this country. It is a cancer of the culture and it will not be stopped in our lifetime.
Yet, the positives remain. They are not worth pointing out though. Any sensible man should be more than aware and ever thankful of those aspects of life that should never be taken for granted. They should only be defended when under threat. Some of the ills towards which Steve rages are indeed current and ever present threats to such privileges. You can always move away from places where the cancer encroaches most overwhelmingly, such is a personal choice for those who loathe it. Steve chooses to fight with words as he has the necessary passion, talent, intellect and balls to do so. Whether it makes any difference in the long term is beside the point. That he chooses to do it is what matters. Good on him. It takes a certain courage. With his talent, he could kiss ass for the ASP VIP pass... he doesn't, because he has his convictions. Integrity is rarer than a Taylor Knox aerial these days.
And if you can't appreciate (or simply don't agree) with any of that, then simply take it as an entertainment piece. At the very least, it is a different flavour, generally eloquent and consistently funny even if you completely disagree with his point of view. If you get nothing from it then read the other 99.9999% of surf journalism out there. It;s not all happy-spin a la surfline... just most of it. Just because things need to change doesn't mean that they will, but it is still worth yelling sometimes, if you can be bothered.
“To change the way you see things, is already to change things themselves.†JR
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/magazine/27Photograffeurt.html?%2359;h...
Striving for something souless.
Simply by living in western society we are unwittinly blinded by the competetive drive to be viewed as the most "successful". We're still a primitive bunch of morons capable of doing good but choosing not to.
P.S. New quiver for Adam.
Interesting developments: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/warrant-for-surf-sta...
Good read-
There was a mention of Julian Assange....the Swedes now are dropping charges against him.