Ya think Surfing Magazine reads Swaylocks.

Ya think Surfing Magazine reads Swaylocks.

I was thumbing through the latest edition of Surfing Magazine for the first time in years because I noticed the caption “ Surfboards 2009 … Where do we go from here. “ Wondering if this issue might be different than most of the other issues of this hype machine, it didn’t take me long to figure out that in all of the years it’s been around, this might be the most pretentious issue they have ever put out.

Once you flip the ad pages of this ridiculous publication and actually begin to read some of the content, it’s easy to see they not only specialize in selling fantasy….they also enjoy taking credit for things written by other folks on the internet and putting it in their magazine as their own. They would have you believe that they have been out on the prowl for real surfing stories and these stories just come as the natural result of investigative reporters and the magazine’s connection to the real pulse beat of surfing.

I think the first thing I noticed about this issue is the part in it called “ Random fin check “. Which would have you believe they just happened up on the content found in the section. The writer puts in his lead sentence…” in the beginning removable fins were for the cave man, then came demand and competition and technology and Kelly Slater and Wham!

Can’t you hear the clouds parting and God ready to come out and deliver a revelation?

The writer then mentions how we now have super - tech fin systems with adjustable whatchamacallits and then goes on to only mention four of the eighteen or so fin systems out on the market.

FCS and Futures are easy. Most Surfing magazine issues have numerous ads for them and they are the two largest fin systems in the world. You will have to guess how the other two were chosen to sit with the big two. One thing you can be sure of, is the fin companies left out of this so called random bit of advertisement…were left out on purpose. The ones included were not chosen randomly or because of the order of their importance, but because they in some way made a payment to Surfing Magazine. Nothing in these types of publications is random. Nothing is done because someone just forgot. Everything is done on purpose and with a purpose.

Another thing you will notice if you frequent some of the major board building web sites is how similar the 2009 surfboard article is to those web sites in both it’s subject matter and the layout. Many of the subjects written about have been discussed for years on the web in detail and some of the so called new ideas given by the writers in Surfing Magazine seem as if they were close to if not downright plagiarized from some of the main writers on those sites.

Look at the names of the mini articles within the article: So much for the Revolution, What’s happening with the next big thing, What’s happening with Fire wire, backyard revolution, Asian shrinks, what’s happening with the green surfboard, the return of the master craftsman, what’s happening with Surf tech, and what’s happing with super surfboards. Sound familiar? Go to any one of the major board building forums like swaylocks and look at the threads. Almost all of these subjects have been written about in detail.

This is what these so called “surfing magazines” do. They copy other’s ideas, they make up stories and they create a world where those that pay them or support them get flaunted as some new found hip product or company in the world of surfing. There is barely an ounce of legitimate writing in the entire rag and I doubt more than an ounce of real truth.

Only Nick Carroll writes about the one of the last pure things left in the art of board building. The master craftsman who puts his hands on foam or fiberglass and creates something from scratch that’s close to perfect and enjoyed by surfers around the world. Even then he flubbed the title by naming it, “ The return of the master craftsman. “ As if they ever went away and needed to return. Maybe some returning from giving their life’s work to Asian pop outs or does he mean the master is the new trend at the high price? Quoting Rusty from his article, “ As I get older, I’m just more interested in building nicer stuff. “ Is a guy who used to build not so nice stuff really a master? I always thought the master always made something nicer since his name was on it and only the snake oil guys sold it by logo and marketing only?

The men that are true master craftsman and have continued to shape or create are and have been the real backbone of the entire industry. Not the hype masters that own magazines nor most that advertise in them. Most of us that have been surfing awhile don’t need to be reminded of the master craftsman, because most of us use their talent for our surfboards and gave up the mass produced junk or back yard lower talent amateurs years ago. To those of us who love just being out there riding waves instead of chasing the herd, many of these craftsmen have been our friends as well as the guys that make our toys. We certainly don’t need Surfing Magazine’s input on the matter. Especially when it’s just a copy of what we have already read or written on various surfboard related forums.

Aside from the article of mini articles on 2009 surfboards, you will also find and entire page dedicated to Sterling Spencer’s girlfriend. Yep an entire page long interview with a Gulf Coast surfer’s girlfriend, complete with the G rated details on when they first made out and how she calls him sturkey or sturkels. Paid for I am sure by daddies surf shop and placed right next to an ad of Gerry Lopez shaping a board. Is this a Surfing magazine or Teen Beat?

How disgusting is it that people pay money for this garbage? The dorks have truly taken over the publishing side of Surfing Magazines to go with same type on the fashion side. I can’t even imagine who reads it and finds it entertaining.

I guess it will be a few more years before I spend a dime of my hard earned dollar on an advertisement vehicle called Surfing magazine… my digestion can only take so much.

Flipping through the final pages of the surfboard gallery complete with Surf Shop label boards… the lyrics to the Adam and the ants song kept ringing in my head……“What’s the use in robbery if nothing is worth taking…it’s kind of rough to tell a scruff the big mistake he’s making. “

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Ya think Surfing Magazine reads Swaylocks.

Definitely. Australia’s Underground Surf magazine did it without the hype when I bought it. Thirty days of the North Shore was an interesting article they did showing what the surf was like for a month over winter. The surf was crap most of the time. Nothing like telling it like it is.

Don’t you own a “lifestyle” shop that pawns the same sh!t that is advertised in those magazines?

Surfer/ing seem to become entirely irrelevant past age 13 and/or when you stop

wanting to look just like Kelly.

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Don’t you own a “lifestyle” shop that pawns the same sh!t that is advertised in those magazines?

I used to own four. How do you think I came to my view? No…I no longer do. My boardshorts don’t have any tags on them and I am frankly thinking of ridding my company of that stuff also. I mainly deal in surfboards. Surfboards made in America, by shapers who have work ethics and reputations of quality. I didn’t name my company revolution to emphasize the word. The revolution is against all that hyped B.S. and for individuality. I certainly would promote anyone getting in behind any crusade. Just thinking for themselves.

BTW: It doesn’t bug me that some retailers sell the stuff. It’s the silly image which is a lie that they are selling that bugs me and the manner in which it’s promoted. In truth everything is a name brand of sorts, but not all of it is hyped up and not all of it makes claims that are B.S. I also would never name anything I owned a " lifestyle shop" Mine were called Surf Shops.

Whew, don’t even pick up Transworld. I suppose there is a reason for that whole age/marketing focus for these publications.

Very well said!

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Surfer/ing seem to become entirely irrelevant past age 13 and/or when you stop

wanting to look just like Kelly.

Thats something I havent got a hold of…how Kelly is baldler than I am at 60, but they keep cropping his pics or putting a hat on him in every photoshoot.

Its like they (Quiky) are ashamed of his physical appearance ?

So he’s good enough to pay /promote and profit from.

But he’s not good enough to show as the real physical man he is ??

Great man , great surfer , no denying that at all,

says all the PC stuff and tows the line with business appearances,etc…

Maybe he’s just a surfing figure without a face.

At 23 I guess you could say I am in that age group that is targetted by the mags… fortunately I discovered sways about a year ago and, well I think it has saved my (surfing) soul haha. One of my good friends just got into surfing a year ago, and has really bought into all the hype the magazines promote. Living in Goleta, everybody rides a CI board. After surfing for a few months on a Dave Johnson fish, he goes out and buys a CI potato chip, and even now, a year later, I have yet to see him get a good wave on it. I go over to his place to chill and he always has the newest video that surfline is promoting, I have watched a few with him, nothing but air after air, boring stuff if you ask me. This summer when it was flat in Goleta I did a lot of driving with him, I always like to drive didnt mind paying for gas because if he drove we would surf for 30 minutes before he would get frustrated that he couldnt catch/ride a wave due to lack of foam and then he would want to bolt. Despite the room in my trunk he refused to bring the fish, one time I loaded it in my car without him noticing and when we get to the spot I conviced him to ride it again, I dont think he wanted to leave after 30 mins that time. He’s slowly figuring out that just cause the pros rip on it doesnt mean you will, unlike what the mags want you to think. Dont really know what I am trying to get at here, seemed reasonably relavant, but a tangent i guess. Sorry for my rant.

http://www.kurungabaa.net/

a surf mag that is not only interesting and has no advertising but it also will entertain you for more than 30 minutes.

sadly the state of affairs is fairly similar here in australia, with the above exepction. i highly recommend giving it a read.

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I suppose there is a reason for that whole age/marketing focus for these publications - pompano

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but they keep cropping his pics or putting a hat on him in every photoshoot.

Its like they (Quiky) are ashamed of his physical appearance ?

So he’s good enough to pay /promote and profit from.

It’s all about selling stuff…for the magazines it’s ad space and for the advertisers it’s whatever stuff they sell. It’s about the $$$, not the surfers, or surfing either really.

Every famous surfer is completely, utterly replaceable…100%. Time will take care of it eventually if nothing else. The thing the galls people who have been around a while are sins of error and omission which sometimes press on without admision or correction. A photo in a big-assed Surfer issue a couple of years ago misidentifying J. Riddle as Kevin Naughton is one example I remember - I pretty much stopped looking at the “shorty mags” probably once an astute fellow Swaylockian gave them that moniker just before or just after that petite atrocity. They think of themselves as the “Bibles of the sport”…not the TMZ’s (non-yanks might google that).

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Maybe he’s just a surfing figure without a face

Years ago I saw an interview with a legendary model agency founder…there was an ultra-hot model of that era on the show and I hadn’t paid any attention why. So with two ultra-hotties sitting with her the hotshot businesswoman explained what she looked for in models. The clothes had to look good on them and their faces had to be absolutely unmemorable, because they were showing the clothes. Since that time the culture of celebrity has exploded and faces/personalities and/or some kind of skill/experience/recognition buys people into the game. But almost never ugly people…if the most fantastic surfer the world had ever seen was fugly the person would probably not wind up being the highest paid surfer.

I am so glad you read thru the magasine surfing

for me…as with many other sacrifices

down through history,you have taken the psychic

drumming for me and all those that now

can avoid exposure to this souless

black hole of media manipulation.

The separation of church

and estate

or in this case

surfing and

exploitation of surfing

\as a vehicle for the exchange of surfing related

goods services, and attitudes directly relative

for filthy lucre and hard earned paper route

money,is not sacrocynct.

yes murphy nothing is sacred.

when You read the surfer magazine

or surfing magazine

I sugest an issue about

1965 or 63

those ads were not

so slick that you were sent into a trance

and ended up sucumbing to muszak

and neutralizing your plastic card’s magnetic strip.

as for the youongsters

somebody talk to em

ahhhhh or pass them a print out of sway locx

and hand out a hundred promotional garments on a saturday

to the entrants at a surf tick* search,

I love the prizes and gifts at the Tick search.

thanx again ,

I’m just waiting for the next journal

the one next to the throne is well read through

I may have to start rereading

old issues.

maybe that 1963 french issue of surfer

or the one with dora at rincon with no wetsuit on

the white water wave…

or the murphy issue

0r the one with gebauer at sunset

may he rest in peace.

*tick

in nature found in the fur of mammals that frequent the forest

in new surf culture an organism who is fattened with the blood of commercial

enterprise exploiation to establish wants and needs beyond cottage industries

traditional to abboriginal surfing cultures of the fifties and sixties.

when boards were regionaly made as well as attire.

I think you are right. everyone is replacable.

If i owned a surfshop, not a retail outlet for clothing, we have to be clear on that. It would be for craftsmen and woman to sell their wears and I would take a commision. many years ago Doug Warbrick and brian Singer did this with wetsuits (ripcurl). Gordon Merchant and Billabong. they all started small and took over the world. As a small surfboard maker I occasionally do the odd specky. I can put it in the local surf retail outlet and sell it as a local craftsman. However as the shop owner has alot off base and global boards on consinement my craftmanship is not pushed by the shop owner as he owes no money on it. So in effect I am being charged to make his shop look good. We don’t have a local board short maker or a wetsuit maker . we have 4 board makers who I might add are flat out.

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I am so glad you read thru the magasine surfing

for me…as with many other sacrifices

down through history,you have taken the psychic

drumming for me and all those that now

can avoid exposure to this souless

black hole of media manipulation

:wink: A few years ago I was actively involved in a surfing-related website that eventually devoled into what is now called a blog…or maybe evolved…I’ve never been too sure which. Before it got blogged down I was the guy who would do “surf media reviews”. Since the cost of actually subscribing to every surf magazine available was prohibitive (we weren’t making a dime ourselves) I hit upon the idea of going to the nearest Barnes and Noble or Borders bookstore and sitting down like the rest of the pukes and reading every single one…at one sitting. These were the early years of The Blue Crush so they had a lot of magazines including some of the Aussie publications and eventually Surfer’s Path.

Oh the humanity…or lack thereof. After a few months that turned into a soul-killing exercise that I detested, the surfing equivilent of eating 3 meals a day at fast-food giant Carl’s Jr. Low quality and bad taste…but at least my reading didn’t cost anything.

I guess I won’t go into much detail here beyond saying the quality magazines and articles stood out like mountain peaks. You would never know which magazine would run a little gem. Longboard Magazine was and is a fantastically produced publication, and I liked the look of the Aussie longboard magazines, but spend an hour or two every month looking at them and they all look alike and there didn’t seem to be any addictive wild and exciting meat to them…nothing to raise the heartbeat. Bodyboarding magazines came and went during that period, struggling to find ad support in a “surf industry” that held bodyboarding captive…all surfers need surf quality wetsuits and surf trunks, so why spend ad dollars on bodyboarding magazines when they are going to buy your stuff anyway? It didn’t matter that cutting edge gymnastic bodyboarding manuevers were years ahead of surfing at that point (yes, it’s caught up).

In the end I was tired of seeing the same surfer on the same wave from a different angle…it all became angles…demographic marketing is a good business thing but it’s based on dividing up the market to concentrate corporate ad dollars where they will do the company the most good. Unquestionably the business interests were intentionally dividing up surfing to benefit their earnings. The 14-24 year old demographic spent or controlled the most dollars, so they became king. They also are always the most easily manipulated. The concepts of “brand loyalty” became all-important. Basically consumers were divided up, herded into pens, and branded like cattle in the slaughterhouse. Not just in surfing - all advertising is based on this right now and probably always has been.

As the surf market grew and competition became more and more fierce things were micromanaged and became more cutthroat. Bodyboards are bad, longboards are bad, this is bad, that is bad…unhip is bad…old is bad…that car is unhip…that music is unhip…I’m hip because I play a guitar and Rob/Kelly/Tom/Peter play guitar…shopaholic chicks invaded surfing and flooded the corporate coffers with new fortunes and were seperate but equal…I guess this week they are calling a certain type “Woo Girls”, as in yelling “Wooo Hooo!” as they lay the plastic down.

The most influential surfer of this decade is the one with the most credit availability. Hardgoods, softgoods, travel…the living embodiment of the bumper sticker philosophy that “He or she who dies with the most toys wins”.

Occy and Curren and Slater are the most revolutionary surfers of this decade because they turned 30 and didn’t Eff off and die.

Nels

fear is king

we really are in avoidence of

el circulationes because we are

so easily manipulated.

I think if I saw too much kelly slater

I too might start losing my hair

…ambrose …

I’m letting it grow long in the front,

all three of them,with cap’m kirk

sideburns. they are getting longer

to drain water away from my ear.

I think I should say

me one more time

check the circulation page

there is a big diffrence between

paid circulation

and total printed

how much are throwaways?

all the leftovers at the mag rack

are clipped and returned by the dists

are credited .

free circulation is imense

they all useta send me freebs

when I was a sto-shop

an october new yorker is in place in the throne room

on top of the journal,maybe they will mate and

have an H20.

me.

Sounding a little jaded there Nels…

Awhile back in a Surfer’s Journal interview with Mickey Munoz he said something that has always stuck with me. When asked how he deals with the crowds, having lived through the uncrowded waves of his youth, he says “all it takes is one good turn” to outweigh all the negatives. I say that to myself when the surf is marginal or the crowd’s bad…one good turn.

With the magazines it’s one good photo. There will always be at least one good photo, usually more.

Also, if you think back to Surfing Mags choices for shaper of the year, at least three recent nominations had never advertised in their rag before the choice- Stretch, Bert Burger and now Wegener. If I start seeing full page glossy ads for Wegener’s alaias from now on, then I’ll be suspicious (Firewire and Stretch ads started appearing after the recognition).

As for now, it’s all about one good turn and one good photo.

they obviously dont read swaylocks.

I havente been drafted at an imense salary to write a column for any poblickation

this will be the real test when they wanna pay off marta’s credit card.I’ll let you know.

when they start reading .

they just write.they don’t know how to read.especially creative spellinkski.

you will know when some editor cant stand it and redlines my copy…

squirm squirm squirm

behind the desk

perry white…!!!

…ambrose…

just my secret identity

Hallelujah, Brother ambrose!!!

Making my days better one post at a time.

the basic issue with the surf mags for us here on sways is that we’re too old to 'get it" we are generally soooo far out of their demographic target that it’s unreal…that our age groups has money is not the issue(team gold card), the issue is we don’t spend it easily, we tend to think about our purchases before we make them , and that is bad, impluse bauyers are good for the industry…plus, once we get that good, well-made surfboard and that fitting pair of trunks and durable fitting wetsuit, what else do we need from them?

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Sounding a little jaded there Nels…

Awhile back in a Surfer’s Journal interview with Mickey Munoz he said something that has always stuck with me. When asked how he deals with the crowds, having lived through the uncrowded waves of his youth, he says “all it takes is one good turn” to outweigh all the negatives. I say that to myself when the surf is marginal or the crowd’s bad…one good turn.

With the magazines it’s one good photo. There will always be at least one good photo, usually more.

Well, on many levels I’m horribly, tragically jaded…and I’m unapolagetically naive too.

I agree one good photo can make a magazine’s and day’s stoke, but I’m not paying $8 for it, or even $5. I consider and occasionally put my money down for Surfer’s Journal and Surfer’s Path, the two surf magazines that are readily available which have the most to offer me and my surfing experience.

My comments about the surf businesses, media, corporations, and general business are not limited to surfing; they are endemic to the entire modern western culture. I’m no more pleased with that than I am with some of the more obnoxious parts of surfing. That said though, I’ll give myself credit for not paddling out and screaming and yelling…ever. Just because a current reality may be less than something I’ve experienced at other times doesn’t mean it isn’t the best day in somebody else’s life. The Golden Rule, eh?

It’s a weird balancing act sometimes…I have tried to keep an open mind about a lot of things and have really spent time finding ways to try to keep my own attitude positive at the beach if for no other reason than to not knock down others just trying to get by. Changes always keep coming and we are adaptable creatures. I have a “scorched earth” wave-riding compromise if it just gets too much for me to handle, something that will allow me that “one good turn” in almost any situation or location barring foul, diseased water conditions.

I’m not feeling tolerant for people or businesses that intentionally try to divide and conquer for their own corporate and personal profit. I’m all for any of them who come up with things that people want, or that make things better, but if it’s at the expense of others I think it should be resisted and ridiculed.

Some of the surf magazines, notably Surfer and Surfing (still under the one same corporate owner?), are currently divisive and fairly empty ad rags albeit with great photos. Rubber bones for starving surf dogs. they could be so much more than they are now. They are published on paper though, now written in stone, and can change.