West Side Kooks and the BBA

Surf magazines don't depict the reality of life for roughly 90% of the those individuals who buy and read them. Incidentally, only 14.3% of of people who flip through the mags actaually do any "reading" since the pictures are so great and because many surfers is illiterate. Whether you’re reading them or not, the agenda of surf mags are subtly shoved down our throats disguised as realistic depictions of fact

My point is that most of us have to go to school and/or work everyday and that makes finding good waves and the time to surf a constant struggle. Getting a good deal on a board and suit can be a struggle. Getting to an exotic locale for perfect surf during my two week vacation has always been a struggle. The lifestyle the mags depict is that of pro surfers. The big ones should change their names to PRO SURFER, PRO SURFING AND TWPS.

No, the publishers of surf mags don't represent me and the surfing lifestyle my friends and I have been leading most of our lives. We work to surf, not surf to work. So check this out: How is my buddy gonna react when some of the most rippingest surfers on the planet carry on, all loud and totally obnoxious out at Steamer Lane for an afternoon session last Friday afternoon? Yea, West Side heads, shouting boisterously, acting like punks; its as though they're entitled to do so because of their status granted to them by mags that elevate them to dieties. My buddy was driving south and wanted to charge the Lane. He felt sorry for these guys.

Many of us understand that surfing is a spiritual and healing activity, a good way to get in tune with nature. Many of us believe to be able to surf is a blessing. I'd imagine that being able to surf for a living all day long and getting paid to travel to exotic sites would be a blessing. You think pros in Santa Cruz could be humble (think masters of martial arts style-zen) But no.

These fucken surf mags and the clones who edit and publish them don't represent my friends and I. They represent the guys out at Steamer Lane last Friday, clowns in a tightly held circus.

Here I am. I've had Pro Surfer and Pro Surfing Magazine around for thirty years. What was I aspiring to? Now that I'm a grown up I can make better choices for myself.

I estimate that 87.5% of surf mag consumers are not in the BBA (Bro-Brah Association). The BBA was founded with the advent of the second-ever surf magazine when wetsuit ad dollars had to be divided and competed for. Their membership is comprised of garmentos, magazine editors, ad reps, wetsuit company employees, all pro surfers. The senior most ranking officials of the BBA are the directors and officers of the world's largest commercial surfing interests (and their subsidiaries) Quicksilver, Hurly, Volcom, O'neil, etc. Okay, to be more specific: Robert McNight, Dick Woolcott and Billy Bob Hurly, to name a few.

The BBA's function is to serve the personal preferences and entrepeneurial interests of the aforementinoned. I’d love to submit a revealing article for all those readers who would love more than anything to shake Brad Gerlach’s hand or have a conversation with Kelly Slater. I would write how much of a royal prick I’ve seen Gerr act like and how a conversation with Slater is an oxymoron. Every active member of the BBA knows what I’m talking about and agree it’s the truth. Cept Pro Surfer Magazine can’t publish my article. If they did that, the Grand Pubah of the BBA would be on the phone instantly to make sure heads roll. (Even Gerr knows he’s a total dick to people. Slater’s too dingy to even know how much so)

I've seen Wardo so whacked and jacked (after getting bubbled at Hossegor), I realized I'd never hang out with someone like that again. Sunny Garcia is as approachable as an Iraqi insurgent. These people are not friendly and, like thier bro-brahs in Santa Cruz, they don't appear very happy in life or with the fortunate blessings bestowed upon them- -losers.

Yes. If the mags told the whole story, good and bad, the ad dollars would migrate from Pro Surfer Magazine and, who knows, maybe those dollars would end up over at Trans World Pro. If a mag does a big thing on Ruffo’s tweaker stigma, they can only do it after he gets convicted, fired and cast to damnation.

What if the BBA staged a coup and all of the editors of the different mags banded together with their ad reps and they got strong? They could de-throne the current overlords up at the BBA ivory tower and tell them, “This a mutiny. We have the medium, the channel and the circulation you bitches need to sell your wetsuits and flip-flops. We are all going to give the majority of average surfers a fair and objective, truthful representation of the real stories and a realistic depiction of surfing and surfers. And for that, the masses will pay.”

No. That isn’t going to happen. Marriages would end since top BBA members are fathers and brothers in law to each other. In fact, the BBA is so inbred that it’s likely by now that young children of some BBA members were fathered by other high-ranking BBA officials.

It’s an insiders’ game and it borders on collusion (which, for you pro surfers, means really crooked shit). It’s payola which is totally illegal. The FTC could get into this with the FCC.

No. The surf mags don’t represent my friends and I, nor do they represent 92.5% of the people who look at them. They represent the BBA, which is a tiny minority in the global surf community. Reality Surf Check is a tiny voice representing the vast majority of the world’s surfers. Spoiled pro surfers, shady businessmen and cocky editors of pro surf mags are a loud voice representing the interests of the BBA not the rest of us. US Surf mags don’t depict my notion of surfing.

They're just like porn mags. I just like to look at the photos.

-Scotty Breauxman

It should be noted that Aussie mags, much like Aussies themselves, tend to tell it more like it really is. Good on ya mates- RSC

We Want Your Dirt

Witness a pro surfer behaving badly? Know something about the World Champ that most of us don't know? Pissed that Ruffo pinched from your last satchel of meth?

Give it up. Specifically, give it to us.

If we're ever going to dump a dose of reality on the smiling faces in Surfer's "Wetsuit Buyer's Guide", we need sources. You are out there every day, sharing waves and crossing paths with the best surfers in the world. Tell us what you see.

And not just the bad. Does Pat O'Connell show old people how to configure their iPod? Does Rob Machado paint groovy swirls on Jesse Billauer's wheelchair?

Give it up.

Write to us at realitysurfcheck@hotmail.com

Like any media outlet, we will confirm all stories. We can cite our sources anonymously, but then again, this ain't Watergate. Go on the record. Make a difference.

And away we go.

As I've hinted in my own personal blog - and as my friend, Otto has so eloquently outlined below - the surfing media is rife with dogshit. Not that other newspapers and magazines don't have their fair share of crap, but none suffer from the perfect shitstorm that batters Surfer, Surfing, and the rest of the bro/brah rags we spend our toilet time with, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade.

I'd like my inaugural post to convey a few simple truths about the surfing media, but I'll be undoutedly rehashing much of what Mr. Teller has already stated. Forgive me, but in order to kick off this exciting new blog, it's important that I tell it as I see it.

1. The surf media is made up of an astonishingly small group of people. Take a look at the contributing and senior editors listed in your favorite surf mag. Multiply that by two, and you roughly have the complete list of people controlling virtually everything you know about professional surfing, the surf industry, and everything else about surfing aside from your home break and the waves you caught this morning (although I guarantee the latter two have been shaped in some way by these guys or their predecessors). They're virtually all ex-pro surfers and they simply ping-pong back and forth between the magazines. One day Evan Slater is the editor of Surfer, the next it's Surfing. Back in the 80's, Matt George was the editor of Surfer while his brother, Sam was the editor of Surfing. Shee-it, a larger group of people produced my college newspaper.

2. I once described the major surf magazines as "glorified trade journals". This is actually an insult to trade magazines. While trade rags seek to report upon and ultimately promote a particular industry (when I was in high-tech, Info Week and Interactive Week were just two of the many industry news and gossip magazines...when I was in advertising it was Adweek and Advertising Age), they still seek to report the news and act as responsible journalists. If the latest Sun workstation is a piece of overpriced shit, Info Week will tell you. If the most recent Taco Bell ad campaign is a heartburn-inducing shit burrito, AdAge will come out and say it. The surf magazines on the other hand are 100% industry cheerleaders. They're not trade journals, they're brochures.

3. Professional surfers are as interesting (and as fucked up) as Barry Bonds, Terrell Owens, Kobe Bryant, or Jeff Gordon. You'd never know it though. As I've asked before, what do you know about Kelly Slater? Virtually nothing, because the surf media doesn't report it. The interviews are fluff and full of cliches and bro/brah backslapping - "Andy, you must have been stoked on your latest victory. Tell me, how does it feel?" Want proof? Who outed Kelly Slater as deadbeat Dad? The LA Times. Who broke the story on Anthony Ruffo's arrest for meth a while back? The Associated Press. Surfer Magazine? A small sidebar in the issue I got 10 minutes ago. Sunny Garcia, former World Champ, punches out complete strangers on the North Shore in front of cameras for a nationwide reality show audience. The magazines? NOTHING. Not even a mention. Can you imagine if Labron James knocked some kid out at a public court in south Detroit?

4. Why should you care that the magazines are run by industry cronies? Because they're posing as real journalists and that to me is as bad as any blatant lie. They're selling you themselves in order to sell you their bros. They're glossy infomercials with great photos. The pros are making MILLIONS because their sponsors are selling you their wares, which you snatch up like its going out of style (which it is with every passing day... in order to send you more stuff, of course). The magazines pump up the athletes, which in turns pumps up sales, which in turn pumps ups advertising budgets, and the cycle repeats. Would you buy a glove worn by Rafael Palmeiro today? Hell no. He's a cheat and a rat. Bruce Irons could be selling arms to the Taliban, but you'd never know it. Volcom sells too many DVDs thanks to him. To say that Volcom would pull their advertising if Surfing ran a picture of Bruce handing a trunkload of grenade launchers to Osama Bin Laden is actually too easy. Surfing wouldn't run the picture because Evan Slater is bros with Richard Woolcott, which is way worse because its unpunishable. All sorts of guidelines exists to keep editorial publications from telling lies, but none of them can force a media outlet to tell the whole truth.

So what can we do about it?

Otto Teller and The Colonel are pissed off. We know the bro/brahs, but we're outsiders too. We see surfing's true colors every day and we want to share it with the world.

Together we're going to ruffle some feathers, draw a little blood, and hopefully add some truth to your daily mind surf.

Dropping in on the mags NOW.

- The Colonel

It's time to set the record straight and point out the not so obvious reality of boys clubs known as the contemporary surf media and their benefactors. The 5 most read surfing magazines aren't magazines at all. They are cooperative surf brochures, the producers of which have literally sold themselves out to a couple of handfuls of commercial interests in exchange for favorable imagery and commentary.

The villains of this fraud are the publishers and editors of large surfing magazines. They are financially supported by an oligopoly of surfing related entrepreneurs who hold these so-called journalists’ ethical standards for ransom. Think of state controlled television in Russia and you’ll get the picture.

The victims are the unknowing purchasers of these surf magazines who have been lead to believe that the top 44 surfers in the world (and 56 of their bro-brahs) are exempt from the social and ethical standards people like you and I are held to. When you pay money for Surfing Magazine, you are being ripped off and your intelligence is being insulted, if however inadvertently.

The not so well known fact about professional surfing is that most pro surfers have many secrets like most of them are stoners, drunks and, in many cases, downright thugs. The press paints the picture that top pro surfers’ shit doesn’t stink while the plain fact is exactly the opposite.

The reason outsiders have no clue of this reality is because surf magazines can’t tell you what happens on the tour, at tradeshow after-parties and out in the lineups of high profile surf spots. If The Surfer’s Journal ever reported that Joel Tudor likes to smoke pot, OP would cancel their advertising contract without notice. JT has gone on the record as such however it has been tucked away nicely. Larger surf mags have more dollars to lose if they publicize these issues.

For the Record, Reality Surf Check recognizes that Joel Tudor is perhaps one of the most influential and relevant surfers of our time. Reality Surf Check thinks it perfectly okay for people to smoke pot. However RSC needs to call the “mags” out on their hypocritical agendas and non-objective bias toward their adveretisers. They would never suggest anything negative about any surfer who is sponsored by one of their advertisers. And if they did mention anything negative it would be diluted if not swept under the rug as hearsay. Instead, the “mags” repeatedly pump the riders of their favorite advertisers. This is a fraud and a breach of journalism’s ethical standards of objectivism. Surf magazines are a fairy tale. Their editors are lying to you. They pump a small group of surfers and sponsors who are on the inside of a very closely held circle of sellouts. Their days of flourishing are over. Like cockroaches, they will scurry for cover as RSC turns the lights on to their dollar –driven agenda; they are all in cahoots to defraud you.

Mainstream sports athletes are held to the same standards as you and I and because of their high profile status, the mainstream media puts them under much more scrutiny. The 17 Minnesota Vikings players who allegedly carried-on in illegal and immoral activities aboard two party boats are under the spotlight because they (the players and their employer) are not in any boy’s clubs like pro surfers are. I suggest that pro surfing teams like Volcom’s have perhaps carried on in a similar (and probably more extreme) manner and that the insiders of surf magazines are well aware of it. It’s just that they cannot and will not report on it because they’ll get in trouble for not presenting these pros in the most positive light.

The bigger surfing gets the sooner the fraud will be exposed and the masses will know better than to put any credence into the words published in these surfing brochures which have been designed to look like journalistic periodicals.

-Otto Teller