Call me a cynic..

“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Well GBS, maybe I ain’t brave enough to call out accurate observations just yet but under the disguise of cynicism I will say that Carve magazines’ timing of the publication of the winner of the ‘Readers Writing Competition’, 48hrs after 11 time world champ Kelly Slater Re-tweeted a link to the previous blog post, seems remarkably serendipitous.

Winner anouncement/Apology

They did post an apology, a mish mash of the right hand not knowing … etc. and the hecticness of surf mag publishing, and they’ve reiterated that they do want more work from me, for pay! 

What this whole exercise really emphasises though is the power of social media.  My, until now, neglected blog previous to this weekend had had one minor moment of notoriety when it garnered a couple of re-tweets for a rant about Nick Carroll’s ‘power rankings’. (See below).  It got roughly 150 views over about 3 days. Kelly’s re-tweet got me 600 in 2hrs.  To date 1,390. For this I am grateful. Would Carve have stepped up to the mark as quickly (at all) without this endorsement? Who knows  There's no doubt that Carve are well away of the powers Kelly commands though...  Bow Down

 

    

More soon!!

A thinly veiled excuse for filler..

Last year I had a story published in a surfing magazine. I had no idea it had been published. A friend of mine let me know. Don’t get me wrong, I sent the story to the Mag in the hope it would be published but there’s where it all gets a bit suss. Let’s start at the beginning. 

I was browsing the Mag’s website when I came upon a writing competition. The winner would win a prize and also be published so it said. It also said I had to sign off that it could be published. I didn’t do this. I didn’t do it because I had missed the entry deadline to the competition. I sent the story anyway, with the subject bar of the email reading “missed the writing comp but here you are anyway...”

It was a couple of months later that my friend posted on his Facebook page that I had a story in the mag. I was initially ecstatic. My first published piece, but then confused when he told me it was in the writers comp. Hadn’t I missed the deadline? Had I won?  I wrote to the publishers and asked what was going on. I also mentioned I hadn’t signed off on any publication for either the writing or the two photos’ they used. (Oh yeah forgot about them!) It didn’t take long to get a reply. 

Yes the Comp had ended but due to the volume and quality of the entries they had decided to extend the competition and publish an entry each month with the readers deciding the winner in the Dec issue. I will add that the Ed also said if I wanted to remove my piece from the Comp he would do this and be happy to pay me.  This was the first time I’ve had anything published and I have a lot more stories to tell, so to avoid the risk of upsetting a potential outlet, I said that it should stay in the Comp. 

With December approaching I eagerly kept an eye on the Mag’s website and Facebook page and on Dec 20^th Lo and behold…  still no winner. But they had posted on their website and linked from Facebook, all the entries and deemed that whoever got the most ‘likes’ would win a snowboard jacket and be asked to do some work for the Mag next season. Rallying my troops and hitting the social networks, in no time I had racked up a decent tally, substantially more than the other entries. In fact I was even endorsed by a surf writing luminary which surely garnered me more ‘likes’ not to mention increasing traffic to their website.

So, two days short of a year since that story landed in their inbox what has happened? Nothing... I have nudged via their website and Twitter on a few occasions. The first ignored completely the next couple replied to with “he’s not here” or “Monday maybe” (can’t remember which Monday).   

Quite frankly this is bullshit. They printed seven stories last year. That’s seven pages of people’s hard work for free. They moved the goal posts, they didn’t inform the entrants and they published without consent (in my case “because you mentioned the comp we thought it was okay” 26 days after it had closed!), and guess what they still haven’t announced a friggin winner 4 months after the Ed said they would.

Before all this happened a different magazine showed interest in the same story. Being new to this I asked a very well-known writer/journalist for advice.

“I'd just ask them to be specific about what they are proposing for your story, when they'd use it and what they'd pay. Be polite but if you let them they may string you along and put off running the piece for ages and want to pay you a pittance. 40-50c/word would be reasonable. Don't just let them dazzle you with the promise of seeing your name in print.”

Only in this case I didn’t even get a chance to ask those questions. And yes I was dazzled and yes I wish I’d taken the money. Hell who knows maybe I’ll win a snowboard jacket yet? Maybe I’ll get a paying assignment from the mag? I’ll let you know.

Warning Tired passionate surfer having a rant.

Just read the new power rankings after the Pipe contest written by Nick Carrol. http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/pow3r-rank1ngs-billabong-pipeline-masters_64291/

I was prompted to read them by a tweet from Craig Jarvis (@red_elvis) who said they were "pretty good and well done to Nick Carrol".

I disagree.

They were safe at best, at worst, similar to the one thing I did agree with which was NC describing the tour as "repetitive and predictable". I guess it's tough sometimes, he spends a lot of time with the guys he's critiquing and probably doesn't want to ruffle too many feathers but journalists don't do their job to make friends (or do they?). I think it's a reflection on the current state of the tour that "journeymen" surfers are described as "good enough, smart enough" (Taj), "grown up head" (D Hob), "knows the game" (Trav) and for fucks sake "An ornament" !!!!! (Bede). Seriously, if there was no tour would "knowledge of surfing heats" Dan Ross be on anyones surfing radar with the exception of the Yamba IGA? Would "too savvy" Fanning still be media managed by The Claw's men? "Smartest of men" Perrow would be a legend in his backyard at Lennox and that would be it.

Owen Wright apparently wants to "beat Slater at his own game" and how is he going to do this? With "intelligent wave choice, super accurate lines. His range is now wider, as is his understanding of how to build momentum through an event." In other words he's going to become yet another "ornament" on the tour, although he'll possibly be more a Meissen piece than a Lladro. "I wonder if he's surfing enough heats to develop the ingrained technical know-how that even a surfer of his talent requires in order to do this job right" This is Dusty Payne he's referring to, is it any wonder Dane has bolted? 

"He's Dane without the complexity and Jordy without the anger"

"His whole year was like a movie; actually it WAS a movie. Make another one next year, entertain us."

Sound more like it? Hell yeah, that's Julian Wilson and Matt Wilkinson he's talking about. I wanna see those guys surf, I wanna see Funky Cold going nuts, I wanna see John John taking waves cos he wants to surf them and not lose the friggin contest because he rode one!!! I wanna see them win comps but I don't wanna see them win heats.

I think Nick Carroll missed an opportunity here. He's well aware of the dissent and "haters" (really shitty word), he hints at it and he pushes it around the plate a bit but he needs to take a fucking big bite and swallow it. It's time for a change.

Let's start with a question.

Should professional surfers have a moral responsibility to their fan base?

This of course is impossible to answer without getting the tin opener out and setting free those worms.

Pro's whether they like it or not, are role models. Impressionable young'uns copy their style, boards, attire and even tatoos. They follow their blogs, their websites, their tweets and even them, to competitions, demos, signings etc. So it's obvious that these pro's should take some responsibility eh?

So, how do we know that the public persona is the same away from the camera. More and more, with the explosion of social media and handheld cameras everywhere, it's getting harder to avoid the public scrutinising an individual. And anyway, why would they have a different persona for the public?

The last question intimates they already feel some responsibility, or is it their sponsor that takes care of their responsibility. Okay sponsors.. they have an economic interest in all their charges. They need them to look good. They need them to appear good. They manage them. They also pretty much bankroll the magazines and the commercial websites.

So if a pro steps out of line or behaves in direct opposition to their perceived persona do their sponsors pull them up on it? Undoubtedly. Do we hear about it? Rarely. OP ditching TC over the no logo board springs to mind but lets face it who the hell are OP? This brings us nicely back round to why we don't hear it. A surfer drops himself in it, or throws his toys out the pram and the boss quickly releases a press statement smearing and smudging and generally spinning the shit out of the truth. The magazines are obliged to print it.

It has to change. Doesn't it? Do we really want anonymous, vitriolic, internet fringe dwellers telling the customer the truth about the product? If the sport (never has a word been used so out of context so often with surfing) wants to attract more punters, appeal to the more mainstream and become legitimate, the curtain needs to come down. It's got away with running like a men's secret business club since the advent of the pro, but in today's transparent world it can't be this dinosaur anymore. 

So what to do...


By way of a caveat, try to view this as a think tank rather than a solution. Take these suggestions and better them or trash them or even tell me whats up with them but don't get angry with me please.




Stop spinning to start with. If a surfer is a dick, expose them. If they're not particularly bright or if they're miserable bastards,  if they're snaking drop in gits, racists, money grabbers, gay, bipolar, addicts, whatever let  us the punters decide whether we want to like them or not. If any of them are not happy with this then they need to reevaluate their privilege.

An alternative to the tour. I don't mean necessarily scrap the existing tour but lets not make it the be all and end all of competitive surfing. How about for instance all the big sponsors put a prize pool in a hat at the beginning of the year (the accountants will like this it'll be a set amount). Money is awarded commensurately to the surfers with the most image exposure monthly, in print, on line or any type of media. Adverts count, this is important because it means sponsors can boost their riders exposure. This has the added benefit that he mags are back in the driving seat, perhaps they could allocate just enough space to print, publish and pay themselves and let the sponsors race for the space. If a sponsor wants their surfer exposed they need to kowtow. It also means that good surfers who don't necessarily partake in competitions can gain some ground. Not sure how this would work internationally as mags tend to be necessarily jingoistic but I'm sure someone could come up with a sliding scale or algorithm to balance this out (maybe not Brodie Carr).  As I said it's just an idea. But you gotta admit something has to change.

So there it is, my first blog post. Thank you for reading it. I'm sure there will be more and hopefully not all debates like this. I'd like to tell you about my trip to Australia and some stories from along the way. I'd like to tell you about living on the Sunshine Coast and I'd like to blog about my surfing too. It's not great but it's getting better.