“Let Me Die Without U Nagging At Me”

Hello, lovers.

Here in Los Angeles, there’s a bright (and somewhat overwhelming) scent of coconut, bubble gum, cheap taffy, palo santo, and literally hundreds of bars of wax in myriad variations of tropical, warm, cool, cold that we just have to give away. A few brands were kind enough to toss in some wax combs, and a venerable boulder of old winter wax is building in the corner. We’ve got some field testing to do. 

When Justis St. John hit Stab about the clip of Tahlija Redgard, he prefaced with an introduction. 

“I’d never heard of Tah before this trip in June,” Justis told Stab. “She rocked up with boyfriend, Mick Campbell, and blew my mind over the swell. I’ll never forget the first wave I filmed of her. I had to look at it repeatedly to convince myself it was her. She is hands down the best female barrel rider I’ve seen in 10 years of living in the Mentawais. Shit, I’d put her in the top-5 non-pro barrel riders at Kandui, men or female.

I’m not sure if you guys heard what happened to Mick right after this trip once he got back home. He got knocked out surfing, spent a couple waves underwater. Tahlija was the one that got to him, kept his head above water, and got him to the beach. He spent a couple minutes underwater, was in a coma for five days, and somehow came out of it fine. Her surfing on this trip, plus that crazy story of saving her boyfriend’s life might warrant some coverage. Tahlija is an epic human.”

Consider it? We fired back immediately wanting to know more, and veteran scribe Jake Howard tracked Tah down in Australia to hear more from a truly interesting, wholesome, and hard-charging lady.

Does seeing a woman throw herself over the Kandui ledge, or hearing of her saving her hardened, tough-as-nails husband from certain death make you reconsider that whole “I’d never wanna be with someone who surfs” shit? 

Here’s a good one: after last week’s ballistic missile scare in Hawaii, a friend sent a me a screenshot of a tweet from @HokupaaM aka “not the guy from Lilo & Stitch”*: (All sic)

“I was surfing when the missile alert went off and a guy with an Apple watch got a call from his wife telling him to come back in and i shit u not he said “let me die without u nagging at me” then hung up and caught the fattest wave of the morning.”

Back in Australia, the summer cyclone season is underway and Rick Snowden tracked down a few of Oz’s most well-versed storm chasers—longhairs like Asher Pacey, Ari Browne, and Torren Martyn—for some cheat codes to game the system, beat the crowds, etc.

Meanwhile, Dylan Roberts and the boys have been finishing up our next episode of About Town, our travel series with Summer Bright. This episode takes us on a deep mine of the Gold Coast’s rich offerings, with a tour from Mitch Crews, Jay “Bottle” Thompson, and a ride around Coolie with our hero, himself: Occy. The waves were damned good, the company was better, and let’s be honest, Mick Fanning at D-Bah just never gets old.

Neither does him riding a skimboard, nor him ripping Bells, which the Worst Kept Secret In Surfing currently is that Bells will probably be his swan song. 

With Mick calling it after Oz, Kelly unsure how present he’ll be throughout the year, and a host of young faces joining the pack, the 2018 tour’s looking less and less familiar. 

Which of course brings us to the livestream bomb the WSL dropped on everyone yesterday.

The WSL announced they’d snuggled up with Zuckerberg for their livestream offerings, which probably won’t really change anything for us at-home viewers, but will certainly have desk jockeys wailing, their boss having blocked Facebook from their work comps literally years ago.

The announcement sent people into a tailspin, hundreds and hundreds of comments flooding the WSL’s feed with negativity, their App being pointlessly deleted from Samsung Galaxy 6’s en masse.

Buckley poked his grubby finger at the maelstrom, while Rory went on a deep dive into Facebook Watch’s weird and random offerings (while enjoying the most delicious looking fresh-squeezed screwdrivers, let me tell you).

After an underwhelming winter blast of weather, wind, and less swell than we hoped here in Southern California**, the forecast isn’t exactly inspiring. With the sun rising softly behind me, and a small, bumpy WNW swell making the decision between some half-assed attempt at a morning workout, or a cold, gritty AM grovel difficult, dear Buckley’s—as well as our youngest scribe, Jake Embrey aka Noa’s last dart’s—words bounce around like a medicine ball.

With a keel fin fish tucked in Rocinante’s cab, I’m looking forward to a rinse in the brine this afternoon, regardless. I hope you’ll be doing the same.

Keep it cutty, with a little class, Stab. 

Sincerely,

Ashtron Noggins

Editor in Chief

*It should be noted that this kid’s Twitter is insane. 
**While Mavericks and locales North of Point Conception went bonkers.