Surfing, Skateboarding, Music, Photography, Travel, Culture and general antics of the youth on the run.

Dear Youth: Kelly Slater’s 540 sequence Processing Kelly’s air at the Cluster House in France

Kelly slater 540 surfing air photographed by quinn matthews for what youth

Kai, Blake and myself went down to Bayonne to pick up some film from a French lab. We had moules and frites on the river (just like Chas suggested) and were enjoying a warm Fall day in France when Mitch Coleborn texted us and said the waves were firing and to hurry the fuck up home to go shoot. He also said:”P.S. Kelly just landed a frontside 540 — the boys are tripping.”
We raced back to Hossegor to find Mitch, Dion, Noa and Chippa sitting on the couch still watching the video on Instagram. On repeat. Holy shit. Fucked up. What can’t he do? Why? Fuck! We’re some of the words used while watching it.
We grabbed our gear and went to the beach. The boys were still tripping. The winds were south and the ramps were big. Huge straight airs were traded for 540 attempts. Chippa came really close to a backside 540. Noa’s attempt looked more like a 720.
Back at the house a little later the boys hovered around the phone again. This time it was a different video angle:
Noa: “Ahhh, it’s a Parko grab.”
Dion: “Fark, that’s crazy but I thought it was a frontside grab…”
Mitch: “Only thing worse than a double grab, is a [Continued After the Jump]double grab on the same rail, that’s the worse grab you can do on a board. But that was one of the sickest airs ever done!!!’
The boys were still baffled. The house quieted. There was a sigh of relief that there is room to move with 540’s…But fuck me.


And then breaking the silence, Kai said: Fuck boys, we got some work to do…” —Nate Lawrence
Editor’s Note: So like a good “journalist” I used my resources to find out what the fuck kind of grab this is because no one I polled at first had a clue. Jimmicane at Surfing Magazine is who I’d consider the authority in surfing on how to translate grabs from other disciplines, so I hit him up and he informed me that some snowboarders often fuck around and do that grab. It’s called a “Stiffy” or “Gorilla Grab” and it’s done in “fuck around” situations only. No skateboarder would ever comment or be associated with this grab, so they were no help. “If a skateboarder had done this he would have died from embarrassment,” Jimmicane told me. “But what he [Kelly] did was fucked up.” And we agree. Kelly aint a skater and stiffy grab or not, that was fucking sick. Bravo. We back at it. —Travis

Right, so the WSL starts again next week And hello, yes, we have some questions and concerns. Five exactly.

It is 6:30 am, picture the scene. It is 6:30 am and the crack of dawn in San Diego and I’m paying for a latte at the coffee shop I frequently go to. “And what,” the barista says as he takes my cash. “What do you think about the upcoming WSL season? What with the…

A quick ode to Uncle Gav Please buy this legend a cold beer. He is a surfing treasure.

Yesterday you heard we went to Samoa and got hit by a cyclone before finding blue tubes and cold beers in it’s wake at Salani Surf Resort. You also saw that Gavin Beschen was there. Well, Gavin flew in from Hawaii by himself, and in true Gavin fashion showed up to the camp solo, 8…

letters from what youth where ya been

“Where ya been?” A little update on our recent movements

Don’t you just love when people ask you that? Well, we do. And people been asking us – especially our mailman, cuz we haven’t been home in a while… so let’s see, where did we go… a little bit of everywhere really. We road tripped up the CA coast in a van thanks to you and…

Youth against the machine I’m so proud of you

Editor’s Note: Last Friday night I got emotional. I was watching recaps of what happened in the world that week and a lot had happened. Part of me was on the verge of tears watching young people, you, the youth, standing toe-to-toe with politicians and paid speakers and paid pros for the NRA, and I saw…

Outside the Comfort Zone San Francisco to Florida to the North Shore to “The Other Guys.”

It’s been one of those days. Weeks. Years. Hell, six years. I haven’t used my own soap in three weeks. My bag of clothes is soggy. I miss my bed and I’ve seen three time zones in a week, but I’ve surfed, talked, laughed, drank, filmed and even worn a headset and done commentary for…

Media Model Subsidy Line Noise Ordinances and surf video making with Mitch Coleborn, Harry Bryant, Nate Tyler, Colin Moran and more

This morning we received a note on our front door reminding us that this town operates under a noise ordinance and that we may have been in violation during our first night here. And I may know why. You see, we lucked into an AirBnb that’s equipped with a pool table in the sun room, and last…

what youth harry bryant surf trip

Well, you’re hired We reached out to you and you delivered. Now it’s time to go

Holy shit, it worked!  The idea hatched over a pitcher of margaritas the other night is a reality. And it’s all because of you. You have officially funded the What Youth California ramp hunt and now the boys are ready to send it. We’re starting tomorrow and making it official: The What Youth film project,…

dear youth david bowie has a book club

David Bowie Has A Book Club Maybe 2018 won’t be terrible after all

When history looks back at our bizarre little era, it will agree on one thing: Everything went to shit real quick right after David Bowie died. It’s baffling how quickly reality unraveled after David Robert Jones left us in early 2016. Muhammad Ali, Prince, Tom Petty and a whole bunch of people you really like passed…

Quiksilver has acquired rival Billabong In the least shocking headline you’ll read today

I know this headline isn’t as good as: “Iguanas are freezing and falling from trees.” Or “It’s so cold that sharks are dying.” But we’ll give it a shot. Quiksilver and Billabong are now owned by the same company. This was posted last night by our fabulous friends and drinking buddies and hard-hitting journalists at…

Hunter Martinez, San Francisco

2018: Fitter, Happier…still on antibiotics Here we go again

To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and our world – and at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are…—Marshall Berman 2018 and I woke up strange. My FICO score changed (for the…

Blake Myers, Noa Deane

Save What Youth Dot Com And the rest of our little digital realm for that matter

I have loads of nasty habits. I drink six cups of coffee every morning, I let my wetsuit ferment in the back of my car because I’m too lazy to rinse it out, and I’ve caught myself watching the Oi Rio Pro un-ironically on several occasions. But there’s one stupid, habitual quirk I do every single…

what youth bruce brown rip

RIP Bruce Brown The man responsible for surfing’s greatest celluloid achievement is gone, but there’s no chance we’ll ever forget him

I was 12 years old and I remember leaving baseball practice of all things to go see the world premiere of Endless Summer II at the old Peirside Cinema in Huntington Beach. That night was the beginning of the end of my cleat-wearing years. Just me and my dad went and the electricity inside that…

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