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

Dear Youth More friendly advice for a lot of young men (and women and iPhone users)

Jeremy Lynch Alex Knost Surfing Advice Dear Youth What Youth
10.01.13 – TAGS: ,
Photo: Two Dollars Please

“We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it.” John Steinbeck wrote that line in his essay “Paradox and Dream”. I’m sure you’ve read it. 

Anyway, we like that line. It relates to our lives in the water. In America. On the Internet. In this industry. We’re all searching, battling and struggling all the time — for more success, for more, more, more. That’s existence today and it was existence always. Fame, fortune, money, and a house on the hill so we can “surf” more. All working with high hopes that we’ll one day win the battle for happiness — someday in the future, forgetting to look around. But the thing that no one ever realizes or tells you (until you read Steinbeck), is there’s nothing out there on the horizon. The planet aint flat and that isn’t a fucking sunset. Your happiness isn’t out there waiting. It’s right there, in your camera phone pointed at the meaningless orange horizon. It’s in the terminal at LAX. In the drive-thru. On the freeway in traffic. It’s not over the hill. It’s right here. Don’t miss it.

And until you realize that, you won’t find what you’re looking for. And if you do, prepare to hate it. Because it’s only then you’ll miss the days of gridlock and hardship. You’ll miss the creativity of youth. The energy of failure. Which is why we are here. More for the struggle of today than the boat trip of tomorrow. That’s our shit. We can’t get skunked because we don’t know what that means.

In two weeks we’ll be screening our good friend Jeremy Asher Lynch’s new film “Remind Me To Forget” right here at WhatYouth.com. The photo of Alex Knost above was taken on the set by Jeremy. —Travis 

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I’ll never surf the wave pool Even if Kelly Slater invites me, no strings attached, I will very politely decline. Here’s why:

I have the worst taste in music because of surfing. And yeah, I suppose music is entirely subjective, but I spent my formative years listening to a melodic and generic emo version of punk rock that is now married to my obsession with surfing. And I don’t blame Taylor Steele. I thank him. It has been…

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Country Club Surf Culture Why I want nothing to do with the WSL and Kelly Slater Wave Co.

All day today there’s been a lot of hype, speculation and excitement around the WSL’s specialty event at Kelly Slater’s wave pool. I’ve spoken to people at the wave and people who rode the wave and people who attended the event — some invited and some not invited. We’ve texted with Kelly (who I must say has…

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Fan the flames of Discontent The Dream Tour is changing and it’s starting at a wave pool

I’ve made it more than apparent that I hate the word content. I hate all of it’s definitions. Content. Content. And content. Fuck ’em all. It’s a bad word. It’s a vanilla plain oatmeal crappy word that encourages status quo and general well being and I’ve never gotten along with it no matter how you’re…

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When you’re in the radar of Irma I’ve learned a lot about hurricane culture today

In Florida, everywhere you look there is a television screen bigger than the previous “biggest TV screen you’ve ever seen” and they are all shouting and displaying a massive radar depiction of Hurricane Irma — who deserves to be capitalized and probably deserves an even bigger TV. And I’d be lying if I said I…

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Thomas Campbell’s Fever Dreams In a world of gimmicks, it’s nice to know there’s a new Thomas Campbell film in the works

“This isn’t going to be like any of my other films.” That was the first thing Thomas Campbell told me about this new project. He then went on to describe his vision a bit — which is always a fascinating journey, listening to an artist describe what they see in their mind over the phone….

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Who is Julian Klincewicz? Well, he’s an underground and prolific part of many things and the subject of an upcoming WY Artist Series

Julian Klincewicz has the kind of name you hope you don’t have to type out too often. There are letters in it that don’t spend a lot of time next to each other and sounding it out just aint gonna work. But it’s one I nail every time now. Without looking. Written and spoken. And…

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Brostyle Pacific Northwest trip We went to Seattle and back with Leo Romero, Dakota Servold, Corey Glick, Dylan Witkin and Aaron Homoki

Well over the past few years we’ve been lucky enough to get to know Leo Romero pretty well. He owns a griptape company called “Brostyle.” And the thing that makes a grip company special and different from a board company or shoe company is the fact that you aren’t necessarily in it to make money…

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The early days of the US Open are interesting. It’s a mixed plate of up and comers, some familiar faces and a bunch of dudes you probably just straight up haven’t heard of. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with who’s who in those early days, but now that things have thinned out, we looked at who’s still surfing…

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When Mitch and Yago stop by “Don’t you wanna fly above the water like a pelican?”

Hi there. Yep, back. Nothing like a nice couple of “Happy Hours” with Mitch Coleborn and Yago Dora to ignite the spirit. Yesterday, both popped in for the afternoon to kick off the completely unofficial and totally unregulated or sponsored “What Youth Happy Hours.” If you don’t know, we have a little store front at…

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RIP Chester Bennington The Linkin Park frontman apparently had a bigger impact on all of us than we thought

Editor’s note: This a weird one. Linkin Park might not be a band you’d anticipate seeing us report on after learning about lead singer Chester Bennington taking his own life today. But Linkin Park is interesting.  They are probably the first band that somehow has had a weird impact on every single person and age demographic…

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In 1754 Benjamin Franklin made the political cartoon you see on our flyer and he published it in the Pennsylvania Gazette, an editorial piece about a “disunited state” that existed between the founding colonies of America. And before I get too deep on that — because the fact of the matter is we’re all just gonna check…

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New issue is at the printer, now what? Well, hit the road. And have a party of course.

“Do you know how many times I clicked my fucking mouse to make this thing?” We’ll chalk this up to “shit art director’s say,” but it’s true, ours, Scott Chenoweth, did probably click his mouse a lot of times. And it was all for you, because we made another issue. Number 18! Hot damn. While…

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