Jason Borte takes on the persona of the core surf shop and points out some of their challenges and why they are not going to go away any time soon in a rambling rant on Surfline.com titled Reports Of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated.
Along the way he drops the names of the bad guys; Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Target, and quotes the good guys Bob Hurley, Quiksilver’s Tom Holbrook, Billabong’s Royce Cansler, and Whalebone Surf Shop’s Jim Vaughan. This is how Borte wraps it up:
Surfing is magical, and the one place where we all gather outside of the water is magical as well. We, the authentic surf shops, are nothing less than shrines to the sport. We provide the essentials for riding waves, and we provide a place for surfers to connect, communicate, and share the stoke. Just as wavepools fail to deliver the magic found in the ocean, pseudo-surf shops fail to offer a genuine experience. Truth be told, I don’t deserve the credit. It isn’t the building or the smells that make a surf shop special. It’s people. And those people don’t just smell like surf, they do it.
If only we had a lighter handy, we’d be waving it high above our heads right now and typing one-handed.
[LInk: Surfline.com]
“The core surf shop is the cornerstone of the sport and the industry,” says Billabong’s Royce Cansler. “It was the meeting and gathering place for the exchange of ideas. It’s crucial to the sport.”
Wow, sounds like the internet to me. Check out my radness on ASSPN
Comments on this entry are closed.