When we read Lewis Samuels’ little post about Billabong CEO Paul Naude getting barreled while the surf industry collapses around us we chuckled to ourselves at how much fun biting the hand stories are to write. It always reminds us of that old 70s T-shirt with the mouse causually, defiantly flipping off the incoming hawk.
According to his blog, Post Surf, Lewis felt the talons on Friday March 20, 2009 when he was fired by Surfline.
So the word came down from the higher-ups at Surfline that my signed contract for 2009 was no longer being honored. They specifically cited two incidents that led to my termination.
1) My Transworld post, in which I mocked one of their competitors for catering to advertisers, but in fairness noted “I get paid to write for Surfline, a website that also licks advertisers’ balls, part of the machine.”
2) The “Corporate Rage” post, in which I mused that in light of recent incidents like the AIG scandal, “perhaps this is the wrong time for any CEO to publicize 100 Tavarua tubes.”
I also want to clear up one point: Many people will falsely surmise that Billabong and/or their CEO put pressure on Surfline, and this led to me being fired. Surfline made it clear to me that this is not the case. In fact, they claimed that no advertisers have contacted them with anything except positive feedback about PostSurf. . . So… As to any lingering questions concerning whether Surfline licks advertisers’ balls or not — I think we’ve pretty much cleared that one up.
Right. Thanks for clearing that up. We never would have surmised anything of the sort because we know that the action sports industry loves great, honest writing and they always have.
Surfline’s EVP Dave Gilovich doesn’t see it in exactly the same terms as Lewis. “I wouldn’t say we “fired” him,” Gilovich said. “He wrote stories for Surfline; from now on we’ll be looking for others to pen those articles for us.”
[Link: Post Surf]
Lewis has become a real deal player in this wack surf journalism genre in the last couple of years and Surfline totally fluked their underground raw card. Wack lame costly grommet website. Bogota Columbia!
Surfline is really wussing out. Their new Power Rankings are horrible. Well, I guess they can’t take constructive criticism because their moderator wouldn’t publish my comment. Here it is: “The new power rankings are not new and improved. We don’t need to be told the obvious: “Parko surfs with flow; Dane is an exciting surfer. There’s a good Wardo and bad Wardo.” Duh, Surfline, that’s just Wardo being Wardo. Pretty soon you’ll be tellin’ us that sex and tube rides feel good. With Lewis out, the power rankings have become B-O-R-I-N-G! If you’re not careful I’ll be leaving comments that are more entertaining than the feature (I think I just did!)
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