Looking Sideways: 10 Things
Here are the ten things I thought were worth sharing this week.
1. New Looking Sideways stuff: my latest episode with snowboarder, broadcaster and ‘professional shit talker’ Henry Jackson (above). Henry is a master communicator and storyteller, and I enjoyed this look at his career and the state of snowboarding very much. Click here to listen.
I also released a new episode of my Patagonia Type 2 podcast with Aussie surf industry heavyweight Sean Doherty. Seano is one of the most respected and essential voices in global surfing. We talked about his 'accidental' activism, resurrecting iconic surf title Surfing World, and how surfing is going to back to its roots by embracing activism through campaigns such as Fight For the Bight. Click here to listen to that one.
I also put out a quick blog detailing the five books I have enjoyed the most so far this year. Click here to read that one.
2. The Waterpeople Podcast is back! I love the way Lauren and Dave approach things, and season three kicked off with this mind-expanding chat with Cyrus Sutton. Click here to listen.
3. I love getting listener and reader recommendations, and I particularly enjoyed this essay on surfing and feminism sent in by listener Andrew Lim. Click here.
4. It’s been doing the rounds the last week or so, but this Jenkem conversation between Karl Watson and neuroscientist Andrew Huberman is a joy. Watch it above.
5. Eight minutes of Mikey February in Indonesia. Enough said.
6. Great to see Brian Anderson still charging and enjoying skateboarding. Watch his new part above.
6. I enjoyed this Torment Magazine conversation with Burton US Team Manager Chelsea Waddell for Pride Week, particularly her careful, pointed words about the responsibility ‘riders that have been around for a long time’ have when it comes to inclusion. Read it here.
7. Dylan Graves is somebody else I’ve been trying to get on the show for a while now and it’s great to see him pushing himself way out of his comfort zone in the first episode of new series Breaking Waves: Queer Surf. Watch it above.
8. Later this year, New Zealand athlete Laurel Hubbard will become the first transgender Olympic athlete, something which has sparked a global debate about transgender athletes and fairness in women’s sport. I found this provocatively-titled podcast on the issue to be extremely - well - thought-provoking. Click here to listen, and here to read a Guardian argument that offers a similar take. If anybody has any counter arguments to share, I’d love to read them.
9. Localism and etiquette has been coming up a lot recently, especially in my recent conversation with Sally McGee from Yonder. So I found this Surf Simply piece on surf localism’s roots in colonialism to be a weighty, intelligent read. Includes the words ‘Fuck Noll. And fuck Dora’ - click here to read it.
10 Did you know there are 45,000 surfers in landlocked Switzerland? The country’s unique surf scene is entertainingly dissected in this new documentary by LS alumnus Dave Mailman - watch it above.