The ultimate: Chris Cote cubing Kelly Slater.
Yesterday, GrindMedia made another headline-grabbing announcement by deciding to stop the publication of Transworld Surf Magazine, a surf media institution born in 1999. For most of its life, Transworld Surf was energized and emboldened by the distinct character of its charismatic editor, Chris Cote, who managed to attract a significant following of his own through trademark humor and a radical documentary called Riding in Vans with Boys. Specs and a Hawaiian shirt didn’t hurt either. Cote has also been the target of a lot of Internet banter through the years, and despite taking very different approaches to the task of creating surf-centric editorial, I have always had a lot of respect for him. In some ways, I think he’s been more honest than any other editor in the business. Why? Because he has always committed to having a great time. Unapologetically. And that’s consistency I believe in. And more often than not, to contradict one of the primary tenets of this site, which is to produce evergreen, meaningful content, there just isn’t much serious about surfing at all. (Another reason I’m a fan of Transworld’s movie, Let’s Surf Seriously. It’s beautiful irony.) That’s fine. Cote’s clearly at peace with that – and, seemingly, with himself, which is disarming and very difficult to come by in the world of surf publishing, where concerns about image and insecurity are rampant. So when I heard the news, I wanted to hear about it directly from Chris. It didn’t hurt that his band, Kut U Up, is releasing a new EP called Worse than Wolves next week. I happen to like his band, so a phone call was in order. Ring ring. This is our full conversation.
Chris! What’s going on?
We’ve got an issue to finish. (Chuckle.) One more time.
Is that the last one? You just sent it off?
No. We are going to finish it [the last issue] this week.
Man that’s crazy.
Yeah, it came up pretty quick. We just found out Monday, so it was like, “Oh, shit what do we do? Try to go out with a bang. As much as we can. We don’t have time to do anything to crazy, but we’ll do our best.”
Yeah, so let’s start with what’s on everyone’s minds. GrindMedia acquired Transworld just a month ago, and clearly there were some concerns about the future of the surf magazines there and Transworld Surf Magazine, but the announcement yesterday to fold Transworld Surf was kind of a shocker. Did you see that coming?
I mean, yes and no. I think the eventuality of it was there in everybody’s mind. Or some kind of restructuring or rebranding or whatever you want to call it. It was pretty quick, but I do believe they put a lot of due diligence into the decision. How they presented it was totally respectable. I’m much more glad that it came form Norb (Garrett) than our old bosses, that’s for sure.
How many years were you at the head of Transworld? It seems like it’s a Cote family affair. You guys are almost more of a distinct institution that Transworld in some ways.
It feels like that at times for sure. I’ve been here since 1999, and that’s probably why. I was part of the inception. And through the years I definitely saw improvement in the magazine, which was pretty rad, cause it was always like my baby, and I was afraid to let it go.
So how are you feeling right now?
I’m good. I mean shit, you know me, I’m always positive. I kind of think that everybody already mourned it, just knowing there was going to be some kind of change. It is what it is. There has been a crazy outcry of support and awesome comments from everybody. Even fuckin’ Twitter trogs are saying nice things, which is crazy, so I think that makes everybody here feel kind of good. I would say we are more proud of what we accomplished than sad to see it go.
Is there any animosity towards Surfing or SURFER? I mean it kind of seemed like everyone was up for evaluation, and in my opinion SURFER and Transworld SURF were probably the most differentiated of the three magazines. It’s sad there’s one less surf magazine in the world.
I think the thing that sucks is that it’s going to be that much harder for young surfers or outsiders to make it. There’s no animosity, I mean we’re all homies with guys from the other magazines. Some of the guys here are best friends with some of the guys there. Obviously, there is competition, but I think for us it was more of a clean competition. Just who’s got the best shit, best photos; who broke what story, got on what trip. Whereas on the sales side, it was cut-throat; I’m sure some evil shit has been said and done, but that’s not us. We have a friendly rivalry with the other magazines. You see something and you’re like, “Fuck, I wish we had that!” It’s never like, “fuck them!”
In that vein, last week you were pretty upset about one of our contributor’s reactions to the commentary at the Los Cabos Open and its mention of you. I didn’t actually see the webcast so I can’t really speak about it knowledgeably, but I know you were bummed on the piece, and I also know that you love and respect women. And I was wondering if there was anything you wanted to say about that piece?
Well, first of all, there was a lot of misinformation in it, and things that were presented as factual that never happened. And I can see his point; it was meant to be a more raw broadcast, and we were told by our producers to have fun with it. This was a different kind of contest than a WCT event, obviously. So that was kind of how it was presented; it was more of just a fun atmosphere than some kind of sexist bullshit. Because we did say, “Wow, there are a lot of beautiful girls down here,” but I particularly said, “There’s beautiful men, beautiful families.” You could kind tell that the guy probably watched like an hour of [the broadcast] and formed his decision. Which I believe is not real journalism, so it’s a little bullshit. But then he backs it up with being your typical fuckin’ Twitter trog, saying lame shit about me personally, and I never fuckin’ met this dude. I get it, but it was kind of weak. I would expect more of The Inertia and its contributors.
Sorry, Chris.
