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Author: Chas Smith
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062202545
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
A finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell, is surfer and former war reporter Chas Smith’s wild and unflinching look at the high-stakes world of surfing on Oahu’s North Shore—a riveting, often humorous, account of beauty, greed, danger, and crime. For two months every winter, when Pacific storms make landfall, swarms of mainlanders, Brazilians, Australians, and Europeans flock to Oahu’s paradisiacal North Shore in pursuit of some of the greatest waves on earth for surfing’s Triple Crown competition. Chas Smith reveals how this influx transforms a sleepy, laid-back strip of coast into a lawless, violent, drug-addled, and adrenaline-soaked mecca. Smith captures this exciting and dangerous place where locals, outsiders, the surf industry, and criminal elements clash in a fascinating look at class, race, power, money, and crime, set within one of the most beautiful places on earth. The result is a breathtaking blend of crime and adventure that captures the allure and wickedness of this idyllic golden world.
Author: Chas Smith
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
ISBN: 9781644280331
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188
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Book Description
From the author of Welcome to Paradise, Now Go To Hell, a finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction One of Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament's Top 10 of 2018 It's no surprise that surfers like to party. The 1960-70s image, bolstered by Tom Wolfe and Big Wednesday, was one of mild outlaws--tanned boys refusing to grow up, spending their days drinking beer and smoking joints on the beach in between mindless hours in the water. But in the 1980s, as surf brands morphed into multibillion-dollar companies, the derelict portrait began to harm business. The external surf image became Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton, beacons of health, vitality, bravery, and clean-living. Internally, though, surfing had moved on from booze and weed to its heart's true home, its soul's twin flame: cocaine. The rise of cocaine in American popular culture as the choice of rich, white elites was matched, then quadrupled, within surf culture. The parties got wilder, the nights stretched longer, the stories became more ridiculously unbelievable. And there has been no stopping, no dip in passion. It is a forbidden love, and few, if any, outside the surf world know about this particular rhapsody. Drug use is kept very well-hidden, even from insiders, but evidence of its psychosis rears its head from time to time in the form of overdoses, bar fights, surf contests, murders, and cover-ups. Cocaine + Surfing draws back the curtain on a hopped-up, sometimes-sexy, sometimes-deadly relationship and uses cocaine as the vehicle to expose and explain the utterly absurd surf industry to outsiders.
Author: Chris Dixon
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452110093
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
“Takes us to a place of almost mythic power and tells a story that unfolds like a long ride on a killer wave . . . compellingly written.” —Sebastian Junger, New York Times–bestselling author Rising from the depths of the North Pacific lies a fabled island, now submerged just fifteen feet below the surface of the ocean. Rumors and warnings about Cortes Bank abound, but among big wave surfers, this legendary rock is famous for one simple (and massive) reason: this is the home of the biggest rideable wave on the face of the earth. In this dramatic work of narrative nonfiction, journalist Chris Dixon unlocks the secrets of Cortes Bank and pulls readers into the harrowing world of big wave surfing and high seas adventure above the most enigmatic and dangerous rock in the sea. The true story of this Everest of the sea will thrill anyone with an abiding curiosity of and respect for mother ocean. “A terrific, deeply researched tale about a truly wild place. You couldn’t make up Cortes Bank, or the characters who’ve tried to make it theirs.” —William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life “A first-rate account of an amazing phenomenon and the people who tried to conquer and exploit it. A great read.” —Winston Groom, New York Times–bestselling author of Forrest Gump “After reading Chris’ most excellent account of the monstrous waves of the mysterious Cortes Bank—the Bermuda Triangle of the Pacific—I never thought I would ever consider riding a wave like this. But after surviving a five-foot, head-first fall from the stage earlier this year, I think I might be ready.” —Jimmy Buffett
Author: Chas Smith
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781644280751
Category : Surfing
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
From the author of Welcome to Paradise, Now Go To Hell, a finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction and Cocaine + Surfing A gonzo ride through the Middle East as only Chas Smith, the award-winning author of Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell and Cocaine + Surfing: A Sordid History of Surfing's Greatest Love Affair, could provide. Follow Smith and his misfit band of merrymakers as they search for the true origins of Al Qaeda and endeavor to ride the unsurfed waves of Yemen all while exploring the slim opportunities for fun in the margins of our global war on terror and at what cost--even if it means eventual kidnapping by Hezbollah.
Author: Allan Weisbecker
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593716787
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
In 1996, Allan Weisbecker sold his home and his possessions, loaded his dog and surfboards into his truck, and set off in search of his long-time surfing companion, Patrick, who had vanished into the depths of Central America. In this rollicking memoir of his quest from Mexico to Costa Rica to unravel the circumstances of Patrick's disappearance, Weisbecker intimately describes the people he befriended, the bandits he evaded, the waves he caught and lost en route to finding his friend. In Search of Captain Zero is, according to Outside magazine, "A subtly affecting tale of friendship and duty. [It] deserves a spot on the microbus dashboard as a hell of a cautionary tale about finding paradise and smoking it away." In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road is a Booksense 76 Top Ten selection for September/October.
Author: Laurence Shames
Publisher: Fawcett
ISBN: 0345432185
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
When a low-level mobster and a furniture salesman--each with vanity license plates reading "Big Al"--decide to drive to Florida for their vacations, the stage is set for a brilliantly sharp, funny novel of mistaken identity and tropical crime. "Wickedly inventive".--"The Los Angeles Times".
Author: Daniel Duane
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780865475090
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
Duane's account of a year spent surfing in Santa Cruz, California. Interspersed with the narrative of days passed on the water are good-humored explanations of the physics of wave dynamics, the art of surfboard design, dexcriptions of the flora and fauna
Author: Mahi Binebine
Publisher: Tin House Books
ISBN: 1935639285
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178
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Book Description
Mahi Binebine's courageous novel delves into a world that most readers know only from stories on the nightly news, delivering a compassionate glimpse into the difficulties facing asylum seekers and a striking portrait of human desperation. Mahi Binebine’s courageous novel takes place in Morocco, where seven would-be immigrants gather one night near the Strait of Gibraltar to wait for a signal from a trafficker that it is time to cross. While they wait, their stories unfold: Kacem Judi is an escapee from the civil war in Algeria; Nuara, with her newborn child, hopes to find her husband, who hasn’t been in touch for months since moving to France; and Aziz, the young narrator, and his cousin Reda are severed, in different ways, from their families in southern Morocco. They all share a longing to escape and a readiness to risk everything. Welcome to Paradise delves into a world that most readers know only from stories on the nightly news, delivering a compassionate and striking portrait of human desperation.
Author: Chas Smith
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1647005469
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
A rollicking true story of Bibles and bank robberies in Southern California, from a talented and highly praised gonzo journalist Chas Smith grew up deeply enmeshed in the evangelical Christian world that grew out of Southern California in the late 1960s. His family included famous missionaries and megachurch pastors, but his cousin Daniel Courson was Grandma’s favorite. Smith looked up to Cousin Danny. He was handsome, adventurous, and smart, earned a degree from Bible college, and settled into a family and a stable career. Needless to say, it was a big surprise when Cousin Danny started robbing banks. Known as the “Floppy Hat Bandit,” Courson robbed 19 of them in a torrid six-week spree before being caught and sentenced to seven years. When he tried to escape, they tacked on another year. And when he finally got out, despite seeming to be back on the straight and narrow, Cousin Danny disappeared. Banks started getting robbed again. It seemed Cousin Danny might be gunning for the record. Smith’s Blessed Are the Bank Robbers is the wild, and wildly entertaining, story of an all-American anti-hero. It’s a tale of bank robberies, art and jewel heists, high-speed chases, fake identities, encrypted Swiss email accounts, jilted lovers, and the dark side of an evangelical family (and it wasn’t just Danny; an uncle was mixed up with the mujahideen). It’s a book about what it means to live inside the church and outside the law.
Author: Mark Occhilupo
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 186471493X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 325
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Book Description
In his own words, Occy tells the complete, remarkable story of his spectacular rise, terrifying fall and miraculous rebirth. 'Occy was always a missile going hyperspeed, about to blow up at any moment. - it's true of so many highly intelligent or gifted people . . . All of his passion was put into his surfing.' Kelly Slater, eight-time world champion Child star at sixteen, ranked third in the world at seventeen, winner of the Pipeline Masters at nineteen - Mark Occhilupo looked set to sweep all before him with a radical, spontaneous, irresistible brand of surfing. Yet a spiralling descent into drug abuse and depression snuffed his flame out prematurely when he quit the pro tour at just twenty-two. Faltered comebacks, spectacular bursts of free-surfing and manic breakdowns followed, as the surfing world watched a freakish talent self-combust. After years spent immobile and overweight on the couch, in his so-called 'Elvis period', Occy eventually emerged from his cocoon, reborn and ready to tackle a whole new generation of surf stars. His celebrated comeback to win the world title in 1999, sixteen years after his career began, is a sporting fairytale without equal. 'By going down so hard, by fully falling apart, he was able to give himself longevity. It's like the Buddhist teachings about birth and death - something has to die for new birth to happen, and that happens inside us too. Occy was the ultimate example of that.' Tom Carroll.
Author: Peter Maguire
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231161344
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Thailand’s capital, Krungtep, known as Bangkok to Westerners and “the City of Angels” to Thais, has been home to smugglers and adventurers since the late eighteenth century. During the 1970s, it became a modern Casablanca to a new generation of treasure seekers: from surfers looking to finance their endless summers to wide-eyed hippie true believers and lethal marauders leftover from the Vietnam War. Moving a shipment of Thai sticks from northeast Thailand farms to American consumers meant navigating one of the most complex smuggling channels in the history of the drug trade. Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter are the first historians to document this underground industry, the only record of its existence rooted in the fading memories of its elusive participants. Conducting hundreds of interviews with smugglers and law enforcement agents, the authors recount the buy, the delivery, the voyage home, and the product offload. They capture the eccentric personalities who transformed the Thai marijuana trade from a GI cottage industry into one of the world’s most lucrative commodities, unraveling a rare history from the smugglers’ perspective.
