Full Val moment. I like Laird Hamilton, Bethany Hamilton, Bethany Hamilton, like Kelly Slater.

Continuing our unintentional string of episodes with surf riders, I bring to you a conversation with Derek Riley.

Classifying Derek as a surf rider isn't quite fair, actually. His talents and contributions

to surf media are a fair bit more robust, but that said, his writing style does kind of

succinctly synthesize the style of his contributions.

And if I made an argument last week that Drew Campion could be credited with

shepherding surf culture's presentation from a conservative sport of kings into a laxidaisical

Spacoli counterculture stereotype, then Derek Riley could be credited with influencing and

giving voice to a subculture of surfers who definitely still like to party, but also have

intellectual curiosity beyond surfing, a keen eye for aesthetic, and a modicum of vanity.

His list of employers include Australian Surfing Life, Surf Europe, Waves,

along with publishing articles in Surfer, Tracks, Surfers Journal, and Penthouse Magazine.

Riley co-founded Stab Magazine in 2004 alongside Sam McIntosh and then Beach Grid in 2014 alongside

Chass Smith. In late 2017, he published Wednesdays with Bob, a book about Australia's

23rd Prime Minister. And just last month, he published his second book, Gulpalil, about

Indigenous Australian dancer and actor

David Golpalil. Prior to any of that, however, Riley developed his own interests

anesthetic as a blackjack dealer, a bartender, and later a boat captain, a story that he shares

here in this episode. And now I'm quoting from Matt Warshaw's Encyclopedia of Surfing.

Quote, acknowledging that his two greatest literary influences were Mad Magazine and National

Lampoon, Riley often put his cheerful and profanity-laced writing style to use in short bursts of

schoolboy comedy.

...