Dirty Water: The BeachGrit Podcast featuring Chas Smith and Derek Rielly

BeachGrit has always held Kolohe Andino close to our hearts. I knew his daddy Dino during his wild nineties epoch and first met the boy prodigy, then sixteen, on a holiday to the Canary Islands where he exhibited what were then exotic flavours of aerials.

A perfect fit for Chas Smith Hates Surfing to discuss life off tour, the rise of the San Clemente squad, Griff, Cole, Crosby, Kade, at the expense of the Brazilian Storm and the death of the old school surf industry.

“Chas hates surfing less than me,” Kolohe wrote to me during preliminary discussions.

And, later, “I know I’m crazy but I might be delusional.”

This interview with Jodie Cooper was the last podcast the surf writer and commentator Ben Mondy recorded for us and took place around eighteen months ago.

BeachGrit had employed the Mondy, who lives in England, to make a few Dirty Water podcasts while Charlie and I busied ourselves with leisure.

Mondy and I had worked together at a Sydney publishing house in the real early two thousands, he Tracks, me Waves. And while my surfer connections withered to nothing after Andy died and Bruce fled the scene, Mondy’s had flourished as he pivoted hard into surf commentary.

It never ran ‘cause I asked Mondy to call back Jodie Cooper and lean a little more into her famous, and successful, assault case against surf mat aficionado Mark Thomson.

In the interview, Joe Cooper touched on the assault and her reasons for pressing charges.

“I wasn’t his first victim. Hopefully, I was his last. He picked the wrong person as you know. He picks on women, he picks on young kids, that’s the type of species that guy is and there’s a lot of them out there still.”

Initially, Jodie was gonna avoid any police action and wait for her moment to strike back.

“I was going to suck it up. It was traumatic fore sure. I didn’t need the attention. I didn’t want the attention and I knew it was going to draw a lot of attention. I was thinking, ‘Don’t worry, mate, I’ll wait and bide my time...an eye for an eye.”

But,

“I got so much feedback, people contacted me who he had attacked pleading with me to do something. That’s why I decided to press charges.”

It’s a good interview, but I wanted more! The revenge fantasy! What hell would’ve rained upon her assailant?

Anyway, the files just appeared on my desktop, had a re-listen, though it’s a story worth re-telling.

“There isn’t much about Jodie Cooper that I don’t love,” Matt Warshaw told me back in 2020. “Jodie seems indomitable in a way, unbreakable, but there’s something kind of hard-luck about her too. I don’t quite know why. Maybe I’m just still pissed on her behalf because that geezer Thompson who assaulted her basically walked, which seemed like a pretty grievous miscarriage of justice.

Derek and Chas chat with legendary big wave surfer and motivational speaker, Mark Mathews

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In the latest episode of Dirty Water, Chas Smith picks apart Bev Hills 90210 star Ian Ziering’s wild street brawl with a gang of “chubby teenage Latinx girls”.

“No actor is more surf adjacent than Ian Ziering (save Keanu Reeves and Matthew Perry),” Smith wrote when news broke of the melee.

“The now 58-year-old got his start on the 90s program Beverly Hills 90210, which was, itself, entirely surf adjacent. After a ten season run, Ziering, who played Steve Sanders, went into C-list purgatory until 2013 when the absurdist Sharknado became a surprise hit. Again, very surf adjacent.

“For some reason, Ziering decided to address fighting a gang of chubby fifteen-year-old Latinx girls on miniature motorbikes by taking the offensive instead of burying his head in shame.

“‘In an attempt to assess any damage I exited my car,” he wrote. ‘This action, unfortunately, escalated into a physical altercation, which I navigated to protect myself.’

“Unstated ‘from a gang of chubby fifteen-year-old Latinx girls on miniature motorbikes.’”

“He continued without shame or irony,

‘I am relieved to report that my daughter and I are both completely unscathed, but the incident has left me deeply concerned about the growing boldness of such groups who disrupt public safety and peace. This situation highlights a larger issue of hooliganism on our streets and the need for effective law enforcement responses to such behavior.’

“Shocking and embarrassing,” says Smith. “And, thanks to Ian Ziering, a gift. We will never as surfers beat groms, no matter how much you want to. Bad look all round.”

Smith also bids the WSL sayonara after yet another WSL-created program gets iced and examines the likelihood of an executive from Old Spice (via Logitech) being able to get Vans back its long-lost cool.

Derek and Chas talk with actor, Scott Caan

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