The Rod Cunthorpe Archives: Rod's Diary from 2013

A column that appeared in the print version of Tracks in August 2013.

Editor’s Note

Clearly, back in 2013 Tracks, the venerable Australian surf magazine, didn’t have a functioning legal department. And while by definition this extract is outdated, and contains the term “fingering”, Rod sure had a knack for reading surfing’s tea leaves. Apart from a few fixed typos, this is the original version. 

Rod Cunthorpe Diary, August 2024

Today, August 12, 2024, was a good day. For starters, my ten-year restraining order on the Cooly Kids has been lifted. I’m planning to mark the occasion with a massive piss-up at the new Nike-Target store, located where the Coolangatta Surf Club used to be. I’ve ordered in the holograms, and I tell ya, there is nothing like dancing, drinking and even fingering some of the true heroes of our sport, even if they are three-dimensional illusions created by lasers, diffraction and light intensity. 

Sure I couldn’t afford the top guys. A Kelly Slater version (with hair) costs more than 6 million Aussie Yen, but there’s nothing wrong with an evening spent talking to a particle refraction of Mitch Thorson or dancing with the inner light laser beam of an 18-year-old Steph Gilmore. 

Anyway, it should be a cracker of a night. A real celebration of both the ending of a cruel sentence and a way to look back at an amazing ten years of surfing. Sure the last three years haven’t been easy. The Great Stand Up Paddle Board Wars of 2021 involved a great loss of life. Who’d have thought those SUP fuckers, would be a) so organised and b) have such fantastic chemical weapons. When Laird Hamilton sprayed that packed Chopes line-up with Napalm, straight out the end of his paddle, I knew whose side I was on. It can only be a matter of time before the armed guerillas in places like Maroubra, Burleigh and Umina will have to hand over their shortboards. 

But that won’t stop us from tearing a new arsehole at Fanning's half-owned Nike-Target Surf Super Store. I’d be surprised if we don’t have to turn away a whole host of international guests. Now I’m not naive enough to think that Dane Reynolds might make an appearance. He hasn’t been seen since 2018, when it was revealed he had been living a Truman Show existence, in what to Quiksilver’s credit was a pretty bloody good 10-year webisode. 

“People could dress up in old clothes that don’t exist anymore, say Billabong boardshorts or Hurley wetsuits, and pretend like it was 2013.”

And Jon Jon Jon Jon, as he now prefers to be called, is also a long shot. The two-time world champion has seemed a little distant since he and Taylor Swift bought Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, and populated it with Boy Bands, multiple Godzilla-sized statues of his mum and an exact Pipeline replica wavepool. 

For a more experiential monetized customer interface, I was also thinking of having one of those crazy photo booths that bore the fuck out of everyone at all these events. People could dress up in old clothes that don’t exist anymore, say Billabong boardshorts or Hurley wetsuits, and pretend like it was 2013. It would be like totally retro and cool, with Facebook logoed backgrounds, Go Pros (remember those?) quad fins surfboards and pubic hair. 

To cover the cost of the event, I will need some corporate sponsorship. With mining and porn still left as the only viable industries left in Australia, I was thinking of calling it the You Porn-Rio Tinto 10-Year Memorial Mineral Muff Munch. It would be great to have the fossil fuel industry involved, as who has done more over the last ten years in uncovering new waves? With Global Warming now rather an obvious fact, all those new reefs are a massive bonus. Sure we lost 98 per cent of our existing waves, but all those fuckers who are against progress can suck my big fat carbon credit. 

At the end of the day, I suppose it will just be a celebration of my continued dominance at the beating coal face (thanks Rio!) of surfing and surf journalism. Now sure the last physical surf magazine was published back in 2018, and the new retina scan editions can’t fully capture the essence of Rod, but the fact that Mick, Joel and Dingo have been holding injunctions against me for over a decade means I have to be doing something right, right?

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