honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, September 30, 2002

It's all about action for sporty glam girls in SG

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

The premiere October/November issue of SG (Surf Snow Skate Girl!) shows off a magazine that's trying to decide whether it wants to be about tough but sexy surfer, snow or skater chicks or about sporty glamour girls.

Just like the movie "Blue Crush," which was filmed in Hawai'i and showed surfer girls hitting big North Shore waves while wearing string bikinis, SG is riding the Hollywood wave of popularity that mixes hot girls and extreme sports.

Sporting sponsors such as Billabong (featured in ads with "Blue Crush" star Sanoe Lake, and mentioned in the magazine's feature stories) are to SG what Revlon is to Seventeen magazine.

What sets SG apart from traditional women's glamour mags is its action shots — like the one of Hawai'i's own Melanie Bartels catching some air on a wave ride.

Here's what SG says about her: "Hawaiian phenom Melanie Bartels learned to surf when she was 5 and rode her first skateboard at age 7. When she was 11, she started taking to the air, skating ramps with the boy next door. That early gravity-defying practice has had an obvious influence on her surf style."

As for her fashion style? Turn to the double-page spread of Bartels in an ad for O'Neill, the California-based surf shop owned by Jack O'Neill, who invented the surfing wetsuit.

Substance in Surfing

The more manly October issue of Surfing magazine (no girl on the cover here), typically considers its surfer girls eye candy rather than competitors.

Take "WaveGirl," a Baywatch-type dressed in a school uniform who gives tips about "summer school" surfing on places such as O'ahu's North Shore. The North Shore in summer? Maybe she missed the lesson about the North Shore being a winter surf spot.

The magazine does put Hawai'i on its surfing A-list. It names O'ahu's Waialua High School the best high school in the state, saying: "... when it comes to tradition, Waialua works them all like Johnny Winder on 'Kill Haole Day.' From Fred Patacchia, Sean Moody, Rocky Cannon and Jason Magallanes to Shawn Briley, Brock and Clark Little, not to mention heroes such as Ross Williams and Shane Dorian — this school's put the most into modern North Shore surfing despite being on the Mokuleia side of Haleiwa."

Surfing magazine says the best college here is Brigham Young University: "Yeah, uh, you see, U of H has, like, this bitchin' bio-cryogenic engineering program," Surfing mag jokes: "OK, so Mom and Dad aren't too likely to buy your Hawaiian designs as strictly academic. But why get mad, when you can get religion? Actually, you don't need to proclaim Mormonism or any faith to enroll at O'ahu's chapter of Brigham Young University. But the parental powers-that-be don't need to know that."

Also in Surfing magazine:

• The Wai'anae High Seariders get an A-plus for best mascot.

• University of Hawai'i fixture and big-wave pioneer Ricky Grigg loses out as the best surfing college professor: "There's a saying in academic circles — publish or perish," the mag says. "And if you're looking for continued, quantifiable achievement in a variety of areas in and out of the water, (Mike) Shand (a linguistics professor at Inter American University) is surfing's new senior staff member."

• Big-time surfer Shane Dorian remembers his former teacher, Donald Isbell, who used to teach world history and psychology at Kona Waena High School on the Big Island. Isbell remembers, too: "All my kids are surfers," he said. "So Shane was sort of like family. Every time he'd miss school for a surf trip, he'd ask me to cover for him. I'd tell him: 'Only if you give me enough homework to pass you.' "

An objective reader would have to conclude that Surfing magazine has more substance. But SG has the girls.

Reach Tanya Bricking at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.