http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgWLFSTUPds

MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TOFINO, BC – Attention all Pacific North West Surfers!

Built for riding and always searching for the ultimate journey,
Rip Curl Canada is proud to present, in it’s fourth year,
"The Rip Curl Stew: 4Play Edition 2010"

Saturday, June 5th & Sunday, June 6th 2010, 8:00AM – 6:00PM
Cox Bay, Tofino, BC

RIP CURL STEW CONTEST DEETAGE

Now four years strong, The Rip Curl Stew is a two-day, judged surf contest held in the heart of Cox Bay, Tofino, BC.
After four successful years, with 90 competitors and 750 visitors last year, and with the fever growing steadily, Rip Curl Canada and a team of eager sponsors are ready to serve up even more stew! Check out the live beach entertainment, surfboard and wetsuit demos, a skateboard ramp on the beach, and activities for kids. The contest will include 7 categories, including open categories for men, women & children, allowing surfers at all levels & ages to showcase their talent! Post-event celebrations will be kickin’ it live into the night, with local DJs Vinyl Ritchie, Small Town DJ, and Mat the Alien, who will be performing his visual DJ set for the first time. With the estimated number of competitors in attendance being close to 100 this year, it is lining up to be an unforgettable weekend! Along with the opportunity for up & coming surfers to showcase their talent, some of the well-known athletes invited to compete include Pete Deveries, Leah Oke, Shannon Brown, Noah Cohen, Reid Jackson, Sepp & Raph Bruhwiler. Already we have more cash and prizes money than any other surf contest in Canada or the Pacific Northwest! Along with free admission for spectators, Rip Curl & event sponsors will be giving out tons of great prizes all weekend! For the competitors, there will be $20,000 worth of cash and prizes along with prize packs filled with amazing goods. Oh, and the event theme? "Stew" will be readily available on the beach, by donation to feed the masses, with all proceeds going to non-profit, Surfrider foundation.

With 1st Prize Mens :$5,000 and 1st Prize Womens: $1,500
The competition is open to all ages and includes categories:
Men's Pro -Open
Women's Pro -Open
Junior Boys -18 and under
Junior Girls -18 and under
Long Board - Open
Masters - 40 and over
Mixed Groms - 14 and under

RIP CURL STEW SPONSORS INCLUDE: Monster Energy, Arbor, SBC Magazine, Dose.ca, Sitka, Long Beach Lodge, Barefoot Wine, Dakine, Spy, Lighthouse Brewery, Surfrider Foundation.

LOCAL ROOTS BEARING INTERNATIONAL FRUITS
Looking into the future Rip Curl feels strongly that this event will bring the surf culture of Vancouver Island’s past, back to life with a realistic goal; to continue to develop homegrown athletes into those who compete at a world-class level. If you haven’t heard Rip Curl is the first wetsuit company to bring to the market a power-heated wetsuit. This Wetsuit is called H-bomb and is available at HTO and Pacific Boarder.

NEW TO THE STEW!
Yes, Rip Curl and O'Neill make the official announcement:
The Rip Curl Stew will be the Official Trials for the
Upcoming O'Neill Cold Water Classic Canada scheduled for Oct 8-15 in Tofino.

DETAILS:
"The top 2 finishers in The Stew will receive entry into the O'Neill
Cold Water Classic Canada main event with all the remaining surfers
being seeded according to their standings at the Rip Curl Stew.
If the full field of 142 (144 - 2 top place surfers in The Stew) is not
realized by the closing date, those seeded surfers from The Stew will
gain entry into the O'Neill Cold Water Classic Canada according to
their placing in The Stew."
-Marc Fuller,
Adventure Designer, The Deepsnowandsurf Experience

Anyone interested in competing can sign up at one of the following locations:
Long Beach Surf Shop – Tofino, BC
Sitka Surf Shop – Victoria, BC
Pacific Boarder – Vancouver, BC
Second Wave – North Vancouver, BC
H.T.O- Victoria, BC
Storm- Tofino, BC
Live To Surf- Tofino, BC
Inner Rhythm Surf Shop- Ucluelet, BC
Alternative Groove- Nanaimo, BC

THE BROTH: Pre-Stew Parties

May 20th
Vancouver Pre-Stew party at The Met
320 Abbott St. in Gastown, with Beat Down and Vinyl Ritchie hitting the decks.

May 21st
Victoria Pre-Stew party at the Lucky Bar

June 4th
Tofino, VIP Art Show Mingler at Long Beach Lodge Lounge. A Silent Auction with proceeds going towards the Surfrider Foundation and major giveaways such as surfboards, wetsuits, art, surf trips and vacation packages.

June 5th Tofino, Saturday Night Stew Party
Featuring Small Town DJ, Vinyl Ritchie and Mat the Alien.


WHAT THE GOOD FOLKS SAY ABOUT THE RIP CURL STEW:

" The Rip Curl Stew is a great annual Canadian event to bring together the locals and international surfers alike to compete on some of our best home breaks. Tofino is always a great time and my money is on another local winner this year!"

Mel Greene -Director of Communications, Sitka

"Dose.ca is proud to be involved once again with The Rip Curl Stew event in Tofino. This competition is set to become the premier surfing event in Canada."

Scott Andrews - Product Manager, Dose.ca

"The Rip Curl Stew is the most dynamic local event held in Canada! It is a staple event for Local Bragging rights and The Rip Curl Stew is the only time you can surf with ProsÉAnd they’re not allowed to drop in on you!"

Bill Fend -Long Beach Surf Shop

I'll be there!!!!

In 2002, The Young Turks became the first original talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. In 2005, with the emergence of video, founder Cenk Uygur and his crew purchased some cameras and started the first live, daily webcast on the Internet. Four years later came a Podcast Award for Best Political Podcast, one from Mashable for Best Political News Site, and a nomination for the Audience's Choice Award at the 2010 Streamy Awards. All of this with zero backing from traditional broadcast networks.
"The goal is supposed to be on television. We say, 'No, we can build a television network ironically not on television,'" says Uygur. "In TV, you have the pressure of 'every single minute has to deliver ratings gold.' Whereas we just let the audience pick. If people want to watch the story about Kim Kardashian more, we don't judge them; that's their choice. If they want to watch the story about Obama more, that's great. Everybody wins."

Today, The Young Turks has a sponsorship deal with Netflix, plans for a spinoff YouTube channel focused on bloggers, plus -- count 'em -- 250 million viewers and growing. Take that, Team Coco.

How did you secure and sustain funding for The Young Turks?
When we started on radio, we didn't need much. In fact, we started in my living room. But we did need some radio equipment: mixers, mikes, etc. I got that tiny bit of seed money from a friend of mine; we technically call them "angel investors," but they're really family and friends. Then, we wound up getting the contracts from Sirius, so that sustained us for a long time. Once we left Sirius to do online video, we needed more seed money; that, again, we got from more angel investors.



"We kept experimenting with what works and doesn't work. In the beginning, we weren't on YouTube and realized, along with a lot of other people, that most of the audience was there."
We raised a little bit of money, and we're very frugal. We know how to get the most bang for our buck. We're not in over our head. We have reasonable, solid goals. And we rely on our audience. A lot of our bills are paid by our members, people who podcast the show. They feel like they have ownership over the show, and they do.

What is the significance of the show's title, and how does this concept shape content?
We selected "The Young Turks" because it means young rebels looking to overthrow the established system. That's what we fancy ourselves. When we started out, we were basically the only liberal show on radio. In '02, everything was wall-to-wall conservative. Almost no one in the media was speaking out against the Iraq War -- partly because if they did, they got fired. I couldn't believe we were the only ones saying, "This war is absolutely crazy." You have to find your audience and be willing to take risks -- and not do things the established way. It's just in our DNA that we challenge conventional wisdom wherever we find it.

The show focuses on an "honest" delivery of news, but how do you deal with the influences shaping every reporter's viewpoint?
There's a difference between the truth and honesty. We don't claim to have a monopoly on the truth. Sometimes truth is relative, depending on your perspective. But you can be completely honest. We're not biased by all of the other factors that might be involved with the party, sponsors, contributors; all the things that bring bias into the press -- access. We strip all those things away, so you know that what you're getting from us is really what we think about the situation at hand.

Our priority is trying to deliver the real news to our audience. So we don't give a damn about access. We end up getting the top politicians and celebrities anyway because we found such a large audience. But we don't bend our program to their will and needs. We try to serve the needs of our audience.

Why do you think the show has reached a mass audience?
You start with a passion in whatever field that might be. For us, it was news and current events -- and that's not just politics; all of the current events. I deeply care about the news, even if it's goofy news, I'm fascinated by it, to a fault probably. Once you do that show, you find the audience that is attracted to that.

We kept experimenting with what works and doesn't work. In the beginning, we weren't on YouTube and realized, along with a lot of other people, that most of the audience was there. We experimented with the size of the clips, titles and tags. Online, if you do a good video clip or write a good article, people are going to forward that to the people they know will like that and bring the audience to you.



"I have no desire to turn down a larger audience and more money. We're just not willing to compromise for the money."
How do you work extemporaneously without relying on writers?
I read voraciously -- every article imaginable, ranging from dense financial news to light entertainment news. I have a way of organizing it in my head, and I print out the stories that we're going to talk about. Then, I put them in a stack of papers in the order that I'm going to go in the show. If I need to refer to a number, I'll usually remember it; if not, I'll just look down at the papers in front of me. In my mind, what I do is I tell a story. I don't know how I keep it all in my head, but I do.

Will The Young Turks go mainstream?
If somebody says, "We've got a TV show for you. Stop what you're doing, and just do our show," I would say, "No way." I love what we're doing and would never shut it down just to do TV. But if someone asks, "Do you want to do this on TV, as well?" then I'm definitely interested. I have no desire to turn down a larger audience and more money. We're just not willing to compromise for the money, and I think that's an enormous difference.

Do you have any stories about The Young Turks inspiring others to do good work?
Usually someone in college says, "I'm going to switch my major to journalism or political science." This morning, someone said he was going into pre-law because he wants to make a difference; his dream is to be part of the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union]. I guess we inspire them to go for it; to live out their dream and make a difference in the world. That's, by far, the best part of the job.

What are your future plans for The Young Turks?
We're going to start a network of other bloggers who are like-minded and we think are smart, interesting and entertaining. We're going to start a new YouTube channel and a new show on our website surrounded around them. So it's not just me anymore, and it's not just The Young Turks anymore; it'll be this network of people we think are stars or who can be stars.

Then, we'll start a similar network on YouTube for our listeners. We're going to call that one The Young Turks Nation; it allows the audience to pick who they like. So if someone who is a viewer does these terrific blogs, we'll move them up to what we're tentatively calling The Young Turks Stars. If they do really well from that, then we give them their own show. We eliminate the middle man.

Uygur's tips for rising bloggers and video stars
1. Find your passion. If you're not intensely passionate, you're not going to put in the gargantuan number of hours that you need to find the audience that's going to enjoy your work.
2. Work hard. I don't want to delude anyone. It's really difficult. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work.
3. Figure out all the ways for people to find you. Do all the nitty-gritty hard work behind the scenes: tags, titles and SEO [search engine optimization].
4. Be responsive to your audience. If they say, "Hey, have you covered this, or did you think about that?" have a real interaction with them. If I do something wrong, I'll get tweets and emails on it. The first thing I'll do is correct it and give credit to the guy who emailed or the many people who did.
5. Become a trustworthy expert. If you do all of that, eventually people will say, "OK, he's good at this. When I want X, I'll turn to him."

Red Bull Freestyle Snowboard Tow-In

Restless Josie - Episode #3 Vancouver Island

Ocean's Fury Unleashed

A Girls Skateboard Documentary Trailer

I was reading "Esquire" over coffee this morning and learning much about the opposite sex. VERY funny, sarcastic magazine by the way. The best thing I read was the grooming rituals of men. Shocking how many men don't even wash there face. I guess they think there time could be better spent taking over the world. I also enjoyed the interview with Christina Hendricks from Mad Men. "stand up, open the door, offer a jacket"I loved this because men in Brazil still do this and wow when I get home do I ever miss it. I also love that the Brazilian's greet each other with a kiss on both cheeks. I'm not saying we should all change our Canadian behavior to mimic that of those south of the border but would it hurt to show a little bravado once in a while. Try a kiss on the cheek the next time you greet an old friend and maybe stand up when someone joins your table for drinks.... Consider it an experiment in social communication.

I was very excited when I saw the restless josie segment played on"The Daily"at Shaw T.V channel 4. Margorie Greaves put together a fun and informative piece and did a better job of explaining my show then I've done in the past. I am very grateful to be given the opportunity to reach a larger audience.

Restless Josie - Episode #4 Brazil (The Brazilian Bikini)

I recently got asked what I was reading. Traveling you get a lot of time to read, and discover great books. I thought adding a book self would be fun.

Top Picks: 1. Girl,Interrupted 2.A Long Way Gone 3. Bel Canto 4. The Pilots Wife 5.The Book of Negros 6. I Know This Much Is True 7. My Sister's Keeper 8. Poisonwood Diaries 9. Fall On Your Knees 10.A Million Little Pieces

I just came across this picture of me going to work with my camera. I can't believe how lucky I am that I get to go to these amazing places to take photos and video. Yesterday, Marjorie Greaves from Shaw T.V interviewed me in my home in Courtenay. She asked me what my dream job would be. I told her I was doing it.

Just watched "Fly in the Champagne", with Kelly Slater and Andy Irons. It's an interesting documentary about the rivalry that pushed these two surfers to be world champions! I have met both of these men and intimidating would be an understatement! They are very strong, complex individuals and I think that's what makes this a remarkable story.

'Restless Josie' launches online travel show

'Restless Josie' launches online travel show

Restless Josie - Travel Show Promo