If you don’t go to www.worldsurfleague.com
like, totally every day then you are missing out. The powers that
be at BeachGrit do not believe in the zero-sum game (be damned John
Forbes-Nash!). We love (or don’t love) other websites because there
is room enough for everyone (except The Inertia) but we love love
love www.worldsurfleague.com.
In any case, just yesterday www.worldsurfleague.com did a fab
piece on Dane Reynolds receiving the coveted wildcard slot for the
upcoming Fiji event. It was titled “Reynolds: Cloudbreak Is
Intimidating.”
There were lots of hyperbolic adjectives used (as expected. MDMA
flows like Dasani water, apparently, in the Santa Monica offices)
but the best sentence read, “Few figures in modern surf history
have been more popular, and subsequently more polarizing, than the
29-year-old.”
Polarizing? Dane? Do you know what “polarizing” means? The
Webster’s Dictionary shall tell you. “To divide in sharply opposing
factions.” That means some people LOVE Dane and some people HATE
Dane. Do you know anybody on the street that HATES Dane? I can’t
think of any. Do only people in the www.worldsurfleague.com offices
HATE Dane? I think yes because he told them to take the tour and
shove it. Did they tip their hand in writing this piece by saying
they are the only people on earth that HATE Dane? For sure! Which
is why I go every day.
Today Nland Surf Park’s CEO Doug Coors (same Coors as the
brewery that’s raping the Rockies), announced that he would be
opening a surf park nine-football-fields in size (football fields
being the standard unit of measure in Texas, of course) with more
than 10 individual waves to choose from.
To those poor Austin residents worried that opening a truly
massive water park in the middle of one of the worst droughts in
history may push the region towards a life not unlike Grapes of
Wrath , Nland Surf Park says fear not!
Partnering with the Spanish engineers at Wavegarden, Coors
claims that “even in the most challenging drought conditions, the
lagoon will be self-sustaining with rainwater.”
The park will produce a bountiful 300 wave per hour. 300 waves
that “never lose power or shape, ranging from one to six feet will
be yours to hang ten!”
A wave every 60 seconds! Literally machine-like “one, four and
perfectly tubing six foot waves.” Each wave offering a “lengthy
surfing experience of 35 seconds per wave.”
The park is set to open in 2016. To celebrate the park’s
official announcement, Nland released this remarkably clumsy promo,
featuring kookiness like so much low hanging fruit.
P.S. Tobe Hooper, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s creator, came up
with the film while working at the University of Texas at Austin.
He was also born in Austin.
Your beloved BeachGrit broke the news yesterday
that Surfing Magazine, a beacon of American journalism,
was possibly being outsourced to Indonesia. Wages there cost
Surfing’s parent company, The Enthusiast Network,
a fraction of what they do in the United States, healthcare costs
are minimal and not expected to be subsidized, 401ks do not exist.
It is, theoretically, a sound business move but heartbreaking none
the less.
Today, the rumor has proven true. Web editor B. Buckley wrote on
the Surfing homepage, “We are not leaving.” (read complete missive here) The staff is holed
up in a villa, apparently, watching pirated movies but the fun
won’t last long. It is assumed Buckley and crew will train the
monkeys who sit high above Uluwatu to punch out video edits and
almost funny words before being sent into the night like those who
worked at Cisco Systems or Dell Computers.
It may look the same but it won’t exactly be the same. Alas,
progress marches forward but we will, nevertheless, remember.
In this second round, Rory Parker serves up an
ethnic melange worthy of UFC. Ding ding! Now that's the sound of
entertainment...
The first fight I remember taking part in
happened around the corner from Newport Heights Elementary School a
few minutes after the final bell rang.
I was in third grade, a newly enrolled student facing the grind
of assimilating into one of the ravenous packs of jackals that
comprise childhood social structure. I was having a tough go of it,
identifying and conforming to the rough and ready norms and mores
embraced by the various naturally forming cliques was proving
elusive. My Airwalk sneakers were lame, all the cool kids wore
black Vision Street Wear hi tops.
It seemed unfair. To my mind I was a shy and bookish kid who
just wanted to make a few friends. In truth I was more than a
little obnoxious. Too smart for my own good, with a tendency, never
unlearned, to voice whatever comment was currently running through
my head. Then, as now, that comment was all too often either rude,
cutting, inappropriate, or some combination of the three.
My opponent was one Ben Dover. I have no idea if that was his
actual surname, I imagine not. He was in special education, sharing
time with us at recess but spending his time learning in a trailer
parked next to the baseball diamond. He was a friendly, happy kid.
Due to whatever learning disability he grappled with, he was openly
referred to as a “retard” in a way that was, in retrospect,
viciously cruel, though totally acceptable by late nineteen
eigthies standards.
I don’t remember why we were fighting. I suspect that one of the
“cool” kids had decided we must, and told everyone during lunch
that we would, and by the third grade laws of social pressure we
were then required to. I definitely didn’t have a problem with Ben.
I didn’t even know him, really.
At 2:45 the bell rang, and we were released into the surrounding
neighborhood. Some kids had parents waiting to pick them up, but
more commonly we were trusted to navigate our own ways home.
We were around the corner shortly, out of the eyesight of any
teachers or administrators. A circle of taunting, gibbering,
lunatics formed, with Ben and me at the center. The battle was
on.
I shoved him first, he shoved me back. I don’t remember what I
said, but it must have been mean. He started crying and tackled me
to the ground.
I had assumed, because he was a “retard,” that I could take him.
I don’t know why. He was bigger than me, ruddily healthy in the way
that slightly slow, but physically strong, people often are, while
I was a short, slight, tow headed little grommet. He pinned me down
and shook me, not sure how, or not willing to, inflict any actual
damage. It wasn’t long before I realized I’d lost and stopped
struggling.
Ben let me go, stood up, and the moment he turned his back I
kicked him in the ass as hard as I could. He went sprawling, face
first, on the concrete, then lie there crying. He didn’t get back
up.
I’d won. I was crying and shaking and victorious when I heard an
unidentified voice behind speak up in a tone that was impressively
sarcastic, for one so young.
“Yeah, Rory, good job on making the retard cry.”
The US Open is such a delightful clusterfuck. Since the days it
was called the OP Pro and people burnt shit, up until it became the
venue of choice for drunken inlander store window smashing, it’s
been a guaranteed source of drama and hijinks. The waves may suck,
and you may be forced to park three miles away, but I urge everyone
who gets the chance to spend a day enmeshed in the branded exercise
in borderline anarchy and child nudity that is Huntington Beach’s
yearly WQS10000 event.
1. You’d have to be an idiot to take a swing at Kainoa
McGee.
2. What’s with Kala’s beanie?
3. My lawyer wife thinks the dude who got beat should have sued
Kainoa, Kala, the company that runs water patrol, and the event
sponsor. But of course she does, that’s her job.
I can’t place these kids’ accents. Are they Aussies, Kiwis,
South Africans? Anyway, watching kids fight is great, I wish there
was a youth boxing circuit nearby so I could do it regularly.
I’d be really hesitant to fight anyone in Hawaii. MMA and joo
jeetsoo are just too popular, you never know who’s spent years
training to rip people’s limbs off. These guys don’t look like
they’ve spent much time in the gym, but the tall dude’s relaxed and
nonchalant style makes it pretty clear this ain’t the first time
he’s fought someone in a parking lot.
It’s during moments like these, when tempers flare and passion
rules, that surfing almost becomes a sport. Otherwise it’s just a
bunch of hippies playing in the water and talking about how much
they all love each other during post heat interviews.
Current reporting states that the WSL is making
moves towards moving the start date of the men’s Fiji Pro forward a
few days in order to catch a “phenomenal” swell scheduled to hit
Cloudbreak this Friday. That’s nice. Nothing would suck more than
another tedious series of lay days followed by guys
three-to-the-beaching it in junk surf.
The only problem, Friday is the final day of the women’s event.
With the ladies constantly playing second banana to their penis
bearing counterparts due to overlapping waiting periods this
might’ve been an opportunity to display their skills in honest to
god A+ quality barreling surf. Of course, that presupposes that the
WSL sees the women’s division as a legitimate sport with
world-class athletes, rather than some half-assed sideshow they’re
obligated to maintain to stave off feminist indignation.
Today’s decision to run the final day of the girls’ deal in
crumbly onshore slop makes the WSL’s stance pretty damn clear. The
women aren’t good enough surfers to deserve truly good surf. Even
if they somehow luck into it, it’ll just be ripped from their grasp
and handed to the men.
I wonder how the girls will feel come Friday, as they watch guys
get pitted off their gourds in six-foot Cloudbreak. Will it bother
them? Will they rage against the injustice of the situation? Will
they ponder their place in an industry that largely portrays them
as sex objects unworthy of the respect due any truly talented
waterperson?
