Should the WSL adopt the Filipino example and apply capital punishment to surfers who are slow to exit a contest area?

Big-Wave Surfer Attacked at Cloud 9 event!

By Derek Rielly

9 years ago

Locals with bats want blood at Siargao Cloud 9 Surfing Cup…

Brent Symes is a 36-year-old Australian who is kinky, in a very large way, for big waves. Wants to be invited onto the WSL big-wave tour.

Puerto is his go-to joint and, this year, he flew into the Billabong XXL Awards running with a no-hands tub. Watch here.

Brent likes the regular WQS, too, just ’cause it keeps his name out there. Which is why he was at the Siargao Cloud Nine Surfing Cup, a QS1500 $US50,000 event last week.

But his trip to this isolated, and usually flat island (I went there in the nineties and there hadn’t been a wave over two feet for three months), was spectacularly abbreviated when he was attacked by four locals with various third world weapons in the shorebreak during the final of the locals trials event.

Or, as the police report recorded it, “allegedly mauled with broken bottle and log by more less four persons.”

Gold Coast surfing magazine Surfing Life (which I edited years back, hello alma mater!) ran a piece that interviewed “well-known and respected local Dencio Dizon” who said Symes, “got what he deserved. Or in my opinion, he got lucky, because he probably deserved more after hearing of his reputation. This same guy was also here last year, and he got disqualified after two interferences in his heat.”

The reason? Dizon says Symes wouldn’t get out of the water during the final of the locals trials final.

And so he had to die.

But a murderous attack in response to someone surfing through a contest is actually no one’s fault, says Surfing Life, least of all the simple island people.

“No matter what, it’s never cool to beat someone up. But as human beings, and surfers, we also have to remember how important it is to show respect,” it advised sagely.

Cultural relativism! Natives can’t help ’emselves!

(Read story here.)

The Philippines is fucking gnarly at the best of times. Restaurant signs tell patrons to leave their guns at the door. If you want further reminder, three tourists and a local were kidnapped from their resort a few days ago, likely by by the Al Qaida-linked Islamic gang Abu Sayyaf.

(Read that story here.)

I’d heard about the attack via a couple of pals on Facebook. One, the surf guide and artist, Phil Goodrich wrote: “Brent Symes aka “Red Dog”. Such a legend. I spent a month at HT’s with him. Classic Aussie charger. Straight talker, he put on one-man-shows every day on land and charged like a maniac in the water. I can promise you he would give an excellent interview…”

He wasn’t wrong.

Brent, who has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, bounces back and forth between a childhood spent in poverty, his brother Darren who ghost-shapes for Simon Anderson and Pyzel, a little bro Kyle who was a junior series ripper, and his own pro surfing childhood competing against, and sometimes beating, Joel Parkinson and Dean Morrison.

While we’re talking (Facebook Phone Call) the big-wave surfer and champion paddler Jamie Mitchell apparently texts: “Are you alright?”

Brent Symes, as he appears on the WSL website.

Brent’s version of the attack goes something like this. He was hanging out in the Boardwalk restaurant that fronts Cloud Nine. At one point, he noticed there were only a few guys out. No contest. Maybe a gap between semis and the final. So Brent and two others paddle out. The other guys get a set and go in. He’s out there, is too deep for a bomb, and the ocean goes flat. There’s a 20-minute lull.

Then the four surfers in the trials final paddle out. Brent says one of the finalists, Phimar Alipayo, says he can stay out and watch. But Brent says he ain’t going to get fried watching it from the water.

“I’ve got fair skin, red hair and no sunscreen… I’m out of here,” he says. “But I knew the final wasn’t going to start for five minutes. So I could catch a wave in.”

Brent says he caught a wave, pulled off, there was a set behind, duckdived one and got the next. Says he rode it all the way to the inside, did a big reverse, “went backwards for ages, didn’t spin it around, and fell off onto the reef.”

Says he was nowhere near the contest.

Then he turns around and “there’s five dudes with weapons. Knives, a fucking sawn-off bamboo. I thought, fuck, I wonder where they’re going? Guys with knives and bats? What are they going to do? Then I saw ’em heading straight for me. Is this for real? I didn’t run off or anything. Fuck it, I’m going to have to fight these dudes. They want me and they were screaming out to me, ‘I remember you from last year! You got two interferences! I remember you! I’m going to kill you!’

Oh, quick little interruption. Brent surfed in the contest last year and got a couple of interferences in his heat. He was surfing with a hyped contest kid, an Australian, and told him, ’cause of the small takeoff, let’s take turns. Kid got one, paddled out, and took the next. Brent said, fuck it, I’m going anyway.

The story continues:

“Then they come at me. The first swung the bat. I put my board up, blocked it. It was easy, pretty long bats, really thick, gnarly bats, and it took ’em ages to swing ’em with their little arms. As they pulled back for a second swing, I grabbed it. I train twice a week Muy Thai. I threw the bat into the water and he ran back into shore. He ran off. He knew he had no chance. I actually had an elbow ready to come down on his head, to open up his whole face. He was a sitting duck. It was like me going to play tee-ball.

He ran off. He knew he had no chance. I actually had an elbow ready to come down on his head, to open up his whole face. He was a sitting duck. It was like me going to play tee-ball.

“When I had the bat, I was thinking of killing him. I was going to kill him. I just refrained. I threw the bat into the water and I didn’t lay the elbow.

“The next guys swings… bang… there’s little holes all over the reef, deep opening, and I lose my footing. The third guy grabs my board. Another two guys come with bats, onto me, that’s when I started blocking everything.

“So, then, I easily got rid of them too. They were scared, another guy ran off. I got his bat as well. Then it was down to one dude with a knife and a baton. I said to him, put the knife down, keep the baton, come to me and we’ll talk, we’ll try and solve this, this is a misunderstanding!”

Brent says the conversation went like this.

“No! You’l kill me if I come close to you!”

“No! I want to make friends! Let’s sort this out!”

“No! You’l kill me! You’ll kill me!”

“Keep the bat, put the knife down… “

“And then he wouldn’t the knife or bat down so I had to keep walking at him. He was getting scared, backing back, backing back.”

By now, Brent figured he’d better swim out into the ocean rather than face 300 people “telling me it was my bad.”

Brent eventually comes in, feels like he’s going to be murdered so he locks himself into his room.

“The police said don’t go on the road to (nearest town) General Luna. You’ll get ambushed.”

The police chief comes to see him, says Brent, tells him he’s going to charge the attackers with attempted murder. Brent says the chief then takes him to the mayor at his country club in General Luna to explain what’s happened.

Anyway, let’s cut this a little.

Brent gets his security guaranteed and splits the island back to Cebu, and then to Bali, where your ol pal DR lights up his Facebook chat line.

Will he ever go back to Cloud 9?

“Not that at this stage, no,” he says, perhaps with a little understatement.

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Great Unfinished Surf Novel: Literature!

By Chas Smith

9 years ago

One Day in the Life of John Dennis (part III)

8:45 Is whenever I’m with you.

The Dennis home is cute as. The only house on the block painted grey, today like the sky, it sits back from the street hibiscus bushes planted in front and a basket/backboard nailed to the telephone pole. The rim sags and is netless. His dad painted the house and he painted some too. It is a single story postwar home featuring a corrugated tin roof and wood framed windows without shades. He lives here, when he is here, with older sister who is a primary school teacher, mum, younger sister who is a professional surfer too, and dad. His ex-filmer, Les lives next door and his other best friend lives a couple houses up the street.

He pulls his car onto the ribbon driveway. There is a grey bungalow in the back, at the far end of the yard, where he sleeps, along with his filmer Pat. “I’m a twenty five year old man who sleeps in a bunk bed…” he says. Pat isn’t inside the room editing the clips from South Australia and Bali so he passes under the clothesline, around the empty hammock frame, goes into the main house to check the winds on the internet. There will be a surf today f’sure. He walks through the room featuring a day bed and that Magna Carta puzzle framed in gold, down the hallway, past his sisters’ rooms, and into the kitchen. His sister is there drinking coffee and gives him a kind smirk. It is school holidays. She is tall and lean with red hair that falls past her shoulders in wavy waves. His mom is cleaning the counter. She is not tall. And Pat is sitting at the kitchen table checking his email. Next to Pat on the floor, is his yellow singlet from the Quiksilver Pro. He was a wildcard in the event and it is framed except not in gold but rather black.

Pat looks up and nods his head. Blonde hair falls right above his eyes. He is of medium height, medium weight. Handsome but not memorable. “You wanna go oot and get some breakfast?” He is from Canada. Toronto. “Yeah, yeah. Ah’m down. We’re just gonna go eat, mum…” he says.

He goes himself to the kitchen table and there is a handwritten note from his dad sitting next to a stack of Moda stickers. Moda is his tailpatch/leash sponsor. The note has a circled 1, 2 and 3. Circle three has three sub-points. 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd. His dad leaves him to-do notes every day, when he is home. Circle 1 on today’s list is, “Close ANZ cards. Get a print out of June’s details and July details.” He chuckles about it with Pat before his sister says, “It’s really nice of him to do.” “Ah know. Ah know,” he responds “Ah need it. It’s just funny.”

Moving over to the computer, he logs on to windguru.com. The font is set to large, or something. It sort of warps everything. He tells Pat over his shoulder, “It’s probably going to be fun somewhere.” Pat asks which way the winds are blowing. “Straight offshore.” There is a walnut cabinet next to the computer chair filled with family pictures. Parents, grandparents, kids, cousins. His dad usually leaves for work at 4.30 am. Two nights ago he and Pat came home from a biggish night as he was leaving for work. He felt guilty.

9:00 He loves eggs benedict.

He and Pat walk out to the Dae Woo and drive towards Goldberg’s. Famous for breakfast. The edge to the blanket of overcast is tantalizingly close but still over Newcastle. Still in the distance somewhere south. Pat has pulled a black and white stripped beanie over his blonde and tells him that this cloud cover is going to sit over his head all day. “No it won’t…” he says. “Ah’ll drive to Sydney.”

Even though it is school holidays and Friday the roads aren’t full. It takes exactly four minutes from driveway to car park across the road from Goldberg’s. The sign is gold and bubbly cursive. The sun breaks through the second before they reach the door. Blanket pulled back and he lets out a large sigh, turns his face and lets the light swallow him. The streets look different. Everything looks different. Glorious possibilities instead of numbing depression. And breakfast? “Ahhhhh.”

Inside the walls are dark green, the ceiling is red and a large brass chandelier hangs low. It is dark. Ambient. All the wood, tables, chairs, bar, is dark. He and Pat are seated directly near the door. It is full but not packed. Buzzing with low level and certainly banal conversation. A Korean girl in the corner is eating poached eggs and tomatoes and is using her knife and fork like an Australian. Pushing food with the knife onto the back of the fork then putting it into her mouth. She wears a touch of lip gloss and her hair is black and straight.

He doesn’t need the menu. He has been thinking about eggs benedict with ham as soon as he saw Les’s description was not altogether accurate. The waitress comes with the menu anyhow and leaves. Pat asks him, “What’s good here, man?” He answers, “Everything. The eggs benedict.” Then he says, “It’s gonna be a good day today. I’m feelin’ it. That sun is telling me. What are you thinkin?” Pat, staring holes through the menu, tells him he’s not sure and he helps. “The eggs benedict with the ham.” Pat, distracted, looks at a neighboring table. “I wonder what they got?” The waitress returns and he says, “Hi. Can I get a latte, and can I please get the eggs benedict? With ham?” Pat orders it as well except he gets a flat white instead of a latte.

He leans back, folds his arms still encased in camel cable knit jumper and casts a casual glance over his left shoulder. Sitting close is an attractive woman. “That chick behind me is fine,” he tells Pat. Pat waits for her to turn around. She speaks using her hands.

Pat picks up a section of the newspaper and asks him aboot Rugby League. Does he follow? “I don’t know if you could live near here and not be into rugby. Lots of the guys live around. They go to that club Fanny’s. You know that one?” he says.

Pat asks him how in the world he can like Vegemite. “Ahh it’s all about the butter. You need to spread it real thin with heaps of butter.” he says. Pat tells him he just can’t get away from the Nutella.

Eggs benedicts comes hot and tempting. Laid on the table with care. Hollandaise sauce the color of fresh sunshine outside. Egg yolks too. Both dig in and eat like Americans. Just fork no knife. Cutting with the edge and not eating piggishly but certainly hungrily. Breakfast is so good! They drink their respective versions of the same coffee, eat, eat without speaking.

When half finished “ding ding” the iPhone sings. He answers. It’s Hoyo. “Yo what’s happenin’. Just uhh finished breakies. Yeah. Nahh. Where are you? At home? I’m gonna go surfing somewhere. Late.” He tells Patt, “Hoyo rang me to tell me I’m blowing it right now. It’s firing in Forster.” Forster is roughly two hours north of Newcastle.

He sneaks to the cashier while Matt is in the bathroom. And Pat wouldn’t have protested anyhow. He pays for everything without holding the slightest grudge. Generous to a fault, if such a thing truly exists. The cashier, a mid-twenties girl slightly portly smiles at him. His black beanie is pushed far back his forehead. and beautiful hair falls.

Exiting it seems as if all hint of cloud has gone. The air smells wet and there are puddles, which throw shards of light every which way, but otherwise there is not hint of bad weather. Of the misfortunes that have betrayed Newcastle for who knows how long and he and Pat since Bali. They climb into the Dae Woo. He turns up the stereo. Alive.

Everytime the moon shines I become alive.

And everytime the moon shines I become alive.

I’m feeling strange in the (hiss)

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Controversy: Kelly called racist!

By Chas Smith

9 years ago

An imbroglio erupts on Instagram!

Kelly Slater is best at a lot of things that kids do. Like airs. And Instagram. His feed is a constant source of entertainment/information because he seems to take it very seriously. There is no half-assing for the King and so his followers get fairly deep dives into his psyche, history, beliefs, passions. It is a wonderful spring!

Last night he posted two cover shots, one from Surfer one from Surfing World, both at Cloudbreak. In his comment he writes:

Same spot (#Crowdbreak, in Japanese), same section on the reef, same photographer (@toddglaser), same lens (50mm), same week, one year apart. But the one on the right was nearly twice the size and I ate it over the #Foamball. #SameSameButDifferent

And some got angry! One commenter says:

I’m a fan of your surfing, but is it necessary to point out and propagate racial stereotypes? I’d like to hear you try to speak Japanese without messing up a few pronunciations.

Kelly, ever the gentleman, responds:

Strike it’s absolutely necessary when you have a sense of humor. Strike a nerve there?

I don’t understand what that means but the discussion is an interesting one. Is it racist to poke fun at the way others speak English? True, the Japanese have difficulty with the “L” and “R.” Why?

Ryo, a wonderful Japanese linguist explains like this:

When using English letters for Japanese, almost everyone uses the “R” character and drops the “L” from romaji, but the truth of the matter is that neither R nor L exist in Japanese. The sounds signified are usually written as “ra, ri, ru, re, ro,” but these aren’t the same “r” as the ones we use in English. In reality, these sounds are more like a hybrid, or a sound that lies between the phonemic spectrum of L and R.

In other words, the Japanese sounds I just described (ra, ri, ru, re, and ro) are made by using one’s tongue a certain way. Those tongue movements so happen to be different from the way English speakers use their tongue when pronouncing L’s or R’s (i.e., the picture above), which is why English speakers butcher the Japanese language when they try to speak it. So monolingual English and Japanese speakers generally can’t pronounce each other’s L/R-like sounds because they have absolutely no practice in each other’s languages.

So the Japanese could make equal fun of foreigners Japanese pronunciations. Do they? Would you be offended if they did? Would Kelly Slater?

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Noa Deane, number three in my list of favourite surfers to interview after Andy Irons and Mason Ho. If y'don't dig what he's got to say, "That's your problem, baby!" says Noa.

Noa Deane: How to survive Coolangatta!

By Derek Rielly

9 years ago

Avoid the skate park, the post office if you're boozed and maybe the old gals at Twin Towns…

You’ll first see what makes Coolangatta what it is, first, from the window of your plane as it banks over Point Danger on its final landing approach. The vision is as fantastic as it is wondrous; a geographical twerk in your face.

There’s the rivermouth beachbreak Duranbah on its south-east flank, the everyday staple for its surfing population, but on its northern side, thoroughly protected from any southerly wind, are the points of Snapper, Rainbow Bay, Greenmount and Kirra. In between all that is the occasionally epic Coolangatta sandbar.

Coolangatta is a sweaty (literally!) sub-tropical city on the Queensland and NSW border. But an easy, breezy lifestyle doesn’t necessarily lead to utopia. If you want surf, you’ll find it. If you want a good job, maybe not. If you want drugs and a fight every time you swing your caboose after dark, you got it.

It’s a town where you can pick and choose the life you want to lead. Live like a caveman, up at first light and indoors when the sun squashes behind the mountains, and it’s a dream.

Noa Deane grew up and continues to live in a blissful state there. His advice reveals many secrets…

Best place to drink: The Sands. It’s the pub that everyone goes to start off. Maybe go to one of the clubs after, but you never know.

The clubs: Komune or Neverland. I really try to not to go but it’s too easy to get sucked in. It’s pretty funny. You always walk out of there thinking why did I do that?

The main players around town: In Cooly it’s all the local crew, Jack Freestone, Mitch Crews, until summer comes around, and then you’ll get a few people from America and the rest of the world. It’s different than Surfers Paradise where it’s gym junkie and sweatshop nation. There’s a group of people that hang out in the Snapper carpark all day long, every day. It’s a bit weird.

Where to find Mick and Joel: I don’t know about Joel but I could find Mick. If he was home after a comp he’ll be down at the Sands with the boys having a beer. If he’s not there he’ll be at D-Bah, parked in the same spot he’s parked in for years. On the hill up the side street, he loves it.

Best breakfast: Café Scooterini. Ask for the secret sandwich: chicken, aoli and fries.

Coffee: I don’t drink that shit anymore, anxiety reasons but when I did I’d go to Lido. Maybe have an English Breakfast tea and a biscuit instead.

Dinner joints: I like Top Noodle. It’s cheap, tasty and you can take beer in. Burgerlounge is incredible too, but it’s a bit more expensive.

Where to surf when it’s pumping: I surf at D-Bah. Everyone will be over at Snapper fighting the crowds and I’ll have the peaks to myself.

When it’s onshore: If it’s a northerly head down to Ballina or Tallows in Byron. When it’s flat go to Straddie, it’ll be double-overhead.

Sharks: I’ve never seen one down here, so it’s not really something to worry about. I thought I saw one once but it didn’t look very big and it stayed away.

Best kept secret: Cudgun Reef, down towards the backside of Kingscliff. It’s this crazy right reef out there, and no one surfs it. When the waves are four-foot and offshore it’s perfect.

Cheapest bar: The Sands has half-priced beers from on Fridays (from five pm til seven pm) and Sundays (two till five). You can get a schooner for $2.50 and I don’t know anywhere else in Australia that’s cheaper. You go down and get so loaded with the biggest mix bag crowd.

Most expensive bar: Café Fresh Lounge Bar. They make some rad cocktails.

Where to get plastered and not kicked out: Once again, The Sands does a pretty good job of that. When you get kicked out of Neverland just sneak across the road and you’ll be fine.

Best bar story: My friend Toby and I were at Neverland one night, standing at the top of a staircase, and this old lady was yelling at us, “I’ve fucked boys half your age,” poking us and stuff. We handed her a beer, she chugged the whole thing and went ass-over down the stairwell. She got so squished, it was heavy.

Where to find girls: Komune. A lot of girls go there. Or if you want a real rough chick go to Cooly Hotel.

My brother was walking through the park and somebody jumped out of the bushes and stabbed him, took his wallet and his phone. It’s full of crackheads that are so high they just want to kill people.

Cougars: At Twin Towns and Cooly Hotel there are a lot of women on the prowl. Watch out younger men.

Where to avoid: The park near the skatepark is such a no- zone. So many people get stabbed there and punched out. My brother was walking through the park and somebody jumped out of the bushes and stabbed him, took his wallet and his phone. It’s full of crackheads that are so high they just want to kill people.

How to get punched: Walk by the Post Office, drunk and vulnerable, and you’ll get beat up. Or if you go to the Cooly Hotel and try to back up a chick that’s getting picked on, come in and say, “Beat it bro,” you’ll be in a fight in no time. Bang.

How to buy drugs: You can really just ask anyone in a bar and they’ll probably be able to help you out. If you’re after something hard, go to a tattoo shop or porn store. They’re run by the bikies and haven’t had business in years, just drug dealin’.

How to get laid: I’m the worst person to ask for this. If you’re after a typical Gold Coast chick, be a dick to them. If you’re nice they’ll think that you’re a creep and brush you.

The girls: There are two main types, the normal chicks and the full-on Gold Coast chicks. The GC girls are pretty easy to pick out, just look for cheap cocktail dresses and caked-on makeup.

The boys: There are the surfers, then you have you’re average hipster-esque group, and then the roid-raging bikies. Somebody looking in might think this is the weirdest place, but once you get your own shit going on it’s one of the best places in the world even if there is the odd obnoxious steroid freak, but they’re always good for a laugh.

Best pickup line to use: For the average Gold Coast girl, say something really stupid. “Should we get out of here?” Don’t even bother introducing yourself. I swear people walk around the bar doing that and it works.

Pros and Cons: The biggest pros would be the waves and that there’s always stuff happening: dinner, drinks, shows. There’s not a whole lot of pressure to always be busy though, it’s a pretty relaxed place. I really like it in winter when there are not as many people and the waves are in the best shape. The bad side of it is that it’s pretty easy to get caught in a bubble and if you don’t watch out you’ll turn into something pretty rank. Everybody does the same shit and goes out to the same places over and over, it’s like Groundhog Day. Komune, Neverland, Sleep, Repeat.

During the Quiky Pro: To surf, go to D-Bah. Everyone surfs over the other side of the cliff and there’ll be no one out. I was surfing Lovers and it was five-foot and empty. To drink, it’s Neverland prime time. All your friends from around the world get to Cooly at the same time, and are always keen for a beer. They always host the sponsor parties, which are so fun.

The best time of year: From the middle of February to June would be the best window, but shoot for April. Clean conditions and a nice east swell.

Worst time of year: October through December is horrible. You wouldn’t even bother getting in the water.

Where to stay: There are houses near Rainbow Beach that you can rent out for weeks at a time and if you have a fair crew it wouldn’t be too expensive. Otherwise, there are a few backpackers in town that wouldn’t be bad. There’s one above The Sands but it’d be hard to stay away from those beers.

How to get around: Everything is so close. You can walk anywhere in five minutes. Or skate.

Biggest events: You have the Quiksilver Pro and then there’s this Cooly Rocks On thing that is pretty huge. It runs at the very start of winter for about a month. Pop-up shops take over the beachfront.

Where to get a board: I ride for Rusty so I get all my boards from the factory in the states. But as a tourist, head to Cooly Surf. The boys in there have a shit-ton of different designs and shapers.

Best shop to waste time in: Motorcycle Music. It’s the coolest store! You have records and these crazy vintage guitars. The guy who runs it, Gary, will just jam with you for hours. Steph (Gilmore) always stops in for ages when she’s at home. But he’s only open full muso-hours, 12:30 to 6:30.

Where to buy clothes: There are a few Op-Shops that are so cheap. Re-psycle is where I’ve gotten most of my good stuff and the proceeds go towards mental health foundations. If you’re a girl go to RSPCA, it’s full of dresses and that.

Where to get a haircut: Beeba. They have nice, young ladies working there rather than weird old dudes that are real eggy, wishing they could cut your throat with the razor.

Where to go for drunken eats: The Cooly Pie Shop. When you’re really out to lunch and you get a sausage role or a spinach triangle, you’ll leave with a pretty big smile on your face.

Where to buy a book: There’s a secondhand book store next to Big Chiefs, a burger place, that is pretty good. It’s just called Secondhand Book Store.

Best Mexican food: There’s not much. I go to America and come back thinking where the fuck is the Mexican food at, because it sucks here. If you feel like driving to Byron, there’s a new place across the road from The Beach Hotel that makes amazing margaritas. You have one and you’re cooked.

How to avoid the cops: Don’t pee in public and don’t walk around with open beers. They’ll corner you and fine you $100 and be dicks about it in the meantime. Aside from that you’re fine.

Where to go when you want to get out of town: The Currumbin rock pools. They’re about 15 minutes north and such a fun spot to spend the day.

Free entertainment: If you’re not counting fuel, you can drive to the Anchorage, just up Tweed River. It’s this bridge that you can jump off of and a nice little sandy beach to hang around all day.

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From the tanned cornified layer of his epidermis to eyes that shine like wet metal and hair that swells like a freshly opened fruit, Joe Turpel is number one! That voice! Somehow carnivorous and repulsively innocent! | Photo: WSL

Shocking: I like Joe!

By Mariano Landa

9 years ago

Joe Turpel creates the most divine press box poetry, sets the scene with astonishing accuracy!

I recently had to drive ten hours miles through the great state of California. Traversing coastal planes, rolling hills, fertile valleys, scorched desert and urban gridlock, I have the privilege of making this drive about ten times per annum.

The best part? That lovely stretch where the German sedans and Italian sportsters of bayside tech millionaires and clairvoyant LA business mavericks cohabitate with lifted American diesel trucks toting confederate flags, all hell-bent on cutting the five hours from SF. to LA down to three.

They all drive like assholes. Why? Because they all drive the way above-average surfers navigate a crowded lineup. Only instead of trying to pluck a set wave from the pack, they’re seeking out that 200-meter stretch between big rigs where they can accelerate to the limits of their 2016 engines and an equally turbocharged sense of self.

Of course, like getting waves in competitive lineups, you gotta burn some motherfuckers if you operate an expensive automobile. You see many a near-death-by-forced-lane-change when driving distances on a major California interstate, and there are exponentially more quattroporte LEDs burning your pupils than there are indicators.

I like to imagine that for the sedan and sportster drivers, visibly more affluent than I, clearly in a hurry, and maybe famous, such haste is because there’s a big eighter of cocaine at the destination and a world-record cock to snort it off of. Or an orgy, preferably on a boat somewhere. Also with pure drugs and huge cocks.

The lifted bro trucks? I like to imagine that the confederate crowd — proudly of desert or valley parentage —a re urgently off to a Tea Party meeting. But with meth and cute trailer chicks.

And then there are dudes like me, the Bede Durbidge of distance drivers, guys who’re just trying to get the job done and end up on the right side of things at the end of the ride: for Bede, heats and requalification.

For me, not bumming out my in-laws or employers. But ten-plus hours down and back practically every month? There’s not a soundtrack in the world that can make passing Coalinga for the umpteenth time this year even remotely desirable.

Now, here in America, early autumn is the most exciting time to be cripplingly addicted to sports media. Like the emergence of a batch of the most ebony of black tar, the rabid sports follower finds himself at the spectatorial verge of overdose.

Late-season baseball characterized by pennant races and wildcard hopefuls. College football upsets abound, rife with narratives of rust-belt mid-majors stuffing the pigskin powerhouses of the former Confederacy while East Oakland and South Central’s fastest and most furious represent universities who would have escorted them from campus for loitering were it not for a 4.4 second forty-yard dash.

For four hours, everyone’s favorite Val-twinged monotone ejaculated some kind of unexpected, divine press box poetry, setting the scene with astonishing accuracy and even a hint of emotion!

But on the day of my drive? It wasn’t a weekend, so no American football. It was far too early for a midweek pitching battle between San Francisco and San Diego.

It was just right, however, to catch the final day of the Hurley Pro, live to the good ol’ mobile device while descending from Fresno to LA!

Now, the bitch about watching a surfing contest and driving is that it’s actually quite difficult to watch television and drive at the same time (drinking and driving is, strangely, much easier, but maybe it’s a practice thing). Even harder when what settles for ‘television’ is an undercharged cell phone placed on the dash at a less-than-ideal viewing angle.

So I had to settle for the experience of radio.

Unlike Matt Warshaw, I didn’t grow up in LA listening to Vin Scully and Chick Hearn. As for my knowledge of greater Los Angeles, I couldn’t tell you the difference between Burbank and Bell Gardens if my life depended on it.

What I do know is that the play-by-play from Trestles was delightful from a radio perspective. Mere weeks after Warshaw “wrote a hurtful piece barbecuing the brave men and women who front the WSL broadcasts”, I had the unanticipated experience of hanging on Turpel’s play-by-play for every paddle-battle, every turn, every punt, and every score of the last seven heats.

And I’ll be damned, but with the predictable (you said boring, not me!) style and trademark of each quarterfinalist so clearly engrained in the collective memory of the surfing world, Turpski’s commentary was spot on, painting an aural portrait of every wave ridden at that ever-so-iconic-if-overhyped SoCal venue.

The sets on the horizon! Mick’s deep bottom turn-to-wrap! Filipe’s corked reverse and the heartbreak of defeat! The very mechanics of the runner-up’s claims! For four hours, everyone’s favorite Val-twinged monotone ejaculated some kind of unexpected, divine press box poetry, setting the scene with astonishing accuracy and even a hint of emotion!

And although I can barely tell Turpel’s voice from Ross Williams until Ross refers to some long-forgotten trouncing by Kelly decades past (context clues!), I have to hand it to him.

Joe Turpel braved the “color” commentary of the most whitebread media team ever assembled to lay down a mean day of play-by-play, providing an enrapturing radio account that transported this commuter-listener onto the very cobblestones of the San Mateo Creek.

For this, I hesitantly —I’m told it’s a faux pas to speak nicely of the WSL without overwhelming irony — say, good on ya, Joe Turpel!

Somebody get that man some drugs and a phallus, because he’s going places fast.

Mariano Landa – 25/9/2015

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