Feel-good: 5 Great Things About the WSL!

Rory Parker

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Positivity is the newest black!

One of the best thing about writing online is the audience interaction. Once upon a time, if someone wanted to tell you to go suck a big pile of dicks they had to take the effort to write it down, find an envelope, put a stamp on it, and mail it along.

So much work, it really limited discourse.

But now that anyone can chime in with little to no effort, man, what a time to be alive!

For instance, yesterday Kelly Bailey wrote to us:

WSL

She’s totally right (maybe it’s a he? I just assume all Kellys are female, even though that’s my youngest brother’s name)! Your beloved BeachGrit runs the risk of becoming the cool kids’ table; everything sucks, no one is awesome but us. Too hip, too blasé. And you just know one of us is going to mix a pile benzos and opiates and Ledger ourselves a few weeks after graduation.

I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again, we’re too negative, so here’s some positive.

Your beloved BeachGrit runs the risk of becoming the cool kids’ table; everything sucks, no one is awesome but us. Too hip, too blasé. And you just know one of us is going to mix a pile benzos and opiates and Ledger ourselves a few weeks after graduation.

This one’s for you, Kelly!

Five Great Things about the WSL

The women know their place: It’s the 21st century, and we’re all the same. Men, women, inbetweens, it doesn’t matter. And, as a straight white male, I find that very threatening. It’s not that I expect to be treated better because of how I was born, it would just be nice to see others treated worse.  It’s a cheat code for life, one that all my ancestors got, and it really sucks that I’m denied.

The male/female WSL heirarchy puts a smile on my face.

The girls are satisfied with playing second banana for less money, and bless their hearts for that! At least some of them know where they belong, two paces behind the men with their mouths firmly shut.

They’re not over exposing big-wave spots

They aren’t exposing them at all!  No webcast, no TV, though you may soon be able to see them in some form on the Universal Sports Network!

(Click here)

There’s nothing more important than keeping the best big waves spots secret, and running a hidden big-wave tour fits that goal like a glove.

They’ve kept the broadcast team nice and white

Yeah, the Brazilian storm is still in effect, but who wants to see a brown face talk about surfing? Can you imagine the horror of staring at some bilingual darkie for hours at a time? No thanks, that’s not for this proud Aryan.

While our social structure crumbles around us in the name of diversity, it’s good to see that the WSL takes a hard and fast rule firmly to heart: If it ain’t white, it ain’t right!

As well as keeping everything “sportsmanlike,” it also served to the rid the tour of its only Mexican, marking the first time white people stole one of their jobs.

They keep it family friendly

Can you imagine how terrible it would be if surfers spoke from the heart? We’ve seen it happen once or twice, and a swear always makes it way in. Thank god the WSL knows that kind of passion is unwanted, and keeps everything nice and milquetoast.

As well as keeping everything “sportsmanlike,” it also served to the rid the tour of its only Mexican, marking the first time white people stole one of their jobs.

They busted the union

The ASP pre-WSL was a filthy commie pseudo union, where riders had a voice and an elected rep who lobbied for their best interests.  Which was downright unAmerican. Which is a great word, because it’s got a capital letter in the middle of it. How many of those do you think there are?

Freeing the tour from the tyranny of the surfers’ collective voice, going back to the good ol’ every-man-for-himself mindset, it can only spell good things for the future of competitive surfing.

Fantasy WSL: Create your own surf tour!

Derek Rielly

By

What would you do if you had the keys?

Harping from the sidelines is a sport I prize. But, then, who doesn’t get their kicks from rolling their eyes at the stupidity and inertia of institutions, at the establishment?

When you’re not working the levers, whatever you say is theoretically…correct. Who can disprove it?

Some month ago, I presented my Five Ways to Improve the WSL Right Now! The ideas were hardly revolutionary, a snip hither, a cut yon, and I present them below.

1. Reduce the tour from 34 to 12

Truth is, unless you have some kinda personal contact or affinity with anyone outside the top dozen, watching ’em tag waves to the beach does nothing for you, for me, or for the supposed greater audience the World Surf League is chasing. Sure, having 34 surfers guarantees a career for men who, let’s face it, ain’t Stevie Hawkings and would therefore be laying concrete or slapping paint on walls, but it ain’t taking the game forward. It’s making up numbers. And making up numbers means…

2. You’ve gotta finish an event in two days, max

Four days for men, three days for women. Two-week waiting periods. Endless calls. Endless standbys. It’s the most lurid tempo! No wonder such a ferocious sex hunger develops around tour events. You want to see an exciting sport. Go to Speedway. Three hours. A few heats and a winner-takes-all final. Spectators with no interest in motor sports are captivated. Surfing needs a full-day super jam, two if conditions turn to grease. Which means…

3. Forget combining men’s and women’s events

Oh! You get to use the same infrastructure thereby reducing costs? How ideal! It’s an uneasy coexistence. How many joints do you know can deliver a week of good waves within a two or three-week period, across all tides? It don’t happen. And so you’re left with crucial heats running in the crummiest and most inconsistent closeouts.

Speaking of tides and inconsistent closeouts…

4. Portugal has to be iced

What should be a sideshow of tuberiding and shorebreak tumbling has become the event where world title hopes and dreams of victory are dashed upon Supertubos’ shallow sandbank. Kelly knows. And Jordy Smith, the best surfer there last year, sat in a miserable ocean and caught one wave in the final That ain’t sport at its best.

5. Live a little
Bottom line, y’ain’t ever going to get even a slice of the football or soccer or basketball crowds. Surfing is too subjective, too hard to understand. So, live a little. Let the guys on the mic, all of whom know a thing or two, loosen up.

And, you?

What would you do if you were the CEO of World Surf League? Would it be called World Surf League? Would it be a combined men’s and women’s tour? How many surfers would compete? How many events and where?

Present your tour masterplan in the comments pane below. The five best ideas will receive a pair of the new Need Essentials technical surf trunks.

(Click here to see!)

Rumor: Twiggy Baker un-invited to Mavs!

Chas Smith

By

Why is the big wave world being all like that?

The window for Titans of Mavericks opens Nov. 1, a mere 10 days away and exciting. Big scary El Nino fueled waves bashing up on the rocks. Men, braver than you or I, bobbing on slender, long boards ready to conquer God’s creation. But guess who (allegedly) won’t be there? Shockingly, South African former champ Grant “Twiggy” Baker.

Baker, who won the event in 2006 and a Red Bull event there in 2014 along with the Big Wave World Tour in 2013/14, has been cut, my inside source tells me, due to a feud with Mavericks’ discoverer Jeff Clark. Clark famously saw Mavericks when he was seventeen years old and surfed it all alone until the 1990s when “California’s Waimea” blew up. He has had a cantankerous relationship with events at the wave for the past few years. Lawsuits, counter suits, etc.

What did Twig do to (theoretically) anger Mr. Clark? It is unclear but don’t worry! BeachGrit is working the big wave scene and I never knew it was so thrilling, so filled with pain, anger, spurned love. This dust-up following closely on the heels of the brouhaha between Kelly Slater, Ken Collins, etc. over Jaws (read here).

I once told Peter Mel that I wanted to paddle out to Mavericks with him but now that I am older it doesn’t sound very fun. Twiggy thinks it’s fun though. Watch him here because you won’t be (purportedly) watching him this year.

Twiggy Baker Mavericks Champion from Isurus Wetsuits on Vimeo.

Yo: Surfing’s hottest crews!

Chas Smith

By

Which was the greatest of all-time?

Surfing is generally such a solitary sport. A woman or man, a board, the ocean…except for when it’s not and individuals get together to form a solid-gold crew. The idea of the crew has been owned this past decade by dancers. The Jabbawockeez, The Mos Ripe Crew, Quest, I.aM.mE etc. are popular with the kids along with movies like Step Up, Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D, Step Up Revolution and Step Up: All In.

But the crew belonged to surf before it belonged to dance. Da Hui made it look downright fierce. Maui’s Strapped Crew made it look strange. Pipeline Posse had a nice logo, the Wolfpak had the best knuckle tattoos, the Momentum Generation had the most world titles, the Coolie Kids had the second most world titles, Santa Cruz’s Eastside had Pete “The Condor” Mel, Santa Cruz’s Westside Daryl “Flea” Virostko, the Bra Boys had a wonderful handshake, the Modern Collective had a giant glowing pyramid etc.

Crews are easy to get behind. Easy to cheer for. I feel, though, surfing is kind of crew-less right now which makes me sad. There was the makings of a good one from San Clemente feat. Kolohe Andino, Luke Davis, etc. but they never formed up properly. Never got tattoos. Craig Anderson could probably gather a pretty tight crew and do shit and, if Ethan Carlston was invited, that crew could probably throw down some tight raps. Mitch Crews is the only one I can think of currently in operation and I don’t think they are accepting applications.

Which crew would you have liked to be a part of? Which can you see forming in the near future?

Blood Feud III: Jay Alvarez v Ethan C

Derek Rielly

By

Surprise final instalment!

Four weeks ago, BeachGrit reported on the blood feud between the two dazzling surf creatures, Jay Alvarez and Ethan Carlston.

Read, here…

…and here…

Both stories combed the feud’s themes of fantasy, juvenile egotism, anxiety and contempt, arrested adolescence, heterosexual activity, obscene ruthlessness, virulent sexism and a childish fantasy of power.

Compelling, in other words.

Today, the final word in the blood feud comes from a surprising source: a middle-aged bicycle enthusiast (Durianrider) from South Australia, whose YouTube channel has over 150k subscribers and over 100 million views. He has no connection to either surfer and yet shears the feud in two in a three-minute video of homespun wisdom.

To Ethan he advises:

“You’re stoned out of your mind, you’re glazed as fuck… I was a stoner when I was your age and you’re missing out on a lot, man. (Jay’s) going under your rug because you’re stoned and floundering around and he’s cutting through. He’s getting it. You sound really jealous that Jay’s banging Alexis… what  I’m going to say, mate, until you get off the bongs you’re not going to pull chicks like that.”

Three minutes of funny.

Watch here.

And you can buy Duranrider’s book Carb the Fuck Up! (Follow your heart with no fucks given) here.

(Click!)