The same money behind the World Surf League also funds Kelly Slater's wave pool!
We live in the information age, don’t we though, and this usually means Internet and blog and iPhone. Funny, though, that mouth and bar are still so wonderfully effective.
I was sitting, for example, just two days ago in a Dallas, Texas airport bar drinking vodka soda and fielding sneers for ordering such a thing in Dallas, Texas even though it was just an airport bar. The men next to me were talking. I was listening. And then we all started talking. It turned out that they allegedly knew the money behind your favorite surf league, and one thing led to another and guess what that money is also investing in?
From what they knew, it seemed like all the money.
And everything snapped into perfect place.
The World Surf League will build wave pools across the world that develop not only a taste for surfing but a consistent place to contest events. I’d imagine the top tier would still take to the ocean but I’d also imagine that most juniors, QS and lots of specialty one-offs would pop in Des Moines, Dubuque, Denver and, yes, Dallas.
The taste, though, would be more important. The World Surf League Wave Centers would have stores that could sell Glenn Hall singlet (read here), teach the parents how safe and healthy and concussion free the shred is and create a hungering froth in thousands, millions, billions of inland children. They would go home after two hour barrel sessions, flip on the iPad and watch Glenn Hall get pitted while wearing his singlet.
Kelly Slater, of course, will make the only board that works for the pools, those hideous banana things, and surf will be the biggest thing on earth and all of CEO Paul Speaker’s gobbledygook will make perfect sense. Bigger than the NFL!
Those who cling to the ocean and think this model won’t work will be viewed the same as those who insisted that the Internet was just a fad. The future!
The only trouble I see with all this raddness is that CEO Paul Speaker don’t surf, literally, and might be missing a little something about how the addiction is actually built. Then again, I didn’t get online until basically yesterday.
Why tour?
The point of a wave pool is to make a perfect wave. If one is made in Bakersfield, why have a tour that travels to Minneapolis to surf the exact same wave?
Oh, right, the point of pro surfing is to make it tennis by removing every single alluring aspect of the activity of surfing.
Half a century of shilling surfing as a lifestyle is now boiled down to its purest essense: fake machine waves and delusions of empirialistic grandeur.
So if Dubuque and Des Moines each get a comp, does that mean that there will be an “Iowa leg” on the tour? Will Dan Gable be there?
As long as there are no MRI’s of Owen’s bleeding brain or x-ray’s of Bede’s shattered pelvis we should be all good in the safety department.
Finally, surfing can become a decent, clean, safe, healthy sport.
I don’t reckon the wave pool staff will pat you down for baggies. Also, the water is recycled so could be spiked with drugs or even spiked Brazzo style i.e. faeces.
Longtom will finally sleep at night.
I wonder what the future of localism will look like when all the inland kiddies with the Glen Hall singlets on come down for their “ocean” surf?
Dallas is purgatory.
Apparently you’ve never read any of Dante’s Inferno, there’s a chapter in there about the state of Texas.
Plz explain the vodka soda appeal. Why not splash something in there that has flavor? Bourbon, perhaps. Or I could even support a dirty vodka sodka. But just plain boozy soda water?
At this point my best guess is that I’m basically Carlos Boozer and it’s clean and oddly refreshing…
spiced rum lime and dry ginger gets it done
Maybe you’ve gotten into my subconscious mind chas. I had a couple vodka sodas the other night and liked it!
be honest……its the perfect LA skinny girl drink option.
Of course! I know that. Which is why I accept derisive stares.
All the alcohol effect, none of the calories? Win-win.
Carlos Boozer? C’mon, Chas – you’re better than that.
No. That’s pretty much me.
Fair enough.
No added sugars. No bullshit. Just vodka and water.
as a man, who drinks bourbon neat, i have to report to you that water is indeed “bullshit” when introduced to a fine spirit.
A bit of water can really open her up mate. Just saying, just saying.
I’m a vodka and tap water gal, too… If I want spice, I’ll grind a jalapeño in there. (Thanks for the tip, Matt Biolos.)
limes work
in beer