In truth, this damned thing is why I’ve been such a disaster in
every part of my life lately. Books are strange vampires. They suck
the very life out. They stay awake at night. They demand, they
fuss, they change their minds. They obstinately get in the way of
things that really matter and turn invisible in the mirror and die
when staked and decapitated. But there’s almost nothing I’d rather
be doing than writing one. Oh, I know I know I know publishing is
dead and who reads long-form anything anymore and what a waste of
time and energy but the heart wants what the heart wants.
I don’t sleep any more, I lose everything, I write garbage here,
I can’t focus.
Like a teenager in love!
And what’ll it be about? Duh! But also….. stay tuned!
What would you give to be nineteen with the whole
world before you?
Have you ever considered the life of Italy’s
first professional surfer? It’s more than just barrels, breasts and
wine. Maybe!
Leo Fioravanti achieved two childhood dreams this year by
qualifying for the CT and giving Slater the ol’ Roman Candle not
once but twice! Not bad for a nineteen-year-old Italian kid.
Despite his competitive successes, many have criticized Leo’s
road to fame, claiming he’s just a rich Italian kid who was sent
around the world and molded into a top athlete. To these people I
say two things: 1. You don’t get to choose your socioeconomic
standing nor nationality and 2. There is no such thing as molding a
top athlete. Glen Hall could have surfed forty hours a week since
his third birthday, split his time between the North Shore and
Indo, and have been coached by an older, wiser version of himself,
and he’d still never be able to crack the top ten. Practice and
opportunity make the CT, but natural ability is what separates the
Slaters from the Durbidges. In short time we’ll know where Leo
falls.
The trailer for Leo’s documentary, Ride to the
Roots, is as vague in name as it is in description.
From what I gather it will be the story of his life and lineage,
which is to say, the story of a rich Italian kid who was sent
around the world and molded into a top athlete. Being that he’s
nineteen and has had only one major setback in his life, this film will
likely not be revolutionary in nature, but rather a nationalistic
pat on the back to a surf-starved, pasta-bloated Mediterranean
peoples.
If for no other reason, watch because Leo won Surfing
Mag‘s Lady Killer award in this year’s Peer
Poll. Insert Italian Stallion joke here.
Bankruptcy is a trendy surf thing right now.
Very hip. Mavericks just declared. Lame. Later bros. And I’m busy
on something else right now (you’ll see tomorrow!) so I’ll leave
you with the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Bay Area big-wave surf competition Titans of Mavericks
could be wiped out this year after its organizers filed Chapter 11
bankruptcy Tuesday amid a sell of their assets.
Titans of Mavericks LLC and Cartel Management Inc. filed
separate petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central
District of California, but described the action as an effort to
“ensure a smooth and swift transition of the business and
operations.”
“The brand has seen explosive growth since its creation,”
Griffin Guess, Titans of Mavericks founder, said in a press
release. “The process will allow Titans of Mavericks to reach new
heights in the right hands. It is time for a larger organization
togain from all of our hard work.”
Yet the bankruptcy filing comes after costly legal trouble
for Cartel Management. Red Bull Media House North America Inc.
filed a lawsuit against Cartel and Titans of Mavericks in the
Superior Court of Los Angeles on Friday, just days before the
bankruptcy action.
Red Bull Media House sought an unspecified amount in damages
after paying Titans of Mavericks $400,000 for the rights to webcast
this year’s competition — which hasn’t happened yet — then never
receiving a refund after Cartel abruptly terminated the
contract.
“After receiving Cartel’s purported termination letter,
searching for a rationale for Cartel’s erratic behavior, Plaintiff
found that Cartel is beset by financial and legal difficulties,”
the suit states. At the end of October, a jury in the Central District of
California found Cartel and Marisa Miller, an international
supermodel and wife of Guess, were liable to pay $1 million after
breaching a contract with another company, Segler Holdings
LLC.
The defendants had apparently violated a promotion deal with
Segler Holdings’ Glissin sunless tanning products and
salons.
Finish the story here but how
good is it that part of the bankruptcy has to do with sunless
tanning?
Fucking northern California.
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"This was supposed to be my winter to really shine,"
says the water photographer, who snapped his wrist mountain biking
in Canada shortly before the start of the North Shore season. "I
thought for sure I would lose my contracts and would be stuck
shooting from the beach all season, getting the same boring photos
as everyone else. The week or two doped up on pain killers was
playing a big roll in my emotions because once I got off those
things, I snapped out of my funk, quit my bitching and started
training my left hand to hold that heavy water housing." The
upshot? New angles! Here, John John Florence, Backdoor. | Photo:
Brandon "Laserwolf" Campbell/@laserwolf.photo
Pipe water shooter snaps wrist prior to season.
Photos improve!
Imagine this. You shoot water for a
living. It’s a perilous game, sure, but enough to keep the damn
wolves away from the door. And it’s s a great life. You swim
and you’re front row to the best in the biz.
“I’m not stacking paper but my bills are paid, my kids taken
care of and I’m travelling the world doing what I love while
calling Hawaii base camp,” says Brandon Campbell (aka
Laserwolf) whom I claimed, yesterday, had taken the best big-wave shot
ever. “I wake up every day and do whatever I
want. Surf when I wanna surf, shoot when I wanna shoot. No one
telling me to shave my face, tuck in my shirt, where and when to
be.”
This year, howevs, his craft was imperilled when he
went mountain biking with his thrill seeker pops in Canada just
before the start of the North Shore season.
“The old boy is such an animal when he gets on a bike so I was
just doing my best to keep up,” says Laser. “I had work contracts
lined up and I didn’t want to risk getting hurt. But I didn’t
listen to my instincts so I went on the trip and ended up snapping
my hand half-way off my arm and doing a ton of ligament damage,”
says Laser. “I flew home for surgery and my hand is still held
together by a metal bridge plate and a bunch of screws. I can’t
bend my wrist in any direction and it took a while to get control
of my fingers. It wasn’t just your typical broken wrist that heals
in a month. I was going to be one-handed for the entire
season.”
The dazzling hand-surgeon Dr Aimee Perreira got
Laser back into the game with a toolbox of screws and
wires.
Laser says he sank into a depression. “My shooting hand! My only
means of providing for my family! A baby on the way. The high cost
of living in paradise.” Also, he says, “This was my winter to
really shine. I thought for sure I would lose my contracts and
would be stuck shooting from the beach all season, getting the same
boring photos as everyone else on the beach.”
Once he binned the painkillers, howevs, Laser got his old hustle
back.
“Once I got off those things, I snapped out of my funk, quit my
bitching and started training my left hand to hold that heavy water
housing,” he says. “I kept the injury under wraps and, fortunately,
none of my contracts started till November so I had almost two
months to adapt. By the time everyone showed up to the North Shore,
I was 100% with my left hand and just sort of played it off as a
minor injury. I was still in pain and was risking doing long-term
damage if I smacked my injured hand on the reef or even if I just
got tossed around too much in the water.”
And the effect?
“It was a blessing in disguise. I’m getting different
angles and now I can shoot with either hand! My photos went up a
notch! Blessing in disguise? Yeah, it was.”
“I kept the injury under wraps and, fortunately,
none of my contracts started till November so I had almost two
months to adapt. By the time everyone showed up to the North Shore,
I was 100% with my left hand and just sort of played it off as a
minor injury.” Balaram Stack, Pipe.
1. John John is the best surfer in the world (sorry, Dane).
2. Competitive surfing is soooooo dull.
The contrast between the front half of this clip and the back is
startling. John wins Haleiwa surfing to maybe
fifty percent of his abilities. He then loses at Sunset with
aggressive, committed surfing and flunks at Pipe because of poor
wave choice.
But the second half of the vid… by gosh some of the best surfing
I’ve seen. Better than Dane in Sampler, better than Jordy in
…whatever his movie was called. It’s just fantastic! Full speed,
full-rail, full commitment in waves of power and pain. No one looks
more comfortable on a surfboard than a jersey-less John.
At the end of the clip he states, “I’m gonna go after another
world title, one-hundred percent.” While this thrills part of me —
for I want nothing more than a decade-long duel between John and
Gab, wherein the white man eventually reigns supreme — another part
can’t help but wonder what we’re losing in that pursuit. I know I’m
not alone in that.
For instance, Albee Layer had this to say after
being asked about his and John’s battle to land the first backside
540/720: “[John] showed me a clip of him over-rotating a backside
spin, and I showed him one of me doing the same thing. So it
started a bit of a battle. I mean, I think if he put half the
energy I did into it he probably would have made it, but this year
he just shifted his whole focus onto contest surfing. Which
personally, I just hate [laughs], thinking about the progression he
could do for surfing.”
John is great for competitive surfing, but he’s an even greater
barometer for what’s physically possible in the sport. If he’s
working towards titles, that means he’s at least partly forgoing
the pursuit of progression. Woe is me.
