Turpel: “Another incident in the lineup!”

Is WSL commentator Joe Turpel the coolest customer ever?

And really, what do you think Joe Turpel has done in his life? Do you think that he might actually be in the witness protection program because he was a hitman for the mafia and gunned down 20 men in cold blood? Watching their guts spill across Italian restaurant floors before flicking a half-smoked cigarette at their corpses?

Do you think he served three tours of duty in Iraq watching mothers ripped from children and IEDs cutting down his best pals on earth?

Do you think he has spent time in a North Korean labor camp?

Was he a CIA operative stationed in Benghazi, Libya right when shit hit the fan?

What?

How can the man be so cool whilst watching sharks try to eat professional surfers and calling the action live?

Two years ago, when Mick Fanning was almost gobbled whole, Joe Turpel encouraged him in an emotionless surf bro to “hop on the sled and reset.”

Two days ago, when a shark threatened Julian Wilson and some one else, Joe Turpel said, “A little moment in the water here.”

And yesterday, when the biggest shark in the entire world swam straight for Mick Fanning, Joe Turpel said, “Another incident in the lineup.”

It is the sort of cool only bred in the hottest of fires.

So what was Joe Turpel before he was a World Surf League commentator?

Also, what has Ron Blakey done to close God’s ear?

Listen here!

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Is Hyperlaxity breaking Slater?

What happens to the ultra-bendy as they age? They break… 

Two days ago, Kelly Slater smashed the precious little bones in his foot while surfing at Jeffreys Bay and, likely, won’t be seen in competition again until December.

The childish lust for Kelly to retire before his legacy is tarnished might’ve just come true. (The considered reader, and viewer, of course, is painfully aware of the gap Kelly will leave.)

A few days ago, I was talking to an old friend about the imperative to continually resuscitate the career of Kelly Slater, however low he goes, when he told me his theory about hyperlaxity aka hypermobility slowly breaking Kelly.

See, as a kid, Kelly could walk up and down stairs on his hands with his feet laced behind his head ’cause of his hyperlaxity. Oh people loved it!

Great party trick.

Thing is, as they age, folks with hyperlaxity are prone to joint instability, terrible and chronic joint pain, osteoarthritis even in their teenage years, frequent dislocations and so forth.

Yoga and stretching is discouraged.

Kelly Slater passes out during yoga session! from BeachGrit on Vimeo.

My pal tells me Kelly’s disappearance from the tour in 1999 was because of a possible hip replacement, or at the very least hip surgery, brought on by teenage osteoarthritis that required a one year convalescence in Capbreton, France.

And, now, without ligaments holding taut his body, he’s slowly breaking, the hammered foot part of an ongoing, and perhaps futile, battle to keep that beautiful, iconic body together.

Let me be candid.

Only a dimwit could find anything positive in a tour without Kelly.

This is an undoubted fact.

 

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Welcome: WSL announces new CEO!

Sophie Goldschmidt takes the reins of our favorite performance lifestyle!

And look who was really sleeping on the job. Me! No sooner had I pressed publish on a story chastising the World Surf League for being slow than I was informed the League had just announced their new CEO and I had missed it.

Those who live in houses with large sliding glass doors, I suppose, and forgive my own retardation but let’s hurry and meet Sophie Goldschmidt!

The press release announcing her reads:

Relocating from London, Goldschmidt joins WSL from CSM Sport and Entertainment where she served as Group Managing Director and was responsible for developing and driving new business initiatives and commercial growth across the company’s global operations, in addition to managing the group’s brand development and marketing. Passionate about surfing, she has strong relationships and international experience working across global markets in both sports management and marketing and communications having held executive roles in the Rugby Football Union, National Basketball Association (NBA), Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), and Adidas.

And this sounds like she’s got something for everyone especially Bobby Martinez!

But what does she say?

First and foremost, I am committed to protecting the interests of our extraordinary athletes and ensuring that our various athlete development programs are further enhanced. A key mission will also be to further build out global recognition and appreciation for the skill and technical rigor of the League’s elite athletes. I hold a true passion for surfing and as a fan of the sport, I will also be focused on bringing this passion to new consumers.

Then a few paragraphs later…

Surfing sits at the intersection between performance sport and lifestyle more than ever before and we can mobilize younger generations to be a part of a culture we have been enhancing for 40 plus years.

Now that is well put. Don’t you think? Even if you are a crusty bastard you have to agree that “surfing sitting at the intersection between performance sport and lifestyle…” is inspired. Performance lifestyle is how I will describe surfing from now on and I am not joking.

Well, I am thrilled at this new leaf anyhow. The WSL got its shit together and quick!

They listen to us. They really really listen to us.

Read Sophie’s complete statement here!

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Hey WSL: “Get your shit together!”

Is the World Surf League sleeping on the job?

These days of near perfection are starting to weigh on me. Every morning I wake up, bleary-headed, begging for respite. Begging for a break in the professional surf action. And every morning I learn that the just wrapped J-Bay day was somehow, in some way, bigger/better/crazier than the day before.

I pull myself out of bed, press a cup of coffee and get to it.

But would you like to know who stays in bed nestled like a little joey in mama kangaroo’s pouch?

The World Surf League!

It’s true!

www.worldsurfleague.com is my first stop of the day and there is nothing there, even by 8:00 AM California time. Nothing but the entire event being played on a long, unnecessary loop. Some mornings it’ll have a daily wrap show posted by 9:30 AM. Sometimes 10:00 AM. Its youtube channel slow drips heats throughout the day. By evening most everything is up.

Usually.

And that ain’t fast enough for this surf journalist. I want it packaged into digestible morsels right away. I want it all right there first thing, west coast time, in both video and prose form. I want the daily wrap from the event and also a different nuanced take from other surf experts shot in the WSL’s Santa Monica studio. And I want it by 5:30 AM. The exact moment Reveille for Surf Journalists rattles me awake.

It is cruel to ask for more, no? Professional surfing has never looked better but… I don’t know. Maybe it is the determination of this particular event and its distance from both Australia and California. Maybe its near perfection has awoken the Kraken of Relentless Poking that sleeps on my medulla oblongata.

But, and then again, it was this very same Kraken that chewed up ex-WSL CEO Paul Speaker and spat him out. I think we were 45% responsible for his departure. Maybe even 48%. And I think him packing his Lacoste bags, folding up the NFL polos and the nonsense talk and getting out of town is why professional surfing has never looked better.

In any case, one thing I do like about the League’s retardation is that the first thing I read is Steve “Longtom” Shearer’s analysis as I post it. He has taken this event. He has beaten Nick Carroll, who was tapped on the shoulder by Sean Doherty because maybe Sean’s rapier got bent in Fiji. It may be some of the best professional surf contest coverage of all time even if he is too much of a chickenshit to go hisself to South Africa and face Sixto Rodriguez’s music.

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Fred Morais. What a beast. What a monstrous beast. Wait, do they have beasts left in Portugal?

J-Bay Anaylsis: “Greatest day ever!”

Great White stalks lineup again! Water patrol boat surfs monstrous set! John John crucified by rookie!

J-Bay is killing me. Not just the late nights and having to watch all those perfect point waves, many going unridden. Not the drinking, the car smash, the spectre of the debt collector. It’s killing me that Nick Carroll is there and I am here and Chas thinks the reason I am here is because, “It is just as easy to flame-throw then sit at home and snipe without ever coming face to face with those you demean.”

I mad. He mad. And I got a bone to pick.

We are all of us weird little creatures, expert at self deception, but I honestly don’t believe my words demean. They may prod or poke but they are never cruel or malicious and I have faced those on the receiving end many times.

Does Chas think my skin so thin I couldn’t handle a few thin grins, sideways stares, name left off lists? My elbows not sharp enough to find a little room amongst earnest millenials with SLR’s  in the press area, all wondering what glittering stop on their career will be next (this one being tepid, temporary and provisional) and how they’ll make payments on the 75k college debt?

Does he think I will break down in tears and not file when the man in the Biltong shop says, “Sorry Mr Shearer, no biltong for you today bru, you can eat dog caca, free”, be distressed if I need to find lodgings off broadway, maybe a short 10 mile jog into J-Bay each day? Who amongst us would be worse off with a little extra exercise?

What hardman amongst the Top 34 or their entourage would there to be scared of? Connor Coffin? Wilko? Even big blubbery Jordy or sobby Gabby? Maybe Charlie Medina might false crack you with a chair over the back while you weren’t looking, but no harm, no foul.

There would be only one man to truly fear and that is Kelly Slater who might loudly announce to everyone present with cold eyes and thin lips that I was a “kook who had wasted my talent.” That would be terrible but one would survive. I think.

And maybe, equally devastating, one might receive unsolicited writing advice from one Messrs Carroll Esq. “Son, your sentences are too long. It shows a disordered thought process and a lack of discipline.” One can always jump off a tall building if it gets too much.

No-one will talk to me?

Dear Chas, surely you have heard of the brilliant Gay Talese and his focus on peripheral characters whom only Talese would care about and who are far more interesting than the ones in the center. His profile on Frank Sinatra, the best feature ever published, was written with Frank giving him the cold shoulder the whole time.

Back to the action.

Were you watching last night when the shark scare closed the days play? Wonderful moments as the cameras went behind the scenes into the engine room of the comp and Julian Wilson, Jordy and Filipe got into earnest discussion with the commissioner Kieren Perrow. Poor old Jordy seemed a bit gormless but J-Dub sniffed an opportunity and put a nice little hustle on KP. There was talk of just finishing the heat but Wilson was pushing for a fresh heat, thinking he could hit refresh and blitz his opponents. I made a note.

“Be careful what you wish for Jules”.

What he was thinking he might get – blitzing his opponents at perfect J-Bay – and what he actually got. Thirty-five  minutes of Filipe Toledo launching into a perfect air wind at J-Bay. Well, put it this way, it won’t make any sporting manuals in terms of winning strategy.

Filipe’s Ten with two stratospheric Oops made a mockery of yesterdays Ten-fest. Greatest ride in competition History? Maybe, maybe one of Slater’s freak show disaster to impossible tubs at Teahupoo might compete. But otherwise, Toledo is first amongst equals. He made the rest of the field look like “haggard masturbators*.” It was a total demisting of the window into the future.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWt7TfEgT58/?taken-by=wsl&hl=en

A long, anti-climactic period ensued. Fanning knocked out Duru on the strength of one wave. JJF vs Owen was a fizzer and Jordy overpowered Connor Coffin with ease into a devil wind that refused to die. Wilson looked sharp and Bourez was beaten by his own equipment which skipped out when pushed in the bump and grind.

Short kip on the couch then, what? A resurf?

Jordy had made it clear he wasn’t chuffed on the morning’s reset clock from the shark interrupted heat calling it “poor form.” Isn’t he magnificent when angry? If he wins bring the tissues, floods of tears will saturate the landscape. Still, judges dry0-fucked the opening point spread. Connor should have had a nine-plus ride as well. That would have made the heat a contest, even allowing for Jordy’s next ten. Not to be.

Do you not care about Pro Surfing, find it boring, have no interest, zero, zilch, nada? I can relate. When I’m not thinking about it, it’s on another planet. But when I heard that faintest tremolo quiver in Joe Turpels voice as the ski’s raced up to Fanning and Medina in their quarter final, ”looks like we’ve gone on hold” (Turpel, again!)., it just concentrated the mind wonderfully, probably not as much as Mick Fanning, but how amazing, how insane.

Fucking submarine-sized White doing water patrol of the lineup. And Turpel could finally utter the word “shark”. Fanning, Turpel, White shark. Is there a better, more compelling lineup in world sport?

Could any world sport be more entertaining?

Three waves from Fanning. Three unforced errors to end a campaign where he never really clicked into gear.

Someone who did is Fred Morais. What a beast. What a monstrous beast. Wait, do they have beasts left in Portugal? Surely there must be a wolf still roaming the mountains. To combo John Florence who had three nine-pointers was yyuuuuuuuuuggge. Florence shook his head in disbelief in the lineup. He looked like a winner all event.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWtYY-Lgk_B/?taken-by=wsl&hl=en

The claims, the surfing, the re-starts, the shark, the shark boat, the Toledo Super-10, the Jordy 10, the Morais comeback, lots to chew the cud over. Hasta manyana.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWuo-frgjhY/?taken-by=wsl&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWt-cJtg-Ey/?taken-by=wsl&hl=en

Imagine blowing up a tuna.*

*Via D. Rielly.

*Via Mick Fanning.

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