Cracks are forming in the WSL's wall of
oppression!
I have had a number of important jobs in my
life (submarine driver, zipline operator) but none more satisfying
than the Voice of the People. None more important. For where would
you be without? If you were mute? I will tell you where. Trodden
under the World Surf League’s authoritarian foot. Forced to endure
a khaki-hued professional surf world with Ross William’s new
slow-motion 1000 yard stare the most exciting bit of
commentary.
I treat the responsibility bestowed up me with the upmost
gravitas.
I also know how the great James Hoffa feels for, if you recall,
I was forced to unionize surf
media as a response to unilateral WSL exclusivizing.
Turning our egalitarian spirit into a place where the 1% hide
behind a wall and feast upon Michelob Ultra, mocking those outside.
I was forced to threaten a boycott of the finals of the France
Pro.
Well, I can report great success. While I was busily working the
phones, barking at heads of the World Surf League in order to
improve the people’s position, Longtom was undermining their
product by detailing the very core of the League’s problem.
“The problem: too safe surfing when big numbers were needed….”
he wrote “And
that is a structural problem for both. Becoming so used to
conservative surfing they lack the neuro-muscular circuitry and
psychological toughness to go big.”
Brilliant.
Stab, meanwhile, was holding the line on the boycott,
refusing to publish anything about the finals because they couldn’t get
Longtom to write their coverage. And Surfline
put out fake fake news
about Kelly Slater not surfing in Portugal, which he is.
When the day ended, I sat back, smiling, and sipped a humble
Stolichnaya and pamplemousse. I could feel the cracks in the WSL’s
wall of oppression. The people are on the march. The people are
coming.
Yes, this is the most important job in my life and the most
satisfying.
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Rory Parker (pictured) waiting for Cori Schumacher to
telephone her congratulations for his new gig.
Venice Beach's leading surf mag hops time machine
to 2015!
It was the greatest day in modern surf
journalism history when Stab bought itself back from
SurfStitch just weeks ago. Didn’t you think? Gone was the tyranny
of bad advertorial. Of forced FCS fin champion stories and
embarrassing spiels about “liquidity events.”
But how was this new entity going to position itself in the
crowded surf landscape? Surf journalism was not the same place it
was when Stab became Australia’s leading online surfwear
retailer’s leading online magazine.
The answer revealed itself today. It is going to position itself
exactly like your li’l old BeachGrit from two years
ago!
The tides have been turning that way for quite some time with
BeachGrit luminary after BeachGrit luminary
finding a soft landing near Venice Beach, California. Today another
penned his maiden
piece.
Ladies and gentleman may I reintroduce… Rory Parker!
Yes that Rory Parker!
Are you thrilled to have him back (and by “back” I mean not
writing for The Inertia)? I am. BeachGrit
’15 had such promise until that dastardly Cori Schumacher showed
up. And until Rory went to the North Shore and…
I suppose it is poetic that Rory’s maiden piece for
Stab is also about the North Shore. A place he… is totally
not afraid of.
But who do you think Stab is going to hire next? Derek
and I are the only two left.
Derek? Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.
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I like watching Gabe Medina do pro surfing. When those
black eyes start glittering with malicious intent and he's up in
someone's grill I'm glued to the screen. He reminds of the anecdote
told by one of Richard Nixon's secret service agents who came upon
his boss punching the chair on an Airforce One flight , “Gotta be
tougher, gotta be tougher.”
Nervous moments, as Pottz would say, when you
hit send at three am in a stupor and wake in fright nek day
wondering what the fuck that was all about.
Did I miss something? Over-egg the omelette, insult a
powerful ally, send a steaming pile into cyber-space?
One concept that was sent out under-cooked is the continuing
chokes from Jordy and Julian. Nick Carroll will bust a hemorrhoid
reading this but I was struck, in both pressers, by the
tone.
It was as if they had been body-snatched by zombie therapy bots.
They were both uncomprehending but self-satisfied at the same time.
Rationalisations, lack of insight. The problem: too safe surfing
when big numbers were needed. And that is a structural problem for
both. Becoming so used to conservative surfing they lack the
neuro-muscular circuitry and psychological toughness to go big.
It was as if Jordy and Julian had been body-snatched by zombie
therapy bots. They were both uncomprehending but self-satisfied at
the same time. Rationalisations, lack of insight. The problem: too
safe surfing when big numbers were needed.
The first problem I call the technique or hard problem, the
actual surfing manoeuvres needed. The second is the mind or “soft”
problem. Without a lock on both the Title choke is inevitable.
You disagree Team Julian? Then demolish the theory.
One man without a soft problem is Mick Fanning. Best mind game
in the biz and now a willingness to deal with the hard problem and
expand technique. One air yesterday, cute but legit then a tail
high throw today against Joan Duru in round five. He didn’t need
it. Short-arc power carving got the job done but the intent was
clear.
The day kicked off in two-foot closeouts, a move that infuriated
Owen Wright. Beaten by the luck that flowed to Seabass and not much
more.
Fanning brought, by far, the sharpest knife to the round five
draw with Parko and Kolohe finding wins. The first by huge first
turns, the second by repertoire.
Jed Smith called me a veteran surf writer and I guess if you
count a couple of decades of under-employment and fringe dwelling
as a career that’s true.
But I’ve never been, like Carroll or Doherty, a true believer in
the pro surfing project. I love its stupidity, it’s vacuity, its
epic convulsions and compulsive tilting at a mainstream audience
that seems to retreat, always tantalisingly just out of reach, into
the near distance. The actual product, the surfing itself, is
almost always the least interesting thing. To me anyhow.
I love pro surfing’s stupidity, its vacuity, its epic
convulsions and compulsive tilting at a mainstream audience that
seems to retreat, always tantalisingly just out of reach, into the
near distance.
But if I squint my eyes into the french sunshine with Fanning
and Florence heading out into headhigh beachbreaks I can feel
somewhere the stirrings of how it must feel to be a true believer.
Florence is not a man with a weak grip on either the hard or soft
problem. He fixed the technical deficiencies in his surfing, the
slightly gammy cutback, the weird arms, and reinforced the hi-fi
strengths. And sorted out the mind game.
He prowled the lineup with Fanning, sometimes paddling
cheek-to-cheek, other times paddling in opposite directions to
different parts of the bank. It was a relentless continuation of
what he brought to the game yesterday. Upping the ante. He dropped
it on Fanning and Mick had no answer.
I called the judges counter-revolutionary scum yesterday for not
dishing out a 10 for John’s lofted backside rotation but on
reflection maybe we should be praising their restraint.
I called the judges counter-revolutionary scum yesterday for not
dishing out a 10 for John’s lofted backside rotation but on
reflection maybe we should be praising their restraint. Just a
weird irony that the man who seems to be most often subjected to a
rational restrained judging panel is most deserving of being on the
end of the kind of judging exuberance that saw it raining 10’s in
J-Bay.
As happened to Fanning, so too for Parkinson, with feeling. Gabe
Medina turned him into a spectator. Sitting out the back looking
shoreward anxiously as Medina spiked the sky with a clean oop.
You don’t do Pro Surfing to feel good about yourself. It’s not
therapy. You do it to win. Which is why I like watching Gabe Medina
do pro surfing. When those black eyes start glittering with
malicious intent and he’s up in someone’s grill I’m glued to the
screen. He reminds me of the anecdote told by one of Richard
Nixon’s secret service agents who came upon his boss punching the
chair on an Airforce One flight. “Gotta be tougher, gotta be
tougher.”
The Medina /JJF semi-final started with a long waveless period.
Both surfers stalking the lineup. With a minute to go before a
fresh clock John broke for a small right. It was to be the fateful
decision of the heat. He fell on an air, landing hard in the flats.
Then fell again doing a regulation Oop after a small but defined
tube. Both mistakes compounded in the back half of a now truncated
heat as Medina capitalised, first with a powerhouse display of
backside hooks then a semi-botched big spin that nonetheless put
John in a combination. Relentless strength.
John didn’t crumble. The soft problem solved he backed himself
and nailed the best wave of the heat for a nine but the earlier
mistakes robbed him of what he needed most; time and it was Medina
through.
There’s a documentary film doing the rounds on Netflix right now
called Generation Iron 2. Bulging muscles
ain’t my kink but the film was instructive, in terms of it’s
analysis of how bodybuilding had made a big play to make it as a
mainstream sport on the back of superstars like Arnie
Schwarzenegger. One of the kingpins came on and delivered his
conclusion that they hadn’t made the mainstream, that bodybuilding
was a niche activity. It is what is and we all have to learn to
live with it.
How long until Pro Surfing has a similar Come to Jesus moment?
When the True Believers realise it’s a mid-tier niche sport that
even lifelong surfers ignore, barely tolerate or openly
despise?
I don’t see that moment happening any time soon. As Israeli
historian Yuval Harari noted we are sustained by our fictions. They
bind us together, help us and nothing helps bind together the true
believers of Pro Surfing more than the fantasy of mainstream
acceptance.
The final was an anti-climax. Medina’s win had an air of
inevitability and Seabass couldn’t get started. The Final Horn
sounded and Charlie ran into the shorebreak to chair his stepson up
the beach, through the throng of an adoring crowd.
It was a gnarly contest and to quote the Austrian Oak, we’ll be
back. Thank you and goodnight.
Quiksilver Pro France Final Results:
1: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 16.00
2: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 9.30
Quiksilver Pro France Semifinal Results:
SF 1: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 16.26 def. Kolohe Andino (USA)
14.00
SF 2: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 16.40 def. John John Florence (HAW)
16.00
Quiksilver Pro France Quarterfinal Results:
QF 1: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 15.93 def. Miguel Pupo (BRA) 14.10
QF 2: Kolohe Andino (USA) 11.60 def. Marc Lacomare (FRA) 6.10
QF 3: John John Florence (HAW) 19.67 def. Mick Fanning (AUS)
10.67
QF 4: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 15.20 def. Joel Parkinson (AUS) 1.20
Quiksilver Pro France Round 5 Results:
Heat 1: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 14.40 def. Owen Wright (AUS)
11.73
Heat 2: Kolohe Andino (USA) 14.94 def. Caio Ibelli (BRA) 11.96
Heat 3: Mick Fanning (AUS) 15.70 def. Joan Duru (FRA) 13.37
Heat 4: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 14.03 def. Nat Young (USA) 10.24
2017 WSL Men’s Jeep Leaderboard (After Quiksilver Pro
France):
1 – John John Florence (HAW) 49,900 pts
2 – Jordy Smith (ZAF) 47,600 pts
3 – Gabriel Medina (BRA) 40,750 pts
4 – Owen Wright (AUS) 39,850 pts
5 – Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 38,200 pts
Questions surrounding Venice-adjacent website's
existence finally answered!
It all finally makes sense. Every bit of it.
For the last three or so years, you see, I have been absolutely
dumbfounded by Venice-adjacent’s downhill skateboarding website
The Inertia. How on earth does it exist? Who on earth
visits? It didn’t seem there were enough never-before-sexed
45-year-old egg-riders to justify its URL. And so I was left
scratching my head in sheer confusion.
Well, today it was revealed that the website does indeed hate
sex. Shall we read from its posting Why Surfing is Better than
Sex: A Philosophical Examination? I know we
shouldn’t but let’s anyhow.
As teenage surfers, I recall that it seemed important to us,
in our philosophical moments, to comparesurfing and sex,
wondering which is better, as though one has to choose between
them. Three decades of surfing later, now a professional
philosopher, I have returned to consider the question in my recent
book, Surfing with Sartre. I’m still comfortable with my teenage
answer.
You don’t have to choose between surfing and sex, if you
play your cards right. Yet, if you have to focus more of your
energies on one rather than the other (because life gets
complicated), surfing is worthier. If I really had to give up one,
but only one, forever, I’d give up sex.
Yes, surfing is that good. It’s totally wonderful, at least
when you’re good enough at it and the waves are pumping.
How so? How are sex and surfing even comparable? We
teenagers noted certain structural isomorphisms, especially when it
comes to the “tube ride,” the act of riding inside the tube of a
wave. You insert yourself inside of the tube when the wave offers
the opportunity. You’re sliding along, perhaps “pumping” for speed,
and then exiting, in some cases while the wave “spits.” I suppose
the surfboard even has something of a phallic shape.
What really motivates the comparison, though, is that
surfing and sex are both joyous and climactic and enthralling when
they happen. They’re something wonderful enough to wait for or
chase as a peak of human experience.
Yet if surfing is better than sex, it surely can’t be just
that it is more intensely pleasurable than an orgasm, as though
anything could be more intensely pleasurable than an orgasm.
(Doesn’t a heroin high mainly prolong something like the same
mental state?) Yes, surfing is really, really fun, but it is
wonderful precisely because it is about much more than having a
pleasurable state of mind. It draws you out of yourself.
This is totally for reals and goes on and on and on and on and
on talking up surfing and talking down sex.
Yeah. I guess at the end there are enough never-before-sexed
45-year-old egg-riders to justify its URL and I’m sort of sorry for
making so much fun of The Inertia’s founder-in-chief Zach
Weisberg now. His life is clearly hell. Like, really and truly
hell.
Zach Weisberg (right) flashing the smile of a man
who has never had sex.
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And here comes John with his bag of love potions and
magic oils. Ooowee, he can cure all diseases, including cancer,
enslave sweethearts and ward off evil spells! | Photo:
WSL
Jordy loses in round three; John John Florence
soars into quarter finals.
Round two is the surf writer’s horror show. I
could have kicked Trav ‘The Angry Inch’ Logie in the nuts last
night when he ran the contest into round two but that feeling
turned to deep gratitude when the contest kicked off again today
8.30am CEST, which is a terrible timezone for viewers either side
of the Pacific.
Hence, Chas rings Derek. Skypes? Does anyone still Skype?
Snapchat?
Hey Derek, France timezone sucks, get Shearer to cover
it.
I’m the contract toilet cleaner of contest coverage. I get
called in to clean up the messes no-one wants to deal with. Chas
and Derek can sleep soundly at night knowing that in the morning,
there might be a little mess to mop up but at least the dunny won’t
be overflowing with unflushable turds.
Which is not to say France today was an unflushable turd. More a
series of bloodless coups as the swell couldn’t quite find
accommodation on the La Graviere sandbars and surfers schlepped
around under delicate sunshine in curvaceous but soul destroying
closeouts. Kind of the opposite to what French stud Andre Breton
aimed for in his second Surrealist Manifesto: an attempt to
liberate the imagination by the “long, immense, reasoned
derangement of the senses”.
This was more a long, immense period of semi-sedation waiting
for something to happen, knowing it would eventually but not
knowing when and in the meantime having to settle for long
stretches of mediocrity.
Italo got marooned in the lineup, going down to J-Flo with a
super weird ending.
Owen pipped Stu K on the strength of one wave and Kolohe downed
Bede.
It took the inscrutable talent of Miguel Pupo to finally crack
the day open after lighting up two nugs in two minutes
comboing Adriano. Inscrutable to me that he is not Top 10 surfer
every year.
I carry the burden of a secret dread of a Jordy world Title. I
don’t know why. Examining my heart of hearts I think it’s because
he surfs worse now than when he came on tour with promises of an
unfulfilled rivalry with Dane Reynolds.
And he’s never mastered heavy water, or even appeared to care.
But I’d got my head around it based on performances in the
post-heat pressers. The parables of Jordy Smith. The loaves of
bread etc etc. No need to now. Marc Lacomare sent him packing with
two solid tube-rides and Jordy’s world title goose is cooked.
You seen the YouTube clip of the German CoastGuard intern on his
first day on the job? Check it here. Left alone with all the radar
in the emergency room he gets the mayday call from a sinking
ship.
“Mayday, mayday, can you hear us. We are sinking!”
“Hello, this is the German CoastGuard.”
“We are sinking!”
“What… are you sinking about?”
Somehow this cockamamie communication mix-up reminds of pro
surfing, no?
With the top six let loose in Indonesian surf we might finally
see the performances and the progression we only see as exception
becoming the rule. Top six at time of writing is Jordy, JJF,
Julian, Wilko, Owen, Adriano. Make it top eight and we get Filipe
and Medina. Tell me that prospect doesn’t tantalise as a
spectator.
What is pro surfing – Sophie, Joe, Dirk Z- thinking about? We
know of one prong of the strategy, the wavepool, and that has
commanded the attention of the surf world and rightly so.
The other prong of the strategy, the yang to that yin, being the
Superbowl title showdown in the Mentawais has flown under the
radar. That is red meat to the base.That prospect does excite the
jaded freelancer. A turd I would gladly polish. With the top six
let loose in Indonesian surf with an appropriate format we might
finally see the performances and the progression we only see as
exception becoming the rule. Top six at time of writing (Pre
France-adjusted) is Jordy, JJF, Julian, Wilko, Owen, Adriano. Make
it top eight and we get Filipe and Medina. Tell me that prospect
doesn’t tantalise as a spectator. That it wouldn’t finally and
irrevocably flush away the memory of a thousand unflushable round
two turds and closeout contests.
Kelly gets the wildcard. That is only fair.
I am a warrior for pro surfing justice. I want a return on my
spectating investment. I want the high, the refined and the
metaphysical to triumph over the coarse and the corporeal. If that
makes me an enemy of the people, then so be it.
John Florence and Ethan Ewing got a fresh clock after sitting
motionless in a glassy ocean for 20 minutes. Counter-revolutionary
forces in the judging panel refused a 10-point ride after John
greased a buttery landing following a yuuuuggge backside rotation.
Not, as Ronnie claimed, as good as Italo’s Gold Coast effort but
easily the best controlled high air in 2017. A sign that John will
not dish up conservative surfing in the home straight to the title.
The second air was a flat spin Hail Mary and over-scored. But no
harm no foul. It mattered not.
Nothing against snowflakes but I am a warrior for pro surfing
justice. I want a return on my spectating investment. I want the
high, the refined and the metaphysical to triumph over the coarse
and the corporeal. If that makes me an enemy of the people, then so
be it.
Fanning and Parkinson turned up the dial on classic QLD power
surfing. More delight than derangement of the senses.
We’re into round four on a slowly dropping swell and gorgeous
afternoon light. I meant to go up, up and away but I drank a big
bowl of Kava and went…sideways… and fell into a K hole. Second
day in a row France puts me on the canvas. We’ll have to hammer
this out below the line. Where the real work gets done.
No, I’m back after a thirty minute nap. Fanning, Parko and
Florence in silky soft focus french beachbreaks. Styles,
techniques, generations.
Whatever WSL is sinking, France must stay.
Quiksilver Pro France Round 3 Results:
Heat 1: Owen Wright (AUS) 13.50 def. Stuart Kennedy (AUS) 8.60
Heat 2: Kolohe Andino (USA) 11.80 def. Bede Durbidge (AUS)
11.23
Heat 3: Miguel Pupo (BRA) 16.30 def. Adriano de Souza (BRA)
10.17
Heat 4: Caio Ibelli (BRA) 14.33 def. Frederico Morais (PRT)
9.60
Heat 5: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 14.33 def. Michel Bourez (PYF)
5.73
Heat 6: Marc Lacomare (FRA) 14.10 def. Jordy Smith (ZAF) 13.00
Heat 7: John John Florence (HAW) 19.16 def. Ethan Ewing (AUS)
14.50
Heat 8: Mick Fanning (AUS) 16.24 def. Jeremy Flores (FRA) 16.00
Heat 9: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 15.77 def. Ian Gouveia (BRA) 14.77
Heat 10: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 15.90 def. Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA)
8.53
Heat 11: Joan Duru (FRA) 12.63 def. Adrian Buchan (AUS) 12.27
Heat 12: Nat Young (USA) 14.73 def. Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 14.43
Quiksilver Pro France Round 4 Results:
Heat 1: Miguel Pupo (BRA) 14.80, Owen Wright (AUS) 12.33, Kolohe
Andino (USA) 11.60
Heat 2: Marc Lacomare (FRA) 15.43, Caio Ibelli (BRA) 9.87,
Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 9.07
Heat 3: John John Florence (HAW) 18.56, Mick Fanning (AUS) 17.03,
Joel Parkinson (AUS) 11.37
Heat 4: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 14.43, Nat Young (USA) 11.33, Joan
Duru (FRA) 8.67
Quiksilver Pro France Round 5 Match-Ups:
Heat 1: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Sebastian Zietz (HAW)
Heat 2: Caio Ibelli (BRA) vs. Kolohe Andino (USA)
Heat 3: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. Joan Duru (FRA)
Heat 4: Nat Young (USA) vs. Joel Parkinson (AUS)
