And surfing is the wedge!
Yesterday you read right here (cribbed from… I can’t even remember anymore) the announcement that two California congressmen are pushing a bill through the bureaucracy that establishes surfing as California’s official sport.
Now, these two congressmens happened to be democrats, which didn’t even register with me seeing that California is 99% democrat but today the globalist publication Quartzy published a piece pointing to the potential vicious underbelly of the movement. And now to the horse’s mouth.
California is continuing to distance itself culturally and philosophically from much of the geographical US. The state greeted 2018 by enshrining new protections for undocumented immigrants, tougher gun laws, and recreational marijuana. These positions are all out of step with this moment in US politics. Now, the state is set to declare surfing its official sport.
State assembly members Al Muratsuchi and Ian Calderon introduced a bill on Jan. 15 that would make surfing California’s official pastime. “Nothing represents the California Dream better than surfing—riding the waves and living in harmony with the beautiful beaches and ocean of our Golden State,” Muratsuchi wrote in an statement.
Not that long ago, surfing was derided as a dead-end sport for losers (Jeff Spicoli, anyone?). Not anymore. Now, it’s a $6 billion industry, supporting a pastime enjoyed by millions in the US, from professionals to drop outs. Calderon, the assemblyman co-sponsoring the bill, says he’s a life long surfer. The sport (or way of life, as some have it) has churned out cultural icons from the Beach Boys to Gidget, and prominent professional surfers from Kelly Slater to Layne Beachley. William Finnegan’s 2015 book about surfing, Barbarian Days, won a Pulitzer Prize.
If California votes to pass the bill, it would be another step in the state’s long-standing march away from a mainstream culture that defines most other parts of the country. California’s more restless residents are even launching campaigns to secede from the US on the basis that, according to advocates such as Yes California, the state is culturally distinct from the rest of the country.
And, of course, some US states just like adopting sports as their standard bearers. North Carolina has NASCAR, Alaska has dog mushing, Minnesota has ice hockey, and South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming all list rodeo as their official sports.
So? Do you really believe that surfing will be the wedge that causes the United States’ second civil war? Will you join up Johnny Reb?
“i thought the blacks in Baltimore were bad. They got nothing on the fags in San Fran.”
– Kenny Powers
I agree. The truth is often messy
Democrats look to Hollywood for campaign contributions, vocal support and unprecedented constituent sound bites challenging the leadership of our nation. Well, the Executive Branch anyways. Hollywood gets embroiled in a women’s rights issue care of Weinstein, a major Democratic donor and friend of Hillary. Should the Democrats have waited to see their Hollywood/Weinstein/Hillary relationship mature before aligning the voice of Hollywood as the voice of the Democratic Party?
Were the Democrats just being immature?
P.S. hey HeatDeathoftheUniverse! High Roller, is that you? Dildo Goggans? Hail from the Shire of Shiite do you?
Meh, our shit ass republican former governer McCrory decreed September as the official month to recognize the sport of surfing here in NC. It hasnt changed much here
#masonboroughstrong
comment of the year… thus far
El Chapo for El Presidente
Anyone know how California will close that $400 billion pension gap if it has to start paying for all sorts of independent country shit?
Meanwhile…as I write this I’m in Singapore which COULD be the model that CA uses to operate as its own nation state. Of course they’d have to implement draconian immigration policies, up their educational standard like a million percent and make sure that the place is clean but it is theoretically possible, right?
Four floors of whores in Huntington Beach…perfect
YES!!! Now you’re talking!
(By the way…walked by there early evening on Saturday and Harry’s is closed.)
This is so hypto krypto.
Kenny Fucking Powers!
The whole state runs at a loss already doesn’t it?!
nah, actually, CA is a donor state. see, some states take more from the Federal Gub-ment than they contribute each year in terms of the benefits that a state obtains from policies that collect from all states which distribute benefits at the state level. Most of the people that come from states that complain about the IRS are actually “beneficiary” states where their proportional share of Federal benefits the residents of that state receive are in excess of what those people actually pay.
Top-ten economy in the world. The former confederacy is cashing in on our productivity.
bigger than France right now
How much water do you have though?
Such fertile ground here… Kelly Slater and Layne Beachley did not come from California. Will the WSL now receive tax money? Will Quiksilver be making the uniforms for the state employees and prison inmates? Does this prove the link between marijuana use and surfing?
Surfing actually has become a dead end sport for losers. Just look at all the new surfers in the water. Mainstrean, boring and conservative. It’s embarrassing.
Surfing is hipsters, wearing short shorts and paisley prints, devoid of personality all flanked by aggravating yoga instructors that listen to too much jack johnson. Its fucking terrible. If you have a personality outside of that youre cast aside.
Enjoy your paisley print button ups and flamingo graphics on all your gear this year.
How much is too much Jack Johnson?
Any
Happy to be cast aside
Is Beach Grit head quartered in Seattle? Would this mean BG would become America’s largest and premium online surf publication? Would Kelly need a passport to get to his own pool? Will no one consider New Pine Creek!?
I live in Cali. If California secedes, the U.S. will turn around and invade. The CA democrats will be jailed as enemy combatants. Surfing will be outlawed as a criminal insurrection offense. Then a new wave of punk rock will squirt, sans Iggy Pop.
You will regret supporting this when you find out the only surfing they had in mind is fat old white bastards riding planks over black people visiting Malibu.
We are going to secede, and we’re taking all the Mexicans with us. The rest of you are fucked.
The rest of us have all the water.
Who needs water when you have telenovelas?
It’s true, you also have all the energy crystals, yoga instructors and soul cycles. #prayforamerica
Hottest chicks, dankest weed, most jobs, highest paying industries, most mediocre surfers of anywhere with 2200km of coastline. And our kids aren’t all injecting smack yet.
Solar powered desalination plants though…
Ah but what you don’t know is that its those Mexicans are pushing for California to become Mexico’s most Northern State and the Don will be able to block off California with his wall ,gets rid of a Democrat stronghold , MAGA lets excommunicate Caifornicate!
Aztlan will return!