Clay Marzo is one of the most fun surfers to
watch and has been for years. Years and years even. Unique,
individual, uncommon, solitary, unexampled… adjectives lose their
weight when describing his approach which stands in sharp relief to
the sort of surfing being perfected by Championship Tour
professionals.
The “freesurf era” if it is proper to call last decade this is
long over. It died with the birth of Dane Reynolds’ beautiful
children and, as long as John John Florence dances on tour, will
stay dead for the foreseeable future but we always have Clay.
Mixing. Matching. Coloring outside the lines.
His latest film project is called Today’s Harvest and seems to
be the product of very many surfs around Maui.
“I can’t even keep up with him,” says his pal and fellow Maui
ripper Kai Barger. “He’s paddling out in the dark just
psyching.”
In the clip, in case you were wondering, he is riding a Super
Brand 6’2” x 19 ½” x 2 9/16” Mad Cat model. It is a big board for
big boy surfing.
How well do you know the men that hang professional
surfing in the balance?
I will tell you what, the 2018 World Surf
League’s Championship Tour kickoff yesterday was fantastic. It
showcased drama, skill, new blood and old hands but most of all
Steve “Longtom” Shearer’s jump back into the saddle. If I’ve
written it once, I’ve written it a thousand times… a day of
professional surfing doesn’t end until Longtom says it does. I have no
doubt these years will be looked back upon with wide-eyed
wonderment by the future’s children. They will read The Collected
Works of Professional Surf Contest Coverage 2016-2019, skipping
every collected work except his and they will marvel.
Longtom, anyhow, ended yesterday’s offering by pointing to the
fact Ben Dunn is now a surf judge and has been for five years.
Ben Dunn. What in the world? And I decided then and there to go
on a mission to uncover each and every WSL CT judge. It would be
hard work, seeing as the League likes to keep them sequestered but
I was hungry and driven. Nothing but nothing would stand in the way
of true, hard-nose surf journalism and…
…oh. The WSL published a whole story about the judges, complete
with first day of school pictures weeks ago and Tinder profile
question/answers. It is all quite brilliant and go here to see
but one thing was left off. Which sort of music each judge listens
to. Should we speculate together? I’ll start.
Head Judge: Pritamo Ahrendt (40)
Maybe listens to: LCD Soundsystem
Priority judge: Iain Buchanan (56)
Maybe listens to: Bon Scott era AC/DC
Senior judge: Ettiene Buys (41)
Maybe listens to: Vintage Kenny G
Judge: Luis Dantas (44)
Maybe listens to: Antonio Carlos Jobim
Judge: Mikel Zalakain (41)
Maybe listens to: Fleetwood Mac
Judge: Ben Lowe (38)
Maybe listens to: Powderfinger
Judge: Luiz Fernando (44)
Maybe listens to: Shakira
Judge: Luke Redding (31)
Maybe listens to: Young Thug
Now it’s your turn!
But first… this one goes out to Ben Dunn. Welcome to the
show!
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Heat five erupted. Gabby paddled over the top of Leo
Fioravanti and having established physical and psychological
dominance dropped a total backhand blitzkrieg on the next set wave.
Got shacked came out, did the first full-throated roundhouse
cutback of the day then chopped it into little pieces and dropped
it in a bag with a bowtie on it in front of the judges. It wasn't
just the best wave ridden all day it was the best by orders of
magnitude. Judges rewarded him with a priority error because
Leo had had the sneakiness to slide in behind Gabby and take-off,
too deep to make it.
It’s the opening scenes to The Empire Strikes Back when those
mechanical boxy giraffes belonging to the evil Empire are striding
across the frozen landscape.
Is that not the perfect visual metaphor for the pro surfing
Juggernaut under Sophie’s Reign on Season Opening Day One at
Snapper Rocks? The control room so high above the Earth, those
long, long legs, so impressive in full stride and yet so
vulnerable.
Say what you want about the Paul Speaker Era but he
steadied the ship, kept a full roster of events even if he did have
to rattle the can for Ziff to chip in to keep J-Bay and Fiji on
Tour. Now, not even a year into her reign, and Sophie has lost Pipe
as the season opener for 2019. The only truly irreplaceable event
on tour according to surf journalist Charlie Smith.
And how solid is the Aussie leg?
I know permit chasing is the purview of Rory Parker but before
this contest croaks we will have the facts on the table.
Dating pro surfing back to 1976 gives us 42 years of
market-testing the dream of Antipodean surfers who never wanted to
work a real job. In that time, little ol’ Australia, Deputy Dawg
for the US of A in the Asia/Pacific, stands alone as the only
country on earth to invent and perfect a sustainable business model
to keep the pro surf dream afloat. That being Big Top surfing
underwritten by the State in good to classic locations. Bums on
seats, all hands to the pump to man the deep fryers and
coffee machines and pro surfers more or less happy to look a gift
horse in the mouth. They should slap a tariff on it and export it
to the world. If the Australian leg one day falters that mechanical
giraffe would hit the deck faster than a bucket of prawns goes off
in the Queensland sun.
The comp started with a long, dreary stanza of low-scoring heats
in grey-green water, a combination of safety surfing and a Snapper
sandbar that has only half-way filled in to Little Marley after an
excoriating reaming from TC Gita. Innovation is the buzzword coming
from the WSL brass and as part of the push the format has been
tinkered with. No more round five and the possibility now of
over-lapping heats for Snapper.
Nice, but far more radical conceptual surgery was/is needed.
Jazzy P outlined a one-day
format. I propose a two-day format. A 24-surfer tour.
Six four-man heats lasting 80 mins with a leaderboard set-up on day
one. That would penalise and make completely redundant safety
surfing. Surfers would be effectively competing both against the
“course” and the rest of the field. Best two or three waves go on
the continually updated leaderboard. That is something anyone can
understand.
Day two is the Top 16 surfers from day one in man-on-man heats
to the final.
Pro surfing looked to the wrong sport for inspiration. Golf is a
shit game but an awesome format. That’s the model they needed to
emulate.
Portugal will never open the
tour despite what Doherty says. On what basis do I
assert that? On the basis that there isn’t a person alive on earth
or as yet born who could think that having the season opener for
the Championship Tour in the dark depths of a European winter is a
good idea. It is, as they say, Bad Optics, and that is something
the managerial class in the WSL do understand.
Heat five erupted. Gabby paddled over the top of Leo Fioravanti
and having established physical and psychological dominance dropped
a total backhand blitzkrieg on the next set wave. Got shacked came
out, did the first full-throated roundhouse cutback of the day then
chopped it into little pieces and dropped it in a bag with a bowtie
on it in front of the judges. It wasn’t just the best wave ridden
all day it was the best by orders of magnitude. Judges rewarded him
with a priority error because Leo had had the sneakiness to
slide in behind Gabby and take-off, too deep to make it.
Travesty! Blatant injustice! Gabby had established priority at
the start of the heat, it should have been his wave.
I know he is friendless amongst recreational surfers for these
tactics. He’s been hanging at my home breaks winning friends and
influencing people the last month. But that’s life, that showbiz,
that’s entertainment. Ranking the Brazilian Goofyfoots: Medina 1,
Italo 2, daylight next. Italo through with intensely sharp backhand
stabs.
Can’t remember much about Jordy’s heat except he won and laid
down more home spun parables in the presser with Rosie. Said he’s
been on the anti-aging cream because his looks are holding. There’s
only one secret to anti-aging and thats stay out of the Queensland
sun. Nothing makes for more beautiful youths at twenty and more
hideous shipwrecks of human beings at forty. And I am one,
with three frozen-off cancers sitting on my head like syphilitic
chancres: the price paid, with interest compounded, for chasing
tubes at Burleigh in my twenties.
Anyone who has done time in Queensland pointbreaks knows how
tricky Snapper can be and was today. The wave is literally
part of the current pushing down the bank. Finding it means hard
graft fighting the rip and swinging on anything that moves. Over a
day, a swell, that builds a wave count but in a thirty-minute heat
the relentless metronome of short period tradewind swell hitting
the bank from all angles and with all sizes grinds the clock down
more quickly than you could imagine. John Florence got caught
without a good one. Griff Colapinto found a couple gems and did the
biz. Lets hope the WSL doesn’t squash the fruit out of his game.
His beat is nice.
Filipe sizzled, as per, as per. If you dream of a Filipe Title
then the boy would have buoyed you today.
Day one done. Have you looked at the WSL press releases lately?
Lots of innovation.
What’s your favourite? Mine is this one: “With the goal to
make surfing more accessible to the public, the WSL is about to
deliver a season-long campaign to educate and demystify some of the
more technical and complex elements of the sport, through all WSL
channels, with ten initiatives”.
A whole season long campaign to demystify! Might I just say here
Soph, that I am very, very skilled at demystifying campaigns and my
rates are more than reasonable. I’m cheap as chips in fact!
Results
Heat 1: Owen Wright (AUS) 9.90, Caio Ibelli (BRA) 5.20, Ezekiel Lau
(HAW) 4.57
Heat 2: Michel Bourez (PYF) 13.17, Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 11.26,
Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 10.67
Heat 3: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 11.66, Conner Coffin (USA) 10.10, Patrick
Gudauskas (USA) 7.64
Heat 4: Julian Wilson (AUS) 12.60, Joan Duru (FRA) 11.30, Ian
Gouveia (BRA) 7.27
Heat 5: Italo Ferreira (BRA) 14.26, Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA) 8.44,
Gabriel Medina (BRA) 6.05
Heat 6: Griffin Colapinto (USA) 12.50, John John Florence (HAW)
7.50, Mikey Wright (AUS) 2.00
Heat 7: Kolohe Andino (USA) 9.63, Keanu Asing (HAW) 7.83, Kanoa
Igarashi (USA) 5.60
Heat 8: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 10.30, Adriano de Souza (BRA) 8.67,
Willian Cardoso (BRA) 8.07
Heat 9: Jeremy Flores (FRA) 12.24, Joel Parkinson (AUS) 9.94, Yago
Dora (BRA) 6.86
Heat 10: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 15.56, Frederico Morais (PRT) 9.00,
Tomas Hermes (BRA) 5.50
Heat 11: Connor O’Leary (AUS) 13.16, Wade Carmichael (AUS) 7.63,
Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 7.46
Heat 12: Mick Fanning (AUS) 11.60, Jesse Mendes (BRA) 9.80, Kelly
Slater (USA) 0.00
Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast Round 2 Matchups:
Heat 1: John John Florence (HAW) vs. Mikey Wright (AUS)
Heat 2: Gabriel Medina (BRA) vs. Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA)
Heat 3: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) vs. Ian Gouveia (BRA)
Heat 4: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Heat 5: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Michael Rodrigues (BRA)
Heat 6: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) vs. Ezekiel Lau (HAW)
Heat 7: Kelly Slater (USA) vs. Keanu Asing (HAW)
Heat 8: Frederico Morais (PRT) vs. Willian Cardoso (BRA)
Heat 9: Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) vs. Yago Dora (BRA)
Heat 10: Caio Ibelli (BRA) vs. Tomas Hermes (BRA)
Heat 11: Conner Coffin (USA) vs. Wade Carmichael (AUS)
Heat 12: Joan Duru (FRA) vs. Jesse Mendes (BRA)
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Come see, perhaps inspect, this fine beachside house,
the historic mansion that featured in the surf movie classic Doped
Youth.
And it was in this house, one hundred metres from the famous
sandbottom left, that the surf movie classic Doped Youth was filmed in the
summer of 2003-4. The movie, which was conceived and made by Ozzie
and Waves editor Adam Blakey, starred Kelly Slater,
Tom Carroll, Ozzie, Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson and was
released as a DVD with the magazine Waves.
After around a decade in the Narrabeen house, Oz
and his singer wife Mylee Grace , bought another
house, this time in Newport, a short drive north. In 2015, the
pair, with kids, joined the Sydney exodus north to Byron Bay,
buying a house in Suffolk Park for $1.15 million.
The Newport joint got sold last year for $2.3 million and, now,
Oz has put the historic Doped Youth house on the market.
It don’t look a thing like the shanty town that featured in the
film. I had to go back and look a few times to make sure it was the
actual house for sale.
It sure is… different. From artist warehouse to stiff mammy,
pappy chic.
Anyway, if living near Sydney’s best wave is your thing, it
ain’t a bad place to stack your boards.
Price? Well over two million dollars, I’d suggest.
I sat down this morning with a hot cup of
coffee and flipped open my computer to see if anything
interesting happened in the surf world overnight. The
Inertia found a #vanlife they liked very much, Stab
was busy selling FCS’s new leash and then there was Sean Doherty,
like a breath of fresh air, penning an ode to Snapper’s last dance
as first gal on tour for Surfer. It
was wistful, informative, nice.
He drove through Coolangatta, remembering what it once was when
surfers were not welcomed and then went to Mick Fanning’s
house.
“Joel was there.” he wrote. “Mick was asleep. He’d spent the day
hanging out with Henry Rollins, the punk legend now spruiking cars
more than revolution.”
Mick spent the day hanging with Hank Rollins and Joel was there?
At first my mind raced to the most logical conclusion. That Rip
Curl was following Billabong’s gilded path and doing a radical
collaboration with Rollins and/or Black Flag. It’s got all the
ingredients the surf industry loves and I wondered if Joel was
jealous and trying to pry Henry over to Billabong, showing off his
Iggy Pop trunks etc. but then I searched Mick Fanning and Henry
Rollins and found this video.
Mmmmhmmm.
Henry Rollins has or maybe had a radio show on KCRW in Los
Angeles.
It is/was torture.
Like, real true torture.
It always made me feel better watching him get thrown through a
window though. Maybe it’ll help you too.
