Come thrill at another day of professional surfing!
Soz for the appalling misery guts who filed yesterday. What a negative Nancy, as Dave Wassel would say. Anyone would think Saint Mick himself had been put on the cross and crucified.
Y’see when Derek asked me to cover all the comps this year a current of cold fear ran through me. Every day. Of every comp. Something no surf journalist has ever attempted. For good reason, as it turns out. The problems with intensive pro surfing coverage are despair and gaffes. Already I compared Sophie G’s enthusiastic embrace of wave systems to the Nazi’s extermination of Jews in World War II, a completely unintentional Freudian slip and we are only at stop two on the Tour. Despair?
Well, I came up with the solution to that today.
While head judge Pritamo Ahrendt has raised the bar, very high as it turns out, on what is excellent surfing, I did the opposite. I dropped expectations so low that any heat, no matter how mediocre would effortlessly reach them.
And they did! To quote Freddy Nietzsche, “Nothing succeeds in which high spirits play no part”.
Seeing as the Grit has a man on the ground covering the play by play I guess that allows me to freestyle as the colour bloke. Or color guy. In which case, let me tell you about the time I pulled a root from the Torquay pub and maxed out the points, as Rondawg Blakey would say, in the judging platform at Winki. No, let’s a put a more wholesome subject on the block. Let’s put Fanning’s legacy on the judging into context instead.
Dane punched a huge hole in the judging criteria in 2009/10. Judges lost their minds. A crossroads was reached in the final at Bells, 2012. Kelly dropped a huge air for a ten and a bunch of weird stuff. Fanning produced classic Fanning rail-work and the judges, seeing the two side-by-side chose the Australian. That set the template for the next five years: Neo-Classical Australian Power Surfing. Everyone adapted. Adriano mastered it, Medina did, even John John developed mastery of the form for his twin titles.
Now, Pritamo has junked the script and the pro’s look lost. Deers in the headlights. There’s a call for new blood and new surfing but exactly in what form that will manifest is yet to be fully determined. There seems a lot riding on the slender shoulders of Griffin Colapinto. Weirdest thing for me yesterday was watching Griff huck and Filipe trying to best him with power surfing. The script has been flipped Filipe, I wanted to shout, and you’re the new fucking author. The old game is deadly bones.
Bells was at its prettiest early, as it always is. Unlike Snapper which becomes more sublime as the day wears on Bells reads like an Edgar Allen Poe story: glittering and sun-drenched early, becoming drenched in gothic gloom as the day wears on. Fanning waited, and waited, for an opening ride. In the end, he stitched together a couple of sixes for the win. It was utilitarian surfing at it’s finest.
It set the tone for a day of hard yards in the Bells Bowl. Pro’s seemed content with sixes and sevens, happy enough to limbo the new judging bar rather than high jump it. Seabass, J-Flo impressed in that space with neo-classical surfing that at least demonstrated some fine edge work. I started writing my own number next to heats as a measure of entertainment value, then looked at the lengthening list of fives and sixes and stopped. No point.
We agreed yesterday that mental health is a vexatious bitch. It was for Michael Peterson, it is for Shane Herring, was for the late, great Andy Irons, even the great Kelly Slater struggles. It sure was for the gal who threw herself off the cliff at Lennox Point yesterday eve. My go-to self-help to rebuild the psychic shield after a rugged day on the internets has been Marcus Aurelius or that little Thai buddhist Thich Nat Han, but after today I’m switching to listening to pro surfer pressers. Ace Buchan said competing at Pro Surfing helped him be the “best version of himself.*”
Could any surf writer stand before the creator on Judgement Day and say the same? Or do we blame God for admitting the awful truth that our good and bad are so intertwined that by throwing away the worst of ourselves we also discard the best?
Finally a heat appeared from the Victorian gloom where someone, both surfers, had a crack at broaching the new judging bar. Rodrigues signalled an intention to go big with a clean, tail-high air and Italo put the pedal down, hammering huge high speed hits. If you watch one wave today on the Heat Analyser watch his 8.33 and appreciate the speed. With the Griff in the box commentating it was a sublime moment of entertainment.
This part of the demystifying campaign, where they get the pro surfers in the box, is working brilliantly. From Jordy’s home-spun parables and definitions to Griffin’s kooky, semi-articulate but rock-hard assessments to Kelly’s pitching the Wave Tub Davis Cup Tennis Tournament, it’s all working wonderfully, wonderfully well.
After a day where, once again, too much pro surfing was barely enough it put me on the top of the forking world, guv’nor.
*Sadly, but truly my wife thinks the best version of me is the one heavily sedated on tramadol and…
Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Remaining Round 1 Results:
Heat 9: Kolohe Andino (USA) 11.63, Willian Cardoso (BRA) 11.53, Frederico Morais (PRT) 10.26
Heat 10: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 12.00, Connor O’Leary (AUS) 8.40, Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 7.53
Heat 11: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 12.33, Wade Carmichael (AUS) 9.90, Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) 8.50
Heat 12: Mick Fanning (AUS) 13.03, Jesse Mendes (BRA) 11.27 , Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 10.70
Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Round 2 Results:
Heat 1: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 9.50 def. Carl Wright (AUS) 8.33
Heat 2: Adriano de Souza (BRA) 11.57 def. Mikey McDonagh (AUS) 8.87
Heat 3: Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 15.17 def. Ian Gouveia (BRA) 9.43
Heat 4: Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 14.33 def. Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) 11.03
Heat 5: Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 11.43 def. Connor O’Leary (AUS) 10.00
Heat 6: Frederico Morais (PRT) 7.73 def. Michael February (ZAF) 6.43
Heat 7: Jeremy Flores (FRA)11.60 def. Keanu Asing (HAW) 9.84
Heat 8: Conner Coffin (USA) 13.74 def. Yago Dora (BRA) 13.64
Heat 9: Willian Cardoso (BRA) 13.36 def. Caio Ibelli (BRA) 11.33
Heat 10: Italo Ferreira (BRA) 13.83 def. Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 9.73
Heat 11: Wade Carmichael (AUS) 14.00 def. Tomas Hermes (BRA) 11.70
Heat 12: Jesse Mendes (BRA) 14.26 def. Joan Duru (FRA) 12.80
Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Round 3 Matchups:
Heat 1: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Wade Carmichael (AUS)
Heat 2: Kolohe Andino (USA) vs. Michel Bourez (PYF)
Heat 3: Owen Wright (AUS) vs. Jesse Mendes (BRA)
Heat 4: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) vs. Griffin Colapinto (USA)
Heat 5: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. Sebastian Zietz (HAW)
Heat 6: Julian Wilson (AUS) vs. Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Heat 7: John John Florence (HAW) vs. Ezekiel Lau (HAW)
Heat 8: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Frederico Morais (PRT)
Heat 9: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Conner Coffin (USA)
Heat 10: Filipe Toledo (BRA) vs. Italo Ferreira (BRA)
Heat 11: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Jeremy Flores (FRA)
Heat 12: Gabriel Medina (BRA) vs. Willian Cardoso (BRA)
Yeah, it’s part sad, part pathetic, and part sickening. I used to charge a few of my homeschool friends to do their homework to help them graduate. It was almost too easy– all the answers were in the back of the book!
How is a synthetic opiate an SSRI? Forgive me, but isnt the way an SSRI vs. An Opiate tackles serotonin completely different?
I used to surf against a dude named Dino Andino on The PSAA US Pro Tour back in the late ’80’s.
Gotsta say that it was too f^^^in’ funny to watch lil jr, Kolohe Andino race super fast down~the~line on his last wave and totally biff~it when he finally tried to do a turn, hahaha
Hiya Longtom,
What was it that you wrote to me the other day:
longtom (to me) rwvbwl • 6 days ago
“how badly did everyone surf back then….embarrassing.
Occy would still win Bells today with that surfing.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This years 2018 Bells Beach event shows how badly many on The Dream Tour
need to work on their power game, right?
That crew from 1997,
Occy, + Munga Barry, Shaun Brooks, Pancho Sullivan, others too,
could have easily won some of yesterdays heats.
Watch it again, esp. Occy/Munga/Brooks at 13:00~minutes
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Yesterday,
that wave of Kolohe Andinos’,
where he raced fast down the track only to biff it before doin’ a turn,
was embarrassingly ~ too f^^^in’ funny!!!
Jesus, cuz like all the kids I know who graduated high school are just doing so fucking well.
The good thing about knowledge is that it doesn’t take up any space!
He’s the lucky one who won’t hurt financially from being home schooled, as I see him doing this shit for another 10-15 years. Such a dynamo…and most teenagers talkin in front of “millions” of people would probably do worse. I know I’d be a stammering fool in his shoes.
Thank god the fun police is keeping tabs 😉
Longtom, you’ve done it again! Careful with Trmdol, I was on it 10 years ago for chronic pain and I had a grand mal seizure from it’s toxicity. Just be careful bud. Can’t wait to read about the dogs shit day 3 🙂
yikes. was listening to the same type of stuff at the last QS 1500 from HB. sponsorless homeschoolers, no less.
Am curious what happened to the piece by Kriphoters Nlacdom.
me too.
Do you wanna hear a theory.
These people who are supposed to be down here, they’re a hoax of sorts. Wiggs anyway. Like, where is Wiggs? Nowhere. Nowhere on this comment thread and nowhere within sight down here. I mean here I am, on what is supposed to be Wiggs’s home turf. Nowhere. He was working last Thursday so couldn’t come down. The surf was perfect this morning, Easter Sunday, nobody works on Easter Sunday, no-one in an office who can’t view certain things on the Internet anyway.
The whole thing is a fucken charade. Come out come out, Kristopher/Wiggs, come out come out wherever you are. Better still I’ll see you out Rincon tomorrow morning at 6am. But I won’t will I.
Curiouser and curiouser.
We’ve been had! But isnt DR staying at Wiggs’ “hotel?”
“When positivity seems hard to reach, I keep my head down and my mouth shut. Cos if you’re going through hell, just keep going.” -King Krule.
I have no idea how, or if, it is humanly possible Twillsy.
The dream is to use pro surfing to become the best version of me and to invest the compensation into livestock and ETF’s.
Unless you know a better investment?
ETF will do it fine! Some are based on sectorial indexes, like, say, pharmaceutical industry…Then, if the tramadol consumption is on the rise, you’re winning on both sides.
that accounts for the euphoria then.
Gunna be it’s own novel by the end of the year.
Don’t listen to him. This was your best work ever. Lovely introduction. Where’s the rest of the article?
Outer space?
the dog ate it?
Loved Kelly’s take on the best surfing he’s ever seen at Bells. It was Occy’s Skins event win in the late 90s. It’s still the greatest day of pro surfing I’ve ever seen. He even managed to take some credit for Occy’s only loss on the day for (supposedly) encouraging Miles Padaca to raise his arms after his best wave in order to receive double points for it. Kelly is one unique motherfucker.
Yea, Nik. I caught that too.
He’s unique.
I think he offers some great perspective when he’s in the booth but fuk he throws some spin in there.
Little barbs. A dig here, a jab there – old wounds I guess.
Like he’s the goat n all. amazing. We all get that. All hail.
And he still rips but jeez cmon get over yerself. Competitively- yer done
It’s kinda like Occ always floating out the idea of a masters tour. lmao Fuk, occ let that dream of glory slide. You had your day in the sun, bro. And a long time you had.
Chopes 2016, Kelly.
Let it go mate.
Loved his commentary, he actually provides more insight than anyone else, bar Barton. He’s just such a fucking egomaniac, it’s hilarious when he places himself in the centre of other people’s stories.
Lol
Tramadol is the devil
Ace Buchan best version of himself? Does that mean he has a lot of different good versions of himself? Such an humble guy.
Willian Cardosa’s got a nice rail game. I bumped into him and his brother Lian, nice chap. Their sister Susam was there too. Lovely family.
Thought Willian was a bit unlucky in round 1 after kolohe dodged a big foamy but potentially hitable ( is that a word ) section ,after his one big turn, on his heat winning 6.8 something ?
Nice rail game, lovely bloke but no way he’ll make the Tour next year.
SS oops, LongTom were you trying to cater to the new judging system ,by placing ( final ) solution before Nietzsche and not after, in your round 2 heat ( article ) ?Interesting lines drawn .
I wonder often whether it is the version of me as reader or you as writer that is the operative part of your pieces I particularly enjoy. This was one of those.
I momentarily closed my eyes at the subtle loveliness of “colour bloke/color guy”. However, I did cock an eyebrow at “deers”.
Um yeah, deers. Did you know that deer are not indigenous to Australia but were introduced by man and are now considered as pests?
Animal haoles.
Cook?Hawaiian style , oh deer.
Thanks, dearie, that’s a lovely morsel. As, luckily, is venison since deer are bloody pests everywhere.
Got me craving some venison chili. I got a venison chili recipe that has repeatedly crushed the competition at the annual 4th of July chili cook off.
I might need to get that recipe.
Here you go NEGATRON.
You can scale it down
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon cooking oil
3/4 lb. chorizo
9-10 lbs. meat (6 lbs. venison, 2 lbs. beef top sirloin, 2 lbs. flank steak. Cut into 1/2 inch cubes)
3 large red onions
4 10-ounce cans chicken broth
2 28-ounce cans ground tomatoes
1 16-ounce can stewed tomatoes. Mashed with a fork.
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
6 Anaheim chili peppers, seeded, chopped (substitute with poblano chili’s if you can’t get Anaheim chili’s.)
2 green peppers, seeded, chopped
1 whole large clove garlic
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro leaves
1/4 cup diced celery
3 teaspoons sugar
1 12-ounce bottle of dark Lager beer (Negra Modelo)
3/4 cup tequila (can substitute with Jameson Whiskey)
5 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons cumin powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon ground oregano
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 teaspoon ground thyme
4 teaspoons of salt
In a large pot, heat oil with chorizo and fatty meat chunks. Add onions and saute until soft. Add remaining meat. Continue to cook turning meat often. Cover pot to thoroughly cook meat. Cook over low heat.
In a large sauce pot, add everything else. Simmer for 20 minutes. Add sauce to meat pot. Bring to a boil over low heat. Continue to simmer for 2-3 hours stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Let it cool a bit. Then refrigerate for 24 hours.
Yields about 40 servings. You can halve everything except the beer and tequila/Jameson Whiskey to scale it down.
Cheers Mate!
Be nice to get some Yank favours on the the table, over here venison is usually just slapped lightly both sides on the BBQ, garnished with Salt n Pepper and wrapped in white bread.
Deers in the headlights…..deer in the headlights…..
Is there a plural for deer?
Dear, dear.
The plural of deer is deer, dear.
See, you should be an editor Chazzy.
Way I see contest writing is: it’s a jam, there’s going to be bum notes (lots) and hopefully a good riff here and there.
Hopefully an overall structure that makes sense in the long run.
Far be it from me to ever correct you, mate. I just wondered if it was something clever that had gone over my head.
Nah, just a fuckup. I did momentarily pause, if I recall, then charged ahead, sans Google.
always charge ahead, dude, always
pretty sure those were the exact words Chas’ inner voice whispered right before the unseal eggs over a coffee table thing.