Payoffs, bribes, graft, death threats, prostitutes, cocaine!
I will tell you, as a non-fan of soccer, the greatest part of the World Cup has historically been the massive corruption in/around/under/on top of the governing body FIFA. It was so bald-faced, so ridiculous as to make for wonderful comedy. Payoffs, bribes, graft, death threats, prostitutes, cocaine… You can’t script this!
Like, Qatar getting to host a World Cup, for example. I feel this was the dollar bill that broke FIFA’s back, giving the event to the hottest place in the world filled with oil rich sheiks driving Bugattis. But still very very very hot though nobody even cared because corrupt money never sleeps (because cocaine) and then the back was broken and now there is a new process for potential countries who dream of hosting the event.
So maybe FIFA cleaned up but as we both learned in school corruption can be neither created nor destroyed. It has to flow somewhere and did it all flow to Olympic surfing?
The great Maurice Cole wondered two days ago, for example, what in the world Australia’s Olympic hopefuls were doing traveling to Lemoore, California to partake in a few days “training session” at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch. Let’s recall his words:
Who’s paying for all the tickets? The hotels? The rental cars? The pool? What’s the total budget? Every single airfare is a couple of grand from Australia. It makes no fucking sense whatsoever.
Unless.
Unless.
It’s a WSL marketing exercise. Are they trying to put pressure on the ISA and IOC to use that pool for the Olympics? Why else would you be training in a pool? It’s the worst training you could do for Chiba. For fuck’s sake, send ’em to Chiba and train over there. It’s a lot cheaper and a lot more relevant to go to Chiba and surf two-to-three-foot beachbreaks and work on their technique there instead of in long lefts and rights.
Well, yesterday it was revealed that Chiba, Japan is indeed building a Surf Ranch that will be ready in time for the 2020 games. Derek Rielly wrote of this development:
“The planned construction site is on 57 hectares near the Tisayama Expressway. Land acquisition was completed by March this year. The size of the wave pool is 580 metres in length and 150 metres in width and equipped with a device that generates artificial waves by electronic control and generates waves up to about two metres in height.”
And this has payoffs, bribes, graft, death threats, prostitutes, cocaine written all over it! The World Surf League hijacking the Olympic Games in order to feature/sell more pools worldwide, etc. etc.
I will be pursuing this doggedly, like Rogers and Hammerstein, and will win a Pultizer and also Make Surfing Great Again because who doesn’t love corruption?
Olympic surfing in mushy inconsistent Chiba surf….viewership = 0 x zz😴😴😴zzz……do we really give a rat’s ass if surfing gets the Olympic treatment? I just drove through Surf-Huntington Beach-City on a mainland visit….a bit of Eurotrash corruption can’t hold a candle to that Beach Harlot By the Sea….the surf scene was polluted long ago. …😎
Excellent, we need these scandals. On a serious note, why do people think surfing & the surfing industry are innocent & clean? The surfing industry and surfers are greedy nationalists, and are every bit the bigots which are hidden in the cupboard. So the WSL is showing that it is a business and will do any manner of evil to make money, good on them I say. The surfing public just want to see their countrymen compete in decent waves, and the WSL has the balls be sneaky and frag everyone else to ensure they get their cut & the surfing public get to engorge themselves watching.
Who’s tech are they licensing?
The surf tech bros are interchangeable.
Not if the WSL has invested a big chunk into Kelly’s particular flavour of Nocean.
Is Nocean yours?
You need to trade mark the shit out of that.
You know, It was. Me and another riffed it up (Twillsy? can’t remember sorry. Will check Disqus feed)
But I googled it recently and there is/was someone on the surfer (ing?) forums using that term as their pseudonym.
So… fuck it.
I still think the Association of Professional BG Commentary Squad should claim it as ours.
Good call Ric.
Perhaps D&C could create a post outlining the claim on behalf of BG purely for the fun of stirring the shit. Er… I mean… stirring the shit.
Did someone say bro? What happened to OC bro? Is he dead?
A silly Pulitzer? Rogers and Hammerstein say aim for Oscar!
Tony I think is more their wheelhouse ….
True, but just barely ( 34 Tonys to 15 Oscars).
But they actually did win a Pulitzer, apparently!
But you need japanese contqct, chas. I take cheque lol
You could be Deep Throat!
Yes. Aspirational!
You’ll sure win a Pultizer, but I don’t know what you gonna do with it.
follow the chlorine
Let’s get one thing straight: FIFA has not been cleaned up. Should also be noted that the IOC is a slightly watered down version of FIFA. They both specialize in manilla envelopes and dirty cash. Prepare to be sullied!
“I will be pursuing this doggedly…”
…
Chas to Dave Prodan (not directly named, rather called “Mouthpiece” in “exposé”): Hey, how corrupt is the WSL? What sort of payoffs went into getting the Tokyo pool built?
Mouthpiece: Haha, Chas, you’re not going to get anything from me… blah blah… wave technologies… growth opportunities… synergies… achievable… Olympics… great!… Soph… vision… talented… Kelly… savior… you know… lol.”
C: So, do you guys [at the WSL headquarters in Santa Monica] really have a shrine to Slater that all employees are required to worship at daily?
M: Haha I cannot confirm that *winks and smirks* That is totally not true *winks and smirks again, the wink longer and more affected and the smirk wider*
C: So that’s a “yes.” And what about cocaine? What role does cocaine play in this?
M: We’re still on this? C’mon, Chasbert, everyone knows you wrote a book…
C: Man’s gotta eat…
So the WSL is tryna get the local organizers to adopt the wave pool over the objections of ISA? Oh, this is all quite fun.
I’d like to see a small country with Olympic hopes — who can’t like afford the Australia-style training camp at Lemoore — take this thing to CAS. Access, equity, training time, whatnot. That would also be super fun.
Jen See transforms into Jen Seer , the prophet and our own personal Tom Joad . ( Apologies again to all Californians who had this shoved down their respective throats but the man was right ! )
Yes he was!
One thing James, when I reached this dreaded age of 50, I realised I was as old as Pa Joad…
Greatest american novel, greatest american writer!
Thanks Walter for keeping the spirit of the republic alive .
You did it! Vive la république!
Moby Dick beats Grapes of Wrath I think
and Vonneguts ‘Sirens of Titan’ is a masterpiece in its own dimension.
Blasphemy. Steinbeck kicks Melville in the teeth and beds his lady. In terms of literary prowess, of course.
I feel this so hard. Never could finish anything by Melville ever. Fuck that guy.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off-
then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
This is my substitute for pistol and ball. – Moby Dick
A fine passage, I’ll concede, but Mellie was a one hit wonder and Romanticism got upstaged quickly by London and Twain, barely a generation later.
Steinbeck and Hemingway to Melville is basically apples to oranges cuz generational gap, but a fun pissing contest to call into nonetheless.
Also: as literate American surfers we’re obligated to love London and Hemingway. Or so the Scott Basses of the world would have us believe.
Yeah but Scott Bass is a Jebus-botherer.
Yessir, the half-informed, half-inspired surf culture obligation edict drips with irony. Fuck the canon.
I love the passage on Bulkington.
“But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God—so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!”
Glad to see Moby Dick is keeping you alive but wouldn’t you rather go catch some frogs with Mac and the boys and hang out with doc on Cannery Row ?
surfing keeps me alive.
sometimes i wish i was on Cannery Row.
“Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else.”
― Cannery Row
Thank you Ck T .
“See the cat? See the cradle?”😎
..and Flannery O’Connor’s “Wise Blood” harpoons them all.
Can’t compete against english native readers. As a french reader who appreciate english and US litterature, I rest my case! Steinbeck! Both in english and translated.
But I really loved to read Moby Dick. I must admit I’ve never read Sirens of Titan, so thanks, something new for the summer.
Love ya, Jimmy Bicks!
I’m trying to remember if the Joads actually ever traipsed Lemoore in the novel…Steinbeck seems to have saddled the spot with time in Fresno and Bakersfield, but did he ever hold court in Kings County or waterski in Lemoore!?!?!?
Can’t help there Mariano . I have no idea about the geography of inland California and was 25 before I knew how to pronounce La Jolla .
It’s pronounced La Jah-LA, bro. Don’t let any Johnny-come-lately tell you otherwise!
would there be any surf news without WSL/K-Tub , and yes scandal everywhere…..
Did the new WSL Australian director ,ol’ Starky use his position as head of Surfing Australia to send the Aust team to the WSL/K-Tub to promote the Tub or was it really training for the Sept CT event ,is Fernando going to be bought or will he support the 1st surfing Olympics in the ocean , how much money does the pool cost in Japan $50m, how can they get any return on wavepool in Japan , as surfing is considered an old mans sport, will the K-tub be obsolete when the Webber Wonder Pool is released , or the new 4 x Waco pool, or the Surf lakes….at least we will have news for another couple of years…
A) bonding session b) Sept CT prep c) full on test of the pool’s training potential. At least that’s how Bede and other coaches tell it. They’re taking the juniors and backup squad there in July to do the same thing.
I don’t think Andrew Stark is corrupt at all, I think he honestly believes the pool is a big deal and he’s driving this effort on the basis that in his mind it’s good for the squad and for surfing as a whole. Plenty of surfers think the Olympics is a hoax, quite a few think it’s fan bloody tastic, there’s a huge gulf in between, and it strikes me that the only people actually doing anything about it are the latter. Chas needs to start the People’s Rebellion soon! Before the WSL does turn Fernando around, the Olympics happens in the Pool, and it all becomes completely unstoppable.
It is fucken funny though, without all this shit what would we have to spin out about, “jeez it’s flat eh”. “Sposed to be good on Monday though.”
Fuck! I’ve been writing about this for over a year! Nobody reads my stories do they. Oh dear.
where do write again?
hi sorry sorry it’s hard to read all the things! i promise to try harder!
ignore me Jen! I was just trying to be funny. Journalism! help.
Journalism? Whhhaaatttttt :D:D
You have? On Coastalwatch? I really do need to unplug the jukebox and step aside the saloon occasionally.
Completely agree Nick, it’s been that obvious for so long!
I guess perspicacity is not everyone’s forte…
0.052 is just plain unlucky mate