From the Sunday realty papers: John John
Florence’s $5.3 mill Off the Wall house still for sale!
By Derek Rielly
Get a piece of OTW. Tube wrangling skills not
included.
I doubt, even if you were to comb all of the world, you
could find evidence pointing to any wrongdoing at the hands of John
John Florence.
The just-turned twenty-six year old has a meticulous and
classical grace and an infinite skill. He is a rare fish and,
I think, pro surfing is lucky to have him rather than the other way
around.
Six month ago, John John listed his surplus Off the Wall house
for $5.3 million, 700 gees more than the $4.6 mill he paid two
years earlier.
If my information is correct, which is rarely is although I do
continue to believe, the Off the Wall house served as his
photographic lab and darkroom and had a little cottage for guests,
while mama Alex lived in their
original Pipeline rental next door and John occupied
his Log Cabins compound a little further up the road.
The OTW house, at 59-461 Kamehameha Hwy, was built in 1941, has
five beds, four shitters and a hundred feet of ocean frontage.
In realtor-speak, “Stunning Oceanfront estate on majestic
Sunset Beach. Indoor / Outdoor living at its best and most
luxurious. Expansive decks and gardens. Incredible attention to
detail. Beautiful Wood Floors, legal seawall and so much
more!”
Petey Johnson, bro of the guitar slinger Jack, is selling the
joint.
Investigation: The BBC ponders, “Is surfing
a new form of therapy?”
By Chas Smith
Is wave riding, especially in the North Atlantic, a
key to emotional wellbeing?
There are two, maybe three, supremely important
news organs in the world and the British Broadcasting Corporation
is one of them. The BBC has won thousands of awards and reported on
some of the most important stories in modern history and so it only
makes sense that it would ask the pressing question, “Is surfing a new form of
therapy?”
And let us read together:
The frigid water of the Atlantic on a windy November morning
is not enough to deter some budding surfers on the north
coast.
Barbara Marshall, a respite foster parent, brings her three
girls to Benone beach almost every Sunday.
“The excitement in the morning… they are up, ready and
organised,” Ms Marshall says.
“I’ve been bringing them a few Sundays but they absolutely
adore being here.”
The girls are participants in the Wave Project, which is
being piloted in Benone and Portrush.
The Wave Project is a surf therapy charity that works with
vulnerable young people struggling with their emotional
wellbeing.
This can include young people who are struggling with low
self esteem, low self confidence, high levels of anxiety, who have
been through trauma or who feel alone and isolated.
“I’m really hoping that it keeps going next year because
it’s just such an adventure for them, in fact I know that the
eldest wants to become a volunteer,” Ms Marshall says.
Ok ok ok… ummmm let’s pump the brakes here. I may be in the
minority but vulnerable young people struggling with their
emotional wellbeing, including low self esteem, low self
confidence, high levels of anxiety and feeling alone and isolated
should probably not surf. I can’t imagine it helping any of those
things and I can also imagine it making all of those things
intolerably worse.
So kids, if you are feeling emotionally unwell, might I suggest
lesbianism instead?
It seems like the way to go.
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Steven Sawyer, your freshly crowned WSL long
boarding world champ, exhibits a comic refinement.
From the wet-games dept: WSL Longboard
world champ reveals secret to winning: “I drink other men’s
urine!”
By Derek Rielly
Jeffrey's Bay shredder turned longboarding nymphet
wins world title in Taiwan, reveals sexy secret…
Yesterday, the Jeffrey’s Bay shredder
and occasional WCT wildcard Steve Sawyer won the 2018 WSL
World Longboard Championship at the Taiwan Open of
Surfing.
His ability to metamorphosise from six-o performance to logging
brings a needed respectability to the longboarding tour, I
think.
Sawyer, who is twenty four and anything but a brute, is also a
lovely and clever and funny and popular man who, one would imagine,
is currently thrusting himself up to the hilt into an engaged
fan.
(Actually, no, Christian etc.)
From the presser:
His combination of traditional longboarding manoeuvres with
speed, power and flow was impeccable, and he needed it all to
overcome Sallas in the Final to best his runner-up finish at the
2016 World Championship. Sawyer had a massive crowd supporting him
on the beach who erupted every time he caught a wave, making the
atmosphere electric.
His fans, one might imagine, were won earlier in the event when
Sawyer gave a revealing post-heat interview.
“I need to call (the American) Kevin Skvarna out,” said Sawyer.
“This morning he gave me a power juice while I was driving in the
car. It was still dark and I had two coffees. I said I needed water
and he cracked this bottle. I took a sip and…mmmm… flavoured
water. I said, what is this, and it was Kevin’s pee
bottle.
“So I had two gulps of it.”
Cue half-crazy, enchanted laughter.
Watch here! (Comes in towards the end.)
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From the Wanaka-Beerworks Department: Two
New Zealander surfers make the World Tour!
By Chas Smith
Celebrate Negatron all season long!
It is a historical day down other under. For
the first time in recorded history there are two New Zealander
surfers on tour at the same time. Two. Ricardo Christie officially
stamped his dance ticket yesterday by advancing through his round 3
heat at the Vans World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach, North Shore,
Oahu, Hawaii. Paige Hareb, on the women’s side, made it on before
the penultimate event.
Both are wonderful surfers and very much deserve to be on tour
but the feat is made even more impressive when New Zealand’s size
is taken into account. The nation’s population is 4,749,598 making
it the 126th most populous in the world.
The United States has a population of 366,726,948 and has 1.5
surfers on tour.
China has a population of 1,415,045,928 and has 0 surfers on
tour.
Scotland has a population of 5,373,679 and has 1 surf journalist
(J.P. Currie) but 0 surfers on tour.
Mexico has a a population of 350 migrants in a caravan and has 1
mother with 9 children but 0 surfers on tour.
Norway has a population of 242,256 reindeer but 0 surfers on
tour.
Japan has a population of 1 Kanoa Igarashi and is in a dispute
with the United States so may have one surfer on tour but also may
have 0 surfers on tour.
Russia has a population of 43 communists in the State Duma and
has 0 surfers on tour.
Etc.
And as you can see New Zealand’s two surfers on tour is an
unprecedented feat.
Please congratulate Negatron in the comments and also send him a
gift. Something culturally appropriate.
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Help: I am the victim of a vicious and
sustained online bullying campaign!
By Chas Smith
The horror. The horror.
I have been aware of online bullying as a
cultural phenomenon for five or six years, maybe a little more, and
must tell you the truth; I was unimpressed by, even callous to, the
plight of the victims. I understood that it must not be very fun
but unlike real bullying, a boy or girl can disappear from online
without a trace, no? Snapchats can be deleted, email addresses
changed, Facebooks made very private and, like that, the tormentors
pushed into outer darkness.
No?
No.
For yesterday I tasted the sharp, pointy stick of an online
bully and it will likely take some therapy for me to open my inbox
without wincing in fear for years to come. Allow me to tell you the
story.
It was a day like any other though more stormy than usual with
gusty winds and threatening clouds. I woke with the first light,
went downstairs to make some coffee and my kindergarten-age’d
daughter breakfast and flipped open my computer screen. First I
read news from the exciting world of wave pools then I scooted over
to [email protected] to see what the morning might hold.
Things seemed normal initially. Emails from Derek Rielly, emails
from our exciting new filmers, emails from the World Surf League
announcing a longboarding event in Taiwan but then a shiver ran up
my spine.
What’s this?
The Inertia Fam: Subscription Confirmed
Every sinew in my hands revolted but conditioning won the match
and I clicked.
The Inertia Fam Your subscription to our list has been confirmed.
For your records, here is a copy of the information you
submitted to us…
If at any time you wish to stop receiving our emails, you
can UNSUBSCRIBE HERE
I mashed the button until blood oozed from my littlest finger.
My daughter asked, “What’s wrong, Daddy?” in between bites of
pasture raised egg yolk and Eggo waffle and shrieked when I looked
up to respond. My face, I realized, was a frozen mask of horror. A
twisted and dark visage.
The Inertia Fam? I honestly hate trendy words, like “fam” and
hate them worst when they are very clearly 3 years past their
pull-by date, vaguely urban and used exclusively by white people.
Fam. “Hey, fam!” “What up, fam?” “Yo, fam!”
Ugh.
The Inertia Fam. An online bully had made me part of The Inertia
Fam even if only for a few seconds.
After I dropped my daughter off at school, I came home and took
an extra long shower trying to wash The Inertia Fam off but no
matter how vigorously I scrubbed, I could still feel it on me. Like
an ugly pair of OluKai flip flops. Like a smarmy, meaningless
smile.
It took much pacing and more vodka for me to return to my
computer as the sun was dipping into the cloud wreathed sea. A
wasted day, work-wise, but I couldn’t be chased from my domain. I
had to master once again so back to [email protected] and my eyes,
like magnets, fell upon the subject line This week in SUP:
11/30/18. The sender?
SUP Magazine.
I haven’t slept a wink and am planning on calling Ms. Melania
Trump neé Knavs, who heads up an anti-cyberbullying task force, to
beg for help once I find my voice.
