Including why Italo Ferreira equals dangerous sex, Gabriel, rape fantasies and why Conner is tantric lovemaking, beautiful yet simultaneously frustrating…

Let’s start with the positive, shall we? Get the hard stuff over with. A bit of festive cheer before I revert to type.

These are the Five Best Things about Surfing in 2018.

1.  The WSL Portrait Photographer

I’d love to name this individual, really I would, because they must have a cunt of a sense of humour. What sort of a photographer could take 37 (mostly objectively handsome men) and transform them into a Crufts line up? A bloody genius, that’s who. 

Have a browse, but allow me to pick some highlights.

We have…

Jordy Smith as…The Basset Hound!

Julian Wilson as…The Weimaraner! 

Kanoa Igarashi as…The Shiba Inu!

Wade Carmichael as…The Shih Tzu!

Patty G as…The Saluki!

And Wilko as a stray. 

I could go on. Truly a work of creative genius. 

2. Ain’t That Swell

The best of anything can’t be imitated. Razor-sharp commentary, genius mixing, classic cameos, and just simply funny as fuck. Nearly knocked me laughing off a high ladder this summer.

I suspect some people don’t really get it, and that makes it all the more appealing. Cali-centric surf media is a blight.

Best surf podcast going and it’s not really close. 

Fair play to Scalesy for his efforts. I still listen, mostly, but it’s hit-and-miss these days now that there are too many cooks. Some things don’t scale, no pun intended. 

And a nod to ONE HALF of Lipped. Can’t stomach the we’re-really-smart-and hardworking-and-no-cunt-appreciates-us tone anymore but Cahill Bell Warren, at least, is a man deserving of a voice and a great job somewhere – coaching or commentating most likely. Seems like a thoroughly bloody good bloke with a lot of insight and a lack of ego. His breakdowns and analysis of competition surfing are perhaps the best I’ve heard. Take note, WSL. 

But Ain’t That Swell. How fucking good is it?

3. Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson

Mick Fanning. I love him, I do. Couldn’t fault him. And I can find fault in pretty much anyone. I love his surfing to bits. What’s not to love about precision and power? Did he ever make a mistake? I’ve never met him but I know I’d love him as a man. Definition of a legend. Knocks Slater out of the park, in my opinion. 

HE’S MICK FANNING…HE’S THAT FUCKIN GOOD. 

And Parko. My first real surf crush. The first guy I looked at and said “I want to surf like That Guy.” Smooth and beautiful. As precise as Mick but with his own stamp. So often made it look too easy. Bloody grateful he got the title he did. If he’d thrown his hands in the air a bit more and added a few hip jives he might have had five. But again, I’m bloody grateful he didn’t. 

Dear Santa, for Christmas please can I have many, many future Parko and Fanning collabs. Cunts have a shit lot of great surfing still to do. And good on them for having the whereabouts to go out on top. 

Stone cold legends, the pair of them. I know they’ve had all the plaudits going, but I truly believe we might never see their likes again. You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. 

Cynical bastards will point to the lack of evolution in their surfing over the years, the not really developing an “air game”. But those wankers probably add water to whisky. 

4. My Favourite WSL (Male) Surfers

Most of you won’t know this, but my day job is actually as a teacher. It’s the reason I write under “JP” when everyone IRL calls me Jamie. People who call themselves by initials are utter wanks, but it’s my penance. It’s a thinly veiled disguise, but at least I haven’t been hauled in front of the headmaster again for shit I wrote on the internet. 

The reason I divulge this now is because last week, in one of my classes, (a bottom set first year) I made a throwaway comment to a thick-set boy in the class which stitched me right up.

Let’s call him Bob.

“Bob,” I said.”If you were a vegetable you’d be a mung bean.”

Well. The next thing I know the entire class has turned into Lord of The Flies and rounded on poor Bob (Piggy), roaring with laughter, pointing at him and chanting demonically…

“MONG BEAN! MONG BEAN! MONG BEAN!

“No, No!” I cried, helplessly. “I said MUNG bean!”

But it was no use.

I calmed them down eventually, but only after I explained what a mung bean was (not as straightforward as you might think to low-ability twelve year olds) and promised to give the rest of them vegetable nicknames for next lesson. 

So in that spirit, and with neither the will nor the words to justify my favouritism, I thought I’d just assign my favourite male surfers types of sex.

Italo Ferreira = Choke sex. Or any kind of dangerous sex that exhilarates in a way that will push you right to the edge where you’ll either die or have the time of your life. 

Gabriel Medina = Rape fantasies. You’re getting fucked, one way or another. You don’t want to like but you probably will. 

Zeke Lau = Pounded with full eye contact. You’ll be too scared to move. 

Conner Coffin = Tantric. Beautiful yet simultaneously frustrating. But when it goes, it goes. 

Griffin Colapinto = First time sex, probably a few tears. There’ll be moments of pleasure, the potential is there. You’ll cry because there are so many more levels to hit and you just hope you reach them. 

I love you guys. You’re why I watch. 

5. Honourable Mentions

Indecision is one of my greatest foes, and I’ve already written too much, so here are some bulletpoints of other great things.

Steve Shearer, AKA Longtom’s contest wraps and writing in general. After what we’ve seen this season, I genuinely feel you’ve got the stamina to go a few rounds with Zeke Lau, maintaining eye contact throughout. I suspect you won’t take up the mantle again next season, and WCT contests will be duller for it. Your words sing, my friend. 

Jordy’s nipples going over the falls at Pipe. Did any moment in pro surfing history sum up so succinctly the gulf between one surfer and another in the competitive arena? 

Caroline Marks. Will be world champion, likely multiple times. Literally surfs and looks like Occy. 

Rob Machado. I love Machado. I want to grow old just like Rob, but with a better van and a fucking haircut. 

Matt Warshaw/EOS and The Surfer’s Journal. The only surf media that matters (present company excepted). The bastions of our culture. I savour and admire each of them like a twelve-year-old Balvenie.

Gabriel's victory party, cops take over the Shore, Brazilians rule everything else!

There is very little that separates the work of most sporting photographers. A slightly different angle here, a different lens there. Any sorta lifestyle shot is perfunctory, at best.

Surfing is very lucky, then, to have Steve Sherman, a skater and surfer from southern California. His photography is a kind of subdued magic, controlled and exquisite, the kind of things you get from a good movie. More than any other surf photographer, Sherman has a sense of living history.

For the month of December, Sherm flew, on his own dime, to the North Shore because, what, he was going to miss the title showdown?

“The WSL cut me off, Channel Islands cut me off, so it was a full art trip,” says Sherm. “I lost everything. They’re all blaming budgets. I didn’t have to be anywhere, I could just do my thing and I had the best artistic year of my life so I can’t be too bummed.”

Apart from looming poverty, it was a different experience this year for Sherman. He’s on the wagon with only the occasional breeze of weed entering his temple. Already, he’s dropped twenty pounds from his linebacker frame.

“I got off the beer because I was feeling shitty, my liver wasn’t get rid of it fast enough. It was slowing me down. I went to a part the other night and, fuck, I was seeing more things than when I was lit up. And, I figured, if I want to keep surfing until I’m seventy I’m going to have to clean things up a bit.”

Let’s stroll though the best of Sherman’s North Shore photos.

First, the wonderful Mark Occhilupo who, like Sherman, was on the wagon. “Occy hasn’t drunk for nine months and he looks great, physically he looks…so…good and he was ripping at Pipeline.” Gabriel Medina and Brazilians after he won the world title, but before Pipe Masters final, which he’d also win. “There was no way he wasn’t going to win the title,” says Sherman. “They’re walking down Ke Nui Road for that three-block walk to his house. Everyone was very happy. It was Brazilville over there. I gotta tell you, the Hawaiians put up with a lot. I was tripping that the Brazilians don’t give a shit. They don’t seem worried that some Polynesian guy is going to punch them out for being loud and obnoxious and flying the flag. Twenty years ago, this never would’ve happened. When Americans go to Brazil, the last thing we do is put flags on our houses and wave flags on the beach and sing the national anthem. I mean, fuck, it’s so heavy. I don’t think they have any idea how heavy the place was thirty years ago. There would be dead bodies scattered if this had happened back in the day.” Jack Robinson and Brazilian girlfriend Julia Muniz. “Yeah, she’s a hot little number,” says Sherman.  Kelly Slater and Joel Parkinson, Pipeline. “Those guys don’t know what they’re doing. It’s some weird handshake,” says Sherman. “That’s right after Joel retired and Kelly’s congratulating him. Historically, they’re not the closest of people but they respect each other even if, behind their backs, they tease each other.” Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson. “I sent that to Mick and he pulled me aside, later, and said, ‘I love you Sherman’ and gave me the longest hug he’d ever given me. He’s going to get it for his house. That’s when I knew I’d done something well. They’re both walking into the retirement sunset.”
John  John Florence and brother Nathan watch Herbie Fletcher’s Wave Warrior’s shoot unfurl. “It’s always supposed to start at twelve but never starts on time. They were hanging out at the RVCA house. RVCA’s the new power company here. They fucking sponsor all the Hawaiians, they have (Dustin) Barca, it’s crazy. Even Pat Tenore’s with Andy’s ex-wife.”
Matt Wilkinson, Backdoor, Conner Coffin, Pipe. “That’s comic-book like. That will be in my archive for a while. Conner told me hit the bottom real hard.” Pottz and Occ, pre-Occ-cast. “Legends, nice guys. It’s great to see Occ looking so good, I could see it in his face and his body weight. He’s proud he’s not boozing it.” Kelly, creeping out to Backdoor. “He’s creeping out, running down from his house to the Johnson’s yard to surf Backdoor one night. It’s my classic creepy Kelly moment. Kelly’s daughter was on the North Shore, she was having an art show. She’s a sweetheart, a sweet little woman. But Kelly doesn’t want to have any more kids. He told me, I just don’t want to have kids. I’ve done that. I’m done.”
North Shore Justice: “Yeah. Fuck. Heavy. That’s the new thing now. I’ve never seen such a police presence on the North Shore. There were cops everywhere, signs everywhere. Everyone’s watching, police are writing tickets and pulling people over.”  Parko, Bruce Irons, Mick Fanning, Parko’s retirement party: “That was right after Mick did the all-time speech. Mick has two beers in his hand, which was par for the course this trip. One night I said, ‘Why the two beers?’ and he said, ‘Because this one is almost done.'”