At least we still have each other. And Wagner Lima.
Yesterday was a violent day in our surf world and it made me so wistful, so teary-eye’d and thankful for they are very rare now. Almost extinct. And I was thinking about this as I drove north to the Surfrider Foundation offices in piquant San Clemente on the very same morning to talk with Surf Splendor’s David Lee Scales.
Derek Rielly had forwarded me yet another The Inertia-style website over the weekend and with the combination of that, all those other ones, the actual The Inertia and the World Surf League’s forward facing image being that of an elf-costume wearing SUP riding adult learner made me wonder if finally, after all these years, surf culture is crumbling to nothing. Finally shedding any last trace of rebellion, angst, exclusivity and… cool.
Oh I know that it is trendy to think surfing isn’t “cool” and maybe never was, that surf culture is just a silly, unnecessary appendage to the act of surfing itself, but I’ve always disagreed. As a backward Oregon youth I loved to surf so very much but also needed the culture. Tom Curren and Gotcha ads defined my parameters and without them, without the VHS tapes and magazines, surf shops and surf brands I would have drowned in a sea of redneck.
Surf culture floated my dreams and still does. I put the question forward to David Lee, anyhow, the very minute I pushed through Surfrider’s doors. “Is this the actual end? Does the adult learner x World Surf League axis bring surf culture to its knees? Is this the real apocalypse?”
He thought I was hysterical, as he often does. Overly-emotional because he is a reasonable man but it didn’t assuage my fears. The day unfolded with Justin Housman attacking William Finnegan and Tanner Hendrickson attacking Michael Rodrigues and I thought, for one glorious minute, “We’re back!” Until the World Surf League suspended Tanner for simply doing what surfers on the North Shore do.
Well, son of a bitch but I am not about to be discouraged because we still have each other and we still have Wagner Lima even though, try as I might, he won’t return my calls.
Wagner? Are you there?
Listen to the rest of the show here!
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
Hold the fucking phone, BFB was fired?! I thought she just resigned.
Sausage of course is
The anagram of assuage
Eat one World Surf League
I love your work.
I hope you will one day publish a hard cover of your fine work. I will memories them all in the hope of recalling them at dinner parties.
more likely it will be over a roast and a couple of schooners at the RSL (no relation to the WSL, pack of pussies)
They can’t know the siren’s song
Nor the salt in our hearts,
The spittle on the keyboard
The tears as we depart.
Heedless strangers to her love
They cannot win the war,
We shall fight them on the beaches
As we dance forever more.
I have learned so much as an adult.
wosule, a free surfer’s best friend
Adult learner here. I also have a vagina. And I know Wagner Lima.
2 outta 3 ain’t bad!
Interview her!
He just has you eediot! It’s like you don’t know surf journalism.
Gosh! The digital age has really reduced our expectations of content down a fair volume hasn’t it!
Chas, you had it made in Coos Bay you had a Logging culture, fights in the bars after a full day swinging a rafting axe. Well it still awaiting your rebirth!
Surfing has no culture its now Sawdust.
Headed back home! Maybe I could get a job in that new casino…
Ur right Chas!! Fuck those guys. They can earn there way in. Fuck those guys. Including them entitled them and puts them in our way. Fuck them they should learn the right way thru trial and error
they need to redo the surfer poll. tanner would place in top 3
He’ll finish #1 in 2019. It’s a mortal lock.
Jack Robbo got the call up for the Pipe trials then.
and the shaft by the panel.
Imagine a guy paddling past you with a selfie stick and an oar.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
very cool, I’m going to investigate that band
All this newfangled science and technology, but I tell ya the drugs were better in the old days.
“A culture is a way of life of a group of people–the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.”
And then the Adult Learners turned up……………….
Wait… an imagined community?
So there is a mandatory 15-second WSL ad before stab’s tanner/M. rod fight video. Now that is fucking classic.
We were the only ones that didn’t get WSL ad love but I don’t know why….
Are the wazzle cross with BG?
They may be unable to turn the other cheek , afraid that you might prod them in the bum? Again ….
An eye for an eye and no billboard for the billboard …….
Ronnie and Ross! The absolute best two commentators. (in a very shallow talent pool)
It’s going to be a fun day!
But what about Potz’s mo? He looks like a long lost member of the Village People. That thing is disgustingly seedy.
Pipe Trials finally kicking off !
In about 10 min.
if this is what the trials are run in, imagine how bad the finals are going to be
i hope i’m wrong
Just when the WSL couldn’t get any lamer, they become the police force of the north shore. Last stop on the wannabe tennis tour, Disneyland.
MRod just painted himself into a corner.
What a dickhead.
WSL should have done nothing or kicked both of them out.
They should have done nothing to either surfer. The North Shore is exciting and marketable because of this kind of shit. They are just padding everything – no drama, no good stories, just stock characters saying the same shit in every interview and conducting themselves the same way.
Yeah but nah, they should finally start using all that UFC knowledge they have acquired. “Big fines”, but then organise a rematch with extended trash talk build up and winner-takes-all prize money.
Hot take: These recent feuds / dust-ups have been the most interesting events to happen in surfing this year.
We all love a good blood feud, but there have been some pretty interesting events involving actual surfing.
Pipe! It’s on!
Pick it, pack it, fire it up!
Let em swing !