"She treats me like a servant and she’s the mistress!"

I’ll tell you one thing that makes me happy about the “ride anything” movement currently hurtling our world toward the surf apocalypse, maybe the only thing. This story right here about a seventy-year-old man “surfing” his Cadillac down the highway in Florida. Before the age of SUPs, SUP foils, dog longboards etc. a story about “surfing” a Cadillac would have been inappropriate for a surf website to cover.

Today it is par for the course, if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor, and let’s get straight to it without delay. Let’s not waste anymore time even thinking about SUP foils.

State troopers recently arrested a Florida man who was caught trying to live out his Titanic movie fantasies and make his heart go on atop a moving vehicle. Local news affiliates report that authorities arrested Leonard Olsen, 70, after an off-duty deputy for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department caught him on video, attempting to “surf” his Cadillac while traveling on the highway with cruise control enabled.

The deputy first noticed Olsen’s Cadillac doing more than 100 miles per hour when it abruptly slowed down to just 40 mph. Then, Olsen supposedly opened the sunroof and propped himself up on top of his moving car while traveling on Interstate 4 in the westbound lane. This prompted the officer to begin recording video on his smartphone.

Following the event, the deputy called in for on-duty reinforcements, to which Florida Highway Patrol responded. Olsen was pulled over just a few minutes later at the intersection of US-98 and Wedgewood Estates Boulevard.

“I thought it would be a nice way to praise God for a minute, and I thought it would be nice at the time and that’s what I did,” Olsen supposedly said in his testimony, according to the Florida Highway Patrol’s arrest report.

When Olsen was apprehended, he was quoted saying that he’d rather go to jail than go back to his home.

“My wife treats me like a servant and she’s the mistress,” Olsen continued. “Lock me up, I’d rather go to jail than go back home.”

Note perfect, no? From the Titanic fantasies to the “wife treats me like a servant and she’s the mistress…” it doesn’t miss a beat.

But quickly, would you rather go to jail for a month or be forced to ride a SUP foil for the rest of your life?

A Protected Pro discussion.

On Sunday I went surfing. The marine layer hung heavy and the waves drowned in their own mediocrity. A dad had brought a crew of groms into the lineup to surf a mock heat. They jockeyed for position and he gave them scores. Since he was sitting out the back and they were mostly surfing through the inside, he couldn’t actually see their waves. The scores he gave them were entirely made up.

All the same, the groms took the whole thing deadly seriously. They had a world title to win right there! Dad kept barking instructions and scores. The kids battled for position and bickered over who had the better wave. After every wave, they replayed each turn in joyfully exaggerated terms. As you can imagine, this setup was not ideal for a mellow, mediocre Sunday surf. Every wave I considered had at least two groms battling for it — if not, three. There I sat, as they surfed circles around me.

I was reminded of this dynamic this morning when I sat down to watch the women’s round 1 at Keramas. During heat 2 that included Carissa Moore, Brisa Hennessey, and Keely Andrew, Hennessey and Andrew surfed circles around Moore. It’s a pretty great tactic for beating surfers like Moore and Steph Gilmore. Just keep surfing waves. Make it hard for your opponent to find space to do anything at all. Similar to her heat at Bells against Conlogue, Moore got off to a slow start with a string of low scores. By the time she found her rhythm, it was too late.

When I interviewed her last year, Moore said she surfs best when there’s lots of waves, and ideally, good waves. She’s right, I think. Much the same could be said of Steph Gilmore. They’re both at their best when they don’t have to think about the actual business of heat surfing and can just catch some waves and ride them. Unfortunately, it very often doesn’t go that way in contest surfing. Hennessey who won the heat, followed by Andrew. Together, they sent Moore to the elimination round.

As with both the Gold Coast and Bells, Gilmore surfed an uneven heat. She showed flashes of her characteristic grace and had one legit solid turn on her first wave of the heat. But she also nearly fell on her second turn. She put it together well enough to advance with a 5.17 and a 4.60, but it wasn’t an especially emphatic performance. Nikki Van Dijk slid into second with a pair of three’s, while Kailani Johnson heads to the elimination round.

There were two air attempts during women’s round 1 and both came during heat 4 with Lakey Peterson, Sally Fitzgibbons, and Paige Hareb. I expected Peterson to scorch this heat. She did win Keramas last year, but Fitzgibbons had other ideas. The Australian took an early lead with a 7.83 on her second wave of the heat, and that was mostly it.

Peterson tried to get back into it, with an air 360, or whatever the correct degrees are there. In any case, she fell on the landing. Fitzgibbons answered back with a tiny, air-not-quite-reverse. It was a barely there kind of affair, with not much daylight between her board and the white water. You had to squint a little to see it. She finished the rotation after the landing, but managed to stay upright. It wasn’t sexy, but I’ll give her credit for getting it done. The judges weren’t overly excited — rightly — and gave her a 6.30. Fitzgibbons won ahead of Peterson and Hareb.

I don’t know the answer to the “why don’t women do airs” question. I can tell you that it isn’t physiological. I can put a surfboard into the air and I am not a professional athlete. I can not, however, make it come back down in any predictable way. I can’t make it do anything interesting while it’s up there either. I suspect the answer is some combination of incentive and opportunity — and that before too long, the upcoming generation of women surfers will put this question to rest for good.

Johanne Defay mostly ran away with heat five. Malia Manuel, so impressive at Bells, couldn’t find the waves to do much at all in Keramas — so far. She held on to second behind Defay with an 8.53 heat total, which is lower than several of her wave scores at Bells. I’d love to see her — and really, all of the women — in better waves for the next rounds. Come on, ocean, do the thing!

At least Manuel didn’t get sent to the elimination round like her Bells finals opponent Courtney Conlogue. I thought Conlogue — Now, with correct spelling, I think! — had this heat won, but she was overtaken by both Tatiana Weston-Webb and Bronte Macaulay. Conlogue had some spicy turns, including a cute 360, but she couldn’t match the two goofy-footers. Weston-Webb looked especially strong this time around.

And still the queen of the goofy-foots, Caroline Marks, looks solid. The Duranbah arms have mellowed out a bit and she looked more smooth than she did in the opening contest. That’s got to have some of her competitors worried. Marks surfing better than when she won the opening event of the year is not going to be great for anyone else’s world title hopes. Marks beat out Coco Ho and Silvana Lima to advance.

I definitely did not have the highest heat score during my Sunday session. The groms beat me soundly, though I’m not sure who among them won. I just know that I didn’t. Finally, they went in. I sat in the grey, watching the horizon, hoping for just one more. I suppose that’s one part of contest surfing that’s entirely relatable. If I could just get one more — we’ve all had that nagging, insatiable feeling.

Olympic surf talking!

There I was, sleeping the tortured sleep of the mentally unwell, when I heard my phone buzz furiously on the nightstand. I grabbed it and smashed its top button in order to silence then peered through bleary eyes at the screen. Who on earth would be calling at the ungodly hour of… 4:50 am?

It was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or CBC, live from Toronto.

Hell.

I had forgotten, days earlier, that I had agreed to come on the air and talk about surfing in the Olympics, taking, of course, the “surfing in the Olympics is a stupid idea and doesn’t belong” side. I hopped out of bed, ran downstairs and called back. A kindly producer answered first ring and walked me through the order. There would be two segments before they got to the issue of Olympic surfing, the host would introduce me and then we’d chat.

It all made sense I told him, listening to a discussion of soybean production  in western Canada in the background.

Ten, or so, minutes later I heard the host broach the Olympic surfing topic and then toss to “a surf journalist based near San Diego, California.”

I came out of the gate as hot as I could, though still morning addled, trying to tie thoughts together in a semi-coherent fashion, laughing heartily when the host told me that surfing would bring in a youthful audience, barking back that surfing is an old person’s game now ruled by grumpy locals.

She lost her train of thought in the middle, which made me sad because it was certainly my barrage of nonsense that threw her so, but she found her footing and said, “We have someone on the other side who thinks surfing will be wonderful in the Olympics, professional surfer from Tofino Pete Devries.”

“Pete Devries?” I thought. “Damn it. Pete Devries is the nicest man in the world.”

I don’t recall ever meeting Pete but have heard only very good things. He’s kind, thoughtful and extremely talented and now, here he was talking about how fun it is for Canadian kids to have this Olympic opportunity, how his nine-year-old son enjoys competitive surfing etc. And there I was guffawing, muttering about how surfing is a form of rebellion and picking a winner in Japan’s tiny waves will be embarrassing.

Surfing was last a form of rebellion in 1983.

Red Bull’s Cape Fear just picked a winner in Shipstern’s tiny waves.

I kept up, hammering that surfing fitting itself into the Olympic criteria is a capitulation against its very core while Pete said kind and thoughtful things about more people getting to experience what we all love so much and then it was over.

And I’m very sorry, Canada. I’m sorry for saying “heck” and “dang” (I was told not to curse) and for flopping around semi-lucid in front of your national treasure.

While I still think surfing in the Olympics is a stupid idea and that it doesn’t belong, I will be cheering the red maple leaf for all the sports that do, like racewalking and dressage.