Listen: “Yago Dora was a brave boy unfairly
beaten with the shame stick!”
By Chas Smith
But the Panda deserved his hiding!
Podcasting is a high-wire act. There you are
one moment riffing, jiving, chewing the fat about all manner of
surf and surf lifestyle, there you are the next moment, saying
something blatantly, patently untrue, besmirching the good name of
a brave, young boy.
And that is exactly what David Lee and I did last week when we
demanded that Yago Dora should, nay must, be shamed for
being a coward at Teahupoo. For not paddling for a wave for 35
minutes in front of us all as we sat in front of our
computers/phones and raged.
“How dare he!”
“How dare he!”
Well, David Lee and I let him have it last week but it’s a good
thing that we’ve gone to a weekly format so we could apologize this
week for being wrong and egregiously so. For those in Teahupoo’s
channel, those who ride Teahupoo’s meaty folds, let David Lee know
that Yago had been charging the entire two weeks and only
miscalculated and mismanaged his heat. Willian “Panda” Cardosa
deserved his piping hot bowlful of shame, they also said, but not
Yago.
What utter assholes David Lee and I are. What complete
jerks.
Anyhow, yesterday Derek Rielly joined us all the way from Bondi,
Australia where spring has only just sprung. It is such a great
pleasure when I get to see him. We laugh and laugh and surf and
laugh and, yesterday, drove to the Surf Heritage and Culture Center
where we shamed many other people, ideas and things on the air.
Highlights?
We talk about surf helmets, the ESPN body
issue and the desire to see professional male surfers
fully nude, possibly with their “shame sticks.” Did you know that a
“shame stick” is an erection?
I didn’t.
Listen here!
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Memories: “I saw the Great White breaching
out of the water with (my pal) in its mouth!”
By Derek Rielly
"He was in the fish’s mouth and there was this
fucking impact in the water and then there was nothing there,
gone…"
Lewis Samuels is what you’d call a soul surfer if that
term hadn’t been so corrupted. Lew surfs lonely big waves
in the sharkiest of northern Californian waters and he ain’t afraid
of either.
Lew has five pals who’ve been attacked by great white sharks.
One, Royce Fraley, has been attacked… twice.
Lew was there for one of ’em.
“Let me be fucking honest. My first fucking response was to
paddle away. But I thought about it, he was my friend, and whether
or not he comes up he needs my help. And so I paddled back over,
got there and he popped up out of the water and he pretty much
paddled up onto my back.” Lew Samuels
“We were really far out to sea, literally, about a kilometre out
to sea. It took 45 minutes to paddle out,” says Lew. “Out of the
corner of my eye there was this explosion. And as I turned around,
I saw the shark breeching out of the water with him in its mouth.
Then they fell down in an explosion of whitewater, like when a
whale breaches. Fifteen feet is as big as a car and they’re a lot
fatter in person than you’d think they would be. And he was in the
fish’s mouth and there was this fucking impact in the water and
then there was nothing there, gone, like a fucking whirlpool of
displaced whitewater where he’d been. There was no one else near
him, just another friend way up the line, and so when the attack
happened, what are you fucking going to do? You’re not going to
leave your friend out there.”
But, says, Lew, “Let me be fucking honest. My first fucking
response was to paddle away. But I thought about it, he was my
friend, and whether or not he comes up he needs my help. And so I
paddled back over, got there and he popped up out of the water and
he pretty much paddled up onto my back, literally, trying to get
out of the water. I said, ‘It’s alright, man! Hold on! I’ll paddle
you in, man!”
What does a shark attack victim look like? “I didn’t want to
look. We were 45 minutes out to sea and I figured he’d have a leg
missing. I had this 200 pound guy on my back but… he fucking seemed
okay. We started paddling next to each other. A friend, Britt, a
lifeguard, saw what happened from a distance and started paddling
with us, checking him, and he goes, ‘Where’s he fucking hurt?’ It
didn’t make sense. Finally, we got in, I ran to a pay phone a mile
away ’cause there’s no cell phone service and when I got back down
there he was with an ambulance.”
The injuries, says Lew, were “like little scratches. The whole
attack was a like a cartoon, like a toothpick in a dog. The board
had gotten stuck in the mouth of the shark and it didn’t clamp on
him. He was holding onto the board as the shark took him under and
he got the scratches when he bounced off the shark.”
Lew says he finds comfort in the fact that great whites in
northern California are different to the more energetic South
African and Australian breed. In that, they have a different
hunting pattern. They might bite but they’ll let go after the
initial bleed and wait for you to bleed out instead of taking you
down straight away.
“That gives you time to get medical help,” says Lew.
How did the attack affect Lew? Did he surf the spot again?
“What are you going to do? I was out there the next day. The
waves were good.”
(Editor’s note: this story first appeared two, maybe
three, years ago. But ain’t she a peach!)
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BeachGrit Guide: How to survive
Lemoore!
By Jen See
Even if you're a VIP!
It is September already and it’s hard to
imagine where the time has gone. There we were, back on
the Gold Coast, so young, innocent, and hopeful. Since then, we
have seen many waves, both great and not so great, and we’ve even
had our very own helmet debate. Who knew that we could enjoy such a
wonderful journey together. Now, there is Lemoore. We are not so
innocent any longer.
Last year here at the ‘Grit we helpfully provided you with a
training program to prepare for your arduous days as a spectator at
the wave poo— basin. Have you started training yet? If not, I’m not
sure we can help you now. I’m pretty sure you’re fucked, actually.
It’s entirely too
late.
Prepared or not, if you’re going to Lemoore, we can help you
survive the experience. As hardened veterans, we know what it takes
to get through at least an hour at the basin. Oh yes, the sizzling
sun, the 700-meter saunters from end to end, the desperate search
for water, preferably cold — we know all about these things. And a
few more. Here we are, ready to share all our secrets.
Here is the official BeachGrit Guide: How to survive
Lemoore.
Getting There
From SoCal, get on The Five. Drive north. When the Grapevine looms
up before you, panic. You are not stupid. You know where the
Grapevine leads. To snow, yes, but not in September. There is no
snow in September. In September, the Grapevine leads to the bad
place.
Look! Over there! Another road. It leads west. Get on the road
that leads west until you see the ocean. Drive until you see waves.
Park your car. Pull your board out of the back — you do have a
board in the car, right? If not, borrow one from the car parked
next to you. I’m sure they won’t mind. Go surfing. Lemoore, what?
You have surfing to do. Get on top of your priorities.
From NorCal, head to the coast. Pet some sharks. I hear they’re
friendly. Sharks are way better than Lemoore. After you pet the
sharks, go surfing.
The Heat
If you insist on continuing your journey to Lemoore without petting
the sharks and without surfing, you will experience heat like
nothing you’ve experienced before. It has mass, this heat, like a
big furry animal that lays down on top of you with all its animal
stench, and just stays right there. You can’t get rid of it. The
heat will crush your will to live. That’s a promise, not a
threat.
Your best hope of survival is the VIP area which is equipped
with mist-making machines. Yes, your humble Beachgrit investigated
the VIP area, just for you! And we are here to tell you, that
you’ll need a VIP pass to survive. It’s essential. Security is
tight and I had to beg to keep my peanut butter sandwich, so you
can give up on sneaking past them into the VIP zone without
actually having a VIP credential. No chance.
Sorry, we don’t have any money to help you buy your way into the
misty coolness of the VIP zone. But your best friend totally does.
Borrow your best friend’s credit card. Buy a VIP pass to the wave
pool party. If you’re feeling generous, buy a ticket for him, too.
It is his credit card, so you might as well. It’ll be like a
surprise present! For both of you! A weekend of fabulous bro
bonding under the mist in the VIP zone at the wave pool. You can
feel so good about this plan.
If you do not have a best friend with a credit card, or you have
moral qualms about borrowing credit cards, which is admirable!
Moral qualms are totally good! Skip the basin and head directly to
the Tachi Palace. Go to the bar — it’s conveniently located on the
first floor, just off the lobby — and order a drink or several. Get
them to go. Head to the pool. The Tachi Palace pool, that is, not
the dumb, hot wave-making thing.
Jump in and feel that refreshing cool water. Sip your drinks.
You are in the pool, drinking a cold cocktail, and your life is
good. This is much better than standing in the sun next to the
basin trying to distinguish one turn from another. You can watch
the contest replay later. Or not! You can just hang out in the pool
and drink and forget all about the contest. There’s always next
year.
Going the distance
Though we have warned you, you remain determined. You are going to
the basin, dammit! You are going to watch the surfing live and in
person and nothing we say will change your mind.
Running shoes. They’re not cute and they’re not sexy. You can’t
show off your fabulous pedicure or your ungroomed toe hairs in
running shoes. But they are your only hope now. The wave pool runs
700 meters from end to end and you’re going to walk that multiple
times in an effort to see your favorite surfers go left and right
and left again.
You used to make fun of the jocks in high school with their
training plans and their hours in the weight room and their
after-school practices, while you fucked off and went surfing. Now
you’re going to dress just like them. You’re going to slip into
those Nike Pegasus Airs or a sleek pair of New Balance 860v9’s — I
always trust a running shoe more if it has numbers in the name —
and you’re going to like it. Also, don’t forget socks. Nobody likes
running shoe foot stench.
Now you’re ready. You’ve laced up your new running shoes that
you bought with your best friend’s credit card and you haven’t
forgotten your socks. Stance, of course. You shake an electrolyte
tablet out of its tube and pop it directly into your mouth. You are
far too badass to dissolve your electrolyte tablets in water. Off
you go to prance up and down the length of the wave pool like the
track star you were meant to be. Suck it, jocks.
You need a nap
Your feet are tired. Despite your shiny new Asics Gel-Kayano 25’s
that you bought with your best friend’s credit card, your feet
hurt. You’ve seen your favorite surfers go left and right and left
again. You’re down to your last electrolyte tablet and you’re
wondering if it might taste better if you just gave up and
dissolved it in water like the instructions suggest.
The heat must be getting to you, because you’re pretty sure you
just saw two Chas Smith’s walking toward you, as though one were
not enough. When you looked again, they were both gone. It must be
the heat.
You remain determined. You are at the wave pool and you are
watching surfing and you aren’t ready to give up yet. What you
really need is a nap. And here, Beachgrit can help. We thoroughly
investigated the napping possibilities of the basin during our
sojourn there last year, because we did not want to let you down in
your time of need.
If you succeeded in achieving VIP status, your nap option is
super easy. Pull off your new Adidas Ultraboost 19’s, and stretch
out under the mist. There is always the possibility that someone
may step on you lying on the ground like that, but you are brave
and bold and you give zero fucks.
If your morals prevented you from stealing your best friend’s
credit card and buying a VIP pass, head for the control tower at
the middle of the basin. There is a large patch of beautiful shade.
If you’re lucky, no one else will have discovered this perfect nap
spot. Stretch out, close your eyes, dream of petting sharks.
If the shade of the control tower is already crowded with
nappers, just find the nearest tree and stretch out under it. It’s
fine. No one will judge. They will be jealous of your ability to
nap right there under a random tree like it’s no big thing. Dream
of perfect blue barrels on a tropical island and ice-cold drinks
with paper umbrellas perched on top. Wonder what the fuck you are
doing in Lemoore instead.
You can go home again
Wave a fond farewell to the basin and drive out of Lemoore like
twenty or thirty boars are chasing you. When you get to Kettleman
City, the boars will have run out of steam, presumably. Or at least
lost interest in your skinny surfer ass.
Stop for ice cream in Kettleman City. Ice cream understands. Ice
cream will fix your tired feet and your overheated brain that
swears it saw two Chas Smith’s and remind you that you’re headed
back to the coast. There’s waves there! You are going home to the
coast where you belong.
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The Profile: Italo Ferreira and the
Vengeance of the Leopard!
By Derek Rielly
On the road with the world number six, Brazil's
Italo Ferreira…
The stubby, handsome, friendly face of the Brazilian
surfer Italo Ferreira answers the door to his Margaret River
rental like a surprised big-eyed animal.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” whoops the twenty-five year old,
flinging open the door to a scene of Timmy Patterson
surfboards dressed in yellow camouflage and cast
around the lounge room as if his board bag has unexpectedly
erupted.
Of all the world title contenders, a category Italo firmly
belongs in, three contest wins last year and a last-minute 540 on a
two-foot wave to win the Quiksilver Pro this year and that is still
being discussed in the Margaret River carpark one month later, he’s
the only one that carries the perpetual ecstasy of the looter.
It’s an old and hackneyed story, but in Italo’s case it’s true:
the key to the pro surfing kingdom wasn’t presented to him on an
upholstered velvet cushion via a dad that surfed, a benevolent
sponsor and a training program where men stand on the beach under
an umbrella filming the children for later review of technique.
Italo grew up in a fishing town in north-east Brazil, population
eight thousand, called Baia Formosa; a joint where the only paved
roads are the ones that lead into the village.
Italo’s pops would wander the beach and buy the catch of local
fisherman and make his profit, a slender one but enough to feed his
family, selling fish to restaurants.
His skinny son wanted to surf so Pops gave him the foam lid from
the box he kept his fish in.
Eight-year-old Italo was so small it just worked on
Baia’s little righthander.
Then, and in short order, an older friend who saw the boy’s love
of surfing gifted him a fibreglass surfboard, he won the first
contest he entered, moved onto regional events and then national,
trying to win “cars, motorbikes and tickets to fly overseas.”
The rest, the elevation to stardom, came quickly
In 2014, when Italo would finish seventh on the WQS, Dino
Andino, whose own son would miss his first tour victory four years
later because of Italo’s preternatural ability, came up to Timmy
Patterson, Italo’s shaper since he was fifteen, and said, “Who is
that Italian guy? He’s doing floaters on eight-foot closeouts on
grinding beachbreaks and making ‘em. He’s going to be on tour next
year. That guy’s a freak.”
The following year, Italo was the in-form rookie on tour, third
in Rio, fifth in Fiji, fifth in Tahiti and second in Portugal,
finishing seventh in the world and rookie of the year.
Patterson had been turned onto Italo’s talent in 2008 when
Italo’s manager, Luiz “Pinga” Henrique, told ’em they should get in
on the ground floor with this kid. Patterson, who builds the boards
via Silver Surf Surfboards in Brazil and until 2011 with Oakley
picking up the tab for the raw materials, made him a five-four that
was barely fifteen inches wide from a modified version of Adriano
de Souza’s CAD file.
“I think Pinga sent us the wrong dimensions,” says Patterson.
“The boards looked kind of weird but he managed to make them
work.”
When he first met Italo, Patterson describes the skinny little
kid with the big hair him as looking like a “match”.
And then he saw him surf, for real.
“That was when we all saw his potential,” he say.
When you interview Italo, who along with another Brazilian, Yago
Dora, is redrawing the lines a goofyfooter can make, it’s not the
usual exchange over a table or on the beach, a telephone doubling
as a voice recorder.
When you come to interview Italo, you live with
Italo.
You eat, you surf, you train, you sing.
Italo travels with his girlfriend, the Disney Brazil host and
singer from Rio, Mari Azevedo, whom he met last September on a
shoot; she, host, he, talent.
Mari, the big city girl, Italo, the archetypal country
mouse.
The difference in lifestyle between Rio and Baia Formosa is
stark.
Heels versus bare feet; flashy city money versus men buying fish
on the beach to feed their families; jewels v shells.
When I ask ‘em if Mari’s on the tour full-time, Italo barks a
definitive and relationship confirming, “Yes!” over Mari’s shy
“Ahhhh.”
Later, after a surf where Italo scoops up the inside cream at
Main Break, he makes the interviewer a Brazilian-Style lunch of
beans, chicken and sliced banana, a concoction that tastes better
than it sounds, the tender fruit collapsing through the meal of
flesh and legumes.
“Butterflies that were never there come with your
scent”
“The heart of stone you melted”
“You took care of me in ways that I could never
imagine.”
You’ll note the cover of two lovers’ hands entwined, one forearm
dressed in tattoos that will be immediately familiar to surf fans.
The pair shot the photo on their iPhone, using the timer feature,
and Mari designed the cover on her computer.
Mari’s English is a little better than Italo’s and he’ll defer
to her mid-sentence to make sure his intended meaning is
conveyed.
The language barrier does mean no great truths will be
discovered although this isn’t any different to those
English-speaking pro surfers for whom education was removed from
their lives like a troublesome cyst some time around their twelfth
year.
At one point, and at my request, Italo’ll show me the Instagram
post which he’d examined prior to their first meeting and that made
him fall in love with her.
Mari sits astride a chair in white bikini bottoms. Her yellow
hair waterfalls over brown skin and a red brassiere. Both eyes are
closed and Mari’s tongue laps at an imaginary milk bowl in the
sky.
Italo looks at me. One man to another.
I get it.
**********
The ankle. Look at the right ankle.
It’s perpetually swollen to hell because, as anyone who can spin
540 degrees using the Cote/Richards method (“The full rotation is a
540, it’s obvious,” says Italo), you land on the front foot. In
Bali, while training for the Keramas event, Italo’s foot was pushed
backwards on a bottom turn.
Two year earlier, same thing. Blew it out at D-Bah. Missed three
events.
This year, he sent for his physio from Brazil who worked on him
for ten days straight.
Italo is serious about winning.
And Italo is, like Filipe and Gabriel, among the only surfers on
tour who can huck 540 on a two-foot wave, something Kolohe learned
to his eternal chagrin at D-Bah.
To demonstrate how the front foot gets worked on 540s, Italo
will perform the 540 motion, leaping off the carpeted floor,
comparing it to a 360 where the back foot jams the car back into
gear.
The ruined front leg means Italo has had to become an animal on
the leg machine at whatever gymnasium he’s hitting.
It also means he’ll freesurf four times or so a day, but call it
at ten waves, one hour max.
“Save my body,” he says.
Or, in the case of Western Australia he won’t surf for four days
because there’s nobody around and the last time he was here Whites
hit two surfers in two days and the contest was cancelled, partly
at his and Gabriel’s behest.
If you could see Italo now when you start talking hits by Great
Whites, the panic in his eyes, the stutter in his voice, you’d know
the fear isn’t a confection.
For four days, Italo and Mari, who doubles as filmer and
shark-spotter, got up as that gorgeous citrus sun rose over the
vineyards in the east, the grapes dressed in a hiss of fog, put on
their signature all-back outfits which contrast perfectly to hair
on both heads bleached white, and drove to the beach.
But, there wasn’t a soul around.
For four days.
No surfers.
For Italo this meant no surfing.
“We watched a lot of movies,” says Italo, who jokes that if he
wins Margaret River he’ll have a shark inked on his back.
(He doesn’t, of course. His event highlight is a wave at the Box
that involves a miraculous escape from the lip and into the barrel
which earns a ruthlessly underscored eight and a piece. We’re told
it was his first-ever ride there. It wasn’t. Italo had surfed there
before, took one wave, face planted and came in.)
Italo’s head noise about sharks got the point where he hit up an
old pal from Brazil who was living in Perth and who subsequently
dropped everything to spend a week down south with Italo.
Big sharks aren’t a theoretical construct down here in the
south-west, three hours drive from the capital city, Perth. They’re
real.
People, mostly surfers, die.
The names Brad Smith, Nick Edwards, Kyle Burden and Chris Boyd,
all killed by Great Whites at popular waves, carry a weight, a
gloom.
Italo shakes his head.
He doesn’t feel good, he says.
Usually when he goes for a surf he can delete everything,
problems with his life, his family, the tour, and just surf, focus
on moves, combos, all the elements that will deliver a world
title.
But in Margs?
“The energy is bad,” he says.
**********
Energy. Spirit. Passion. More hackneyed
phrases.
But, for Italo, they just work.
SCENE: A portable toilet at Bells Beach in 2018. Italo is in the
second semi-final against Gabriel Medina. Spectators see Italo
enter the toilet with his surfboard. He gently closes the door for
overt politeness is a character trait of the Brazilian. The door
clicks locked an the crowd watches as the little tower suddenly
starts shaking from side to side.
There’s a fortississimo boom…boom…boom… as the walls
are, what, punched?
Inside, Italo is bouncing off the walls, telling himself, “Just
one more! Just one more!”
Before the final against Mick Fanning, who is in his farewell
event, Italo enters again.
The toilet shakes and bangs.
“Just one more!”
Italo punches the wall.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
He leaves, smiles meekly at his fans and takes out Fanning.
At Bells. At Fanning’s final event.
He walks the stairs, steps back into the toilet.
The toilet reverberates with such violence it appears it may
topple.
Italo explains to me,
“I was talking to God, just saying, I got it! I got it!”
Contrast 2018 to the following year’s event where he was left to
drown in front of the cliffs at Winki Pop by water safety unable to
pick him up in the fifteen-foot seas, and was booted from the event
in the quarter-finals on a contentious interference call, a newly
introduced rule, against a belly-boarding Jordy Smith.
After the interference was confirmed, Italo bypassed the
portable toilets and headed to the competitors’ locker room where
he “broke everything.”
Mari interjects, “I think in the athletes area they should have
a punching bag. Yes! Yes!”
I ask Italo if he feels pain when he loses, punching plywood
walls and “nearly breaking my fingers” notwithstanding.
“A lot, a lot,” he says shaking his head. “I came out of the
water looking for the judge, like, fuck that guys. I saw
the photo, Jordy was on the whitewater holding his board.”
Still, he knows he blew it.
“All the Brazilians, we do crazy things, we always hungry, we do
everything to win. That’s why the rule was changed. (And) Jordy
played the game with the rules.”
The previous day, in the biggest waves in a contest at Bells
since 1981, Italo was caught inside and became quickly convinced he
was going to die, that his Catholic God had decided to vacuum him
to the heavens.
Italo’s board hit him in the face, he was held under for what he
estimates was thirty seconds and when he surfaced he couldn’t get
to the water safety crew’s jetskis.
“In that moment, you rely on instincts. I tried not to panic or
do desperate things, to lose energy,”
Mari, meanwhile, was panicking, asking anyone who would listen,
“What about Italo? What about Italo?”
Eventually, he got onto the Winki stairs and had started to
climb when a local said the water part had made it to the inside
and was looking for him.
Italo jumped back into the maelstrom, got back on the ski,
competed, and won, the heat against Jeremy Flores.
On the walk back up the Bells stairs, Italo collapsed, Mari’s
arms around his neck.
“I was exhausted. I have no energy, nothing. I can’t feel my
legs. My adrenalin went from a hundred percent to nothing. I stayed
there for minutes, breathed and drink waters and came back
again.”
I ask Mari if Italo said anything to her.
“The first thing he told me, the first one,” she whispers.
Italo watches her face.
Mari chokes up.
“He said,” says Mari, “the first thing. First
thing!
“‘Mari, I thought I was going to die.’”
**********
Bells, 2018, Italo’s first WCT event win, was one of
three for 2018, which included Bali and Portugal.
When he got back to Brazil, Italo went straight to a tattoo
artist who drew a roaring Koala ringing the Bells trophy across the
not inconsiderable canvas of his right bicep.
Italo, like most of the Brazilian surfer on tour, has been
getting on the (ink) spike since he was a teenager.
If the reader will allow the interviewer a brief indulgence,
we’ll take a tour of Italo’s illustrative body.
He has a map of his hometown Baia Formosa on his left forearm,
Believe In Your Dreams (in Portuguese) written under a feather on
his right; the word Jesus, the majuscule J crowned, fills the nook
near an elbow; on his left deltoid there’s a drawing of himself at
sunset and holding a board with the phrase Let The Light Illuminate
You (in Portuguese); his birthdate in Roman numerals is written
under his neck near where his gold chain falls; Blessed is written
between his shoulder blades and a lion owns the back of his
neck.
On the side of one hand is the word Surf; one the other is
Fé, the Portuguese word for Faith.
There are more, of course, bats and angels and so on, but those
are the most significant.
Of course, it’s all window dressing to Italo’s surfing.
For Italo is a surfer who leaves waves ruffled and ravished
beyond words.
His secret, he says, is…
Italo, pauses, whispers to Mari,
“Ah…”
“Ahhhh…”
More whispering.
Mari and Italo go into conference to find the word.
“The word,” announces Mari, eventually, “is Perseverance.”
If you’re ever at WCT event you’ll note that Italo is the first
in the water, and last out, with the obvious exception of Margaret
River.
Event security know him and Mari well.
The dawn shift guard will lift the gate to the carpark to let
them and their rental car through and make the same joke,
“You again!”
“Thats why things happen, win contests, get good sponsors, you
need to dedicate one hundred percent to your job,” says Italo. “I
can win the world title one day because I am the guy who has the
perseverance.”
You almost won it last year, I say.
“Almost. I know. God’s plan. We never know. I’m here and I have
all this opportunity to win again. That’s why I work every single
day.”
Italo has a piece of paper with his career and life goals
written on it. He looks at it most days, more when he’s
stressed.
“When bad things happen,” he says.
Italo won’t tell me what’s on it or, for that matter what his
ongoing family problem is that he says is troubling hell out of
him, but says that when he wins the world title, and he emphasis
when, he’ll post a photo of the page on Instagram.
and there’s @ittalot_, for Italo’s nickname
is Eat-a-lot, named so for his insatiable appetite. The account
shows his photography: African animals, drone shots of beaches,
sunsets and so on.
What he don’t dig about Instagram, what he don’t understand is
the anonymous hits he, like everyone else who puts it out there,
gets.
“Sometimes stupid people say stupid things because some peoples
didn’t know what I do, what work I do outside the contests. I wake
up early, go to the gym and surf and when I surf a heat like with
Jack (Freestone) at Keramas…”
Italo stops and shakes his head.
His mango-sized deltoids pop as he squeezes his hands
together.
That heat at the Corona Bali Protected. Round of 32. Caught two
waves, one a botched turn for a 0.80, the other, three standard
turns for a miserly 3.97.
The year before he owned the joint, scored a ten, and won the
event.
This year?
“Every single day I was in the gym. Every single day at
five-thirty I was in the water. I train and I try to win that thing
and when I lose the stupid people say shitty things. Mari knows.
She saw the other surfers enjoying the pool and drink beers while I
was training and surfing five times in one day. I think this is not
cool.”
**********
You might’ve guessed that Italo ain’t your usual jock
surfer. He’s uncommonly, now what word we gonna throw in
here that doesn’t rip the top off his swinging masculinity…
Kind?
Loveable?
They all work. He’s a man with a sentimental
feeling.
Once they were sorted, he bought himself a house on the beach in
Baia and a restaurant in nearby, and fancier, Pipa Beach.
“Always trying to invest with my money rather than spend it all
on shitty things,” he says
Italo hates drugs and doesn’t party. Three pals died chasing the
dragon.
“You have two ways to go, the good one and the bad one. It’s a
choice,” he says.
I ask a final question.
What’s your path in life?
Italo doesn’t hesitate.
“To be a good surfer that everyone can remember…”
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The schmaltz problem: Has the WSL’s Erik
E-lo Logan lost the room?
By Longtom
We gave him the floor, listened and watched without
prejudice. What did we get? Films as obedient as a tame animal…
Since Erik Logan quit his post at Oprah Winfrey Network
on October eight last year to head up the newly formed WSL
Studios, he promised to shine the light on countless
stories from compelling characters, both within and beyond the
reaches of competition.
We gave him the floor, listened and watched without
prejudice.
Judged on the output of nine months worth of labour, I think
he’s lost the room.
I’ve never met the cat, but from the spicks and specks I heard
from Chas’ podcast he sounds like a sterling dude with the white
hot charisma and confidence only the bona fide American winner can
project.
A genuine and untouchable positivity exudes from every pore.
The problem is schmaltz, the problem is too much vanilla, the
problem is lack of drama, conflict; even anything as basic as a
sense of winning and losing.
As a human being it’s a recipe for success, as formula for
content; as basis and lens with which to tell story of compelling
character and story it bores terrifically.
The problem is schmaltz, the problem is too much vanilla, the
problem is lack of drama, conflict; even anything as basic as a
sense of winning and losing.
The much ballyhooed Sound Waves series where CT surfers
are mic’ed up could be sick. It’s a slog to get through a
ten-minute ep. The second one with
Connor Coffin at perfect Keramas, a comp that had
incredible drama, performances and world-title implications had 18
thousand views on You-Tube, with 18 comments.
The first two eps are focussed on Madagascar, très interesting.
The most vital scene is the mild but palpable sexual tension
between Sam and the proprietoress of the hotel as she tries to
teach him some words of Malagasy in a low-cut red dress.
Minutes later, we’d been transported to a bar in the red light
district of the town, nothing more than a pool table on a slab of
concrete surrounded by shanties with prostitutes washing their hair
into muddy ditches.
A huge black-and-white pig lay on its side by a heap of dumped
vegetables.The Captain wanted to drink and toast the good fortune
of the unexpected arrival of foreigners. He woke up his pal, who
hosed down the concrete and fetched us cold San Miguels.
From there, it gets blurry.
In the northern Phillipines it’s customary, in between beers, to
drink shots of gin. A small shot glass is filled, drunk and then
passed around, until the bottle is empty.
A karaoke machine will be found in even the smallest village,
powered by battery, or generator, or solar panel. The Captain
called his pals in: the Mayor of the Baranguay, the chief
registrar.
By midday, we were so drunk our eyeballs were sweating. The
Captain looked like Charles Bronson in Death
Wish, his pals looked like Charles Bronson.
More bottles of gin, more beer.
Then the Captain pulled a nine mm pistol out of his back pocket
and started waving it in my face while I was singing
Air Supply’s Love and
Other Bruises. He was saying something about his
daughter – had I offended him? – no not me, thank God. Anyone who
screwed with his daughter he would shoot and feed to the pigs.
He waved us into his jeep with the registrar up front. We drove
about ten miles out of town to a small clearing where some mangy
cattle grazed.
Was he about to execute us?
Even in my drunken state I exchanged nervous glances with my
companions. We were completely at the mercy of the captain.
No, the Captain merely wanted to loose some rounds on a shooting
range. Ping, ping, the bullets richocheted off the small metal
targets scattered around the clearing.
“You shoot, you shoot!”
I waved the gun away. Since my aunty got shot in the face by her
husband in a shooting accident, I could not stand the sight of
guns.
I’m not saying guns, booze and prostitutes are a stable
foundation for WSL studios to showcase sustainable surf tourism.
Just noting they make for interesting tales.
Remember him? I know, you’re sick to the back teeth of the
Russians. He was sent into House 6/1 to deal with a rogue Captain
who was holding off the German advance single-handedly and did not
take kindly to having his balls busted by a Soviet apparatchik.
The Captain shot Krymov.
The wounded Krymov wrote his report from hospital denouncing the
Captain only to find the Germans had over-run house 6/1 and the men
were now official Soviet War Heroes.
It was Krymov who was denounced and thrown in the Gulag.
I’m not saying the WSL should arrange to have a CT athlete
arrested and thrown in jail for arbitrary reasons.
But what a secret thrill to even imagine some mad little drama
happening.
Like when unofficial John John Florence security detail Peter
King tried to manhandle me off the beach.
My own fucking beach! Glorious.
Elo, you’ve lost the room.
Until you can find a way to put some grit in with the corn syrup
you’re going to find yourself shouting into a whole room of
nothingness.