Let's get ready to rumble!

But what are your true feelings on colonialism? Oh, you can speak freely here. We’re all friends and mostly products of and/or genetic participants in the Great Game. Do you, like Indonesia’s brave Soekarno,”…hate imperialism. I detest colonialism. And I fear the consequences of their last bitter struggle for life.” Or are you more like Thomas Pynchon, believing, “Colonies are the outhouses of the European soul, where a fellow can let his pants down and relax, enjoy the smell of his own shit.”

Well, wherever you land on that spectrum, France’s crown jewel of Tahiti, some 16,000 kilometers away from capital Paris, has emerged as the leading candidate to host the surfing portion of the 2024 Olympic Games

And let us go, quickly, to the French news service for the very latest.

The French Polynesian island of almost 200,000 inhabitants is a full 15,760km (9,755 miles) and a 23-hour flight away from the French capital.

The village of Teahupo’o boasts some of the biggest waves on the surfing map with regular large waves guaranteed in August.

The 48 surfers who make it to the Olympic finals will know the location well due to its place on the Billabong Pro circuit.

The name Teahupo’o translates as “to sever the head” and there have been five surf-related deaths there in the past 20 years.

“If the International Olympic Committee rubber stamp the project Tahiti could be adopted as host location on December 12,” one source told AFP.

Do you think the World Surf League is frustrated that it got called “The Billabong Pro” circuit?

More importantly, is pumping Olympic Teahupoo what it will take to turn the masses on to surfing? The great, yet-to-be-tapped-but-potential fan base stretching from Des Moines to Fresno?

Big, meaty, sever the head, Teahupoo feat. late drops, big wipeouts and a 54-year-old Kelly Slater?

Maybe.

But can the Billabong Pro circuit i.e. World Surf League wait a full 4.5 years for those masses to get turned on? Will co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff keep kicking our can down the road?

More as the story develops.

Worse than the black lung!

But what have you hustled in order to chase your surf dream? What job have you worked with decent wages and much time off so that you could fly here, there, to Indonesia for months at a time?

Oh it’s the surfer way and especially the Australian surfer way as those in that Lucky Country have a robust mining industry and very few citizens to work it. An enterprising Gold Coast lad can, conceivably, head to the wide open western spaces, crawl down a shaft and months later emerge with enough salary to fly here, there, to Indonesia for months at a time.

A dream?

Yes.

But also a dream with potential pitfalls for as revealed today in the United Kingdom’s well-respected Daily Mail, mining tycoons often suffer from the very rare disease of “sexsominia.”

What is sexsominia?

Well being sexually aggressive while asleep, I think, but the United Kingdom’s august Daily Mail will set our record straight. Let us go there without delay.

A Canadian businessman who is accused of sexually assaulting his blind date says he was experiencing ‘sexsomnia’ during the alleged incident.

Karl Richard Antonius, president and CEO of Boreal Metals Corps, pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting a woman in 2015 during his trial this week in Vancouver, Canada.

In response to prosecutors, the 51-year-old claims he suffered from sexsomnia at the time of the alleged incident and therefore was not in complete control of his actions.

Sexsomnia, or Sleep Sex, is a sleeping disorder similar to sleep walking that causes an individual to involuntarily engage in sexual acts.

The initial accusations against Antonius were made in April by an unidentified woman who testified that he sexually assaulted her in his apartment.

Vancouver Sun reports that the two had visited several places before she lost her keys and Antonius suggested they go to his ‘work’ apartment at the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel.

The woman says she had no interest in having sex with Antonius and wanted to get some sleep before tackling the task of finding her keys the next day.

On and on the horror tale goes and I can see Australian surfers panicking now, wondering if their mining bosses suffer the same affliction.

Do they?

Is sexsomnia like the black lung?

Maybe.

Should Australian mine working surfers be worried?

Probably.

But also, seriously, which job is your surfiest job?

Mine (no pun intended)?

Piloting a submarine of course.

Give the gift of BeachGrit!

What is your favorite holiday movie of all time? Do you go for the classics like White Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street, the modern classics like Home Alone and Elf or the super-modern, likely-to-be-classics like The Best Man Holiday?

Me?

Oh, I go for the darkly poetic The Silence of the Lambs, which came out January 30, 1991, counting as the very far reaches of “holiday.”

There is one scene in particular that really speaks to me. The famous one where Buffalo Bill is dancing to Goodbye Horses while getting all gussied up as his guest tries to befriend his dog.

When I watch, I picture the World Surf League’s President of Storytelling Erik “ELo” Logan as Buffalo Bill and you in the pit. Instead of him putting on the body parts of previous victims and make-up, though, I picture him putting on BeachGrit merchandise.

I picture him putting on our Ultra Hard Beach Candy t-shirt.

Heck, sometimes I even picture him putting on our “Girls” t-shirt, a print which Derek Rielly describes as, “Our boldest yet.”

Buy here!

In each and every case, though, I picture you in the bottom of the pit trying to coax Kelly Slater to come save you by throwing chia seeds and conspiracy theories.

A nice scene, no?

Go Black Friday at BeachGrit and give the gift of… imagination!

With every boom comes a bust!

Today is Black Friday in the United States of America and I believe many other countries have taken up this ode to unchecked materialism as well. Do you celebrate with “door busters” etc. in Australia? Are stores running half-off cachaça sales in Brazil? Can overweight men be seen, right now, clubbing each other with loaded Harrods shopping bags in Jolly Old England?

I assume yes. But speaking of England, its newest wave tank at Bristol is up and running and I wonder how many of the United Kingdom’s surfers will find a day pass to The Wave under 2019’s Christmas tree? Or how many Victorians will find a BOGO coupon to Melbourne’s URBNSRF in their stocking hung by the chimney with care?

The wave tank explosion certainly is impressive and would have been impossible to foresee without Kelly Slater’s voodoo eyes a decade ago. There are so many that I can no longer keep them straight. Thankfully there is an online magazine dedicated solely to plungers, sleds, etc. and it is my pleasure to direct you toward Wave Pool Mag for all your curiosities and needs. They even have a wonderful podcast.

And I should be lobbing this question to them but it will be more fun to carry on ill-informed. Because as I see it, there is no way all the various technologies can stay viable and in business.

Take Surf Lakes, for example. After a botched preview ambassador/owners Barton Lynch and Mark Occy tried to get on the sled and reset but was anyone watching with URBNSURF coming online?

And while Kelly Slater and Co. bulldoze pristine land Australia, in an environmentally beneficial fashion, for their first open-to-the-public offering, Waco seems to still be firing right along with no end in sight. There’s going to be a private, members only facility in Palm Springs to compete with other Palm Springs pools but… the question I have for you, this Black Friday, the important matter for you to fully engage, is which facility will declare bankruptcy first?

Which glorious vision, millions in building, exciting marketing drawings etc. will be crumpled, shuttered and written off as a loss?

As a bonus question, which entire technology will first go into the dumpster? Or are the plungers, sleds, etc. all going to thrive?

They’re not all going to thrive. So which one will you be able to buy next year for free as long as you agree to haul it out?

Have fun shopping!