Bad parking etc.

And I am still coming to terms with the wonderful, the fantastic, the otherworldly end to our 2019 professional surfing season. Jaws delivering such a show then Pipeline, defying all odds, serving up the best final’s day since those ancient Peruvians, high on cocaine, first pushed their “little horses” into the waves (buy here).

Everyone, every single man, woman and child across the entire globe celebrating the week. Not one person, outside the extended Medina family, mad.

No?

Apparently.

For rage, pure angry rage, is coursing through the usually good-natured island of Maui and directed at the World Surf League over the aforementioned Big Wave Championships but don’t take my word for it, please. Let us turn to the well-respected San Francisco Chronicle for all the juicy details.

A World Surf League competition has drawn complaints of trespassing, blocked roads and parking overflow from Maui residents.

Residents near Peahi on the island’s north shore issued the complaints about the 2019 Jaws Big Wave Championships event Dec. 12, The Maui News reported Thursday.

Residents of the main access road to the event for both drivers and spectators said traffic was backed up due to minimal parking options, construction and spectator street crossings, while some roads were blocked.

On the piece goes, growling locals sneering at our WSL. Santa Monica’s response?

The World Surf League said it has prior knowledge of the start date and event details, but cannot predict attendance at the free event.

“While we control all access to the event venue because it is on private property, we were not able to control the County of Maui-owned land where all the spectators gathered,” spokesperson Lauren Rolland said.

Resident Kolette Gunnison believes the surfing league should be responsible for ensuring road safety.

“Everybody knows that there’s traffic and the worst part about it is the pedestrians in the street, bad parking, cars are sticking out,” Gunnison said. “It’s just the danger factor of it all.”

Hmmmmm.

I’m going to side with the WSL here. Grouchy neighbors are lame.

No?

Starting with when the ancient Greeks wrestled naked in the sand?

When the sun set yesterday on, inarguably, the greatest day in professional surfing’s history, I began to ponder the 2019 season as a whole and how truly fabulous it was. There were explosive performances, titillating scandals, scintillating rivalries, anger, joy, beauty, pain, wild wild almost too much wild fun…

…and a dull, monosyllabic hum emanating from the Wall of Positive Noise.

A fantastic season covered beautifully by Longtom, Jen See, Nick Carroll, Sean Doherty… even sometimes Li’l Mikey Cinnamon but fumbled at every turn by the sporting organizational and storytelling body that runs the entire show.

And how could the World Surf League fail to capitalize so spectacularly, so comprehensively on something so prima facie brilliant?

That damned Wall of Positive Noise put on absolute display yesterday, as it had been all year, when a simmering rivalry played out onscreen between world champ hopeful Gabriel Medina and his tormentor Caio Ibelli.

Gabriel burns Caio purposefully, payback for an interference in the last contest, that cost Gabriel his locking up the World Title, and admits it onstage during his post-heat interview while jaws from California to Calcutta remained on the floor.

A brilliant tactical move. A clear violation of WSL Rule 171.11. An arguable violation of WSL Rule 171.11, at the very least.

There was enough in that moment to power an entire two seasons of a Netflix series and yet, and yet, the WSL insisted on leaving it all to rot unpicked.

Silent.

Crazy.

Crazy that the surf fan world was buzzing across multiple platforms, from BeachGrit‘s first mention to Stab‘s clumsy attempt at getting in on the action to Kelly Slater dropping into Caio’s Instagram to comments, tweets, Facebook posts, phone calls, texts racing between friends spread across the globe.

But not one mention from Ronnie, Joe, 89 or Barton etc.

The mouthpieces of Vichy surfing.

I am certain there is much back-slapping and congratulating in Santa Monica today for a job well done but there should only be shame.

Shame and embarrassment at what might have been. A season worth the non-surfing sport fan’s interest. Shame for being the most flat-footed sport-governing body in the history of mankind.

Either unable or unwilling to perceive the utterly compelling narratives playing out in real time in a universe entirely in its own control.

Either unable or unwilling to dance.

See you next year when we tear this motherfucker down.

And listen to more unhinged ranting here!

Welcome to the future.

And you have have certainly heard of the French astrologer Nostradamus who penned the 1555 best-seller Les Prophéties which predicted, among other things, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001 some 400-odd years early. His forward-thinking augury is, to this day, mind-blowing and many wonder if we will ever see his like again.

Well, these things too are hard to predict but it appears as if a modern Nostradamus is walking amongst us today, toiling as a surf journalist who also studies the behavior of sharks.

In 2012, he traveled to Oahu’s North Shore and there began a work of narrative non-fiction that would be published the next year under the title Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell (buy here). It was a relative obscure offering, though did earn a coveted PEN Award nomination but our interest lies in an entire chapter dedicated to two, then, very young surfers: Kolohe Andino and John John Florence.

Chapter 14: You Said That You Could Let It Go. Or, a Contest

But excellence at a young age in surfing guarantees nothing, except possibly a rehab-worthy drug problem. Being a prodigy is as much a strike against as it is a way forward. And Kolohe and John John are both prodigies.

Both have been in the spotlight since they were children and both are dealing with the shoulder-stooping pressure of being prodigies on the brink of adulthood. The speculation about what they may become is now meaningless. They will either become great, today in the biggest opening day of the Pipeline Masters ever, literally not figuratively, or sink into the annals of surfing’s folk history.

The surf industry hedges by betting on both Kolohe and John John. It speaks highly of both. But, truthfully, the surf industry doesn’t know shit. By and large, its last good idea was turning cocaine profits into boardshorts. By and large, it has become entirely reactionary, conservative, and petty. There are still some brands that maintain a fine image and make fine products that are both stylistically hip and true to the space.

But it is hard when everyone has gone public and boards and chairmen from equity groups have the final say. So most industry brands pull advertisements from magazines for controversial pieces and the most stupidly tame pieces alike. They complain, bitterly, about virtually everything just like a senile old grandpa. An article about sunglasses ran recently on Surfing Magazine’s website, for instance, and a small company from Encinitas, California, was not included.

A hundred and ten people looked at the story but the company felt so totally shattered that they sent nasty emails to Tony Perez about how unfair everything is and that they buy ads and expect to be included and blah blah blah. Blah. That is the surf industry. And even betting on both Kolohe and John John may bring only more hurt old feelings.

Kolohe Andino, down the beach, is the future of surfing and John John Florence, up the beach, is also the future of surfing but they are two different futures. They are a fork in the road. Kolohe is blue chip, corpo. He is million-dollar Super Bowl television commercials. He is kids in Nebraska buying Nike Surf trunks and wearing them to their local swimming pool.

And John John is core. Super core. He is the first explorers who tackled towering waves at Waimea, Sunset, and Pipeline. He is dingy kids fearlessly paddling out at waves that will crush them because that is what it means to be a surfer.

Kolohe and John John. The California prodigy with the Hawaiian name and the Hawaiian prodigy named after the most eastern-seaboard-establishment celebrity ever.

The chapter goes on and on, taking unexpected twists and turns but comes back around to Kolohe and John John, predicting their greatness.

Yesterday the two were announced as the official provisional men’s U.S. Olympic Surf Team.

The question now is, what else does this surf journalist with a passing interest in cocaine (buy here) know?

More as the story develops.