Watch: New York Sculptor Tom Sachs’ thirty-minute paean to the Vulnerable Adult Learner Surfer!

Only today's demented society could make such a movie…

If there’s anything the 2010s will be remembered for, it’s the rise and rise of the Vulnerable Adult Learner Surfer.

Meteoric, as the Greeks say.

This thirty-minute film, How to Learn How to Surf, follows the travails of a group of New York VALs as they struggle to come to terms with their impotence in the ocean and the futility of their doomed pursuit.

There is no expense spared in their quest.

The group stays at Rizal Tanjung’s surf resort Disa Limasan with its six pretty Javanese-style houses parked in lush green paddocks overlooking three bays in the East Javanese village of Watu Kerung.

Cars, boats and surf coaches, which include Riz, Balinese shredder Marlon Gerber and Newport’s Punker Pat, are on call.

And yet, success is elusive, impossible.

If you don’t surf, don’t start, has never been more appropriate.

Still, it’s an oddly compelling movie if only to illuminate the thought processes of VALs.

How to Learn How to Surf was created by Tom Sachs, the fifty-three-year-old New York sculptor, who made his name in 1994 with a Christmas window display for Barneys called Hello Kitty Nativity.

Sachs fashioned the Virgin Mary as a Chanel bra-wearing Hello Kitty, the stable had a a McDonalds logo and the Three Kings were modelled as Bart Simpson.

My favourite work of Sachs is his Chanel guillotine  from 1998, a riposte to the home of world couture that was still decapitating its citizens, and others, as late as 1977

Chanel Guillotine by Tom Sachs.

Breaking: Oahu, Hawaii’s Westside “Birthplace of Mixed Martial Arts” set to receive brand new wave tank!

Welcome to paradise, now you're in hell!

If there is one common refrain seasonal tourists mumble on their way in and out of Honolulu International Airport it is, “Oahu doesn’t have enough waves. Pipeline? Yawn. Waimea? Snore. Queens, Makaha, Off-the-Wall, Sunset, Pupukea, Zippers, Ala Moana Bowls…. booooring.”

Well, ever aiming to please, the state body has tentatively OK’d an inland wave tank and let’s learn all about what is being called Honokea Surf Village directly from Hawaii’s KITV, your home for island news.

Surfing in Hawaii may be getting a whole new look on land.

A proposed park project called Honokea Surf Village could be built on 19 acres of vacant state land in Kalaeloa

The center of it would include a 5-acre wave pool where big and small waves will be generated for pros and first timers. The proposed plans also include a lazy river, skate park, buildings and more.

Total cost of the project is an estimated 72 million dollars.

It’s not clear when construction will begin.

Wednesday, the Hawaii Community Development Authority gave the company HK Management the OK to explore the feasibility of the spot.

KITV reached out to the developers behind the surf village for more details but we have not yet heard back.

Many questions.

Which technology will the tank employ? Wavegarden? Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch? American Wave Machines?

How will localism be enforced?

Will the wave reach 50 feet every eight or so years for a possible running of the Eddie?

Many, many questions.


"I hate you."
"I hate you."

Revealed: Great White shark attacked Mick Fanning in South Africa due intense personal hatred for Australian champ not over color of board!

Science.

It seems like an entire lifetime since Australian champion Michael Eugene Fanning was attacked by a Great White shark whilst surfing a heat in South Africa but it was only 2015.

The greatest moment in World Surf League history? Yes, especially since surfing’s governing body has only been around since 2015. Or maybe 2014. In any case, I image that day fired co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff’s capitalist spirit. I bet he saw the spike of international wall-to-wall coverage and thought, “People love professional surfing!”

Of course he was wrong and also rude to think about such things as Mick Fanning was struggling with the heavy existential question of “Why.” Why had the shark tangled with him and not Julian Wilson or Jordy Smith or Gabriel Medina? What had he done?

After much wrestling, he deduced that it was the color of his surfboard that led to the terrifying incident and let’s reminisce, briefly, with Time magazine.

Australian surfer Mick Fanning—who made headlines around the world last month after he fended off a shark attack in South Africa’s Jeffreys Bay on live television—was back in competition for the first time since that incident this weekend, but without his trusty yellow surfboard.

After hearing that some divers called the color of his old board “yum yum yellow” because it is thought to attract sharks, Fanning opted to swap his yellow board for blue and black one, Australian news portal news.com.au reports.

Well, a brand-new, just released scientific study directly debunks the “yum yum yellow” theory and let’s turn to everyone’s favorite SciTechDaily for the latest in a provocative article titled: “Fascinating Shark and Ray Vision Evolution Research Reveals Sharks Can’t See Colors.”

In his team’s new study, they have shown that all cartilaginous fishes, similar to the marine mammals, have lost the SWS1 and SWS2 opsin genes. Sharks and rays do contain both rod and cone photoreceptors; however rays possess two cone opsin genes whereas sharks have only one cone. Sharks therefore were found to have lost the ability to see colors.

“Furthermore, we provided measurements of the spectral characteristics of the visual pigments expressed in nine species of ray and two species of shark,” said Hart. “We can now confirm that all the shark species studied to date appear to be cone monochromats but report that in different species the single cone opsin may be of either the LWS or the RH2 class of opsins.”

“Broadly speaking, color discrimination may be useful for behaviors such as prey detection, predator avoidance, and mate choice. Given that many ray species spend considerable periods of time resting on or partially buried in the substrate, color vision may instead aid in the detection of approaching overhead predators through either enhancement of visual contrast or elimination of achromatic flicker.”

So, since sharks can’t see colors it can only mean that the Great White attacked Mick Fanning there in South Africa due an intense personal hatred.

What had Mick done?

How should he now feel?

Is there a way for the World Surf fLeague to further monetize?

More as the story develops.


Discretion advised when swimming with Whites.

Shark fisherman reveals secrets of Great Whites: “Three-second memories, cage diving doesn’t teach ’em to associate humans with food (but) if you’re in the water with a hungry White you’re finished!”

“If you can’t dance, don’t go to the party....”

I just hung up the phone with a forty-year vet of the South Australian fisheries industry, a guy I won’t name ’cause emotions run to boiling when it comes to Great Whites.

And, who needs either side, the killers or the huggers, twisting your words to either hang or beatify you?

Figured he’d have an interesting take on the animal that he sees almost every day he takes his little boat out to get his piece of the ocean.

On attacks: “I’d hate to see a shark attack on a person. I’ve seen ’em hit other shit and they’re no different to a Bull Mastiff dog once they get a bit of a sniff in their nostrils. If you’re in the water and there’s a hungry White you’re finished.”

On cage-diving boats attracting Whites: “One shark expert I met from Holland suggested that shark boats don’t have any bearing because they don’t have that repetitive memory. I agree. But while they may have three-second memories, they’ve got their engraved compass of life, what they do, where they travel to, that stuff’s in ’em, and that’s why they go to places like the Neptune Islands, but the will to survive overcomes everything. If they smell something they’ll have a look. If the Pointer’s just eaten, he might swim right past you. Others are starving and they have a completely different attitude.”

On behavioural differences between Whites: “They’re a big, beautiful creature but some are dumb as dog shit or haven’t developed a fear for anything while others, usually older one, are more agile more wary. All have different characteristics. Some will break the surface, for instance, while others won’t go near it.”

On Whites and water temperature: “They don’t like the warm water. It’s gotta be sixteen or seventeen degrees. Down around Cactus, the water’s been too warm. There hasn’t been any close encounters or even real legit sightings since 2000 when Jevan Wright and Cameron Bayes were taken.”

On the prevalence of big Whites: “The numbers are increasing but you don’t see as many sixteen-or-seventeen footers anymore. It’s been years since I saw I big one. But lots of little one, five-to-twelve feet. No tags on ’em either and they’re tagging ’em flat out.”

On beached dead whales: “Going surfing within twenty-miles of a dead whale is a no, no. Whites are steaming up and down the coast and can’t find it because it’s out of the water and they’re losing their minds. The big night tides wash all the oil, this big puddle of stinking dead whale out to sea, and the sharks follow it.”

On culling: “It’s cruel. If you can’t dance, don’t go to the party.”


Breaking: John Florence and Kolohe Andino will not be “allowed” to protest for Hawaiian sovereignty at the Tokyo Olympics!

Time for rebels to rebel!

If professional surfing is known for one thing it is that its professional surfers, passionate, wise, knowledgable love to use their elevated social position to shine light on various injustices happening across the globe.

From Rwanda to Darfur, climate change to the Syrian Civil War professional surfers are there making their voices heard, making our voices heard but alas, this summer in Tokyo when professional surfing makes its Olympic debut there will be no fists raised in the air to demand Hawai’i regains its brutally stolen sovereignty. No knee on the ground when the usurper’s flag floats above Brazil’s and Australia’s and the usurper’s song plays loud.

For it was announced yesterday that the International Olympic Committee, responsible for rules etc., has decreed there shall be no protests allowed. No protests of any kind.

What? You don’t trust a surf-themed tabloid with predilection for sharks? Well, let us turn together to Jeff Bezos’ The Washington Post for more.

The International Olympic Committee warned athletes Thursday not to participate in specific forms of political protest at the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo, including kneeling, political hand gestures and wearing or holding signs or armbands.

The committee published a three-page document of guidelines to fortify Rule 50 of the International Olympic Charter, which states in part, “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

“We needed clarity, and they wanted clarity on the rules,” Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, chair of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, which helped create the new document, told the Associated Press. “The majority of athletes feel it is very important that we respect each other as athletes.”

But aren’t professional surfers wild rebels who refuse to do what the man tells them?

Yes. We were all cut from a contrarian stock and I think John Florence’s, Kolohe Andino’s, protest for Hawai’ian freedom will bring the iconic moment of these Games.

Mele Kalikimaka!