Listen: “I already go to bed hating myself every night… but bless Jack Freestone and Alana Blanchard and the future of professional surfing!”

We live in the future!

We are officially living in the future, a vast Coronavirus pandemic erasing the entire past in just a few short weeks. When humanity emerges from its quarantine cocoon, things will be much different. 1 in 7 people won’t have jobs, professional basketball players will complete a shortened season in empty arenas, professional surfing will likely write off the 2020 tour and point toward 2021.

But does a tour make sense even then? Will sponsors be lining up to underwrite events that generate tens of thousands of views? Will co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff still have the money/desire to toss tens of millions after tens of millions holding onto some hope even after social distancing’s premier game couldn’t get ‘er done when it mattered?

Hmmmm.

And maybe professional surfing looks like a YouTube channel featuring fun, sun and parenting tips exactly like Jack Freestone and Alana Blanchard’s Happy Waves.

Oh it may sound like I’m fun making but I always sound like I’m fun making.

No.

Jack Freestone is handsome and winning. Alana Blanchard is beautiful and spirited. They both surf very fine, form an extremely cute family unit, speak YouTube fluently and generate more clicks and “engagement” in a month than Erik Logan’s World Surf League does all year even though Erik Logan is Oprah Winfrey’s prodigy and a Storyteller in Chief.

Hmmmm.

So?

Will the World Surf League transition to an agency representing “talent” and help “currate” surf-esque “shows” while rolling the tour back to “key events” that can hold much “ancillary content?”

David Lee Scales and I discuss this, Bill Gates and how much I go to bed, each night, hating myself. We broke quarantine to meet in San Clemente, in person, so this is back to being our best show yet.

When reached for comment World Surf League CEO Erik Logan said, “We are equally as aggressive in the development off-platform space as we are for the on-platform and even social space that you’re seeing. That is an area that obviously most people don’t see, and you only see the fruits of that development when deals are struck and when shows are announced, but the work is continuing at a very accelerated rate.”

Listen here!

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Watch: Brave San Diego surfer flees Coronavirus Gestapo while adoring public cheers him on!

The pièce de résistance!

And has the rebellion really and truly begun? The People™ finally having enough of a draconian Gestapo state and recalling that we were all once free to feel the sun on our skin, to toe the sand, to surf?

Possibly inspired by one thin man brave enough to order Asian fusion dishes and eat them outdoors?

It’s springtime for Hitler in the northern hemisphere, his fall in the southern.

Bondi Beach, near Sydney, is allegedly getting re-opened after a “wave of anger” from locals.

And in San Diego?

Derek Dunfee, noted big-wave surfer and photographer, captured his pièce de résistance yesterday, a wetsuited surfer fleeing the Coronavirus Gestapo while residents assist and cheer.

Watch here!

Beautiful.

Inspiring.

Surfing’s raised fist.

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New Zealand surfer (pictured) giving an entire nation Coronavirus and killing millions.
New Zealand surfer (pictured) giving an entire nation Coronavirus and killing millions.

Breaking: Coronavirus Gestapo collaborator becomes extremely agitated by lone surfer, attempts severe public shaming!

As surfers, it's time to rise up.

Hasn’t this farce run its course? Each day unfurls never-before-seen bizarre twists. Our elected officials chasing rule with rule with rule with rule with ticket with closure. Locking everything down and keeping it locked (save Santa Cruz) in the face of overwhelming evidence that the whole world is not, in fact, Wuhan, China.

Or New York City.

Population of Wuhan?

12 mil.

Population of New York City?

10 mil.

Population of New Zealand?

4 mil.

The entire country of four million people with much hobbits, sheep and open spaces mixed therein.

Social distancing to an extreme level even in the best of non-pandemic times, as hobbits and sheep don’t exist on the same breath plane as humans, but Karen’s gonna Karen as they say and I’m going to post the following piece from Glen “Karen” Scanlon in full because it may well be the high water mark of obscene tattle-taling in our time.

A work of art?

I think yes.

“Mind your own business,” the man sitting in the back of the white van is yelling at me.

I didn’t really catch it the first time, as my headphones are in. So I stare back rather blankly.

“Mind your own business and keep running,” he hollers.

I continue to stand and stare at him. Then I resolve not to mind my own business, hit send on the above picture and skip off.

White van man is parked next to Wellington’s Lyall Bay, where the sea is still pounding after yesterday’s southerly surge. This is on the same stretch of coastline where freak waves left a person in hospital and forced residents to evacuate their homes.

On the other side of white van man, about 20 metres away, where he can’t see them, are a series of people, appropriately spaced, staring out to sea agog. As a poignant reminder we’re in a pandemic, one is wearing a face mask.

White van man, me and the others have been watching a person, who must be his companion, attempting to surf in the large swells. I say attempting, because he didn’t succeed in catching a wave while I spent five minutes standing there gawking.

All around us, right to the other side of the road, are a reminder of the sea’s power – clumps of seaweed, large rocks and silt which has bubbled up through drains.

There’s a man picking his way through, collecting some of the detritus for his garden. Behind us, the airport is completely silent. There is no traffic. The cafe 200 metres away is shut. The shopping centre across the road may as well have tumbleweeds rolling through it. No one else is in the sea. The lady with the face mask is still watching. Everything screams this is not normal.

The majority of people are doing their utmost to help stop Covid-19 in its tracks. They’re sticking to the rules we’ve been begged to follow. Yes, this chafes against our natural inclinations but the terrible price of doing differently is not just our own suffering. The greater good relies on each of us doing the right, the sensible thing.

But for some reason Mr selfish surfer and white van man think they get a special pass.

It makes me angry, so I’m not minding my own business.

Glen, I’m sorry, Karen?

Mind your own fucking business.

More as the story develops.

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Santa Cruz local (pictured) all smiles after the announcement.
Santa Cruz local (pictured) all smiles after the announcement.

Breaking: Santa Cruz lifts ban on surfing, eating Asian fusion lunches outdoors!

Celebrate!

This Coronavirus Clampdown insanity had to end somewhere and who could have ever guessed that somewhere would be Ken “Skindog” Collins’ hometown of Santa Cruz, California where it was just announced that beaches, parks and other outdoor spaces are open for business.

Per the local news, “There is some encouraging news coming from the Santa Cruz County Health Office. As of Thursday, Santa Cruz is lifting the ban on surfing as well as opening beaches and parks. Santa Cruz County Health officials credit the community’s willingness to practice social distancing…”

And you’ll certainly recall Team Skindog’s stance, taken a few weeks ago, that surfing should most definitely be banned in order to stop the spread of disease. His position was directly countered by San Diego son Joel Tudor who made much fun and formed Team Tudor in order to encourage active surfing lifestyles.

Well, Santa Cruz is open, San Diego still under lock and key.

Will Skindog take credit?

Will common sense prevail down south or will furious locals revolt against the jackboot?

More as the story develops.

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Photo courtesy of Greg Vella/Facebook
Photo courtesy of Greg Vella/Facebook

Witness: Endangered two-ton Great White shark savagely choked to death by “troublingly kinky” sea turtle!

Haven't we learned?

The world has gone entirely topsy-turvy, I don’t need to tell you, as the once proud human race is, today, cowering indoors, hiding behind masks, lathering hand sanitizer on packages thrown from unmarked Amazon trucks, terrified of an itty-bitty little virus that traveled from China via commercial airliners and cruise ships.

Who would have ever believed?

All the madness, trouble, is yet another reminder that inter-species relationships of a sensual nature are problematic and should be routinely avoided.

Just imagine if that sexually adventurous libertine in Wuhan had decided not to kiss a bat. Just imagine how much wealth would still be in your retirement account.

Well, it appears that the desire for “variety” is not exclusively ours as a massive two-plus ton Great White shark was just discovered off the coast of Japan choked to death by a sea turtle in what can only be described as a “troublingly kinky” exchange.

The dangers of erotic asphyxiation are well-known but all too often ignored and let us turn to the Orlando Sentinel, hometown paper of a profligate town, for yet another lesson.

Perhaps the great white shark bit off more than it could chew. It’s not known why a 4,500-pound great white died, but when it was found, there was a massive sea turtle stuck in its mouth.

A Facebook post from an account by the name of Greg Vella to the Commercial Salmon, Albacore and & Crab Fishers group showed images of the great white that Vella said was found dead tangled in some netting while fishing off the shores of Japan.

Greg Vella/Facebook
Greg Vella/Facebook

“I was out commercial ‘ken ken’ style fishing for tuna (Japan, Pacific Ocean side) when I heard chatter on the radio that there was a white shark swimming around with a big sea turtle in is mouth,” reads the post. “People started to joke about it, so I did not pay it any more attention. Then next day, it was found dead, near the bait receivers, tangled in some netting.”

The images show the shark laid out on the docks next to local boats, but do not identify how long the shark was. The sea turtle seems to be half digested.

Worrisome what the two could have been getting up to as “half digested” deviancy is something I have never personally encountered.

More as the story develops.

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