Back in the spring of 2020, I didn't surf for forty-eight days straight, kid. Wow, did you win a medal? Or did people think you were a steaming wiener? | Photo: @meatballs

Report from Santa Barbara: “Surfing has not handled Corona with surefooted grace. We swing dizzyingly between smug righteousness and angry nihilism. Neither feels or looks especially good”

Each day, Instagram offers up a parade of people determined to signal their virtuous self-denial. I’m not surfing! Look at me not surfing! As though following the rules is worthy of a medal.

For one thing, it was hot.

That night, the winds came, scouring through the passes, hurtling down the mountains, hot as the devil’s breath. I slept fitfully, tangled sheets and fevered dreams, the sound of dry leaves rustling, restless. Sunrise came too bright, too early.

I head down to the beach where a small, sloppy windswell is almost enough to ride if you squint at it with enough optimism. Everyone else has the same idea and we dodge and weave, trying to keep our distance. Chatting with friends, we stand awkwardly, not quite six feet apart, but not quite close either.

I paddle out, spring’s still-cold water welcome in the disorienting heat. It’s April, but it feels like late summer. I wander lost in the desert and dream of ice cream.

A girl in the lineup I’ve never seen before tries to chat me up. She tells me she’s from Camarillo. She wants to know how the spot works, when it’s good. I tell her I don’t really know, which isn’t entirely a lie. I check it a lot. Sometimes, I get lucky.

I have found the things I hated before Corona, I hate infinitely more now. The SUP strafing the lineup? So much hate. The snitchy, pearl-clutching Karens on the internet? Still hate ‘em. The guy who tried to burn me yesterday? “No! Fuck you!” I yelled with zero regrets. Heat waves. I hate heat waves even more than I believed possible.

A girl in the lineup I’ve never seen before tries to chat me up. She tells me she’s from Camarillo. She wants to know how the spot works, when it’s good. I tell her I don’t really know, which isn’t entirely a lie. I check it a lot. Sometimes, I get lucky.

On the whole, surfing has not handled Corona with surefooted grace. We swing dizzyingly between smug righteousness and angry nihilism. Neither feels — or looks — especially good. Surfing isn’t rainbows and unicorns during the best of times, and this is certainly not the best of times.

Each day, Instagram offers up a parade of people determined to signal their virtuous self-denial.

I’m not surfing! Look at me not surfing!

As though following the rules is worthy of a medal, as though doing the bare minimum is worthy of great praise and adulation. Look at me, I’m amazing! Yes, yes you are, you precious darling.

The rest of us struggle to rise above our own worst impulses. Fuck the rules, spraypaint the walls.

“Surfing is not a crime,” reads new graffiti at Malibu.

Resentment burns and festers against hikers, against anyone on a bike, against everyone, really. We dream up intricate strategies designed to evade the rules, sometimes with embarrassingly hilarious results (Looking at you, Trestles boat guy).

The whole thing feels like a test: Are you an asshole? You drove an hour or more, past the closed beaches near where you live, across a county line or several, to go for a surf. You put your drone in the car and you went down to the beach, just so you could later post a video online to shame people for going outside. You burned a local.

Entitlement breeds a bitchy new localism. Just let us surf. Close the beaches to everyone else, never mind the law, never mind any nice notions like equity or fairness. Surfers have always been selfish, but these days, it feels like everyone’s become an exaggerated version of themselves.

The whole thing feels like a test: Are you an asshole? You drove an hour or more, past the closed beaches near where you live, across a county line or several, to go for a surf. You put your drone in the car and you went down to the beach, just so you could later post a video online to shame people for going outside. You burned a local.

There are so many ways to be an asshole, these days. It’s hard to keep count. Are you making things better, or just performing virtue? Are you thinking about the people around you, or do you just not give a fuck? The bar isn’t set terribly high, not really, but it’s just high enough to trip and land facefirst. And so many of us are suddenly so clumsy.

I ride my bike down the street, past the restaurants offering curbside pickup, past the porta-potties the city has supplied for the homeless people, who panhandle vacant sidewalks.

The Forever 21 is stripped bare. Only the fixtures remain, forlorn and empty. At Tillys, a Sharpied sign tells UPS to go around the back, and at Brandy Melville, the clothing is off the hangers, stacked up on a table, entombed in plastic. Fast fashion, here today, who knows about tomorrow. There’s no forever now.

They boarded up the Volcom store, but the city must have objected, because a few days later, the plywood disappeared. The mannikins stare blankly out at the mostly empty street, all dressed up in fresh boardshorts for summer, if we ever get there.

Two doors down, the Billabong store turned their mannikins around, and their backs face the street. A blue-hued image of a tropical island hangs in the window, a postcard from the past, a dream for the future.

I put on my face bikini, this spring’s hottest new accessory, and head to the grocery store. I feel ready for anything. Rob a bank, start a riot. In truth, I’m just hoping for ice cream, some fresh produce, and a roll or two of toilet paper. Maybe if I’m lucky there’ll be some pasta, one of the good shapes, not the shit-small shapes made for soup, the shapes that no one actually buys ever, even now.

My mind wanders in strange directions.

I have a sudden desire to longboard Waikiki, even though I can’t ride a longboard, not properly, not with any grace at all. I imagine getting in a car and driving as far, as fast as I can, down the empty highway to the vanishing point, with the stereo cranked as loud as it will go. But I hate driving.

The days fade one into the next, mostly indistinguishable.

Is it May or July?

I’m not really sure.

I can count the days by the length of my hair, which rapidly approaches full feral hippy.

The sun beats down, unfeeling and unforgiving.

Here I am, standing on the same street corner.

Another day, another espresso.

Is it today or yesterday, and will tomorrow be any different at all?


Growth Market: New development featuring “largest in United States” 6 acre surf park set to break ground in central Virginia!

Broad appeal, attracting spectators!

David Lee Scales and I had a recent chat about the viability of surf tanks in the time of the Chinese Flu. He was bearish, thinking the financing would dry up and hordes of jobless citizens would be too busy murdering each other over corn husks and dying to care about the freshwater barrel experience. I was bullish, thinking that air travel will be more costly over the coming years and nations less likely to desire tourists thereby creating “local” surf vacations to Waco, Palm Springs and Chesterfield County there in the middle of Virginia.

But let’s read about the just unveiled Chesterfield County development, two hours from the Atlantic, that is to include the largest surf park in these United States.

Since the project, which the developers are calling “The Lake,” was zoned in March 2017, (local real estate developer Brett) Burkhart has scrapped plans for a whitewater rafting course modeled after the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Instead, he decided to create a surf park with customizable wave technology that can accommodate both beginner and professional surfers. At 6 acres, the Chesterfield surf park will be three times bigger than a similar facility, BSR Surf Resort in Waco, Texas, that opened in 2018.

The development will feature a PerfectSwell wave pool manufactured by California-based American Wave Machines, which gives the operator push-button control over the size and type of waves being generated.

Burkhart thinks that potentially could position Chesterfield to host surfing competitions, while also providing a recreational venue for people to surf or boogie board without having to make the two-hour trek to Virginia Beach.

“The business model is comparable to whitewater, but after realizing the broad appeal and its ability to attract spectators, I was convinced this could be something unique and successful in Central Virginia,” Burkhart said in a recent interview.

First, the abandoned super core whitewater rafting course sounds very fun. No? I am already a big fan of the manmade lazy river experience. You know, the meandering chlorine snake-shaped pools carrying children and adults along at a leisurely pace. Make that river un-lazy and even funner. No? Especially if the adults are allowed to ride with “Yards of Ale” like they are in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Second, what is your opinion on the viability of wave tanks for 2021 and beyond? Bullish or bearish?

Third, what will Kelly Slater do to steal limelight from “largest in the United States” claim?

More as the story develops.


Celestial rose Erik Logan and happy Patty.

WSL missionaries Erik Logan and Pat O’Connell star in episode six of Dirty Water: “BeachGrit is authenticity, he is the beating heart of what we love, the kryptonite to the Wall of Positive Noise!”

Fruitless discourse!

What a day of surprises.

First, the World Surf League, based in a Santa Monica, California still under a heavy Coronavirus Gestapo jackboot even though the Chinese Flu has been defeated, delivered a stunning missive hinting at further sheltering in place during 2020 but a large-scale overhaul for 2021.

How will that look?

What will that be?

Surprise beyond surprise World Surf League CEO and Commander over the Wall of Positive Noise and Senior Vice President of Tours and Correct Thought Pat O’Connell came upon Dirty Water (subscribe somewhere), a podcast featuring Derek Rielly as David Letterman and Chas Smith as Paul Shaffer.

Don’t believe?

Here, from the intro:

I’m Derek Rielly with Charlie Smith and welcome to Dirty Water, a hit of fruitless discourse where opinion is everything and facts rarely matter.

Whatever you think of us and of our swinging attitudes, we promise you’ll never be bored.

Today on Dirty Water, we’ve got two guests, surprise guests, I guess you could call ‘em.

The first is a former sparring partner of Kelly Slater, a Chicago-born honey blonde with a little vibrating laugh and wrinkles on his face like cat whiskers.

He is a former world number eleven, 1998, a former surf co executive, The Realm and Hurley, and he once told Surfer he wanted to be friends with everybody on tour.

Introducing the WSL’s Senior Vice President of Tours & Head of Competition.

Mr Pat O’Connell.

Along with Patty, is the SUP king of Manhattan Beach; he is the architect of the WSL’s famous Wall of Positive Noise; he is the former president of Oprah Winfrey Network and is the former president of Content, Media and WSL Studios.

He wears clothes in the girly pastel colours of Lucky Charms cereal.

Introducing current WSL CEO and “avid waterman” Erik Logan.

Now.

Erik… Why are you here for this specially arranged session? Pat, I can understand, we go way back. But, I did a little research in our back end and we’ve run one hundred and forty stories with your name in the headline. None have been even vaguely complimentary.

Intrigued?

Even Party Pete has to be horny.

Listen here!


The pressure to say something, anything, must have been enormous. So we get a very haggard, gaunt looking Erik “Elo” Logan coming to the podium early this morning Australian time. Hair greasy, million watt smile gone.

Longtom on WSL CEO Erik Logan’s tour change speech: “The dream job of turning WSL into a media company has been torpedoed, and now the bare bones of what the WSL purports to be: a sporting machine designed to pump out a credible World Champion at year’s end are on display and looking very, very shaky!”

Hair greasy, million watt smile gone.

Wow!

Pro surfing just got completely turned on its ear with an announcement this morning via video (the closest the WSL gets to a proper presser) by CEO Erik Logan of a completely restructured Tour in 2021 and no start date for 2020, perhaps the closest thing yet to an admission that the Tour is cooked for this year.

A quick rewind is in order and some context, before we slice the main meat off the bone from ELO’s presser.

World Sport has obviously been gutted by the pandemic, but the noise has been getting louder from professional leagues around the world of at least tentative plans to get action happening again.

The English Premier League, one of the wealthiest sporting leagues on earth, has been making plans for a summer reload under it’s Project Restart banner.

Formula One, with it’s reliance on global travel, has rescheduled the year and making plans to race again.

Australian football codes have named starting target dates to get the game going again.

From the WSL, in the last six weeks there has been nothing.

Complete silence.

The pressure to say something, anything, must have been enormous.

So we get a very haggard, gaunt looking Erik “Elo” Logan coming to the podium early this morning Australian time.

Hair greasy, million watt smile gone.

The dream job of turning WSL into a media company has been torpedoed, and now the bare bones of what the WSL purports to be: a sporting machine designed to pump out a credible World Champion at year’s end are on display and looking very, very shaky.

Here’s the gist of ELO’s pronouncements.

The Championship Tour, as we know it, and as it has existed moreorless in stable form since the early 90’s is gone daddy gone.

What we will have now is a rejigged Challenger Series taking up the first quarter or third of the year, which will serve as an on-ramp to a truncated CT which comprises the rest of the year.

No details given on number of events or where events will be held but that obvs means huge changes and the Aussie leg, the only leg that has ever made financial sense due to govt support, is likely to be sacrificed to the new Challenger Series*.

The climax of the year, to produce a World Champion, will involve some kind of surf-off, in an as yet to be detailed format. Elo used last year’s Pipe Masters Finale between first and second as the desired template but as to how that situation is achieved we have been given no clues.

Only that finishing the “regular” year in first place would confer some kind of advantage.

OK, great.

Back to the abandoned Goldschmidt plan.

I wonder if Sophie watched the Elo video with a wry smile.

The entry to the CT, the QS is finished. At least as far as the missing letter W, as in World goes.

Now there will be a patchwork of regional QS events, with the aim of reducing world travel and hence costs for upcoming surfers with a dream of qualification.

How the fuck this will work in practice is anyones guess.

Once again, Elo threw this spitball out with no details.

Many, many more questions than answers on this issue.

It does throw the whole financial viabilty of the Tour in question, seeing as the QS with it’s legions of starry eyed kids all chipping in big-time to compete was one of the WSL’s more reliable cash cows.

With that gone, or severely attenuated, where does the funding stream come from?

Of course, the devil will be in the details and we only know the broadest outlines at the moment.

With no Tour to distract him and a captive audience the moment was there to be seized. Instead, what we’ve seen has been the utter bankruptcy of that idea. I tuned into the WSL the other day and watched a moustachioed cat spruiking pop-out mid-lengths at surf ranch. It was only compelling because it was so completely bizarre that this somehow passed muster as “content”.

Elo promised further announcements on June 1.

That’s if he lasts that long. This pandemic has been particularly cruel to sporting CEO’s, especially those whose threadbare business models have been left spinning in the breeze.

The reason for hiring Elo, the big pitch, was his promise to bring the magic of story-telling in to transform the WSL into a media powerhouse. From that perspective the pandemic should have been a golden opportunity for Elo’s vision to be realised.

With no Tour to distract him and a captive audience the moment was there to be seized. Instead, what we’ve seen has been the utter bankruptcy of that idea. I tuned into the WSL the other day and watched a moustachioed cat spruiking pop-out mid-lengths at surf ranch. It was only compelling because it was so completely bizarre that this somehow passed muster as “content”.

Elo won’t make thanksgiving.

WSL, if they survive, will pivot back to sport.

They’ll need a very hard arsed sporting administrator with a deep knowledge of surfing and strong existing relationships to the funding bodies who keep the sport afloat.

That guy is Andrew Stark, current WSL Australasia boss cocky.

I do feel sorry for Elo.

This is desperation stuff, and he’s clearly out of his depth on every level. The only question now is what sort of phoenix will rise from the ashes.

Pro surfing is a dream that is too beautiful to ever truly die.

*This does bear resemblance to a Jimmycane proposal from 2014 published in Surfing.


Breaking: World Surf League announces sweeping changes to 2021 professional surf tours, further postponements for 2020!

Exciting!

And what a day. What a red letter, earth-shattering, monumental day that will be marked, forevermore, on the hearts of those who cherish professional surfing. For it is on this day, April 28, 2020, that major shifts, changes, alterations happened to all professional surfing tours but let’s not waste anymore time reading run-on sentences with incorrect punctuation and/or prepositional usage. Let’s individually, in our own safe, Coronavirus-free homes, watch World Surf League CEO Erik Logan deliver the news himself in his now iconic Manhattan Beach brogue.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_hhaXznr-x

WATCH HERE!

What does it mean?

Oh, I have no idea as my expertise falls mostly in the field of sharks and what Kelly Slater wrote on Instagram, but, please, discuss, safely, amongst yourself.

Longtom has already been called for proper analysis later.

More, certainly, as the story develops.