Chris Cotê too!

This quarantine life, this unparalleled journey we are all on and where are you scrawling marks on the wall? Where are you counting the days of your confinement? Surfing is banned around much of the world, thanks to a San Diego atmospheric something-rather-else who was misquoted in saying that the dreaded Coronavirus gets churned up when surfers hit the lip and sprays into the noses of immuno-compromised folk thereby killing them.

Surfing no more.

But you may recall, days before all this madness, BeachGrit announced its very exciting partnership with The Surfival League. Fantasy surfing made great again and/or for the first time.

The whole shootin’ match was obviously derailed by the Chinese Cold but the geniuses behind have not been laid low and, just today, released their Quarantine House Surfing Edition.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-sfzJJHPY4/

Imagine this thing lasts for one more month. Where would you shelter in place?

I read once and laughed. Read twice and chuckled.

Read another four times and realized these twenty people (plus another few Coffey Sisters) are the most annoying people in current surf history.

Honored to be included?

An understatement.

But, in all seriousness and, as crazy as everything’s gotten probable, where would you bunk?

Hint: It has middle notes of cypress, clary sage and geranium.

There can be much debate around the polarizing Brazilian world champion Gabriel Medina, how he completes, how he Instagrams, who he calls friends etc. but I will not allow one word, here or anywhere, denigrating his Adonis-like good looks.

A handsome man if there ever was one.

Classic lines. A come-hither look only outdone by the greatest surfer in the world Kelly Slater’s.

Thankfully for us, Gabriel Medina just shared what makes his skin and hair ridiculously luscious and impossibly desirable.

Do you think it might work for us too? Let’s turn to Gear Patrol and The No-Nonsense Grooming Routine of a World-Champion Surfer.

So, what’s your post-surf grooming routine like?
A good warm shower, use of hair products (good old hair conditioner) and some skin products. We surfers have to deal with sunburns frequently. Surfers are exposed to the sun every day, so it is something we have to be very careful with. Sunscreen at all times!

Does your routine have a specific order?
I usually like to shave after I surf, followed by a warm shower. Lastly, but most importantly, you have to have a nice smell, so a good spray of Polo Deep Blue is my final touch — overall, I lean toward energizing and refreshing scents. I love that it’s inspired by the ocean.

How do you relax after surfing?
A good stretch, a lot of food (I come out of surfing starving) and some power naps.

When you’re traveling, what do you pack in your Dopp kit?
I bring with me the essentials: toothbrush and paste, hair comb and always Polo Deep Blue Parfum when I travel because it gives me a boost of energy and confidence.

Polo Deep Blue Parfum, eh? With top notes of green mango, grapefruit and bergamot; middle notes of cypress, clary sage and geranium; base notes of sea, patchouli, musk, ambroxan and fir resin?

Very nice.

Common sense for an uncommon time?

And who could have ever guess, some handful of months ago, when a hungry Chinese man sat down for a tasty bat that, some handful of months later, the entire world would be locked down and surfers, us surfers, would be the pointy tip of that debate?

Virtually unbelievable and yet here we are.

“Social distancing” has become the rule from Bondi to Belarus, Copacabana to Cardiff by the Sea but what does “social distancing” actually mean and how should it be enforced?

In Cardiff by the Sea the jackboots are officially stomping down the street. Surfing banned even though surfing is, typically, a self-isolating pursuit. Rage bubbles at the absurdity. The heavy-handed absurdity.

Likewise, in Copacabana and throughout Rio beaches are closed and surfing outlawed but Brazil’s well-loved President, Jair Bolsonaro, did not take the move lightly and let us go alone, together, to The Gray Lady for the latest.

In Brazil, a surf-crazed nation where urban beaches are often clogged before and after work, the debate has taken an acrimonious and even political turn.

President Jair Bolsonaro has berated Rio Governor Wilson Witzel for closing beaches, calling the move “dictatorial.”

Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, a congressman from Sao Paulo state, just down the coast, argued in a Facebook post on Thursday for a decree to allow surfing that conforms with social distancing.

With or without a decree, many surfers are simply doing what they can to dodge attention – and each other.

Eduardo Bolsonaro for President of the World Surf League? Such fine common sense but back to the point at hand. With surfing now central to the debate on how socially responsibility should look shouldn’t we all be doing a better job to make asses of ourselves?

Like, really turning every future VAL completely off?

A VAL bust that sees post-pandemic participation numbers fall to record lows?

Or are we doing a fine enough job already?

More as the story develops.

For me. For you. Come on, get happy!

I am not good at Instagram, nor fluent, but fate had me in my messages when the benevolent @socalgary wrote “Kelly live on instagram” and posted a link that featured Kelly Slater live on Instagram chatting with urban folk singer Citizen Cope.

Immediately, I placed my drink on the zinc counter and began typing their dialog with the understanding that I would form up some proper story later.

I have since had another drink and here are the raw notes from watching a portion of Kelly Slater and Citizen Cope’s Instagram live.

Can you find a story herein?

What would it be?

Otherwise, bon appetite.

Kelly: “If you ever look at the Darwin awards you see injuries worse than mine.”

“Kelly’s friend: “Give you all the money in my pocket if you can do a backflip off tramp.”

Kelly: “Under-rotated. Worried about landing on butt. Gonna put feet down but worried about breaking toes so busted all the cartilage in kneecaps. My five bones in my knees didn’t fuse to one, they fused to three. Went to doctor got an x-ray. Gonna cast you for three weeks. Mom, EMT ‘That’s not a break.’ Tripartite patella…”

…something something.

Kelly: “Struggled with that for four years.”

Kelly: “Won first world title with hurt knee.”

Kelly: “School should be a lot shorter because it has been proven that people only have 20 minutes worth of learning.”

Kelly: “I was doing math with them and they were doing common core math and I was like who the hell did this? This is stupid! I was completely baffled by how they were doing math. Don’t bring that around anymore. Don’t do that.”

Kelly: “Wavepool is I think doing good. I think shut. I haven’t checked in so I don’t know.”

Kelly: “I look around at the surf world, my world, so many more people in the water and every company’s got no money. Don’t these people have to buy something from someone?”

Long song by Citizen Cope… staring into camera all awkward etc. Kelly took it like a champ. An absolute champ. I’ve never seen someone watch someone sing a song better.

Kelly: “I used to play When Doves Cry. So simple little songs. Same with Jack’s songs. So simple you can keep up for sure.”

Kelly: “Writing a song, meditation lasts for a few months or years.”

Kelly: “That mayor up there (in Washington D.C.) didn’t help. He was there banging chicks in hotel room.”

Citizen Cope: “Well…We all loved Mayor Berry. He was doing a bunch of good stuff.”

(Kelly starts washing his hands then pours a cup of water totally destroying the sound and making Citizen Cope’s face sad.)

Then I went for another drink.