A silence louder than bombs.
Surf jernalizm is a queer calling at the best of times in the best of circumstances, and I use the word queer in the oldest of oldest school ways.
Pro surfing jernalizm is an even weirder little corner of the “content creation” universe to inhabit.
You gots to pay close attention for a meaningful period of time to something that very few people give a fuck about. You have to adopt, consciously or unconsciously the edict of famed NFL coach Vince Lombardi who said, on the subject of football, “You have to be smart enough to figure it out and dumb enough to think that it matters”.
Or something like that.
So you forgive old Longtom for being in a state of tumid excitement for roughly the last month since a haggard and pale ELO dropped his latest clip with the huge news that a major, major restructure of the Tour was in the offing.
Pro surfing, as we knew it, was essentially dead and something almost entirely new was about to emerge from the ashes.
Awesome.
The sport has been ripe for change for years; really, since the 2011 mid-year cut that brought us both John John Florence and Gabriel Medina. That process of cutting numbers, changing the rotations of surfers in and out of the championship Tour was a beginning, not an end, but surfer dissatisfaction stopped it dead in its tracks.
ELO promised some more meat on the bone June 1.
On Hold until June 1, he said.
Great, I’ll be there June 1, stay up all night if I have to, to watch the unboxing. Four am Aussie time, I got the coffee, the new pen, the notebooks ready. The WSL website is devoid of announcement, no video presser of ELO dropping the new Tour in our lap, or at least a rough sketch with a few more details.
Nothing all day.
Nada.
That’s weird.
What other sport would promise fans a huge shake-up of the Tour and then just deliver radio silence?
June 2.
Nothing again.
A silence louder than bombs.
What happened to the timeline?
Did ELO forget?
There is a lot going on.
Was the Tour restructure delegated to an intern, maybe the same one who left on the Corona Bali Open VIP ticket experience despite the fact Bali is dropped from the Tour this year?
Were they too busy creating new engaging content to film ELO giving us the lowdown?
I can only speculate.
Not even a leak to a favourable media organisation was forthcoming.
June 3, seventy-two hours after the promised call about both this years Tour and the major restructure a simple social media tile was released.
On hold until early July.
What happened in that three days?
Did they not know?
Were they waiting for something?
For the average gal on the street, no news is good news.
For a global sports governing body, a delayed announcement and then an even fuzzier promise to update looks kooky. It doesn’t inspire confidence in the man from Oklahoma. ELO’s made a career out of the illusion of control, but when you let the narrative twist in the breeze for three long days that illusion starts looking very shaky.
So, what now?
Interest drips away.
We wait, I guess.
But can we be honest, amongst pals?
Yes? Good.
Pro surfing has never been an American thing. Never. It’s sputtered and fizzed out, occasionally flashes of interest light up the sporting landscape on the back of once in a generation talents like Curren or Dane, then long periods of torpor or outright hostility follow.
It’s an Australian thing. Has been since it’s inception, or since the southern-hemi upstarts stole it off Fred Hemmings and Randy Rarick, to be more precise.
No offence to my American colleagues but Australians have a talent and temperament for pro surfing that simply does not exist in the American soul.
The headquartering of WSL in Los Angeles will one day be registered as a grand failed experiment, precisely because it’s antithetical to attracting the best talent, which is Australian.
Run this thought experiment with me.
Posit a hypothetical, let’s say, Commissioner. Highly talented, highly intelligent, highly respected. Loves his surfing, loves his family, loves his quality of life.
Why would this hypothetical talent, who could be a grand bridge between American capital and the pro surfing fan base relocate to Los Angeles, when he could live, lets say, on the North Coast of NSW and enjoy the best of what life has to offer a man of his talents and proclivities?
Well, he wouldn’t would he.
Which means the WSL doesn’t have the calibre of his intellect in the room when the blue-sky thinking and implementation is taking place. The directional pull for global talent is generally considered to be towards the United States but in this case it’s the reverse.
You see what I’m saying, right?
ELO’s a great flimflam man.
But he’s not got the skill set, as they say, to restructure the sport.
Meanwhile, the clock ticks.
Injury, CoronaVirus and now administrative incompetence robs us of three years of John John Florence mastery.
The greatest Top Ten in the history of the sport languishes while Global Sport announces plans to get back to work.
Elo, where’s the motherfucking plan at?
I have seen this coming as the Aussies have Dominated by past performances during the past Triple Crowne
wait for my custom, wait for plane fares to drop, wait for waves, wait for ELo.. same thing different day
perrow is an efiminate douche. weakest personality ever. his wife certainly loved a wine whilst he on tour. 2 kids that look like thunbergs….
good..yes.
I’ve worked for Hawaiian airlines and they are now my customer so I have a keen interest in seeing Hawaii rebound. The general economics of Hawaii were terrible for small businesses to begin with so I can only imagine how this will damage them even further. I was on the Islands back in February before all this shit started and I’d like to go back this summer if I can to see my friends and spend some money at the businesses that I love.
yeah, I made that point, but maybe a bit too obtusely.
conversations I’ve had, people don’t want to know about it.
ha ha you guys oughta call the WSL crew and talk with them, you’d find KP is a key thinker in what they’re planning out right now.
ha ha–do you-really think ‘anyone’ (Elo, KP) at this point is going to be able to re-invent pro surfing and make it marketable or interesting to anyone besides the small core audience they have now…………maybe you should think again……..
Let’s hope so!!
It’d be nice to see a wider range of Australian talent, beyond those on the CT…Surely there’s someone more exciting to watch than Ace Buchan?
Pro surfing is dead. For the time being at least.
“Hey Tom, you know what’s good for shoulder pain? ” “What”?” “If you lick my butthole.”
I like jokes I don’t have to think about.
Hey longtom what’s your thoughts on the regional qualifying series though? Listening to Vaughn and co on Aint that swell they were frothing on it. I for one think a regional qualifier tour done right would be epic. Lots of narrative to be had at.
I really don’t know.
I ain’t frothing on it, thats’ for sure.
I need to see the details. any details. Otherwise, it’s just hot air.
Yeah it seems a long way from happening.
I know as a WA local the extension of the QS leg last couple years (couple of events one in mandurah one at yalls i think) was sick to go down and have a look. Seemed to Stoke up a bit of the grass roots fire.
I though KP was deputy commissioner, surely he will be conference calling in for the big decisions?
his role is not specified now. but yeah, that guy needs to be front and centre.
Longtom this is the issue here, you got the nail on the head!
“ The headquartering of WSL in Los Angeles will one day be registered as a grand failed experiment, precisely because it’s antithetical to attracting the best talent, which is Australian.”
You meant Brazillian?
WSL offices should be near good surf, agree on that point.
The white thing for him to do would be to volunteer to be air mail for rioters in NYC.
Nothing more virtuous than being thrown from the top of a housing project.
Hawaii desperately needs the money but they also desperately want to keep people off the islands.
Maui is at 35% unemployment. That number is hard to fathom.
Send them to J bay. The unemployment rate in South Africa is 50%
Is it that bad? SHIT.
I can assure you it is coming, probably today. And it’s a bit unlike what we have seen in the past, so probably a bit more complicated and should not have put that sort of deadline on things – lots of moving parts.
well thats good news.
I’m def waiting to see your take on it. There is one stop coming back into play it seems. I imagine solidifying permits and the like takes some time. Probs just have to dot a few more i’s and cross a few more t’s. In this uncertainty with covid and now all the protests here – putting deadlines on things not a good idea, because the target date likely to change.
I’m hearing a Wavepool event is on, at the least.
Bodhi ” This was never about the money, this was about us against the system. That system that kills the human spirit. We stand for something. We are here to show those guys that are inching their way on the freeways in their metal coffins that the human sprit is still alive.”
I love the smell of witty comments in the morning.
Based on the modeling The WSL has no future to plan.
“No offence to my American colleagues but Australians have a talent and temperament for pro surfing that simply does not exist in the American soul.” ————–Well said, and probably very true, but very interestingly, Wayne Lynch, probably has left a bigger mark and legacy on surfing than I can think of, than anyone of today, light years ahead of his time……… and really didnt seem to give a hoot about competitive surfing……..
Too busy selling Vans on FB marketplace
But, he’s not got the skill set, as they say, to reconstruct the sport.” ——“Ay, and there’s the Rub”. Any which way you look at it, surfing just doesn’t really seem to look like, smell like–or act like– a sport.
Sam here’s one of Wayne Lynch’s many quotes about pro surfing from Kanga Cairns’ biography. It is contrary to what a lot of people think was Wayne’s stance. “Despite what some people think I was a supporter of professional surfing. I had some conversations with PT and Kanga about it and they were obviously over the moon because they had been pushing harder than anyone for this sort of thing. I remember thinking and talking with Kanga about how good pro surfing was getting in the mid-1970s. He actually laughed when I won the Coke comp in Sydney (1975). He said to me: “You know Wayne, you have just won more money than the rest of us in the past year than we have travelling the entire tour.” I said something cheeky like: ‘Yeah well, I deserve it.” (laughter). Even though I hadn’t really been in the public eye since the world titles in 1970, and was certainly avoiding it, I was still in touch with people in surfing and what was going on. The thing that really impressed me was, now there was more money to win and for place getters too. For the first time more surfers were able to earn some decent money directly through competition instead of what I would call from less than ordinary dealings with others in the industry. I was also impressed by the fact Coke had developed a structure that was really creative. They were experimenting with a contest in that it was able to be moved from one location to another for better surf. They were trying to find best waves, you know, putting the best surfers in the best waves. This hadn’t been done before in Oz. So I went okay, I am into this.”
Thanks Wayne
Well, whatever, really? He still seems like the one dude that was just stoked to go surfing, quiet, low key, no big ego, never shot his mouth off like the others. And it seems he never ‘pushed’ for it like Kanga, PT or Nat. Maybe he just didn’t have that killer, win, win attitude like the others. He still goes down in my book as one of the most innovative soul surfers ever.
He still seems like the antihisis to your egoed, crew cut, Jock, WSL surf stars of today, Slater included.
“Lynch entered contests but eventually grew to disdain them, instead choosing to surf at isolated breaks, away from all of the media attention.” Quote from review of “Unchartered Waters” bio of Lynch.
“Maybe it’s that I have lived a life of surfing that is unique – maybe more so than most? A life not following a circuit, being part of an industry or an administrative position – I have done none of that.” W.L. quote
“Surfing is about a feeling, not a look. It’s all about this feeling and how this feels, that you are after. A sense of flowing and rhythm in relationship to the wave.” W.L. quote
Sounds like W.L. has more soul than the top 24 pros all put together…….
lol Lynchy’s been sponsored all his life
Yes Sam, Wayne’s rural upbringing and surfing lifestyle in the coastal wilds of Victoria certainly set him apart from his urban orientated contemporaries. If you ever get a chance to have a chat or listen to him speak on issues such as ocean conservation and/or surf history, well worth the time. Genuine surf soul wisdom that fella.
Got any in size 13?