"We appreciate your time and candor, Riss, and apologize for the time you had to spend putting out spotfires."

Wild times of change, wild days of upheaval but at least we can count on three certainties: The sun will rise each morning, grown men who take their coffee with cream carry some heavy secret burden and Stab magazine will apologize profusely, publicly to professional surfers whom have had their feelings hurt by the editorial staff.

But shall we hasten to the latest in what has become its own literary genre?

The scene is set somewhere between Australia’s Gold Coast and Hawaii’s Gathering Place where Mick Fanning interviewed Carissa Moore for one of the Venice-adjacent publication’s hundreds of podcasts.

Now, I was unable to make it through the actual chat, as Mick Fanning was interviewing Carissa Moore, but apparently a quote from the conversation was posted to Stab‘s Instagram that caused much hand-wringing, falling on knees, tearing of garments and hollering “Mea culpa! Mea culpa!” to the heavens and/or Hawaii’s Gathering Place.

Per @stab: “We’ve pulled down the IG main feed and stories from our Stab Unplugged with @mfanno and @rissmoore10. The pull quotes said in jest (Kelly doesn’t write me back etc) were shared in a loose, throwaway sense and take a different light immortalized as text. We appreciate your time and candor, Riss, and apologize for the time you had to spend putting out spotfires. The YouTube and podcast are still live in their original form. Sam McIntosh, Stab.

To clarify, Carissa Moore said something that was quoted then vanished with tear-stained amends.

While none of this is surprising, it continues a thoroughly vexing trend. Journalistic integrity being traded for access is nothing new, but the way in which propaganda is now being delivered as fact is.

Take, for example, the recent, much-lauded ESPN documentary series on Michael Jordan.

The Last Dance was praised high and low… except by teammates, Jordan family members, honest critics and those who knew the actual truth. Jordan, you see, produced the special and, while enjoyable on the surface, propagated a whitewashed lie. Certainly not “the untold story of Michael Jordan’s Bulls.”

Access granted. Legitimacy jettisoned.

Now, Stab still positions itself as a “slightly edgy, independent voice” but is so starving for acceptance from the pros and pro-adjacents that it regularly makes an absolute mockery of backbone.

The “slightly edgy” and “please-please-please-accept-us” tripping all over each other with every apology, each chubby ringed finger’d backslap.

Subject rage is part of the game, though.

Filipe Toledo was recently very aggrieved by the short CANDID, barking and hollering and claiming he will no longer be available to BeachGrit.

“You don’t five a f what the surfer thinks! No respect at all”

The piece was honest-ish though didn’t slot in with his self-narrative, apparently, but his self-narrative, Michael Jordan’s self-narrative, Carissa Moore’s self-narrative, Mick Fanning’s self-narrative…… UGH!

They are all only slightly tethered to reality which is always a more compelling, more interesting, more beautiful story. What we writers, journalists, tabloid muckrakers should be perpetually hunting.

The damned truth-ish.

Filipe is right, at the end. Nobody in “surf media” should give a f what the surfer thinks, only what is fair, authentic, entertaining.

The “f” should only ever be about The People™.

Youth against establishment!

And what times we are living through, what wild times where the fabric of society seems ripping apart all around us, riots lighting up global cities in response to one too many unarmed black men being killed by the police, surfers near the front lines of demanding justice for the traditionally marginalized.

But what?

Surfers?

Though it’s true as the past few days have seen well-attended paddle outs and demonstrations in beach communities not traditionally associated with civil disobedience.

From Maui we read:

Over 300 Maui residents attended a “paddle out” at Laniapoko Beach on Sunday to remember George Floyd, a black man who died while under Minneapolis Police custody.

Makawao resident Jennifer McGurn learned of the floating memorial through word of mouth.

McGurn posted photos and videos of the memorial on Facebook. It’s since been shared over 43,000 times.

“The feeling on the beach that day was incredible and true aloha. From comments I read, I think people just want beauty and light in their lives right now. It’s been a pretty dark time the last few months. First COVID-19, now this,” she said.

From Santa Cruz:

Organized by Megan Rodriguez, dozens of surfers met for a Paddle Out for Peace to spotlight the racism and discrimination displayed in and out of the water.

Rodriguez, who is of mixed race, moved to Santa Cruz in 2015 from New York. Coming from the diverse community of New York to witness and feel racial tension in the Santa Cruz waters was a bit shocking, she said.

“Most of the racial comments came from the children,” she shared. “I’d ask them why they said certain things, and they’d say that they heard these things from their parents.

And in Encinitas, some five-thousand met at Moonlight Beach with hundreds paddling out.

In the direct wake of George Floyd’s killing, a well-meaning but very upset friend rage-texted me many times that surfers are awful, horrible, protesting beach closures but staying silent about more serious, heartbreaking, tough issues. Yesterday’s protest and paddle in Encinitas dwarfed those others.

Of course, protesting is only one form of action but there does seem to be an appetite for greater change. A desire to check a broken system that has stretched from the cities to the coast.

The youth agitating against the establishment once again.

A troubled landscape for surfers everywhere.

First they came for mid-length surfboards, then they came for Vans slip-ons and now far-right extremists have taken floral Hawaiian shirts as symbols of violent white nationalism, or at least according to The Washington Post.

The surfing life, co-opted.

But have you heard of the Boogaloo Bois? Aware of their cause?

Per The Post:

A Tampa television reporter was broadcasting live from protests last weekend when two young men in Hawaiian shirts moved in front of the camera and began chanting the name of an obscure white nationalist group, drowning out protesters shouting “No Justice, No Peace!”

The incident was one of a growing number in which far-right extremists who once organized mainly online have been inserting themselves into the real-world protests roiling much of the nation, sowing confusion about the nature of the protests and seeking attention for their causes.

They’ve appeared, sometimes carrying assault rifles, at protests in Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia and dozens of other cities, often wearing Hawaiian shirts — a seemingly goofy uniform that, within the ranks of their movement, signals adherence to a violent, divisive, anti-government ideology.

Not a very pretty picture, though one disputed by Patrick Fairbairn, an administrator of several Boogaloo Facebook groups, who told Politico that most people affiliated with the movement were showing up at at sites of unrest to protect protesters, and he offered praise for Black Lives Matter.

“If they haven’t been heard and they need to be heard, they’ve got to do it their way,” said Fairbairn, who identified himself as a 23-year-old electrician. “The worst thing is to have this artificial separation between the people.”

But back to the Hawaiian shirts. Have you ever dabbled stylistically? Non-ironically? Will you be more likely to wear one now that they are attached to the far-right or will you put yours in a box filled with old surf magazines?

More importantly, will the World Surf League utilize for its commentary crew ever again?

Much to consider.