We yearn to rebel. It’s in our blood and we usually make a mess of it.

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
– W.B. Yeats

I never would have read Yeats if it wasn’t for Joan Didion.

She used him for the opening of the best essay I’ve ever read, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” where she exposed the ugly side of Haight Ashbury in the Summer of Love circa 1967 in a way that was as hard and bare and truthful as the iPhone videos of the light slowly going out in George Floyd’s eyes.

Ms Didion’s still around. I wonder what she thinks about what happened in Santa Monica over the weekend.

Has anyone asked her?

Does it feel like deja vu?

A never ending circle of shit?

I think she’d get a whiff of the red tide that’s lingered in the bay for weeks and say, “There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some stillness, some tension.”

I had a feeling what would happen in Santa Monica and stayed away.

I saw it firsthand in Oakland and Berkeley in 1992.

I felt it coming in Huntington Beach a month ago.

Americans just aren’t built for this.

You take kids of out school, you keep us locked down, you don’t let us make a living, you try to force control and something snaps.

We yearn to rebel. It’s in our blood and we usually make a mess of it.

Whether it’s Trump supporters refusing to wear masks in Costco or suburban kids in designer clothes casually walking down the street with stolen surfboards under their arms, the Eric Cartman level of arrogant ignorance is the same: “It’s my body, and I’ll do what I want.”

In Joan’s 1967, the world still had Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and Jimi Hendrix. The protests had leaders, demands. They fought and bled for the end of Jim Crow and the war in Vietnam.

They thought they were making progress.

Now we’ve got moneyed teens hopping in Ubers to go and loot shopping malls and a reality show insane clown president tear gassing protesters so he get can his picture taken holding a Bible in front of a church.

And it’s all a distraction from this:

Less than 200,000 people in America were in jail in 1970. Now there’s 2.1 million behind bars. Forty-six percent of them are in for drug offenses. Five times more blacks are locked up than whites and they’re more than twice as likely to be killed by police.

We’ve traded an overt form of bondage and segregation to one that’s quieter and more ruthless.

I saw three white people in Malibu today holding signs and asking people to honk their horns in support of Black Lives Matter.

I’m sure they meant well but their town is 1.2% African American.

I live in Inglewood (yes, I got priced out of Venice) and my neighbors would have laughed if they’d seen them.

Unlike 1992, it’s quiet here now. Really hope it stays that way.

Time for justice!

And, like that, video of the vicious mid-length surfboard theft has been examined, parsed and studied with two bad apples singled out a put in front of the surf public’s eyes.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA5c43_hWfF/

Devon Howard, ever on the case, says, “Another angle of kooks not worthy of putting a @surfboardsbydonaldtakayama under their arm … yellow shirt kook and his kook gal reportedly surf Topanga zone, see @salty_beards thread. … I’m sure they really care about BLM, George Floyd and protesting policing in America, just ran out of time and had to put down their signs to head off to an important board meeting.”

Topanga-zone locals will very much be on the lookout and I’m sure the soul gliding Bonnie and Clyde will not have an easy time catching waves and/or being in the water.

But do you know them?

Have you seen?

Do they highline waves with their arms above their heads?

Ride straight in bulldog stance whitewash exploding all around?

What will their actual surf punishment be?

I think banishment fits the crime.

Banishment forever and/or a forced move to Lemoore, California.

“The former surfer was left screaming in agony…”

Ain’t no intro’s necessary for former world number 24, the Australian big-waver and 2001 Eddie Aikau winner Ross Clarke-Jones. 

(Jamie Brisick summarises his career thus, “His wipeouts are right up there with Evel Kneivel’s.)

Last year, Ross appeared on Australian Survivor, a worldwide reality television franchise where a group of celebs are dumped on an island and compete in various survival challenges to avoid elimination etc.

Last person standing wins. 

Ross, who was cast as “Mad Dog”, broke his ankle in a rope-swing challenge gone wrong. 

From Who magazine,

In a shocking moment during last night’s episode of Australian Survivor, contestant Ross Clarke-Jones was horrifically injured after a rope he was swinging on broke.

The big wave surfer was sent hurtling towards the edge of a wooden deck, causing him to hit his leg and snap his ankle.

While his tribemates made it across, the rope broke during Ross’s swing, sending him plummeting to the ground below.

The 53-year-old could be seen laying on the floor after his fall as a medical team rushed on set.

“The rope just broke!” Ross cried out in pain as the medics treated him.

The medical team deemed the injury serious and could be heard saying:

“The injury is serious enough that we need to take him off.”

Not wanting to leave the show so soon, the contestant insisted that he was fine.

“I’m good I’m good. Just stretched something,” Ross adamantly said.

“I’ve been to a couple of physio appointments, I’ve had an operation. It’s a long road ahead still, I won’t be surfing for another four to six months. This is the hardest thing to do, surfing is my livelihood so I can’t do anything, it’s horrible,” he told TV Week 

Now, Ross is seeing hell out of Endemol Shine Australia, the production company that produces Australian Survivor. 

Ross, named as Howard Ross Clarke-Jones in court documents, is chasing damages for loss of past and present earnings, depression, anxiety, medical expenses etc.

“At the date of injury, the plaintiff was a professional big-wave surfer with sponsorship arrangements, including with Red Bull and Quiksilver…The plaintiff is and has been since his injury totally incapacitated for his previous employment and claims past loss of earning and future loss of earnings.”

Ross, who was paid twenty-five thousand dollars to appear in the series which featured a half-a-million dollar first prize, said, “I haven’t felt pain like that.

Watch rope swing fail here. 

More as this unfurls, although legal matters do proceed at a glacial pace.