One word: Museum.
Today is Labor Day in these United States of America. A day to spend thinking about those who work so hard to make our lives so very good. The surfboard shaper and the surfboard glasser. The Sticky Bumps wax mixer and the Sticky Bumps wax wrapper (watch here). The surf shop trucker hat orderer and the surf shop trucker hat unpacker.
A day to ponder and thank all those who make our surf industry so mighty.
Well, Hawaii state Sen. Glenn Wakai, chairman of the Senate’s Economic Development and Tourism committee, is looking at that mighty surf industry and wondering why the other birthplace of surfing (after Peru) doesn’t have a bigger stake.
“You look at California, you look at Australia (where everyday is Labor Day), they’ve glorified surfing…” he told Honolulu’s Hawaii News Now “…They celebrate surfing and they monetize surfing.”
All true but state Sen. Wakai ain’t just a complainer. He has a plan of action to bring the luster back.
First up, a museum.
“There’s a surf museum in Oceanside, Calif. There’s a surf museum in Australia. We’re the center of surfing, we don’t even have a surf museum.”
Oceanside’s surf museum has led to an economic boom in the once-forgotten town, frustrating some but pouring money into the coffers of already rich out-of-towners. Australia’s surf museum is likely responsible for keeping the World Surf League Championship Tour in country for 1/3 of the year.
And so state Sen. Wakai has organized a committee to get moving on that project.
Second up, competitive surfing at the high school level.
“There’s six states in America that have competitive high school surfing, Hawaii’s not one of them. That is embarrassing.”
Sure is and, to be honest, surprising.
Lastly, state Sen. Wakai would like to streamline the permitting big surf contests.
“Let’s figure out who gets it, when they get it, and for how long they get their permits.”
Here, I can help. DO NOT GIVE ANY TO THE WORLD SURF LEAGUE! Punish co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff for building a fancy office in California’s Santa Monica instead of Honolulu. The WSL will, honestly, collapse in a year and you, state Sen. Wakai can take the thing over, change the name to Association of Surfing Superstars, celebrate and monetize.
Boom.
Happy Labor Day.
I bet they’re having a scary but really good time!!!
local haole’s were always the ones trying to fight me when i moved there. never had a problem with the browns. the whites were always the ones with the chips on their shoulders and finally needed some “payback” because i was the new guy, now that they had a target for years of the abuse that they were the receiving end of..
Momentary lapse of reason…its now lasted over 40 years
Despite the vibe. It must have been unbelievable beautiful back than ?
Hey ism here in Huntington Beach y DURF CITY USS Jan and Dean surfing songs we have a surfing mudum too,Bummer CITY Hawaiian sSndte by the sea in .H B Surf City USA!
i’m a full blooded Haole
I’ve experience nothing but Aloha in the islands from locals who still believe in it.
my experience, I miss the place everyday
I got into a big incident whilst working at a Subway when I was younger
Hawaiian is all…hey you fucking dumb haole…i asked for a six inch…and you went and cut it in half!
Let’s face it
We are All cunts equally
Some of are just more equal kunty than others … myself included
Do they consider you haole LGR?
Is that why you had to move to Kahala?
https://www.bishopmuseum.or…
Not only a amazing history of surfing but also of the islands.
A great look into the proud Polynesia ppls life’s.
Well worth a visit .
Someone should tell Mr politician
To be fair, you would have to allow Monsanto to have a booth with your guys history and all!
ouch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is exactly the kind of bumbling buffoonery we have to endure from our Hawaii politicians. Glen Wakai is a notoriously useless bureaucrat of the highest order. It’s mortifying when he continually demonstrates what an idiot he is. The Hawaii State Board of Education in May 2004 already approved surfing as a Hawaii high school sport. Underwhelming support from parents and students, including funding and liability challenges kept it from becoming a fully-fledged competitive school sport until 2013 when school sanctioned surf competitions began statewide. Schools in Hawaii have been competing in multi-discipline events for years.
As chairman of the Hawaii’s Economic Development and Tourism committee, Wakai wants to maximize the pimping out of our natural resources and public beaches to billionaires like Dirk Ziff under the hopeful yet false illusion that monetizing all of Hawaii outdoor public spaces – to the exclusion of local residents – is somehow good for our state.
Don’t sweat it, haole. Pretty soon they will all but have dried up tourism with their exclusive mind set.
Your response presents me with quite the conundrum.
You deserve some serious Hawaiian cracks for calling me haole yet you also upvoted me.
I’m twisted with confusion and uncertainty.
Lucky for you my girlfriend is haole so you’re off the hook for now.
Also museums, urgh
Well said. The first time i read about this idiot was in civil beat; Wakai went nuts when his wife got fired, haha, what a dummy:
https://www.civilbeat.org/2…
Now he goes off blabbing about something he has no idea about: surfing. Just goes to show that any nincompoop can put on a suit and get elected.
A great idea, Chas.
I suggest that Fred Hemings be the overseer of this project so that Surfings long and proud history be told the right way.
Labor Day …. in 1972 , former World Champ , Nat Young , comes out of retirement at the Coke / 2SM Surfabout and donates his $600 ( 3rd place ) Cheque to the Labor Party , who eventually win the election , get rid of the racist White Australia Policy , create a universal health system , free tertiary education , money for the arts ( they picked up Pollocks Blue Poles for a song ) and pulled out of Vietnam , which meant Wayne Lynch was no longer on the run … and could surf in the 78 version of the Coke Surfabout event at Manly , which was won by Barry Lair ( Larry Blair but I overheard Joe Engel call him this when I was a kid and it stuck ) who went on to win back to back Pipe Masters riding McCoys …… sadly , like the rest of the western world they had not foreseen the 73 Oil Crisis coming , OPEC nations raisIng the price of a barrel of Oil from $4 to $12 , and found themselves in the shit ….
Fact check
The White Australia policy was dismantled, piece by piece, over decades spanning governments both Liberal and Labor.
Experts told Fact Check the 1966-67 Holt government’s reforms were critical steps in the process, constituting a significant break from past practice.
Medicare not introduced until 84
Libs also gave Abos a vote and ended labors homophobic anti gay marriage policy which was stridently upheld by that witch Julia Gillard, our first bogan PM
What was it you accused Party Pete of the other day ? …..Ya took the bait Bex
Vietnam , the Arts , A Vision for the future ….. ? Anyway I once saw Billy McMahon‘s wife ,Sonya , and she made me feel very Liberal … giggles
Ps The scheme was created in 1975 by the Whitlam Government under the name “Medibank”, and was limited by the Fraser Government in 1976 to paying customers only. The Hawke Government reinstated universal health care in 1984 under the name “Medicare”
The legal end of the White Australia policy is usually placed in the year 1973, when the Whitlam Labor government implemented a series of amendments preventing the enforcement of racial aspects of the immigration law.
I just corrected you
Pete gets all nasty
Fake News …. corrected ha ha ….just joking
Free speech allows the other party to add information which they believe is relevant … which you have done .
Corrected is what Mr Carroll did with my incorrect date .
Always a pleasure conversing with Mr Bex
It’s is what it is.
Ha Sonya! I used to have a client that had a Limo service, oh boy the stories about Mrs McMahon! To put it politely she used to like to have a bit of a tipple! After an event they literally poured her into the backseat & when they’d open the car door at her place she used to fall out onto the footpath! The driver had to carry her inside, where she would promptly lock the door, drop the key down her front & say “if you want to get out……!” They swear this true, the guys used to flip a coin to work out who would do the driving!
BTW good to see you back! As you can see the new norm is the old norm around here!
There’s no way Julian is Billy’s son
Yep, about as much as Harry looks like Charles!
.I was working at Westpac Plaza in Sydney when she waltzed in the door wearing white …..she must have been 50 something an absolutely lit up the building , which made my job as an electrician very easy ….. T’is a Shame , none of your boys or girls who have come along since WW2 have had that type of presence …… CHARISMA . Maybe Julian he had a little umm …. nip and tuck before he appeared on Nip and Tuck ?
Do you remember the infamous split up the sides dress – caused quite a stir at The White House in ’71!
Was possibly the most exciting thing that happened in Australian Politics .. sadly enough .
1974 Bicko. Whitlam’s second election.
Of course Whitlam’s greatest achievement was his first, failed election in 1969, which gave us Don’s Party.
Tiny bubbles?
In your hair…
(I always get that verse wrong)
I actually think Whitlam’s greatest achievement was lowering the nation’s tariff wall by 25%, a feat never essayed by the supposedly staunchly free enterprise Coalition despite its 23 consecutive years in Government prior to 1972. This was a huge step down the wobbly path of freeing up the Australian economy after many years of fundamentally sclerotic reliance on wool and mining exports. The Coalition was always (and remains) secretly terrified of free markets, despite having reaped the rewards of same following Whitlam’s big step and the Hawke-Keating reforms of 1985-94. Basically, the Coalition likes it best when not much happens, and its favourite operators and rent-seekers proceed as usual; the big changes are usually enacted by a Labor Party finally sprung from its own dull oppositionism by an unusually active or intelligent leadership group. This is why Australia’s modern history is one of long periods of tedium, followed by short bursts of wild activity.
But that’s not relevant right now!
Well yeah, that was obviously going to be my second point.
Labor has a good idea every 20 years but cldnt organize a root on a porn set
aren’t Labor t the Chinese bagmen ? I read they just sell Australia out for as much yen the Chinese can give them in a shopping bag?
That’s them
Crooker than rookwood.
Didn’t one of your boys die on the job ? Liberal by Party , Liberal by nature …
Sir Billy Snedden Australian , politician and former leader of the Liberal Party, “expired ‘at the peak of physical congress’ (as a policeman memorably told Truth)”[24] in 1987. Nineteen years later, his son (and lover of the same woman with whom Snedden was having sex at the time of his death) was quoted as saying “I’m sure the old man went out happy—anyone would be proud to die on the job.” [25]
Who dosent like a root?
It was an observation not a criticism…. I hope to go down swinging !
I thought we ditched the WAP via referendum? I know Goff brought it to the table but even in the 70’s aussies knew that shit stunk bad.
Fucken Howard the cunt did all he could to screw over the indigenous in his horror show 13 years so I feel ya on the tedium/wild activity vibes.
If modern labor weren’t such cunts, (thanks unions, I remember the scare campaign ads) Ruddsy would have got the mining super profit tax though back in 08 or so and we’d be fat with cash to ride out this current shitstorm.
Oh yeah,
Real good money managers….
Nah it took ages to dismantle the White Australia policy. It was set in place at Federation in 1901, principally aimed at the Chinese labourers who had come to the country in the 19th century during the gold rush, and made its way through many layers of legislation which had to be unpicked over many years, sometimes painfully. There’ll still be signs of it here and there on the law books probably, though the laws won’t be used again. Regarding Indigenous rights, these began to change for the better after a referendum in 1967 amended the law to force the inclusion of Aboriginal people in the national Census, ie to declare Aboriginal people citizens. Prior to that, there was no specific law preventing Aboriginal people from voting, but there didn’t need to be, because they weren’t really considered people under the law. The 1967 referendum was one of the better moments in Australian political history; still, over 520,000 Australians voted against it. Which tells you a bit about why Hansonism has kept ticking over.
I think it was Arthur Calwell who in Parliament back in the 40’s came up with “Two Wongs don’t make a white”
There were Chinese though in Australia , since the Gold Rush in 1848 . My Grandmother’s 2 horse town‘s only shop was run by an affable family from China and my Dad‘s favorite client , during his years at the ANZ Bank , was a Chinese Business Man , before the White Australia Policy was dismantled.
That’s factually untrue
They were citizens 100%
They could obtain passports if they wished to travel.
They were citizens, just being counted in the census for the first time in 67
Citizenship granted in 48.
Come on Nick.
90% voted yes but don’t focus on that.
…yes, Keating was the best Liberal Treasurer we’ve ever had.
Truest thing you’ve ever said,
Days of Wine and Whitlam …. though I was on the Coke and Ice as a 4 year old at that time .
Thanks Nick .
WSL having event at Anglet 23-25 September. Bit surprised considering current situations here. We have beautiful weather, decent surf but beaches empty in August, many businesses here normally close at end of French vacation season, I fear many not reopen.
They try at least.
More bronze surfing statues in public spaces would also help.
A bronze Eddie Rothman welcoming punters to the NS would be appropriate.
Aluminium might be a more appropriate colour than bronze for Eddie.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Great idea, Karolus Calvus! I’ll keep this throwaway post in mind (doubtful) for the 2020 Beach Grit Review of Writers sponsored by Self-Hatred and Boredom… along with the truly inspired Kelly Slater friend list…
Thanks Karl!
Things aren’t sponsored anymore. They’re ‘powered by’
A surfing museum of natural history perhaps. No need to include foul chemicals and such. A natural history museum could even house broken dreams, naturally broken of course by the snark of Beach Grit. An extinction of sorts.