If you saw Ross Williams waiting for a bus you’d never
guess he used to be one of the best surfers in the
world.
Almost fifty, a lazy hairline that holds a haircut like a
dust-mop, a chubby figure that changes weight according to his
mood.But put him
behind a
microphone, at the helm of a prized
athlete or in the water and he glows.
Lately, father-of-three Ross has been riding a bicycle around
the North Shore, prepping an injured knee for the coming
winter. Or he was until he clipped his riding partner’s wheel
at forty clicks an hour, hit the bitumen and
got…degloved.
The gruesome injury, which is called a Morel-Lavallée lesion, is
an “abrupt separation of skin and subcutaneous tissues from
underlying fascia.”
Skin ripped off limb to reveal underlying mechanics, like the
little leg of a butchered dog.
“About to have surgery to resolve this issue. Honestly, I feel
lucky. Could always be worse. I’ll be back on the program in a
couple weeks!!”
Hospital visits aren’t a novelty for thrillseeker Williams.
Five years ago at ten-to-twelve-foot Haliewa, the one-time
Momentum star, “dove head first after a wave into the
‘toilet bowl’ straight into the reef. I cracked my head open and
nearly ripped a piece of my nose off.”
Eleven staples and plastic surgery.
The roll call of well-wishers on Ross’s Instagram account, then,
included Bede Durbidge, who had just been crippled with a broken
pelvis, (“Wow! Not the way you want to finish the year”), the
quadriplegic Jesse Billauer (“Sending you positive healing vibes.
I’m glad you’re ok. Just stay positive and think about that sick
barrel you got at Backdoor the other day”) and world champion
Carissa Moore (“Oh man!!!!!! Definitely not #warmingitup”)
Today’s comments, although lacking a similar starpower, were
anchored by Nathan Florence’s succinct, “Hahahaha.”
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Big Joe, far right, with no-daddy boys.
Dope-running surfer gets clean, turns life
coach to fatherless boys: “When they’re in their pain, in their
grief, and they’re sharing, they get to that point of ‘we’re all in
this together, what do we have to do to get out of this?’”
Joe Sigurdson isn’t afraid to talk about his darkest
days.
“I was 28 years old living a double-life,” he says. “I was
dealing dope in the parking lot while my kids were building
sandcastles on the beach. I was running poundage up and down
between San Diego and LA. I was pretty big, a substantial guy, so I
was doing ‘collections’ for a coke dealer too… All the while I was
married with a real job.”
Thirty years after turning his life around, Sigurdson is still
an imposing figure.
But, his biggest threat these days are his bear hugs.
Joe turned Disney dad shortly after he got sober in the early
nineties.
Pretty soon, other kids from his son’s Little League team were
at his house all day after practices and games.
“They’d raid our fridge. We’d play ball in the yard. I’d play
quarterback for both sides. I’d pitch. I’d take ‘em surfing… It was
fun, but they wouldn’t want to go home.”
Eventually, he noticed a pattern.
“One by one, their moms started calling, asking if I could talk
to their sons about problems they were having. That’s when I
realized none of them had dads.”
When those calls kept coming his wheels started turning.
“I’d learned so much at these self-improvement outings like the
Mankind Project. I was forty then going, ‘Man, this stuff is great.
I could have used this when I was 14.’”
Joe and his co-founders are more than twenty years into their
mission now, having transformed the lives of thousands of at-risk
boys living in marginalized communities by providing them love and
support.
“It’s not rocket science,” says Joe, when talking about why they
succeed. “We all do better when we check in with loved ones and
hold each other accountable.”
It’s worth noting, his mentors abide by one very strict
rule.
“We never tell kids what to do,” says Joe. “Our job is to listen
and understand the issues they’re facing. And if there’s a struggle
we explore the options and shed light on what’s likely to happen if
they stay on the current path. Mentors share their own experiences,
mistakes, and lessons learned. But the choice is all theirs. All we
do is take an inventory of how those decisions play out. And it
works.”
Dana Wright, a former principal at Spring Valley Academy, swears
by their success, and she’s not alone.
“If I had a chance to talk to every middle school administrator
in the country about what they could do to make a difference it
would be Boys to Men,” she says.
And what’s fascinating about Boys to Men Mentoring, is
the San Diego surfing community powers their operation.
Surfers have rallied behind the cause, helping Joe and his team
come up with creative ways to raise the funds needed to facilitate
new programs, find mentors, and expand into new schools.
The 100 Wave Challenge, an annual Jog-a-Thon style event in the
waves, is their biggest hit.
The 10th annual 100 Wave Challenge raised $430,000 last year,
enough to provide a year’s worth of mentorship services to nearly
1000 kids.
Sadly, with the world going sideways in 2020 the need for Boys
to Men is greater than ever. Keeping them engaged and connected is
crucial to their health and safety.
Yet early this summer, Sigurdson warned his supporters that this
year’s 100 Wave Challenge may not happen, and by some miracle it
did, it certainly couldn’t be on the usual scale, with hundreds
showing up in Mission Beach.
“That didn’t sit well with anyone,” says Joe.
His fellow surfers floated an alternative: let’s
expand.
After all, they argued, Boys to Men’s impact is global now.
Sure, San Diego is where it all started, but they provide
guidance to independent chapters in seventeen different states and
nine different countries at HQ.
Why not reflect that?
After several Zoom calls, Joe and his team obliged, adding a new
twist.
This year it’s “Your 100 Wave Challenge.”
You pick the crew, the beach, and the time, between now and
November 22nd, and make it happen.
“Two months ago, we were feeling pretty hopeless,” says
Sigurdson. “Thanks to our surfers, I’m starting to believe this may
end up being our biggest year yet. Our big signup push doesn’t
typically start until after Labor Day, but word is already
spreading through surf clubs and surf shops and social media. And
our surfers are getting calls from people asking how they can
help.”
The answer is simple: Grab some friends, get ‘em together, and
give these kids your love.
“Surfers Against Sewage” describes
explosion of pandemic-related pollution on beaches, vows to “name
and shame” companies who make most waste on social media!
Captain’s log, Coronavirus pandemic day 5674.
The global mood has reached its possible nadir with most people too
depressed to make a fuss about anything. Tired shrugs and
French-style flat tire sighs are the most common responses to both
highs and lows.
A general, unrelenting malaise.
But what is this from grey olde England? A group of “Surfers
Against Sewage” who are mad as hell and not going to take it
anymore?
It’s true and in times of real trauma, we can always count on
those with stiff upper lips to carry us through but what is making
these heroes so angry?
Pandemic-related pollution washing up on their beaches, ours
too, by the ton.
Jack Middleton from Cornwall-based group told the
BBC, “Since lockdown has started to be lifted we’ve
witnessed a new wave of plastic pollution littering our beaches in
the form of disposable masks and gloves. While the PPE has helped
to save lives over the past few months, we now need to consider how
we dispose of it properly to prevent it from flowing into our
rivers and oceans and destroying our beaches. We’re used to seeing
plastic bottles and bags when we’re surfing but this new type of
plastic pollution is something that no-one could have
foreseen.”
Beach cleanups etc. have been organized but Surfers Against
Sewage has another plan on how to deal with the problem. “Name and
shame offending companies on social media.”
I love a good social media flogging and we should get in on the
action too, starting with latex gloves. I’ve never liked the things
as they make hands very sweaty etc. I think leather driving gloves
are much better and more chic too. These right here would do
well.
Screw you, latex gloves. Soak in that hot, sweaty shame.
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The least of London's flaws is that he invented a manly
flex-and-preen surfing archetype who would readily and happily
conflate wave-riding with all manner of seriously dangerous
activities—war, bull-fighting, boxing—and we've been stuck with
this blowhard in one form or another (Buzzy Trent, Laird Hamilton,
Billy Kemper) ever since. | Photo: EOS
Warshaw on iconic American novelist Jack
London: “He was an out-and-proud racist…an ardent socialist who
dressed like a plantation owner…(and) invented a manly
flex-and-preen surfing archetype.”
With a brief detour into London's rectal
fistulas…
In the Spring of 1907, writer Jack London, along with a
crew of five, including his cheerful free-loving socialist wife
Charmian, set forth out of San Francisco bound for Hawaii
on the Snark, Jack’s leaky DIY
yacht.
A few hours out of port somebody asked “Who’s navigating?” and
they looked at each other for a few moments before slapping their
foreheads in unison.
Whoops!
London’s roguish charm and lunatic confidence had this small
crew literally sailing into the void. London, to his great credit,
taught himself navigation on the fly—but they were lucky, 27 days
later, to find Honolulu. While the Londons planned to sail the
globe for seven years, the trip ended in Australia, 19 months after
it started, with Jack in the hospital full of malaria, yaws, nail
fungus, and two rectal fistulas.
The Snark was sold for a fraction of its building cost.
Waikiki was the highlight of the trip. Jack and Charmian both
wrote in detail about the still-relatively unknown sport of
“surf-riding,” and Jack’s essay, originally published in 1907 and
later titled “A Royal Sport,” was the English-speaking world’s
first full-length presentation of surfing.
He was an ardent Socialist who dressed like a plantation owner,
kept servants, and was called from his morning surf frolics,
Charmian recalls, by a “tempting breakfast tray” delivered by “a
white-suited Filipino.”
As a father, London was absent or worse. He once asked his
daughter, “What have you done for me in all the days of your life?”
She was 13.
The least of London’s flaws is that he invented a manly
flex-and-preen surfing archetype who would readily and happily
conflate wave-riding with all manner of seriously dangerous
activities—war, bull-fighting, boxing—and we’ve been stuck with
this blowhard in one form or another (Buzzy Trent, Laird Hamilton,
Billy Kemper) ever since.
Which, sidebar, is part of the reason I’ve always been a huge
fan of Brock Little, who once batted away my question asking if
big-wave surfing was symbolic or filled with any greater
significance by saying “Nah, nothing like that. It’s just the
funnest thing ever.”
But credit Jack London for knowing a good thing when he saw it
the moment he stepped off his boat in Hawaii all those years ago,
and for jumping right in to try surfing himself, and for turning
his huge megaphone toward the Mainland and beyond—London’s literary
fame in 1907 was at its peak—and spreading the word.
I cringe each time I read about the “bull-mouth monsters” London
rode (see below), and that surfers are a “kingly species” who have
“mastered matter and lorded it over creation.”
At one point, Jack mansplains the shit out of how waves break
while Charmian no doubt smiles sweetly and says “Yes, dear” at
regular intervals.
But damn, he’s got the science exactly right.
Jack London is nothing if not confounding.
PS: Top Ten Wave Descriptions as Created Jack and
Charmian in Reverse Order of Purpleness
10 – big smokers
9 – big smoky ones
8 – deep-water smokers
7 – great smoking comers
6 – those mighty monsters
5 – bull-mouthed monsters
4 – Pharaoh’s horses
3 – endless charge of white cavalry
2 – white battalions of the infinite army of the sea
1 – oncoming legions of rearing, trampling, weighing sea
cavalry
Conan Hayes, part of the Momentum Gen, founded RVCA
with buddy Pat Tenore in 2001. The V in RVCA which still trips
people up, is the Roman version of U. Conan picked up that little
affectation from BVLGARI, a brand his mom liked.
DA drops felony charges against RVCA
founder and nineties surf-star Conan Hayes; now faces separate
lawsuit for “breach of contract and fraud”
The founder of RVCA, professional surfer, and member of
the Momentum generation was charged with grand theft by the
Orange County District Attorney in 2015.
The DA alleged that Hayes had committed short sale fraud against
the Bank of America “by providing Bank of America with false
information concerning his financial net worth, which was in the
millions of dollars, in order to qualify for short sale
relief.”
Hayes allegedly had hidden the offense by falsely claiming that
he was unemployed and feared foreclosure, while, according to the
complaint, “he had within the past nine months, sold his interest
in a business for approximately $8,000,000 and had purchased a
$1.39 million house in Los Angeles County for cash.”
The complaint further alleged that Bank of America discovered
the offense in 2011 “by means of a report by Patrick Tenore Sr. to
Bank of America.”
Odd, considering Pat Tenore Sr. is the father of RVCA co-founder
and Hayes’ former business partner, Pat Tenore. Even weirder
considering that Hayes had just allegedly sold his interest “in a
business for approximately $8,000,000.”
So, according to the Orange County DA, Bank of America
discovered the alleged offense through a report to the bank from
Patrick Tenore Sr. not long after Hayes had sold his interest in a
business.
The charges were later dropped in July of 2017 among a myriad of
scandals following the prosecution.
According to the OC Weekly, in prosecuting Hayes, Megan
Wagner, now Judge Megan Wagner, had illegally obtained Hayes’ tax
filings without a court order and failed to submit relevant
documents in discovery.
Hayes is currently being sued in the Los Angeles County Superior
Court for alleged breach of contract and fraud stemming from a home
renovation project.
The plaintiff, a contractor, alleged that Hayes refused to pay
the amount stipulated by the original agreement and committed fraud
through misrepresenting himself as an owner.
The contractor is seeking over $300,000 in damages from Hayes
and additional defendants. The case is ongoing.
