Another Covid casualty.
This morning I woke up at first light, rubbed my eyes, watched a seabird dance then reached for my phone and read a text from an entirely reliable source.
“Eddie paddle out, usually first Thurs in Dec, cancelled. Event in doubt but no official word.”
As every surfer knows, “Eddie” is shorthand for “The Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational” formerly known as “Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau.” A fantastic competition that takes place in Oahu’s Waimea Bay when the waves reach heights of 60 feet or more between Dec. 1 and Feb. 29. Invited surfers only allowed to participate.
Though it has run only 5 times since 2000, the traditional paddle out, which honors both invitees, the Aikau family and Hawaiian culture, is a sure bet…
…except this year and, if true, quite a shame.
The paddle out cancellation also throws the planned World Surf League restart into very much doubt. CEO Erik Logan announced, months ago, that “The 2021 tour will start in November 2020 in Maui, Hawaii for the women and in December 2020 in Oahu, Hawaii for the men, subject to the approval of the State of Hawaii and local government agencies, as well as effective protocols that allow for safe international travel. The 2021 CT season will finish with ‘The WSL Finals,’ a new single-day World Title Event in September 2021.”
With the rest of the season looking thusly:
If Hawaii is, indeed, an impossibility could the tour start in February in Portugal? Maybe autumnal Australia?
Surf Ranch in June?
2021 wiped off the books along with 2020?
How much longer does the World Surf League survive with no professional surfing competition or has the professional surfing competition fan already migrated to handball?
More as the story develops.
Then Play On is solid all the way through!
I think it’s high time to create a new contest named after another Eddie.
Something to do with running around threateningly and burying bodies in Marconi’s land, rather than surfing.
I dunno. Just a crazy idea. Call me a dreamer.
The WSL have no excuses now. If Tennis, Golf etc can have international events, so can the WSL.
No , Discus took it away for a few hours on BG and I really like the song from fun boy 3
There’s no way an attention starved, approval seeking narcissist like myself can be expected to function in such circumstances
That’s a shame.
The Eddie ceremony was always a good vibe and a fun party.
That was where I asked Eddie Vedder: “Who are the most musical people, by country?”
Because to me, it’s the Irish for white people, but Brazilians over all, although I have never been to Africa.
Vedder answered: “The South Americans, because they sing the guitar solos.”
And later that night we got a free Pearl Jam show in the Pikake Pavillion.
Danny Kwock and Bob McKnight rocking out right up front.
So that’s a shame, but won’t be the same without Brock insulting everyone, anyway.
I’d upvote you, but looks like no mo’ voting.
Coffey’s borders are very open.
Is it just me, or have our voting rights been taken away?
Now this is a most disturbing development
I’m mailing you an absentee upvote right now.
Bwachgrit and its openly fascist regime…i should have seen it coming
Yes , they have taken away our democratic right to VOTE !
The lunatics may have ….taken over the asylum … ?
https://youtu.be/POzSXzwbwIc
Feeling lost and empty. Must. Upvote. Coffey. Comments.
If we get rid of the up votes there will be a peaceful continuation endless shark derp.
is this Belarus or Beechgrit?
Its the cultural revolution!!
Yay, break out the chopstix
We are saved from our horrible Western existence
I hope and pray they put all the WSL surfers in a “bubble” like the NBA. No family allowed, just agents, yoga teachers, life coaches, and surf coaches. Can you imagine the content that would come out of this? Turtle Bay is hurting, you could fit them all in there and just run the complete thing nearby. They could play golf also. This needs to happen.
Erik Logan sits in his WSL office in Santa Monica awaiting the arrival of colleagues, Pat “Patches” O’Connell and Dave Prodan, two of the only three other existing WSL employees, the last being Ross Williams’s “Women’s Commissioner” Doppelgänger, to discuss recent developments and the status and future of the upcoming 2021 World Tour season. The first in-person meetup since the week after the “successful” Rumble at the Ranch, when the organization went dormant in order to prevent any temptation to actually spend money on developing a product, Erik is extremely nervous that it will not go well. The cancellation of the Eddie paddle out, Erik worries, does not bode well for the contest at Pipe in December. He starts fidgeting with his iPad, trying to figure out how to rotate it to make it the way he wants to be oriented, and he hears the door open.
Erik: Hey, who do we have here?
Dave walks over and stands in Erik’s office doorway, his curly brown hair looking especially helmet-y.
Dave: It’s me.
Erik: Splendid!
Dave: Why are we here?
Erik: The Eddie news. We’re just waiting for Patchy.
Dave: Oh, right. Something had to jog us out of our torpid state. Well, I’m just going to put my stuff down. You know where to find me.
Dave walks down the hallway, tossing his tan messenger bag into his office as he passed it, making his way to the kitchenette, where he starts to make himself a sandwich.
Erik opens up Chrome on his iPad and types “ebony monster ass anal” and hears Pat walk in, the little pitter patter of his feet barely perceptible to human ears, dropping his iPad, which starts one of the videos from the search. Thankfully he made sure to turn the sound off.
Erik: Hey, Patches!
Pat walks over to Erik’s office and stands in the doorway.
Pat: Hi.
Erik: Great, we got the Dream Team together! Let’s get to work now. Go get Dave and meet me in the conference room.
Pat: I will. I’m heading to the kitchen anyway, I need to get some coffee.
Erik walks into the conference room and sits down. Moments later Pat and Dave walk in, Pat with a coffee mug in one hand and a coffee thermos in the other, Dave with his sandwich, small splotches of mustard (Grey Poupon he would assure you, if asked) and mayonnaise in his beard.
Erik: OK, now this is going to be a quick meeting.
Pat: Short? Then what was all that long setup for?
Dave: The setting is always the most important. Helps one fungibly fabricate best-of-breed niche markets…
Pat: What? That doesn’t even mean anything…
Erik: (shuddering, covering his nuts) Ooooh, Prodie, settle down…
Pat: So what are we doing here?
Dave: Well, the Eddie paddle out has been cancelled.
Pat: So?
Erik: We need Hawaii!
Pat: And how does this change anything? We just don’t say anything until later when we know we need to cancel because it’s infeasible.
Dave: That’s what I think. We put off saying anything. It doesn’t matter really. We kinda knew when we announced that Pipe was probably going to be cancelled.
Erik: *deep Pottzesque sigh* I thought it would really work.
Dave: It doesn’t matter if it really works, only the PR matters. We all know that.
Erik: Yeah. But if we cancel Pipe, do we start in Portugal in February?
Pat: We say we do, then if we can’t, we cancel later, closer to the event.
Dave: I agree.
Erik: OK, well, I guess that’s all I wanted to talk about. Thank you for coming in today. What are you guys doing today?
Dave: I’ve got to do some stuff for the podcast. I need to find some acceptable guests..
Erik: Neato!
Pat: I need to go to the supermarket.
Dave: Supermarket? Are you 70 years old or a foreign language textbook?
Pat: Shut up! I also need to go buy some mulch.
Erik: That’s interesting! Do you know anything about mulch? I have a great mulch guy!
Pat: No, I’m just going to Lowe’s. If I look too lost, someone will help me. It’s not like Home Depot where they go out of their way to avoid you.
Dave: Cool. Can we leave?
Erik: Yes, you can. Thanks, guys.
Pat and Dave get up, Dave wipes the remaining residual condiments off his face, and walk to the door. Dave stops and turns around.
Dave: Did you drop your self-given nickname on purpose?
Erik: What? No! &*$ is my name! What the heck?!
Dave shrugs and follows Pat out of the room and grabs his bag from his office. They leave the office into the sunny Santa Monica morning. Erik sits at the conference table all sad, then remembers what’s awaiting him on his iPad and happily runs to pick it up.
The Endless Bummer III
now that’s funny
And like the movies…i never get through karls epics in one sitting, but when done am always glad I did, thoroughly entertained, and feel i am a better person for the experience
The Sage Von Fanningstadt definitely makes it worthwhile to turn up to BeachGrit’s Surfing Symposium ….
hmm I’ll tell you a real story of the WSL trying to develop Bells/Winki , by asking for a 2.60 m (8′)high , 60m (150′) long Viewing Platform so , if they have the comp at Winki…wait for it ,so paying VIP’s have somewhere to watch the comp from…we have just busted the State Government working with our local Council doing a dodgy swap of license deal with Rip Curl for millions of dollars….so now the WSL wants to put permanent infrastructure at Winki….and we pay the $300K….have an eyesore to look at……big article coming up this weekend in the AGE…..WSL = bunch of developer cunts !
Play handball then do the rattlesnake shake
https://youtu.be/TqKKGDcexZs
I saw them at Cronulla Workers at the end of their career and they were just cruising , walking around , drinking with the punters …. seemed happy just to be playing and not nursing bruised egos from the perilous journey on the way down from the top .
The descent from the LA Coliseum to the Cronulla Workers Hall is a cruel one.
Funnily the land it was on ,about 200 m from the Pacific ,at the Alley , such a fun rip bowl in a southerly, made famous by Occy , Greeny and Dog , on Sydney’s most southern beach , must now be worth FUCKIN MILLIONS ….Our mate , slightly older , ran the nightclub there and was pumping out New Orders Blue Monday at the time , about 5 times a night .
My favorite era in surfing. Occy with his Rusty board and Peak sticker. I rode Hot Stuffs with the Rabbit logo back then
That board was fuckin IMMORTAL …. local legend suggests that he just checked it on to flights , no padding or board bag and it would miraculously appear at the next destination without the tiniest fracture , fins intact , ready to rock n roll …. Occy redefined the top turn on the indestructible Rusty Preisendorfer and one of his mate’s Beaver was still ripping on it years later … How cool were Hot Stuff ?some great shapers Al Byrne ( rip ) Neal Purchase snr etc etc
Excellent boards. Quality glassing too. Was on my way to Baja in 1983 or 84 and stopped at the Hang Ten Grand Prix contest at Ocean Beach San Diego and watched Occy surf against Dane Kealoa, Rabbit, Curren, etc. Nobody had ever heard of him before, and the Beach announcer couldn’t even pronounce his name right. I found out this year from Currens photographer that it was at that contest that Occy met Rusty and started riding his boards.
Cool … funny how a magic team comes together … he had been riding for G & S as a kid then for Jim Banks as a slightly older teenager , but like Curren could have ridden a Dunny door but the Rusty definitely sent him next level to Superstar ( until the fall )
Spent a lot of time talking shit with a great mate from Cronulla , during the Corona lockdown in Sydney , ( nothing else was goin down ) this year and he was riding for a company from Newcastle in the late 80s , who were trying to get a hold of Al Merricks bottom curve , apparently way ahead of the rest at that time … so he managed , while on the tour in the US , to get a board of Al through Chris Brown and he is loving it and a very young Lisa Anderson just can’t get a decent board asks my mate for help , and my mate being a thoroughly generous , good human , lends her the board , she loves it too , won’t give it back , pays my mate for the board , which never made it back to Newcastle and Lisa goes on to win 4 world titles for CI .
Amazing!!
He is a wealth of stories , but so humble , he just sits on them and it’s so fun trying to chisel little gems out of him .
Can we get one of those watery caskets sent to the WSL?
Handball starts this weekend … THW Kiel are again favorites !
Bayern München auf Ruhm!
We had some of the greats of French Handball pass through Kiel
Nikola Karabatić … my wife’s favorite
Daniel Narcisse and Thierry Omeyer
Notre chance de remporter trois médailles d’or consécutivement ruinées par les bâtards danois!
Vendée Globe start on 08 November.
It should be windy … November was always my most hated month of the surfing calendar in Sud Ouest France ….. I had some wonderful clients / friends from Vendee , hunters who would come to the Medoc during the winter season and often brought wonderful product from their vineyards ….. one sparkling cognac , are rare delicacy , was delicious but not so good for the my mental health .
Baie de Gascogne pretty lively in November, is nice event the start but this year much diminished due to virus. Cidre season soon, duck hunting, autumn mushroom I not mind November.
Les Cepes , Girolles , Bidaou , Chanterelle …. Belote , Tarot ….. Chasse à la Bécasse …. all noble pursuits .
When one is brought up in a place where surfing everyday , all year round , is the norm , like I was in Sydney , just like Aquitaine from Easter to All Saints , then all of a sudden boom …. November …. the rain , howling south west , 10 to 15 ft nowhere to go out , the last tourist has left , bars are closed , waiting for Xmas , hoping the wind might drop off around the 15th of December …. could be Heaven it could be Hell
Some of those wipeouts during the last one were pretty entertaining.
How will Kolohe make America great again now? Tragedy.
Maybe have another big win …..on the QS .
He will drive his Dodge Ram to Salispuedes for the day with a filmer and jet ski, and post a clip online called “Going Feral”.
Eddy No Go …. ?
Whirlpools?
Tom Current ?
I think that would be Tom Countercurrent?
Wes Lane Closed or a Willy Willy Morris ?
Willy is a clown. That guy led the Quik Crossing to places he never should have.
Worse than Kwok around the Wok ?
Worse that Kwok around the Mongolian BBQ