Mommie Dearest.
Mommie Dearest.

“Overbearing” Great White Shark, possibly largest in the entire Atlantic ocean, malingering off New Jersey coast: “She’s over 50 years old and mother to as many as 100 li’l killers!”

Ben Gravy beware.

But which do you consider the scariest horror film featuring a bad mother? Mommie Dearest? Mother!? My Mom’s a Werewolf? Dead Alive?

There are many terrifying choices as mothers, when they turn, strike more ice-cold fear into the heart than just about anything and, thus, it is fitting that possibly the largest Great White Shark in the entire ocean is a 50+ year old mother named Nukumi.

Weighing in at over 4500 lbs and stretching over 17 feet, the apex predator was first observed and tagged just over a month ago near the coast of Nova Scotia. She is now malingering just off New Jersey and surfers there should be very, very scared as she could easily fit three Ben Gravys in her belly alongside multiple helpings of Sam Hammer.

How do you imagine Ben Gravy tastes (imagine here)?

Nukumi, shark researchers estimate, has likely given birth to over 100 pups in her lifetime and is “winning the battle of natural selection.”

Back to scary mothers, though, do you think she raised her li’l killers right with good manners etc. or do you think she abused them so that they can go abuse others?

Have you watched Dead Alive?

It is my favorite of the bad mother genre.


Kelly Slater’s accuser, proved wrong by scholar of obscure neologisms says, “No regrets” as “Uncomfortability” saga stretches into fourth day!

"English is a rubbery son of a bitch."

While I fully intend to address the errors highlighted in this website’s apology article concerning accusations made in a previous article of mine I would first of all humbly request that the BeachGrit community first entertain a brief defence on my part:

I didn’t, as the title (not assigned by myself) of my original article suggested, state at any point that the word uncomfortability categorically did not exist.

I speculated (“Is that a word?”), committed (“That’s not a word”) and then immediately retracted the previous line (“But hang on, it might actually be a word.”)

I did question the logic of said word’s existence and value and what it might obliquely reveal about a speaker’s attitude and general mindset both habitual and/or temporary.

So that’s that put to bed.

Wrapped up. Done. Forever.

Now for some contrition on my part:

I extend an apology to BeachGrit itself and can only hope that this incident – this lapse in journalistic thoroughness – does not jeopardise what until now has been a cordial and fruitful relationship, extending now if my memory serves me correctly, into its fourth day.

Additionally, I hope that the offending article does not provoke any litigation on the part of Kelly, his legal team or his sponsors. Should such an event occur I will of course co-operate fully in any legal or court proceedings, especially if said proceedings should take place within reasonable distance of a decent intermediate level break with some juicy peeling lefts.

I apologise to the BeachGrit readership.

Investigative journalism can’t exist without readers and if there’s one aspect of the internet we can all agree has enriched our lives it’s the edifying musings, witty retorts and various measured speculations of the below-the-line comments section.

Most of all, I apologise to Kelly Slater aka The Goat aka The World’s Greatest Athlete for casting any doubt on his clearly extremely nuanced knowledge of the English language. English is a rubbery son of a bitch of a language and it seems in this case the evidence and scholarly arguments are on your side.

As a person who makes their living as a teacher of said language it’s not easy for me to admit it but: you have bested me and in my own field no less.

In terms of surfing?

Well, that remains to be empirically proven, but if you want to, and when this whole Covid thing has blown over, I live in Asturias. Should you prefer home-break advantage I would of course accept an all expense paid flight to either Florida or a break anywhere in the world for that matter. Peace.

I will now be taking some time off from the internet and all social media in order to reflect on my actions and spend time with family and friends.


Photo: Tronald Dump.
Photo: Tronald Dump.

Violent factionalism erupts in Oceanside as locals strike against Australia-based JS surfboard warehouse: “fuk ozz. Get out!!!”

The temperature has risen.

And we’re back. Oh my goodness, how we’re back. Surf-adjacent brands selling for billions and billions of dollars. A professional surf tour starring Trestles and Steamer Lane. Violent factional rage exploding between Californians and Australians.

All the way back to our high water mark of 1992/93.

But regarding the violent factional rage, which is particularly exciting, a JS warehouse in Oceanside, California was tagged overnight with the phrase: “you fuk up! fuck ozz. O’side. Get out!!!”

JS, as you certainly know, is the eponymous surfboard brand belonging to Jason Stevenson who did not grow up in Oceanside or even Carlsbad but all the way across the Pacific on North Stradbroke Island, very near Brisbane, Australia.

He became a professional surfer, moved to Coolangatta, learned the art of professional surfboard shaping and became a standard for the explosion of Gold Coast/Queensland surfers including Joel Parkinson, Julian Wilson, Ryan Callinan, Mikey Wright.

Very exciting though decidedly not Californian and Oceanside’s board building community did not take kindly to a fancy, styley black warehouse branded with JS’s iconic traktor logo right in its midst.

So out came the spray can, up went “you fuk up! fuck ozz. O’side. Get out!!!” and off goes our war.

Will JS retaliate?

Against whom?

How?

Are you revitalized by this turning up of the temperature?

Will you drive down your street shouting “Fuk Ace Buchan!!!” later this evening, if you are Team California?

I will.

Extremely exciting.


Jordan Smith: Getting better at Pipe. Three big fat, challenging right-handers ahead. Sunset, Steamer Lane, Bells. That offers potential for an easy Top 5 finish for Jordy. Nerves of steel in small surf and an unbeatable mix of power/repertoire at Trestles. | Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms

Longtom on WSL’s Trestles Tour Climax: “What it offers in high performance it lacks in gravitas, aesthetics, drama, the lack of demand on any reserves of courage or high stakes decision making!”

Scenario: the number one contender has won four events and has a shocker at Trestles and loses to the number five who haired out at Tahiti and Pipe. What sorta world title is that gonna be?

Asterisks at the ready, with the new Tour about to throw fat in the fire, I think we can all agree today is a very good day for we, the people.

I was literally up to my elbows in goats nuts as the word came down the wire and my phone lit up. Unfortunately, the op got a little muddled, the scalpel and sutures not as precise as they could be and a haemorrhaging kid has kept me away from the keys until now.

I’m resisting the urge to make a allegory about the bleeding goat and the WSL.

Hawaii is on, unless it’s not, according to VP Patty O but promised via podcast that “We will crown a World Champ next year”.

The statement from the Woz is full of weird little qualifiers, I guess mandatory in the age of Covid, that suggest any iteration of the current schedule could run, with the highest confidence in what is a stunning return to power of the USA.

Four CT events will be adorned with the stars and stripes, with a finals day at Trestles to decide the World Champ.

I think the last gal standing knock-out format of the finals day is a grand addition to the Tour, although it has dangers.

Notably, it fixes a problem that already had a wonderful solution, that being a finals day at Pipe and it does erode the edges of one of the Tour’s chiefs strengths, that being: It takes a Tour to Make a Title.

Now it takes being in the Top 5 and having a red hot finals day to make a title. It’s not quite the same thing.

If the number one contender has won, say four or five events, and has a shocker at Trestles and loses to the number five who haired out at Tahiti and Pipe, for eg. You know what I’m saying and who I’m referring to, right?

Trestles?

The very big sense I’m getting is that we don’t love it. It’s got the Romans’ Thumb down from me. I do love Trestles as a tour stop. I love the dramas that come from splitting the peak and the fine grained disputations over the minutiae of high-performance surfing.

What it offers in high performance it lacks in gravitas, aesthetics, drama, the lack of demand on any reserves of courage or high stakes decision making etc etc. In short, it will compare poorly to the historical record of Pipe finals days, for existing fans.

For new fans the same criticism applies even moreso.

Cloudbreak was the obvious choice to run as a finals day venue, especially in the Covid era.

Hats off to the Wozzle for getting the Tour running again.

The attempts to create some kind of pre-Tour buzz with the Countdown series have been dismal. Nine events have been run, according to Patty O’Connell.

Nine! Have you watched?

I got most of the Tweed Coast Pro, three heats at Straddy, about ninety seconds of the fluoro Mardi Gras in Brazil and less than five minutes of the Euro comps. If ELO held a gun to my head and asked me to come up with five highlights I could only remember the incredible duration of Tyler’s raised fist drop knee protest for BLM.

I just don’t know whether the positive pairing of ELO and Patty are the guys to bring the Tour back from its coma. According to media chieftain Dave Prodan the great leap forward ELO has made since beginning his CEO-ship is to “bring the focus back to the CT” and realise it as the engine of the company.

Get Ziff on the phone and double his pay for that brilliant insight. That’s genius.

The rejigged Tour itself has a mixed bag of opportunities and threats. Starting at Pipe is a massive advantage for incumbency.

Rookie slaughter expected, with a few exceptions.

Taking the first third of the Tour big winners would be:

Jordan Smith: Getting better at Pipe. Three big fat, challenging right-handers ahead. Sunset, Steamer Lane, Bells. That offers potential for an easy Top 5 finish for Jordy. Nerves of steel in small surf and an unbeatable mix of power/repertoire at Trestles.

Jack Robinson: Pipe Ace, first among equals at Sunset would put him on a no-pressure run into the Aussie leg where anything to do with the Box or North Point sees him win again. G-Land, J- Bay and Tahiti play right into his wheel-house.

JJF: Pipe, Sunset, Bells and Margaret River he can do at 70% without even attempting an aerial. Could conceivably sit Surf Ranch out to freshen up for Trestles as a way to dig the knife into Slater.

Losers.

Kelly Slater: Almost has to win Pipe to compensate for weakness at Sunset and the other fat rights on Tour. We’ll never misunderestimate his level of uncomfortability at chubby rights but there is a slight compensation due to not having to scrap around in European close-outs against a local wildcard. Question marks about his anti-vax stance if a vaccination becomes available and mandatory.

Ethan Ewing: After winning Tweed Coast Pro momentum has been lost. Seen a lot of Ethan surfing lately. He’s Top 3 in sand-bottom point surf. At Pipe and Sunset and Steamer Lane? No chance.

The QS: What the fuck is going on the QS? Dave Prodan said stability was the best building block to developing new Tour structures but stability for the QS is not even on the horizon.

Who you got on truncated Tour, with some likelihood it may be missing as many limbs as the Black Knight (just a flesh wound!) come Trestles?

I say Jordan Smith and he will not like any asterisks beside his name.

I predict some very fiery pressers as the over-sensitive Saffa takes umbrage to even the softest of soft balls.

What say you?


Apology: Scholar reveals Kelly Slater’s use of “Uncomfortability” to be correct, “A neologism used only by top one percent of intellects in world!”

Uncomfortability: The act of making another extremely anxious or upset.

It might be news to some, but Kelly Slater, an eleven-time world surfing champion and still in the conversation, as they say, even as he nears fifty, has a formidable intellect.

“I think I finished with a 4.6 GPA, and I didn’t even give it my all,” Kelly said of high school, a grade point average that would impressive any Ivy League admissions officer.

Yesterday, in a stinging essay, it was reported that Kelly had disfigured the English language by describing his relationship with John John Florence as having “a level of uncomfortability.”

Wrote John Miskelly, “Maybe not content with inventing large aspects of the world of modern surfing both within the performance of the sport itself as well as being a one-man motor for the commercialisation of surfing, Kelly is now taking it on himself to reconfigure the conventionalisms of the English language itself.”

Well.

As revealed by a scholar in an email to BeachGrit earlier today, and using the Rice University Neologism database to prove his case, it was Kelly who must enjoy the last laugh.

Uncomfortability: The act of making another extremely anxious or upset. The word ‘uncomfortability’ was formed by blending the adjective ‘uncomfortable’ and the noun ‘ability’ in order to yield a word that meant ‘the skill to make another uneasy or upset’, very similar to the formation of ‘stretchability’ (from the clothing industry). It was coined to replace a phrase, like ‘efforts to annoy’ or something similar, with one word, making it much catchier and easier to remember. It is not particularly formal since it is a neologism, but it does not have an informal connotation and could really be used by anyone in a wide variety of circumstances.

BeachGrit extends an unreserved apology to Mr Slater, who is currently holidaying in Bali, Indonesia.