A national drama!

As the world goes shutters once more in an attempt to slow the spread of Covid-19, moods are mixed sad and happy. Sad because no more drinking in bars, dining in restaurants, shopping in shoe stores. Happy because the wonderful genre of lock-lit gets a revival.

You certainly recall the previous run of brilliant stories detailing police dragging surfers off South African beaches, Victorian surfers weeping and gnashing their teeth unable to leave their state to go and tube the Superbank, Californian surfers catching heavy tickets for enjoying Asian-fusion cuisine near the sand.

Extremely exciting and today we have the tale of Mr Sanya, who was said to be carrying a 9mm Glock when he and four other officers arrived at the beach, near Kamala, and seized Jirachaya Sitthichoke surfing equipment.

The Phuket News report has the entire country of Thailand up in “arms” with this intoxicating admixture of he said/she said, correct police procedure and Austrian vs. German manufacturing superiority.

Apparently, Ms Jirachaya, who conducted the surfing class on the beach, was taken aback when Mr Sanya rocked up to seize her equipment with his Glock and filed an official complaint that he was in a public place with a un-permitted firearm.

Kamala Chief Police Col Chaiyapreuk Phadiwarakorn confirmed that the formal complaint was filed, saying, “(Mr Sanya) said he had permission to carry the handgun as had previously served as Kathu District Chief. We are not sure yet whether this is correct. We are still looking into the matter.”

Mr Saya said the raid was being carried out because no commercial activities are allowed on that stretch of beach. “I have asked them to move and warned them twice before, but they just ignored me. So yesterday we arrived at the beach and asked them to move again, and asked them to pay a fine of B200 as a warning. They still just ignored me, so we seized their equipment…” adding, “I have the authority to carry my gun as I previously worked with the Kathu District Office. The Kamala OrBorTor chief has also agreed for me to carry my gun while on duty. This is normal. There is no need to be worried, there is no need for any tourists to worry.”

BeachGrit will continue paying close attention to developments here but, in the meantime, do you feel Austria’s Glock or Germany’s SIG Sauer is a better weapon?

Much to ponder.

"I'm losing it."

Oh bother. And if there was one thing proud Great Britain did not need it was a kerfuffle over its English language but, amidst eternal Brexit negotiations, a Coronavirus pandemic and Boris Johnson here we are for the nation’s proud, revered news organization, the British Broadcasting Corporation, has decided to drop the toxic and triggering word “fishermen” and replace it with the more inclusive “fisherpeople.”

The change occurred on Radio 4’s Today program and sparked instant backlash as fisherpeople took to social media to decry the change, the BBC’s continuing “wokeness” and to point out that a tiny fraction of commercial fisherpeople in the country are women.

Ashley Mullenger, who calls herself the ‘female fisherman,’ joined the fight and told the Daily Mail she only knows of six women also doing her job in the entire United Kingdom.

The BBC’s style guide declares: “Unless you are sure only males are involved, avoid words such as ‘newsmen, ‘businessmen’ and ‘policemen.'” And a spokesperson, when reached for comment, insisted that there was no “ban” on fishermen though “fisherpeople” was perfectly acceptable.

Anchor Piers Morgan, who used to be almost cable news famous in the United States, took to the airwaves infuriated.

“Here’s the point, it’s a rough old job, on the trawler boats on the rough high seas. I’ve never seen a woman on a trawler boat doing that. There must be some, I guess, but is there a single woman in the country who actually trawls for fish professionally… the whole language is being changed from fisherman to fisherpeople. There are certain jobs that women don’t like to do. And it may be that in a trawler, rough and tough in the North Sea at midnight on a Wednesday in January, it’s not up there on the to-do-list of the equality brigade.”

How much time do you think Piers Morgan has spent commercially trawling in the North Sea?

A few months a year?

More to our point, should we change the outdated and exclusionary word “surfer” for “surferpeople?”

Should DJ Paul Fisher change his potentially offensive last name/stage name to Fisherperson?

Much to ponder.

Devastating.

Imagine waking up this morning as World Surf League CEO Erik Logan. Sleep still in eyes. Excited, though slightly nervous, with the start of the 2020/21 Championship Tour Season mere weeks away. Competition. World’s best surfers, world’s best waves. Heats.

Scores in and out of the excellent range.

You get out of bed, make a cup of bracing herbal tea still wearing your Kai Lenny pajamas, check the El Porto surf cam, throwing “Hawaiian Handshakes” to the boys in the lineup and whispering “See you in two shakas…” giggling at the play on words then walk past your wall mounted Laird Hamilton signed SUP to the front door to retrieve the morning paper.

The New York Times.

Only the best.

After flipping through many scary stories of Covid-19 spikes and President Trump’s lasting damage to the nation, you stumble across the headline Endless Subscribers: Surfers Follow a New Path to Stardom with the subhead “In the digital era, a carefully crafted persona has become more valuable than contest results.”

What?

You read again “…more valuable than contest results.”

A shiver races up your spine.

Surely the sentiment was meant in jest. You laugh at your own tension, purpose to do some mindfulness exercises later in the day and press forward, excited that surfing is getting the spotlight it needs and, as surfing’s “Global Home,” it will all reflect directly on Santa Monica.

Except the whole thing starts with Sterling Spencer and his forsaking of contests and going the traditional structures in order to carve his own path.

Spencer’s vision held true. After decades during which legacy surf publications folded and the glow of contests dimmed, the longstanding route for promoting the sport and its participants has almost entirely vanished. Surfers remade it, cultivating their own audiences through the digital world and in turn altering the way professionals map their careers. The value of stories told by surfers soon eclipsed the world rankings, and a carefully crafted persona garnered more currency than contest results.

The piece transitions to Dane Reynolds and how he too became truly famous without contests and then to Jamie O’Brien…

With weekly videos that follow his life on the North Shore of Oahu and abroad, O’Brien has gained 655,000 YouTube subscribers, 10,000 more than the World Surf League.

Alana Blanchard…

Alana Blanchard, 30, followed a similar path after leaving the World Surf League’s tour in 2015. Her 1.8 million Instagram followers dwarf the number of her former sponsor Rip Curl by 800,000. O’Brien and Blanchard didn’t just get past the gatekeepers. They leveled the whole structure.

Ben Graeff…

“Ten years after I quit surfing, I became a professional surfer through making YouTube videos,” said Graeff, who is known as Ben Gravy. His career took off when a 2017 video of him surfing off a ferry’s wake in his native New Jersey went viral.

And by the time your eyes find the last line, a quote from Justin Quintall saying, “You are your own media outlet…” tears are also streaming out of them, landing softly on your customized Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch placemats.

A hit piece.

The Gray Lady just carried out a hit piece on your World Surf League.

Sad.