Beleaguered surfers stagger under new
damning categorization: “You all are part of the mediocre white man
industrial complex!”
By Chas Smith
The burdens we bear.
If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that
white men are giant bummers, responsible for the dour state of the
world, generally toxic and uncool. Oof. Seeing that the majority of
surfers are white men all of these lessons apply to us and now,
also, a whole new categorization. The “mediocre white man
industrial complex.”
The term, first presented in Ijeoma Oluo’s new book Mediocre, describes how
white male mediocrity has become both the United States and
surfing’s core ideology. The author defines white male mediocrity
as “this idea that white men deserve political power and wealth and
safety and security and waves just because they’re white men.”
White male mediocrity protects the belief that white men are
perceived as stronger and more successful than women and people of
color regardless of skill or achievements, she says. “It’s a
system that protects mediocrity, that sets [mediocrity] as the
goal. And the idea that anything would ask for more of our systems
— let alone the people within these systems — becomes a threat to
the status quo and to our systems of power.”
Ugh.
It makes me think about my mediocre surfing and, likely, your
mediocre surfing and how we’re bolstering the mediocre white man
industrial complex every time we paddle out.
I need to work on doing less mediocre cutbacks. Like, actually
bend my knees and stuff.
Paddling now. I’ll report on progress soon.
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North Shore fire sale: Pipe house made
iconic by Jamie O’Brien hits the market with expectations around
$5.5 million, almost half its 2018 price; joins rumoured sale of
both Volcom houses!
By Derek Rielly
"Home to this year's Billabong Pipeline Masters and
the Volcom Pipe Pro – RIGHT IN YOUR BACK YARD! This is a one of a
kind property!"
Hot on the rumour that both Volcom Pipe houses have been
quietly listed for sale, is the confirmed listing of the Pipe house
Jamie O’Brien made famous at 59-369 Ke Nui Road for $5.5
million.
The old joint, which was built in 1945 and remodelled ten years
later, is actually two studios nailed together. Jamie used to live
in the oceanfront half, daddy Mick and pals in the back of the
place.
The owner has been trying to sell the house for the past four
years for ten-mill, but has now cut the price by half.
Four beds, two baths, sixteen hundred square feet.
From the listing,
Directly fronting the legendary Pipeline surf break on the
North Shore of Oahu. During the winter months you will be treated
to stunning views of arguably the best surf break in the world!
Home to this year’s Billabong Pipeline Masters and the Volcom Pipe
Pro – RIGHT IN YOUR BACK YARD! This is a one of a kind property!
Direct ocean frontage perched above and overlooking one of the most
incredible beaches in the world! During the summer the waters are
calm and clear, the sand is clean and soft. Wonderful swimming,
beachcombing, and sunning! The expansive summer sand fronting this
property provides incredible privacy. The North Shore of Oahu has a
spirit or mana. It is not just a location, it is a lifestyle. Come
– Become.. Bring your architect and contractor to explore the
possibilities!
Obvs, I hit up Jamie, the flame haired king of Pipeline and
currently the most popular surfer in the world, for his view on the
matter.
Jamie moved out of the joint a few years back when he bought his
own place behind the Lopez house
“Shitty,” he said. “I wish the owner would give me an inside
deal.”
JOB said he doubted the five-mill price would be hit ’cause it
was a knockdown and predicts three-and-a-half mill will be enough
to convince the owner to toss you the keys.
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You want Pipe frontage? Volcom
Rumor: Both of the iconic Volcom homes,
fronting the Banzai Pipeline, quietly on the block for $3.5m and
$2.5m respectively!
By Chas Smith
Volcom has owned the “party” house since 2000 and
the “Gerry” house since 2008 They are most well-known for featuring
in the Christmas classic “Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell.”
They say that you can’t put a price on peace of mind but
you can, apparently, on a piece of surf history and a
surprisingly low price to boot.
A hot rumor has floated over the coconut wireless, flighting for
airtime with the holiday classic Mele
Kalikimaka, that not one but both of Volcom’s Pipe
fronting homes are quietly on the block as pocket listings. The
classic “party” house, featuring a dungeon and porch-front house
held aloft by cinder block and the next door “Gerry” house
(sometimes called the “Yago” house) where Bruce Irons once ruled
from a third story penthouse.
Both come with large black and white “stones.”
Volcom has owned the “party” house since 2000 and the “Gerry”
house since 2008 They are most well-known for featuring in the
Christmas classic “Welcome to Paradise, Now
Go to Hell.”
Also for being “the proving grounds.”
Much to learn here.
Etc.
But doesn’t $3.5m and $2.5m respectively seem ridiculously
cheap? Like, so cheap that I’m a tiny bit reticent in advertising
because I could imagine being almost able to afford if I had made
vastly better choices in life?
Well, BeachGrit is aiming for big things this coming
year and maybe just maybe those big things include being “the
proving grounds.”
You’re invited, of course, and we will paddle out to Pipe,
together, and show everyone how it’s done.
Exciting.
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Great White forces closure of popular
Australian beach on one of state’s hottest Christmas Eves ever and
less than two weeks after second-biggest Great White on record was
caught and tagged just offshore!
By Derek Rielly
"An abnormally high number of sharks."
A bumper season for Great Whites in Australia,
to be sure.
Just two weeks after the second-biggest Great White ever
recorded in Western Australia waters forced the closure of
Cottesloe, another Great White has put swimmers and surfers at the
same beach back on the sand.
The White was three-hundred feet offshore when it was spotted at
three forty-five, prompting the now familiar sounds of klaxons and
megaphones and the scene of swimmers exiting the water, with
haste.
Forty-five minutes later, the White had disappeared and the
beach was reopened although swimmers were especially tentative, few
willing to venture into
depths beyond their waists.
Two weeks ago, Peter Godfrey from the Department of Fisheries
had told 9News, “It’s very rare to have such a big White shark so
close to the metropolitan area.”
And, Surf Life Saving WA had warned of an “abnormally high
number of sharks.”
The “mammoth” Great White swimming so close to a popular beach,
it said, was “not an isolated incident.”
For generations, pretty Cottesloe Beach, seven miles (11 km)
from the centre of Perth, was known for its dreamy grass terraces
and even dreamier afternoons in its hotels’ beer gardens, a tangled
sea of brown bodies and loose lips.
Then, in 2000, one year after Great Whites became protected by
law, a swimmer, Ken Crew, was attacked and killed by a fifteen-foot
Great White in waist-deep water and in front of other swimmers,
early morning joggers and cafe diners. He bled out in the arms of a
Catholic priest on the beach.
Great White stocks appear to be abundant, at least
anecdotally.
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Wild new documentary follows
rags-to-riches-to-rags story of Peruvian gang-banger turned pro
surfing hopeful: “Soon after, he’d be in the hospital nursing two
bullet holes through his body”
By Steve Rees
Easy to judge, hard to watch.
The new film En La Tormenta documents the last
five years of WQS hopeful Jhonny Guerrero.
Here’s the short version:
Guerrero taught himself to surf on a snapped board in Lima as
his dad sat in Peru’s hellish Lurigancho prison, his mom and baby
brother without food and broke in Chorrillos, one of Lima’s many
dangerous barrios.
Naturally, gang life seemed like a fun option for Jhonny until
he was shot through the back in a drive-by.
While not explicitly prohibited in the ‘QS Rule Book, none of it
is best practice.
Director Adam Brown originally set out for Peru in 2015 to shoot
Projecto Sofía Mulánovich, a talent scouting and surf
training academy led by Sophia herself, a former ASP World Tour
Champion and current ISA World Games gold medal winner. Most of the
kids invited into the Projecto came from the country’s middle and
upper classes, equipped with fine quivers and supportive
parents.
Jhonny had neither, showing up on the beach alone with an old
board and a hole in his wetsuit.
Brown said that he “kept hearing about this kid called Jhonny
Guerrero who was from a tough neighborhood. He had supposedly
taught himself to surf on a piece of foam and then a broken board
he had found on the beach and now he was absolutely ripping. He
seemed like a bit of a myth and whenever I said to Sofia’s team
that we should get him along to the trials, there was always some
hesitatio. There were (unfounded) rumors at the time that Jhonny
was robbing people on the beach to survive.”
Still, Sofía took a chance on the quiet kid, seeing both
his drive and natural ability to read a wave right.
“Here in Peru mostly all the families that surf know each other
and their love for the sports comes from generation to generation,”
Sofia told me. “But Jhonny came from the city and nobody really
knew about him and his family. He comes from a really unstable
social background and I decided to help him because he didn’t have
the means to get good equipment and coaching but he was super
talented .”
And he was every bit as good as people had described: smooth and
fluid, a raw talent that got Sofia and her coaches excited. Jhonny
ended up being selected as part of a group of ten talented kids
that would be trained by Sofia and her team.
Sofia’s interest in helping Jhonny went beyond teaching him how
to get more power off his back foot. She and the others at the
Projecto helped him keep distance from the gangs infesting his
barrio.
“Jhonny was always in an environment that led him to street
life, so we tried to help him by guiding him in the best possible
way to put all his energy into his surfing. We moved him to a
different house with a really nice family that surfs,” said
Sofia.
In the film, we see Jhonny pick up sponsors including Hurley and
others who throw him clothes and money, some of which he uses to
buy a bed for his little brother and give some to his mom who says
him, exhaustedly, “I’m so hungry.”
Happily ever after. Thank you, Hurley.
But the story arc of En La Tormenta isn’t that
clean.
Even with the lifeline Sophia hands him, Jhonny goes back to
what he knows. He’s anchored to the street. During the Peruvian
under 16 finals, Jhonny was the favorite to win, but he never makes
it to the sand, leaving Sofia and his support team defeated. When
the camera catches his coach trying to shake some sense into him,
Jhonny looks numb, indifferent at best.
Soon after, he’d be in the hospital nursing two bullet holes
through his body.
It’s easy to judge him here, a raw-talented kid given a golden
ticket to learn fromSofía Mulánovich with all the trimmings:
boards, swag, cash then tossing it all to go back to the
temptations of his barrio.
But environment everything and need has no law.
This is where the film is at its best, leaving us to wrestle
with Jhonny’s decisions as we run our own eyes around our cozy,
carpeted living rooms.
Fortunately for Jhonny, Sofia and his coaches didn’t let him run
around the streets for long and within months of the shooting, we
watch an emotional Jhonny back in the water on the ‘QS, nailing
down some fine results.
En La Tormenta ends before Hurley dropped its team last
year and before COVID-19 shut down Jhonny’s chances of continuing
on tour.
“Cut adrift by circumstances,” as Director Adam Brown says.
Both Sofia and Brown are in frequent contact with Jhonny.
Neither know if he’ll be able to get to the ‘CT.
Back in Chorrillos, Jhonny is pursuing his interest in Latin rap
and has been seen lately in a few surf contests around Lima. Sofia
thinks Jhonny has learned through the years that hard work pays
off.
“He is a really charismatic young man that can succeed in many
areas if he puts his heart and mind into it.”
Watching the movie, we’re left to wonder what’s going to happen
to the kid who’s captured on film crying more than smiling,
splitting his time between ocean and street.
And while beautifully shot (JJF’s filmer Erik Knutson spent some
days behind the lens), En La Tormenta ain’t no promotional
video.
In case you want to throw a buck or two to help poor kids from
Lima’s barrios learn to surf, you can check out Alto Peru.
It just won Best Film at the 2020 Brooklyn Film Festival and
will be available on BBC’s Storyville in January.