"We knew you were a Flim-Flam man whose stock in
trade was smoke and mirrors but all could have been forgiven and
forgotten if you'd given us something. Anything."
I hate to kick the man when he down, but in this case
he’s lightly symptomed and well, I know it’s being said all over
the internets, but I think it’s passed time for someone to
come out in print and say: “Time to go Elo”.
When you announced the Tour restructure I said I was all in, a
true believer.
And I was.
It was great to see a blueprint for bold action on a moribund
Tour. When the schedule was released and it was disappointing,
allowances were made.
Even the Ikea Finals Day at Trestles could have been approached
with an open mind.
Yeah, the corpo-speak meant we had to scrape the bottom of the
barrel when it came to summoning up the goodwill to give your
leadership a fair go. We knew you were a Flim-Flam man whose stock
in trade was smoke and mirrors but all could have been forgiven and
forgotten if you’d given us something.
Anything.
But you blew it, cuz.
Big time.
And when you blow it big-time and can’t make it right it’s time
to exit stage left. Give someone else a go. Give Starkey a
go, while there’s still something there for him to salvage from the
burning building.
We finally realised the key(s) to understanding the relentless
corpo-speak. Well, for one, it was a smokescreen to cover your lack
of understanding.
But more importantly, it was never really meant for us, was
it?
It was all communication meant to placate Dirk Ziff. Because
that is all money-men hear all day long. And you needed him far
more than you needed us. Still do. You needed him soothed, that
strong sense of responsibility is to him, not us. The Tour had no
income, no assets; only a money bags with incredibly deep
pockets.
No doubt the times have been challenging for you. Incredibly
challenging, yes. That remains the truest thing you ever said.
Maybe the only true thing you’ve said.
But in a sense, if this does prove to be the fatal blow, these
times have saved you from an even more agonising and drawn-out
failure. The pivot to story, which you staked your leadership on
was a failed gambit, almost from day one.
You served us up a bland gruel. Mighty thin. So thin, you could
read a newspaper through it, as your fellow Okie Woody Guthrie sang on Dustbowl
Blues.
Covid killed the story pivot and forced the hand back to the
core business of deciding world champs. Even allowing for the fact
that in the ensuing nine months you couldn’t come up with maybe the
easiest mark in World Sport – getting together a bunch of top
surfing talent on an island with surf and filming the result- the
response was weak.
A Pacific Ocean filled with Islands and surf and zero Covid
beckoned. That could have set the tone for a generation, maybe the
masterstroke the sport has craved since the first Man on Man event
at the Stubbies in ’77.
Instead we got drivel at Cabarita, a series of comps so boring
and low consequence that even hard-core fans could barely be
bothered tuning in.
For an Organisation that has played the “abundance of caution”
card so long and so hard and made so much of it’s prepared-ness to
resume top-line sport in times of the Covid it’s very, very hard
not to trade in schadenfreude.
Literally, what the fuck?
How, Elo?
Did you break protocol?
Come clean man, for once.
You’ve got to give us a little more. Suspending production?
Until when?
Whats the story?
Is there a plan to get competition back on?
What is it? Is there X process that takes Y amount of time? Then
give us X and Y.
Dribbling out info to the
useful idiots at Stab ain’t gunna cut it, no
matter how much positive spin they give you. The Whole World is
watching, you need to come up with more than a goose egg day after
day when people know Pipe is pumping.
If you don’t know what is going on, if the paperwork really is
screwed beyond belief then you got to say something.
You have to. Silence and self-pity won’t make the grade.
Every minute this drags on without a resolution after you crowed
about this Covid plan just makes the sport look worse and worse. It
makes us feel like the proverbial half-sucked cock at a wedding, if
I could be so base.
And that’s fine by me.
Ziff’s famous rising tide
speech at the Watermans Ball has been over-taken by
events. We can tell stories better than the Wozzle, Vlog better and
if Ziff dumps the Woz in the incinerator someone will pick up the
ashes and, phoenix-like, something new will emerge.
This plan of yours, to start the Tour off in North America with
the ‘rona running as rampant as methed up stormtroopers across the
Russian steppes. It seems, um, reckless.
And you found a loophole by retro-fitting the permits for the
Pipe Masters as a film shoot, not a sporting event.
That could have come across as a masterstroke, but I doubt we
would have ever found out because this new found zeal for
transparency is only skin deep. Instead it looks sneaky and what
precious little trust we had in you has been discounted.
Doesn’t sound like there was a great deal of excess goodwill to
count on on the part of the Honolulu pen pushers either. They sound
pissed Eric.
You wouldn’t be the first Haole run out of the Islands, and you
wont be the last.
These are proud people and this is their culture you are whoring
out.
To be fair, we all whore it out.
At the least, you have to make a decent fist of it.
You blew it Elo.
Time to get off the bus, Gus. Make a new plan, Stan. Drop off
the key, Lee, and set yourself, and us, free.
