"I don’t see any other sport shutting it all down for a couple random cases??”

The US Olympic surf team’s coach and surfing hall-of-famer Brett Simpson has gone to social media to demand the immediate incarceration of WSL staff after CEO Erik Logan tested positive for COVID-19 forcing the suspension of the Pipeline Masters. 

The immensely popular Simpson, who is thirty-three years old and has skin pigmentation consistent with rust, wrote on the WSL’s IG page,

“Lock the staff up! Let these surfers surf man! We are losing our sport!! I don’t see any other sport shutting it all down for a couple random cases??”

Real talk! 

East Coast shredder Brett Barley joined the chorus, 

“What’s a positive test even worth? Plenty of false positives (false negatives too) amongst the testing… and plenty of people see little to no symptoms. Put the positive testing staff outside the comp zone and move on… let the surfers surf! Some of those guys have sacrificed IMMENSE amounts to leave their home country to get here and compete, and can’t just go home. The show must go on.”

A few surf fans disagreed, this clever man even working a little systemic racism into the mix. 

Been going on a long time. White privilege = haole entitlement = Everyone who comes here including @brettbarley @wsl @elo_eriklogan Interesting that all these privileged D-grade surfers from elsewhere think they are allowed to have a say here

Balance, of course, came from The Inertia, 

“Man. We know how hard everyone has been working to make pro surfing come back to life. An extremely daunting task given the breadth of international competitors and logistical challenge of hosting international competitions around the globe during a pandemic. We’re sending positive, healthy vibes to everyone – remaining optimistic for a good update soon.”

Although the wisest voice, I think, was @brindles who wrote,

The only winner in this debacle is clearly @beach_grit. 

Channel feel-good!

In the genre of feel-good family reunification films, I doubt there’s anything in cinema that captures, as beautifully as this short vlog, the joy of reconnecting with a once-lost parent.

Six years ago, John Florence senior, the fifty-one-year-old father of John John junior, Ivan and Nathan, wrote a sixty-nine page long tell-all memoir called FEAR (Face Everything and Recover), and which is available, kindle only, for $3.81 on Amazon.

It is a fascinating read and it’s clear, I think, where Nathan, the most engaging of the three brothers, gets his quirky, slightly literary side.

Let’s read.

“I am natural flirt. I enjoy making people smile, chuckle, laugh. I am very sexual by nature. I was raised that way. I have always enjoyed the whole sexual innuendo sort of suggestion in general conversation. Something that would make a person raise an eyebrow while giving a sly knowing smile back. Very sexual in every way to a fault or not, I am not sure but this is simply how I interact with everyone from passengers at my tables to coworkers, friends and girlfriends.

“Alex was attracted to me because I was the charming, funny waiter, union delegate, friend of the captain, a sort of King of the Dining Room on the ships. She was also intimidated by those qualities.

“By attacking everything that made me, she could safely keep her hold on me. But this makes me ask the question, “Am I still me without all those qualities?” Am I still a fun, comical, sexy and intriguing John? I know I didn’t feel that way with Alex. I felt stripped of me, like a John in a black and white. I felt caged and shut down. Like a bird not allowed to fly, a flower not allowed to bloom… I need to be able to be me, to attract the responses I desire – the laughs, the smiles, the sexy knowing smiles of women… ”

“I am currently awaiting arraignment for two felony DUIs. I received a DUI on October 10th of 2013 and hired a lawyer; he felt we had it beat due to no witnesses. Then, as if I’m living with doom on my shoulder, I received another DUI in January of 2014. The prosecutor offered me a plea on two misdemeanour charges but my attorney quickly refused the plea, and accepted that they would upgraded these to two felony DUIs. I do not know what the terms of the plea were, but as in the first case, there was (sic) no witnesses to put me behind the wheel at the time the vehicle was stranger on the curb… I am looking at some time behind bars. What the fuck was I thinking? … Like so many before me, alcohol is doom’s carrier pigeon… I feel now that I was doomed from the start… doomed to make poor decisions, doomed to be misled by my love of ‘good times’ to a life of pain and misery, leaving destruction and broken lives in my wake.

“Yet, I must admit, if not for the alcohol, I would not have married the two beautiful women who loved me, would not have the four beautiful sons I love with all my heart, and wouldn’t have this story to tell… ”