COVID-19 continues to beat hell out of world surf tours.

Sunset was always going to be dead in the water after the COVID follies, which included the WSL’s CEO Erik Logan and four other WSL staffers being infected, at the Pipeline Masters. 

And, earlier today, after Hawaii’s department of business, economic development and tourism announced it was suspending surf competitions, effective immediately, the WSL cancelled not just Sunset and the Big Wave Jaws Championship Pe’ahi  but the Santa Cruz Pro at Steamer Lane, too. 

Per the presser,

“The decision to postpone the Santa Cruz Pro, the last planned event of the US leg of the Championship Tour, is based primarily on the surge of COVID-19 cases in California. The postponement is also heavily influenced by the length of time our athletes have been away from home, and by the complexities of global travel during this pandemic, which would have caused significant logistical challenges for athletes and staff to travel home and return to California for the event.

“We look forward to safely continuing the 2021 CT season with the Australia leg starting at the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach in April.”

No Sunset, no Steamer Lane, possibly, still, no Bells.

A gift from heaven, no?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJrGjyGB5Qu/

"How sad is your life that you think someone is lying about having content just because you’re too much of a cheap ass to buy it yourself."

One month ago, it was reported that Redditors had created an encrypted chat room to share explicit content bought from world #25 rated surfer-turned-porn-star Ellie-Jean Coffey. 

A socialist experiment where capital is pooled and the harvest shared.

BeachGrit was invited, for free, to the chat room and therefore the material we might examine would also be free. 

At the time, the group’s latest crowd fund was to buy a $120 video that promised, “PUSSY FUCKED. My bare pussy getting penetrated by DICK for my birthday. UNCENSORED and NSFW XXX action for over 5 mins.”

Harvest days for men with snouts wetted and ready to savage imaginary vulvas and ani. 

Like all socialist experiments, heavy with good intention but operating at odds with basic human nature, the chat room has since descended into brutal internecine fighting. 

One man wants to sell views of a video bought for $149 at ten dollars a hit. 

Recent posts: 

“If you wanna see the good content you gotta pay for it. The three of us who actually buy the videos can’t just keep forking out hundreds and hundreds of dollars and all of you just sit here and enjoy the benefits.”

“LOL. How fucking sad is your life that you think someone is lying about having content just because you’re too much of a cheap ass to buy it yourself. This is exactly why I took my offer to share it back.”

“Anyway, it’s interesting to see everyone who not so long ago was waiting and asking to have free videos and photos come here and spit in everyone’s face and now that they have something they keep it to themselves.”

“Can you guys actually confirm what you see and if it’s fully tits and pussy or is it still edited out or covered.”

Busy days for busy men.

For “inspirational people” and “great creators” on a “mission”.

(Editor’s note: Yesterday, it was revealed construction was about to start on The Kelly Slater Surf Resort at La Quinta, in the Coachella Valley, at a cost of a quarter of a billion dollars. It’s a real estate play, homes ranging from one mill to five surrounding an eighteen-million gallon Slater tank. “The ethos of this community revolves around the raw natural setting with a focus on sustainability,” according to a news release.)

Have you ever seen that movie Elysium?

Nice idea. Bad execution. A slice of mass-market Hollywood mediocrity.

Elysium is set in a future in which the rich live on a floating, verdant utopia, where citizens’ needs, wants and whims are served by all the amenities the more optimistic social speculators have predicted may one day exist, lots of glass, white curves, access to the latest innovations in healthcare etc.

Meanwhile back on earth, things have continued along their current trajectory. Everyone works their ass off in a dog-eat-dog hellscape to sustain a life of miserable poverty lest they slip into an existence of slightly more miserable absolute destitution.

It’s the kind of subtle, inciteful metaphor that would go over the heads of normal everyday schmoes who haven’t even won a single world title.

Kelly Slater’s Elysium won’t float, he hasn’t levelled up to those kind of powers yet, but it probably will eventually.

Some might call this kind of venture elitist or classist – a sanctuary for the approved of the species to live out the impending apocalypse. But it’s not, because it’s for surfing, and surfing’s not elitist, surfing’s cool, surfing’s spiritual, surfing’s nature, surfing’s pure, surfing isn’t golf; surfing’s immune to your criticism.

Some might call this kind of venture elitist or classist – a sanctuary for the approved of the species to live out the impending apocalypse. But it’s not, because it’s for surfing, and surfing’s not elitist, surfing’s cool, surfing’s spiritual, surfing’s nature, surfing’s pure, surfing isn’t golf; surfing’s immune to your criticism.

But not completely immune.

A certain amount of lip-service is still required. The selfishness of the endeavour must be veneered over with self-aggrandising bullshit rhetoric no one in their heart of hearts believes but serves the purpose of soothing the shame of living their lives not in the virtuous way they purport to do, but in accordance with the most vulgar excesses of consumer-capitalism.

Hence this resort (sorry “community”) isn’t designed for that “wrong” type of rich like, for example, golfers, but the “right” kind of rich, those who enrich our lives and show us how we might save our paltry and wasted existences “through lived and learned experiences”.

They’re “inspirational people” and “great creators” on a “mission”.

This isn’t play, this is a project. It’s not designed for self-indulgence, but self-betterment. It will “educate” through experiences that you can live and learn by paying for them with money.

So why not take advantage of the direct flights from Palm Springs International and witness for yourself our “focus on sustainability”?

Maybe after a long session of living and learning in the wave-pool take in a different kind of “set” at Coachella festival.

They’re our neighbours. Maybe Grimes is playing.

Hey, we know her husband. He’s alright.

Ignore the malcontents and cynics bleating on about wetlands and poverty and the one percent and taxes and embrace progress.

Embrace this haven, this Eden, this oasis we have bestowed unto this dry and arid desert.

We are the creators of the new world.

We are god.

Worship us.

Join us.

Escape with us.

Unless you’re poor, in which case carry my boards.

For the "wellness focussed crowd".

Who is the greater environmentalist, you think?

Greta Thumberg, the just-turned-eighteen-year-old from Sweden, who famously sailed from Plymouth to New York to attend a climate conference and who lives, it is believed, in an unlit paper cabin in the woods?

Or Kelly Slater, forty-nine, world surfing champion, whose latest gifts to the earth include the bulldozing of Queensland wetlands for a tank and houses and the-soon-to-break-ground $250 million pool and real estate play in the Californian desert?

The Kelly Slater Surf Resort, reports The Sacramento Bee, “will rise in the serene desert landscape of La Quinta, at the base of Coral Mountain and near the popular Coachella Valley Music Festival area. Developers hope to lure young adventure travelers and surfers to an area full of golf courses.”

“The ethos of this community revolves around the raw natural setting with a focus on sustainability,” according to a news release.

Another one reads, “The mission…is to attract and invest in inspirational people, engage great creators, build innovative facilities and amenities, as well as commit to educate and grow an ever-evolving sports and wellness community. Access to the amenities at Coral Mountain, including the KSWC wave system, will be exclusively available to homeowners, hotel patrons, members and their guests, and dining available to the public through reservations.”

The 400-acre setting had previously been approved for 750 homes and an eighteen-hole golf course.

The Kelly Slater Surf Resort will features a 150-room luxury hotel and 600 private joints that’ll cost between one and five mill. The golf course gets deleted, in goes the pool.

Garrett Simon, a partner in the real estate and development firm Meriweather Companies who’s doing the biz with Michael Shwab’s Big Sky Wave Developments, told the Sac Bee, “We expect the resort to be in high demand for the surf-loving, adventure sports and wellness-focused crowd in Southern California. We’re excited to create something radically different in an area that is dominated by golf courses. Coral Mountain will appeal to a range of people at all athletic levels who are looking to get outside of their comfort zones and define themselves through lived and learned experiences.”