Watch genius at work!

It opens with Rob standing in his doorway nonchalantly strumming some serene chords on an acoustic guitar.

He looks up, spots you, smiles his “need some more advice on trimming your bonsai, neighbour?” smile.

Before you know it he’s invited you round the back for, you know, just some hang time.

Distracted as you are by the luxurious flow of his gold and sliver curls – almost dreaded and yet not, as if even the hair on his head is too aggro-adverse to trouble itself with knotting itself into locks – you barely notice the talk has turned to surf.

“The last month has just been insane,” says Rob.

Insane.

The bombast of the word loses all bluster as it passes across the Machado vocal chords, that NPR late-night vocal fry as comforting and homely as a well-brewed coffee supped on a patio-deck drenched in a Southern Californian sunset, in a modest yet charming suburban backyard.

A backyard just like this one in fact; for Rob’s backyard is that backyard.

It is humble, unassuming. Modest but assured of itself. Ramshackle yet rustic. It’s a misshapen pomegranate nestled in a hand-woven basket of a backyard.

He mentions something about Covid projects. Covid? Oh right, yeah. You’d forgotten about that. You’d forgotten about the WSL, Trump, the pain in your lower-back…

Now he’s giving you the tour.

“It’s like a little zen zone,” he says. “My tangerine tree is flourishing.”

Flo-rish-ing. You sigh the sigh of an Andalusian field-worker’s first sip of la primera cerveza de la noche.

“I got my avocado tree.”

Such a good avocado tree.

“And my Paulownia tree.”

Your what tree? Doesn’t matter. Whatever it is: You believe. You’re in.

Now he’s telling an anecdote, nay – a parable – about this one tree and how he coaxed it out of its seedling solely with the power of his voice, until it burst forth from its plastic pot and grew so high it tickled the moon.
“It seemed kind of stressful…“

Wait, stressful? The word jars against the serenity of the scene.

“…from a gardening perspective,” he clarifies.

Ah. Gardening. Gardening’s not stressful. Gardening’s wholesome, healthy. Chill.

Rob Machado ASMR gardening anecdotes. Sign me up.

Then he’s on about surfing again. Destination days. Strikes to Mex.

Oh, and did he mention? The rails on his custom board lying right there? Paulownia wood.

Gasp! Just like the tree from the story!

The world feels complete.

“It feels good to be surfed out.”

It feels good to hear Rob Machado say it feels good to be surfed out.

You gaze up at the hypnotic tips of the Paulownia’s swaying limbs. You close your eyes, feel the So-Cal sun on your face. Rob’s playing guitar again.

You awaken.

Home.

Back at your own dingy flat.

Everything is beige, anaemic.

You curse your asinine life.

There’s no tangerine tree in your garden, flourishing or otherwise.

There’s just next door’s dog shit and an up-turned garbage can.

The shrill squawk of your phone. The bank. Three thousand bucks worth of Rob Machado signature surf kit.

How the fuck?

"The WSL made it clear holding the event at Snapper Rocks this year was conditional on the Queensland Government picking up the quarantine tab for the WSL’s international competitors.”

Money talks, as they say in the classics.

With one event confirmed for the supposed four-contest Australian leg of the CT tour, Merewether at Easter, either NSW or Western Australia will now claim Snapper Rocks’ slot after the Queensland state government refused to cover the cost of quarantining surfers and the WSL’s entourage.

The Gold Coast Bulletin is reporting that NSW and Western Australia have created “war chests” of up to five million dollars to snatch the event away from Queensland, which offered half-a-mill toward the running of the event, believed to cost around four mill.

From the GCB,

State Tourism Minister Stirling Hinchliffe confirmed the event’s departure, saying he was deeply disappointed.

“I am less disappointed with the NSW Government than I am with the World Surf League’s decision to chase short-term dollars at the expense of surfing tradition,” he said. “The breaks at Snapper Rocks are highly regarded worldwide, as are those at Bells Beach in Victoria. The WSL made it clear holding the event at Snapper Rocks this year was conditional on the Queensland Government picking up the quarantine tab for the WSL’s international competitors.”

Mr Hinchliffe also hit back at the NSW Government.

“Quarantine expenses for sporting events have always been the responsibility of the organising body,” he said.“If that’s what NSW has agreed to pay to lure the WSL, then NSW taxpayers who have paid for hotel quarantine out of their own pocket should ask for a refund.”

“We didn’t expect to be engaged in a bidding war with NSW and Western Australia who put together a war chest of taxpayer funds as a lure,” an industry source told the Bulletin. “Essentially the Government were hamstrung because Queensland, like Victoria, stood firm on forking out taxpayer funds to put up athletes. So now rather than keeping it where it should be, WSL are now trying to give the classic to the highest bidder rather than keep it on the Gold Coast which is the home of surfing.”

The teats of state governments in Australia have long been a source of nourishing funds for pro surfing, although as Longtom pointed out after the Lennox Head fiasco, “It looks like cheap rent-seeking for a product that few want in their backyards and a story that has never really made sense except for a few rare birds who live at an altitude the rest of us will never attain.”

And, “Without a functioning business model to wean itself off State Tourism bodies the WSL is locked in a prison of its own making.” ­

More tomoz after the WSL’s announcement.

Terrible, terrible mess in the last fortnight

Disaster porn is the new surf jernalizm, at least when it comes to covering the WSL.

Terrible, terrible mess in the last fortnight.

Bells is now officially kyboshed. The disastrous Lennox bid has been officially memory holed now that the “fourth” CT has been substituted at Newy. It’s a higgledy-piggledy approach from the Woz. Normally when you count to four you begin at one, then go to two, three, four etc etc.

Andrew Stark got Newy approved as the first event of the Australian leg and called it the fourth, which means not only is Bells cancelled but we now are in a post-maths world when it comes to World Tour coverage.

On the face of it, pro surfing should have natural advantages to thrive in the Covid sporting landscape. In actuality it’s been one of the worst affected, mostly not due to the virus but a deadly combination of hubris, a lack of vision and a business model hopelessly dependent on the good graces of Australian* politicians.

Can we believe any of the maxed-out corpo spin presser about a new three-year deal for Bells?

Kelly and Outerknown signed a three year deal for Fiji that was wordlessly reneged on after one. I’m not by nature a naysayer, I prefer a “Yes!” to a grim-faced “No” but extreme scepticism seems the only fair and reasonable response to the shenanigans unfolding with the WSL this year.

If they tell me the sky is blue I’m going to assume it’s grey unless I see it with my own eyes.

For a global sporting organisation dedicated to “changing the world through the inspirational power of surfing by creating authentic events, experiences, and storytelling”, is it not a major trip out how badly the WSL under Starkey lost the room when it came to the failed Lennox CT bid? Especially when it came to their supposed new strength, “best in class” storytelling?

I think a little examination, for the historical record, is in order.

Humans are hard-wired to seek meaning in story, according to many, including Eric Hoffer, whose classic work “The True Believer” outlined the necessity of belonging to a story bigger than the individual.

Can a foundation story for such a sense of belonging be based on a lie or at least a very shaky premise?

From the about tab on the website: The World Surf League (WSL), established in 1976…

Huh?

The WSL didn’t exist until 2014 and the “acquisition” wasn’t exactly all rainbows and unicorns, according to my source who sat in on the board meetings. That bad blood still sits pooled up in various back swamps, oozing out like a miasma when the WSL needs friends to help tell the story, as they did when Starky came knocking on the chamber door at Ballina.

Starkey should have had those friends on lock.

In 2008, when Rip Curl was kicked out of town following their ill-fated Lennox Search bid Andrew Stark was CEO of Surfing QLD. He would have been well aware of community sentiments. Well aware that the rec surfing community was averse to the infamous long dick in the guts of a full-scale pro event imposed on them with its attendant hangover.

Starkey won’t remember it but I was in his office a few years earlier, interviewing him as part of a social science documentary on Kirra. I have the tape and scrupulous notes, as always.

My impression then (and now) was that here was a true True Believer when it came to corporate/bureaucratic surfing. The goal was numbers, growth, success and the method was government funding via tourism and participation metrics.

I don’t believe the concerns of the rec surfer base, the host body on which the whole show depends, ever crossed his mind.

Starkey proved himself an effective operator working the peculiarly Australian nexus between peak bodies like Surfing QLD and Surfing Australia and political operators at state and national level.

His “constituency”, his people, are the boardriders clubs. There, he finds a natural alignment with his interests and world view. The blunt instrument that has become the de facto method of attaining goals at Surfing QLD, then Surfing Australia and now the WSL is the state politician.

In currying favour with State Tourism Ministers and Deputy Premiers the pathway to get events approved and funded does not pass through the eye of the needle of local government or communities.

Which works great for long-standing events like Bells and Snapper where the narrative, even if never put to the people, is long established and accepted.

It presents more of a threat to expansion or plan changes when the heavy lifting is done by state politicians like John Barilaro, who has been accused of political bastardry by his own side.

The story he tells, of exposure and huge tourism growth, doesn’t have the appeal needed. Especially when the organisation belongs to an American billionaire who freely suckles from the teat of the Australian taxpayer.

The crux of the nut: it looks like cheap rent-seeking for a product that few want in their backyards and a story that has never really made sense except for a few rare birds who live at an altitude the rest of us will never attain.

Why did Starkey not try and win the argument first? Why not wheel out the storytellers? Where were the allies?

In the aftermath it was amazing how friendless the WSL was.

Former ASP CEO Graham Cassidy exclaimed “It would never happen with the ASP!!”

Former ASP Australia king pin Bushy Mitchell laid the boot in saying in his time it would never have happened and accusing the WSL of failing to address ethical and moral issues.

With friends like these etc etc.

In an interview with Nick Carroll on Surfline, more noteworthy for what was not said than what was said, Stark cooly brushed off the Lennox fiasco saying, “Obviously it was rejected. Which is cool — if you don’t want us to come to your town, we’re not coming.”

The follow-up questions of “Why do you think it was rejected? Why do you think you weren’t wanted?” were left dangling in the ether. That’s leaving out the issue of what made Stark think it a good idea in the first place without some sort of community softening up before he tried to go through the back door.

Starkey never sought to win the argument or tell the story because he never thought he’d have to. He secured state government support first from Barilaro, then picked off the local boardriders and the Mayor, who would’ve been ready for the photo op when the comp was announced a week later.

The Wozzle under that model only needs the story ready to go post hoc.

After the politicians have done the heavy lifting. I’d love to read the presser that was written for the Ox before it was hastily shelved and re-written for Newy.

But alas, down the memory hole it goes.

Bad blood is inherent in the current WSL operational model.

The story told behind closed doors to secure political favour and money is toxic to the rec surfer fan base and stinks of what Oscar Wilde termed “low grade tyranny”.

Is there any other global or national sporting entity that treats its fans with such contempt?

Weaves a cocoon of such blatant corpo BS around them to appease the sensitivities of the politicians who keep the sport alive?

Without a functioning business model to wean itself off State Tourism bodies the WSL is locked in a prison of its own making. ­

*And Hawaiians­

The secret revealed in "ancient manuscripts"!

Watching Shark Tank eats up time like Armie Hammer does a date.

Still, we watch.

Did you see last night’s episode?

Big-wave surf champion, model, and now entrepreneur Nic Lamb pitching his new product, Ice Beanie.

I will not insult your intelligence here. The Ice Beanie is exactly what you think it is: a beanie with cold gel packs to push over your skull when you’re overtaken by a headache.

Kevin O’Leary shrugged.

I sorta liked it.

Mark Cuban did, too, and bit quick, scooping up 25% of his fledgling company.

As the segment starts, Nic, decorated in mandatory Hawaiian shirt, boardies and bare feet, rolls in on some sort of soft top affixed to a skateboard. He hops off, shares his impressive bio, then immediately shows a clip of him getting crushed on a wave at Mavericks “six or seven stories” tall.

Lamb describes the experience as “being in an underwater train wreck.”

He follows it up with a brilliant, “It’s awesome!”

With the exception of the perfectly coifed Lorie, they all slip them over their domes, smiling, surely fantasizing what it would be like to be Lamb.

But they’re not. They’re five old suits with oversized poly-pro buckets on their heads.

But they can afford to look stupid.

And we smile, too, fantasizing what it would be like to be them.

The Sharks pepper Nic with the usual questions: How long have you sold them? How much to they cost? What are your sales to date? Did you have shoes on the plane ride in? (I made the last one up but was curious all the same.)

The big question might be: Is this the best invention of the surfer’s mind?

I’ve got an idea, boys. You know when your head hurts? When ya’ get headaches? What about a hat with pouches for Advil? No, wait. Pouches for ice!

If you go to the Ice Beanie website there’s a whole section on the science behind the complexities that underpin the Ice Beanie.

The website gives a bunch of fluff about cryotherapy.

But we already know about Laird’s devotion to Wim Hoff. We already know what our grandmothers told us about cold compresses to quell the vapors. Spare us, please, Dr. lamb.

Maybe more intriguing than selling frozen hats is the narrative tacitly continued by Nic regarding surfers. We often wonder why common folk consider us simple or why there’s never been a Hollywood film that captures our perceptions of surfing.

Because Lamb, tan, dynamic, and perpetually happy, acts the caricature with honesty and aplomb.

It is what it is.

But as trite as Lamb might have appeared on camera, we’re wise to two things:

First, surfers actually do dream up some pretty sophisticated crap. Anyone remember San Clemente shaper Pete Arslanian? No college education, developed a piece that’s now on space shuttles.

Second, Lamb ain’t simple.

He knew he could hypnotize the Sharks, he just had to play the part for the hook.

And, of course, it worked. Good for Nic. He’ll be set.

It makes me want to think up an invention. The only thing springing to mind currently is tossing my Cordell Flexfit in the freezer and see what happens.

What inventions would you pitch on Shark Tank and make you slobbering rich?