Schumacher (pictured) better times etc.
Schumacher (pictured) better times etc. | Photo: ASP

Former World Champion longboarder turned politician Cori Schumacher focus of fiery recall effort: “The sort of misbehavior and misdeeds she’s engaged in, it has no place in this community!”

"Pure toxicity."

Former world longboard champion, and the first openly gay champion, Cori Schumacher is in the fight of her political life as a fiery recall effort is gaining steam in typically dull Carlsbad, California.

First elected to the city council in 2016, Schumacher ran for mayor in 2018 but a core knot of her constituents are extremely angry.

At a rally last week, the Republican radio host Carl DeMaio declared they have all ad enough of Schumacher’s “vicious attack on residents and pay-to-play schemes with political donors.”

Happy Carl DeMaio.

“The misbehavior’s got to stop. The grandstanding has to stop,” DeMaio said. “The sort of misbehavior and misdeeds she’s engaged in, it has no place in this community. My hope is (that) other city officials in our region and across the state, take note. We will not tolerate it and you will be removed from office.”

A North County San Diego judge recently struck down a civil harassment restraining order filed by Schumacher against two Carlsbad residents, ruling the councilwoman’s actions violated their free speech.

This was but one of many things infuriating those seeking recall.

Katie Taylor, a Carlsbad small business owner, told The Coast News that Schumacher engages in race-baiting and filing restraining orders against her own constituents is “corrosive and divisive.”

“Cori Schumacher has been so divisive for Carlsbad,” Taylor said. “Everything is about race, she’s hurt small business owners, she filed that suit against her constituents … and she is toxic. Pure toxicity for the City of Carlsbad.”

Now, I don’t live in Carlsbad, though I do live close, and would, personally, take “pure toxicity” over “typically dull” every day of the week.

And, wow, do you remember when I thought science had proven Schumacher dull?

Boy was I wrong.

More as the story develops.


Injured New Zealand surfer (pictured).
Injured New Zealand surfer (pictured).

New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Corp. pays out $38m for over 27,000 surfing injuries; Kicks off “Preventable” campaign seeking to help Kiwi surfers calm down, chill out!

“People can avoid most injuries by taking a moment to think – have a ‘hmmm.’”

I stumbled on the most extraordinary information, today, and am still rubbing my eyes with disbelief. Get this, New Zealand, east and slightly south from Australia, very far west from the United States of America, has an Accident Compensation Corporation that pays its country’s surfers when they get hurt.

Pays them to the tune of $38 million spread around 27,000 New Zealander surfers, over five years, with 2020 being the highest single year with $9.3 million going to 5498 injured rippahs.

ACC, while seemingly happy to do, is also looking to lessen the surf to injury ratio and launching a new campaign named “Preventable.”

According to a recent interview, ACC’s head of injury prevention, Isaac Carlson, says it’s estimated 90 per cent of injuries are predictable and therefore preventable.

“People can avoid most injuries by taking a moment to think – have a ‘hmmm,’” says Carlson.

“It is all about taking a moment to think about what you’re about to do, what could go wrong and taking action to make sure it turns out well.

“We want New Zealanders to enjoy their lives and have fun with their whanau and friends and we want to put the wero (challenge) out there. We can all prevent most harm happening in the first place.”

I’m still reeling.

Becoming injured as a surfer in New Zealand seems like a viable career path.

Negatron? How much extra do you make at your injured surfer side gig? Ever think about going full time?

Very cool.


"We had a great way of life. We had a great way of life. We had a great way of life. We had a great way of life until the civil rights assault against our holy white Protestant values. It's an international Jewish conspiracy. May God bless us all."

“Storm of Hate”: KKK flyers blanket surf city USA Huntington Beach as rally organised by The Loyal White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan threatens to destroy town’s famous racial harmony!

"Racist terrorism."

Dirty ol Huntington Beach, home to the US Open, officially Surf City USA, is bracing for a White Lives Matter rally at HB Pier at one pm today. 

The rally, organised by the Loyal White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, which was formed in 2012, self-describes as a newer, gentler version of the KKK, the white supremacist hate group defined by its profoundly unkind views of Jews, homosexuals, African-Americans, Catholics, Muslims and atheists. 

The Knights wanna “restore America to a White, Christian nation founded on God’s word”. 

HB has a rep for right-wing events.

There were wild scenes last May when surfers, Trump fans and conspiracy loons turned on beach closure laws.

“The Klan is coming here because they think that you will do nothing,” resident Lisa Marquise told City Council members. “They’ve seen racist bullies come to downtown this past year in one guise or another and face zero consequence.”

A spokesman for the local cops, Lt, Brian Smith, said that while the city didn’t sanction the rally, it’s protected by the First Amendment. 

Don’t matter if there’s Confederate flags, talk about lynchings, bags on heads, burning crosses etc. 

“That’s all protected speech,” Smith said, comparing the rally to anti-abortion groups that march with images of aborted bebes. “Even though that is disturbing and shocks most people’s consciences, it’s still a protected right they have to display those images.”

As a counterpoint, the city is running a Day of Unity event at the same time.

HB mayor Kim Carr said, “We can’t stop people from coming to the pier, and we’re not going to be able to stop people from hiding behind the First Amendment to spew hateful rhetoric that’s really divisive in our community but what we can do is counter it with these types of events.”

And, the local BLM chapter is running its counter-protest at the pier at eleven am, two hours before the Loyal White Knights. 

In a statement, the chapter’s leader Tory Johnson said, “White supremacy is not welcome here and we will do everything possible to prevent this rally and defend our community from racist terrorism.” 


Epiphany: The vomitous spasm of surf fiction and what it means for you, me, World Surf League CEO Erik Logan and our shared future!

Under the Wave at Waimea.

I had an epiphany this morning that I’d like to share, if you’d permit me. A few weeks, maybe a month, ago I received an advanced copy of Paul Theroux’s new novel Under the Wave at Waimea. Included was a nice note from the publicist to read and, if I saw fit, share with this audience.

Surf fiction.

Ugh.

I’ve never been a fan as, for me, what we do, who we are, is far too ridiculous to ever fictionalize though maybe Kafka or Camus could have done.

Theroux, in any case, is a world-renowned author of proper acclaim and has many awards, titles, to his fine name including The Mosquito Coast which, I’ll admit, I never read but loved the Harrison Ford cinematic version.

And so I cracked the cover and read the first paragraph.

The one wild story that everyone believed about Joe Sharkey was not true, but this is often the case with big-wave riders. It was told he had eaten magic mushrooms on a day declared Condition Black and dropped down a forty-five-foot wave one midnight under the white light of a full moon at Waimea Bay, the wave freaked and clawed rags of blue foam. He smashed his board on the inside break called Pinballs and, and unable to make it to shore against the riptide, he swam five miles up the coast, where he was found in the morning, hallucinating on the sand. More proof that he was a hero; that he surfed like an otter on acid.

Ugh.

I closed the cover and thought, “Ugh. Don’t want to tweak ol’ Paul Theroux. Best let it slide.”

Later, thinking, “Paul Theroux is a heavyweight. I wrote Cocaine + Surfing. I should give it another shot…” re-cracked the book that had somehow become black due a soaking then drying and read…

Sharkey could imagine him sliding across the Pipe, cutting back, whipping around, the hotshot moves that won points these days…

And closed again.

“Ugh. Don’t want to tweak ol’ Paul Theroux but the Pipe?”

Best to let it slide.

This morning, though, I woke early, per the norm, rubbed bag out of my eyes, drove to the local Seaside Market for butter and canned cinnamon rolls because the gluten-free pancake mix was out. My daughter loves a Saturday breakfast in bed with the works and, inexplicably, gluten-free pancakes.

Canned cinnamon rolls an acceptable substitute, somehow.

So there I was shuffling out with my haul when I saw a man in nice, perfectly fitting pants, running shoes and a good tee-shirt. He paused briefly then turned around and approached me.

“Man, I just gotta say. I love what you do. I never read anything but somehow your stuff popped into my feed once and now I sorta search it out. Just keep doing it. There was this once piece that… you wrote… I can’t even remember, but it was so funny.”

I thanked him profusely, honestly, truly. Whenever I get approached it is usually prefaced with “I don’t read…” and I love that. I write for illiterates. Not a great business model but I am neither a businessman nor a business, man.

I got in my truck and twisted it to life.

The radio came on, NPR Morning Edition, with host Scott Simon talking something about surf.

Surf?

I turned it up, listening carefully, and realized he was chatting with Paul Theroux about the new gorgeous, perfectly descriptive, luscious book Under the Wave at Waimea.

The two went back and forth, Simon lavishing praise, Theroux accepting, offering insight how his time living in Hawaii and paddling a canoe has given him unique insight into the ephemeral surf world. Simon loving every second. Theroux explaining the unique surfer ethos.

Epiphany.

Real surfers, those who have actually sacrificed their lives for surf, are, by and large, illiterate and by “illiterate” I don’t mean “can’t read.” I mean we live our lives in the millisecond, paddling, popping, pumping, maybe a bottom turn, maybe a top turn, maybe a sneaky barrel, maybe a kick-out air.

All forgotten, every bit of it forgotten, as we paddle back out.

And back out.

And back out.

And back out.

Impermanence is the very core of illiteracy.

This impermanence, illiteracy, is not a commodity, though, it is anti-commodity, and senseless to the broader public, those who don’t surf, who need paragraphs like…

Out of the surf zone, he fell to his knees. All his strength was gone in the effort and exhilaration of that one great ride. He carried his board up a dry sand mound on the beach and gasped with delight. He was exhausted and knew that a good part of that fatigue was the result of anxiety when, in the middle of his ride, he had felt the ache in his lacerated toe and feared that adjusting his feet for the pain would put him a fraction off-balance and send him off his board. He would be buried. High, dense, and unforgiving, it was the sort of wave that would push him down, and the waves behind it would keep him down. The thought of it, together with his unexpected fatigue, kneeling alone on the beach, his lungs burning, made him briefly tearful.

Real surfers don’t remember the middle of a ride, much less the beginning or end.

Illiterate.

But surfing needs to be a commodity, not an anti-commodity, when co-Waterpersons of the Year purchase for free and install Oklahoman Oprah Winrey SUPpers and CEO and so Walls of Positive Noise are built and literacy programs created.

Paul Theroux writing the handbook.

I have a good mind to write the most ridiculously absurd surf fiction ever.

Cresting monsters, the biggest, awe-inspiring, hand jams, tubulars that last an eternity, world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater etc.

Just to screw with the literates.


Radical Progression: 3x World Champion Mick Fanning shocks international sporting community by announcing his un-retirement, re-entry into professional surfing at highest possible level!

Lightning Strikes 4x.

I can’t remember if it was yesterday, during finals day of the Rip Curl Newcastle Cup presented by Corona, or the day before when 3x World Champion Mick Fanning shocked the international sporting community by announcing his un-retirement and re-entering professional surfing at the highest possible level.

I also can’t remember if we’ve all discussed already.

Have we?

Did you have any thoughts?

Excited to see White Lightning strike four times or depressed that a nearly 40-year-old man is the state-of-the-art (outside Brazil)?

The Australian press seems to be extremely excited with headlines screaming… ‘Now or never’: Surfing world erupts over Mick Fanning announcement.

chasing it with…

Mick Fanning has stunned fans after announcing he will come out of retirement to compete at the World Surf League Leg in Narrabeen as a wildcard.

After 20 years since he won his first event event as a wildcard, Fanning announced he would return after contemplating coming out of retirement last year.

Surfing world erupting, stunning fans, etc.

Yeah.

As it relates to the upcoming ABC reality show Kelly Slater’s Ultimate Surfer, is there any surfer on this earth left to discover (outside Brazil)?

Would you consider Morgan Cibilic a discovery?

Have we discussed already?