Audacious Brazilian Gabriel Medina
bamboozles unfancied Australian to win Rip Curl Rottnest Search, “I
always had this extraordinary energy that I had to do something
with!”
By Derek Rielly
Of five events so far this season, Medina has been
in the final of four ‘em, winning two.
The two-time world surfing champion Gabriel Medina has
easily maintained his jackboot on the neck of the WSL tour rankings
beating Australian Morgan Cibilic at the Rip Curl Rottnest
Search in three-to-five-foot waves.
Medina, who is twenty-seven, mowed through Kael Walsh, Owen
Wright, Conner Coffin and Italo Ferreira, as well as the
aforementioned tour debutante Cibilic, to win the
event.
Of five events so far this season, Medina has been in the final
of four ‘em, winning two.
Watch: Huntington Beach cements reputation
as Riot Capital, USA after 149 arrested during TikTok party gone
berserk!
By Chas Smith
Surfers gonna surf.
Surf City, USA aka Huntington Beach,
California, is a gift we red, white and blue surfers give
to the world. Home to the U.S. Open of Surfing and U.S. Olympic
Coach Brett Simpson, the town boasts long stretches of par to
subpar waves, two extra large surf shops, one Sugar Shack and a
reputation for “surfers gone wild” riots.
The 1986 Op Pro bacchanal legendary, the 2013 re-make not too
shabby.
Over the weekend, folks got back down to business as a birthday
party invite went viral over TikTok and drew a large crowd who
proceeded to “act in the Huntington way.”
The initial crowd that gathered at the beach that evening
exploded to more than 2,500 people who descended on the downtown
area and threw “bottles, rocks, fireworks and other items at
officers,” police said. Multiple businesses, numerous police
vehicles and a lifeguard tower were also damaged from vandalism.
However, no significant injuries were reported, according to
police.
The Huntington Beach Police Department declared an unlawful
assembly in the downtown area at 7:13 p.m. local time and called in
assistance from outside agencies. Throughout the night, more than
150 officers from virtually all law enforcement agencies within
Orange County were deployed to Huntington Beach. An emergency
curfew was also put into effect to help authorities, clad in riot
gear and armed with less-lethal weapons, disperse the
crowds.
Police arrested and booked 121 adults and 28 juveniles for
various charges, including vandalism, the firing of
dangerous/illegal fireworks, failure to disperse and violating
curfew.
Very cool.
Watch here.
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WSL staffer (in red) checks in on Liam
O'Brien.
Breaking: World Surf League buffeted by
troubling accusations that it is holding remaining surfers prisoner
on extremely expensive Rottnest Island!
By Chas Smith
Tourism board shenanigans.
Troubling allegations, just levied, are
swirling around the Rip Curl Rottnest Search presented by Corona as
it enters the last of its contest window days. Reports that the
World Surf League may well be keeping the eight remaining surfers
prisoner against their wills.
Forcing Sally Fitzgibbons, Tyler Wright, Carissa Moore, Johanne
Defay, Liam O’Brien, Morgan Cibilic, Italo Ferriera and Gabriel
Medina to shelter in place, drinking twenty dollar beers, thirty
dollar açaí bowls, forty dollar electric bike trips to Stricko Bay
(one way).
For word, yesterday, out of Perth suggests the conditions were
absolutely perfect and let us read directly from the source, who
shall remain unnamed for his/her/its own protection.
Woke early Sunday to discover, contrary to the
forecast…barely a breath of wind and offshore! Went surfing with
the lad. Was one of the unusually better days for Perth, and not
too crowded since everyone was expecting onshore.
Including the WSL it seems.
Winds remained perfect until midday and in fact by 9am was
NE (perfect offshore for Strickos) and heaps enough swell. They
could have easliy finished the contest.
It seems when they wrapped up on Sat, then and there they
scheduled the “Next Call” to Tues 25th.
Odd.
We all know better than to completely rely on a forecast…and
are they too lazy to check every day? Did they double down and bury
their heads in the sand and not wanna go back on their next call,
call?
Is this the curse of the “next call”…the island laughing at
them?
The island’s fifty dollar flat whites are certainly
laughing.
Worryingly, though, I think the League accidentally showed its
hand. Now that it is, ostensibly, acting as an agency in the
tourist board game, filling the entire waiting period must be
agreed upon before the events even start, no?
A set amount of airtime etc.
Static “stay tuned” screens broadcasting who knows what straight
into addled brains across the globe.
You certainly remember the controversy around backmasking in the
1970s and 1980s. Satanic or troubling messages put into songs and
heard when played in reverse.
A positively terrifying prospect in the hands of World Surf
League CEO Erik “ELo” Logan.
But, real quick, how totally bummed are Sally Fitzgibbons, Tyler
Wright, Carissa Moore, Johanne Defay, Liam O’Brien, Morgan Cibilic,
Italo Ferriera and Gabriel Medina right now?
Binge watching old episodes of Lost over sixty dollar a day
internet.
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National Geographic magazine loses
credibility entirely with make-believe feature on Hawaii: “For
decades, scholars, writers and tourism boosters have portrayed the
islands as a racial utopia!”
By Chas Smith
Welcome to Post-Racial Paradise, Now Go to
Hell.
I have, my whole life, loved National
Geographic. The magazine held my rural Oregonian imagination
in the grip of its iconic yellow with features on exotic countries,
fascinating people, brave explorers adventuring to the ends of the
earth.
I dreamed of being part of the National Geographic Society when
I grew up, dressed in a natty blazer, smoking a pipe, regaling a
smoke filled room of my colleagues with stories of fabulous
discovery, uncovered truths of professional surfing on Oahu’s North
Shore maybe, but that dream got shattered, this week, as the Hawaii
beat just got stolen.
Shall we read together?
To outsiders, Hawai‘i might seem like the epitome of a
post-racial society. For decades, scholars, writers, and tourism
boosters have portrayed the islands that way—as a “racial utopia”
where Native Hawaiians and Asians live harmoniously alongside white
people, with the largely non-white population serving as the
antidote to racism.
After all, no racial group holds a majority on the islands,
and nearly a quarter of the population reports having a multiracial
background. Compare that to the United States as a whole, where
only 3 percent of the population is multiracial and three-quarters
is white.
But Hawai‘i’s racial make-up does not stem from a desire to
unify races. Instead, it comes from concerted Western efforts to
eradicate Native Hawaiian culture and create division among sugar
plantation workers. The reverberations are still felt among
residents today, including by the people featured in these
portraits. Photographed in spaces linked to discrimination against
their respective cultures and in places where they find healing
from those traumas, they are part of our ongoing project focused on
dismantling the myth of Hawai‘i as a post-racial paradise.
The piece goes on and on into the histories but, can I
ask, who on God’s green earth ever considered Hawai’i a
“post-racial paradise?”
Like, seriously.
Have none of my erstwhile dream colleagues read the
PEN-nominated best-seller, and important anthropological work,
Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell (buy here)?
That gives me good mind to go shopping for the finest Irish
Donegal tweed jacket (leather elbow patches, of course), a pound of
Cavendish tobacco, hop a flight to Washington D.C. and treat that
smoke filled Society room to a stern but informative reading…
….or wait.
Opportunity?
Time ripe for Welcome to Post-Racial Paradise, Now Go to
Hell?
Intriguing.
Very intriguing.
More as the story develops.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros