Uh oh!
A dull pall, or syrupy sweet mess of emotion as the great Longtom puts it, feels like it has been cast over professional surfing thanks to the non-test that is Rottnest.
It feels like we are all on vacation with our parents.
Oh, we were distracted when they pitched a wonderful ten-day getaway to a quaint island with no cars, spotty internet, clear water, empty dunes and said “Sure, sure, sure.”
They bought tickets, organized a house, we were reminded and reminded again until the day before departure when it actually all sunk in.
Oh no.
Oh no no no but far too late to pull out and so we woke up at 3:30 am to make the flight, since they bought the tickets, checked into a Formica cottage with no internet, since they organized the house, and are staring down the barrel of eight more days puttering around in the empty dunes watching minutes turn into hours and hours stretch into eternity.
Anyhow, Japan. Maybe it’s the Rottnest writing, but it seems like it has just dawned on the organizers and surfers alike that the waves might not be that great this summer for surfing’s grand Olympic debut.
In a scintillating take, international news agency Reuters today publish Olympics: Surfing – ‘Small and funky’ waves a concern for Games debut wherein Gabriel Medina said, “It’s going to be a tricky one because the waves in Japan, it’s kinda hard — it’s small and funky — so it will be a tricky one. But if you want to be the best, you gotta do everything in any conditions.”
Sally Fitzgibbons added, “I’ve been working really hard on it, and I really pride myself with my small wave surfing. That’s where my origins lie, so hopefully I can bring out what I’ve been training for, bring out the big manoeuvres.”
And Steph Gilmore piled on, “I know Japan has beautiful beaches and they really want to show surfing in its most authentic form. Once I thought about it that way, I like the idea of having surfing in the ocean,” after wishing that a pool would have been sorted instead.
International Surfing Association chief Fernando Aguerre, ever the optimist, said, “The place is known for being exposed to the right swells for this time of the year. It’s very consistent, it has hosted international competitions, Japanese national competitions, so we are very confident.”
“Look at that sandpiper picking shells out of the beachgrass, honey.”
“Oh cool.”
Eternity.
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Ha! Just bored at work. There might be some surf. I’ll have to try after.
I went to Chiba expecting the surf to be absolutely shite like my home shorebreak but it was actually way better than I expected. Nah it wasn’t world class but there were multiple peaks. It was actually a bit like Duranbah. They have a cool but kind of weird surf scene there. Everyone just leaves their wetsuits hanging on the fence to dry because thievery brings dishonour to your ancestors. I dug it.
My friend saw a briefcase on the subway platform on his way to work
Still there on his way home
I left my backpack on the JR Green line, it is a giant loop around Tokyo. My girlfriend told a station agent and he said to just wait for the train to come back around. Sure enough about an hour later I grabbed my backpack off the train, fucking insane.
However it’s gotta be one of the most ugliest beaches in the world!
Reminds me of growing up on Spring and Thompson Street in Greenwich Village NYC in the early 80s. The Genovese family controlled that neighborhood and there was no crime whatsoever bc you’d be getting off lightly with broken kneecaps if you did anything crime-wise without the family’s permission. I used to see Vinnie the Chin walking around drooling and babbling to himself and my mom clued me in that he was acting crazy for the feds watching so he could plead not guilty by reason of insanity for his upcoming trial. I miss the old days.
If the polite Japanese would speak up and take action, there would be no Olympics. The big powers push on regardless. Support the locals, boycott the Olympics.
Apparently 80% of the Japanese public don’t want the games to go ahead due to C19.
Any relation to C4?
Probably closer to C-ya later.
“I know Japan has beautiful beaches…” says Steph but I’d go ahead and dare her to name one. I’ve puttered around the archipelago some, and aside from tropical Okinawa, it’s beaches are of the American-east-coast-industrial variety. Even “beach vacation” like NYC denizens might “escape to” in the Japanese equivalent of New Jersey shores locales are sorely lacking. It’s a thoroughly industrial-coastlined nation. Fishing is big, BELIEVE IT OR NOT. Thus the of building groins (GROYNES, for you fucking Dundees) and jetties and harbors and breakwaters and all the rest are of high importance. Beauty? Yeah….not so much.
Most polluted water I ever surfed in Chiba, more concrete than sand. It was explained to me by a local that while the mountains and countryside are revered, they treat the ocean like a toilet.
I repeatedly treated my wettie like one, as I do internationally
I understand the other new sport this Olympics is Takeshis Castle
The likelihood of near uncontestable conditions speaks to the importance of who’s happening there rather than what’s happening there. We will see Kelly Slater in Tokyo Olympics. The time between now and then is only a matter of control of the optics of how they have already planned it play out for that result.
This site has Lodge Grit disease. It took me ten tries to be able to see the correct comments for this story.
Diqus is a really great platform, huh ?
I’d rather watch table tennis than Gabby do three to the beach in 1ft surf.
I’d rather not have to force myself to choose and then process the reality that I’d likely do the same. Them table tennis Olympians don’t fuck around.
Could it be that the recent contests show us what a good job the WSL usually does? Maybe we should be grateful that they managed to get any tour going this year, or not?
LT got it right. We can all give thanks to Starkey, hahaha. But under this format finishing at Trestles with the lucky five has taken away any interest apart from a few backmarkers shuffling in the last couple of events. Although Chopes will be of interest – coz of the consequences.
Stupid of them to try and manufacture drama when they had all the drama of finishing at Pipe in Hawaii …. oh well, what the hell and who cares anyway.
What does Mr. Toppenberg think about small surf in the Olympics?…
Dave opens the refrigerator door to grab his lunch bag when he hears loud muttering and furious typing down the office hallway. Finding it strange to witness such noises so early in the morning, as usually he is the first one in and has the first few hours all by his lonesome, he plops his bag on his desk, picking out the leberkässemmel he packed for himself first, before departing to investigate. He stands in the doorway of the kitchenette in order to determine from whence the noise was coming…
“Gosh darnit!”
The commotion seems to be happening in Erik’s office.
“That’s odd. He’s never in this early… oh well, I need to talk to him about that Olympics marketing stuff we were talking about last week…” Dave thinks to himself as he makes his way down the hall.
He opens Erik’s office door and sees Erik there, hair disheveled, eyes bloodshot, a loose booger clinging to the corner of his nose, sitting at his desk and using a laptop instead of his usual iPad, which Dave has never seen before. Erik doesn’t notice Dave standing there and continues to type.
“Hey, Erik? You are here early,” interrupts Dave.
“Huh? Whaaa…. Oh, Prodie boy, it’s you,” Erik says, relieved.
“What’re you working on?”
“Oh, this?… Well, I just had some things I needed to take care of this morning. You know, CEO things.”
“Alriiight. Well, I just heard the noise and wanted to check in to see what you are up to… oh, at some point today, can we talk about the Olympics marketing stuff we discussed last week? Surf’s probably going to be really small and terrible, so we’re going to have to be really creati…”
“Oh, um, I think I’m going to be working on my CEO stuff all day, so maybe you can talk to Melissa or Ryan about it. They’ll…” Erik trails off, focusing intently on what he is doing.
“OK, well, sure, I guess I could do that. If those are even real people…”
“Yes, do,” replies Erik curtly, sweat dripping from his forehead down his sunburnt nose, capturing several flaked off portions before falling to the ground.
“Hey, you look pretty stressed. Maybe there is something I could help with?” asks Dave.
“No! Now excuse me, I have to tinkle,” he says as he scurries down the hall.
Dave notices a stack of Surfer issues on Erik’s desk with a sticky note attached:
“Hope you enjoy these friendy ELo. – Love Sl8r”
“Weird that he would sign his name like that. Could be a fake note. Logan might’ve written it himself. I mean, Kelly doesn’t use a heart instead of a dot for ‘i’s,” he thinks to himself.
He looks down at the top issue, which happens to be the September 1998 issue with Conan Hayes on the cover, and sees that Erik has crossed out the “Damn” in the right bottom corner and wrote “
DamnDarn lol Yankees.” He picks it up and starts to casually flip through the advertisement book when he glances at Erik’s screen and notices multiple Word files open in the bottom banner and several tabs for job applications opened in his browser. He begins to walk closer when Erik walks in.“What are you doing?!” he shrieks.
“I wasn’t doing… I just saw the Surfer issues and…” Dave stutters.
“Oh, David, I might need to find a new job!”
“Why do you say that? What happened?”
“Oh, nothing new…” starts a blubbering Erik. “Dirk might not want to go past this year… Starkey is doing everything… the Olympics might be bad… Dirk won’t take my calls!” he wails.
“Don’t worry,” Dave says somewhat disingenuously, reassuringly patting Erik on the shoulder.
“I haven’t posted anything on Instagram since February!”
“If you haven’t heard anything new, then what is there to stress about?”
“You’re right. No use making a mole hill out of a mountain…” Erik chuckles.
“Don’t you mean the oth… oh, nevermind.”
“Thank you, Prodie, I needed that. I was afraid I was going to have to crawl back to Oprah…”
“Don’t you like her?”
“Oh yes, she is wonderful. I just wanted to be a CEO and surf… I imagined I would be the CEO of Netflix or Disney or something.”
“There, there,” says Dave as he tries to console Erik, who has begun to cry some more.
“Hey, how ‘bout we split this sandwich I brought,” offers Dave, holding up the Ziploc carrying his lunch.
“Oh, thank you,” whispers Erik as he embraces Dave with his full, suit of armorless strength.
Dave cuts the leberkässemmel in half, sitting down in the papasan chair in the corner of the office and handing Erik his portion at his desk. Together, they enjoy their meal in relative quiet, broken up only by Erik’s exaggerated giggling after every bite.
Non-test. Best description yet
“Maybe it’s the Rottnest writing” is the perfect wine to pair with the cynicism
Just build a fucking tennis court on the beach and be done with it. Fucking WSL judges.