"That's not normal for most sports."

Shock news out of the WSL’s Santa Monica office as breakaway staff members, including its Chief Strategy and Brand Officer and veteran of fifteen years and four months, Mr Dave Prodan, shatter the previously impregnable Wall of Positive Noise™ to single out a much-loved heritage surfing magazine for censure. 

During a recording of the WSL podcast, The Lineup, and in a sub-program called Break Room, where other WSL employees are brought into the game, in this case marketing coordinator, Lyndsey Volk, podcast producer Ryan Faucett, art director Kimberly Hogan and Henry Bear, role unknown, a listener’s question is read out. 

“Is there a rivalry with Stab or is it good for the brand to have an antagonist?”

An unnamed employee unloads,

“Hmmm. It’s an interesting question. So, I work in marketing, for me there’s no rivalry with Stab. They cover us. They’re a media outlet who cover surfing so they naturally cover the best in the world, but it’s not like I’m going on my day-to day, uh, job writing promos or emails saying (funny voice)… oooh… I wonder what Stab’s going to say about this or (funny voice)… ooooh… I’m going too throw this clip in there and see how Stab reacts. 

“But I read a lot of sports media and I have seldom seen a media outlet cover the sport that they love and specifically cover so… (voice raises an octave) negatively… I guess is the word. I feel like there’s a way to have fun with it, like you see Deadspin, stuff like that. 

“I’m not saying there’s no place for criticism in sports, I mean, it’s everywhere, I think the question comes for the fact that most coverage the WSL gets from Stab is negative and that’s why people on Instagram are like, ‘Oh there’s rivalry, how are you responding?’ and are asking us as employees if it plays into our day-to-day jobs. 

“That’s not normal for most sports…”

Following is an anecdote about Mad Men with the WSL casting itself as devil-may-care Don Draper and Stab magazine, a much-loved title founded in 2003, as a meaningless underling. 

Two things. 

1. When did the Stab vs the WSL vendetta begin and how did I miss? 

2. Do you, or can you, speak fluent passive-aggressive, as per WSL employees?

(With thanks to BeachGrit reader, Mr Wilson, for listening to the podcast until the forty-minute mark were the exchange takes place.) 

World's happiest VAL secures prestigious position in Malibu hierarchy… 

Hollywood funnyman Jonah Hill, famous for playing sexless butterballs in a  series of box-office hits including Get Him to the Greek where he shelves alpha rock star Russell Brand’s heroin, has paid nine million dollars for a house in Malibu Colony, a guarded, gated beachfront setup footsteps from point made famous by anti-hero Miki Dora.

Eighteen months ago, Hill, noticeably slimmer since taking up the sport of kings, posted his new status as a vulnerable adult learner surfer on Instagram, 

“Been terrified to surf my whole life . Totally random fear and at the same time always been a secret dream of mine. Turned out to be one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had. Not only was it so fun and challenging but more so I’m like “damn, at 35 you can start doing shit you’ve always wanted to do.” 

And, now, with keys to his modernist mansion, four beds, four bathrooms, sauna, jacuzzi, steam room, rooftop deck, 3600 square feet of lebensraum, and a “windowless monolithically white face facade”, Hill can now count himself as a Malibu local, the house coming with deeded beach access rights and even a little golf cart for transport. 

Take off your shoes and dance, with me, on stockinged feet through the joint.

Pretty sweet etc.

Given the surf groupies out there, I imagine many middle-aged men, hipbones lost long ago in a sea of fat, swooning in the arms of the little master.

The three-time world surfing champion Tom Roland Curren, unbeatable for most of his career and who popularised the modern fish surfboard, has unveiled his retirement masterplan, a multi-generational surf school based in France. 

Curren, who turns fifty-seven this year, and his kids Lee-Anne and Nathan (from a teenage marriage to French gal Marie) and Pat and Frank, (from a marriage to Maki, from Panama) have formed Curren Surf School, operating out of the little Basque resort town Hendaye, on the Spanish border. 

Echoes of the Paskowitz family, yes? 

Tom has form in the surf coaching game, as BeachGrit’s Jen See observed at her home beach in Santa Babs.

Then, I saw it. Then I saw the most marvelous thing. I had to blink my eyes to believe it was real. For there was Tom Curren leading an Adult Learner around the lineup. The Adult Learner was perched precariously on a longboard as Curren paddled along beside him like a mother duck minding her chick.

If you’ve never seen Curren in real life, or at least not lately, he looks exactly like you’d imagine. A shock of blonde hair, grey around the edges, perpetually disheveled sits above a face cut deep with lines from the countless hours of staring at the horizon and beyond. His stocky build looks purpose-built for turning surfboards. These days, he has the slightly vague air of an artist, of someone who finds his interior life distractingly interesting, maybe more so, than the world around him.

A small wave came through with no takers. Curren cajoled his adult learner into position and urged him to paddle. Then he gave him a push. The adult learner came to his feet and did a thing that looked something like surfing. Success!

Suddenly, I was extremely jealous. I want a push, too! Where’s my Tom Curren! Tom, Tom, can I get a push? Tom, I need some help over here!

Getting a piece of Tom is real cheap, two hundred bucks an hour, add thirty if you want it videoed, and given the Curren groupies out there, I imagine many middle-aged men, hipbones lost long ago in a sea of fat, swooning in the arms of the little master.

Click here to examine the website, which miraculously switched from English to French over the past twenty-four hours, although details are pretty easy to comprehend. 

Any questions, ask France-based James Bickerton in the comments. 

And, here’s a taste of the Tom you’ll be getting, filmed last year.