The Associated Press reports that surfing has been re-appropriated by Hawaii after Carissa Moore’s dynamic Olympic gold medal!

A "come home" moment!

Surfing’s grand Olympic debut is now very much behind us but the impact of the historic day is still reverberating through hearts and minds. Italo Ferreira, plucky Brazilian all-star, won gold in the men’s division and Carissa Moore, Hawaiian-American, won gold in the women’s.

The Associated Press had made news ahead of the games by laying bare to our Sport of Kings, declaring it was culturally appropriated by California whites and deeply unchill. Bill Maher, days later, blasted the AP for pushing its “woke Olympics,” while singling the surfing coverage out as deeply unsettling, going so far as to doubt that it had been appropriated from Hawaiians because Hawaiians likely did not even invent surfing, saying, “How do we know that they were the first to stand on a board on water? It seems like its something that any person near any ocean would eventually do.”

Rude, no?

The AP, undaunted, is now reporting that surfing has officially been re-appropriated from the appropriators by Hawaii, due Moore’s win.

Moore has now become a realization of Kahanamoku’s dream, at once the symbol of the sport’s very best and a validating force for an Indigenous community that still struggles with its complex history.

“It’s a reclaiming of that sport for our native community,” said Kūhiō Lewis, president of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, which convenes the largest annual gathering of Native Hawaiians.

Lewis said all the locals he knew were texting each other during the competition, glued to the TV and elated, even relieved, by Moore’s “surreal” win. He called it a “come to home moment” for a community that may never reconcile its dispossession.

After centuries of colonization by various European settlers, Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1898 after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by U.S.-backed forces in 1893.

“At times, we’re an invisible people. We’re lumped in to other ethnic groups. Our sport is being defined by other groups. This puts it into perspective,” Lewis said. “It feels like an emerging of a people, of a native community that has been invisible to many.”

Beautiful, no?

Is cranky ol’ Bill Maher going to take another swing?

Moore as the story develops.

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Surfing's two biggest stars, both ambivalent about, or at least not exactly hurrying to get, a COVID vax. | Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms

One day after revealing he was unvaxxed on a live video-gaming stream and sensationally withdrawing from the Tahiti Pro, world champ Gabriel Medina issues mea culpa, “I made a mistake! Vaccine saves lives guys!”

"Soon, I'll take mine."

The two-time world champ Gabriel Medina caused a little ruckus yesterday when he told viewers watching him play Fortnite on Twitch that ‘cause he wasn’t vaccinated he wouldn’t be competing at the Tahiti Pro in a few weeks.

Bedecked in jewels, Medina, who is twenty-seven, said he’d refused the Brazilian Olympic committee’s offer of a COVID-19 vax prior to the Tokyo Games, and therefore couldn’t meet France’s strict-ish quarantine laws.

“There’s no time to go from Mexico to there, because it’s one after the other. I’ll be forced not to go,” said Medina. “But good. I can rule out a stage, so it’s good.”

Now, as any celeb knows, unless you want to exist as a pariah and in a permanent state of parody and ridicule, you don’t offer any opinion contrary to group-think, however heartfelt.

Publicly, anyway.

Hence Medina’s latest Tweet, IG Story.

Translated,

“Vaccine saves lives, guys! It was a mistake that I couldn’t fit the immunization into my training schedule for this year’s challenges because I was focused on the world championships. But soon I’ll take mine. In the meantime I continue to be careful and follow the safety protocols.”

No word, yet, from Kelly Slater who revealed he wasn’t anti getting jabbed, necessarily, but wanted to sit back a little, examine the side-effects.

Responding to a claim a couple of months back that he was pushing “anti-vax nonsense”, Slater wrote,

“Why does this account always end up with these triggered, bitchy people who can’t take a joke? And second, I’m not anti vax. I’m anti mandating medical procedures. But I’ve never even pushed that.”

Asked whether he’d be getting the vaccine, Slater wrote, “probably not anytime soon… It hasn’t been studied long enough to know long term cons. A friend’s dad also died a couple days after getting it from blood clots, so there’s that. Think I’ll wait for the antibodies naturally if I get COVID.”

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Blood Feud: Animal rights advocates ripping each other apart in surf paradise Hawaii as violent civil war breaks out between cat lovers and bird lovers!

Which side will win?

Hawaii, well known for its rainbows, shaved ice and very find surf, is currently being ripped apart at the very seams as animal rights advocates, typically thin-armed and shrill, are ripping each other apart in a vicious civil war pitting cat lovers against bird lovers.

The troubles started with an explosion of the island’s feral cat population, which has boomed into the millions.

There they sit, under swaying palms, licking their own filth, killing birds.

According to scientists, cats kill an estimated 2.4 billion birds in the U.S. alone. The problem is exacerbated in Hawaii where native birds are not used to feline business and, therefore, easier to munch.

To help reduce the feral cat population, cat advocates have encouraged a program called TNR or “trap neuter release.” Bird advocates declare it is not enough as, once released, the sexless cats continue to kill, kill, kill. They argue that the program should be rolled into TNSD or “trap neuter suffocate dissect.”

The two sides are now engaged in a well-funded propagandhi war, violently handing out glossy pamphlets etc. pleading their position.

Which side will win?

Are you Team Cat or Team Bird?

I once dissected a suffocated cat in school. It looked a little like Tunsis.

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Current World no. 1 Gabriel Medina swims to bottom of the sea, exacerbates a god in “stunning” new ad for Brazilian bank!

Bold n brave.

Surfing’s 2021 has belonged to Gabriel Medina. Oh, certainly Brazil’s Italo Ferriera won gold for their country in our grand Olympic debut, along with Carissa Moore for the U.S., and Japan-by-way-of-Huntington-Beach’s Kanoa Igarashi had a moment in the spotlight but none but no one has outshone Medina.

The two-time World Champion separated from his stepfather and mother, got married, embraced an easy-going attitude and crushed the Covid-ravaged World Surf League Championship Tour. Even though vaccine-hesitancy will keep him from competing at Teahupo’o, he is a lock for the one-day finals at Lower Trestles and could easily win the cup.

Even with so much busyness, success, though, the Man from Maresias had enough time to swim to the bottom of the sea and exacerbate the Greek god Poseidon for banking giant Bradesco.

Marketing director Márcio Parizotto turned to producer Stink and director Squarehead to create the “stunning” advertisement and said, “We decided to use the surfing metaphor, with a flat ocean, to show how important it is that we take the initiative in our own stories. We sought a message of optimism that would encourage people to pursue their objectives in a bold and proactive manner. And it is all personified by Medina, in an advertising fable that features Poseidon and conveys the brand’s commitment to helping its customers overcome their challenges.”

Beautiful.

Industry publication Adweek adds, “Keeping in line with its message of facing a different, more inclusive future, Bradesco’s YouTube channel has included sign language and subtitles, as well as audio descriptions. This initiative also includes a push for gender-neutral language and changing its expression, ‘For blind people to see, with ‘For everyone to see.’

It’s Medina’s world. We are just living in it.

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"You gonna paddle for that wave, punk?" (I know Danny Archer was a Rhodesian but... point remains.)
"You gonna paddle for that wave, punk?" (I know Danny Archer was a Rhodesian but... point remains.)

Listen: It is high time for surfers to turn their grumpy eyes to South Africa and hire mercenaries, that country’s finest export, to come police overcrowded lineups worldwide!

We all have gifts.

We, each nationality here, have skills and abilities gifted to us by our country of origin. Americans are very best at being boringly arrogant, Australians number one at broadcasting a party vibe while internally craving rigid control. Brazilians dance free though emotionally hair-triggered, the British have entirely given up, Scots mock the lack of will behind the British version of “giving up,” the French have invested all in making a perfect flat tire sound with lips and South Africans are mercenaries.

Oh the very best mercenaries in the entire world.

Executive Outcomes is one of the more famous group, founded in 1989 and traipsing across the rest of Africa fighting fights not theirs, but there have been many South African mercenaries and all are good, or, rather, skilled.

Which brings us to surfing. Our lineups are overcrowded, control has been lost. Even the grumpiest local who dreams of enforcing fears the inevitable lawsuit which brings us to the point.

South African mercenaries.

They are flown in, restore order by punching out a handful of fins, pointing a handful of VALs to the beach, gather up a handful of court appointments then head home pockets stuffed with money, mercenary hearts fulfilled.

Good, no?

I floated this on the Grit! podcast a few weeks ago but it was just gloriously embellished by a listener. Who, for example, stuffs the mercenary’s pocket full of money?

Ahhhh. That’s where he came in, from the parking lot of his DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) with the greatest idea to hit surf since the mid-tour cull.

It hits at the 1:02 mark but you should come in earlier than that because David Lee and I discuss Dave Prodan.

Listen here.

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