Dirty Water: Ultimate Surfer #2 Koa Smith
sends blunt message to WSL CEO over wildcard brouhaha, “Elo, you
know what to f$@ken do. You saw what I can do! Put me in, Teahupoo,
Pipe, Portugal, G-Land, I’ll take some monsters down. Let’s f$@ken
go!”
By Derek Rielly
The hype and the heat is real!
Today’s guest on Dirty Water is the three-time NSSA
champ and runner-up to Zeke Lau’s Ultimate Surfer, Koa
Smith.
Smith, born in Kauai and a student of Bruce and Andy Irons,
surfs with the contented and dreamy look of the female suckling her
young as he dominates some of the best waves in the world
including, but not limited to Teahupoo, Skeleton Bay and
Pipeline.
He is also a prized fashion model, although that, as Smith
explains, has its dark side.
While it would be better, I think, for our guest to just marry a
nice, clean girl from a good family and settle down on a ranch in
the hills of Kauai, he is hellbent on dragging himself around the
loathsome WSL tour.
Charlie and I asked, why?
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Nazare.
Facebook founder, Kauai local, Mark
Zuckerberg continues to culturally appropriate surf by naming
latest product offering “Nazare” after famous Portuguese big
wave!
By Chas Smith
Bombs.
The world’s fifth richest man, friend of Kai
Lenny, Mark Zuckerberg made news, days ago, by announcing that his
company Facebook would be changing its name to “Meta” with a video
release featuring himself achieving second place to the
aforementioned Lenny in a “very cool” foil
game.
Today, he reveals a new product offering, a Google Glass-esque
something rather named Nazare after the famous Portuguese town,
wave pioneered by fellow Hawaiian Garrett McNamara.
Per the industry publication Upload:
Alongside the reveal of the new Project Cambria VR headset,
Meta (formerly Facebook) just gave a codename to its first pair of
consumer AR glasses. Meet Project Nazare.
A demo video of Nazare showed some familiar AR experiences,
like communicating with friends in virtual windows and even playing
multiplayer with avatars appearing in the user’s living room. There
was no actual picture of the hardware itself, but expect more
information in the future.
Are you stung by your culture being appropriated by “big tech”
or happy and honored?
Zuckerberg.
Say it loud and there’s music playing etc.
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Surf Journalist (pictured) in training. Photo: The
singular Pat Stacy @patstacyfilm
Surf Journalist decides to test fitness
gains gifted from ballet, prison, and paddle into dream southern
California combo swell an almost-unimaginable twice in one
day!
By Chas Smith
A man, reborn.
I’m in love, I’m in love and I don’t care who knows
it! Oh who could have ever guessed that a sleek, black
strap wrapping my left wrist, directly above my Nixon Supremacy watch, would
change my entire life? Make me a better husband, father, writer,
friend, surfer?
All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word.
My personal transformation, crawling out of a morass of mental
and physical inertia, began exactly one month
ago for it was then that I admitted there was a
problem, that I was a sedentary blob forever destined to be lightly
below average, to have a lightly below average cutback, down carve,
lip tap unless I did something about it. Unless I took action and
was forced to measure my progress every waking, and sleeping,
hour.
I next needed to build muscle so reached out to my famous
bank robbing cousin, currently serving time in Oregon,
for “prison bod” tips and watched my strain levels rise, my
shoulders bulge.
Twelve days, out of October’s twenty-nine (so far), that my
strain surged north of ten.
A fitness bonanza.
An aggressive slaying of personal mediocrity.
And then, like that, a gorgeous combination swell laced into
Southern California. Water warm, air warmer, waves plentiful and
peaky. Head high. Running across the various reefs and
sandbars.
Was I ready?
I purposed to surf an almost-unimaginable twice in one day
discover.
Paddling out in the morning, I felt strong, not winded, and sets
stacking up out the back did not cause bile to rise for I knew that
I could punch through them with my new convict arms. Oh, punch
through I did and I caught waves very easily too, opening shoulders
on turns, feeling reborn.
Paddling out in the afternoon, I felt sore but good sore, and
did not falter on my pop-ups but was quick and clean and brave with
enough energy to smirk at longboarders I zipped past on my Channel Islands Mid. Lightly
spraying them.
World’s 5th richest man Mark Zuckerberg
announces Facebook changing name to Meta with extremely cool Kai
Lenny foil video game: “I’ve got an idea… gotta pump it to jump
it!”
By Chas Smith
"I'm gonna need a lot more sunscreen though..."
The world’s 5th richest man, and avid foil enthusiast, Mark
Zuckerberg shocked observers, yesterday, with the announcement that
his social media behemoth Facebook Inc. would be changing its name
to “Meta.”
Facebook Inc. is now called Meta Platforms Inc., or Meta for
short, to reflect what CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday is its
commitment to developing the new surround-yourself technology known
as the “ metaverse.” But the social network itself will still be
called Facebook.
Also unchanged, at least for now, are its chief executive
and senior leadership, its corporate structure and the crisis that
has enveloped the company.
Skeptics immediately accused the company of trying to change
the subject from the Facebook Papers, the trove of leaked documents
that have plunged it into the biggest crisis since it was founded
in Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room 17 years ago. The documents
portray Facebook as putting profits ahead of ridding its platform
of hate, political strife and misinformation around the
world.
Zuckerberg then released a sneak peek into his own personal
“metaverse.”
A foiling contest versus Maui’s Kai Lenny in which he receives a
second place trophy.
And that is all I have to say about that.
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Kelly Slater sparks all-in, multi-front
blood feud pulling in world champs, other pros and journalists
after posting new comment on Instagram; tells Ace Buchan, “Your
comment is just an opportunity to virtue signal”
By Derek Rielly
Kelly Slater at his caustic best!
Only two days after being mauled for his vax scepticism
in an opinion piece in Australia’s The Sydney Morning
Herald, Kelly Slater has opened multiple fronts, dragging
in a who’s who of surfing, after responding to Ace
Buchan’s comment on a post by Tracks magazine.
Tracks jumped on the Herald piece, hard not to when a story is
seared to a crunch and served with bread for sopping, and ran a
pointer to it on their IG account.
Ace, who is thirty-nine, and a veteran of sixteen WSL seasons
(best finish sixth in 2008), ran with what he figured was the voice
of reason.
Complex issue and everyone is entitled to their views and
choices (whilst acknowledging that their choices in this case have
a huge impact on those around then) …but is it not slightly
alarming that professional athletes and more specifically surfers
are completely over indexing in conspiracy theorists, anti vaxxers
and spreading of misinformation? A group that also happens to over
index in under education, over confidence and use of social media
to digest and spread media? I wouldn’t listen to a bunch of doctors
telling me which board to surf before a heat at Pipe, I’d chat to a
bunch of my surfer friends ….but I wouldn’t listen to those same
surfers tell me what to do and which medicine to take if I hurt
myself in that heat, I’d go chase the doctors.
And the switchboards lit up.
First, Slater, who turns fifty in a few months, and who’d
previously told of friends dying from the vaccine, either from
side-effects of suicide, wrote,
@acebuchan I’ve yet to see a surfer giving advice on which
medicines to take but feel free to show me. I’m personally against
vaccine mandates for people in a free society with what the experts
characterise as a leaky vaccine. So I think you’ve missed the
point. When virologists and doctors acknowledge that you can catch
and pass on covid because you carry a similar viral load when
vaccinated, we’ve all got every right to be confused and should
adamantly be asking questions. I’m not sure where you or anyone
else missed the logic there. And I very well could be wrong but am
happy to take that ‘risk’ whatever people assume that to be.
Insinuating anyone is playing doctor here is a disappointing
moment, a false equivalence, and nothing more than an appeal to
authority. Your comment is just an opportunity to virtue
signal.
“In an era where Australia is being subjected to incredible
levels of suppression of free speech and medical choice,” wrote
Kanga, “@kellyslater should be applauded for taking a public stand
for use of alternative treatments and opinions that have always
been our prerogatives as Australians.”
Much emotion and distorted angles and enough, I think, to lend
the dullness of daily life an invigorating jolt.
