Crack a green one.
Well, the jig is up at least for now. The World Surf League has made all its contests un-embed-able. Because the audience is so huge, I’d imagine, and turning folks away is the only sensible option.
Fuck them.
The Haleiwa boys, and girls, are in the water anyhow. Watch here, or don’t.
Comment below.
Howzit.
North Shore residents are mad as heck and not going to take it anymore. Inundated with folks buying homes then flipping them into short term rentals has choked streets with traffic and turned one-time friendly neighborhoods into zombie zones where two-week vacationers from Albuquerque greet one-week vacationers from Cincinnati with shakas and “how-zits.”
So mad as heck, in fact, that a bill is being introduced to the Honolulu City Council that would seek to kill the short term rental situation with taxes.
According to Honolulu Civil Beat:
Under Bill 41, which has already passed a first reading at the Honolulu City Council, short-term rentals would be taxed at higher rates than residential homes, among numerous other changes to the city’s land use law.
Properties where the owner lives on site would be taxed at the bed-and-breakfast rate.
Transient vacation rentals, investment properties for owners who live off-site, would be taxed at the same rate as hotels and resorts – almost four times the lowest residential rate.
Seemingly wonderful except caught in the net would be longterm, and legendary, residents like Mark Foo’s widow SharLyn who has run Backpackers for decades, a hostel that allows migrant surfers to follow seasonal swells and sleep cheap.
“They keep saying they’re going to leave the existing, legal NUCs (or non-conforming use) alone,” Foo told Civil Beat, “But what they’re really trying to do is put everybody out.”
Her taxes would soar from $27,000 a year to over $90,000 coupled with many fees.
The residents and long-time hostel/bed and breakfast owner-operators are trying to find a solution wherein they are not hit with a sledgehammer while, also, ridding the fabled 7-plus mile miracle of illegal rentals.
Any ideas?
Will the mainland-dwelling North Shore income property owners fight back?
More as the story develops.
A disinformation campaign.
As an applied linguist (masters degree ’01), I am perpetually aware of words, how they’re being used, how meaning shifts and so when former National Security Advisor of the United States of America, and known mid-length enthusiast, Michael Flynn described subscribers of the popular QAnon theory as “kooks,” I was all ears.
You, as a grump local, are certainly aware of the “kook.” The uninformed male, female, non-gendered surfer that does not appropriately roll with our complex, but not difficult to understand, code of conduct.
I was out today, for example, with a heap of surf hatted folk on surf tractioned soft tops trying to go right on lefts.
Kooks.
The etymology is less clear.
Some scholars believe it was derived from the word “cuckoo” or “strange bird.” Others, smarter including surf historian Matt Warshaw, trust the root is “kūkae” from the Hawaiian language meaning “feces.”
In either case, Flynn recently dropped it in a recorded telephone conversation with popular former president Donald J. Trump lawyer Lin Wood, saying, “I always believe that QAnon was a disinformation campaign to make people look like a bunch of kooks.”
The whole business is worth reading but, more importantly, the rise of the kook.
They are everywhere these days.
The CIA’s fault?
From what I witnessed today it would make too very much sense.
Many surf hats.
Tin foil adjacent.
More as the story develops.
A real smart buy!
It’s hardly scandalous to say that Quiksilver, birthed in 1970 in Torquay, Victoria, and responsible for the evolution of the modern surf industry, ain’t the company it once was.
After going bankrupt in 2015 and being bought by Oaktree Capital, along with Billabong, it now exists as a sort of mainstream heritage label.
All tip and no iceberg, y’could say.
Now, after five years on the market, Quiksilver has finally sold its team house at 59-367 Ke Nui Rd, the pretty wooden joint next door to the old Volcom house.
Quik sold the place for $US4,950,000, a sharpish discount on the twenty mill they were chasing when it was first listed at the end of 2016, although even at five it ain’t a bad capital gain considering they bought it in 2009 for $1.4 mill.
(Property taxes are twenty-five gees a year, if you’re wondering.)
Over the twelve years they’ve had it, Clay Marzo, Reynolds, Jez Flores, probs Craig Anderson if he ever went to Hawaii, not sure if he has, all stayed there.
Kelly Slater, likely, visited once or twice.
Only a handful of surf spots in the world share the same reverence that Banzai Pipeline has. And when it comes to Pipe, there are even fewer properties that can claim they truly front this iconic surf break. For that reason, we’re proud to present 59-367 Ke Nui Road…otherwise known to locals and surfers as the Quiksilver House. A property steeped in North Shore lore and witness to the world’s greatest surfing events. Perched roughly 15’ above Sunset’s sand, this property includes 6,740 sqft of land that sits in the premium position on Sunset Beach. Bring your architect to design a one of kind property worthy of this prime position or simply refresh the quintessential North Shore beach cottage. Either way, you’ll own a piece of Surfing history and be a part of Banzai Pipeline for generations to come.
Five mill seems real cheap, at least to me. Where I live that only buys you a two-bed semi-detached joint four hundred metres from the beach and devoid of sunlight until around three in the afternoon when a little yellow beam creeps in from the north-west.
We need The Match.
The Michelob Ultra PURE GOLD Haleiwa Challenger, stop one of the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing presented by Monster Energy, is on hold for the second day giving us all a chance to pause, to reflect on a seemingly rehabilitated, rejuvenated, re-inspired John John Florence in association with Florence Marine X and also Monster Energy.
A near perfect score in his heat, the highest heat total of the day.
Imagine with me now that the North Shore’s second favorite son (following Jamie O’Brien) is all the way back. Engaged. Head in the game. Will he be able to pause the inevitability of the World Surf League Championship Tour trophy swapping back and forth from Gabriel Medina’s Brazilian mansion to Italo Ferreira’s Brazilian mansion for the next decade-plus?
Or have the Stormers put enough distance between themselves and Florence to keep professional surfing green and gold forever?
As much as I enjoy watching Ferreira surf, enjoy observing his stoke-ed, the best rivalry the WSL has is Florence vs. Medina and, to be honest, I do not for the life of me understand why a separate three stop tour, say Pipeline, J-Bay, _____, isn’t instantly conjured pitting only the two of them against each other.
Best two out of three.
Do you follow golf?
I don’t but followed The Match between Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau because rivalry is interesting and rivalry is fun.
The World Surf League acting like heat formats, tour structures etc. were etched in stone tablets atop Mount Barney by Rabbit Bartholomew himself, inspired, then brought down to the masses is ridiculous.
Pit Florence against Medina.
The People™ demand.
