Dastardly “too perfect” weather leads to dangerous surf overcrowding in Southern California ahead of Super Bowl as incompetent midwestern sporting fans flock to beach!

Rams vs. Bengals vs. surfers.

Today, Sunday February 13, is the Super Bowl. For those not versed in America sport, it is much like Pipeline except held at the end of the football season as opposed to the beginning. Now, once upon a time, this Sunday was a wonderful time for surfers to slip out and catch an early evening surf as very many millions of people chose to melt into the couch, overstuffed with 7-layer dips and whatnot, unable to make it to the beach.

This year, though, with Los Angeles hosting “The Big Game” and dastardly too perfect weather descending on the region, beaches and lineups have become overstuffed themselves with hot fans.

According to the local CBS affiliate:

With less than 24 hours until Super Bowl LVI, featuring the hometown Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals, Southern California beaches were far more crowded than normal on Saturday.

Over 100,000 football fans set to attend the big game, many actually headed away from SoFi Stadium, and instead to the sand in an attempt to take in the uncharacteristic summer day in February.

Since many of the people heading into the Southland hail from Ohio, or other Midwest states, 80 degree beach weather is far from normal, in fact, on Saturday in Cincinnati, there was a high of 23 degrees with a likelihood for snow.

So when Becky Matheny, a Bengals fan from Louisville, KY saw today’s weather she made sure she went to thaw out of her winter freeze at the beach, “I love it here,” she said.

“Becky” and her ilk forced San Diego lifeguards to staff up and also made parking lightly difficult for surf locals.

Back to the 7-layer dip, though. What is your favorite decadent sporting snack?

Chicken wings?

Cheese log?

Cheese nachos?

Put recipe in comments please.


Californian surf star almost killed in horror beach fall reveals shocking aftermath, “I’ve never ever thought seriously about choosing to amputate a limb but my left foot is getting serious consideration. All I want is relief from agony”

"To top it off the combo of drugs has me waking from nightmares so real I can feel them deep down inside and they scare the shit out of me…”

The Oceanside surfer and former world number eighteen, Mike Lambresi, who nearly died one month ago after falling while trying to snatch the perfect angle for an Instagram photo, has revealed the shocking aftermath of the accident. 

In an Instagram story and with words pasted over a photo of the pretty San Diego vista he was trying to snatch when he fell, Lambresi writes, “In the middle of the worst night since my return hospital last Tuesday. I can’t make more of these… I’ve never ever thought seriously about choosing to amputate a limb but at this point my left foot is getting serious consideration. Crazy just seeing it as I write it. All I want is a little relief from the agony. To top it off the combo of drugs has me waking from nightmares so real I can feel them deep down inside and they scare the shit out of me…”

After the accident Lambresi, who turns fifty-eight this year, posted gruesome photos of the injury; images so disturbing Instagram had to place a “sensitive content” warning over ‘em. 

Lambo’s heel, I think.

“Lost my left heel and did a pretty job on right leg and foot also. Wheelchair for the next month and more surgeries to come for skin grafts etc,” wrote Lambresi. 

 

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A post shared by Mike Lambresi (@mike_lambresi)

Lambresi only started stand-up surfing at eighteen in 1982 but got so good so fast he’d won the prestigious California Stubbies Trials within one year. 

Fame and chasing the tour never appealed to Lambresi.

He quit the tour three years later in 1985, aged twenty-one, to stay home with his wife and kid, although he’d dominate the domestic PSAA tour for years, winning it in 1987, 88 and 89.

“I didn’t like the tour,” Lambresi later said. “I hated traveling eight or nine months of the year; it was grueling. I was engaged, and kept putting off getting married because I was always on the road. Quitting was actually a pretty easy choice for me.”


Open Thread: Comment Live, Day One of the Hurley Pro Sunset Beach presented by Shiseido!

Conflict!

I don’t, in fact, know if the Hurley Pro Sunset Beach presented by Shiseido is going to run today or not but I must leave on an early-ish morning sail and cannot, will not, leave you bereft in case that it does. There will be many conflicts in the water, professional surfer battling professional surfer, but also one major conflict on land.

Shiseido, the presenting sponsor, makes beauty products. So does Hurley.

How did the World Surf League let this happen? In any case, watch the fire works here or here. Chat with your braddahs and sistahs below.


Art critics divided after World Surf League releases bizarre image honoring 11x champion Kelly Slater on his 50th birthday: “The result is an apocalyptic wallpaper!”

Knives drawn.

Amidst much controversy, the World Surf League released an image honoring Kelly Slater on his 50th birthday that is very much polarizing art critics and lay persons alike.

Harold Rosenberg of ARTnews declared:

Weak mysticism, the “Christian Science” side of the new movement, tends … toward easy painting—never so many unearned masterpieces! Works of this sort lack the dialectical tension of a genuine act, associated with risk and will. When a tube of paint is squeezed by the Absolute, the result can only be a Success. The painter need keep himself on hand solely to collect the benefits of an endless series of strokes of luck. His gesture completes itself without arousing either an opposing movement within itself nor the desire in the artist to make the act more fully his own. Satisfied with wonders that remain safely inside the canvas, the artist accepts the permanence of the commonplace and decorates it with his own daily annihilation. The result is an apocalyptic wallpaper.

Thomas McEvilley of MoMA countered:

The fact that the primitive “looks like” the Modern is interpreted as validating the Modern by showing that its values are universal, while at the same time projecting it—and with it MoMA—into the future as a permanent canon. A counter view is possible: that primitivism on the contrary invalidates Modernism by showing it to be derivative and subject to external causation. At one level this show undertakes precisely to coopt that question by answering it before it has really been asked, and by burying it under a mass of information.

Knives drawn.

What do you feel?

Where do you go when you gaze into the void?

Describe.


"The waves suit Carissa to perfection. On a purely technical level, no one matches Carissa — and she just keeps getting better." | Photo: WSL/Tony Heff

Post-Pipeline and pre-Sunset women’s power rankings: “Steph Gilmore’s heat surfing these days is either brilliant or disastrous; no one matches Carissa Moore!”

Sunset. Big, unruly. It’s the kind of place that’s pretty obviously trying to kill you, or at least, shove a hell of a lot of water up your nose. Looks super fun!

To begin with, I should tell you that I hate writing listicles with every ounce of my hate.

But, for you, the people, I will make an exception. Also, if the men have power rankings, surely the women must have them, too.

Equality, it’s what’s for dinner. Pass the salt.

Sunset. Big, unruly. It’s the kind of place that’s pretty obviously trying to kill you, or at least, shove a hell of a lot of water up your nose. Looks super fun!

I have stared long and hard at the heat draw. I don’t think it made me smarter. Really, next time, I should just pluck names out of a hat. Here it is, my super not-at-all scientific women’s power rankings ahead of Sunset.

To the rankings!

18. India Robinson
Someone has to be last, and this time around, that spot belongs to India. Lingering concussion symptoms put her out of Pipeline, but she’s back in the draw for Sunset. India made a run up the Challenger Series rankings at the Roxy Pro France where she finished second to Brisa, and surfed well in the Challenger Series event at Haleiwa. Nowhere to go but up!

17. Luana Silva
Luana grew up surfing the North Shore and is BFF with Bettylou Sakura Johnson. It’s extremely likely I’m ranking her far too low here, since she almost certainly has spent time in the lineup at Sunset. Luana’s one of the new girls, and I’ll just go ahead and say, straight up, I don’t know as much as about her as I should. Surprise me, Luana!

16. Molly Picklum
Another one of the new girls, Molly had a drama path to the CT. She tied Luana on the Challenger Series, and lost it on the count-back. Off Tour. Then, back on again after Caity Simmers declined her spot. Molly looked stylish at Haleiwa, and has some solid results in the junior rankings. She may well deserve a higher ranking than I’ve given her here, but she’s short on experience. Gotta start somewhere.

15. Brisa Hennessey
During the Covid competition break, Brisa made a gorgeous edit surfing the waves around Tavarua — including a nice barrel out at Cloudbreak. Her contest heats seem hit and miss to me. Sometimes, she’s brilliant, other times, it’s just not happening. She made it through to quarters at Pipeline. Can she push through the size at Sunset?

14. Moana Jones Wong
Surfing’s new It Girl, Moana won Pipeline in style. She’s spent the past five years surfing five and six hour days out there. There’s a trade-off, of course. Six-hour days at Pipe aren’t going to help at Sunset, where Moana will be on her backhand. Yes, she put up a couple nice waves for the Vans Triple Crown, but her turns aren’t on the same level as the CT women. Outside of Pipeline, Moana’s contest results are few and far between. Barrels? Sure. Backside turns, I’m not convinced.

13. Sally Fitzgibbons
It feels a bit strange to put a CT veteran and top-five finisher from last year this far down the rankings. Do I know what I’m doing over here? Probably not. I don’t think of Sal as a girl for the bigger stuff. Am I wrong? Entirely possible.

12. Isabella Nichols
If she hadn’t made it on Tour, Isabella would have headed to university to study engineering. But she qualified and here we are. One of Isabella’s first Backdoor barrels at Pipeline was so smooth and stylish. I had her firmly slotted as a beach-break surfer after the first few events of 2021, but I’m pretty convinced she has more to offer. Let’s see what happens at Sunset.

11. Bronte McCaulay
Fresh off the plane, Bronte is a last-minute substitute for Caroline Marks, who is taking time off from the CT for health reasons. Bronte is legit good in solid surf with a strong backhand. If she weren’t fresh off the plane, I’d slide her higher in the rankings.

10. Gabriela Bryan
One of the many Hawaiians in the draw for Sunset, Gabriela has spent plenty of time surfing the North Shore. She knows what she’s in for at Sunset and her powerful style is well-suited to the wave. She’s been steadily posting up clips this winter. Looks good, so far. I’d rank her higher if she had more CT experience. I may be making an embarrassing mistake here.

9. Johanne Defay
Johanne said over on the Instagram that she has a minor knee injury from getting lipped at Backdoor. It might have been worse, except she trains like a demon. Let that be a lesson to you, kids. Training is good. Johanne is not afraid of size, but always seems to go better in lefts. Sunset? Rights. I know that much, at least.

8. Courtney Conlogue
With her go-for-broke style, Courtney will either win or get nothing. She’s won Bells Beach in sizable conditions, and she can wrangle heavy sections. Of the top women on the CT, she’s the most willing to huck and pray. That may well serve her well if Sunset turns unruly. Inconsistency puts her out of the top of the rankings, but if she wins, I would not be entirely surprised.

7. Malia Manuel
Her smooth, graceful style may not be especially well-suited to Sunset, but she’s experienced and not afraid of size. Malia finished second to Courtney at Bells. If I’m honest, this ranking is as much from my heart as it is from my head. I just love her surfing.

6. Tati West
One of the strongest backside surfers on Tour, Tati came within a heat of snatching the world title straight out Carissa’s grasp last year. Sunset is no party for goofyfooters, so I’m probably ranking her too highly here. And actually, I’m starting to lose my mind. Listicles, not my thing.

5. Lakey Peterson
After a year off from the CT due to a back injury, Lakey returned to a semifinal finish at Pipeline. Her semi heat with Carissa was nothing special, but she nailed a couple Backdoor waves early on. Lakey has one turn, really. She’s fast and dynamic, but sometimes tries too hard to force it. Lakey might be the scrappiest heat surfer on Tour, always looking for that one last score. I appreciate her never say die approach.

4. Bettylou Sakura Johnson
A Hawaii girl, Bettylou learned to surf at Haleiwa. She’s got plenty of power and she’s comfortable in size. Her inexperience with heat surfing showed when Isabella beat her at Pipe, but I don’t think she’ll make that mistake again. At 16, she’s one of the sport’s future stars, and that future may come more quickly than we expect. She beat Carissa in the Challenger Series event at Haleiwa. The conditions were shit in the final, but Bettylou deserves to celebrate that one. Sunset? Sure, why the hell not.

3. Tyler Wright
The last time the women surfed a CT at Sunset Beach, it was 2010. I think I have that right. Tyler was a wildcard for that event. Also, she won it. I’ll be honest: I don’t love that layback Tyler does on just about every wave. But the judges do. Her Backdoor eight was legit. While Tyler says she’s scared of big Hawaii, she can surf it. I almost flipped her ranking with Lakey. Life is chaos.

2. Steph Gilmore
It might just be force of habit to put Steph this high in the rankings. But she’s a seven-time world champion, and she won Sunset Beach twice early in her career. Going right is Steph’s whole thing, and if the conditions clean up, she’ll bring her beautiful rail surfing to the party. Few do it better than Steph at her best. Steph’s heat surfing these days is either brilliant or disastrous. The brilliant days, there’s no one I’d rather watch. Here’s hoping it’s the good Steph, not her evil falling twin who paddles out at Sunset.

1. Carissa Moore
In 2009 surfing as a wildcard, Carissa won the CT at Sunset Beach. She’s also the only woman ever to compete in the men’s Triple Crown, and Carissa spends her winters surfing the North Shore. The waves suit her to perfection. On a purely technical level, no one matches Carissa — and she just keeps getting better. If Carissa has a weakness, it’s a tendency to overthink things. She defeated herself at Pipe and she almost certainly knows it. No shame there, even the very best stumble sometimes, and Carissa will be determined to put all that behind her.