Angry (photo: @italoferreira via Instagram)
Angry (photo: @italoferreira via Instagram)

World Surf League bravely turns cameras away to protect innocent eyes of viewers as former champ Italo Ferreira bull charges judging tower in blind rage after Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach loss!

The Eternal Sunshine of Erik Logan's Spotless Mind.

I woke this morning too early, the grey still hovering in southern California’s unseasonably chill dawn, and my first thought was “I wonder what Zoë Kravitz wore to Coachella yesterday?” quickly chased by my second thought “Did the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach run to its finish?” A quick snag of my phone off of vintage bedside table, swiping up to unlock, clicking on browser, opening dear BeachGrit and seeing the wonderful Open Thread Comment Live post crowning all.

It did run, but to its finish?

I scrolled directly to the comments, to you, to realize no, it did not but more importantly, Italo Ferreira had apparently stormed the judges tower in a blind rage while, if I read correctly, World Surf League cameras swung away to focus on an interview with Tom Carroll who was reading from his 1981 diary in a sensually-lit masturbatorium (?).

Insane.

Absolutely incomprehensible.

Now, I’ll surf journalist and get to the bottom of this story, spooling it out over 10 – 15 delightfully whimsical episodes, but in the meantime, how but how would a rare bit of drama not be the absolute focus of the broadcast? A former champion incensed, heated, on the march but no. Too… what? Real? The staid and buttoned-down NFL, NBA, MLB only turn the cameras away when a fan has taken to the field and running around (so others don’t get encouraged, I suppose). Otherwise, every fight, altercation, screaming match, shove, etc. is documented, commented upon, examined from multiple angles.

Professional surfing, apparently, too family-friendly, though, to show frustration in real time.

What makes it even more wild is the fact that Make or Break, the much ballyhooed upcoming television program documenting the World Surf League’s championship tour, has access to this sort of business. No way a producer/director in her/his right mind would take on a project and not be guaranteed full entry. I am certain the interaction was documented and will provide a thoroughly dramatic moment when the show airs.

Now, one would think that the main benefit of a Make or Break, from the WSL’s side, would be to pull viewers over to the championship tour broadcast, maybe even enough viewers to charge a subscription fee or at least obtain real sponsors. What happens when these viewers come, though, expecting to see bull rushes of judging towers but are instead met with masurbatoriums and the patented Wall of Positive Noise?

I’m going to direct/produce a new series that really really shows what goes on in professional surfing. It will be called The Eternal Sunshine of Erik Logan’s spotless mind.

Less as the story develops.


Comment live, day six, Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, “To hell with your church vows! Light a candle and say a rosary for your favourite surfer!”

Rub your heady gristle against pro surfing's stiffening dingus!


Stranded dolphin dead after Texans “attempted to swim with and ride the sick animal”; In Florida, Dolphin begging for food “impaled in the head with a spear-like object while alive!”

Carnage!

A female dolphin found stranded on a Texan beach is dead after she was “pushed back to sea where beachgoers attempted to swim with and ride the sick animal.”

The Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network reports the dolphin, a cute little six-footer, was found at Quintana Beach along the Gulf of Mexico there.

“(She) was further harassed by a crowd of people on the beach where she later died before rescuers could arrive on scene. This type of harassment causes undue stress to wild dolphins, is dangerous for the people who interact with them, and is illegal, punishable by fines and jail time if convicted.” 

Meanwhile in Florida, NOAA Fisheries are looking for the killers of a bottlenose dolphin, an adult lactating female, found dead on Fort Myers Beach, seven miles of sugary white sand famous for its “dolphin eco-tours.” 

A necropsy, non-human autopsy, revealed “the dolphin was impaled in the head with a spear-like object while alive.”

Speared.

“Based on the shape, size and characteristics of the wound, it is suspected that the dolphin was impaled while in a begging position,” NOAA said in a statement. “Begging is not a natural behavior for dolphins and is frequently associated with illegal feeding.”

Probs worth noting that killing or torturing dolphins, mammals that are smart as hell as well as photogenic, in these parts can result in a fine of a hundred gees or a year in the pen. 


Igarashi (pictured) being violent.

Heartthrob and current World Surf League number one Kanoa Igarashi unveils new claim described as “sending the wrong message” and “triggering” by important culture watchdogs!

"Extremely violent."

Now, I did not happen to catch current World Surf League number one and Olympic silver medalist Kanoa Igarashi’s heat against the much-loved Mick Fanning but was surprised when I had learned of his loss. Igarashi has won many of his critics over, during this first portion of professional surfing’s calendar, with an elevated style and surgical beheading of foes.

Coming into Bells, the Japanese surfer by way of Huntington Beach and Portugal, seemed to be building the proverbial “house,” as it were, but things may have come straight undone at Bells.

After completing a lightly above average ride, Igarashi violently punched his own face in an extreme act of celebration. He went on to lose the heat, and maybe his position in the standings if Filipe Toledo continues his run of being able to surf small waves very well, but the reverberations from “The Punch” are continuing to, well, reverberate.

Important culture watchdogs have called the move “triggering” and declare that “it sends the wrong message” especially in this day and age when stopping Asian hate is paramount.

Were you disturbed? Saddened? Will Igarashi’s personal brand suffer if he is, in fact, marked as “anti-Asian”?

David Lee and I discussed on today’s podcast along with the implosion we are currently witnessing inside the World Surf League itself. Unprecedented days.


Captive dolphin rounds viciously on trainer in front of applauding children while surfer on Wavestorm panic paddles in opposite direction!

Such metaphor.

This world does get stranger and stranger every single day. Who could ever have predicted that the World Surf League’s patented Wall of Positive Noise would sustain its first crack at the hands of Kolohe Andino and twenty-eight other signers of a petition to do away with the mid-year tour cut? That CEO Erik Logan would snarl back, white teeth gleaming, “NO!” That a captive dolphin would round on its trainer in front of applauding Floridian children while a surfer on Wavestorm panic paddled away?

But such are our times.

The woman who shot the clip of the dolphin told Miami’s Channel 7 News, ““[It] looked like the dolphin rammed into the trainer. There was a struggle, some kind of collision under water happened. The lady on the paddleboard, she paddled out of the water pretty quick, and then the lead trainer started swimming back towards the dock, and it looked like she got ran into a couple more times.”

People for the ethical treatment of animals responded, “Time is up for the Miami Seaquarium, where long-suffering dolphins desperately need protection and workers are at risk. PETA urges this abusement park to end its exploitation of dolphins by getting them to sanctuaries as quickly as possible, so that they’d never be used in tawdry shows again and no one else would get hurt.”

Who, in this tableau, is the professional surfers, who is ELo and who is the surf fan?

Such metaphor.