@brodyjenner Instagram official
@brodyjenner Instagram official

Morbidly depressed surf fans receive brief respite from pain as “Prince of Malibu” Brody Jenner and “Ultimate Surfer” Tia Blanco become Instagram official!

Savor.

I am, currently, sitting in a gorgeously modern spa hotel on north-western corner of Germany’s Black Forest, sipping a double cappuccino and seeking respite from the thunderstorm outside. It is nice, pleasant, though I am feeling bad for all the morbidly depressed surf fans who have no shelter from the deluge of shattered expectations.

Months ago, when the World Surf League was including G-Land on its 2022 Championship Tour, the aforementioned surf fans rejoiced. That epic left had provided many memories, much thrill, and now those could be shared with children. Fate, though, had other ideas. The swell forecast became not good, weeks ago, and has since downgraded. One day of decent professional surfing has been followed by lay-day after lay-day while the professional surfers unwind in a jungle bacchanal.

Setting aside my newspaper, I am ready to shed a lonely tear when a news alert jolts my phone. Page Six is reporting that “Prince of Malibu” Brody Jenner and “Ultimate Surfer” Tia Blanco are officially Instagram official.

Brody Jenner and his new girlfriend, Tia Blanco, are Instagram-official.

The “Hills” alum, 38, posted a photo Tuesday of himself staring into the camera as the professional surfer, 25, smiled with her arm around his neck.

Jenner captioned the Instagram Story, which featured his beloved dog Shoey front and center, with a blue heart emoji and tagged Blanco’s account.

Other posts showed the couple spending quality time together as they surfed, rode electric bikes and enjoyed the outdoors.

Here, beleaguered surf fan. Take and enjoy. Find warmth and happiness once again even if only for a brief moment.

Savor.


Outrage as audit reveals Los Angeles lifeguards earning more than beloved US president Joe Biden and retire aged 55 on a staggering 79 percent of pay! “Who knew LA lifeguards could reap such unbelievable financial reward?”

"Ninety-eight LA lifeguards earned at least $200,000 and 20 made between $300,000 and $510,283."

Auditors at the OpenTheBook Substack have revealed the staggering amounts earned by Los Angeles lifeguards, one lifeguard captain earning a little over half-a-mill, a hundred gees more than the beloved and transformative US president Joe Biden.

Who knew that LA lifeguards—who work in the sun, ocean surf, and golden sands of California— could reap such unbelievable financial reward?

Daniel Douglas was the most highly paid and earned $510,283, an increase from $442,712 in 2020. As the “lifeguard captain,” he out-earned 1,000 of his peers: salary ($150,054), perks ($28,661), benefits ($85,508), and a whopping $246,060 in overtime pay.

The second highest paid, lifeguard chief Fernando Boiteux, pulled down $463,517 – up from $393,137 last year.Ninety-eight LA lifeguards earned at least $200,000 including benefits last year, and 20 made between $300,000 and $510,283.

Thirty-seven lifeguards made between $50,000 and $247,000 in overtime alone.

And it’s not only about the cash compensation. After 30 years of service, LA lifeguards can retire as young as 55 on 79-percent of their pay.

The OpenTheBooks Substack is a pretty wild project, existing because, “We believe transparency is transformational. Using forensic auditing and open records, we hold government accountable. In 2021, we filed 47,000 FOIA requests and successfully captured $12 trillion government expenditures: federal spending; 49 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.”


Surf journalist plunges into Germany’s Black Forest in search of hidden surfing secrets, discovers iconic Kelly Slater no longer world’s greatest surfer!

11 x 0 = 0

As you may, or may not, know, I am currently on a great quest. A crusade to discover more potential secrets of our surfing hiding in plain sight as it was recently revealed that the German male lower leg is the most accurate standard for which to measure waves.

Mind blowing considering Surfline’s decades long misinformation campaign and the only thought that has pumped through my brain, since it was announced that Sebastian Steudtner, from Nuremberg, broke the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest wave ever surfed with a crack team of scientists sorting that his tibia is the holy grail has been “Well, if this is out there, think how much more is out there. This is the kinda surf information that tells me to go out there and BE somebody!”

The gong grew so loud that, after a week of sleeplessness, I simply had to book passage to Munich.

So long, family. Goodbye, important responsibilities n stuff and I was off.

Hours in the Bavarian cultural capital whispered to me, confidentially, that there is another option than Ray Ban for the surf journalist who has lost his much-adored sunglasses.

Essential.

And I would have loved to tarry, head to the Eisbach and rip a river wave, but had unfinished business in the Black Forest. Two decades earlier, before I was a surf journalist, you see, I took a teaching job in Bad Dürrheim there on its southern edge. I flew to Stuttgart, was picked up by one of the school’s faculty and driven to a beer hall surrounded by trees and a fairies’ tales.

It was almost cool but my colleague seemed super lame, all grouchy and un-chill, and my students were going to be adults who specialized in engineering but needed to speak English in order to do business or some such. I thought, “This school must suck. Anarchy. Etc.” so hopped a train in the middle of the night and fled, never showing up for my assignment.

Rude, rude knowing that engineering puts the E in STEM thereby saving humanity from global warming and especially rude in the new light that Liverpool’s revered soccer (football) coach Jürgen Klopp grew up in that wooded wonderland, in the town of Glatten, and has identified the aforementioned Sebastian Steudtner as the greatest surfer in the world even though it has long been held that Kelly Slater is the greatest surfer in the world.

In a video message to the GOAT, Klopp said, “Hi Sebastian! Since we met – and with we, I mean LFC – we are surfing on a high wave (or maybe not seeing as defeat by Manchester City), as you know. But we will never, ever reach the height of your wave – 26.21m (41.3 German male lower legs) is absolutely insane. Congratulations from the bottom of my heart. I knew you are the greatest, now the whole world knows it, really. Enjoy the night, enjoy the awards (?) and you should be proud – I am. So have a great night, all the best and see you on the next biggest wave. See you soon, my friend. You’ll never walk alone, or you’ll never surf alone, hopefully!”

Suck it, Kelly Slater.

So I am off to make amends in that Black Forest and hopefully find the Klopp childhood home and lay a wreath on its doorstep with both my name and Kelly Slater’s name attached, signed “with many apologies.”

More as the story develops.


Owen Wright, at left, with seven-time world champ, Stephanie Gilmore. | Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms

Sweet redemption for dumped world tour surfer and Olympic medallist Owen Wright as redundant Byron Bay villa sells for $6.5 million!

Bullish sale for down-and-out former world title contender.

The one-time world title contender and Olympic bronze medallist Owen Wright, who was dumped from the world tour one month ago following a series of shock results, has achieved redemption of sorts after selling one of his luxury Byron Bay villas for $6.5 million. 

(The Big O was made real sad by the mid-tour cull, telling the Lipped podcast “It failed the first time and it’s failing again. I’d love for it to never happen again in the future… I don’t know how it’s gone ahead. Every time it gets brought up it gets brushed under the carpet.”)

A little over three years ago, Owen paid a pretty wild $5.1 million for an unremarkable beach shack at 2 Daniels Street, a few hundred metres from The Pass in Australia’s Bryon Bay. 

It wasn’t Owen’s first property play; he’s been buying and selling up and down the coast for the last decade. 

You’ll remember the $1.6 million house at Lennox Head with its indoor swimming pool that meandered through the living room,  the Federation-style house in Byron Bay (a little under a million), the beachfront townhouse at Thirroul (675,000) and the gorgeous mountain-top hideaway (bought for 750k, sold for a million).

Owen, of course, didn’t see a charming wooden home he might squeeze his little family into post-tour, he saw…land, half-an-acre of prime Byron Bay dirt right in the middle of the joint’s biggest ever boom. 

Owen, along with developer Burke Urban, built four luxury villas, keeping one apiece, and put the other two on the market. 

A few days ago, the first of ‘em sold for six-and-a-half mill, a wild result given the brittle housing market in Byron, a shire ravaged by flood and teetering on the biggest property collapse Australia has ever seen.

Stroll through 2  Daniels St, here, buy the other one if you got the change. 


The Sunshine Coast would be richer, I think, if there were green, warm-water barrels on tap, and not just during the big cyclone blows.

Council fires back at developer of WSL’s billion-dollar “eco-resort” and Kelly Slater wavepool on Queensland flood plain, “To say that the proposal should be supported because (the) site didn’t flood during the latest rain bomb is ridiculous”!

"Any proposal would need to be assessed on robust data analysis not anecdotes.”

Last week, the developer behind the WSL’s billion-dollar pool and residential play near the Queensland town of Coolum said the WSL would move the project to the Gold Coast, two hundred clicks south, unless government red tape was slashed and the project bathed in green light.

Consolidated Properties’ Don O’Rorke, who “donated the land and a half-a-million dollars for the Hurley HPC in Casuarina and was subsequently made a life member of Surfing Australia, said concerns the joint was on a flood-plain were unfounded, pointing out that recent heavy rains didn’t affect the site. 

Now, Sunshine Coast councillor Maria Suarez has fired back at O’Rorke, telling the Courier Mail, “To say that the proposal should be supported because the northern part of the surf ranch site didn’t flood during the latest rain bomb is ridiculous, especially when you consider the recent events weren’t even as significant as the 1992 flood event. Any proposal would need to be assessed on robust data analysis not anecdotes.”

Suarez said the proposed site was some of the lowest lying and most flood-affected land on the Sunshine Coast and “was a natural storage area providing downstream protection during major flood events.”

The council, she said, hadn’t changed its position on the build on the flood plain, not for any anti-development reason just ’cause it seemed foolhardy, and had suggested an alternative site at Beerwah East. 

The WSL and O’Rorke hosed down that idea. 

“The problem is the Beerwah East plan is not coming online for approximately 15 years, so it’s not an immediate opportunity,” said O’Rorke. 

You’ll remember, or not, pro-environment and wildlife advocate Kelly Slater who“urged” the Queensland to approve the development.

“This wave would become somewhat of a mecca and put the Sunshine Coast back on the (surfing) map,” Slater told the Courier-Mail. “iIt will bring a lot of interest to the area and it will be a place that I know a lot of people are going to want to surf and have an ongoing impact on the local area.”

The proposal includes a Surf Ranch wrapped in a 20,000-person stadium, a six-star eco-resort, restaurants, bars, a retail village and “an environmental education centre based on the site’s wetlands and nearby waterways.”

The WSL’s Andrew Stark said the local surfing community was “ecstatic and excited.”