"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.”

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. 

Clarity.

But you are certainly aware, if not out-righted opinionated upon, the “trans people in sport” conversation dominating professional sport. A mere theoretical in our surfing world until a short few weeks ago when Sasha Jane Lowerson smashed her competition to become the first surfer to win both men’s and women’s after a dominant performance at the Western Australian longboarding championship.

Inspiring to many but confusing to others.

Is it fair for those born male to switch and smash females in sport?

Is it proper?

The debate roiled with photographer Peter King declaring “stay out of women’s sports” and the world’s greatest surfer, Kelly Slater, positing that trans athletes should be given their own category.

Well, Lia Thomas, who became the first trans athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship, in swimming, spoke out for the first time just hours ago after declining interviews for months. In the fading light of Lowerson’s glory.

Thomas told ESPN exclusively:

The biggest misconception, I think, is the reason I transitioned. People will say, ‘Oh, she just transitioned so she would have an advantage, so she could win.’ I transitioned to be happy, to be true to myself.

Trans women competing in women’s sports does not threaten women’s sports as a whole. Trans women are a very small minority of all athletes. The NCAA rules regarding trans women competing in women’s sports have been around for 10-plus years. And we haven’t seen any massive wave of trans women dominating.

If you say, like, you can compete, but you can’t score or you’re in an extra lane nine, that’s very othering towards trans people. And it is not offering them the same level of respect and opportunity to play and to compete.

It’s no different than a cis woman taking a spot on a travel team or a scholarship. It’s a part of athletics, where people are competing against each other. It’s not taking away opportunities from cis women, really. Trans women are women, so it’s still a woman who is getting that scholarship or that opportunity.

I very much wanted to ask Lowerson these questions, though was rebuffed, and appreciate Thomas’s clarity but what do you think? Does it assuage your toxic wonderings?

Do you feel those who swam, or surfed, against felt non-dominated?

How then can we then measure waves in German male lower legs?

More questions than answers but I’m, hopefully, discovering on essential quest.