Clever surf journalist solves sphinx-like riddle involving apparent error on current world number one Filipe Toledo’s commemorative tattoo!

No regrats.

Last week, current world number one professional surfer Filipe Toledo thrilled his countrymen by winning the 2022 Oi Rio Pro in front of a throng World Surf League CEO declared to number in the twenty-thousands. He was passed, shoulder to shoulder, all the way to the stage where roars drowned out anything Chris Cote was attempting to say.

A beautiful moment and one, days later, Toledo would ink upon his lower calf in commemoration.

The tattoo featured a lovely hillside church, four palm trees, a barreling right with a thick, foamy lip and the years 2018, 2019, 2022 underneath.

Filipe Toledo as art (pictured).
Filipe Toledo as art (pictured).

Surf fans immediately grew concerned. Yes, Toledo had won the Oi Rio Pro in 2018, 2019 and 2022 but he also won it in 2015. A four time champion.

Why had 2015 been disappeared?

A simple accounting mistake?

Early onset dementia?

A cryptic numerological message meant to signify some great, likely troubling prophecy?

As panic begin to set, one brave surf journalist took it upon himself to solve the sphinx-like riddle thereby comforting millions.

The background scene is, very clearly, Saquarema. There is no Sugarloaf nor Christ the Redeemer. No festival nor Morro da Urca. Very clearly not Rio de Janeiro proper and, even though the event is named Oi Rio Pro only the 2015 event was contested on those sands. 2018, 2019 and 2022 were all out front the aforementioned Saquarema. I would imagine that Toledo has another tattoo celebrating his first victory, somewhere else on his body, and, aside from mass shootings, assassinations, war, pestilence all is right with the world.

Right?

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Like a scene out of the wildly underrated schlock horror flick Shivers, the pool is rumoured to turn into an orgy of the blood parasites at night!

Lemoore insider says Kelly Slater Surf Ranch “quickly replacing Pebble Beach as the plutocrats favourite playground… where tech industry and hedge fund VALS hone their skills before hiring a ‘surfpa’ to bloc for them at California beaches!”

“It is to surfing what Madame Claude’s famous Parisian brothel was to prostitution.”

How much does it cost to hire out the Slater tank in Lemoore, that idyllic hamlet of 24,000 souls in gorgeous Kings County, California? 

Is it still the usually thrown around fifty-thousand US a day, 120 waves served across eight one-hour sessions? 

If you wanna get it while it’s warmish, May through October, gonna cost $US85,000, 65 to 75 November through April, brrrrrrrr and $22 to $25 thou’ for a four hour night surf. 

Of course, one doesn’t just… book. 

For that privilege you gotta be “part of a group that has booking access, most likely because they are a repeat customer.”

And therefore, according to our Lemoore insider, “While it remains financially off limits to most surfers, it is quickly replacing Pebble Beach as the plutocrats favorite playground. There, tech industry and hedge fund VALS hone their skills before hiring a surfpa (a surfing version of the sherpa mountain guide, also known as “proho”) to block for them at one of California’s gated, guarded beachside communities.”

Y’heard about the surpas? 

Real big thing among the rich and unlovely, including Hunter Biden, the disgraced son of the semi-disgraced US prez. 

And, now, there is a war brewing between the millionaires and the billionaires,” says our Malibu connection.

“I almost vomited when I overheard one plutocrat say to another, ‘Alexander von Furstenberg (Barry Diller’s stepson, Diane von Furstenberg’s son, under investigation by SEC) is a real waterman.’ How the mighty have fallen.” 

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Mainstream shocked to discover tacit approval of “grom abuse” amongst surfers in wake of disturbing video featuring the great Kelly Slater and young boy getting drilled into reef due elder falling from sky!

Topsy-turvy times.

David Lee Scales and I met today, remotely as unfortune (the Kung-Flu) would have it, as is our habit in order to record the much-loved podcast our own Party Pete is storing for a later binge listening. Nearly 200 episodes worth and he is certainly in for a treat. Top of discussion today, of course, is the video clip that has gone viral-adjacent featuring surfing great Kelly Slater calling a 14-year-old charger into a Kandui bomb only to have an elder, replete with trucker cap, drop out of the sky in front of him causing the boy to straighten out and get drilled into the reef.

I, along with the 11x world champion, imagined the usurper would get called out and deeply shamed but, as it turns out, the idea of “grom abuse” is alive and well amongst core surfers.

Watch again here.

Sentiment, it seems, is that the kid deserved his whipping and is surfing the last remaining frontier of this sort of business?

I’d think much shock in the mainstream where any -ism, including grom-ism and/or child abuse, is exceedingly frowned upon.

Have you re-thought your position on the matter?

Well, no time for that now as David Lee and I pivoted quickly to World Surf League CEO Erik Logan’s explosive interview with the Lipped podcast wherein he claimed that women can’t surf Pipeline and the specific instances where wood paneling an automobile is acceptable.

Topsy-turvy times.

Listen here.

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"Here's to turns."
"Here's to turns."

Luxury surf blog releases exclusive opportunity to join seven day, night, bespoke Mexico surf trip for ultra-low price of $125,000 (sans flights and champagne)!

First in, best dressed.

The war between me and Stab has, unfortunately, cooled off in the last few years. With comedically chubby nemesis Ashton Goggans and his trusty sidekick the Li’l Haberdasher apparently pushing off and a whole new staff of former Surfing magazine stalwarts, whom I greatly respect, taking over, the fun is gone.

I blame Stab, of course.

The joy that could have been had, for all, in an ongoing yellow’d fight could have been legendary. One of my favorite eras in journalism was the battle between Hearst and Pulitzer publications in the late 1800s led to an actual, literal war providing kicks for hundreds of thousands of otherwise bored readers during an otherwise boring time.

But alas and what might have been.

In any case, the aforementioned luxury surf blog has recently advertised a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to partake in a southern Mexico surf trip for the low, low price of $125,000 USD (not including flights and booze).

It can be split seven ways and includes a ten-board quiver of alternative crafts, for one, and filming of the entire session as a stand-alone cinematic offering to be shared at family get togethers at the other Hamptons summer home. The whole thing described as “summiting your bucket list and staring down at you, teasing.”

As a man of the people, neck deep in the blue collar art of ballet, it won’t be me. I just made myself a hot dog smothered in Grey Poupon for lunch but am also not doubtful that someone will spring. Kelly Slater’s Lemoore wave tank rents out for $50,000 a day and is booked solid.

Should it be you?

Furthermore, do you have any thoughts on the wealth gap?

Book here.

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With J-Bay nearly underway, World Surf League breathes duplicitous sigh of relief as it is revealed site of Mick Fanning attack cleared of great whites by two “serial killer” orcas!

"Oh, thank goodness..."

In stunning environmental news it was, days ago, revealed that many of South Africa’s picturesque, wave filled bays have been cleared of the most vicious great white sharks by even more vicious serial killer orcas. Great white bodies washed up on shore sans liver or heart. Great white orphans mourning their kin.

Per a study in the African Journal of Marine Science, the great whites have abandoned their normal feeding grounds due fear and discomfort.

During the study, which was carried out over five-and-a-half years, 14 sharks have been tracked fleeing the areas when the orcas are present and visual sightings have dropped dramatically in certain Western Cape Bays.

“Initially, following an orca attack in Gansbaai, individual great white sharks did not appear for weeks or months,” Towner said.

“What we seem to be witnessing though is a large-scale avoidance (rather than a fine-scale) strategy, mirroring what we see used by wild dogs in the Serengeti in Tanzania, in response to increased lion presence.”

The removal of great white sharks will likely cause pressure on the food chain.

Now, of course I know that J-Bay is not a western Cape Bay and you may know that too but great white sharks are not as well-read as us, not really into the African Journal of Marine Science etc. so they might not and may be avoiding it altogether just to be extra safe.

You, of course, recall that J-Bay was site to the most famous single heat in competitive surfing history wherein a great white became tangled in Mick Fanning’s leash as he surfed against Julian Wilson circa 2015. Fanning was physically unscathed and the World Surf League, in its first season, breathed a public sigh of relief. Privately, though, there must have been many high fives and tight shakas for the incident is, by far and away, the most watched and talked about in professional surfing history.

Not that the WSL would like another brush with great white death but… ratings are ratings and that taste of real non-endemic sporting news and news news, oh so sweet. So much better than being endlessly prattled about on surf blogs, even wildly popular ones.

Just one more hit, daddy, with everyone safe, of course.

Please?

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