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.

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?

“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.” 

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.