Opening of Corona Open J-Bay, hours away, thrown into wrenching doubt as World Surf League SVP of Tours, Head of Competition, remains missing in action: “Still here Rio. I’m never leaving Brazil!”

Call the event off! She’s the life and soul of the tour!

Should be a good comp without Barge Arse there to fuck it up. Tyler would be worried though without her free pass of JMD.
Stay by the pool and someone may want to fill the whale back in the water

Erik sits down at the bench on the deck overlooking the point, pockets of his camo cargo pants, paired with a tan button up safari shirt and Timbaland boots, filled with knockoff Hostess Ding Dongs and a carton of Pall Mall Blacks he purchased from the mart connected to the Engen he stopped off on the way to the beach from his hotel. Arriving a tad before sunrise, he came to look at the waves, getting all excited thinking about the upcoming contest and how he gets to travel and surf and continue to work on his nose sunburn.
“Hey, Erik, how are the waves lookin’ out there?” asks a familiarly booming voice behind him. Erik turns around to see one Jordan Michael Smith standing there all goofy looking, wearing a beanie, puffy jacket, and some pair of fancy retro Nikes.
“Oh, hey, bru, Jordy, great to see you,” says Erik, offering out his mitt for a handshake.
“That’s alright, bru,” he says, shaking off Erik’s gesture. “By the way, you really shouldn’t be saying ‘bru,’ bru,” says Jordan, who makes his way over to Erik to stand next to him side-by-side to look at the waves. Jordan hands Erik a can of Heaps Normal to consume. “Here.”
“Oh, well, OK, so…” starts Erik.
“Can we just watch the waves,” offers Jordan, not as a question, but more as a matter of fact statement.
The two sit in silence for several minutes, the longer the dead air lasting, the more antsy Erik becomes, starting to wriggle and fidget as if he really wants to say something, but is trying to be respectful.
“So, I see Jessi isn’t making it down here,” states Jordan to break the awkward silence and try to be conversational.
“What?! Jessi’s not coming?!” shrieks Erik.
“Doesn’t seem like it. Look at Instagram.”
Erik frantically pulls out his phone from his safari shirt pocket and immediately dials Dave, who happens to still be in California. He tries three times with no answer, the calls going straight to voicemail. Despite that, he continues.
“Oh, hello? Erik? What’s up?” answers Dave, finally.
“Jessi’s not going to run the contest here?!” cries Erik, panicking.
“First, take a deep br…”
“I can’t! She needs to be here!”
“Deep breaths. Erik, you knew she wasn’t going to be there.”
“No I didn’t!” wails Erik. He grabs his packet of cigarettes out of his left cargo pants pouch, picking out a single one and placing it in his lips.
“I didn’t know you smoked…” starts Jordan.
“Is that Jordan? Hi, Jordy,” Dave shouts over the phone.
Erik grabs his lighter and attempts to spark up his dangling dart, finally managing to get it on the fourth strike. He takes a quick puff…
“*coughing violently*uggggh, who uses these things?” chokes Erik, who flicks the lightly used stick in the bushes.
“Erik? Erik?!” says Dave, his voice rising to be heard.
“Yes?”
“Listen. Jessi doesn’t need to be there. Travis is there.”
“Oh, right, Loges!” bellows Erik loudly in relief. His face starts to redden after realizing he had the phone on speaker for everyone to hear his conversation.
“Now I’m going to get off. It’s 10:25 pm here and I still need to talk to Pat tonight…”
“Patches? Why?”
“He convinced me that I had to go see Minions: Rise of Gru tonight so that I could talk to him about it.”
“Oh, neato! Well have fun! I’m jealous!”
“OK. Goodbye, Erik. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Toodles!”
They both hang up.
“That was weird,” says Jordan.
“I know, I can’t believe I forgot about Travis being like Deputy Contest Person or whatever his title is.”
“Well, he is a tiny fella, I’d even say pocket size,” quips Jordan.
The two stand there in another long moment of silence until Erik hears what sounds like someone mumbling coming out of Jordan’s pants.
“Is that him?!” squeals Erik, meaning Travis.
Jordan grabs his phone out of his pocket.
“Are you nutso, bru? That was a notification from my phone.”
“Haha, OK… Whoa, I feel so buzzed right now,” he says, holding out his can of beer to inspect it.
“It’s non-alcoholic, bru,” states Jordan, plainly.
“Hahaha! OMG!” laughs Erik, a little too hard. “I can’t that. That was too funny! I can’t believe I thought for a second Travis would be in your pocket, I mean, he’s like koala size, but…”
Jordan clears his throat to hint to Erik that Travis just pulled up on the other side of him. Erik turns around.
“Oh, hi, Travis, you’re looking great! I’m so glad you’re here to do the contest! You’ll be awesome!” exclaims Erik giddily, as he makes motions to leave shooting finger guns at both Jordan and Travis, slowly backing away until they turn back to look at the ocean.
The two look at the lineup in quiet, Travis grabbing Erik’s unfinished can of beer left on the bench and chugging the rest of it.
“Good, huh?” asks Jordan.
“Not really,” answers Travis.
They sit on the bench for a couple more minutes.
“What a fucking knob he is,” says Travis, still experiencing a bit of a Napoleon complex flair up.
“Too true, bru. I’m going to catch some now,” states Jordan.
He heads off to get his shit from his car…

A hedonistic paradise if the money allows, so I hear. Maybe she’s able to ‘work from home’, i.e.: a foreign cocktail-served pool.