In foul bait-and-switch, generally milk-warm surf blog The Inertia shocks readers with story on Bruce Irons being hit with DUI, “possession of controlled substance” charge only to have them re-routed to the Wavestorm website!

Chas Smith

By

Positively wicked.

There is rude then there is really rude and The Inertia shocked its readers, overnight, but stomping, sneeringly, into the latter. I only discovered this foul bait-and-switch by clicking on the traditionally milk-warm surf blog’s story on the “angriest man in surfing,” broken by BeachGrit, replete with wonderful interview featuring the aforementioned Andy Lyons.

The piece shed no new light on the matter at hand, other than to add an obituary to localism, but below, and undated, hovered a photo of Kauai great Bruce Irons with the caption “Bruce Irons Arrested for DUI in Newport Beach, California. Irons was arrested for DUI, possession of a controlled substance, and driving without a license.”

Clicking on top left on The Inertia...
Clicking on top left on The Inertia…

I guessed the story was likely old, from well back in 2018, but curious enough to click.

Much to my surprise, there I was on the Wavestorm website.

...leads here.
…leads here.

Assuming that I had clicked the fringes, I backtracked and repeated.

Same Wavestorm website.

I repeated again.

Result unchanged.

But have you ever heard of such heartlessness? Such abject rudeness? Snagging the unsuspecting with personal tragedy only to deliver them to a mass-produced foam surfboard that is responsible for both environmental and lineup damage?

Positively wicked.

Are you impressed?

Toledo (pictured) showing how he can rule Tiny Teahupoo.
Toledo (pictured) showing how he can rule Tiny Teahupoo.

Terror clawing at corners of Filipe Toledo’s mind moves closer to center as “Tiny Teahupoo” called off for next two days by World Surf League deputy commissioner!

Chas Smith

By

Uh oh.

Even though the World Surf League’s official forecasting partner, Surfline, predicted there would be much small surf on tap for the opening days of the Outerknown Tahiti Pro, surf fans from around the globe dutifully logged on to the WSL’s website in order to take in Joe Turpel, Laura Enever and the ever-handsome Pete Mel flanked by paradise. There the three sat in floral shirts attempting to speak Tahitian creole and praising the “end of the road.”

Turpel emphasized that Teahupoo is both the real “end of the road” on the isle of Tahiti and the metaphorical “end of the road” of the 2022 season. Or, actually, the “end of the road” before the top five men and top five women head to San Clemente, California for final’s day.

Currently, the top five women are, in order, Carissa Moore, Johanne Defay, Tatiana Weston-Webb, Stephanie Gilmore and Brisa Hennessy. Lakey Peterson is sitting just under the cut, ready to strike in case of stumble.

The top five men, Filipe Toledo, Jack Robinson, Ethan Ewing, Italo Ferreira and Griffin Colapinto.Kanoa Igarashi waiting in wings.

Well, after happy small talk in the booth, the feed was tossed to Dimity Stoyle and WSL deputy commissioner Renato Hickel sitting in boat. Hickel, too, praised the surrounding gorgeous before declaring there was not enough surf to run today and it “is supposed to be smaller tomorrow if you can believe it” so called Friday off too.

Surf fans in the sidebar chat seemed devastated.

Filipe Toledo, the world’s best small wave surfer, must certainly have been devastated too. Each day called off brings the projected monstrous swell that much nearer.

Terror clawing at corners moving closer and closer to the center of a beautiful mind.

How will you spend the next two days?

Twiddling thumbs?

Drinking heavily?

More as the story develops.

Wildly successful “surfercross” event combining surfing and motocross has bi-curious surf fans considering other partners!

Chas Smith

By

Open hearts, open minds.

The 22nd annual surfercross event ran, this past weekend, in San Diego, California to much acclaim. As the name suggests, surfing and motocross are combined, competitors racing dirt bikes one day and surfing the next. The winner must be very accomplished at both and fans thrilled watching their dirt heroes water and their water heroes dirt.

Very exciting.

Though surf fans are never satisfied. Give them a mid-year cut and they’ll ask for two mid-year cuts. Take away the French Challenger Series event and they’ll want the US Open of Surfing to disappear too etc. And, as such, the aforementioned are combing through various other pastimes and sports to see if surfing can partner with any other.

Surfinnish skittles where surfing is combined with Finnish skittles?

Surfigure Skating where surfing is combined with figure skating?

Surfencing where surfing is combined with fencing?

I’m being lazy and simply combining “surf” with sports that begin with “f.”

I think you can do better.

"He was pleading, like, I don’t know why I’m here and you’re not the answer but someone should help me."

Multiple Emmy-award winning surf filmmaker reveals harrowing story of man dying on Philippine Airlines flight to Los Angeles yesterday, “He had a pleading, helpless look, there was no fight left. It was as if he’d given up, like one of those animals getting eaten by a lion.”

Derek Rielly

By

"He was pleading, like, I don’t know why I’m here and you’re not the answer but someone should help me."

The filmmaker Paul Taublieb, two-time Emmy winner, inventor of X Games etc, has told a harrowing story of his flight from Manila to Los Angeles yesterday.

Flight PR112 split Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International airport for its thirteen-hour trans-Pacific flight to LA at eleven am on Monday morn.

Taublieb, returning from an epic two-week surf trip to the Telo Islands just south of Nias there, was seated next to a man whose life force, he says, “was flickering.”

“This guy looks at me with these plaintive eyes. And that look freaked me out. Y’know, I spent a year in Africa, crossed the Sahara Desert, I’ve done a lot of travelling so I’m experienced and his look struck me in some caveman way, like, get away from this dude.”

Figuring he needed medical help urgently, and also not wanting to sit next to this coughing, gravely ill man, Taublieb approached the flight attendants who eventually checked his temperature.

In the middle of the night, Taublieb says he was in the classic Ambient haze when he heard the call for a doctor.

When the flight landed, passengers were told to wait while the body was removed.

The man’s look has haunted the filmmaker since.

“He was pleading, like, I don’t know why I’m here and you’re not the answer but someone should help me. There was no fight left. It was as if he’d given in to something, like one of those animals getting eaten by a lion. And, I had a visceral, instinctual reaction and that was, do not be near this guy. You could tell he had a sense of death. It was ominous. The fame of life was flickering and you could see it. And, I’m a liberal, I’m a compassionate person but there was nothing I could do. I just felt, don’t be here.”

Anyone else out there and seen death close?

Looked into a dying man’s eyes?

Keala Kennelly (pictured) on Teahupoo monster.
Keala Kennelly (pictured) on Teahupoo monster.

World Surf League commissioner Jessie Miley-Dyer releases impactful historical video declaring former governing body paternalistic in deeming Teahupoo “too dangerous for women”; surf fans thrill at possibility of Filipe Toledo in “fun-size” waves while gals allowed to conquer monsters!

Chas Smith

By

Bold decision-making beckons.

The forecast for the hours-away Outerknown Tahiti Pro is a tale of two halves. On the front end, Surfline, the World Surf League’s official prognosticator, is calling for minimal swell that might reach “fun-size” of shoulder high. The back end, though, is said to feature double-overhead plus with crazy winds whipping, the reef begging for blood.

Exciting.

Earlier today, Beachgrit’s own Trollformerlyknownasjackmeoff penned, “Great forecast, small stuff for the girls, big stuff for the boys, and some weather to keep it real.”

Except.

As if to directly rebuke, the World Surf League’s Senior Vice President of Competition, Head of Tours (formerly commissioner, I think) posted a stunning historical video challenge.

Then a teenager, Miley-Dyer states, “After competing at Teahupo’o in 2006 as a teenager and a rookie on the Championship Tour, I had strong opinions about women’s surfing and who I wanted us to be. And I still do.”

With the call directly in her hands, might the men be sent out early, thrilling current world number one Filipe Toledo, and the women held for scary?

It would be bold decision-making long missing from the top ranks of professional competitive surfing.

Yay or nay?

Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
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