"Put it on the surfer!"
"Put it on the surfer!"

Los Angeles surfer has wallet stolen from car while in bobbing lineup, fashionista thieves go on $37k Cartier shopping spree before he leaves water!

Nightmare!

Sean Harrington, a longtime Topanga Canyon surfer, happened to be out in the water over the weekend, enjoying wildly warm water and generous south swell with a friend. A fine time indeed though little did he know that while he was pumping down the line thieves were at a Beverly Hills Cartier racking up $37,000 on his credit cards.

Ouch!

As he tells Los Angeles’s ABC affiliate, “Parking my car in my usual spot and I hid my key in my usual spot. I’ve been doing it for years. My buddy put his key in the back of my car as well. We got back from surfing and I noticed my key was not there. My car was locked. I was able to borrow a phone and call my wife to bring a spare key not knowing I had been robbed.”

Once inside, he realized his and pal’s wallets and phones gone so went to the sheriff station only to learn that his session cost that $37k plus money transferred from card as cash plus thousands more spent at the Apple Store. His friend dinged for $40,000 at retail and entertainment complex The Grove.

Now, this sort of nightmare crosses my consciousness every so often and I recoil in horror though don’t change my own behavior as a result. I’ll leave wallet stuffed in shoe on beach, key hanging on tree branch with post-it note instructions to finding car, ATM card with PIN number writing in Sharpie on back under windshield wiper.

Not careful.

$37,000 at Cartier may alter me though. I’d be wondering what glories the thieves had adored themselves in and be extremely jealous.


Quentin Tarantino (left) and George Clooney practicing cultural imperialism in Mexico.
Quentin Tarantino (left) and George Clooney practicing cultural imperialism in Mexico.

Outdoor Enthusiast magazine twisted in ethical knots over Americans surfing in Mexico: “I feel that just by being here I’m fueling the gentrification and globalization I oppose in other elements of my life!”

On the horns of a dilemma.

This modern world, man, sure is a tough one to navigate. And excuse me for using the thoroughly gendered and un-chill “man” in the previous sentence but, boy, there are ethical pitfalls just about everywhere. Like, used to be whistling at a leggy dame when she walked down the street was a compliment. Now it’s assault. Or taking a surf trip to Mexico an appropriate, relatively easy adventure. Now it’s violent act of cultural imperialism.

Very popular outdoor enthusiast magazine, Outside, wrestled with the issue in a recent advice column with a mother, Wanting Waves writing in to the sage Sundog describing how she used drive to Mexico, surf a beach and eat tacos. Now the town is marked with “upscale sushi bars” and “yoga studios” and instead of driving down, she flies, renting a casita online, giving her the feeling “that just by being here, I’m fueling the gentrification and globalization I oppose in other elements of my life. Do I have to give up my favorite place and stop coming here?”

Sundog, declares he “feels her pain” as he, or she, too used to drive to Mexico, surf and eat tacos. His town has also changed getting fancier every year and “even though I didn’t necessarily long for a guy with a man bun to serenade me by playing ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ on his trombone while I eat my plate of shrimp, I can’t seem to quit this place. Turns out I like buying half a kilo of freshly roasted organic coffee from the señor pushing a wheelbarrow down the cobblestones. Yet it raises ethical questions about cultural imperialism and the power we yield with the money we spend.”

A sticky morass, as it turns out, with various ethical responsibilities being explored and different sorts of ways to maneuver but, in the end, Sundog informs Wanting Waves, “if you’re committed to dismantling capitalist structures that perpetuate class inequity, then I’m afraid the vacation you’ve described does not make the grade. With more research—and patience—you might find locally owned accommodations.”

So, to summarize, apparently un-chill to fly to Mexico, use Airbnb and look at Japanese cuisine.

There you go.


Mystery man with paints!

Mysterious vandal filmed daubing obscene slogan on Venice breakwater taunting surf forecasting giant Surfline, “Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we needed!”

"This kid is a true modern day poet. Straight the point, nothing left to the imagination. He should run for office."

Surfers fall into roughly two camps, those who live at the beach and who burn with a hatred of outsiders and those, most of us, who rely on the wildly imperfect world of surf cams and forecasts.

The Huntington Beach-based wave forecasting reporting outfit Surfline is a godsend to the landlocked, offering myriad cams and reports for a small daily stipend, much cheaper as is often pointed out than driving a coastline searching for waves.

Yeah, the wave size calls can be cartoonish.

Who can forget Teahupoo being “five to seven feet and offshore” during the Tahiti Pro but still too small to surf?

Not everyone is a fan of the operation, howevs.

The aforementioned beach-dwellers have maintained a steady campaign against the encroachment of cameras at various beaches.

And, last night, one mysterious vandal daubed “Fuck Surfline” on the Venice breakwater, an act captured by the forecaster’s own cam, and which you can still examine if you visit the Venice cam. 

When the surf comedian John Freeman posted the event on Instagram, he was met with an enthusiastic and unanimous response from his almost one hundred k followers.

Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we needed.

He’s got a point….😂

Best cam rewind we’ve seen in a while

Should have added WSL

Non e bike, spray paint, baggy pants… kids legit.

Let’s see this happen at every cam

This kid is a true modern day poet. Straight the point, nothing left to the imagination. He should run for office.

Watch!


Wild new theory claims Gabriel Medina lost 2019 world title showdown with Italo Ferreira due to petty interference in earlier heat, “The world was so embarrassed, the world so disliked what Gabriel did…to have him the champion was going to be a blight on the sport, a blight on the WSL!”

"I was told right at that moment, there’s no way they’re letting Gabriel win this one because it’s just not good for business.”

Do you  believe in the maxim, you make your own luck?

I sure do, anything I’ve gotten in this life, good, bad, indifferent, has been via my own behaviours.

Barton Lynch, whom you know well by now, world champ, one of the better voices in the WSL commentary team although that ship appears to’ve sailed, is also a believer and says Gabriel Medina lost his 2019 title showdown at Pipe with Italo ‘cause the universe looked askance at his semi-final interference with Caio Ibelli. 

In his latest Stoked Bloke Wrap show, Lynch is riffing on the Filipe v Italo final at Lowers, when he takes the listener back three years to 2019, to the final of the Pipe Masters ‘tween Medina and Ferreira. Whomever wins gets the crown. 

“Let me go back to this one. Remember Pipeline, Gabriel Medina, Italo Ferreira final? Before that, Gabriel Medina had got his controversial interference with Caio… blocked him and didn’t let him get the score and won. In my mind, I was commentating that event, and commentated that moment, in my mind, I went, there’s no way they’re letting Gabriel win this thing. Because the world was embarrassed. The world so disliked what Gabriel did in that moment that to have him as champion at the end of the thing was going to be a blight on the sport. A blight on the WSL. 

“And, Italo went the first righthander in the final. I was, like, six, five five, I didn’t think it was very good, and it came out as an eight. Oh there you go! All of a sudden, they, the…the…the… I was told right at that moment, there’s no way they’re letting Gabriel win this one because it’s just not good for business.”

 

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“So you can script this,” says Lynch’s co-host Peter King. 

Lynch quickly hoses down the suggestion the fix was in.

“Well, I don’t know if you can script this but you can manage the energy of the universe to go your way and that’s part of the job of a professional surfer, to manage their image, and that creates this opportunity for success… I’m not saying corrupt things happen… someone runs to the judges, ‘You cannot win!’ It’s just that you’re a human influenced by the energetic resonance of your world and in that energy, there was no way  Gab was winning that final.” 

Lynch says bad energy dogged Medina even through his title-winning years and that he was so good, so far ahead of the pack, he won in spite of himself. 

“He did it to himself! His public relations exercises through his greatest years were terrible! I’ve never seen Medina get given…one…point.” 

Thoughts? 


Gilmore, who is known for her effortless style, not one hitch, zero awkward, won her eighth title last week, the most ever by a female, bested only by Kelly Slater pansexually. | Photo: WSL

World Surf League CEO Erik Logan hangs linguistic disaster on world’s second greatest surfer Stephanie Gilmore forcing stylish champ to stagger through public square in needless shame!

Gr8.

I just, moments ago, hopped off a best pal’s sailboat after two days offshore, no phone coverage, savages paddling themselves everywhere on an ocean kayak found floating miles from anywhere, entirely disconnected from external reality.

Little did I know, back home, that the world’s second greatest surfer and newly minted champion Stephanie Gilmore was being forced to stagger through the public square under the weight of a linguistic disaster hung around her neck by none other than World Surf League CEO Erik Logan.

Gilmore, who is known for her effortless style, not one hitch, zero awkward, won her eighth title last week, the most ever by a female, bested only by Kelly Slater pansexually.

She roared all the way from the fifth spot to hoist the cup there on Lower Trestles’ cobbled stones, thrilling fans everywhere including, but not limited to, the aforementioned Logan. After her victory, he stood onstage with neatly trimmed beard, overly-aggressive sunglasses, black company polo and said, “Stephanie, I want to be the first to say this to you and to the world. You are the greatest and we will spell “great” with “eight.”

There were crickets and so he repeated, “great with an eight.”

While no surfer with any sense will ever call Gilmore the “gr8est,” as it jars the eyes and hurts the soul, Reuters, a leading new service, picked the mess right up and published “Brazil’s Toledo wins first world surf title, Gilmore goes Gr8t.”

Gr8t.

As hideous as it gets. Ke11y a visual masterpiece by comparison.

Unbefitting and sad.