Even Scrouge (right) shocked by WSL malevolence. Photo: Scrooge 1970 film.
Even Scrouge (right) shocked by WSL malevolence. Photo: Scrooge 1970 film.

Better Business Bureau on high alert as World Surf League refuses to deliver promised gifts to fans who slaved over survey ahead of Christmas!

Kick coal!

It is officially Christmas, in Australia, Christmas Eve in the United States. The most glorious days of the year when friends and families come together, share love, gifts, with each other, sing and smile. Peace and joy gripping hold, pushing stinginess and resentment into the cold night air everywhere.

Everywhere except Santa Monica, that is, where the World Surf League finds its headquarters and pre-revelation Scrooge is worshipped like a saint.

For directly ahead of yuletide, the WSL sent out a survey to its dearest fans but I will let one of them pick the saga up from here.

I got an email that asked me to take a survey about the WSL. Normally, I would ignore it and not bother, but they offered a FREE hydro flask for my time and effort. No “while supplies last.” No “limited to first X amount of surveys.” Just fill out a survey, get your hydro flask.

So, I did it. I like free stuff and I know the value of a hydro flask. I guess that should have been a red flag (how would it be financially viable?), but I carried on. I finished the survey and it said, “click here to get your Hydro Flask and use this code at check out.” It rerouted me to the WSL store. Things are looking great. I selected my water bottle. I entered the code and it was not accepted. The code reached its “USAGE LIMIT”????

This was my response to the WSL.

“I took your survey. Then, I tried to use the code and it didn’t work. Said the code used it’s usage limit. Not cool. I will never fill out another survey for the WSL.”

I have not heard back yet. No E Lo saying “I’m sorry.” Crickets!!!

You can get away with a lot of stuff, but don’t offer me something for taking a survey and cheese out me!!!

Unbelievable.

Absolutely unbelievable.

David Lee Scales and I discussed, anyhow, along with WSL’s edict not to say Joel Tudor’s name and the value of cashmere. Gather around the Christmas tree and listen.

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Masekela (right) into the light. Photo: @lupitanyongo
Masekela (right) into the light. Photo: @lupitanyongo

Surf broadcaster Sal Masekela one ups best friend Kelly Slater in stunning year end turn, made “Instagram Official” boyfriend by movie superstar Lupita Nyong’o!

Mazel tov!

But who could have seen that coming? Which surf fan might have put their hard earned money here? While we have been busily lighting candles for months now dreaming of a Gisele Bündchen x Kelly Slater reunion in order to usher in an era of prosperity last seen in 2005 – 2006, the surf broadcaster Selema Masekela was all the while dating movie superstar Lupita Nyong’o who just allowed him to become public.

Whoa!

Beyond whoa!

The Kenyan actress, who became mass famous after her turn as Nakia in Black Panther, is deservedly loved by all. A bright light in her prime with exciting work in a gilded future.

Nuyong’o announced Masekela, who just finished announcing the Pipe Masters, as her boyfriend in a moving instagram post with the two dancing in various clothings.

Praise poured in from all corners with film, sport and surf stars weighing in with much happiness about the union.

And here we are. Who needs Bündchen and Slater now?

Neither of us.

Also, while we’re still here, who needs Sam George and Nia Peeples, the previous surf-adjacent x celebrity biggest fish?

Wedding candles officially lit in advance.

Mazel tov!

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Legendary Australian artist responsible for Quiksilver’s most iconic designs, dead at 67, “Society without art is morally bankrupt!”

"We thought we were creating something; we thought we'd conquered the surf world and we did in a way."

Surf culture has taken a hit to the guts with the news that the Australian artist Peter Webb has died of the blood cancer myeloma, aged sixty-seven.

 

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A post shared by Peter Webb (@peter_webb)

Webby, who grew up in Geelong in Victoria but soon moved to nearby Torquay, HQ of the world’s surf industry, was the artist who redefined Quiksilver in the nineteen-eighties with radical hand-painted and wildly coloured prints that became the measure of cool not just within surf, but within fashion.

Where surf graphics had long been sunsets and waves, blues, yellows and reds, a continuation of the Endless Summer dream from 1966, Webby’s Ghetto Dog, Warpaint and Surfers of Fortune graphics for Quiksilver shifted the game a hard left.

“It was the urban influence, fine art, graffiti and a true understanding of painting along with his skills as a colourist that Peter brought to these revolutionary advertising campaigns and product development. It’s often said that Peter’s hand, his flow and expressive ability to use a paint brush is just as close to someone surfing a wave.”

In 2012, and after twenty seven years, Webby split from Quiksilver.

“It’s like being kicked out of the house and you didn’t fall out of love,” Webby told ABC. “They’ve cut down and I guess I was an indulgence for them.”

He sure wasn’t precious about his ability to throw paint on canvas.

“It’s a hard thing to say, ‘you’re an artist’. It’s such a wank! It’s not like you’re a doctor saving lives.”

However,

“Society without art is morally bankrupt. I just hate talking about it, explaining paintings. I don’t like doing it. I like hearing other people doing it though.”

About his iconic prints he said,

“We thought we were creating something; we thought we’d conquered the surf world and we did in a way.”

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Santa. Photo: @barton_lynch
Santa. Photo: @barton_lynch

“Papa Surf” Barton Lynch sets internet ablaze as children mistake Australian legend for North Pole fixture: “Mama, how is Santa Claus ripping so hard?”

Feliz Navidad.

It very much goes without saying that Barton Lynch is a gift to surfing. From the BL Blast Off Challenge to his various podcastings, Instagram messages and general tone, the Australian legend brings a sort of genteelness to our space. Something typically in short order.

Now, it would be thought that his admixture of experience, his trained eye and his ability to speak about nuances would have make Lynch the ideal color commentator for the World Surf League. Indeed, he did spend a year, or such, shoulder to shoulder with Joe Turpel, Ron Blakey et. al. giving surf fans the most aural joy of all but then, like that, he was brutally disappeared. Told that “his services were no longer needed.”

Why?

Well, rumors percolated through the industry that his “politics” had become an issue.

His politics?

Surf fans scratched their heads furiously trying to figure out which of his “politics” were off-brand for the WSL. Which would cause troubles. Or scratched their heads furiously until days ago, that is, when an image was leaked featuring Lynch engaging his rail in a picture-perfect bottom turn at Sunset, white beard fluttering in the stiff breeze.

While the connection to Karl Marx and his various theories on production and workers etc. is readily apparent to adults, children around the globe made an instant connection to an earlier hammer of naughty and nice.

A pre-industrial revolution red.

Santa Claus.

Now, anyone who has ever studied political theory is well aware that the aforementioned is the ideal communist. An authoritarian who delivers gifts created in factories where no wages are paid or collected to everyone who has kept their heads down during the year and stayed off his enemies’ list. A singular figure who works to banish scarcity by delivering toys, without cost, to homes everywhere in the world.

A beacon of egalitarianism.

It is odd that the World Surf League would be so anti-communist, especially in this day and age where many more pressing troubles boil and bubble, but at least children can enjoy Santa absolutely ripping.

Feliz Navidad.

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Three-time world champion surfer reignites decade-old jiujitsu blood feud with Kelly Slater in explosive new interview, “You’re embarrassing yourself! You’re embarrassing surfing!”

"(Slater) was putting a blue belt on and he was literally doing it because he didn’t want to look like a white belt. And in this sport, that is the corniest thing you could ever do."

The three-time world longboard champion and jiujitsu black belt Joel Tudor has breathed new life into his wild decade-old blood feud with the world’s greatest athlete Kelly Slater.

If you’re of a certain age, you’ll recall the ancient blood feud between the pair from 2015 when Slater appeared in a photograph at jiujitsu gym wearing a blue belt.

Tudor, who owns the Surfight Jiujitsu academy in Del Mar, California, was enraged by the photo.

“Crock of shit – the guy has been wearing a blue belt for years in pics and always made excuses when I would call him on it! If he wants his belt , tell him to go sign up and put in the work like everybody else who starts at white and goes through hell to graduate to blue – anybody on here talking shit to me more than likely doesn’t train and has zero clue about Jiu Jitsu.”

For those who don’t know, or care, the blue belt is the second rung in the jiujitsu ladder, white, blue, purple, brown and black, and takes at least two years of training five days a week to achieve.

Now, in an interview with Dave Scales on the Surf Splendor podcast, Tudor, who is forty-six, has reprised the famous feud explaining,

“In the jiujitsu world belts are fucking important and how people earn ‘em is super important. The hardest belt to earn is white to blue because you get fucking destroyed in the process to do it, the whippings you take is nothing you’ll ever forget. (Slater) was putting a fucking blue belt on and he was literally doing it because he didn’t want to look like a white belt. And in this sport, dude, that is the corniest fucking thing you could ever do. And we’re friends so I was just telling him, dude, you know how legitimate I am in this shit, you realise how fucking corny that is that you’re doing. You’re embarrassing yourself, you’re embarrassing surfing. You know how many surfers have gone through the wringer to their belts? It’s kind gnarly.”

Tudor then described the hoots of derision Slater would receive in his Surfight gym “if I explained to everybody, what if somebody gave themselves a blue belt?”

The famous flickering pointed tongue comes out and Tudor hisses,

“They’re gonna get smashed! They’d have a target on their heads!”

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