World Surf League CEO Erik Logan (pictured) riding wave of progress. Inset, trans superstar Sasha Jane Lowerson.

Governing body for Olympic surfing releases policy officially banning transgender women with elevated testosterone levels from competing in women’s events!

World Surf League remains a bastion of freedom.

Days ago, the International Surfing Association, recognized governing body for Olympic surfing, released its official policy regarding transgender athletes participation in contests that read thusly:

A surfer assigned male at birth – and/or – who identifies as a man and has man/male on his national identity card or passport is eligible to compete in a men’s event or as a man in a mixed event;

A surfer assigned female at birth – and/or – who identifies as a woman and has woman/female on her national identity card or passport is eligible to compete in a woman’s event or as a woman in a mixed event;

A surfer assigned male at birth who identifies as a woman and has woman/female on her national identity card or passport is eligible to compete in a men’s event or as a man in a mixed event if she has not met the requirements to compete in a woman’s event (such as maintaining testosterone level less than 5 nmol/l continuously for the previous 12 months);

A surfer assigned male at birth who identifies as a woman and has man/male or “other” or “X” on their national identity card or passport is eligible to compete in a men’s event or as a man in a mixed event;

In order to compete in a woman’s event or as a woman in a mixed event, where either:

A surfer who was assigned male at birth and whose gender has changed and identifies as a woman – and/or has woman/female, “other” or “X” – on her national identity card or passport;

or

The athlete has otherwise been required by the executive committee and/or medical commission to establish eligibility to compete in a women’s event;The athlete must satisfy the ISA medical commission that her serum testosterone concentration has been less than 5 nmol/L continuously for the previous 12 months and meets any other requirements reasonably set by the executive committee and/or medical commission.

Of most note, I suppose, is the bit about testosterone levels.

According to The Inertia, these guidelines are “liberal” compared to other sport governing bodies. Or, rather, other sport governing bodies not named World Surf League which continues to have no policy at all.

Oh, you certainly remember the thrill brought to so many when Australia’s Sasha Jane Lowerson went on an incredible winning streak, taking prestigious longboarding contest after prestigious longboarding contest.

She became the first transgender surfer to ever win an event, much less multiple, and all seemed bright aside from the snark.

The World Surf League, I suppose, now a bastion of gender freedom as compared to the ISA.

Who would have thought?

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Photo: @therock
Photo: @therock

Surfing’s birthplace reels under staggering Snickers shortage as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson buys every last candy bar on Hawaiian island to pay for past sins!

Disturbing.

As any hungry surfer knows, Snickers really satisfies. The iconic candy bar, packed with peanuts, has long been a staple of quick energy burst pre or post session. As delicious as it is nutritious and yet surfing’s very birthplace, the island chain of Hawaii, is currently staggering under a devastating Snickers shortage right as larger, protein-necessitating swells are hammering the shore.

Who is to blame?

As it happens, mega-moviestar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Per disturbing reports:

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson joked this week he had finally “exorcised this damn chocolate demon” after he returned to the Hawaii 7-Eleven — where he claimed he used to steal a Snickers “every day” as a 14-year-old – and bought out all of the nougat bars.

The “Black Adam” star explained in an Instagram post that his family was “broke as hell” when he was living on the island and for nearly a year when he was 14, he would swipe a Snickers from the store as his pre-workout snack.

The actor and former wrester known as “The Rock” said his family was “evicted from Hawaii” in 1987, and he had wanted to return to “right this wrong” for decades.

While the bulging stud may feel better, poor surfers currently in Haleiwa participating in the Challenger Series hoping to punch their ticket to the bigs are left weak and shaky.

Under-competitive.

I can certainly understand their bad feelings but have a solve. After surfing in Oregon’s freezing cold water, as a younger man, I’d dip into Davey Jones’ Locker there in Charleston and buy Hostess cherry or apple pies. Though not packed with peanuts, they were delicious, satisfying and two for a dollar.

Will The Rock attempt to rob starving Zeke Lau et. al. from those next?

Here’s to hoping he has a heart.

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Slater (left) living dangerously.
Slater (left) living dangerously.

As cryptocurrency heavies mysteriously die one after another, surf fans worry “diamond handed” investor Kelly Slater in imminent danger!

No country for young men.

Those, here, interested in financial markets, stocks, bonds, etc. Those who listen somewhat regularly to Kai Ryssdal have certainly tracked the extraordinary rise and current fall of cryptocurrencies. What were once seen as “fake nerd monies” soared to the highest of heights before experiencing a real bummer of late. Fortunes disappearing. Fortunes and now, also, mysteriously heavies in the game.

Russian magnate Vyacheslav Taran, a young 53, died days ago in a helicopter crash whilst flying from Lausanne, Switzerland to Monaco. The weather was perfectly fine, clear as a bell, with an experienced pilot at the levers. Taran had made billions from cryptocurrency and became the third such heavy to die unexpectedly in a matter of weeks. Hong Kong cryptocurrency trading platform founder Tiantian Kullander, 30, “died in his sleep” on November 23 and Nikolai Mushegian, 29, who also co-founded a cryptocurrency trading platform, drowned in Puerto Rico after tweeting, “CIA and Mossad and pedo elite are running some kind of sex-trafficking entrapment blackmail ring out of Puerto Rico and Caribbean islands. They are going to frame me with a laptop planted by my ex [girlfriend] who was a spy. They will torture me to death.”

Surf fans have, immediately, turned their attention toward Kelly Slater and his well-being. The world’s greatest surfer, an 11x world champion, is a noted cryptocurrency player, savaging Elon Musk two-ish years back for refusing to take Bitcoin as payment for Teslas, writing, “I think Elon’s board and backers hate crypto and what it’s doing for the average investor and pressured him to put out a statement which they knew would inevitably tank bitcoin. I hope the SEC is taking a good look at this (and all of them who might be buying the dip today and this week in their private accounts). Interesting times. But Elon is bad for crypto.”

Slater has let it be known that he is a “diamond handed” investor in various cryptocurrencies but especially bitcoin, meaning he will not be cowed by market downturns etc. That he believes in his strategies and will hold firm come what may.

Surf fans hope beyond hope, though, that he will be sensible and that if he notices someone following him, say, wearing a trench coat and fedora or maybe sporting a creepy bowl haircut that he will not be too proud to sell low even if he bought high.

The World Surf League’s 2023 Championship Tour is just about to get underway and Slater is currently ranked fifteenth.

We need at least one more run at the crown.

Ke12y.

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Open Thread: Comment Live Day Two of the Haleiwa Challenger where some surfers can’t believe in themselves unless someone believes in them first!

Be the change!

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Towersey, inset, and surfer in vintage Benzo.

Wildly handsome blond surfer in vintage Mercedes Benz whose poor parallel parking form briefly united both sides of politics hit with bombshell new allegations, “He had ten cars backed up for eight minutes!”

You seen that before? Drive you nuts?

You’ll remember, of course, the surfer-turned-citizen cop Chad Towersey. 

His Instagram account @ocinstanews is a treasure chest of gotcha journalism, Towersey’s leering mask behind the telephone camera a source of terror for Orange County wrongdoers.

The lantern-jawed Towersey aka Unkle Tito, who is forty-three, became the toast of mainstream American media one month ago after a video appeared on his Instagram page showing a gal gone wild in a three-wheeled SUV.

Towersey snatched the footage of the woman he dubbed “Zanny Nanny” on the 405 freeway headed north to Irvine as he was driving to his job as a solar panel salesman.

Now, a five-year-old video of a surfer hitting bumpers while attempting to park at Newport, and filmed by Towersey, has resurfaced thanks to Reddit, and which Chas Smith wrote about yesterday. 

A brief recap, 

Let us travel, together, to Newport Beach, California, where our scene unfolds in broad daylight. For here we witness a surf caricature, floppy blonde hair, sunglasses, attempting to parallel park a white older model Mercedes station wagon festooned with an orange longboard. 

The “Chad” pulls up, cellphone out and ready, declaring, “Ahhh, now you’re hitting cars, bro, come on,” in classic west coast whine.

The “surfer” flashes a peace sign and responds, “Get a job, Chad. Is that your name? Chad? Go and hit up some açaí berries.”

Surfer girlfriend, girl friend or wife then appears as Chad tries to warn her not to get hit, that “He’s hitting cars.”

She says, “Dude, I know who you are.” He says, “Stop touching me.”

And the whole business devolves from there.

Towersey, who removed the video from his page soon after it appeared because the man in wagon said he was getting teased by Newport Beach locals, says the crude parking wasn’t even the worst of his crimes. 

“It was a hot summer’s day and if you’re waiting for a parking spot you pull over so people can go around,” says Towersey. “And this was the most irritable thing. He was double parked and he had ten cars backed up for eight minutes. Not every street in Newport allows you to do it, but on this street you can. If you have half a brain, you pull over to the right. And then I pull up and watch him trying to park and he’s playing bumper cars.” 

You seen that before?

Drive you nuts? 

Mall, beach, and traffic backs up because one person is determined to jump into a particular car space and to hell with how long it takes?

Almost enough to turn a man into a lethal jack-in-the-box, ain’t it?

The correct response, as Towersey states, is to pull over and allow traffic to pass or move on until you find a vacant parking spot. 

Or is he wrong?

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