Li'l fella (pictured) drawing a brave line.
Photo: Screen grab Marcus Rodrigues
Ageism dealt heavy blow as Baby surfs
monster wave at Jaws!
By Chas Smith
"This is gonna’ be the best wave of my life."
The Ocean Pacific has been alive with pleasure
for multiple weeks now delighting surfers from Hawaii to California
whilst terrifying beachfront homeowners. So much action. Nature’s
gorgeous hammer. And any surfer, worth her salt, has certainly
paddled into the XL and, likely, cosplayed as a Waimea or Jaws
charger.
I certainly did, yesterday mid-morning, paddling out the front
into what Surfline was calling 6 – 10 but it clearly being 20 –
30.
Oh yes, I was brave duck-diving those walls of water on my Album
twin, jaw set, spinning on the first inside corner I could and
getting an early score on the board but not as brave as the baby
who was towed into a monster at Jaws dealing ageism a heavy
blow.
The youngest person ever to catch one of the Maui beasts at
12-years-old, back in 2021, “Baby” Steve Roberson was towed into
another, Wednesday, by the now legendary Billy Kemper.
“It was like a 40-foot back or maybe bigger,” Baby’s dad, Kaleo
Roberson, told Hawaii News
Now.
“I just saw this barrel coming and I knew I was like okay, here
we go. I was like, this is gonna’ be the best wave of my life,”
interjected Baby.
The beast, which initially looked like it was going to barrel,
began to clamp forcing the extremely young man to straighten out
and cop a heavy beating.
“It felt like I just got hit by a car or something right in my
side and it put me into the water so fast and shot me up into the
air and then I landed and got sucked over the falls,” he said.
After inflating his vest and getting bashed around a bit, Baby
was rescued by a ski and declared, “The feeling like when I popped
up is like a feeling like I’ve never had before. I just felt so
alive and it was gnarly.”
Four hundred pound Powerfish, inset, and drowning VAL.
| Photo: Powerfish
Instagram Influencer slammed by fans for
filming drowning vulnerable adult learner surfer blames his
inaction on obesity, “I’m 180kg and very unfit, we both would’ve
drowned!”
By Derek Rielly
“No way I’m putting my life on the line!”
You’ll remember the great Australian influencer and
philanthropistWillem “Powerfish” Ungermann from his
brave attempts to smash surfing’s “entrenched homophobia and
patriarchal power structures” via beach theatre and
Jackass-style pranks.
Two years ago, Willem terrorised a D-Bah line-up on his
bodyboard, at one point accepting a beach fight only to drop to his
knees and tell his surprised fellow duellist, “I’ll suck you dry,
mate.”
Between waves, he said to one surfer, “I fucked a bloke like you
once”, another, “You’re lucky my dad Rex isn’t here, he’d smash
your pelvis”, another, “Heard of the Bra Boys? We’re the Flatty
Boys. Instead of going around bashing cunts, we fuck ’em”, another,
“You know why I like surfing? When guys wear wetties and I can see
their dick”, another he asks if he’s seen Ross Clarke-Jones’ cock
and says, “I’ve fucking sucked it dry.”
Terrific fun and many important messages.
Now, Willem has come under fire for failing to help a surfer
after the man’s legrope became entangled around the pylon of a
pier.
“Take your legroom off you idiot…moron!” he barks from behind
the camera.
Almost a minute into the affair, a swimmer jumps into the ocean
and rescues the VAL.
“Fuck, lucky that guy went out,” Willem says. “I wasn’t going to
get him, no way I’m putting my life on the line.”
Commenters on the post went one of two ways.
“Typical Aussie attitude, sit on your ass and watch.”’
“There is plenty of things you can do to help a human in
distress or a life threatening situation than filming it!! Put
yourself into action in any way you can help build a community
quickly not content!!”
“You post all these lame excuses, after the fact of why you
can’t go help, however it’s easy to see through your mouth full of
crap. If you truly cared (as you are playing it off) then why are
you calling him an “idiot” and a “Moron” “shouldn’t be there
anyway” “that’ll teach you to surf a sunami” You are probably the
VERY DEFFINITION of what is wrong with the world right now!! A
HUMAN BEING WAS DROWNING RIGHT INFRONT OF YOUR EYES AND YOU DID
NOTHING BUT CRITICIZE, BELITTLE AND JUDGE ALL WHILE HOLDING A PHONE
TO VIDEO WHAT? THE POOR MAN DYING..GOING UNDER AND NOT COMMING BACK
UP? I BET….THAT YOU WERE THINKING THE WHOLE TIME…”THIS GONNA GO
VIRAL” I’M TAKING THIS VERY PERSONALLY BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE
THE PROBLEM. PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE WHY SOCIETY IS AS DEGRADED AS IT
IS. BTW BEFORE YOU GO REPLYING THAT YOU WERE GENUINELY CONCERNED,
WHY DID YOU NOT EVER ONCE SAY “I’M SO GLAD HE OK” WHY MAN, WHY?
FINAL THOUGHT…WHAT IF YOU, YOUR WIFE, KIDS,DOG WERE IN A SIMILAR
SITUATION AND YOU OR THEY HAD TO WATCH A GUY FILMING AND YELLING
SHIT AT THEM WHILE THEY DROWN. I REALLY HOPE YOU GET YOUR DUELY
DESERVED KARMA AND SOON.”
Willem had responded with the very prosaic, “I’m about 100m up
the beach zoomed in and besides that I’m 180kg (four hundred
pounds) and very unfit, we both would of drowned. I’m trying
to lose weight at the moment just in case something like this
happens again and I can help.”
Others supported his decision
to stay dry.
“Good on ya dog, is no use two of yahs in the
flatly hole.”
“Absolutely right there bro ya got to be fit and
have experience in the sea to pull something like that off one
lucky dude.”
“Smart move knowing your
abilities and not going in mate. Too many blokes end up dead trying
to help a situation above their capability.”
“Some people don’t realise how difficult it is to swim in the
ocean. Add on the fact of trying to save another person who is in
distress. Well done to the guy who jumped in.”
Your response?
VAL wrapped around a pylon, he ain’t too far out.
Stay or go?
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Open Thread: Comment Live on Finals Day of
the World Junior Championships as children are marched in to
California’s menacing “bomb swell!”
By Chas Smith
The future is now.
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Blacks. Photo: @petertaras
Exhausted California surfers re-wax rhino
chasers with noodle arms, prepare to paddle out, yet again, into
“the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea!”
By Chas Smith
Big Friday (again).
Any surfer on any shore, either hemisphere, is
certainly aware of the run of nearly unprecedented swell that
California has been served over the past few weeks. An unrelenting,
never ceasing stream of Surfline 10 – 12 feets+. Monster waves that
necessitate a steeled spine, girded loins and step-up boards
preferably in the “rhino chaser” range.
Exhausted.
California surfers are exhausted but what can they do? Where can
we turn? Oh, there is no sympathy from any coast, neither east nor
south. North nor northwest. An embarrassment of riches is what it
is but how best to indulge?
David Lee Scales and I discussed, in depth, during out weekly
chat. He was of the mind that there is no requirement to paddle for
the middle-aged. Nothing left to prove. I was of the opinion that
there is simply no choice. When surf hammers the shore, the surfer
must pull on wetsuit and take a beating even if there are only
straight-handers, even if arms have turned to noodle.
But what is your opinion on the matter? Do you thrill when blobs
of extreme color show up on your preferred forecasting website,
what James Joyce calls “the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening
sea” or do you pull a blanky up to your chin and shudder?
Tell true.
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Cultural appropriation (pictured). Photo: The Brady
Bunch
Axe finally falls on use of word ‘aloha’ by
non-native Hawaiians: “It’s about time that culturally
appropriating haoles kept our word out of their pasty white
mouths!”
By Chas Smith
Othering and microaggression.
It was only a matter of time and, honestly, a
pure miracle that we have all gotten to enjoy the word “aloha” for
so long. Gotten away wearing it on trucker hats, plastering it to
the back of Teslas in sticker form, saying it to each other when
landing at Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport smiles
spreading across pasty faces in anticipation of that first Mai
Tai.
A surprisingly long run but, alas, now officially over.
Into the cultural appropriation bin where it probably belonged
all along.
Maile Arvin, director of Pacific Islands Studies at the
University of Utah, explained to USA Today,
“‘Aloha’ doesn’t just mean hello or goodbye. It’s a greeting or a
farewell, but the meaning is deeper. One of my Hawaiian language
teachers taught it to me as ‘Aloha means recognizing yourself in
everyone and everything you meet.” And when non-natives use, it
comes off as mockery.
Aloha isn’t the only word that we should keep out of our lily
mouths, of course. The piece
continues:
“We live in a multilingual world where we’re always
influencing one another’s language practices hand where we might
come into contact with a variety of terms or language practices
that we have not grown up in,” says Nikki Lane, cultural and
linguistic Anthropologist.
Intention matters most. Dropping an “hola” or “shalom” to
someone you know who speaks Spanish or Hebrew, for example, isn’t
something to worry about. Actively don a fake, exaggerated accent
and say those words? Therein lies the problem.
Like saying “ni hao” to someone Asian-American who isn’t
Chinese; this could be both othering and a
microaggression.
So there you have it, amigos, I mean friends.
Nyet on dropping foreign words into bland English sentences.
Khalas.
Also, are you now considering applying to the School of Pacific
Island Studies at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City?
