"Well, boys, I gotta go with Daisy."

International sport further isolates surfing’s pro-trans stance following shock decision to ban she-males from all athletic events, “The integrity of the female category in athletics is paramount”

“Fairness before inclusion”

Lovers of she-dick, succulent or fetid, friendliest red or angriest purple, active or no, will have, like most of us, recoiled with shock this morning at news The World Athletics Council had voted to ban transgender women from participating in women’s international track and field competitions citing “fairness before inclusion”.

From March 31, any transgender athlete who’s swung through male puberty won’t be getting a start in any gal’s events.

World Athletics Council President Sebastian Coe said the decision was “guided by the overarching need to protect the female category…we believe the integrity of the female category in athletics is paramount.”

World Swimming did the same thing last year.

The decision has isolated the pro-trans World Surf League who welcomed trannies into the women’s div so long as they’ve been a gal for at least twelve months and their hormone levels are real low, although the WSL said it wouldn’t be doing the testing, each athlete suppling their own supporting documents.

In a surprise twist, the controversy adverse WSL had made the decision despite furious opposition from some of the biggest names in the sport including Bethany Hamilton and Kelly Slater.

Hamilton sparked wild debate, both for and against the rule change, when she recorded a piece to camera damning the decision and agreed with Slater who called for a trans-only div, and said she’d boycott events if it went ahead.

The WSL did have the last laugh, howevs, when surfers were apparently banned from celebrating the inspirational shark attack survivor, recently lauded as the fourth greatest surfer in history, on the back of their contest jerseys at the recent Portugal Pro.

As Chas Smith, who was following the story, wrote one week ago,

Even though WSL Chief of Exective Erik Logan said he “respected her views,” her name was mysteriously missing from the long list on celebrated women even though it had been chosen three times the year before.

And now the pettiness has been confirmed. One of the Championship Tour surfers, on the men’s side, requested to wear “Hamilton” but was told he was not allowed. The reason given?

“She doesn’t support the WSL and she doesn’t support equality.”

Where doth you stand?

Fairness or inclusion?

And a question that is doing the rounds on Twitter right now: whom would you rather put to the sword, a biological woman who rates a one out of ten, Hillary Clinton for argument’s sake, or a she-male that’s an easy ten, Daisy Taylor let’s say. 

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Power (insert) corrupting. Photo: Gucci
Power (insert) corrupting. Photo: Gucci

Rumor: Italian stud Leonardo Fioravanti reportedly copped massive $60,000 fine from World Surf League for daring share truth in post-heat interview!

Power corrupts.

The World Surf League, man. What an increasingly silly organization. On the surface, Colgate smiles have never been brighter. Twin chiefs Erik Logan and Jessi Miley-Dyer have gone on an absolute positivity spree, attending any and every business conference, social media-ing like tweens, even giving lengthy interviews to collaborationist surf media.

Viewership numbers through the roof, 51,000 Portuguese surf fans pushing to see contests live on the sand, partnerships stronger than ever.

THE MOMENTUM IS REAL.

Rising tide floating all boats. Surfing finally saved from itself via Dirk Ziff by way of Oklahoma.

Except.

Underneath that shiny facade, rumors are percolating of an absolutely vicious, authoritarian chief structure heavily boozed on power.

Here’s one.

You certainly recall when the dashing Italianate surfer Leonardo Fioravanti barely survived his elimination heat at the Pro Pipeline (or maybe it was the round of 32 heat at the Pro Sunset Beach) and lightly called out the WSL’s much ballyhooed partnership with Apple Watches. The Cupertino-based tech giant provided the devices for surfers to be aware of heat times and priority.

There have been major malfunctions and each stop but this first (or second) one had the aforementioned Fioravanti in his post heat interview saying, “And, I just want to say our fricken watches weren’t working and that’s pretty heavy, like my watch wasn’t working. Nothing to take away from Apple or the WSL, what they’re doing is great, they’re trying to bring in some technology to our world, but if my watch doesn’t work from start to finish and I gotta ask for time. I’ve been used to having the time on me at all times in heats, we’re fighting for our careers. So, I hope they figure it out ‘cause my watch didn’t work from start to finish. And that’s pretty heavy.”

A simple statement of fact with much praise for both Apple and the WSL sandwiched in.

Well, for that bit of candor, the House of Gucci pin-up was allegedly, and from a pristine source, slammed with a whopping $60,000 fine.

$60,000 for talking honest.

But what does that make you think about the “product?” Happy days, and legitimacy, finally here or an utter train wreck of plastic ego?

I’m certain it’s the ladder.

(Get it?)

David Lee Scales did not quite get to the alleged fine, during our weekly chat, but I did call Kelly Slater a “dumbass” multiple times. I stand by it.

Listen here.

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Pete Mel on a monster.
Pete Mel on a monster.

Traditionally stoic big wave surfers shriek in horror as new study suggests California’s Mavericks disappearing due climate change!

Ch-ch-ch-changes.

BeachGrit is, as you know, an anti-depressive place where you can come and be amongst friends, learning about the love lives of surf-adjacent celebrities, how they intersect with Kelly Slater and, occasionally, receive hot real-estate advice. The stuff of flowery dreams. Wars and rumors of wars, economic or environmental collapse can momentarily be forgotten except, I suppose, today in the wake of a Washington Post hit piece declaring that iconic Northern California big wave Mavericks is on its way out the door due climate change.

Following the lantern-jawed Grant Washburn, who has been surfing Mavericks since it was “just a rumor,” the report discusses how the cliff ringing the beach is eroding at an alarming rate, crumbling and tumbling into the ocean below.

“You can argue the cause, but you can’t argue the beaches have receded,” Washburn told the outlet. “… People would say, ‘Oh, that’s a 100-year swell; you’re not going to see that again in your lifetime.’ And then like, a month later there would be another one. And it was like, huh? So either guys have the wrong name for this stuff or the scale is broken.”

I completely agree with the overuse of “100-year swell,” and cast an angrily squinted eye Surfline‘s way.

Cheryl Hapke, a coastal geologist who wrote a 2007 survey which declared Mavericks has the fastest eroding cliffs in the state, said, “These atmospheric rivers are problematic because it’s going to cause erosion to increase.”

But what of the wave itself? That cold monster that bubbles from the deep and horrifies?

Well, it breaks on a 5 million-year-old paleo seabed too far out to sea to be affected by cliff erosion though rising sea levels etc. may flatten the wave as it won’t be able to “feel” the reef anymore.

It has been one of the worst winters in memory, according to Washburn, with only a few surf-able days. “It’s kind of a weird setup where you want a storm but not right on you,” he said, adding, “Mavericks has seen some of the biggest waves that I think we ever recorded. But we couldn’t surf them.”

All very sad but silver lining? A grand opportunity for the World Surf League to send Connor O’Leary and Jadson Andre to Half Moon Bay in order to plant some small bushes?

Synergy.

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White devils plotting latest outrage on POC.

Rich white surfers “polluting the air breathed by LA’s people of colour” claims Los Angeles Times in bombshell op-ed from climate and environment desk!

“History fails to record one single instance in which the white man as a people did good.”

I hardly need to remind any of you that many of us, although not all mercifully, carry the mark of the devil, a ghastly almost translucent epidermis that identifies us as, in the words of the great Malcolm X, “a devil (who) must be destroyed.” 

Expanding on that theme shortly before his assassination by a fellow black Muslim Malcolm added, “History fails to record one single instance in which the white man – as a people – did good. They have always been devils; they always will be devils, and they are about to be destroyed.” 

No need to list the white devil’s myriad crimes, colonialism, slavery, technology, medicine, space travel etc although the latest charge by the LA Times that “white and affluent drivers are polluting the air breathed by L.A.’s people of color” might be one head-kick too many. 

Sammy Roth, a white-devil presenting reporter who writes about climate change for the Times and who would “very much like to see the Dodgers win the World Series again”, begins the piece with the guilt he feels driving on LA’s freeways and his complicity in choking the lungs of the city’s people of colour. 

“Angelenos who drive more tend to be exposed to less air pollution — and Angelenos who drive less tend to be exposed to more pollution,” he writes. “It may sound like a paradox, but it’s not. It’s a function of the racism that shaped this city and its suburbs, and continues to influence our daily lives — and a stark reminder of the need for climate solutions that benefit everyone.”

Essentially, and you can read it here ‘cause it ain’t hiding behind the usual paywall, white devils protest the building of highways near their fancy neighbourhoods and therefore, “truck traffic from the ports of L.A. and Long Beach ends up routing through lower-income neighborhoods in Alhambra, a city whose population is overwhelmingly Asian and Latino.”

And who drives more than surfers?

Later in the story, one of his quoted sources mentions that it ain’t a fait accompli that whites are giving POC’s lung cancer, but that “Majority-white Westside neighborhoods, for instance, could also be benefiting from ocean breezes that push pollution into predominantly Black and Latino areas.”

So maybe yeah, maybe no.

Are you LA? Do you feel complicit in these crimes?

Or do you roam the coastline, Palos Verdes through Venice and Topanga and Malibu with nary a care in the world for your POC brothers and sisters?

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Slater (pictured) celebrating resurrection. Photo: WSL
Slater (pictured) celebrating resurrection. Photo: WSL

As Cameron Diaz officially retires for second time, surf fans lick lips in hope that former soon-to-be jobless “pal” Kelly Slater and acting great rekindle “friendship!”

Classic Notebook.

Ink on the Kelly Slater and Gisele Bündchen reunion obituary is not yet dry, lightly streaking down the paper like tears down surf fans’ cheeks, but that has not stopped the latter from re-dreaming big dreams. As you know, the Brazilian supermodel has been linked to a billionaire who earned money from his father’s real-estate cunning thus ending hope that she would reengage a man holding mere tens of millions even though that man happens to be an ex flame and also the best surfer in the world.

Hope springs, though, and, today, news is breaking that Cameron Diaz is set to retire from professional acting for the second time.

The Charlie’s Angels starlet, who came back from early retirement to act in a film with Jamie Foxx, reportedly had a “meltdown” on set and is finished with the whole business, sources citing her desire to be home with family instead of slaving for ten-hour days.

Well, surf fans are keenly aware that Diaz’s former… friend, Kelly Slater, will soon be on his way to Australia in order to face a retirement firing squad. The surf great, who retired in the mid-2000s and then again when Joel Parkinson did, will, like Diaz, be older and finished with work.

Diaz and Slater were photographed much after the blonde stunner split from then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake and the attraction was clear but harshly denied. “We’re just friends,” Slater told People Magazine, though the 11x World Champion is well-known for his head games.

Now, Diaz is currently married to musician Benji Madden, the two sharing a child, and Slater is claiming that, someday, he and longtime girlfriend Kalani Miller will become married but…

Might the two rekindle a healthy friendship that could grow into an even healthier friendship?

One of them caring for the other in a beautiful old folk’s home he or she has built by hand?

Have you never seen The Notebook?

Stop what you’re doing and watch now.

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