Heartbreak. Photo: WSL
Heartbreak. Photo: WSL

Surf fans finally give up all hope for fairytale reunion as Kelly Slater’s one-time love Gisele Bündchen rumored to be dating trust fund billionaire famous for string of supermodel exes!

That's all, folks.

Kelly Slater is many things. An 11x champion, 4x ringer of Bells, 2x Oahu homeowner (that I know of) and I don’t doubt that he has done quite well for himself, financially. The old Association of Surfing Professionals used to list career earnings, though that tradition has been disappeared since the World Surf League has refused to raise pay, but a quick search declares he has won over $4 million, which does not count many millions more in endorsement deals.

Certainly a double-digit millionaire.

Paltry and sad compared to one Jeff Soffer.

Rumors are burning hot that the son of an important Florida property developer, who inherited billions, is currently in an amorous relationship with Slater’s one-time love Gisele Bündchen.

You will certainly recall, months ago, when the Brazilian supermodel and her then-husband Tom Brady announced their shock split after a decade-plus of marriage. While surf fans mourned the breakup, they also busily lit candles, hoping beyond hope that Bünchen would find her way back to Slater and the world would be right.

Alas, things have not gone as desired.

Bündchen was first linked to her dashing jiu-jitsu instructor and now to Soffer, who was once married to Elle Macpherson and has a reputation for dating supermodels.

And is this where the fairytale bubble pops?

Is this where they all pop?

Princess falls in love with woodcutter before ending up with loaded prince thanks to rich king daddy?

Shoot.

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Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer (insert) explaining why she hates Hawaii. Photo: WSL
Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer (insert) explaining why she hates Hawaii. Photo: WSL

World Surf League further degrades Hawaii, knocks “first jewel of Triple Crown” Haleiwa off the Challenger Series!

"The problem with Hawaii is..."

Surfing’s Triple Crown, which took place in November – December, was once a grand and glorious test of skill and will. Kicking off at Haleiwa before moving to Sunset and ending at Pipeline, the series was as oft as thrilling as the entirety of the Championship Tour. Alas what the World Surf League has wrought.

Long bent on degrading the Hawaiian islands, the Santa Monica-based governing body has allowed the Triple Crown to be turned into a TikTok contest, given away the prestigious Pipeline Masters, moved the season’s ender from Oahu’s North Shore to Southern California’s Lower Trestles, cancelled Maui’s Honolua Bay, introduced Covid and has now downgraded the aforementioned first jewel from Challenger Series event to the Qualifying Series.

World Surf League Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer defended the action in a wide-ranging interview with artificially flavored outdoor website The Inertia, declaring the intended slap was meant to help Hawaii “The main piece of feedback I’ve received from the surfers is around making the whole qualification pathway really strong – including at the regional level. It’s important to us that we also ensure (the surfers from the Hawaii/Tahiti Nui region) have a strong regional pathway and some really good opportunities to compete on the championship tour.”

There was more talk on the “product” of surfing and “synergies” etc. along with a refutation that Haleiwa has been vulgarized due Vans pulling out as sponsor.

“I can’t speak to what has been reported on (some other) website, but we’ve had great partners and continue to do so for 2023.”

Surfing on the new-look Challenger and Qualifying series can be buoyed by the fact that their numbers have been slashed, there are less events and the finals will take place in Brazil.

Product and synergy.

The wave of the future.

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Filmmaker behind groundbreaking new surf film starring Luke Hemsworth reveals wild new details including “the bag of dicks” he used to identify the movie’s star-studded cast!

More cock than a women’s swim meet!

To know Nick Pollet is, at the very least, to love him and his comedic collaborations with Swellian Lord Adam “Vaughan” Blakey who, when his hind legs aren’t quivering and he isn’t easing his crimson dingus out, is a man who straddles the fine line between positive noise and toxic slime.

Together, Nick and Vaughan have collaborated on Postcards from Morgs – a film on the one-time world title contender Morgan Cibilic prior to his catastrophic failure to re-qualify for the tour and the explosively popular Free Scrubber whereupon Tom Curren is revealed to have a personality worth close examination.

In a couple of weeks, the pair will launch, via an Australia-wide tour that coincides with two of the pro contests here, their latest film, The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe, a stop-motion epic three years in the making.

On the blustery and, let’s be frank, sadly autumnal Tuesday when I call Byron Bay-based Nick, he’s a few hours from a trip to Australia’s Great White-infested southern flank with Mick Fanning, Gabriel Medina and Mason Ho.

“I’ll swim and shoot but, fuck, real close to the other photographers,” he says.

First, he says, The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe, is not a Rip Curl feature, as I’d presumed, which forces me to dive under the hood of BeachGrit while we talk and delete it from the previous day’s story.

The inspiration came from Team America, made by South Park wizards Trey Parker and Matt Stone, as well as the all-time surf-comedy classic from 2003, Vaughan’s Doped Youth.

Nick approached Vaughan years back but he didn’t sound too keen” which ain’t surprising, stop-motion is hit or miss and so labour intensive even a Bangladeshi kid would turn his nose up at the return on investment.

When a gap in his work schedule presented itself in 2020, Nick decided, well, ain’t no time like the present.

“I hit up all the surfers, got some dolls made of ‘em, started playing around and working out how I was going to do it, learned stop-motion animation and then, ‘cause we were working together on a Rip Curl project, asked Vaughan to write the script.”

The idea for the dolls came from Mick Fanning’s retirement dinner when each guest was gifted a bobble-headed Mick.

“It was on my desk and I was tinkering around and I ripped the head off it, grabbed a Superman doll from my kid, ripped the head off that and put Mick’s head on it. Then I started mucking around with a green screen.”

For three hundred dollars each, and after much to and froing with a factory in China, Nick had reasonable facsimiles of the cast, including the WSL commentators Ronnie Blakey, who is also Vaughan’s brother, and Joe Turpel, and surfers Mick Fanning, Mason Ho, Griffin Colapinto, Jack Freestone, Matt Wilkinson and Craig Anderson.

Vaughan, above, and Nick, as dolls and, below, in real life!

“They all came with a bag of dicks and that’s the reason there’s so many dicks in the movie,” says Nick, revealing a crucial plot line.

Dicks galore!
Dicks galore!
Jack Freestone, tiny cock, and Matt Wilko, jackhammer.
His mammy made the outfits for the tiny creatures, which saved the production a significant amount.

“Mum did it for free. Doll clothes are so expensive,” he says.

After talks with production company Bronte Pictures, who suggested he make it as a feature film and not a thirty-minute featurette, Nick got himself a little cash to pay Vaughan for the script, as well as of the use of the colour grader who did Elvis and the the sound engineer from Mad Max.

The premise for the film is beautiful: It is ten years in the future and a virus has hit and John Fig, played by Vaughan, has made a vaccine to save everyone but the vax wipes out everyone’s memory of surfing.

“Mick’s a yogi meditation guru bogan. Griff is a hyped-up guy stuck in the desert who hasn’t seen anyone in years, Wilko is a cowboy, Ando is a ninja, Mason is a volcano tour guide in Hawaii and Jack’s trying to be a rock star but he’s real bad.”

Tour dates in Australia re, roughly, April 3, Bells, Perth, April 18, Margs, April 19, Sydney, sometime around the end of May, Gold Coast, May 3, Byron, May 4.

And, how did he get Luke Hemsworth, a man described yesterday as an “honest lover and a brave bull” involved in the venture?

Nick says he’d been filming Mick, along with Luke and his little brothers Chris and Liam and they were having a post-surf beer when he showed Luke an early version of his stop motion work.

“You should get dolls made of us,” Luke said.

“When we finished the animation I got his number off Mick and asked him to narrate it,” says Nick. “He was keen. He’s such a legend he didn’t hesitate. “

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"I believe there are still many tourists and expatriates who care about and love culture, customs, people and this island who don't want rogue tourists to be on this island."

Video showing Bali tourist becoming violent after being refused permission to ride his motorcycle through a Hindu purification ceremony shakes island paradise to its core!

"If tourists don’t respect Bali and its culture and ceremonies they don’t have a right to stay there. Seeing this makes me feel ashamed."

If you know Bali, you’re probs aware that it’s Nyepi tomoz, the day of silence where for twenty four hours there’s no lights, no working, the faithful don’t eat or talk, and when even tourists aren’t allowed onto the beaches or streets.

Traditional security patrols called Pecalang roam the joint policing the restrictions.

Depending upon your view of such things, it’s either an insight into an exotic religion or a drag upon your vacation that forces you to your hotel room couch for a day-nighter on Netflix.

A few days before Nyepi is the Melasti ritual a purification ritual which takes place near the ocean.

And it’s here we find a tourist or “bule” as they call ‘em in Bali, similar to haole or whitey, who lights up after his girlfriend is pushed back by the Pecalang after the pair were apparently refused permission to ride through the ritual and get to pretty Padang Padang (aka Labuan Sait) beach.

 

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The Google translate is a little rough, but goes something like this:

Bali really depends on tourism, but do we have to be silent about their treatment of people who don’t respect BALI?Balinese hospitality is utilized right. Maybe because we often say “it’s okay sir (with big smile)”.

I believe there are still many tourists and expatriates who care about and love culture, customs, people and this island who don’t want rogue tourists.

Bali will always be kind if you do the same.

I saw yesterday’s incident at Labuan Sait myself. While the Pecatu people are holding a Melasti event and are getting ready to return to the village, the Pecalang temporarily stopped traffic from the direction of Suluban.

When everyone stopped there was a couple of arrogant foreigners riding their motorbike (small motorcycle syndrome) wanting to break through the preparations with the excuse of being in a hurry.

The Pecalang has explained to them to take a shortcut if they are in a hurry, but the foreigner is still insistent.

The female came down and forced her to pass. Because the woman was very talkative, the pecalang touched her to get back on her motorcycle, but the male Caucasian was emotional and wanted to hit the Pecalang.

Fortunately, there are many pecalang colleagues and they could be stopped. The male Caucasians shouted, “I live in Bali for two years and I respect Bali but clearly you don’t understand anything.”

The tourist found very few allies amid the comments, which included the WCT rookie Rio Wada.

This bule should be deported and never be allowed back in Bali again.

If he were this rude to a Muslim religious ceremony in Jakarta he would be through in Jail for a long time! Lucky he’s in Bali.

If tourists don’t respect Bali and its culture and ceremonies they don’t have a right to stay there.  Seeing this makes me feel ashamed. Unbelievable this motorcycle idiot. I love Bali. I love the culture the people and respect their island and rules.

Some People around the world bring arrogance and ego. It doesnt fit Balinese. Because in Bali we learn patience and kindness, unlike the rest of the world uses aggression. Please go to Bali to learn about life and the true meaning of kindness.

And so on across three hundred-ish responses.

It’s further ammo, if more munitions were necessary, for Indonesia’s new hard line towards tourists.

Five days ago, Bali’s governor asked the federal government to ban tourists riding scooters and motorbikes as well as revoking visas for Russians and Ukrainians. 

Three months before that, Indonesia introduced puritanical sex laws that included year-long jail terms if an unmarried person’s sexual energy became such you had no choice but to come, full blast, into a woman, man or beast.

Anyway, how about you?

Would you take on the religious cops ’cause you and your gal couldn’t get to a particular strip of sand? Or smile and swing your bike around?

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Guillermo Satt (pictured) with nemeses. Photo: Monster Energy
Guillermo Satt (pictured) with nemeses. Photo: Monster Energy

Chilean surfer callously sacrificed by World Surf League describes devastating pain of unilateral Yankee imperialism!

Equality? Inclusion?

Erik Logan and Jessi Miley-Dyer, man. The twin World Surf League chiefs (executives and sport) make a big show out of equality and inclusion, heading to conferences, crowning themselves on social media, press releasing and generally carrying on, exclusively, about both equality and inclusion.

Unless.

That person happens to be Bethany Hamilton.

Or Chilean.

But you’ve read the story, from one week ago, of how, without warning, the World Surf League ripped a qualifying spot away from the South America region one day before the Praia Mole contest. A call that came straight from Santa Monica, as opposed to local leadership. Eight surfers were supposed to punch their ticket to the big dance.

Only seven were allowed.

So how does that eighth man feel about having his card pulled, without warning, at the last second and against the World Surf League’s own rules?

Surf Place Peru snagged an exclusive interview with Chile’s Guillermo Satt and let us dip our ear.

When did you find out that there would be 7 surfers classified instead of 8?

We found out that it was going to be 7 spots the day before the Praia Mole competition started from a message they sent to the WhatsApp group of the competitors where they usually notify us of the heats and schedules. They told us that the 8th was going to be awarded to Matheus Herdy due to a wild card due to injury… so we agreed to go to a meeting the next day and have them explain to us why they were doing that to us when they had told us all year that there would be 8 spots as it was also established in the rules.

What was your opinion and that of the other competitors?

We compete year after year in a circuit in which there were already few places (only 8) for a region that has a high level (read: Brazil) and now they give one of those places to a person who was injured. But that’s not the issue, the issue is that they take a position from us when something else was said throughout the year.

We understand that this comes from the WSL International. What is WSL South America doing about it? Are they helping you?

I understand that they are having meetings to solve this because they never told us, what’s more, they sent emails all year long and published that the cut was up to 8th place.

How do you feel about the whole situation?

I feel frustrated, fighting for a spot within those 8 is super difficult, being there every year putting in a financial, mental, sporting effort, training, surfing… there are many expenses involved. It is super unfair, super frustrating, nothing is clear about the WSL and the ones who pay are the athletes due to an error in their system. Now this is out of the rules because nothing said that one of those 8 was going to be a wildcard and it didn’t appear anywhere in the rules.

The frustration making perfect sense.

Mr. Logan? Ms. Miley-Dyer? Do the right thing. Fire one of yourselves for the mishap and give Satt his spot.

More as the story develops.

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