"It was sort of a blind, stupid feeling, but I had all the goddamn confidence of a rhinoceros.”

The legend of Californian big-wave icon Greg Noll, one of the first surfers to charge Waimea Bay and who famously quit surfing in 1969 after riding a thirty-five footer, then the biggest wave ever ridden, has now been expanded to include his role as a 2SLGBTQ+ pioneer. 

According to the AI showpiece ChatGPT, 

“Greg Noll, a legendary big wave surfer from the 1960s, is also known for being openly gay. His contributions to the sport and his activism have left a lasting impact on the surfing community.”

Did you know? 

Earlier today, and as is my wont, I asked, “Who are some famous homosexual surfers?” whereupon Noll, who died two years ago aged eighty-four and who was noted for his enjoyment of pussy and whose joke about getting fur balls down your throat from so much pussy eats brought the house down at the 2016 XXL Big Wave Awards, was awarded the 2SLGBTQ+ pioneer badge of honour by ChatGPT.

(The OCWeekly was less impressed by the pussy joke reporting from the XXL Awards,

Though you hear hoots and hollers from the audience at the end, female attendees who spoke to the Weekly were disgusted. “It was such an insult to Keala’s speech to have Greg say his stupid joke,” one surfer said. “Here she was pouring her heart out, and then she was so disrespected.”

“Typical OC surf bro mentality,” another added. “They couldn’t be serious for an evening, or let us ladies have the spotlight; they had to just make us out to be tits and pussies as always.”) 

The great surfing historian Matt Warshaw describes Noll as “Boorish but charismatic … A loveable blowhard, hustler, raconteur, and bullshitter. But not an outright fabricator. His big-wave cred, furthermore, extends from here to Valhalla. He led the opening charge at Waimea in 1957, and for the next 12 years rode anything that came his way, fearlessly. ‘I was overwhelmed by a feeling that there wasn’t a wave that God could produce that I couldn’t ride,’ he said. ‘It was sort of a blind, stupid feeling, but I had all the goddamn confidence of a rhinoceros.”

Not gay, howevs. 

It ain’t the first time ChatGPT has got it wrong. Two months ago, Keala Kennelly and Tia Blanco were described as surfing’s most well-known transgender surfers.

One of the most well-known transgender surfers is Keala Kennelly, a professional surfer from Hawaii. Keala came out as a transgender woman in 2018 and has been open about her experiences as a trans woman in the surfing industry. She is a big wave surfer and has won several awards for her surfing skills.

Another notable transgender surfer is Tia Blanco, a professional surfer from Puerto Rico. Tia is a non-binary surfer who has competed in the World Surf League and has won several national and international surfing competitions.

Star of television flop The Ultimate Surfer, Puerto Rican-born Filipino-American Tia Blanco is as binary as they come, recently announcing she was pregnant with the baby of the TV personality Brody Jenner, son of, and here’s the irony or maybe the bit that tripped up AI, Caitlyn Jenner, once Bruce Jenner, Olympian etc.

KK, a former world number two surfer turned DJ and actor, is “openly lesbian” as they used to say, but ain’t on the transition train.

Noll also”earned a reputation as a drinker and a brawler, with a sometimes-macabre sense of humor. A Greg Noll Surfboards employee once cut off his thumb while on the job; after Noll took the man to the hospital and found out the thumb couldn’t be reattached, he returned to the factory and placed the severed digit in a cup full of resin to make a paperweight.”

"I make no promises that I will watch every wave. I might get distracted by the yoga class or the SUP races. The schedule is so packed."

I’m floating on my back in the pool, staring at the sky. I can’t remember where I am or how I got here. I’m not entirely sure where here is. There’s just the pool’s cool water and the sky’s endless blue. My bikini’s blue, too.

But there’s something about a pool. It’s tickling the edge of my brain. I’m here about a pool, I remember. Not this pool, not the pool where I float aimlessly, staring at the sky — this isn’t the pool I came here to find.

Somewhere near Pismo, I almost turned around. I could go home. It’s Memorial Day weekend. I could turn around and go back to my nice life with the comfortable couch and the cute cats. Right there at Spyglass, I could have gotten off the freeway and turned back.

But I promised. Also, there was the bribery. If you go to Surf Ranch, you can buy a new board. I bribed myself. That’s the real truth right there.

Later, I run into Britt Merrick. I tell him I’m only here so I can buy a new board. He laughs at me. At least, I can make someone happy.

Reaching Paso Robles, I made the fateful turn east. There was the sign to Cambria right there. The coast, it’s so close here. But I turned east, and well, then it was entirely too late. There was no turning back.

That’s where I saw my first Trump flag truck. They’re so familiar, and yet still so strange. It’s always a pickup truck. Sometimes, the truck is flashy and expensive, the performance of being working class more than the reality. But just as often, the truck has seen some days. It’s battered and old.

An American flag. Trump 2024. There was a third flag, too, but I couldn’t see it. Is it annoying to have flags flapping in the back of your pickup? Nothing is too much for the cause.

As I drove east, the rolling green hills turned gold. There’s a lot of places in between in California. It’s not much more than 40 miles from Paso Robles to Kettleman City, but it feels like forever. I pass through the terrain twisted and torqued by San Andreas fault. Jumbled hills surround wide flatlands. I feel like I’ve driven off the edge of the map.

As I approach Kettleman City, I see a sign pointing to Los Angeles. There’s one last chance. You can still go back. Go ahead, make the turn.

I imagine my new surfboard. I stop for ice cream. Then I follow the straight line of the road.

I catch my first glimpse of the California aqueduct with rows of almond trees planted next to it. It’s nearly full. As I drive, the bypasses and channels that parallel the road brim with water. On the long, straight roads, the horizon never seems to come any closer.

The Sierra Nevada’s record snow pack has begun to melt, sending water downhill. Just south of here, the ancient Tulare Lake returns to life. Signs along the road call for more dams. Fire Newsom, they say, in reference to the current governor.

Accounts of early California describe the Central Valley as a lush wetland. The demands of thirsty cities and industrial agriculture have changed all that, but at the time, Tulare was the largest of the Valley’s lakes. In fact, it likely submerged the area of the present-day Surf Ranch.

If this were 1880, I wouldn’t have to be here. There would be no Surf Ranch. I could float in the lake and stare at the sky. If it were 1880, I could go home. It is not 1880.

One day not too long ago, I stood in chill, dry air of Santa Barbara Mission’s archive. My friend, the former archivist pulled out a drawer, and inside lay an eighteenth-century map of California. The cartographer had carefully traced out the boundaries of his known world in precise black lines.

So far, the dykes have held at this end of Tulare’s ancestral lake bed. I drive past the Surf Ranch. It’s still there. It’s not underwater. At least, not yet. My last hope dissolves.

Somehow I find my way here without consulting a map or any directions at all. I am not proud of this feat at all. It’s a sign that I’ve been here too many times.

I send Chas a picture of the Tachi Palace. He writes back: Welcome to hell, now go to hell.

I pass wildcard Alyssa Spencer in the lobby. Carrying her fresh boards with her bright blonde hair, she looks like the perfect surfer, and perfectly out of place. I recognize Gabriela Bryant, but I can’t think of her name.

My brain melted somewhere out there. Hello lost and found? Yes, I think I lost my mind. It was out there between the Trump truck and the ice cream. Think you could find it? I think I might need it.

I’m sitting in the lobby again now. There’s plenty of people to watch. João walks past with his new Red Bull hat on backwards. He heads to the coffee shop, as though he needs more energy.

Caroline Marks comes in from training with Mike Parsons at her side. Caity Simmers rushes past, and looks even smaller in person. The sprays on Gabriel Medina’s boards pop even more in person.

The slot machines sing their siren songs. Someone wins. A man visits the ATM near my table. He yells at it. This thing shorted me $20! Pulling on my headphones, I decide not to learn what happens next.

Tomorrow, the Surf Ranch gates swing open at 6am, and the men’s heats start at 7am. I can’t promise to be there when the gates open. But I will drink so much coffee and try so hard to get there before it’s too late.

Should we talk about the format? Sure, why the hell not. The opening round features four-surfer heats. The winner advances directly to the quarterfinals for men, and to the semifinals for women. The loser goes home.

At night, there’s a winner-takes-all second round. Each surfer gets two waves. The top two scores for men advance. For women, only the winner of the evening session continues.

That’s it. No second chances. No do-overs. Will there be tears? There might be tears.

I make no promises that I will watch every wave. I might get distracted by the yoga class or the SUP races. I could even go shopping! The schedule is so packed.

I could also go to the pool, float on my back, and stare at the sky.

It’s too late to turn back now. Here I am.

Welcome to hell, now go to hell.

"The rampage prompted an angry mob of residents to threaten to burn down the hotel.”

Ain’t no fun to fall foul of the law in Aceh, Indonesia’s western-most province, ruled as it is under that unique legal system known as Sharia law. 

In northern Sumatra Islamic law, aka Sharia, rules in morality matters which means happy homosexuals, the polyamorous, indeed anyone from the 2SLGBTQ+ community, as well as boozers, may be publicly caned. 

The caning is administered by a specially designated group of religious police known as the Wilayatul Hisbah.

These designated enforcers, wearing drab brown robes from crown to toe with slits for their eyes cut out, administer the lashes using a rattan cane. The strokes are directed at the offender’s back and, according to witnesses, the enforcers strike with a terrific force, powered I suppose by the righteousness of the holy.

The number of lashes specified by the court is usually carried out in a series of sets or rounds.

Anyway, you’ll remember four weeks ago the story of an Australian surfer who was facing a helluva storm after being arrested following a wild melee outside the exclusive Moon Beach resort on the Sumatran island of Simeulue. 

Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones, who is twenty-three and from the Queensland holiday hamlet Noosa, was “accused of an alcohol-fuelled, naked rampage outside a beachside resort that left a passer-by in hospital and prompted an angry mob of residents to threaten to burn down the hotel.”

The island’s head cop Jatmiko said Risky-Jones had been drinking vodka before emerging from his room naked. 

“The security man attempted to stop him but got hit at the neck and fell down,” alleged Jatmiko. “He then went on to the street and disturbed passers-by. He hit almost everyone who was on the street.”

Risby-Jones is also accused of hitting a motorbike rider and throwing the moto onto him after he fell into a gutter. The resulting leg wound, says the cop, needed fifty stitches. 

In retaliation, furious onlookers then tried to burn down the resort. 

A very bad situation for the kid, although the matter has now been resolved after Rigby-Jones agreed to pay the injured moto-rider twenty-five thousand Australian dollars or the equivalent of two-years salary for the man. 

Along with the twenty-five gees Risby-Jones and the Moon Beach Resort have to pay for a special “cleansing ceremony” that will involve the spectacular public slaughter of a goat, thirty kilograms of rice and spices, all of which will come out of his pocket. 

According to village chief Suhardi Fleno, the hotel in which Risby-Jones stayed, the Moon Beach Resort, is equally to blame and must restore balance to the community.

“Besides restorative justice I’d like to explain that we have a tradition here which we will do,” he said. “It is called peusijuek, meaning we must have peace with the party that we have a problem with to prevent the same problem from recurring. It’s between the village and the resort. We don’t care if Bodhi gives the money to the resort [for the goat]. But we do care about the resort and our village. Bodhi is just a guest at the resort and the guests can come and go. We must slaughter a goat.”

“Staying in an Indonesian cell for a month is hard for the body and for mental [state], but considering everything, I think my health is doing good,” a shackled Rigby-Jones told ABC.

If all goes to plan, kid will be back in Noosa in two weeks.