"I never wanted to get in the water again. I never
wanted to try surfing until I came here and I got swallowed up and
it really scared me."
Corey Funk needs little introduction, of
course. He is the storied twenty-six-year-old pro scooter
rider (“Watch me twirl, daddy!”) from Temecula in
California who operates the YouTube channel Funk Bros with his
brother Capron and cuz Tyler. The gang have six-million plus
subscribers with vids regularly hitting more than a million
clicks.
Plenty of social juice, an inspiration to god’s chillun etc.
Now, following a visit to Surf Ranch courtesy of his sponsor Red
Bull who stumped up the seventy-gees to hire the joint and which
confuses Funk who suggests, therefore, that each of his ten waves
cost seven gees apiece, a wipeout sends the star into a nightmarish
spiral back to when he nearly drowned as a kid.
“My second time out,” he begins, tears forming, “I got swallowed
by a wave (long pause) and it scared the crap out of me. It brought
some trauma back from when I was a kid. I got sucked over a wave
when I was a kid and I wasn’t able to get out the wave. Multiple
waves came, back to back to back and kept me under the water. It
really scared me. It scared me so much to a point where I just
never wanted to get in the water again, I never really wanted to
try surfing until I came back here and I got swallowed up again and
it really scared me.”
Thinking back on all the people I've infuriated in our
bubble during the last two decades, from the aforementioned
Ridgway, Fanning, Speaker, Noggins, Slater to Sam George, I
couldn't help but thinking Jonah Hill was the most genuine, the
most self-aware. And self-awareness is the key that unlocks the
doors of perception and/or surf nirvana and/or core-dom and/or this
incorrigible surf journalist's broken heart.
“Bastion of Kook” Surfer Magazine further
embarrasses itself while attempting to shame the greatest gift
surfing has ever known Jonah Hill!
Yesterday, our wonderful friend Jonah Hill made
a grand return to the surf consciousness.
Video captured the heir to Miki Dora’s Malibu throne belly
sliding a longboard in his kingdom, mistakenly cutting off a
14-year-old boy who was trimming nicely down the line on a
particularly glum day. The sort that now haunts Southern California
from the beginning of may until the middle of June. The clip would
have gone unnoticed if not for the famed Kook of the Day Instagram
account, which has been cancelled and forced to operate under the
somewhat balky moniker Kook of the Day OG.
“Being the kook of the day can happen to the best of us! Even
Jonah Hill!” its mysterious moderator penned. “Seen here snaking
@cormaccove maybe Jonah slipped? Or those stupid Ryan Lovelace
boards he rides (shrugging man emoji).”
The comments were near universal in praising Hill, calling out
Kook of the Day OG for daring insult an icon etc. and both Derek
Rielly and I understood why.
You see, about six months ago I got a text from a dear surfer
friend reading, “Someone you do not speak highly of reached out and
asked for your number. Do you mind if I give it?”
I laughed while wondering who it could possibly be.
I somehow landed on it being Mark Price, though I don’t recall
why, so you can imagine my surprise when a text popped through
reading, “Hey Chas it’s Jonah Hill. I would like the opportunity to
chat with you human to human if you’re up for that. No anger
nothing. Just truly want to talk. If not, all good.”
But you will certainly recall the wild good times we had with
the Academy-nominated star as he discovered surfing. The journey of learning to
be funny etc. He was a fixture, here, and
though it was all in theoretically light-hearted and literarily
valuable, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I braced for a thorough tongue lashing not seen since Rip Curl’s
Neil Ridgway excoriated me with “I don’t like what is happening
here. I don’t like the inaccuracies in what you write. Look, you
come to us with your hand out, we put you up in a hotel and you
write off the event? That doesn’t seem right to me” and “See I’m
wearing a funny hat. Now you can write about that” some fifteen
years ago in Portugal.
I did write it, directly, and mentally prepared to write
whatever Jonah Hill was going to bark at me too, calling straight
away.
“Hi, this is Chas Smith,” I said with that dumb lilt in my voice
when trouble is coming and I can’t wait for it (see: Mick Fanning).
“You wanted to talk?”
“Thanks so much for calling,” Jonah responded with such genuine
warmth as to catch me entirely off guard.
We proceeded to chat for the next 30-plus minutes. He described
how he had fallen in love with surfing, truly fallen in love. How
he now understood the missteps he had made along the way, putting
too much on social media etc. How he respected the history, the
core, this BeachGrit community right here who also loves this odd
water dance. How he reads, listens, learns. As proof of his
devotion, he even deleted his Instagram account because he
knew.
He didn’t ask for any changes in how we wrote about him.
Understood that it came with the territory. Just wanted me to know
that he simply loved surfing and was trying to honor that.
I was absolutely floored.
Later he called Derek and had a 45-plus minute conversation with
him too on similar themes though my better half only recounted to
me how much he wanted to get off the phone and go surfing.
Thinking back on all the people I’ve infuriated in our bubble
during the last two decades, from the aforementioned Ridgway,
Fanning, Speaker, Noggins, Slater to Sam George, I couldn’t help
but thinking Jonah Hill was the most genuine, the most self-aware.
And self-awareness is the key that unlocks the doors of perception
and/or surf nirvana and/or core-dom and/or this incorrigible surf
journalist’s broken heart.
I shared this story, anyhow, during my weekly chat with David
Lee Scales. We also discussed Ben Gravy and how Erik Logan is full
on getting fired and/or resigning.
Enjoy.
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Sammy (left) and Jason getting it. Photo: Channel
9
Australian parents mercilessly flogged in
court of public opinion for daring let young children swim alone in
ocean!
“I feel ill. Kids at the beach by themselves at
that age makes me feel physically ill."
This world is a cruel place, seemingly crueler
everyday, with opinions hewn into instruments of torture and used,
mercilessly to flog those with wrong thinking or actions in the
public square. Brutal flicks of the lash meant to leave deep scars
and also scare others away from similar wrong thinking or actions.
And let us travel, together, to Australia where two parents, Jason
and Sammy, are currently tied to the sawhorse, backs exposed, for
daring let their young children swim unsupervised in the ocean.
The revelation was made on the reality program Parental
Guidance in which parents share tricks of the trade
and brutalize each other when tactics diverge. The two engage in
what they call “lighthouse parenting” in which they allow their
oldest two children, Pepper, 10, and Jude, 6, go to the beach all
by their big selves and splash splash away.
“It’s an opportunity for them to showcase how independent they
can be, and give them some trust as well,” Sammy declared.
Well, people were not pleased, no not at all.
“I feel ill. Kids at the beach by themselves at that age makes
me feel physically ill,” one mother spat.
“That water can change in an instant and from where you are and
where the kids are, they’re gone,” another added.
Sammy, though, stuck to her guns, responding, “The thing with
our parenting style is the children to be aware of their own
limitations,” which brought out the big guns from World Surf League
CEO Erik Logan who in an open letter stated:
To the WSL community,
I want to address the conversation that happened in our
community following the recent Championship Tour event at the Surf
Ranch. As you likely know, a small number of athletes made
statements questioning the judging of the competition and the final
results.
I want to respond directly to those statements, however, we
first need to address a much more important issue. In recent days,
a number of surfers, WSL judges, and employees have been subject to
harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence, including death
threats, as a direct result of those statements. Those things
should never happen in our sport or any sport, and we’re devastated
that members of our community have been subject to them. It is an
important reminder to us all that words have consequences. We hope
the entire WSL community stands with us in rejecting all forms of
harassment and intimidation.
Etc.
Back to Jason, Sammy and their crazy ways, do you stand with
them, thinking that today’s children are over-coddled and need a
little bit more freedom or are we not doing enough to keep them
safe?
Do you let your own little ones swim or surf alone?
Do you dare utter if you do?
Watch out.
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Half-gringo kid Alan Cleland Jr, who has one of the
world's heaviest beachbreaks in his front yard and a drug-cartel
war in the back, won the mens, beating Peruvians Lucca Mesinas and
Miguel Tudela and Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi in the final. | Photo:
ISA
Peru cements position as world’s number one
surf nation and a blond Mexican wins men’s gold at Olympic
qualifier while Team USA plunges to hitherto unseen low!
And eight surfers gifted spots into the 2024 Paris
Games, surfing to be held at Teahupoo!
The surf world is reeling today after minnows Peru stormed to
victory at the ISA World Surfing Games, a sorta Olympic
qualifying event held in queer-unfriendly El
Salvador.
Last year’s winner Team USA, whose squad this year included
world champ John John Florence, world number one and Surf Ranch Pro
champ Griffin Colapinto, five-time world champ and Olympic gold
medallist Carissa Moore, finished the tournament in fifteenth place
behind Germany,
Italy and Canada.
Like France’s Joan Duru who won the contest in 2021 but missed
out on getting to the Games, his victory don’t automatically sling
Al Jr into the 2024 Paris Games.
If South Africa’s Jordy Smith, who has already booked his
tracksuit and dorm room in 2024, double qualifies via the CT, Al
will be waving his Mex flag at the end of the road there in
Teahupoo.
Despite the confusion that surrounded the event over the format,
the withdrawals, a mysterious disease claiming two of the sport’s
biggest drawcards, boilover heats where the world’s best surfers
were curb-stomped by unknowns, eight surfers were gifted their
spots in the Olympics: Shino Matsuda and Kanoa Igarashi for Japan,
Billy Stairmand and Saffie Vette for New Zealand, Kauili Vaast and
Vahine Fierro, France, and the aforementioned Jordy Smith for South
Africa alongside Sarah Baum.
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World Surf League Chief of Sport Jessi
Miley-Dyer returns to Instagram after troubling ten day absence;
proceeds to erase South African great Jordy Smith’s historic
Olympic accomplishment!
The World Surf League’s top brass had been missing from
Instagram for a whopping ten days in the aftermath of the
Surf Ranch Pro’s wild insurrection. Not a peep. Not an awkward
physical encounter pressed into history like a daisy into a
dictionary. As you well know, Chief Executive Erik Logan and his
Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer have been riding high these past
few years, issuing twice daily reminders of their chill on the
aforementioned social media platform. No accolade too small, no bit
of zany too… zany not to share with their thousands of
followers.”You never know who you’ll run into while traveling.
Championship tour surfers, and even a #quokka!” Logan posted on May
15 being a li’l goof.
“Looking good for finals day!! Come for the contest – stay for
my jokes. I love this place,” Miley-Dyer posted on May 28,
referencing a “joke” in the video wherein she chuckles over the
mechanical reliability of Kelly Slater’s plow.
Ahhh May 28. The day before three top-tier Brazilian
professionals, all former champions, questioned the judging and
blew the doors right off the World Surf League.
Death threats followed and rage. A massive outpouring of pent-up
over-it-ness, surf fans and professional surfers alike pouring
gasoline on the already raging fire.
Yet silence from the top.
Not a sound.
Or, not a sound until hours ago when Miley-Dyer penned:
I am so very proud of our @wsl surfers who have
provisionally qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympics this week,
through our friends at the @isasurfing ! The experience of being an
Olympian and the attention it brings to surfing is a fantastic one
for our sport and our athletes. We were so thrilled to have our
reigning World Champions at the time take the Gold in
Tokyo.
And can we all take a moment to think about @kaulivaast and
@vahinefierro competing at home for an Olympic medal!?
Crazy!
Of course, surfers like @kanoaigarashi and @jordysmith88
still have the chance to qualify through the WSL Championship Tour
until August – as we are the Tier One Qualifier. For everyone not
on the Championship Tour, there are still the 2023 Pan American
Games, and the 2024 ISA World Games.
Oops.
South Africa’s Jordy Smith has already punched his ticket to
Tahiti and many congratulations to him.
Huzzah etc.
I suppose increasingly awkward silence until Miley-Dyer realizes
her mistake and attempts to rectify?
Or will South Africa declare war on the World Surf League too
leaving us with another ten days of uncomfortable silence?
