Vlad Popov, killed in front of his family and girlfriend while tourists filmed and pro-Ukraine trolls exulted.

Pro-Ukraine trolls celebrate shark attack death of Russian man at Egyptian resort, “Probably an elitist, rich Putin sympathiser so I can’t say I’m sympathetic to his demise”

Derek Rielly

By Derek Rielly

“His fear was no greater than that suffered by many Ukrainian people in this war."

Pretty hard to miss the footage doin’ the rounds of a twenty-three-year-old Russki getting mauled to death while screaming for his Papa in front of iPhone recording tourists at an Egyptian resort on the Red Sea. 

Vladmir Popov was swimming with his gal when the tiger shark started circling. His gal made it to the beach while Vlad was given hell by the tiger which played with his body for two hours, although it was subsequently caught and beaten to death on the beach by a mob. 

Vladimir Popov and his girl Anastasia.

“We went to the beach to relax. My son was attacked by a shark. It all happened in seconds,” his dad Yury said.  “This meat grinder happened in 20 seconds… it is just some kind of evil fate.”

Shark attacks ain’t rare in these parts. Last year, two women were killed in two separate attacks, the year before a parasailor had his leg removed when he skimmed the surface of the water and in 2018 a Czech tourist was mauled to death off a Red Sea beach. 

A horror story, yeah, but equally as disturbing is the pile-on from pro-Ukrainian trolls celebrating the man’s death as some sort of comeuppance for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

“His fear was no greater than that suffered by many Ukrainian people in this war.”

“Probably an elitist, rich Putin sympathiser, so I can’t say I’m particularly sympathetic to his demise.”

And, 

“The shark spat the fucker out. Couldn’t stand the bad taste.”

“Fuck vatniks they deserve every thing they get the whole time they’re an accomplice to putins genocide.”

“I’ve seen russians cutting off heads and balls of ukrainians with rusty knives. This is disturbing my friend. The most disturbing is, that the russians all know what they are doing. The shark is just doing what it is doing.”

One DJ even cut the visuals of the man’s death throes to a dance track. Classy.

Comments
0
Load Comments
0
Strider and his steroidal tits and, inset, Jon Stewart being either ironic or dumb.

WSL personality famous for “attack dog tits” appears to fire salvo into organisation’s Wall of Positive Noise, “If you have a media machine that purposefully lies to its people… that is the hallmark of an authoritarian system!”

Derek Rielly

By Derek Rielly

"To know that there was an entire media organisation designed to bend reality, to manipulate facts…"

There are many reasons to fall in love with the WSL commentator Strider Wasilewski, still boyish at fifty and whom we can imagine falling gratefully asleep every night, tucked spoon-fashion into beloved wife, one hand babyishly grasping a breast as a child clutches a favourite toy for comfort when he enters the frightening realm of a dream. 

His now famous attack dog tits, a surf career that included a sponsorship by Quiksilver and a place in the Pipe hierarchy , as well as his rise from the skate ghetto of Dogtown, and now, in his harvest years, in-water commentary at selected World Surf League events. 

But a recent post from the Ellen DeGeneres-lookalike has fans wondering, did he just fire a salvo into the WSL’s patented wall of positive noise? 

Wasilewski reposted a clip of the noted far left journalist Jon Stewart unironically describing the concentration of government-friendly media in Hungary and how such a thing could never happen in the USA.

To surf fans, his message has chilling parallels with the WSL’s wall of positive noise, where mass-produced furniture is eco friendly, where queer-hating countries are gifted prized tour events and where criticism of the system is strictly verboten. 

“If you have a media machine that purposefully lies to its people,” says Stewart, “then that is the hallmark of an authoritarian system… if we were ever to get something like that in the United States we would be horrified…furious… to know that there was an entire media organisation designed to bend reality, to manipulate facts…it would never happen in the United States.”

Chilling! 

Questions: is Strider referencing the WSL’s wall of poz noise, does he agree with Stewart’s posit that America’s media would never blindly push a government’s agenda or is he laughing at Stewart’s naiveté?

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jon Sabo (@webdevdud3)

 

Comments
0
Load Comments
0
Rio Waida. Photo: ISA World Surfing Games
Rio Waida. Photo: ISA World Surfing Games

Brave Indonesian superstar Rio Waida lays bare fraudulent World Surf League claims in devastating CNN profile!

Chas Smith

By Chas Smith

"Every time we see a bad wave we don’t get excited to surf …"

The World Surf League, which has dubbed itself the “global home of surfing,” has been on the ropes of late. An insurrection after the Surf Ranch Pro wherein three former champions, each from Brazil, assailed the judging criteria and demanded account. After two days of fumbling, WSL CEO Erik Logan excoriated them in a scathing letter, declaring, that it was “unacceptable for any athlete to question the integrity of our judges.”

Veteran tour reporter JP Currie, shocked alongside all surf fans, declared Logan’s tone fell “somewhere between a dictator and a domestic abuser.”

Logan and his number two, Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer, quickly retreated behind the Wall of Positive noice in order for the troubles to pass except it seems they are mounting.

The El Salvador Pro, in the second day of its waiting period, has gotten off to a slow start with lousy surf after putting on quite a show for the just wrapped ISA World Surfing Games.

Worse, though, Indonesian superstar Rio Waida has just laid bare the World Surf League’s main claim of hosting “the world’s best surfers in the world’s best waves,” a mantra repeated over and over and over again, in a devastating new interview with CNN. After a brief introduction to the current Championship Tour number 20, the interview turns to why there are not more Indonesian surfers competing in the top ranks.

“In Indo, we have the best waves and every day is good waves. That’s why we kind of get spoiled,” Waida told the struggling news outlet. “If you go to Europe, it’s going to be cold and we have to put a wetsuit on and stuff; we don’t put wetsuits on in Indo. Every time we see a bad wave we don’t get excited to surf … But if we want to win, we have to go through that and then do our best in any conditions. So that’s kind of what I did and it’s working.”

World’s best surfers.

World’s increasingly mediocre waves.

It has been long known, of course, that in order to become a professional surfer, mastering sloppy 2ft nothings is essential. Once in the big leagues, though, all that scrap was once rewarded with a “dream.” Cloudbreak, G-Land, Mundaka, etc. These days, the best of the best are forced to slide for their supper in the aforementioned El Salvador, Surf Ranch, Saquarema all culminating at Lower Trestles.

Worse year over year and how much worse can it get before the Rio Waidas of the world, those hidden talent gems, take a look and think, “You know, no thanks?”

Or is the time finally exactly right for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to swoop and dominate?

I think CNN’s former boss Chris Licht might be available and willing to take the reins.

Thoughts?

Comments
0
Load Comments
0
Black's (pictured) with famous nude.
Black's (pictured) with famous nude.

San Diego surfers doleful as local biggish wave treasure Black’s Beach fails to crack top 20 “Best Beaches for Nude Sunbathing Around the World!”

Chas Smith

By Chas Smith

Indecent lack of exposure.

It’s a grey in Southern California, again, this morning. A blanket of blah covers the sky refusing to let the sun shine down. A light, cold wind tickles the flat Pacific. Glumness reigns. And, in San Diego it also reigns in hearts usually filled with arrogant pride of being “America’s Finest City,” for the local biggish wave treasure, Black’s, has basically been omitted from the august list of “best beaches for nude sunbathing around the world.”

The “well-known secret spot,” just off the likely soon cancellable Ho Chi Minh Trail, has long been cherished as a swell magnate and also clothing optional liberalism. Surfers can enjoy people watching various older nudes strolling the sand underneath the sandstone cliffs whilst waiting patiently for plus-sized kegs.

Quaint.

And yet neither the waves nor the cliffs nor any such think helped in the definitive rankings, compiled, oddly, by a British bikini company.

Number one was Haulover Beach in Miami where exhibitionists can rent beach chairs and umbrellas and also receive helpful advice from pantless guides wearing green hats. Number two was Praia de Tambaba in Brazil which has dazzling water and proximity to surf champion Adriano de Souza’s home. Number three was in Greece, four in Turkey, five in Spain and we must drift all the way down to thirty-eight to find Black’s.

No description is given.

The index score a lowly 49.2

Thoroughly depressing.

But what is your position vis-à-vis nude beaches? Are you a major fan, shedding your swimmers and joining right in or conservative and shy? David Lee Scales spoke about them on our most recent chat. He wished he could feel more at ease and wanted to be able to shed both trunks and inhibitions. I was of the mind that those, especially men, without shame are those, almost alway men, who make poor decisions generally. The sort that get their ears pierced as adult males etc.

Sam George.

Back to you, though. Yay or nay when it comes to indecent exposure?

Or would you rather 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…

Comments
0
Load Comments
0

Horror wipeout at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch awakens childhood trauma of near-drowning for pro scooter rider Corey Funk!

Derek Rielly

By Derek Rielly

"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.” 

Redemption follows, this being the safest wave on earth, policed by the world’s best surf coach Tahitian Raimana Van Bastolaer, and Funk is soon barebacking the famous man-made wave, literally putting his life on the line for his YouTube video. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Corey Funk (@coreyfunk)

Essential. 

Comments
0
Load Comments
0
Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
EAT BEACHGRIT SPAM!
It's Daily!