Surf world in mourning as Hawaiian legend
Mikala Jones suffers gruesome fatal injury while surfing in
Indonesia
By Chas Smith
A dark day.
Surfers near and far woke to the shock news
that Mikala Jones, 44, of the very famous Jones family, had died
hours ago after suffering a gruesome injury while on a surf trip to
the Mentawi Islands. Stab reported
that he severed his femoral artery leading to massive blood
loss.
Alongside brothers Daniel and Keoni and sister Malia, Mikala
made an indelible mark on surf history with an effortless style and
unconstrained lifestyle, chasing perfect surf over titles and
points. His video releases, pristine and glorious featuring some of
the best barrels in the world, an absolute staple over the past two
decades.
The son of a doctor, Mikala is intelligent and
sophisticated. He’s street smart and savvy but never one to front.
Magnanimous, yet, Mikala is also uber-mysto about the secret spots
he guards. He is a private family man with residences in Haleiwa
and Bali. However, because of Mikala’s personality, professionalism
and smooth hand-jiving style he’s a jet-setter who handpicks each
year’s photo excursions.
Everyone knows that Mikala has the skills to pay the bills.
But his greatest asset is his steel worker mentality. Surfing is
his passion as well as his pension. So he hustles and grinds. Call
it luck or hard work but he and has an uncanny knack for landing
the air, making the tube, getting the shot and being on the
cover.
Jonah Hill’s surf instructor ex Sarah Brady
savages Hollywood star in wild public dump of private text
messages, “This is a warning to all girls”
By Derek Rielly
In multi-tiered tirade on Instagram, Jonah Hill's
ex Sarah Brady describes the star as “just another narcissist. You
make me sick”.
Hell hath no fury, I suppose, and Jonah Hill, the
Academy Award nominated actor-cum-director who became a daddy for
the first time a few weeks back, has learned y’don’t text
anything you don’t want thrown in your face a few weeks, months or
years down the line.
Only one year ago, Sarah Brady, an environmental activist and
anthropologist with a bachelor degree in Cognitive Science &
Sustainability from the University of California, Santa Cruz
(2015-2019), posted a photo of her and Hill at Waikiki, the pair
sitting side by side on their respective logs, hands tenderly
imprisoned, a secret fire burning only for each other, Hill’s hair
flying like a golden banner, Diamond Head perfectly framed behind
the lovers.
“Two more months and we get to call this gorgeous place home,”
wrote Brady, letting the cat outta the bag that she and Hill would
move from his nine-million dollar “windowless monolith” with its
3600 square feet of lebensraum in Malibu Colony, a guarded, gated
beachfront setup footsteps from the point made famous by anti-hero
Miki Dora, to the magical island of Oahu.
Sadly, it would be Brady’s last post of the pair together.
Perhaps related, or not, Brady has now lit a very public fire,
dumping a series of what she says are private texts between the
pair on Instagram.
God, it ain’t pretty.
Neither of the parties come out of it looking good. Brady stars
as the vengeful spurned ex while Hill is apparently sad ’cause his
gal running cute photos that sorta show her ass and maybe a little
titty and sometime she talking to boys in the surf.
A poor, young child and a place he will never be
allowed to visit.
Acting World Surf League CEO Emily Hofer
castigated for brutalist exclusionary policies at “rich people
only” Surf Ranch facility!
By Chas Smith
Rich People and Purpose.
While it is still difficult to imagine, we must
all come to grips with the fact that we are, officially, living in
a post-ELo world. The former chief executive of the World Surf
League, ruthlessly fired one week ago, has left behind broken
hearts and raving minds but we are forced to move on. Mandated to
dry our eyes and cast our gaze upon the new acting CEOs, the Chief
Purpose and People Officer Emily Hofer and Chief Legal Bob Kane
with particular attention given to Purpose and People.
Hofer, who grew up in San Jose and Miami, was brought on by the
aforementioned Erik Logan told Authority
Magazine, “Three years ago, he asked me to lead our
work in Purpose at WSL, and at the time, I told him I wasn’t sure I
was the right person to lead the work. Afterall, I had no
professional experience in ESG work, and in particular, I was not
formally trained in Ocean Conservation or Environmental Sciences.
He assured me I was the right person for the job and said ‘trust
me, you’ll do great.’ After a few months, I realized that not only
could I lead the work, but I could make a real difference.”
That “difference,” of course, has been in saving the environment
though the building and operating of power/water hungry artificial
wave tanks that keep impoverished folks locked out, unable to even
peer over a large wooden fence.
As you know, surfing is a greying pastime, particularly in the
United States and Australia. Wildly high coastal property values
means young middle-class families can no longer afford to live at
the beach. In Lemoore, California, though, home to Kelly Slater’s
Surf Ranch, a fine home can be bought for $300,000. An apartment
rented for $600 a month. There, children all the colors of the
rainbow ride bikes in the street, eat rocket pops served from
ice-cream trucks and watch luxury SUVs, windows darkened, whiz by
on their way to the ultra-excuse manmade wave.
In the warmer months, Surf Ranch can be rented for $70,000 a
day.
In cooler months, $50,000.
Zero of those slots are given to the lower-middle class locals.
Hard-working migrant farmers, low-income teachers, blackjack
dealers.
Hofer declares, “We know that each community has its own unique
needs and challenges. At WSL, we partner with grassroots
organizations and indigenous, communities to educate us about the
unique solutions each community needs to protect and conserve their
ecosystems. We believe it’s critical to bring humility and
authentic listening to these conversations, and where we can, WSL
provides different kinds of support to lift up these
solutions.”
That does not include allowing the unwashed to surf.
And while hypocrisy has become sport inside the World Surf
League’s gilded walls, the fact that already-burdened
salt-of-the-earth folks are used as catchwords to excite
millionaires and billionaires is… extreme.
David Lee Scales and I discussed this a few weeks ago on our
podcast, in any case. A listener of program called in and said he
was one of the lucky few to experience the tub. After his session,
he talked with young man working at the facility, asking him if he
surfed. The fellow said that he did and learned at Surf Ranch. How
many hours of surf did he get per month? Two waves.
Two waves, per month, to the local toiling under the sun so that
Diplo can post Instagram videos.
People and Purpose.
Listen here.
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Sterling and Erik.
Surf comic Sterling Spencer joins Erik
Logan pile-on following WSL CEO’s mysterious disappearance, “I
wonder what it feels for him, an entire surf community hates you
and all he wanted was to do good!”
By Derek Rielly
"I heard a lot of people complaining, more than
I’ve ever heard, just about that one guy…"
The Pensacola surfer and comic Sterling Spencer has
added his considerable voice to the attack on Erik “Elo”
Logan following the sudden, and still mysterious,
disappearance of the WSL’s high-profile CEO.
“Today, the World Surf League (WSL) announced that CEO Erik
Logan has departed the company, effective immediately. As the WSL
begins the process of identifying a new CEO, Emily Hofer, WSL’s
Chief People and Purpose Officer, and Bob Kane, Chief Operating
Officer and Chief Legal Officer, will jointly lead the company and
continue to drive the WSL’s mission to showcase the world’s best
surfers on the world’s best waves as the global home of competitive
surfing.”
Despite cultivating what may have felt like enduring friendships
on tour, at one point world champ Filipe
Toledo edged close to BFF status, any allies of Logan
have been conspicuously silent. Even the WSL’s preferred media
outlets joined the pile-on, their sudden shift pointed out earlier
this week by Chas Smith.
Now, Sterling Spencer, who is thirty-seven and the son of Gulf
Coast legend Yancy Spencer III, and who hit worldwide fame in 2010
when he posted a dubbed video of a kid trying to get Jeremy Flores’
autograph at J-Bay, with Flores strangling Spencer at the Surfer
Poll awards the same year in revenge, has added his voice to the
harangue.
After pointing out Logan’s non-surfing bona fides with several
brutal archived clips, Spencer delivers his coup de grâce.
“Everyone hated the guy… I heard a lot of people
complaining, more than I’ve ever heard, just about that one guy,
everyone hated him, poor guy. I wonder what it feels like for him,
literally, an entire surf community hates you and all he wanted to
do was good.”
There is a slight upside, as Spencer points out.
“I think he’s rich so he can be depressed in a nice house.”
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Dave Prodan (left) closes eyes to stop tears under
withering attack from Conner Coffin (right).
The case against “ultimate apple-polisher”
Dave Prodan for vacated World Surf League CEO job
By Animal Chin
Dave has sat idly by while the WSL turned into the
"bullshit wannabe tennis tour" that Bobby foresaw.
Recently, Surfer and Stab recommended that Dave Prodan,
current Chief Marketing Officer, be groomed as successor to the ELo
throne. While his pedigree and involvement may be what
Dirk and others view as logical and prudent, he is absolutely the
wrong man for the job.
To begin, Dave has sat idly by while the WSL turned into the
“bullshit wannabe tennis tour” that Bobby foresaw. Along each step
of the way, Dave was fully responsible for the hype and positioning
of the company in this pivot.
Reason number two is simple, Dave is the manufacturer of the
wall of positive noise.
Everything from Tea-hu-po-oh-oh and greenwashing from the WSL
starts with the man in charge of marketing. It can be reasonably
argued that Prodan is simply doing the bidding of owners, but the
failure to make any ding in the wall of positivity is a brand
decision, plain and simple.
Dave oversaw the gutting of the core, brand alignments,
announcer washing, and likely had some influence over decisions
such as failing to allow “Hamilton” to adorn the backs of male
competitors on women’s day. It is well established that Dave feels
the WSL and the associated content are fair game for a soap box to
preach his politics and virtue signal, and elevation to CEO would
merely silence more surfers and perpetuate the moronic wave of
perpetual positivity.
Dave is also a turncoat.
He is very impassioned when he discusses his days at the Rip
Curl surf center in my beloved San Clemente and seeks to delineate
himself as a core surfer, denouncing the privilege of his
monolithic and frankly unimpressive career. From a mere marketing
and branding position Dave has failed to elevate the bleeding brand
and has taken something everyone once’s loved and has turned it
into something so forgettable my league mates and I have failed to
set Fantasy teams for two consecutive contests.
He loves to position himself as a passionate surfer who cares
about the sport, but in reality, it appears from the outside that
Dave is a mere corporate shill who will do or say anything to
continue a globe-trotting life of privilege, happy to rub elbows
with competitors and talk surf on a podcast he has turned into the
Dave Prodan show.
We as surfers want change, not a continuation of numbers
conflation, not gaslighting us in an attempt to agree with what
they’re doing, not perpetual saccharine and nauseatingly sweet
conversations, not an over bloated tour of the world’s best surfers
in the world’s worst waves.
We want to see amazing surf, amazing surfers, in contests that
can be watched in a day, with a message we resonate with.