Humor-adjacent agitators leg swept by zombie surf media outlet on salacious World Surf League scoop

The Satanic Bible of the Sport.

The World Surf League, from its birth in 2015 circa 1976 to today, must be utterly confused. Purchased for free by a billionaire and promising more fans than America’s National Football League, the WSL née Association of Surfing Professionals has been met with embarrassment after embarrassment.

Paul Speaker.

Backward Fin Beth.

Erik Logan.

To name but three of many including Jessi Miley-Dyer and Dave Prodan, who allegedly killed surfing.

Dirk Ziff always had his collaborationist surf media though, supporting through shame, buoying false narratives, turning blind eyes to utter nonsense. Hoping, waiting for drippings from that table, were premium surf blog Stab, The Inertia, an absolute affront to anything good or decent in this world, and the remains of Surfer Magazine, which didn’t critique because it was dead.

Months ago, however, the Bible of the Sport reanimated as an AI zombie after shuttering under David Pecker and part of its mission, appears, to include burying the World Surf League.

In a recent social media post celebrating the final Top 5 men, who will head to Lower Trestles sometime in early September to watch Filipe Toledo hoist a trophy* minus one who has a broken back that, for some reason, won’t be recognized, the World Surf League dubbed number five Jack Robinson “Jack Ronbinson.”

Par for the course considering the misprint on Kanoa Igarashi’s jersey as “Igarshi” and also Erik Logan’s entire run.

In any case, Surfer’s weird corpse has decided to pile on the World Surf League, noting the spelling error and putting it on blast.

Proto surf bot penning:

Oops.

In the official Instagram announcement of the upcoming World Surf League Finals, to be held at Lower, Trestles September 8th – 16th, someone made a whoopsie.

Jack Robinson, the west Australian hard charger and pre-heat bellydancer, who had a stellar season with two wins (Pipeline and Teahupo’o) barely made the cut into the one-day, winner-take-all event, despite a knee injury, which forced him to withdraw from his home event at Margaret River. And the WSL did him dirty with an unfortunate typo.

Apparently “did him a dirty” not quite fully understood by the robot.

Surfer, while dead, still has a substantial social following of people who don’t know/don’t care and I feel it must hurt the Santa Monica-based “Home of Professional Surfing’s” feelings much.

When will the buy-off be attempted and how much will John Severson’s once proud organ take to flip Wall of Positive Noise?

I’m guessing $1,000 and next week with the machine being redirected to criticizing broken backs before it is redirected again to praising all things WSL.

Can’t wait.

More as the story develops.

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Hurricane Hilary deemed racist after changing path from U.S. Open of Surfing-loving “Inland Empire” and slamming directly into Compton

"But the trail of Hilary took an interesting turn Sunday night..."

Southern California is putting itself back together after a historic hurricane, named Hilary, formed in the Pacific and slammed into the state. She was, by then, a tropical depression and maybe named something else but no matter as her terror was unleashed. Green waste trash cans brutally tipped over. Hedges kind of getting bent.

Disaster.

And as I was driving home, after potentially straining social services with an entirely ill-advised sail trip, dodging people driving 40 mph in the fast lane with their hazard lights on while the rain lightly sprinkled, I wonder if this was the center of the storm.

Meteorologists had thought the business might make first hit in Encinitas then travel east but mostly north. In truth, she touched ground in northern Baja then did cruise east and mostly north until Sunday night when… well, let’s let the Los Angeles Times take up this unfortunate tale.

For days, forecasters have tried to determine the path of Hilary as it morphed from a Category 4 hurricane in the Pacific Ocean to an exceedingly rare tropical storm that entered Southern California.

But the trail of Hilary took an interesting turn Sunday night, as the storm made a trek from the Inland Empire to the heart of Los Angeles.

The center of the storm went from being east of Murrieta in Riverside County at 5 p.m. to above Compton around 8 p.m., according to the National Hurricane Center.

Compton, as anyone who watches movies or listens to music knows, is a culturally rich, predominately black community.

The Inland Empire features, mostly, U.S. Open of Surfing attendees.

Racism?

Hard to say but science is science.

More as the story develops.

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Surf Journalist braves “weather event of the century” Hurricane Hilary in wildly ill-advised sail odyssey to forbidden California island

Red at night, sailors a-fright.

As you are undoubtedly aware, what was once a category 4 hurricane, yesterday, made historic landfall in California. Hilary be her name, destruction and vengeance be her game. Governor Gavin Newsom bravely declared a state of emergency, Los Angeles and San Diego school districts cancelled school. The Soho House, downtown Los Angeles, cancelled a Sunday evening soiree and coffee shops throughout Orange County put signs on doors reading “closed due to weather.”

Headlines across all major media implored people to “shelter in place” and “avoid dying.”

I was accidentally on a sailboat heading to Catalina with my two very best friends. The same very two with whom I was lucky enough to survive post 9/11 Yemen, war-ravaged Beirut, early days of Covid-19 Paris.

This brazen and selfish ignoring of common sense, potential strain put on “the system,” outrageous irresponsibility was not, as in times past, on purpose but only accidental as the trip had been planned for a week and you know how tough schedules can be to change these days.

We had been tracking Hilary, spinning off the Baja Peninsula, when we left Newport Harbor Saturday afternoon. Reports were calling for nearly unnavigable five foot seas and nearly unimaginable 18 mile per hour winds for Sunday.

We pressed on.

The Pacific was near oil glass, the sky lightly cloudy when we hoisted the mainsail and unfurled the jib. A steady breeze pushing us along at a decent 9 knots. We spoke of books and ate Italian sandwiches for lunch, arriving at Avalon in the late afternoon.

The harbor was empty.

We called the harbor master and he informed us that it was, indeed, closed, no mooring balls to be had, and that restaurants were likely closed too in preparation of the storm of the century. We thought of anchoring but had left our dinghy in Newport and if no restaurants were open it would be pointless anyhow.

Stress grew as we only had one more Italian sandwich to split between the three of us and dinner was fast approaching.

The call was made. We would return to Newport and sort out a meal.

The return trip was quick, a steady breeze for the first three-quarters, dying entirely as Fashion Island came into view. The sky turning a brilliant salmon as dolphins leapt, striking terror into the hearts of all.

Red at night, sailors a-fright.

Near the mouth of the harbor, we decided to motor to the public dock, tie off and walk to Restaurant A as we were really hungry and it would be quicker. The time was, roughly 8:30. It was open, we were seated immediately and ordered a butterleaf wedge salad, ceviche tostaditas, 22 oz bone-in ribeye and Atlantic lobster tail, all for sharing.

We washed it down with a Moscow Mule.

Afterward, we returned to the boat, motored back up the harbor to the mooring, fixed the lines then fell asleep on the deck.

At 3:00 am I felt a raindrop on my head and moved below.

It rained all night.

In the morning, we all woke up and it was still raining. We cleaned up then rowed across the channel right as Hilary, then a tropical depression, made its historic landfall.

Foolish jerks.

The end.

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Surfers who survived sinking of Indonesian boat raise $50,000 for family of missing deckhand lost at sea for over one week as mother pleads, “Keep looking for him and put him in my arms”

"Keep looking for him and put him in my arms. You should all be out there looking. Everyone else is found. The boat is found.”

As streaming platforms and producers swarm the four surfers who survived two days lost at sea near Nias when the crappy Indo boat they were on was swamped by waves, money is being sought for the family of the one missing crew member.

The four surfers, Elliot Foote, Steph Weisse, Will Teagle and Jordan Short had been travelling through northern Sumatra to celebrate Foote’s thirtieth birthday, a gift from his father. The boat went missing on the fifty click trip between Nias and the island of Pinang in the Bankyaks, separated from another boat carrying eight other friends, during a storm.

Recalling the event Elliot said,

“When the first one [wave] came in, Jordie’s like, ‘alright guys, this could be serious. I was like all right sweet, grab me that, grab me something warm, grab me my knife, grab me this. We all started grabbing shit.”

All four friends were found after thirty-six hours, with two of the three crew members rescued shortly after.

 

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Lost at sea, and likely dead, is Fifan Satria, who was only on the boat ‘cause his Dad Muhammad Musa, who usually took the wheel, was sick and he was called in to help.

As the four Australians paddled off for help,  the other Indonesians on the boat, Mohammed Iqbal and Junardi Akhmad, stayed behind to help Fifan, who couldn’t swim.

“The foreigners paddled very quickly but we couldn’t keep up and we had to look after Fifan,” Iqbal told The Australian. “I tried to give Fifan a lot of encouragement. I reminded him to tie his surfboard to his body so whatever happened – if he felt dizzy or passed out – he would not sink to the sea. I told him if he didn’t do that and he passed out, he might not be found.”

With rescue unlikely, a crowd funding account has been set up by the survivors to raise money for Fifan’s family with 47k of a proposed 100 already raised, mostly from the survivors themselves.

The money is going to “assist and support the family and community of the one crew member who is still missing, to compensate the people who committed their time and resources to the rescue effort, and to help ensure nothing like this happens again.”

Meanwhile, Fifan’s mother Erlisda has pleaded for the search to continue.

“Please look for my son. Keep looking for him and put him in my arms. You should all be out there looking. Everyone else is found. The boat is found.”

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LOL and KS.

Kelly Slater demands jail and punitive fines for keepers of Killer Whale Lolita, found dead at Miami Seaquarium after 53 years in captivity

“She died as she had lived… in the smallest, bleakest orca tank in the world."

Back in 1970, halcyon days when Nixon was prez and Vietnam was getting lit up by Napalm and even before Kelly Slater existed, a little killer whale calf off the coast of Washington State was snatched out of the ocean and delivered to the Miami Seaquarium, one of the oldest fish zoos in the US.

And there, labelled Lolita, so-named after Nabokov’s famous nymphet, she lived, miserable, alone – her one companion, Hugo, killed himself by belting his head against the wall of their shared tank until he died in 1980 – until her death yesterday.

Lolita’s enclosure, measuring 80 feet by 35, offered the twenty-foot mammal minimal room to swim, interact and express natural behaviors.

“She died as she had lived: After spending more than five decades imprisoned by the Miami Seaquarium in the smallest, bleakest orca tank in the world, deprived of any semblance of a natural life, the long-suffering orca Lolita has passed away,” wrote People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in a statement. “Kind people begged the Miami Seaquarium to end Lolita’s hellish life in a concrete cell and release her to a seaside sanctuary, where she could dive deep, feel the ocean’s currents, and even be reunited with the orca believed to be her mother, but plans to make this move came too late, and Lolita was denied even a minute of freedom from her grinding 53 years in captivity.”

The lingering existence of Lolita had ignited fierce debate surrounding the ethics of keeping intelligent and social creatures like killer whales in captivity. Advocates argued that orcas are highly intelligent, emotionally sensitive, and have complex social structures in the wild.

In captivity, these traits are often stifled, leading to physical and psychological distress. Lolita’s case came to symbolize the broader issue of marine mammal captivity, prompting calls for greater awareness and changes in animal welfare practices.

Now, Kelly Slater, a man rarely one to mince his words, has called for the immediate imprisonment of her captors.

 

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In a comment posted to @Dolphin_Project, he writes “Sad. They should be jailed and fined.”

Commenters were universal in their praise although one had the misfortune to post a laughing emoji, raising the hackles of the world champ.

“Why do you find that funny?” he replied to Simone Gross, a young woman with 178 followers.

Marine parks, zoos, those drive-through African theme parks with the threadbare lions and defeated giraffes, reminders of the cruelty of man, I think.

I’m with ol Petey Singer when he said,

“To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.”

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