World Surf League Finals Day one of most
watched sporting events of 2023 according to its own numbers!
By Chas Smith
The momentum of professional surfing is REAL!
Let us all, Chris Cote aside, be honest for
just one moment. The World Surf League is the greatest comedy show
in town. Absurd in a form that would make Franz Kafka absolutely
jealous. Andy Kaufman rolling over in his grave recognizing the
stunt to end all stunts. From deposed CEO Erik Logan to Jessi
Miley-Dyer’s various pantsuits, the “global home of professional
surfing” has transitioned to peak ridiculous. More tomorrow on the
aforementioned Chief of Sport’s sit down with collaborationist surf
media Stab wherein the beloved Carissa Moore is completely
pilloried, but today we have the nether regions of a press
release.
Namely, the World Surf League claiming, without irony, that 10
million plus souls tuned into the just-wrapped Lower Trestles
Finals Day.
The 50 Best Quotes in Surfing, “Kelly
Slater in middle age is anti-factual, irresponsible, and
flagrantly narcissistic”
By Derek Rielly
The Matt Warshaw edition!
Yesterday, we presented part one of our fifty best quotes in
surfing special, a search engine optimisation story designed to be
evergreen and which was forcefully suggested by a man in
Chicago who is an expert in these sorta things and who comes highly
recommended.
A terrific gap, of course, with the exclusion of Seattle-based
surf historian Matt Warshaw, a man whose striking and vivid stories
grip the reader like no other writer.
Here, therefore, are twenty-five of Warshaw’s best although the
list is in no way complete or exhaustive. Feel free to add yours
below the line.
“He was the slouching near-mute apotheosis of surf-cool:
draining an afternoon beer, flicking a cigarette butt to the side
before riding the biggest, thickest, meanest wave of the day.”
Matt Warshaw on Pat Curren.
“Surfing is no longer hip or cool; who cares? We’re still out
there riding, surrounded by ocean…” Matt Warshaw.
“The target, or sweet spot, or pleasure zone, got smaller and
smaller, and I got tired of firing and missing. It dipped way below
that 9-to-1 ratio, and I buckled. From age 45 on, my rails
were stickier, the takeoffs were harder, and next thing I’m kicking
the trashcan like Coach on Letterkenny screaming ‘It’s fucking
embarrassing.’” Matt Warshaw on quitting surfing in middle
age.
“Waves are the whole show. Waves are the only interesting
thing about surfing. You’re a poetry-hating anti-New Age atheist
with a penchant for hardcore rationalism? Same here. But at some
level we know, we feel, that we are
riding ocean-transported sunbeams, and it is magical.” Matt
Warshaw on the indefinable joy of surfing.
“We’ve traded magic for perfection.” Matt Warshaw on the
unveiling of Kelly Slater’s Lemoore wavepool in 2016.
“Surfing in a wavepool is… take your pick. Parkour, half-pipe,
gymnastics. Except worse, because those sports will never be any
better or worse than what they are, while surfing in a wavepool
you’re kind of sticking your finger in the eye of the whole deal.”
Matt Warsaw on wavepools.
“John Florence, to me, is the blankest of all slates. I don’t
say that to be cruel. But it’s like the way people talk about
Ronald Reagan, where you try and look inside him and just get…
nothing.” Matt Warshaw on two-time world champ John John
Florence.
“One hundred percent bullshit, all of it. But that doesn’t take
anything away from how full-on addicted we all were, maybe still
are, to riding inside the tube. I can’t explain it.” Matt
Warshaw on the mysticism of tuberiding.
“Surf media is always 95% crap and 5% great.” Matt Warshaw on
the gatekeepers.
“The Endless Summer showed what it’s like to be a surfer
on the hunt — or the family-friendly version, anyway; no drugs, no
drinking, no pussy.” Matt Warshaw on the most popular surf movie
of all time.
“It’s an embarrassment. Not for Keala, but the WSL.” Matt
Warshaw on Kauai’s Keala Kennelly winning a big-wave world title
without successfully standing up on one wave.
“Suicidal jihadists gave us a world champ, and I think it’s
surfy to laugh at that.” Matt Warshaw on CJ Hobgood’s 2001 world
title.
“Ewing’s surfing is beautiful, you could admire it all day, but
Toledo leaves you on the edge of your seat.” Matt Warshaw on
Finals Day, 2023.
“WSL decision-making is so bad it feels like performance art.”
Matt Warshaw on the World Surf League’s direction, leadership
etc.
“Martin Potter’s jaw-grinding voice sounds as if its
been filtered through six espresso shots and a migraine
headache. Ross Williams’ has me considering preemptive adenoidal
surgery for my son. Rosy Hodge? Who can hear her above the angel
choir and softly strumming lutes?” Matt Warshaw on WSL
commentators.
“I’m going to hate-watch the Surf Ranch Pro, and hope it fails
so badly that Sophie flies to Honolulu and throws signed checks at
the feet of the powers that be to restore the Pipe Masters.”
Matt Warshaw on the wildly unpopular Surf Ranch Pro.
“Pottz just seems irritated at all times. He’s kind of a bully.
He likes to intimidate. He’s always been that way, even at 15. It
made him great as a surfer, but it doesn’t work in the booth.”
Matt Warshaw on now-disappeared commentator Martin Potter, also
the 1989 world champ.
“Joe brings nothing to the table but mellow, mindless
enthusiasm, and yeah it drives me nuts.” Matt Warshaw on
milquetoast ball-by-ball commentator “Smoking” Joe Turpel.
“Filipe Toledo and Stephanie Gilmore are both righteous
champions atop a glitzy, flimsy, hapless professional
organization.” Matt Warshaw on the Finals Day
concept.
“Surfing, like all forms of entertainment, need villains, and
because Medina is as good a villain as he is a rider of waves the
sport is infinitely better for his presence.” Matt Warshaw on
triple world champ Gabriel Medina.
“I find it refreshing, purifying even, that Medina goes about
his work with so few fucks given as to what we all think about
him.” Warshaw on Medina.
“The mute button is Viagra for my WCT attention span —the
quieter it is, the longer I last.” Matt Warshaw don’t like WSL
commentary.
“Kelly Slater’s life as a surfer of incomprehensible talent, in
and out of the contest arena, at this point seems completely
divorced from his life as a surfing entrepreneur. I can’t square
the two.” Matt Warshaw on the greatest athlete in history Kelly
Slater.
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Jeffreys Bay officially out, Cloudbreak in,
Lower Trestles to crown Filipe Toledo (again) as World Surf League
releases 2024 Championship Tour schedule!
By Chas Smith
Let's get ready to grumble!
The World Surf League snuck its official 2024
schedule to collaborationist surf media,
overnight. BeachGrit’s spam folder lonely. But let us not be sad.
Let us, instead, be mad or glad.
The tour kicks off at the Banzai Pipeline at the end of January
followed by Sunset, Peniche, Bells and Margaret.
Mid-season cut.
Then straight to Teahupo’o in May, El Salvador, Brazil and…
Cloudbreak, making a triumphant return.
The Final 5 showdown left open at Lowers.
Again.
Filipe Toledo’s third consecutive championship assured.
Carissa Moore’s robbing also guaranteed.
Bad.
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Decorated skier Lindsey Vonn desperately
seeks surfer help after getting stung on buttocks by massive
jellyfish!
By Chas Smith
"...at least I caught some waves before."
We surfers, we riders of the sea, are not good
for much. Selfish, generally poor at time management, forever
crafting plans to sneak away from family functions in order to
smack a little lip. BUT there are certain times, certain places,
where our expertise is absolutely essential. Navigating airline
check-in counter bag weighing machines, for instance, or knowing
how to properly deal with painful jellyfish stings.
And thus we have Lindsey Vonn turning her eyes, welling up with
tears, in our direction, begging for our help.
Taking to Instagram, the one-time all-time leader in World Cup
race victories shared:
“What started off as a great day ended in a giant jellyfish
sting/bite… I literally rode over it as I was getting up on the
wake surf board. thanks to everyone who gave advice on remedies.
Think it’s gonna leave a mark for a while … at least I caught some
waves before!”
It was, of course, the surfers in her feed who gave advice on
remedies.
The most popular?
Urine.
Or them telling her she was “hot AF.”
Class.
But how do you deal with the painful barbs of the mean ol’
jellyfish?
Do you soak in a nice hot tub, drinking a glass of chilled rosé
or… something else?
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The 50 Best Quotes in Surfing
By Derek Rielly
“It’s better to burn all weekend like a flare than
fizzle like a damp sparkler in a crumbling, onshore
rivermouth.”
One of my odder compulsions, apart from checking
Facebook marketplace every thirty minutes for Italian furniture
being sold by deceased states or first editions of Golda Meir’s My
Life, is reading historical quotes, letters
between authors and reportage from great events years after the
fact.
Sites claiming best quotes in surfing, however, have always been
a disappointment. Nice enough, words from Bethany Hamilton, Laird, Phil Edwards, Miki Dora etc, but y’heard ’em
all before am I right?
So, I figured, we’ve been around nine years, there’s been a fine
run of writers above and below the line, let’s remember the 50 best
quotes in surfing, as seen through the eyes of BeachGrit.
(Twenty-five today, twenty-five tomoz.)
“I’d be mad too if I was James Hewitt’s unacknowledged,
illegitimate kid, got essentially kidnapped and held hostage by the
royal family, was forced to pretend that boring, square Prince
Charles was my dad all those years, then they cut off my trust
fund, and disapproved of my hot, American wife cause it didn’t fit
into their ongoing inbreeding program.” Kelly Slater feels
Prince Harry’s pain.
“He is afraid of hitting the coral … It’s something that stays
in his head.” Ricardo Toledo on two-time world champ son
Filipe’s fear of Teahupoo.
“Sorry, Gray, I think you wanting suck my dick! Sorry but will
not give. I am well settled sexually, and besides, my wife will
you!! Fuck yourself…” Ricardo Toledo, again, this time in
an online blood feud with big-wave surfer Alex Grey, words posted
along with a photo of himself in a bikini brief.
“Mastery can be motivation. With it must come a deep rooted fear
that you might be knocked off at any moment, a hunger to keep
proving you’re the best. Toledo has a world title already, but it
hasn’t lessened the chip on his shoulder.” JP Currie on Filipe
Toledo’s win in El Salvador, 2023.
“If you keep surfing the same beachbreak with the same fuckwits
and the same board (and I admit I am coming at this from a very
Sydney perspective; your local might not even be a beach), you’re
bound to be tempted to give up surfing.” JP Currie understands
the rise in quit-lit all too well.
And,
“It’s better to burn all weekend like a flare than fizzle like a
damp sparkler in a crumbling, onshore rivermouth.”JP Currie
“Surfing ain’t rebellion from anything, least of all the
trappings of the post-modern capitalist surveillance state. Still,
it remains a far better addiction to grow old with. The best ever.”
Steve “Longtom” Shearer ain’t down with quit-lit and gonna surf
till he dies.
“I can feel the pressure wave on my legs. White shark does a
slow circle around me. I can see it the whole time in the crystal
clear water. Comes in nice and slow right underneath me and rolls
over. The big pectoral fins look like a plane, the white belly
almost gleams in the sun against the dark rocks. We eyeball each
other.” Steve “Longtom” Shearer meets a Great White at Lennox
Head.
“There is no fear, no frozen feelings, no panic. Just a profound
moment of inter-species communication across the gulf of millions
of years of evolution. In that black eye I can already see it has
decided I am not prey.” Steve “Longtom” Shearer meets a Great
White at Lennox Head.
“Writing me out of the blue talking shit is such a crock of
shit. Accusing me of
being a racist? My girlfriend is Chinese. You’re on glue.
You’re a miserable coward. And now you’re blocked.” Kelly Slater
hits back at an online troll.
“You just like to drop in but when someone returns the favor you
are the biggest whining bitch in the world then after you are done
whining you go call the police!!! Is that what you (t)each as a
life coach, who to be a whining bitch go back to Africa Kook!”
Christian Fletcher on surfing hall-of-famer Shaun
Tomson.
“Fuck the WSL” Noa Deane.
“The guy has been wearing a blue belt for years in pics and
always made excuses when I would call him on it! If he wants his
belt , tell him to go sign up and put in the work like everybody
else.” Jiujitsu black belt and three-time world longboarding
champ Joel Tudor on Kelly Slater posing with a blue belt, the
second in the five-belt BJJ grading system.
“So that’s it, that’s a wrap, I’m hanging up my Mavz Gunz and
never going to paddle out again. I don’t want my last day to be an
injury, because I feel too old, or I am bitter at the crowds. It’s
because I am 50 years old (old af) and the timing is perfect. The
day was perfect, the vibe was perfect, and my time to kick
out…..perfect.” Ken “Skindog” Collins quits surfing
Mavericks.
“In an era where Australia is being subjected to incredible
levels of suppression of free speech and medical choice Kelly
Slater should be applauded for taking a public stand for use of
alternative treatments and opinions that have always been our
prerogatives as Australians.” Testosterone-squirting big-wave
icon Ian “Kanga” Cairns.
“The apex predator of the patriarchy is white men.” Lucy
Small, longboarder and activist.
There’s a reason that Surfer has not been in politics and that’s
because surfing is a place where we can retreat from name calling
and shit-fuckery over politics, race, gender, religion etc you just
shat where you eat. Surfing is about a great family where all that
bullshit doesn’t matter. It’s one of the last places where we
collectively agree about one thing: are the waves great.” Ian
“Kanga” Cairns.
“(I’m) a direct recipient of sexism, homophobia and inequality.”
Two-time world champ Tyler Wright.
“I’m rebuilding a relationship with surfing because of the
drastic and extreme circumstances that I was raised in.”
Two-time world champ Tyler Wright.
“I’m the only queer person on tour, so my wife is the only other
queer person I know most of the time. I love everyone around me but
she makes such a difference in a way only she really can.”
Two-time world champ Tyler Wright.
“I’ve surfed in sharky areas my whole life, I actually love that
feeling of going into the wilderness where it’s dangerous. I just
don’t want my kids to get eaten.” Ian “Kanga”
Cairns.
“I have a huge THANK YOU to Dirk Ziff for supporting pro
surfing, but, ethically, I don’t believe in any one person being
the owner of the sport.” Ian “Kanga” Cairns.
“No other place on earth is so falsifiably mytho-poetically
rhapsodized over by post-modern knowledge workers.” Steve
“Longtom” Shearer on Byron Bay.
“It’s a monument to greed wearing a spiritual cloak. A
glittering dream metastasized into a malignant nightmare. The
bastard spawn of unhinged neoliberalism and grinning hippy
capitalists running riot in an orgy of aimless consumption in the
spiritual supermarket. Ayn Rand on a mid-length.” Steve
“Longtom” Shearer on Byron Bay.
“This thing was massive, a huge tunnel, and I could see Kelly
coming right down it in front of me… I dived down and grabbed the
reef and prayed. I could hear the thing land behind me, like a bomb
going off. My board got ripped off and snapped in half. I was very
close to the end. But that excites me for some reason.” Racing
car driver Lewis Hamilton confronts death on a wave he describes as
25 feet.
“Take your shirt off.” Former WSL CEO Erik Logan to world
champ Filipe Toledo.