Beautiful at any speed. Insert Photo: In God's Hands.

Surf legend Shane Dorian “Gray” travels to Mexico in search of mystical Fountain of Youth

"One hyphenated word: Stem-cells."

How is it going with your aging process? Have the years made you not only wiser but better? Jawline toned from decades of biting tongue? Skin thick and tan? Hair just beginning to turn silver gifting the aura of a halo? Well, congratulations to you. Others, however, feel the perpetual need to supplement theirselves, keeping young and fit looking with the aid of modernity.

And let us examine surf legend Shane Dorian. The big wave stud, who hails from Hawaii and counts Kelly Slater amongst his very best of friends, has always captivated, physically. From the dewy “In God’s Hands” years through today’s Mr. Clean, Dorian has carried himself with a certain fashionable je ne sais quoi.

Handsome and mysterious.

But is the allure fading?

Possibly.

Dorian, overnight, announced to his nearly 500,000 that he was traveling to Tijuana, Mexico for stem-cell treatments to cure “a few nagging injuries.”

He will be south of the border for one week receiving the magic beans and offered to take the aging gracefully-curious along on the ride.

Support was universal from snowboard legend Jeremy Jones to surf champion CJ Hobgood and so many had questions, Dorian was forced to release another video wherein he provided additional information. Both shoulders, both knees, upper back and neck will all be filled with stem-cells. His first day involved getting IVs of vitamins and nutrients, having all his blood taken out and re-oxygenated and visiting doctors, preparing his body to accept the life giving noodles.

Nathan Florence, the smartest man in surfing, was sold, responding, “I need to start this now our necks are already tweakoooos.” Mark Matthews, no stranger to wave beatings, couldn’t wait to hear how the neck goes.

You are encouraged to follow the journey here. Until the next update, though, have you ever read Oscar Wilde’s novella The Picture of Dorian Gray wherein a vain young man makes a naughty deal allowing him to live completely amorally yet not take any of the stain, all of that, the liver spots and yellow teeth and wrinkles, being applied to a portrait.

Maybe our Shane can read it whilst recuperating.

More as the story develops.

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Post from Lucy's IG account and Ms Small during a Dirty Water ep.

Surf feminist and trans-rights-in-sports activist Lucy Small explains apparent support for Hamas after series of Instagram posts

"We have these problems here in Australia and in communities across the world. This is a society with trauma to its core."

Dancing and jubilation in the streets of Sydney, Toronto, Paris, New York, London, Montreal, Marseilles, etc etc over the last couple of days after Hamas gunmen put bullets into hundreds of unarmed civilians living in the Israeli towns bordering Gaza. 

It ain’t surprising, our Muslim brothers have never hid their hatred of Jews. As Hitler’s old pal The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem told his Arab brothers and sisters from Berlin in 1944, 

“The Jews bring the world poverty, trouble and disaster. They are monsters and the basis for all evil in the world ….Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. God is with you.”

And, so, in front of the Sydney Opera House lit up with the Israeli flag hundreds of Australians screamed “Gas the Jews!”

In Times Square, an African-American preacher delighted at the killing of “hipsters”.

Stores in London vandalised. Green and red fireworks filling the night skies in all cities.

Meanwhile, party-goers hunted and murdered by the hundreds, kids left orphans their parents’ last act to shield ’em from the Hamas gun, the corpse of a naked young German girl, limbs broken, dumped in the back of a ute and paraded through Gaza City as kids spat on the “filthy Jew”. 

Biz as usual in Gaza, where teenage girls have their throats slit for immorality; where gay men are routinely thrown from buildings. where blood feuds, like BeachGrit, fester for eternity. 

Whatever you think of the political origins of the Israel-Arab conflict, whether you believe in the Zionist enterprise or regard it as the worst sort of colonisation, wandering through towns shooting unarmed people ain’t cool in any language. 

So I was surprised when Lucy Small, a renowned surf feminist and champion of gay and trans rights, with whom I agree on a variety of issues, posted a series of stories about the conflict including a story from Al Jazeera with the caption, “Palestinians in Gaza made history as they escaped the world’s largest prison”. 

Yeah, before murdering scores of innocents and unfettered for hours before the arrival of Israeli troops. 

I jumped into Lucy (@saltwaterpilgrim)’s DMs and was hit with the usual sorta patronising tone.

“How much do you know about the history and have you researched any of it?” 

Sigh. 

I wish I’d never opened a damn book about the whole thing for what a Pandora’s Box it has become. I don’t have any skin in this game. I wanted to learn about the teams at play. And so I read, and read, and watched, and listened, and toured. For years.

For the sake of clarity, I support the secular Jewish state as dreamed of by the anti-religious Zionists and birthed into life by the UN, with Russian David Ben-Gurion at the helm. 

Of course, having been cut a piece of the Palestinian Mandate for a Jewish homeland by the UN on May 1948, the newly minted state of Israel began a nearly two-year existential war against surrounding Arab countries. That, after a year of civil war, between Arab and Jew.

And the Jews fought for every kibbutz, every road, every town and every city. Even when Jerusalem was besieged, the newly-minted Israeli forces would take terrible casualties, bringing supplies in through the long, mountainous road that linked Tel Aviv with Jerusalem. Go there and you can still see the wrecked trucks on the side of the highway.

In 1967 Arab figured they’d have another swing at the Jews. But the Israelis, who had informers at every tier of Arab government, pre-empted ’em and wiped out their enemies in six days. Six years later, the Arabs had another shot. This time it was closer, but the Jews won.

I loathe the settler movement and the government’s shift to the hard right although I understand the need for walls, for checkpoints and so on. 

It ain’t nice but if you don’t want stabbings in the streets, your citizens being mutilated in various forms, bombing, hit and runs etc, you gotta take a cautious approach to who gets in. 

No killings, no walls. 

Anyway, a lot of blah blah blah between us and then I asked,  “How do you stand with a people and a diabolical regime that actively targets LGBTQ+ for death, as well as honour killings? Platitudes aside, I really want to know how you reconcile it all.” 

Lucy replied,

“In regards to this – we have these problems here in Australia and in communities across the world. This is a society with trauma to its core. The end of occupation may allow for healing. It is common in communities affected by armed violence, rates of domestic violence and violence against women are higher – it’s a tragic part of war. If Palestinian society is going to heal and progress, it needs to be able to do so on its own terms, which is why self-determination is so important.” 

To wit, Hamas, and the good citizens of Gaza, are bad because of the Jews, at least that’s how I read it.

Question to the gallery: would Gaza become a utopia if the Jewish state was to miraculously vanish? Or more of the same?

(Editor’s note:

Lucy also wanted to add, and in full:

“I condemn the actions of Hamas and the violent response of the Israeli military. The violence is senseless.”

But.

“Palestinian people have lived under violent Israeli occupation since 1967 when Israel annexed what was legally Palestinian land. Thousands of civilians have been killed by the Israeli military in the last decade – before this attack the Israeli military killed 247 Palestinian civilians this year alone and we haven’t seen anything about those deaths in the news. In Gaza, people live under siege – they are boxed into what has been described as an open air prison. The Israeli’s State’s treatment of Palestinians has been confirmed by Amnesty International as constituting apartheid. Targeting non military targets is illegal, unjustified and crimes against humanity – state sanctioned or otherwise. If we are going to condemn the actions of Hamas, we must condemn the violence of the Israeli state. I stand with the Palestinian and Israeli people calling for an end to the violence, an end to the occupation and for peace.”)

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Surf world in shock as Italo Ferreira splits from long-time sponsor Billabong

“Everything in life has a a beginning, a middle and and end.”

The 2019 world champ Italo Ferreira has officially split from his longtime sponsor Billabong after seven years with the famous and once iconic but not so much anymore Australian brand.

Ferreira, who is twenty-nine, signed with Billabong in 2016 after winning the previous season’s rookie of the year following a third in Rio, fifth in Fiji, fifth in Tahiti and a second in Portugal. He finished seventh in the world.

Wild, yeah?

Now, Ferreira has pulled, or been pulled, from the Billabong teat, although the colostrum is neither as creamy nor as free flowing as it used to be when Taj Burrow and Joel Parkinson were biting the teton and his disappearance is unsurprising as the brand pivots into hair oils and inflatable toys. I would suggest he was offered a vastly reduced salary which he refused.

“Closing one chapter of my professional life,” write Ferreira. “I’d like to thank Billabong for being part of my story! It’s been years of a partnership that began in 2016 and has contributed to my career. But as everything in life has a beginning, a middle and an end…This cycle ends for others to begin.”

I spent a few days with the kid in 2019 when he got on that tear to win the title and found a sweet sorta guy who didn’t  rip the top off his swinging masculinity. When his bank account started to get filled with sponsorship cash and prizemoney his first goal was to set his family up in Baia Formosa. He bought ‘em a hotel and restaurant called Pousada do Porto.

Once they were sorted, he bought himself a house on the beach in Baia and a restaurant in nearby, and fancier, Pipa Beach.

“Always trying to invest with my money rather than spend it all on shitty things,” he said.

Italo told me he hates drugs and doesn’t party ’cause three pals had died chasing the dragon.

“You have two ways to go, the good one and the bad one. It’s a choice,” he said.

When I asked him what his path in life was he didn’t hesitate.

“To be a good surfer that everyone can remember…”

 

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A post shared by Italo Ferreira (@italoferreira)

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Gaza (pictured) getting flattened.
Gaza (pictured) getting flattened.

Surf world breaks sharply over expanding Israel-Palestine conflict

Gaza burning.

Surfers, by and large, have a reputation for aloof stupidity, saltwater-crusted brains with very little functioning power, though I think very much ill-deserved. As a group, we are relatively well-traveled or, at the very least, have friends and acquaintances who are. Global events affect our comings and goings, our World Surf League Championship Tour, our hither and thither and so it is of little surprise that the quickly expanding Israel-Palestine conflict is both captivating and polarizing the surf world.

Only the most dense will be unaware that, over the weekend, Hamas, the political party/resistance movement that rules the Gaza Strip, hugging the Mediterranean to Israel’s south, sent fighters through the border, kidnapping, killing and otherwise shattering a sense of inertia that had settled over the region.

It was one of the biggest intelligence failures in Israel’s history and its embattled Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised to deliver “mighty vengeance,” calling up over 300,000 reservists and pounding Gaza City with bombs ahead of a certain ground invasion.

The death toll, there, is already high and will soar as the Palestinians taste Israeli rage.

What then to think?

Surf feminist hero Lucy Small took the tact, essentially, that Israel is a brutal and oppressive apartheid state and posted #freepalestine on her influential Instagram account, adding, “End the violence, end the occupation.”

The other side, that Israel is “the region’s only democracy,” a proud country surrounded by savages who wish only for its destruction, came hammering back, with, “In Sydney, Palestinian people celebrated with fireworks the death of hundreds of innocents, looks like u and others here support this shocking,, u live in such a happy country and support terrorism ( or u can call it different after what they done ,, scary.”

Well?

Where do you land?

I spent some weeks in Israel/Palestine during my undergraduate studies, driving over from Egypt certain that I would fall in love with the courageous Israelis and their slice of desert they had “made bloom.” I was, instead, struck by the absolutely untenable position the Palestinians had been forced into and their struggle. Settlements, checkpoints, consistent acts of dehumanization around every corner for those sporting keffiyeh or hijab.

I have also tasted the aforementioned Israeli rage in Lebanon when three soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah, in 2006, and taken over the border prompting a full-scale invasion. Sitting up in the hills outside Sidon, at night, and watching the whole south getting pounded, ground shaking. Riding a motor scooter through Beirut, getting blown right out, almost getting lit up by Palestinian guns then spending some quality time with Hezbollah.

Around 1300 Lebanese lost their lives during that war. 165 Israelis did and, again, that was over three soldiers at a disputed border as opposed to this past weekend’s Hamas invasion leaving 800 Israelis dead inside Israel and possibly hundreds more absconded back to Gaza.

Which brings us back to our present trouble. Hamas knew exactly what was going to happen in the wake of its attack. Knew that Israel will, basically, bulldoze the entire Gaza Strip, burying as many Palestinians as it can exactly like it did to the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon during the 1982 civil war.

The group is not naive and, unlike many other regional players, has majority support of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Hamas knew retribution would be ferocious, all-encompassing, indiscriminate and jumped the border anyway which only suggests an utter abandonment of hope.

When a people have lost hope what then can be done?

Ideas?

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"On your various platforms, you acknowledge this era as the “turbulent dying days.” This suggests that you are actively trying to monetise a pain and struggle to which you have no personal connection."

Mami Wata Surf embroiled in controversy over clothing range inspired by apartheid-era Cape Town, “You are actively trying to monetise a pain and struggle to which you have no personal connection”

“VW Golfs, Ford Escorts, neon fashion, sportswear and fast food. It’s a vibe!”

The African surf brand Mami Wata has come under fire for the supposed insensitivity of its latest clothing range which is inspired by eighties surf culture in Cape Town, back when the damn Afrikaners called the shots and before international and internal pressure crushed the wretched Apartheid regime.

Per Mami Wata,

“The combination of the turbulent dying days of the apartheid regime in South Africa, Africa’s increasing exposure to global culture and brands, 80’s surf culture and a surf break in False Bay enjoyed by a predominantly Black surf crew, influenced amongst other things by VW Golfs, Ford Escorts, neon fashion, sportswear and fast food. It’s a vibe!”

 

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A post shared by Mami Wata Surf (@mamiwatasurf)

Artwork is by the absurdly talented Peet Pienaar, also a co-founder alongside Nick Dutton and Andy Davis. All men are of a white-ish hue, which is neither here nor there I think, but it’ll become important later.

It’s a nine-piece collection of t-shirts, sweatshirts, a short-sleeve button up, a couple of hoodies and a pair of trunks, although it ain’t cheap – tees seventy bucks, hoodies one-forty and trunks one twenty.

Again, I’ll spend four hundred on a pair of trunks if I think’ll serve my aesthetics for a couple of summers so the price don’t matter to me but, again, important in a second.

The Instagram account @surftherberg published an open letter to Mami Wata on October 5, giving ‘em hell for the range which dances, they say, on the trauma of apartheid-era surfers.

Dear Mami Wata,

Mami Wata presents itself as an African-centric surf and culture brand. Through this platform, you aim to convey African stories, utilise African iconography, and incorporate African nuances into your apparel, all while claiming to “deliver considerable economic, social and environmental value to local communities.”

However, in your most recent campaign titled “9 Miles” you have exploited a community of people who never sought representation by Mami Wata. They were neither consulted on your uninformed portrayal of them nor did they grand you permission to misrepresent their struggles and trauma for the benefit of a select few individuals with no real connection to the people you are profiting from.

The story of 9 Miles and the individuals who view this space as a refuge, a safe haven, and a place for healing have not given Mami Wata permission to misrepresent them,. They have not authorised the appropriation and profitization (sic) of their culture, their people, and their waves by Mami Wata.

To highlight a few discrepancies:

On your various platforms, you specifically reference the 1980s, a time when South Africa was under the rule of the Apartheid Government. During this period, people of color were forcibly removed from beaches, often with deadly consequences. They were denied the ability to swim, surf, and express themselves. Is it appropriate to turn this painful history into a t-shirt?

On your various platforms, you acknowledge this era as the “turbulent dying days.” This suggests that you are actively trying to monetise a pain and struggle to which you have no personal connection.

On your various platforms, you mentioned that a “predominantly black surf crew enjoyed this surf break.” Where did this perception come from? Who informed you that this “crew” consisted of a particular ethnic group? Who told you they enjoyed surfing there? Did this “crew” have a choice in where and how they enjoyed themselves? Furthermore, you reference their dietary choices of fast food as inspiration for your apparel range.

The story of 9 Miles and its surroundings should not be exploited by individuals who lack the right to do so. The residents of this place strongly oppose the use of its imagery, storytelling, and cultural references.

For those unaware, it’s important to note that Mami Wata is owned and operated by three South Africans, whose brand is built upon a culture that was nearly eradicated on the African continent. Visit the Mami Wata website and see for yourself if these three men should be representing Africa.
Lastly, the apparel ad merchandise are marketed as African yet they are priced at a level that many true Africans cannot afford. Go figure.

A comprehensive letter of complaint, no?

 

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A post shared by Surf Muizenberg (@surftheberg)

Comments were divided on the matter.

Against Mami Wata:

“I value your realness and well articulated points. As a Nine Miles local for most of my life, we have hopes and dreams to make Nine Miles accessible for all people to enjoy the break and the beach, and also turning it into a self sustainable area. It would’ve been cool if this brand came and sat down with locals, created a synergy where both parties win, but in this story, only one party wins! I feel yet again we as a people and our story, which these guys have no clue of what Nine Miles is about, are just out there to financially capitalize. Why Nine Miles? The place we were allowed to use as our place to swim and surf during the apartheid era. Our story is definitely not for these guys to be told!!!”

For Mami Wata:

“You’re opinion matter. I’m really sad you guys feel this way and sorry if you feel exploited and would like to understand that better, seriously.

“I think what mama watu does is above and beyond most brands. Do you know they donate 100% of there book proceeds to surfers not street children? They operate more like a charity then an actual brand, it’s actually insane in my opinion, sorry if that is opposing of yours. I can name 100’s of non profits where there founders get paid more then all of mama watus founders and employees combined! I’ve looked at the numbers and asked. Have you ever asked them if they are actually profitable?! How would you make them affordable? What brands do you support then?

“Is this feeling about all adversities ‘turned into profit’? Does Nike and hundreds of other companies putting #blacklivesmatter on their appearel bother you? Do books on apartheid not ‘make a profit’ off what happened? Hollywood Movies of wars and genocides!? Would you prefer if people ignored the past and never spoke of it? How would you like brands to operate, be reasonable cause entrepreneurship is so hard.

“Can you appreciate that someone stepped up and made a African surf brand period? So you don’t want them to exist and would rather support a billabong or ripcurl or anything else made in China?
If everyone had the time, money and resources to consult everyone agreed this world would be all peaches and cream, but I think everyone’s doing their best these guys especially ! Let’s celebrate the positives and spread that. Happy days and more waves!”

Both sides are terrifically persuasive, although I think the underlying issue here is the cost of the gear and the lack of an indigenous African among the founders, ie too many whites.

Selema Masekela joined the brand in 2018 as a “co-founder” along with various investors (two million bucks was raised by crowdfunding in 2020) but by 2022 had “stepped back from his roles and responsibilities as co-founder, but remains a shareholder and creative collaborator. “

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