International surfing assoc. takes fierce
anti-Olympic stand in Tahiti!
By Chas Smith
Big Aluminum to blame?
The Teahupoo judging tower business is a story
that refuses to die. In case you need a brief refresher, Paris
Olympic organizers decided that the surfing portion of the Games
would be held at Teahupo’o, halfway around the world. Surfers
immediately cheered save one (Filipe Toledo) though smiles soon
turned upside down as the committee declared it would build a
massive new aluminum judging tower on the reef.
Capitulating, organizers said they would build an aluminum tower
in the same footprint of the existing one.
Now, the International Surfing Association, governing body for
Olympic surfing, has shouted “Non!”
A wildly oppositional position by any stretch.
In a press release
titled “The ISA will not support the construction of the new
aluminum judges’ tower at Teahupo’o (Tahiti)” the ISA made clear
that it does not support the construction of a new aluminum judges’
tower at Teahupo’o, which just so happens to be in Tahiti.
Wonderful, but how do you think the French powers that be will
take this very public knock from a minor Olympic player not even
two cycles in?
More importantly, how many times has the word “aluminum” been
used over the past few months as it relates to the imbroglio?
Is this a Big Aluminum conspiracy?
More as the story develops.
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World Surf League gifts most ardent fans a
stunningly average “Challenger Series” ahead of Christmas!
By Chas Smith
Thank you, World Surf League!
For the five hardcore surf fans awaiting the
release of the World Surf League’s “Challenger Series” schedule,
Christmas came early. The “Global Home of Surfing,” dropped the
lightly anticipated B-league calendar that was instantly dubbed
“stunningly average” by students of the game.
Per the press release:
The 2024 Challenger Series will start in April in Australia
after CT Stop No. 5 with an event at Snapper Rocks on the Gold
Coast and another in Sydney at North Narrabeen. Next up, the tour
heads to Ballito, South Africa, followed by the US Open of Surfing
in early August and a stop in Portugal at the end of September. The
Challenger Series concludes in October in Brazil, where the top 10
ranked men and top five ranked women will be decided and qualify to
join the world’s best surfers on the 2025 Championship Tour.
Competitors will count their four best results out of the six
events.
“We’re three years into the Challenger Series format, and it
feels really good to see this Series build and solidify its place
in the competition pathway,” said Jessi Miley-Dyer, WSL Chief of
Sport, adding a little more oatmeal to the serving of plain
oatmeal. “48 surfers have earned their place in the Championship
Tour via their performances in the Challenger Series since 2021,
and the 2024 season will see 15 more join them.”
Each of the six stops will be broadcast, though even the
aforementioned five hardcore surf fans were unsure if they’d tune
in to anything except Snapper and only then to see the tears of
recently shamed Championship Tour surfers who had not made the cut
in higher definition.
Fine enough entertainment.
In case you actually care, and aside from the 12 men and seven
women from the CT who did not make the Mid-season Cut, the rest of
the Challenger Series is made up of:
-10 men and five women from the previous year’s Challenger
Series rankings,
-Three men and two women who were CT surfers in the prior season
that did not requalify for either the CT or the Challenger
Series,
-49 men and 30 women as allocated by the seven WSL regions
(Australia/Oceania, Asia, Africa, Europe, Hawaii/Tahiti Nui, North
America, and South America), and
-The men’s 2023 World Junior Champion,
-The women’s 2023 World Junior Champion, and
-Five men’s and three women’s wildcards per event.
Bon appetite.
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Miki Dora-esque Malibu icon Lyon Herron,
dead at 31
By Derek Rielly
“My baby traded in his broken body for golden wings
this morning at 11:27am”
“Your love for humans and your passion for life is so inspiring
and is spreading into so many of us. Thank you for sharing your
journey and your love. You’re a miracle,” wrote Griffin
Colapinto.
Mama to John John, Ivan and Nathan, Alex Florence, wrote: “Thank
you Lyon for letting us get to know you a little and showing us
true bravery…my heart is so sad reading this.. I don’t have the
right words to express.. just want you to know our family is truly
grateful to have witnessed such courage and love. A Hui Hou.”
A GoFundMe page set up to help ease the cost of his myriad
treatments (35k of a needed 75k was raised) detailed his long
trial.
It read in part:
FRIDAY JULY 22nd, 2022 UPDATE
Since November 1st, 2019, Lyon has spent 485 days at Cedars
Sinai hospital dealing with an intestinal fistula (hole in his
intestine), inter-abdominal abscesses, very aggressive fast growing
desmoid tumors wrapped around his small intestine and mesenteric
artery, sepsis, edema, low hemoglobin and so much more. Since this
is the height of the pandemic, he spends most of his admissions in
the hospital alone, with no visitors allowed.
In January of 2022 during a procedure to put a new clamp on
the fistula, he aspirated in post-op recovery, so his lungs filled
up to 80% with vomit and acidic fluid. He was placed into a
medically induced coma and put on life support because his lungs
started to fail. The doctors gave him a 20% chance of waking up,
and miraculously with the prayers of a strong community behind him,
within 3 days he started to make a remarkable come back, and within
a week after being placed in a coma, he woke up.
Since then, it’s been a long and difficult road to recovery,
and although he takes a couple steps forward, if feels like he
always takes 3 steps back. He’s been approved for disability, and
although he gets a small, subsidized amount to help with living and
medical expenses, it’s still not enough to make sure he’s living
with no monetary fear. We hope that we can take away any fear of
getting by monetarily while he focuses on healing and recovering
his body.
“Surfing has taught me to not be greedy with my expectations, to
take opportunities as they present themselves, to fight and hunt,
and the capacity to dine out on those very few peak moments for
weeks and months – and that’s just what I need now to get me
through this medieval ordeal. I might be dying, but I’m not
quitting,” wrote Sean, who died of colon cancer aged thirty-six,
three years ago.
Four days ago, Barbie, Lyon Herron’s mama, posted.
Last night I woke up from a dream that I did not want to
forget so I wrote it down immediately.
I was waiting for lyon to get out of the shower and I
suddenly became weightless like there was an energy that took over
me. For a split second I had this fear but then I knew my brothers
had something to do with it so I surrendered and became weightless.
I danced around the room floating from floor to ceiling with the
most beautiful blue light energy trailing me and within me. There
was one person sitting on the floor in the room and I danced too
close to her and felt the gravity free energy dissipate. I had this
smile of warmth in my soul and calm in my body. It was
heavenly.
I knew then as Lyon was exiting the shower – but it was as
if he was coming out of the ocean instead of the shower- that I was
suppose to guide him to that blue light I just embodied. I saw it
swirling around us. I caught him as he fell into my arms and I told
him to let the light find him and that it was safe and ok and right
then he closed his eyes and smiled with a sense of calm and peace
then I heard the angels. It was the most beautiful celestial
orchestra I’ve ever heard. I can’t even put it into words. As he
lay in my arms, I felt his energy shift into the blue light and
leave his body as the smile remained.
I just woke up and was still hearing the angels
sing.
I needed to write this down so I don’t forget but I know
this was heaven giving me a glimpse of what’s to come so that I can
help guide him through this portal. This was the full circle moment
of my mama journey with him.
Just checked on him… he’s still breathing 🙏🏼
Written at 1:05am
I shared this with him this morning. We are ready for the
beautiful blue light.
Again, a roll call of surfing identities sent their condolences
including, again, Alex Florence.
“Sending you so much love .. mother to mother,” wrote Alex.
“Rest in peace Lyon . we will forever be touched by your sweet
spirit!
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Surf journalism in crisis as tight-knit
community “infiltrated by insentient, ethically-blind copy
farmers”
By surf ads
"Before, there was a general consensus that surf
stories were at least written by real human beings. No more!"
Revelations that Surfer magazine and its parent company
The Arena group are employing AI bots to both curate and write
content have rocked the tight-knit surf journalist
community to its core.
What was once a proud, well-respected profession of learned
scholars and literary giants has been infiltrated by insentient,
ethically-blind copy farmers.
While the last decade or so has seen a rise in Nick Carroll’s “new sarcasm”
generation, many hiding behind anonymous handles and
pseudonyms to produce morally spurious content, there was a general
consensus that the articles they were producing were at least
written by real human beings.
But now, devastatingly realistic AI-generated avatars walk among
us. Some borrow accredited human bylines to produce their work.
Others are seemingly concocted from scratch; their entire online
existence only a facsimile of a shadow of a soul’s echo.
This is to say there is now an existential crises among the
international surf journalist scene. No longer do writers
congregate in small editorial offices where they can smell, taste,
touch their comrades. The world is now so dispersed, that many
writers may go their entire career yet never even meet each other
in the flesh.
Furtive glances shoot back and forth the digital divide amongst
even well-established scribes as to who is real, who is not.
Indeed, some are so contorted, so self-consumed, they may even
be questioning their own existence.
To answer this fundamental question, a new approach is
required.
You may remember the Voight-Kampff test from
the science fiction classic Bladerunner. It is set in a near-future
dystopia where androids live amongst humans, indistinguishable only
to the most discerning of eyes. In it, the The Voigt-Kampff Empathy
Test is designed to determine androids from humans by articulating
the subject’s ability to empathize; something still impossible for
the artificial mind.
I propose here a similar test, designed to specifically target
the surf journalist community, and determine once and for all which
were born kicking and screaming into this world and which were
created on a desktop somewhere in Silicon Valley.
A sample of questions below. Do you dream of electric sheep?
Question: You are offered a full-time writing position
with a well-known surfing publication. It is secure, cushy, and
handsomely remunerated. However, it does require you to forego
certain editorial liberties when it comes to particular sponsors
and surfers.
Do you:
A. Refuse the offer and tell the bastards they’ll prise your
independence from your cold, dead, amyl-nitrate stained hands;
before reneging and re-accepting soon after receiving your next
child support bill.
B. Accept the offer as long as you’re allowed to do key bumps
before zoom meetings.
C. Accept the offer as long as you’re allowed to meet Gerry
Lopez.
D. All of the above
Question: you receive an anonymous tip-off that the
parent company of the publication you write for is bankrolling the
development of a major hotel-marina in a developing country that
will result in the destruction of a once-secret heaving reef slab.
Keeping silent will mean you have to betray various moral and
ethical boundaries you had committed to when you first became a
surf journalist, but reporting the story will mean you lose your
job.
Do you:
A. Write the story, only to have it withheld at the last minute
by a former friend who is now the COO of the mooted project. You
have a fist fight at the hotel bar in front a group of bewildered
tourists, blood flying across the room like a sprinkler under the
summertime sun, before he finally forces you to sign an NDA feat. a
handsome hush payment. You walk back to your hotel room, spitting
crimson shaded teeth onto the tastefully-tiled walkway, wondering
what your life has become, before immediately booking a four week
trip to the Ments and three new Arakawas.
B. Withhold the story, accept shares in the new development, and
marry one of the local women because at least they know how to
treat a man right. Also, what’s an ethical boundary?
C. Not even consider doing the story, and instead write an
article promoting the development titled ‘Top 5 outdoor sports for
when the ocean waves are flat.’ Also, what’s a heaving reef
slab?
D. All of the above
Question: You’re offered an opportunity to surf in Kelly
Slater’s new Dubai Wave Pool as an official guest of the UAE
government.
Do you:
A. Tell that shiny-headed dilettante that he can take his
environment-destroying, civil-liberty-depriving wavepool and shove
it up his arse; without admitting you’re actually just scared of
bogging a rail on your first turn.
B. Accept and wonder if this means you can now take on a
harem.
C. Accept, as long as he can keep it on the intermediate
setting.
D. All of the above.
If you answered:
Mostly A) You are indeed a living, breathing, grizzled surf
journalist. You are free to continue raging against the machine
while turning a blind eye where needed; your life a booze and
pill-festooned monument to compromise. Hey, at least you still have
that novel to work on.
Mostly B) You’re the best kind of surf journalist: an
industry-embracing, grammar-eschewing advertorial hack who either
doesn’t know or doesn’t care about journalistic integrity. And why
should you? It’s just fucken surfing after all. Ignorance is
bliss.
Mostly C) You are an insentient, asinine, malignant copy-bot.
Artificial unintelligence. The harbinger of humanity’s downfall.
Or you might just work for The
Inertia. Please report to me for further testing to
determine where there’s a difference between the two.
Mostly D) You are Matt George. Keep shining bright, you crazy
animal.
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Climate change science thrown on head as
surf-blessed Hawaii receives more snow than New York, Boston
combined!
By Chas Smith
"Hey everyone! I'm currently visiting the islands,
and I've noticed an abundance of ridiculously lifted pickup
trucks."
It times back, the weather was a solidly safe
holiday dinnertime conversation. Unlike politics or
religion, the sun shining, or not, clouds raining, or not was a
simple matter of observance. Easy. Clean. No longer. Any mention of
the elements, these days, will ignite the table into full civil
war. Daughter yelling at mother that the government is seeding the
skies with chemicals. Son yelling at uncle to shut his gross
polluting mouth.
Very uncomfortable.
The two broad camps, of course, are those who believe man is
changing the environment through his consumption of fossil fuels
and those who believe earth gonna earth and our smoking cigarettes
etc. doesn’t make a dent.
The polite society thing to profess is, of course, the former
except new details from Hawaii are baffling the most ardent climate
change activists.
Hawaii, currently, has more snow than Boston and New York
combined.
Meteorologists described Hawaii as a “winter wonderland”
earlier this season after a late November snowstorm dumped
approximately half a foot of snow at the Mauna Kea Weather Center
on Hawaii Island. The weather center is based on the Mauna Kea
volcano. The peaks at Mauna Loa also saw snowfall. Meanwhile,
Boston has only received a fraction of its average snowfall, with
.2 inches falling on December 6. Snow has yet to fall this season
in New York City.
While this should prop up theories that mans’ gas guzzling has
irrevocably altered “normal,” Hawaii is home to this:
Peak gas guzzle.
Lifted V-6s and V-8s are a national treasure on the archipelago,
praised and honored. A plume of holy smoke puff puff puffing out of
polished exhaust pipes.
Glorious things but back to the snow issue, what to make of
it?
This is the sort of vehicle popular in bone dry New York: