Matthew Perry cause of death sends surfers
into paroxysms of self-reflection
By Chas Smith
The beloved Friend was found unresponsive in a
Pacific Palisades hot tub almost two months ago. Today we learn
why.
The emotional tie between surfers and Matthew
Perry, which tightened after the beloved Friend apologized
for denigrating Point Break saint Keanu Reeves, has surprised some
in the mainstream. Perry, 54 at time of passing, had not shown any
interest in the Sport of Kings, preferring and proselytizing pickle
ball, which endeared him to wave sliders who generally dislike
newcomers. The fact that he issued a mea culpa after wishing Reeves
dead made him a water brother.
It is rare, in this day and age, for anyone to think they were
wrong, much less say it.
And so it is understandable how his death rocked our small
world. Perry was found unresponsive in his Pacific
Palisades hot tub just before Halloween. Perry had, of course, a
long history with addiction. He was in therapy fifteen times and
allegedly spent over $7 million on sobriety.
It was hoped, therefore, was not the cause.
Today we learn they might have been?
Falling down the K-Hole*
The New York Post has
reported, “Officials have announced Matthew Perry’s
cause of death as “acute effects of ketamine,” along with drowning,
coronary artery disease and buprenorphine (an opioid) effects.” The
august broadsheet then went on to explain that “Ketamine is a
dissociative anesthetic, meaning it makes patients feel detached
from their pain and environment. It can lead users to feel calm and
relaxed, become immobile, act as a pain reliever, cause amnesia and
provide hallucinogenic effects in certain dosages. The
hallucinogenic has long been abused recreationally as a “club drug”
and to facilitate sexual assault, but it has also been recognized
for its medical and healing properties much more recently.”
Surfers, though, didn’t need to be told. Ketamine is the most
popular drug, in surfing, after marijuana, booze, Laird’s SuperFood
and Purps. It is common in any lineup where rubber-limbed flexy
bros prefer boards nine foot plus, “walking the nose” and putting
their hands over their heads, backs arched.
Noosa etc.
These selfsame surfers are, tonight, examining their
relationship with “special k.” Should they be worried or was
Perry’s case rare?
More as the story develops.
*Note: The “K-Hole” has no relation to “Kolohe.”
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Zuckerberg (pictured) zucking around on his
island.
Wild new details emerge from “super fit”
Mark Zuckerberg’s $270 million compound on surf-rich Kauai!
By Chas Smith
Bunkers, blast doors, treehouses and hush hush.
Surfing is blessed to have many notable adult
learners, in these the post-Covid years of our lives, but
none more precious than Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook founder, and
multi-billionaire, jumped right in with two pale feet, befriending
big wave stud Kai Lenny, going out and conquering fifteen-foot
waves.
Though our hero has shifted his gaze from the Sport of Kings to
mixed-martial arts, his $270 million top-secret compound is plowing
right ahead on Kauai. As with other tech scions who made their
riches by selling everyone’s personal information, Zuckerberg keeps
everything crazy hush hush. Those who work on the property must
sign ironclad NDAs. Those who dare take photos or talk about it are
disappeared.
Nevertheless, Wired Magazine
has done the work to uncover some of what is going on “behind the
wall” on the way to Andy Irons’ Hanalei.
According to plans viewed by WIRED and a source familiar
with the development, the partially completed compound consists of
more than a dozen buildings with at least 30 bedrooms and 30
bathrooms in total. It is centered around two mansions with a total
floor area comparable to a professional football field (57,000
square feet), which contain multiple elevators, offices, conference
rooms, and an industrial-sized kitchen.
In a nearby wooded area, a web of 11 disk-shaped treehouses
are planned, which will be connected by intricate rope bridges,
allowing visitors to cross from one building to the next while
staying among the treetops. A building on the other side of the
main mansions will include a full-size gym, pools, sauna, hot tub,
cold plunge, and tennis court. The property is dotted with other
guest houses and operations buildings. The scale of the project
suggests that it will be more than a personal vacation home —
Zuckerberg has already hosted two corporate events at the
compound.
There will also be a huge underground bunker with blast doors
etc.
Extreme James Bond bad guy.
Do you think when the apocalypse well and truly arrives that the
combination of those concrete-filled metal doors and Zuckerberg’s
BJJ game will protect him?
Very cool.
More as the story develops.
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When Parker Coffin goes to Palm Springs Surf
Club every door is a back door!
Tom Lochtefeld’s Palm Springs Surf Club
wavepool a miracle of genius and inspiration!
By Derek Rielly
At Palm Springs Surf Club, every door is a back
door!
Yesterday, after a cursory glance at a couple of YouTube
clips doin’ the rounds following the debut of the new Palm Springs
Surf Club’s full-sized tank, I mighta likened it to a
slightly slicker version of Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon.
Readers, very wrong, oh so wrong.
And, here, I want to bunch my fingers and twirled them
about old man Lochtefeld’s knob and correct the record.
First, about Tom Lochtefeld.
There’s no bigger name in the wavepool game than San Diego’s
Thomas J Lochtefeld, the former tax lawyer turned water park
proprietor turned creator of surf dreams.
Lochtefeld got his surf chops threading caves at Big Rock in La
Jolla, San Diego, and has spent the last forty years trying to
recreate similar thrills at the punch of a button.
In 1987, he sold his share in a bunch of theme parks for two
million dollars and used that cash, as well the sale of his
beachfront joint at La Jolla for 950k to create a standing wave,
called Flowrider, that ended up being installed in over 200 joints
in thirty-five countries.
In 1999, the Swiss watch company Swatch toured a souped up
version of the Flowrider called Bruticus Maximus and that caused
more permanent injuries in one year than Teahupoo in the last
thirty, around the world: from Florence to Munich, Vienna, Hanover,
Long Beach, San Diego, Manila and Sydney, with Tony Hawke, Kelly
Slater, Chris Miller and Terje Haakonsen wowing crowds with a surf,
snow, skate combo of airs and tubes.
Lochtefeld’s real goal, however, was a wave that didn’t involve
standing waves and finless mini-boards.
As computer tech got better, he deepened his research on the
different ways of making waves: hydraulics, ploughs, boats.
Four years ago he told me and Chas about the Palm Springs Surf Club pool.
“It’s going to be an A-frame so you can backdoor it.”
God, he was right.
This twenty-five minutes cut of the full-sized Palm Beach Surf
Club, below, starts slow.
But watch as Caity Simmers, Sierra Kerr, Jackie Doz, Blair
Conklin, the ugly Coffin brother and Italo backdoor the wildest,
bluest wedge you could ever imagine, and all amid the joyous roars
from a crowd intoxicated with a well-earned victory.
Essential.
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Kelly Slater, left, and sexy comment that set trolls
afire. | Photo: Slater Photoshop by
@sensitiveseashellcollector
Circumcision debate turns ugly after “cut”
Kelly Slater gets trolled over anti-vaccine stance
By Derek Rielly
“The three friends I had die right after taking the
COVID vaccine? Or the other ones that got Guillaume Barre, Bell’s
Palsy, ALS, Myocarditis etc…”
It’s been days, possibly weeks, since Kelly Slater
launched a major strike online, his time spent, perhaps,
ensuring a smooth launch of the Abu Dhabi tank in his
name.
Kelly Slater, who is fifty-one, ain’t one to back down from an
online skirmish, instances too numbers to list or link but his most
enduring when he hit back at an historically inaccurate troll.
After much back and forthing and righting of the troll’s
historical inaccuracies, Slater delivered his coup de grâce.
“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.”
A few days back, a satirical account called The Betoota Advocate
ran the headline, “Circumcised mate presents completely unbacked
theory that chicks prefer his type of doodle.”
Yeah, it ain’t funny, but the champ liked it enough to give it
his imprimatur and the throwaway line,
“Unbacked theory? It’s field science,” said Kelly, whose bedroom
romps are legend.
Kelly Slater, proudly cut.
Do you remember the time an Australian woman revealed on a
podcast the disastrous text she accidentally sent Kelly Slater,
twice, following an intimate shower date?
A recap on that.
An Australian women of roughly middle age described meeting
Kelly Slater at a bar-restaurant in Jan Juc, near Bells, twenty
years ago. He memorised her telephone number after hearing her tell
it to someone else, leading to a long-term and, mostly platonic,
friendship.
“We’d become super super good friends. We were pen pals,
emailing daily. He was on and off with Pamela Anderson, I was
helping him through that. And a few of my closest friends, guys and
girls, said you gotta seal the deal… my best friend said
you’re going to become old and regret you didn’t do it… I
promised I’d text her as soon as it happened.”
Anyway, a little while later Slater was in Sydney, the mystery
gal in Melbourne.
She flies up.
“Middle of the day. Saturday. We obviously did the do. We were
both in the shower and all I could think of was, shit, I have to
call my best friend. I literally got out of the shower, wasn’t even
dressed, and messaged these exact words. ‘Did it. Had sex. Going to
leave now.’”
Despite disaster, she knew she had to inform pal of event.
The text went to Slater again.
“He was in the shower. I was sitting on the front of the bed. He
asked me what was wrong, I said, can you please give me your phone?
Give it to me!”
The friendship fizzled after the texts were revealed although,
“I think he felt he had to prove himself after that. All I can say
is he’s very competitive.”
“The question wasn’t whether you are ok with it or not,” wrote
Slater. “The question is which do chicks prefer. We can’t reverse
what’s already done but we can advocate for our kind.”
Lighthearted that is until one fan, @ibhumphries, wrote:
“I’m surprised no one has asked yet; can you please cite some of
the science you’re referring to here? Also, why do you trust that
science and not the same scientific process and risk/analyses to
form clinical recommendations around the safety and efficacy of
vaccines?
And, here, pushed too far, Kelly swipes the issue of mutilating
baby cocks aside and, oowee.
“Well which efficacy do you speak of, Humphries? The 3 friends I
had die right after taking the COVID vaccine? Or the other ones
that got Guillaume Barre, Bell’s Palsy, ALS, Myocarditis etc after
getting it? There are literally thousands and thousands of stories
like this you’re either in denial or wilfully ignorant to. And if
you took half a minute to see who was dying of COVID they weren’t
healthy people under 60. And if you’re vaccinated, I’ll say it
again, why are you worried about anyone else I trust personal
experience along with science, and science is constantly changing…I
think it’s pretty obvious at this point which side was right.”
The reply from @ibhumphries,
“I’m genuinely sorry to hear about your friends. The efficacy as
a % comparing the number of cases of disease in the vaccinated
group vs placebo group. Can you please cite some of the science
you’re referring to here? If the science is always changing, why
can’t you change your mind on the basis of scientific
evidence?”
Shortly after, he event corrected Slater’s spelling of Guillain
Barré.
“Still waiting on your to cite some scientific evidence.
Whenever you’re ready.”
“Still waiting on your to cite some scientific evidence.
Whenever you’re ready.”
Here, Slater wisely exited the melee.
Now, question: you think baby cocks should be cut?
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Timmy Curran (insert) overlooking Oxnard and
pissed.
Silver Strand locals seethe with pure rage,
plot revenge as Oxnard named “least fun city in America”
By Chas Smith
"This ignominy cannot go unpunished."
Southern California, stretching from El Cajon
up to Santa Barbara, is a country in and of itself. With a
population greater than Australia and more economic might than the
United Kingdom, the bottom quarter of this Golden State is
certainly something. Now, I am not from here, originally, having
sprouted in Oregon but folk here, especially the ones who have not
blown in, take great pride in their various cities and towns even
though, to the untrained eye, Southern California is one contiguous
sprawl. Those who call Leucadia home, like Chris Cote for example,
where that “L” haughtily on their foreheads (in ball cap form).
Those who dwell in the aforementioned Santa Babs sneer at outsiders
while slurping fresh sea urchin, like our very own Jen See.
Oxnard, west of Thousand Oaks, south of Ventura, doesn’t get
much press though its locals are no less fiercely satisfied with
their stretch of coast, including Silver Strand, famous for its
wedges and menacing local reputation. Though, this morning, its
200,000 souls are waking up seething rage, plotting some form of
revenge as the town was named “least fun city in America” by
personal finance company WalletHub.
The list was compiled by ranking cities across this great nation
on their “entertainment and recreation, nightlife and parties, cost
of living” and sixty-five other metrics including “average business
hours of breweries.”
Las Vegas, as you might imagine, ranked number one.
Oxnard, without explanation, dead last.
Timmy Curran pissed.
But have you ever been to Oxnard, yourself? I have a handful of
times, none memorable except for the time that I visited Timmy
Curran, surfer famous for inventing the alley-oop. Seeing what I
saw in his eyes, I’d be terrified if I was a WalletHub exec.
Absolutely terrified.
More as the story develops.
While it is developing, though, enjoy early Curran
alley-ooping.
