The “Global Home of Surfing” is, as anyone and
everyone knows, a beacon of environmentalist. Preaching how the
ocean is not only our home but also their office. Practicing planting a bush
in Western Australia. Its greenwashing so
professionally thorough that it is almost impossible to find fault.
Power hungry wave pools in deserts run completely carbon neutral.
Joe Turpel’s aloha shirts stitched from… I don’t know but something
anti-toxic.
And when one is so pure, so righteous, it is only right that
others should be shamed for dirty filth. That gifts should be
rejected if they are not hand pumped from the wells of ultra-sustainability.
Such, I am told, happened to the noted comedian Eddie Ifft. The very funny man
regularly packs clubs around the nation and is, himself, a keen
surfer. Putting the two together, one day, he thought he might make
a difference by hosting a show wherein all proceeds would go to the
World Surf League’s PURE initiative. The show was organized and
held in Hollywood’s famous Comedy Store with other comedians
lending their talents to the cause.
At the end of the night, $10,000 was raised and presented to the
World Surf League. According to Ifft, it was rejected, World Surf
League holding its pristine nose high, because the Comedy Store
serves some drinks that include straws.
The horror.
The money was given to Save the Waves
instead. An organization that clearly has no scruples.
Thank you, in any case, World Surf League for operating without
hypocrisy.
Huzzah.
Truly an inspiration for young environmentalists, everywhere,
who would one day like to sell bulldozing
wetlands to create even more power hungry wave pools
as earth friendly.
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Plans for the Slater pool and real estate play in
Coolumn, Queensland, now officially dead.
Billion-dollar Kelly Slater wavepool and
resort officially dead as developer sells land for $6 million
"I feel sad that surfers will be the ones behind
the bulldozers, erasing this wildlife, this bush from history."
Two years ago, thepro-environment and wildlife
advocate Kelly Slater “urged” the Queensland government to
approve a one-billion dollar wavepool, eco-resort and real real
estate development.
“This wave would become somewhat of a mecca and put the Sunshine
Coast back on the (surfing) map,” Kelly Slater said. “It will bring
a lot of interest to the area and it will be a place that I know a
lot of people are going to want to surf and have an ongoing impact
on the local area.”
The proposal included a Surf Ranch wrapped in a
20,000-person stadium, a six-star eco-resort, restaurants, bars, a
retail village and “an environmental education centre based on the
site’s wetlands and nearby waterways.”
Unfortunately, the proposed site was on some of the most
flood-affected land on the Sunshine Coast and “was a natural
storage area providing downstream protection during major flood
events” according to a local councillor.
When there was pushback from locals, the developer said unless
government red tape was slashed and the project bathed in green
light they’d move the development to the Gold Coast, a couple
hundred clicks south.
Anyway, much back and forthing and the high point of the whole
thing, I think, was the late Steve Shearer’s terrific
reporting.
Read: Longtom investigates WSL’s billion-dollar wavepool
development, parts one and two, here and here.
An excerpt,
I put boots on the ground at the site. I know this country
very well. It’s in my blood. My people come from the Queensland
cane swamps. They are Danes, Swedes, Sicilians.
Practical people.
They would understand the necessity of bulldozing the bush
to make way for jobs. But I do not. The developer’s eye eludes me.
I see trees and bush. Birds, insects, frogs. I feel sad that
surfers will be the ones behind the bulldozers, erasing this
wildlife, this bush from history.
From what I can see though, although there is ambivalence,
distrust and even hostility to the Coolum wave pool development,
that is unlikely to stop the bulldozers.
The greenwashing on the project will be immense. Next
level.
But I wonder, when Kelly thinks about what is being done in
his name and looks in the mirror, does he still see an
environmentalist looking back at him?
Anyway, the Kelly Slater wavepool has come to naught, as they
say, Consolidated Properties’ Don O’Rorke selling the 300 acres of
cursed dirt for six million dollars to the Queensland
government.
It’s part of the gov’s plan to protect natural flood plains with
the land now used for rural or agriculture, for the generation of
renewable energy and for public open space.
O’Rorke said he was “obviously disappointed” with shelving of
the Kelly Slater pool and real estate play but “we do understand
Sunshine Coast Council’s strong desire to protect flood plain
capacity and maintain these lands in public hands in
perpetuity.”
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Billy Kemper in Tenōre. Photo: Instagram
Surf fans widen eyes as mysterious “Tenōre”
clothing appears on ex-RVCA team riders!
It’s Christmas season with surf fans busily making
lists of what they wish and hope and aspire to see under
the tree. A bar of BeachGrit co-branded Sticky Bumps surf
wax? A pair of Klly Sltr turtle moon
sandals wrapped in micro-plastic paper? One of the
recently excused Vans employees?
But how about t-shirts and trunks, hoodies and beanies?
Alas, a surf industry implosion has rendered once joyous staples
like Billabong and Quiksilver, Volcom and Hurely entirely
embarrassing. No one but no one wants Mountain and Wave beard oil
in a stocking.
Or Stone paper clips.
Though what’s this? What’s this? Is there possibly magic in the
air?
Days ago, you certainly know, the Eddie held its annual opening
ceremony drawing a who’s who of big wave men and women. There they
stand, like demigods and goddesses, giant boards behind them. Icons
of cool. Surf fans, however, widened eyes at one particular
invitee. Maui’s Billy Kemper sporting a pair of trunks reading
“Tenōre.”
As you recall, Kemper and a handful of professional surfer
friends, recently turned down contracts from disgraced RVCA. The
brand, absorbed by Authentic Brands alongside the aforementioned
Billabong and Quiksilver, icky like them too.
Rumors instantly percolated that RVCA founder Pat M. Tenōre was
up to something and is this it?
Tenōre beneath the bows?
Please mama?
More as the story develops.
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Lupita Nyong'o, the Mexican-Kenyan actress
living her best and most beautiful life on Instagram and, inset,
Lupita and Sal in happier days.
Surf world in meltdown after TMZ forgets
name of Lupita Nyong’o’s surfer-ex Sal Masekela and says he was
“not a super public figure”
"So, Lupita Nyong’o was dating this guy…I forget
his name…Sal…Mas…Mas…this dude…"
While war rages hither and yon and pro surfing
stubbornly refuses to climb out of its WSL-dug grave and the Pipe
Masters runs as a B-grade exhibition event, you should be
pleased your reporters at at BeachGrit are here to cover the
important and profound, in this case the love games of broadcaster
Sal Masekela and Black Panther star Lupita Nyong’o.
As I may’ve mentioned four or five times in the past few months,
and which I’ll cut and paste for your enjoyment below, I met the
extreme sports identity at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in 2017.
This was before Lupita Nyong’o and therefore Sal Masekela was,
ostensibly, single.
Occupying one of the bench seats in the Surf Ranch’s heated
jacuzzi aprés our allotted waves was Sal, he was Sal back then, and
just as I was about to enter the swirling maelstrom, heated to one
hundred degrees and offering needed respite from the winter cold
and a possible cure for a dreadful hangover, his telephone
rang.
Sal asked me to rummage through his colourful outfit which was
bundled on a barrel, enough clothes to suggest, or was I hoping, he
was nude in the tank, and to pick it up.
It was Kelly Slater.
“Answer it,” he commanded, which I did.
Kelly Slater remained silent when he heard my voice, an early
portent of the blood feud that would simmer for the following six
years.
After a howl of laughter and some chortling Sal hung
up.
Despite an expanded adiposity, he gobbled protein bar after
protein bar, informing me of the health-giving properties of the
foil-wrapped chocolate chip treats. Privately, I questioned the
wisdom of these calorie-dense treats and made a mental note to
avoid once they arrived in Australia.
Stories flowed like a river of honey, however, and I left, like
everyone who spun in his orbit that day, a fan for life.
I didn’t heard from Sal again and only knew in passing that he’d
transitioned to Selema.
Nine months later, the relationship was in ruins, with Lupita
Nyong’o publishing an unflattering picture of their affair on
Instagram.
“At this moment, it is necessary for me to share a personal
truth and publicly dissociate myself from someone I can no longer
trust,” writes Lupita Nyong’o, who won an Oscar for her performance
in 12 Years a Slave. “I find myself in a season of heartbreak
because of a love suddenly and devastatingly extinguished by
deception… I am reminded that the magnitude of the pain I am
feeling is equal to the measure of my capacity for love. And so, I
am choosing to face the pain, cultivating the courage to meet my
life exactly as it is, and trusting that this too shall pass.”
Worse, for Sal Masekela, however, after TMZ, the BeachGrit of
important celebrity news, called surfing’s beloved broadcaster and
star a nobody, while discussing Lupita Nyong’o
annihilation of any mention of Sal on socials as she pivoted to
the, let’s be frank, wildly inferior Josh Jackson.
"1. Wake up and think about Gaza. 2. Watch the
latest atrocities on phone. 3. Have breakfast think about
Gaza."
Many brave and loud voices were heard in the surf
community after twelve hundred Jews were either slaughtered, raped
and, or, kidnapped by the Iranian-backed and trained
religious extremist group Hamas on October
7.
The surf feminist and trans-in-sports-activist Lucy Small was
among the loudest, although Andy St Onge and Surf Equity ran a
close second and third, busily posting a series of stories after
the attack.
These included a reel from Al Jazeera showing Hamas
terrorists in paragliders landing in Israel and about to murder and
rape indiscriminately with the caption, “Palestinians in Gaza made
history as they escaped the world’s largest prison”.
Lucy Small and reposted story from
Qatari-sponsored news outfit Al Jazeera celebrating October 7
massacre of Jews.
Among today’s fusillade of stories, Small has revealed her
obsession with the conflict with an eighteen-point explanation of
an average day in the house of Chez Yay Hamas.
Small asks,
Anyone else’s day to day look a lot like:
1. Wake up and think about Gaza.
2. Watch the latest atrocities on phone.
3. Have breakfast think about Gaza.
4. Surf and get really furious about Gaza.
5. 2 hours on phone watching new developments in
Gaza.
6. Text friends about latest fury about Gaza.
7. Get really angry at the government.
8. Read some more background on historical atrocities
committed against Palestinians you didn’t know about.
9. Feel sad and hopeless about Gaza.
10. Start trying to imagine what peace would look
like.
11. Think about the poor woman whose baby died crying as she
says she got 580 injections to have him.
12. Watch some videos of settlers attacking civilians in the
West Bank.
13. Tears in eyes thinking about Palestine.
14. Start making plan to become the prime
minister.
15. Text friends for help.
16. Reply to some comments hoping someone might decide not
to be Zionist.
17. Watch more videos and think about everyone
Gaza.
18. Sleep.
Sure beats my day.
1. Wake up.
2. Brief regime of push ups and, or, chin ups.
3. Examine deltoids in mirror and run appreciative fingernail
along slightly raised vein in bicep.
4. Look at surf. Think, tide too high or too low.
5. Sauna.
6. Copy story from Surfer and/or Stab.
7. Nap.
8. Be depressed, briefly, over myriad emotional failures and
financial missteps.
9. Go to jiujitsu, get slept.
How does your timetable operate?
Are you weeping for the brave Mohammedan freedom fighters or it
don’t touch the sides, as they say?
