The World Surf League issued an email late last night relating
to the upcoming Hurley Pro Sunset Beach, reminding “petty, whiny, constantly
complaining, cry baby” surf fans that “patience is a
virtue.” Yes, the window on the second 2024 championship tour event
of the season is open, but there have been no waves ridden, no
scores locked. The “global home of surfing” has been decidedly
snakebit, when in comes to conditions, during the past year,
extending into this one. Some blame former CEO Erik Logan’s famed
poo-poo touch. Others, an unfortunate luck of the draw.
Whoever, or whatever, is at fault, at least we have Huntington
Beach.
Surf City, USA has long been cherished, amongst the
aforementioned surf fans, for its riots and crumbly hippity hoppity
waves though only really enjoyed in the summertime. Now, as the
Orange County gem is providing year ’round fun as a brave “culture
war capital.”
Huntington Beach, a city of about 194,000, has become a
microcosm of a polarized America in the Trump era. Norms of comity
have given way to a zero-sum game where total conquest is sought
because the opposing party’s values are seen as
un-American.
“It’s a blood sport to be involved in Huntington Beach,”
said Tony Strickland, part of the conservative council majority.
“So many people are active. That’s a good thing, not a bad
thing.”
The new council majority in Huntington Beach voted to remove
books deemed as having sexual content from the teen section of the
library, restricted who could give the opening prayer before city
council meetings, and stripped the three liberals of assignments on
boards and commissions. Last week it took on the border dispute in
far away Texas.
On the left side, Protect Huntington Beach is seeking to take
down their sworn political enemies.
“We know that other cities and counties are watching us,” Cathey
Ryder, one of the founders of Protect Huntington Beach, told the
news service. Dan Kalmick, one of the three liberals on the
council, labeled the majority’s actions “nihilism.”
“It just seems to be spite and trying to own the libs,” he said.
“Taking this level of national politics down to the local level
breaks local government, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Elections are less than one month away, Surf City’s fate decided
by the people.
Do you have a horse in the race?
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Chas Smith hates surfing but enjoys a broiling
below-the-line commentariat.
Chas Smith defends online trolls whose
cruel words toppled world surfing champ Filipe Toledo
"Never before in the history of professional
surfing… not once… has power rested so squarely with the
people."
Following surf guru Sam George’s savage attack on the
online commentariat this morning, Chas Smith has mounted a
robust defence of the below-the-line artist.
Speaking from his Tuscan-inspired villa, a pink-washed home
characterised by its romantic beauty and long-lasting craftsmanship
in north San Diego county Chas announced,
“Uprisings, coming up from the commentariat, bubbling…
broiling… exploding onto the surf scene and bringing real
change.”
Chas Smith added,
“The people have arrived. The World Surf League’s gilded VIP
zones are meaningless. Who would want to go shoulder rub the
spoiled sons and daughters of shallow surf privilege… when he or
she could be in a comment section, setting the very surf world on
fire.”
Sam George had earlier written,
“Take a quick scroll though the typical comment section on
popular surfing sites (with the exception of the one you’re
currently visiting, occasionally shamed for its generally positive
tone) and let’s review what the Poster Posse is currently bitching
about. Professional competitive surfing really takes a beating, the
WSL World Championship Tour, especially, held accountable for
crimes ranging from holding contests at shitty surf spots like
Pipeline, Sunset Beach, Supertubes, Bells Beach, Margaret River,
Teahupo’o, Punta Roca, Saquarema, Cloudbreak and Lower Trestles
(all premier breaks that the average poster would have no chance of
ever riding even a medium set wave), to blatant criteria
inconsistencies, Filipe Toledo’s distain for big, dangerous waves,
the patently unfair mid-season cut, Joe Turpel (on a purely
existential level) and calling off the Pipe Masters because the
waves were deemed too big and dangerous for Toledo’s fellow
competitors, most of whom indicated that given the choice they’d
rather not paddle out.”
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Icon portrait of Jodie Cooper at Sunset Beach, Hawaii,
by Tom Servais
Dirty Water: Jodie Cooper and her dreams of
Biblical revenge after being attacked by a mat-rider in surf
“I was going to suck it up. I was thinking, ‘Don’t
worry, mate, I’ll wait and bide my time…an eye for an eye.”
This interview with Jodie Cooper was the last podcast
the surf writer and commentator Ben Mondy recorded for us and took
place around eighteen months ago.
Mondy and I had worked together at a Sydney publishing house in
the real early two thousands, he Tracks, me Waves. And while my
surfer connections withered to nothing after Andy died and Bruce fled the scene,
Mondy’s had flourished as he pivoted hard into surf commentary.
In the interview, Joe Cooper touched on the assault and her
reasons for pressing charges.
“I wasn’t his first victim. Hopefully, I was his last. He picked
the wrong person as you know. He picks on women, he picks on young
kids, that’s the type of species that guy is and there’s a lot of
them out there still.”
Initially, Jodie was gonna avoid any police action and wait for
her moment to strike back.
“I was going to suck it up. It was traumatic for sure. I didn’t
need the attention. I didn’t want the attention and I knew it was
going to draw a lot of attention. I was thinking, ‘Don’t worry,
mate, I’ll wait and bide my time…an eye for an eye.”
But,
“I got so much feedback, people contacted me who he had attacked
pleading with me to do something. That’s why I decided to press
charges.”
It’s a good interview, but I wanted more! The revenge fantasy!
What hell would’ve struck her assailant?
Anyway, the files just appeared on my desktop, had a re-listen,
though it’s a story worth re-telling.
“There isn’t much about Jodie Cooper
that I don’t love,” Matt Warshaw told me back in 2020.
“Jodie seems indomitable in a way, unbreakable, but there’s
something kind of hard-luck about her too. I don’t quite know why.
Maybe I’m just still pissed on her behalf because that geezer
Thompson who assaulted her basically walked, which seemed like a
pretty grievous miscarriage of justice.
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The great surf master Sam George (pictured) at
work.
Guru Sam George savages “petty, whiny,
constantly complaining cry-baby” surf website commenters in full
frontal assault
"Let’s review what the Poster Posse is currently
bitching about."
When the great Sam George speaks, we listen.
When he types, we read and marvel. The former Surfer
Magazine senior editor and current The Inertia
contributor, has seen more, done more, learned and forgotten more
about this surf life than anyone and, thus, surf website commenters
woke up this morning feeling sad.
In a scorching
op-ed, Nia Peeples’ ex-husband absolutely savaged
“petty, whiny, constantly complaining cry-baby” observers,
declaring:
Take a quick scroll though the typical comment section on
popular surfing sites (with the exception of the one you’re
currently visiting, occasionally shamed for its generally positive
tone) and let’s review what the Poster Posse is currently bitching
about. Professional competitive surfing really takes a beating, the
WSL World Championship Tour, especially, held accountable for
crimes ranging from holding contests at shitty surf spots like
Pipeline, Sunset Beach, Supertubes, Bells Beach, Margaret River,
Teahupo’o, Punta Roca, Saquarema, Cloudbreak and Lower Trestles
(all premier breaks that the average poster would have no chance of
ever riding even a medium set wave), to blatant criteria
inconsistencies, Filipe Toledo’s distain for big, dangerous waves,
the patently unfair mid-season cut, Joe Turpel (on a purely
existential level) and calling off the Pipe Masters because the
waves were deemed too big and dangerous for Toledo’s fellow
competitors, most of whom indicated that given the choice they’d
rather not paddle out.
George includes two more long lists of surf website commenter
depravity including “the great wave pool whinge,” the attack on
adult learners and sponsors who drop surfers (“return on
investment, uncool man,” the silver haired guru mocks) before
defining the social sickness leading to such antagonisms before
pointing out that things, in this surf life, are really good and
generally above complaint before dropping the hammer:
A while back I wrote a feature strongly making the point
that virtually every middle-aged surfer without a sponsor’s sticker
on their board were riding their three-fin thrusters wrong. By the
third response, however, the conversation had already degenerated
beyond a discussion of surfboard design and took a sharp turn to
the personal, with the angry, anonymous poster declaring that I was
an eff-ing kook, pointing to my failed marriage to actress Nia
Peeples, who played “Keani” in the cult favorite North
Shore.
No comment.
Oh.
Ummmm, please disregard the Nia Peeples’ ex-husband line
above.
As you were.
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Johnny Cabianca makes landfall in Australia. | Photo:
@lucasbalbino_
Gabriel Medina’s lifelong surfboard
designer Johnny Cabianca arrives in Australia on shaping tour
A real-life virtuoso artist. But blink and you’ll
miss!
If there’s one thing you’ll know about Gabriel Medina, it’s
his devotion to the shaper Johnny Cabianca, the virtuoso artist
who’s been building Medina’s boards since 2009.
Back then, it was Johnny Cabianca’s old pal Charlie Medina,
Gabriel Medina’s now estranged step-daddy, who asked Johnny to
shape his sixteen-year-old prodigy boards for the European leg of
the WQS.
Their relationship was cemented when Gabriel Medina ruled that
year’s King of the Grommets contest in Hossegor. Five tens in the
event, two in the final. Slater telling the world Medina was gonna
win ten world titles. At least.
Johnny had thrown three rockers at Medina. He chose the
flattest.
And for a dozen years, the boards only changed in foil and
outline as Medina grew, the essence of the board, the the full
concave, the rocker, stayed the same.
Always looking for hacks. Short-cuts. Hard-work, coaching,
YouTube tutorials and hours in the water ain’t my MO. A couple of
years back, I ordered two of Johnny Cabianca’s
creations straight from his factory in Zarautz. I knew the
freight was gonna exhaust my bank balance but believed Johnny
Cabianca was selling magic carpets.
The two boards, a 5’’10” Medina and a 5’11” DFK
were blindingly easy to ride. No special skills needed. Anyone who
could arrive at a standing position, and knew the nose from the
tail, could pilot
‘em.
“I never pretend to be anything more than high intermediate,
competent is the vain term. The DFK is a board that is reassuringly
easy to come to grips with,” wrote LT. “After riding various
high-performance shortboards I’ve come to believe that control is
the most important variable.
“Johnny Cabianca has put a high-performance sled square into the
Goldilocks zone for the average recreational surfer. I cannot
recommend highly enough.
“Gabe’s DFK is the easiest pro level board I’ve wrangled.”
Both my boards were eventually creased but never sent into the
trash wilderness, the magic pair occupying a purgatory in the
corner of a room, one day hoping to be reunited with Johnny
Cabianca so he could replicate.
The COVID thing made freight impossibly expensive and I’ve
waited out these subsequent years for Johnny Cabianca to make
landfall on Australian shores.
And Johnny, who’s sixty but presents as a strong man who could
do the laborious hewing and chinking on a log cabin, is hands
on.
“I have Friday, Saturday, Sunday Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
before I start to come back to Spain,” says Cabianca, adding he’ll
carve Medina’s Bells and Margaret River quivers while he’s in
town.
If you’re wondering, Medina’s Bells and Margaret’s boards differ
from the small-wavers he’ll ride in Portugal with half-a-litre, at
least, extra volume on a rack of boards between six-o and six two.
All of ’em are round-tails, all around thirty to thirty-two litres,
with only the rails differing markedly tween Margs and
Bells.
“The rail for Bells is more round, more soft, the rail should be
more free there, that’s what I feel,” says Cabianca. “When he moves
to Margarets it’s different. I do the rail a little more sharp,
same volume. Last year he won the contest with a six-one and the
waves were…wow…the waves were scary, that final was heavy!
And the board works really well, stability and how he was finishing
the last manoeuvre was everything. I’ll try and keep that sharp
rail, more drive in the rail, more penetration.”
For the mostly small waves of Portugal, Medina is all over
swallow tails.
“For good scores, the people, the judges, they want more open
curves with more velocity not the slow movements,” says Cabianca.
“With the swallow you can break the line faster, you can change the
nose direction faster.”
“Well, how can I say, it’s like this: everybody looking at
Gabriel’s surfing and a good surfer is always a mystery,” says
Cabianca. “When a good surfer tries to surf with my boards, they
feel something different, because they have something where they
can read well the wave. They know how to move the board. The DFK
has a lot of concave, more rocker… if it’s a good wave or there’s a
good pocket in the wave and the guy knows how to use the board in
those conditions, it’s easy to surf and comfortable. The good
surfer can use a lot of pressure on the board and it
works.
“When it’s not a beginner but not a really good surfer, the
first sensation is a stiff board. It’s what I hear, when the guy
arrives to me, ‘The board feels a little bit stiff, the board is
not working well, I need to pump a lot’ I like to see the guy
surfing. Sometimes it’s not a good surfer and we have different
models for this.”
“The Medina is the opposite,” says Cabianca. “It’s for these
kind of surfers, like me for example. I’m old but with a lot of
pain in the back and the arms are not so strong anymore. But never
stop to surf! And here, the Medina is more flat, more wide, the
rail is more full. I try to bring all the volume to the rail, more
stability, not a lot of concave.People can move better the rail to
rail when you don’t have a lot of concave in the front foot. It’s a
good board in really bad conditions.”
Cabianca says he gets told by his team riders that the Medina
isn’t high performance, that it’s a good board, sure, but not for
good waves or for wining heats.
One thing he hasn’t ever been super into, Cabianca or Medina, is
epoxies.
Medina used to hate ‘em, but now fools around with
vacuum-wrapped carbon shooters in the off-season or for fun at the
myriad wave pools in Brazil.
Judges, says Cabianca, aren’t fooled by their
liveliness.
“Man, I don’t see many guys using super-light epoxies. I don’t
know if epoxies can give you the same answers, the same ability to
connect manoeuvres as PU boards,” says Cabianca. “PU works well for
the connection.
Johnny Cabianca says Medina will burn through a hundred boards a
year, maybe a dozen more if he’s been doin’ a few side trips.
Do they come back or does Medina keep ’em?
Johnny hoots and says he was at Medina’s house last Christmas
and he was stunned by how many boards he had, some completely new,
unwaxed, others still inside their plastic bags. When he started to
examine the boards closely, Medina begged him not to touch.
The mark of the master sorcerer, Johnny Cabianca.
Photo: Lucas Balbino
“He likes to give to friends
when he receives friends at home, likes to give the boards to
people to use. He’s using the boards to make people happy,” says
Cabianca.
Medina’s generosity was felt as far afield as Abu Dhabi when
Medina joined Kelly Slater on the unveiling of Slater’s UAE
pool.
“I prepared five boards and I think, man, I’ll do something new.
New rockers. New foil. A board for doing more manoeuvres in the
short space of this wave. I close this box and I send to
Brazil.”
Medina, who flew to Abu Dhabi with Slater and pool wizard Filipe
Toledo via the Ments where they enjoyed a surprisingly waveless
seven days, ended up riding his old shooters and gifting the
painstakingly created new boards to “the princes and the rich
guys.”
Cabianca says Medina told him, “Every night, Johnny, every night was dinner,
these guys were receiving us. For sure I’m going to give something
to the guys!”
