Kick rocks, Caity Simmers.

Shockwaves, this morning, through publishing as Surfer Magazine has returned to print with the bold declaration that surfing, today, is most wholly represented by a 53-year-old white man. The “Sport of Kings” is oft criticized for being retrograde and cloistered, though a shift toward progression is certainly underway. The women’s wild learning curve at waves like Pipeline and Teahupoo, for example, names like Caity Simmers and Vahine Fierro etched into history.

Or Morocco’s Ramzi Boukhaim flashing brave brilliance and earning worldwide respect. Maybe Australia’s Sasha Jane Lowerson cross-stepping right into the now.

Etc.

But no, the AI-enhanced editor-in-chief “Jake Howard,” crunched data and determined that the best visual representation of what surfing is, at this historical moment, is Kelly Slater.

Surfer, you will recall, died a miserable death at the hands of the National Enquirer’s David Pecker some handful of years back. Its corpse dumped in a shallow pit. Grave robbers calling themselves “The Arena Group” came under shadow of darkness, scooped the bones into a wheelbarrow, hustled back to a murky office building and re-animated the rot with AI. Soon, “Emily Morgan” was “writing” about Surf Lakes from Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains.

After getting in big trouble for dressing bots as people, Surfer hired the aforementioned overlord, “Howard,” who almost presents as a real boy, and then announced it would return to print.

The question “What is surfing today?” hovering in the upper lefthand corner of the first Arena Group issue cover answered by the 55-year-old Slater crouching in tube then gracing readers with a lengthy interview where he lets slip “The sporting side of surfing is just a small aspect for the average person, if at all. You have 20 million people around the world surfing, maybe tens of millions more than that, and the sporting side is non-existent for almost every one of those people.”

Korbel bottles popping, cigars lit in Surfer’s various home offices, toasting bold vision and wild trend forecasting.

Welcome to the bleeding edge.

Cowboy hat into the five rings.

The ’24 Paris Games is just barely in the rearview, the joys still reverberating across valleys, around mountains and over oceans. Surfing’s second Olympic offering, conducted in French Polynesia, was a mixed bag. An iconic image of Gabriel Medina going viral and a day so big and terrifying that the King of Teahupoo Filipe Toledo became too scared to paddle, on one hand. Small, inconsistent, lully days, on the other hand.

At the end, the other hand seemed to have a firmer grip with such stalwarts as JP Currie claiming that if surfing is to, indeed, have any Olympic future, the only real option is to throw it into a tank where

To wit, an impeccable source has shared that Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch has thrown its cowboy hat into the ring to host the surfing shortboard portion of LA ’28.

The plow, some 200 miles up the 5 freeway from Los Angeles in the middle of an industrial farming hellscape, is not the palm tree’d postcard Southern California beach scene

Thoughts?

I have a solid feeling that Huntington Beach will win, at the end, even though brave LGBTQ+ Olympic hopefuls will be very discouraged. Surf City, USA didn’t come by the moniker lightly, flashing teeth and biting Santa Cruz hard in order to win the dub. Lemoore, I’d imagine, would experience a greater grape of wrath.

Back to Olympic surfing, though. If Huntington doesn’t snuff the flame right out, do you think Brisbane ’32 will re-ignite it bigly?

Mick Fanning coming out of retirement to ride for the Southern Cross?

David Lee Scales and I did not discuss Mick Fanning, specifically, during our weekly chat, but did get into a savage Layne Beachley story. You must hear to believe.

"In 2022. I lost the majority of my work because a man groped me and I said something about it."

Professional surfing and its commentary form one of the most life’s most delicate tangos. The professional surfer showcasing his or her talent, trying to best an opponent by achieving speed, power and flow. The commentator, in booth, describing the nuances of priority, interference, speed, power and flow. The surf fan, watching and listening at home, is mesmerized by it all and, likely, imagines the commentary booth to be a paradise of sorts.

Shock, then, today when the very popular surf commentator Shannon Hughes revealed it to be a house of toxic sexist horrors. Taking to Instagram, the talented voice pulled no punches in describing the bad behavior, though not detailing which professional surfing governing body for which she was calling the action.

“In 2022,” she wrote, “I lost the majority of my work because a man groped me and I said something about it. In 2023, I had a producer aggressively seek to stop me from commentating with another woman because he considered it ‘unprofessional’ for two women to comentate together in sport. Almost a decade ago now, my male co-commentator did everything he could to not let me speak on air. At the end of the day, he chastised the producers for putting me and another woman alongside him, before stating in front of a group of ourpeers that he refused to ever work with a woman in the booth again.”

Extremely disturbing.

Hughes, who just finished calling the Olympics, signaled that she is stepping away from surf commentary in order to heal various ailments but also promised to return for the sake of women in sport.

Here’s to hoping the return comes sooner rather than later.