Wild days in the desert.

Bells are certainly chiming throughout the United Arab Emirates, this morning, as the calendar flips to exactly one week until the capital of the proud monarchy hosts its first-ever surf event. The Abu Dhabi Longboard Classic. Stop number three on the World Surf League’s 2024 Longboard tour. Stop number first, ever, for the UAE and all thanks to Kelly Slater.

The world’s greatest surfer dreamed big dreams, long ago, and conjured a wave pool technology so magnificent, so powerful and growling, that it simply had to find a home in a Middle East petrostate.

Enter the Emirates.

Slater built the pool, the largest man-made surf facility in the world which will, officially, open to the public in October but first host the Classic, which will feature 48 male and female cross-steppers and kicking off Sept. 27th.

The question on every professional longboard fan’s mind. Will regional Australian champion Sasha Jane Lowerson make the trip then don a singlet further making history?

You will certainly recall, last year, when the strawberry blonde, 45, became the first ever to win an event as a male, Ryan Egan, before transitioning to Lowerson. Her journey has been much covered by international news outlets making her the only professional longboarder, ever, to receive such attention.

It would be a boon but the history-making event might just be enough in and of itself.

The other question on every surf fan’s mind, I suppose. Will Slater himself be in attendance and will he bring his unnamed son in order to witness the moment?

Would be cool if he did.

Entry to the Longboard Classic is, any any case, free so if you are in the region and want to participate in watching, have right at it.

A devil's bargain if there ever was one.

As any surfer knows, it has become very difficult to surf without hordes of VALs, blow-ins, transplants etc. utterly clogging heretofore manageable lineups. What used to be ten surfers enjoying a dawn patrol has ballooned to fifty or sixty and not just fifty or sixty on modern performance shortboards but fifty or sixty on fifteen foot gliders.

Surfing in the apocalypse.

You can understand, then, how core lords and ladies up in Bolinas, near San Francisco, have pounced on a devil’s bargain allowing them to forgo crowds by surfing in sewage.

According to The San Francisco Standard, “Marin County officials were alerted to the issue when a permit inspection revealed sewage leaking along a bluffside property. A subsequent investigation and E. coli testing revealed ‘at least a few dozen’ locations across a 1.5-mile stretch where sewage was flowing onto the beach at a rapid clip, according to Sarah Jones, director of the Marin County Community Development Agency, which handles environmental health services.”

Grumpy locals reading and licking lips.

Mickey Murch, described as a second-generation farmer and Bolinas surfer, told the paper, “I really don’t know much about this except that the surf is nice and empty. I go in the water even during the biggest storms in the winter, when people’s septic systems are overflowing, so maybe I have a good immune system. I’m a nonbeliever.”

Others, standing nearby, nodding along but also holding fingers to lips, not wanting the secret to get out.

Residents are, of course, frustrated by the environmental breakdown but beggars can’t be choosers, these days. An empty wave even filled with poo worth much more than it was five or six years ago.

Over to you, now. Would you, like ol’ Mickey Murch, brave your immune system and paddle or fear the diarrhea?

More importantly, what would Kelly Slater do?

Not happy.

As the United States presidential election of ’24 reaches its backstretch, the elusive surf vote has become a prize for both parties. With Trump and Harris neck and neck, both campaigns are turning to previously ignored blocs, looking for that tiny edge that might just might tip the scales come November.

Team Trump was leading early with Kelly Slater’s very good friends RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard breaking for the former president. Slater is, of course, the big fish in the surf pool and with his endorsement the surf vote could be locked right up. Things got extremely interesting, though, days ago, when Kelly Slater’s other very good friend Jack Johnson announced that he was a “White Dude for Harris.”

Now, wave pool impresario Pharrell Williams has made his opinion on the matter known, specifically that celebrities, including surf ones, should shut their mouths when it comes to endorsements.

The multi-hyphenate artist-director-musician-etc. is also the brawn behind Atlantic Park, a Wavegarden tank in Virginia Beach that is certain to provide thrills for local surfers unable to ply their trade due medical waste. The opening cannot come soon enough but, in the meantime, Williams has thrown cold water all over Jack Johnson, openly declaring, “There are celebrities that I respect that have an opinion, but not all of them. I’m one of them people [who says], ‘What the heck? Shut up. Nobody asked you.’”

Ouch.

Haters flooded the hitmaker’s social media, complaining that he had really stepped in it this time. “Must be nice to ‘not do politics,’” one punched into the social media. “Some of us have no choice! Your lineage had no choice. Yet here YOU are pissing on them.”

“Not ‘doing politics’ is so incredibly privileged and out of touch,” another added.

Do you have thoughts on celebrity political endorsements?

What are they?

All eyes, in any case, back on Kelly Slater. Will he break for former BFF Barack Obama’s choice of Kamala Harris or new BFF RJK Jr.’s Trump?

Back to the Virginia Beach tank, though. Are you excited?