Kelly Slater and John John Florence
"So you're telling me retirement is a…feeling…not a commitment." | Photo: WSL

In bizarre switcharoo, John John Florence set to compete at Pipe Pro despite cutting ties from WSL tour

A three-day retirement that bests even Kelly Slater's short-lived sabbaticals…

In the sort of semi-retirement switcharoo not seen since one of Kelly Slater’s many short-lived sabbaticals, John John Florence has been announced as the local wildcard for the Lexus Pipe Pro, which begins in two days. 

Unless your memory is shot, you’ll remember triple world champ John John Florence, who is thirty-two, quit the tour three days ago announcing, 

I want to create the time to explore, find new waves, and draw different lines. I intend to compete full on for another world title in 2026, but right now this idea of adventure and creatively pushing my surfing as far as possible is really exciting! The ocean is so big and there are so many different types of waves to explore. I’m stoked to be filming into some new projects and planning to share the amazing places we get to go along the way.

John John Florence quits tour
John John Florence quits tour

Now, and as announced by the World Surf League, previously in tatters after the announcement that John was out, along with Gabriel Medina and Stephanie Gilmore, fourteen world tittles between ’em, John John Florence will take the locals wildcard.

You think the WSL had to beg John John to have a hit out at Pipe or was the lure of what’s looking like pretty ordinary Pipe enough to get him fired up?

I would suggest first, although not unconvinced it was the latter.

Where does the reader stand on three-day retirements?

 

 

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Surfer's Rock (pictured).
Surfer's Rock (pictured).

Influencers still reeling from momentary TikTok shutdown get more bad news as Brazil bans selfies on “Surfer’s Rock”

"Tourists and influencers have been known to wait in line for hours to pose on the edge of the iconic Surfers’ Rock..."

It has NOT been a good month for influencers. Life was upended, for many, when the popular short-form video sharing application TikTok went dark in the United States for 48-hours-ish after the land’s Supreme Court upheld a congressional ban due fears of spying. ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, happens to be a Chinese, much like Kelly Slater’s longtime girlfriend, and there was apparent evidence of much maleficence from the People’s Republic extending beyond turning children’s brains to mush.

But who could forget when the 11-time world surf champion clapped back at a historically inaccurate troll during a debate on Chinese fishing vessels wrecking the Galapagos Islands. “Writing me out of the blue talking shit is such a crock of shit,” Slater fired at his young nemesis, “Accusing me of being a racist? My girlfriend is Chinese. You’re on glue. You’re a miserable coward. And now you’re blocked.”

Anyhow, the TikTok ban was quickly reversed by incoming President Donald J. Trump but not without causing extreme sadness and feelings of anxiety for the aforementioned doyens. Their spiral of depression deepening, overnight, after Brazil outlawed the taking of selfies on the popular “Surfer’s Rock” due fears of not spying, but collapse.

The “naturally-formed surfboard-shaped rock that juts out over Lagoinha do Leste beach in Morro da Coroa, Brazil, has been the backdrop for hundreds of thousands of photos on Instagram,” according to PetaPixel, which explained, “Tourists and influencers have been known to wait in line for hours to pose on the edge of the iconic Surfers’ rock at the beach, for Instagram-worthy photos that give the illusion that the subject is dangling their legs over the precipice.”

Well, all the action has led to the possible demise of the stone which is an ongoing concern for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which charges “selfie-tourism” with destroying cultural landmarks around the globe.

“Unlike traditional tourism, which focuses on capturing personal memories,” UNESCO declares, “selfie-tourism is fueled by the need to generate visually appealing content for social media. Now, holidaymakers are choosing travel destinations simply because they look ideal for an Instagram photo.”

Much like Filipe Toledo in Tahiti.

But have you ever fallen into the trap of selfie-tourism?

Where were you and where did you pose?

Share, please.

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Great White shark returns to Granites, sight of Lance Appleby attack.
Great White shark returns to Granites, sight of Lance Appleby attack.

Speculation Great White shark that killed surfer Lance Appleby just returned to site of attack

"Get out and stay out of the water on the Eyre Peninsula if you are paddle surfing."

As the South Australian surf town of Streaky Bay tries to return to some sort of normality after the death of local surfer Lance Appleby, disappeared by a Great White while surfing Granites three weeks ago, news that a Great White has been spotted patrolling the popular surf spot.

Amid warnings the Great White population had returned to “pre-white man biomass” and that surfing on the Eyre peninsula was effectively over for anyone squeamish about being hit by a Great White, the shark was seen just thirty feet from the rocks.

Streaky Bay shark fisherman, surfer and authority on Great Whites, Jeff Schmucker, the man who caught the seventeen-foot, ton-and-a-half fish that killed surfer Cameron Bays at Cactus in 2000 and which was still hanging around six weeks after the attack, posted the warning on his Instagram account.

Great White attack South Australia
Schmucker’s warning on Instagram.

It was Schmucker who warned surfers, ten hours before the attack on Lance Appleby, to stay away from Granites after one mate’s cray pots had been grabbed by a frenzying Great White and another mate, fishing for whiting, had been stunned by a sixteen-foot Great White attacking the little fish in a couple of feet of water.

Jeff Schmucker's warning to surfers not to surf Granites.
Jeff Schmucker’s warning to surfers not to surf Granites.

One year earlier before the attack on Lance Appleby, 55-year-old Tod Gendle was hit, killed and disappeared by a fifteen-foot Great White while surfing among a crowd of a dozen surfers at Granites. The Great White left only Genle’s board and the stub of his legrope.

Earlier today, a light aircraft flying between Granite and Backbench spotted eight Great Whites.

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AI robot judge carries body of Luiz "Luli" Fernando Steffen Pereira out of the booth.
AI robot judge carries body of Luiz "Luli" Fernando Steffen Pereira out of the booth.

World Surf League judges eye unemployment after X-Games turns to artificial intelligent judging

Sorry, Luiz "Luli" Fernando Steffen Pereira. You won't be back.

The World Surf League’s 2025 Championship Tour season swings its gates wide in but three days though a clinical depression hangs heavy. The Pipeline Pro forecast is charitably bleak. Favorite professionals, like John John Florence and Stephanie Gilmore, have chosen to hang up the singlet. Others, like Gabriel Medina and Crosby Colapinto, out due injury. And the judges, from Luiz “Luli” Fernando Steffen Pereira on down, are busily eyeing unemployment lines after X-Games unveiled AI judging for the weekend’s snowboard halfpipe competition.

While the robot’s scores will not impact this year’s competition, the soft roll of this “experiment” likely spells the end of human score tabulations.

Jeremy Bloom, CEO of X Games, told USA Today, “Maybe this could be a tool that sits next to judges, so you have four judges and then this (as an actual) judge. Or it could be a piece of technology that judges could interact with, just to make sure they saw the trick appropriately. What the viewer will see, I think, is a glimpse into the future, a real technological glimpse into the future of where this can go.”

Yeah.

We have all seen the future and it looks like this.

Sorry, Luiz “Luli” Fernando Steffen Pereira. You won’t be back.

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Elon Musk sings song
And here's a little song by my ol' buddy Shaun Tomson, real good surfer, real pretty face.

Surf icon Shaun Tomson enrages Elon Musk haters further after writing song to heal left-right divide

Inventor of the climb-and-drop method of tuberiding drives the anti-Musk crowd nuts…again!

Two days ago we welcomed news that surf icon ShaunTomson had set off leftists worldwide with his fulsome praise of tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is also, like Tomson, a South African.

“Like him or not, he is a futurist and we better step there with our eyes open,” wrote the 1977 world surf champ, a man described by Matt Warshaw as an “Innovative and aristocratic regularfooter and inventor of the climb-and-drop method of tuberiding.”

Elon Musk haters quickly pounced on Tomson’s post.

For sure is a futurist, but he is also the one is also the one who spent words to support Alternative für Deutschland (AfD extreme right party, fascist/nazist) in Germany. Here in Europe the far right is growing, also in Italy, and this must be fought if we do not want history to repeat.

he’s destroying democracy in American…buying politicians to do his bidding. I wonder would you be ok with him doing that to your country…a place he left to become a US citizen

paving the road to dystopia. one crypto coin at a time. there’s nothing futuristic about a return to the late nineteenth century robber baron age. just because it looks futuristic doesn’t mean it is. a futurist is more like buckminster fuller or frank lloyd wright. musk is just a greedy douche. as long as humans don’t ride on his spaceships, designed and engineered by others with lack of attention to the kind of process required for man rated spaceflight, at least no one will get killed.

Shaun Tomson, who turns seventy this year, was off grid with his wife Carla when the sparks flew, and only saw the flames late yesterday when he quickly posted on Facebook.

“What a surprise about my last Elon Musk post – so much negative sentiment about this futurist-like him or hate him, you better take note of him,” Tomson wrote. “My mission is to spread a positive wave of hope and purpose around the world and bring people together through the Surfer’s Code so I was surprised with the darkness.”

And, then, Tomson delivered the sort of coupe de grace he used to reserve for his tour competitors.

“For all the Elon Musk haters out there and for his supporters too, here is a song that I wrote that you might enjoy – it is about hope and that’s what we all need in our divided and broken world.”

The song, Take Me Home, although not to be confused with the John Denver classic, is exhilarating and audacious. I defy the listener to come away with a mind unchanged.

And, yet, amid a sea of converts, all praising Shaun Tomson’s positivity, a few staunch holdouts.

A man who hordes wealth at the expense of the poor and aligns himself with the worst of us is no role model for the future of our planet.

if dystopia is the future then musk is a futurist.

go back to sa and stay out of US politics

are you now going to normalize his Hail Hitler salute? Sounds to me like you are being selective in where you want to seek your information. Are you normalizing his “freedom of speech” approach on his Social Media platform? Where you can’t criticize him but you can spread hate speech, misogyny, and racism?

Good luck with your soul, Shaun. What a disappointment you turned out to be.

Did song convert you?

Do you now believe Elon Musk is a man of infinite heart or do you believe he still dresses his foulness up in perfume and wit?

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