"This is not AI."
The opening bell of, well, Bells, is but days away. Our professional surfing heroes and heroines back in singlet for what will no doubt be a memorable season. While the grouchy amongst us will approach 2026 with their ugly and unhelpful glass-half-full mentality, bemoaning the fact that John John Florence is sitting another year out, for example, the optimists will thrill that Gabriel Medina is back.
Yes, the Brazilian hunk missed all of 2025 due injury, having ripped his booby, surf fans everywhere wondering if he’ll be in fighting shape or… not.
The last we saw him, anyhow, was flying high in Teahupo’o on his way to Olympic bronze at the ’24 Paris Games. More importantly, though, was the viral image snapped wherein he appeared to be walking on clouds.
Well, a plagiaristic dolphin, sensing how cool it all was, completely ripped Medina off a few short weeks ago by launching itself into the air off Maui’s western shore.
Noted as a pantropical spotted dolphin, by the Pacific Whale Foundation, the species grows to between 6 and 7 feet long and 250 pounds and can leap upwards of 20 feet out of the water.
Taking to social media, the conservation group shared, “This is not AI. Introducing the Micheal Jordan of Dolphins.”
What, of course, they meant to write was “Introducing the Gabriel Medina of Dolphins.”
Medina, anyhow, will be coming up against Al Cleland Jr. in round 1’s heat 14.
Here for it.
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I am thoroughly convinced that you suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder and need to seek professional help.
Beware the Dolphin Storm.
the dolphin is actually my pet dolphin, the photo is not that interesting.
only thing remotely interesting about this article is: “The opening bell of, well, Bells, is but days away”….and: “Gabriel Medina is back.”
It’s actually round 2. This year it appears round one consists of 4 heats. Can someone please explain? Longtom?
Same setup as the challenger.
last on the ranking plus wildcards man on man over 4 heats for a spot in the bracket stage. (32/16/Quarters/semis/final)
Well at least every heat from the beginning is man on man elimination. Right?
Yeah and only 4 heats instead of 20 to eliminate 4 surfers, which reduces a day of competition.
On the down side it makes it harder for bottom seeds to climb up.
Fuck em make em grind
Dolphin drones. Something else to kill you in the surf.
That’s a travel. Just like Michael.
LeBron king of travel
with enough amphibious support from dolphins like this, we might be able to reopen the Strait of Hormuz!
that ain’t gunna happen soon!
that must feel fuckin’ awesome.
nice piece on laird, Chas – saw how you introduced yourself, but did he actually call you Charlie or Chas? Seems like a guy who might go with Charlie.
And did you ask him about the allegations of wave hogging made against him on your pod??
What on Earth are you talking about here?
brand new surfer’s journal, Chas has a whole piece on visiting Laird for a day and running his training program and interviewing him
Brand new? Didn’t that happen years ago?
an entire feature with pics that appears on p 46 of the April/May 2026 TSJ, so hopefully Chas didn’t troll TSJ by sending them a few years old story he found in an unmarked folder on his hard drive
*although I wouldn’t put it past him
Maybe it was last week but seems like a couple years ago in below the line time.
I think they only recently got around to publishing it and that Chas submitted it roughly a year ago or more
turns out you both have much better memories than I do, here’s the piece with Laird as published on BG “one year ago,” which tracks very closely with the published piece: https://beachgrit.com/2024/11/laird-hamilton-hate-surfing/
Thanks, Rocks. The BG piece an amuse bouche.
Couple of new fantasy surfer sites for sad fucks to play pretend in.
https://www.thefantasysurftour.com
https://www.fantasysurfingleague.com
I don’t think this qualifies as “top shelf original & insightful surf-pop satire”.
You ever thought to prove your critics wrong with action instead of just whining about their mean words?
I am simply pointing out that your boyfriend is being cunty with his comments at the moment.
But, while we are on the topic, have you ever thought about not being a racist, narcissistic, xenophobic, comment deleting, wannabe bogan/tall poppy, champ? I am guessing no.
We know what you’re trying to do.
Can’t you do it whilst at least trying to be creative/ funny / original/ interesting?
You can use a bit of flair on the way. Whether it falls flat or not matters less than the attempt.
For instance I could just straight out call you a cunt (boring, basic) or I could say :
Q /How many wrinkles has a cunt got?
A / You smile and I’ll count them.
May work, may not but we all try in our own little way. This is supposed to be entertaining and it’s up to us all to pitch in because if we leave it all up to Chaz then this empty vessel about a leaping dolphin will be dragged out into a twelve part mini-series.
Ok, I’m liking that reply. I’ll see what I can do but no promises.
You might not have noticed but 78% of your commentary is moaning about others here. I’ve done the maths.
how much of my commentary is self-aggrandizement though? I’d say it’s easily approaching 70%, if I do say so myself.
Well you’re the hardest of the hard men here. 🥊
Reach for the stars and get it up to 80%.
have I ever had my posts deleted…..asking for the younger aggro me,lol?
Angry posts are fine. Dull, cruel or broken record boring on the other hand…
Veecon 4 for the win btw.
I love it when Negs comes off as an angry referee in a sporting event. And I am very grateful to not have had him blow his whistle in my direction ( at least that I can remember!).
You’re so full of shit it’s coming out your mouf. (Or maybe fingers)
Nothing sad fuck about having a sporting wager on the outcome of surf comps. We are surfers, we’re interested in the live-action cutting edge surfing that comps provide. It’s a healthy social outlet and good for community to unite over a shared passion.
It’s just the whole US “fantasy sports” tag that makes it sound like a bunch of pasty nerds engaged in some shameful Dungeons and Dragons fairy wizard role play fetish.
Going to the Melbourne Cup with your mates isn’t called Fantasy Jockey.
Own it.
There’s an idea though—dungeons and dragons dice rolling nerd shit, but the campaign is just a year of the CT. But it would really need to be set in the Elo era to have more easily identifiable NPC villains.
The new WSL fantasy is kinda complicated. Have you looked into these ones? Is there one you prefer? Can you set up your own private league on these ones?
I think you may have exceeded your question allotment by 3x for the day.
If you could just look into it and get back to me that would be great. Thanks bud.
I’ll start a BG club in all of them.
😆
I’d score this a 6.9
You are living up to the lofty standards of the two-star troll badge.
Is there a site for betting on who Tylers new sponsor’s gonna be?
https://images.fastcompany.com/image/upload/wp-cms/uploads/2020/06/i-These-LGBTQ-friendly-brands-are-putting-their-money-behind-Pride-target-813×457.webp
Finally a classic that is leaps and bounds above the sea of click bait hate.
Some might say Chas is being lazy, but I tend to think he did it on porpoise…
But how is one to respond to this sharty with “top shelf original & insightful surf-pop satire”? Seems out of reach when the topic doesn’t meet the standards required by Negatrump.
See comment above ⬆️
The answer to your question is simplicity itself: DON’T respond. Have you heard the old 60s adage “what if they threw a war and nobody showed up?”? Well, what if Chas and DR posted clickbait/political sharticles and nobody responded? In both cases, the world would be a better place.
in related news, after flirting with CI’s , Medina apparently back on Cab’s to start the wsl season
(i.e., just post what interests you, regardless of what’s in the article)
But that doesn’t seem to fit with Occ’s statement of “DON’T respond”. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of post what interests you. It’s don’t post anything unless I like it. Pretty lame.
Not so fast! I liked Rocks’ reply. If one feels compelled to reply to a moronic article, such as this one, they can always post something that has nothing whatsoever to do with the article.
Yet here you are posting replies to my replies that you claim not to like. Maybe, just maybe, take your own advice and DON’T post. Or just continue on as you were (although that would make you seem to be a hypocrit).
B, your problem is that you need to broaden your horizons. 😉
Not commenting on an article or posting something completely unrelated to it are two sides of the same coin. Each says “fuck this article” loud and clear.
I see what you’re saying but why is that better than simply commenting whatever comes to mind? I guess I just don’t get it and see it as complaining about not liking the comments I post and wanting to be what you want posted. Doesn’t matter anyway. I really like star fruit. You?
Yes, love star fruit, particularly the smaller variety, when they are tree ripened. We have three trees.
We had a huge tree in the front yard when I lived there. Grabbed a few of those before work everyday I saw ripe ones.
In completely unrelated news, upon walking around my property just now, I discovered two ripe rose apples, a rare treat. What are rose apples, you may ask? It’s a fruit that tastes like a rose smells. Most of them growing on BI are stricken by a fatal fungus, so one that is healthy and producing fruit is unusual. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
grows like an absolute weed around here- most of the fruit gets stung by fruit fly or eaten by fruit bats.
Steak restaurants and now gardening chat.
get SC back in here Negs- he did nothing that others did not do and I’ll never mention bats eating ripe fruit and pissing all over my wetsuits again.
Otto’s pad is gunna look like Einstein’s blackboard
Didn’t see anyone else go there this bad and he’s fresh off a ban. Dude has a young Daughter too.
Retarded, dumb and cruel commentary is like a cancer, one starts and a few others chip in and next minute it’s spread beyond fixing. I’ve seen it before on various sites over the years and eventually it just washes the interesting voices away. I’m not putting a second more time into this subject, got better things to be doing so invite him to Swelllnet if you want him in your world. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Thanks for the context. I’d wondered what he had said.
Before you write anything about Tyler you should ask yourself this : Would I say this in front of her brothers?
She’s definitely not beyond deserving of criticism but being a spiteful cunt is not something that works for anyone.
Are you fucking serious? You should ask yourself if you would look in the face of a Hawaiian or Maori and say the shit you have posted on here. You would either shut your dirty mouth or be dead. These flip flop comments and double standards are fucking ridiculous.
Just admit that it has more to do with you not liking the guy than some sort of holier than thou stance. Beef is posting goiter photos with terrible commentary and your reaction is to invite him into your NZ fantasy league? Double fucking standard right there.
Break my another second here.
Truth be told I like SC more than Beef. Beef was way more personal and up my arse when he first got here.
The goiter thing is dumb but it’s original and so obscure and abstract, obviously fantasy.
Beef and I have mutual friends. We need 5 more players and I’d happily take his money to pay for my two new custom Timmy Pattersons I’ll be winning.
Regardless. You seem to always be bitching about something like a scorned hairdresser. It’s got worse this year. What’s really up in your life? I ask this out of genuine concern.
My life couldn’t be better, loving it. I simply come here to make snarky comments for entertainment. The fact that it bothers you so much means nothing to me, not because I dislike you, I just don’t consider that when I write something. Again, I just try to reply with a smartass comment thinking someone/anyone might get some entertainment out of it. But, having some anonymous person try to relate these comments/posts to some sort of negative in my life is utterly ridiculous.
What I am currently seeing below the line here though is a moderator who only wants to see and read what he wants to see and read. It’s the polar opposite of freewheeling and open minded this place used to be. I think some people call it drunk on power. But, thing is, I don’t know you and any interpretation or character judgement I might try to develop in relation to you would be based on your own snarky comments that are almost always rooted in comedic value/entertainment (except when you get drunk on the power thing). In the end, you now have a bunch of people bending the knee to you and tiptoeing around trying not to draw your ire or contempt. The few people who do try to clap back are either placed on a ban or end on the receiving end of your minions written attacks. It wasn’t like that just a few years ago. Kinda sad in a way. I have said many times that I think the people who argue back and forth on here would enjoy each others company more than they think and that includes you.
BG stories and moderation lines have been the same since day 1, 11 years ago. 11 years in and there’s 2 people on the banned list and sometimes I go weeks at a time without deleting a comment. But yip drunk on the power with all my minions bending at the knee ready to serve.
Fact is SC made a fucking horrible personal insulting comment fresh out of the ban hole. Yes others weren’t in top form either, but hey wouldn’t want to called a power tripper and bend the commentary to what I want to see and read would I. Now go and live your couldn’t be better and loving it life you have!
Indeed.
Isn’t it lovely? Are you missing the subtext here? People often at each other’s throats come together when discussing such things. Also, we ignore the idiotic content of the article above: win/win. Today, I learned that in Australia, fruit bats eat rose apples. Who knew?
I’m a fan. Just a dig, he was complaining about not having SC’s flair and having to read steak house reviews instead.
I found a guava tree growing here the other day. It was hanging out over the pavement from someone’s yard. Total surprise. Never seen one here.
I have two small ‘Hawaiian’ variety guava trees at what used to be my house, but they always fruit too late into the cold season and never ripen properly.
They taste like poo?!
“Tastes like a rose smells”… Think I would just leave that on the vine but thats just me.
Yup. I did say at the time that a few photos / sessions on CI,s didn’t mean anything.
I’d love to see him do a season on CI but, realistically, he and Cab both likely have a lot of money vested in their shared relationship.
What you just did is a comment not a post. The article was the post. So… you should have said “just comment what interests you regardless of what’s in the post “
So you can’t post a comment?
I’m confused.
I must say, this new found concept of only posting what others approve of will lead to complete vanilla bullshit below the line. I see quite a few comments claiming to be open to the post/opinions of others but they seem to be followed by “only post what I like” statements as well. Pretty fucked up if you ask me but no one is actually asking so take it as you want.
ah vanilla bullshit…now there’s something we can all try and stay away from….one thing about BG is it’s community of people with differing opinions / religions/ethnic backgrounds…….I actually enjoy all the argy bargy between us all…..yeah there are always some out of line comments …but I would rather see it in a public forum so at leats it’s out in the open….
Have some friends who were gravitating towards One Nation…..until I explained they are Aussie maga….how trump doing…losing on all sides but taking us with him…….so lets start navigating on how to survive……
Looks like I will be farming my own veggies soon and culling the odd roo. Plenty of boards in the shed, might be riding the pushy to the other capes on weekends with the swag also.
Xox
honestly, the regular commenters here should just start a discord or reddit subforum.
naw, I’m still gonna rage bait this shit
Well I guess someone has to do it.
The dolphin landed on top of Tower 9! With Strayan Cunt on its back!
6.8 comment
The two exclamation points have to bring it up to a 7.0 at least, right?
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
here’s a bit of rage bait…just had to cancel my VC 4 world tour…Hawaii/USA/UK/France/Spain……new surfboards global market collapsed…so next year when the war might end…meanwhile, we have BG to vent,LOL!
Philippines declared a state of emergency, related to their fuel supplies.
As the kids on the internet say, we always expected rich, white men to bring about the end of days; we just didn’t expect them to be fuckin morons. Small island economies must be getting wrecked right about now.
You’re blessed that you have such a beautiful, vast and wealthy country to have to hunker down in. Hopefully things improve soon and you can travel again.
Australia has the worst/lowest stock pile of oil/Petrol in the Western World …just in NSW/Vic about 500 stations have run out of fuel…..
So yeah nice place to hunker down for the next 6-12 mths….but we will and are suffering a serious change in lifestyle……
So yeah travel to shape , dead in the water….it’s now how to survive the next year or so……might be time to go on a pensions and retire and become a permanent BG commentator….
Post food shots !
dammit. well, there’s always next year, assuming that the world doesn’t end by then
yeah just reorganizing my business…might keep sending a box of customs …have quite a few over there…and as you can see trump has totally fucking bogged down in the ME….the iranians do not want a ceasefire, as they know the damage that they are doing to the global economy….so where to now…….hopefully by Xmas things will be sorted out, meanwhile it’s survival!
From VCON 4 to DEFCON 4…
i see what you did there…
was watching a podcast with LeBron James, Austin Reaves and Steve Nash, and Nash was wearing a Palm Springs Surf Club t-shirt. I’ve no doubt that he surfs as he’s an incredible athlete. Plays football really well too.
Chas, you or Scales need to get the scoop on him. His podcast, with Bron, is based in LA.
A two-time mvp from Canada. Inspiration for Brooks
Chas – quiet quitting is best done in a dingy corner of an office where your lack of effort is likely to go unnoticed. Not broadcast into the world with a bold type headline bringing maximum attention to the minimal effort.
If you’re going to chase click bait it’s best to at last remember the bait.
No more losers rounds. No more wasting a day to get rid of four people. Bells will still suck. Ewing and Moore for the win.
Gonna see some brutal heartbreaks with those first round eliminations
Wozzle might need to keep a therapist on staff for when the ladies break down in a flood of tears after being eliminated in the first round , multiple contests in a row.
Very harsh, and I’ll be watching the first rounds closely for the first time …probably ever.
Why is Brisa Hennessy in this event? She missed the mid year cut off and was in only one challenger event. WTF?
She gets a wildcard as she ponders pregnancy.
8.5 comment. Excellent range mate!
The cyclone off of NW WA may cross into the Southern Ocean as redeveloping low and give a grand amount of swell. Maybe.
Xox
Told ya . 7 and a half foot at least
9ft faces.
Xox