I have the EDDIE on the big screen in the living room. LIVE!
I HAVE a separate stream on my tablet, and I’ll probably (as in definitely) look for another stream to watch on the laptop after I post this. If NATHAN FLORENCE repeats the ‘you’re part of the crew’ type coverage he had for the PIPE MASTERS, yes, big screen.
A couple of questions need to be answered about the event: Why don’t those surfers go for the inside waves? Is Waimea just a big drop with no wall? Can I surf those waves? Should some of those free surfers even be out there, fancy vests and all?
They’re all afraid of getting caught inside of the forecasted forty foot closeouts. Yes, mostly drop in with four or five others and get covered by the soup, maybe getting picked up by one of those jet skies; either way you’re a hero for even making it out. Yes, or maybe, or maybe in my younger days, or no. I saw some raw footage Friday, yesterday (SOLSTICE- today’s one second longer, daylight-wise), and I watched some coverage of JAWS and MAVERICK’S, and, and, and… for as absolutely horrifyingly frightening PIPELINE was, these deep channel peaks seemed, almost, doable.
Something else about JAWS: There were six or seven paddle-in surfers and SO many ski-ins. Though the assisted surfers could get in so much earlier, the wakes made it SO much choppier than it would have been.
SO, WHY am I watching TV rather than searching the STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA for waves I can actually ride? Answer; sometimes SURFLINE and other forecast sites get it wrong. Here’s one thing: The east wind is not offshore. Maybe it is on the coast, though a south wind… usually bad. OKAY, now I feel wrong for giving that hint. Just trying to save someone some time.
HEY, I’m way too distracted to continue right now. PERHAPS it’s because I really should just mute the over-enthusiastic commentator on SURFERS OF HAWAII, WAIMEA DANNY, who, annoyingly, keeps pimping for donations.
PLEASE have a great HOLIDAY SEASON! I will have a bigger post on Christmas Eve. Wednesday. And, yeah, maybe we’ll see each other on the road, on the beach, not believing Surfline but out anyway.
KELLY- Yes, I watched the super heat at Snapper Rocks on YouTube… several times. Five (former, with explanation, if necessary) World Champions: Occy, Parkinson, Gilmore, Fanning, Slater, all of whom have a background at the spot, and, if the World Surf league commentators are to be believed, a residence in the vicinity. The consensus was that Stephanie won, and I agree, with Kelly coming in, perhaps, second.
THEN, live, last night, live on the big screen in my living room, I watched Kelly in a four person heat in the round of 64. Two surfers advanced. Kelly wasn’t one of them.
THROUGH OR NOT, here is what is true about R. Kelly Slater: All the radical moves he developed and perfected have become, with training and coaching, part of any competitive surfer’s repertoire, and are, de facto, required, must-see slices and swoops and cutbacks at any age or level. Full-wrap-tail-slide-to-whitewater-bank-to-bottom-turn? Yeah. Ten yard foam climb with speed and control. Yes.
Power down-carve in powerful waves, back arm in the wall? Credit John John Florence, but check out everyone else’s version. Air in the pocket, with speed? Felipe. The radical, nine-point-plus moves become, eventually, sixes. Five, maybe. Bust those fins.
It is, perhaps, too obvious to state that we all learn from others; copying, adopting, adapting. True in music, in whatever trade or art or business you are involved in. Still, though Kelly, no doubt, picked up moves from others, he moved heat strategy and the use of strategic moves… farther. He is the most copied, the most emulated. If he was awesome when he started, he is no less so now.
Other tour veterans have been forced to adapt. Sally Fitzgibbons, going for air reverses, still has to fight on in the Challenger Series. As good as Stephanie Gilmore has always been, if you compare her surfing now to when she started winning world titles… well, her performances are so much more… progressive.
Progressive. Now.
Griffin Colapinto, I have argued, and will, is the perfect example of someone who identified, studied, practiced Kelly’s moves until he had them down. Automatic. And, currently, he is ranked Number One on the men’s side.
NUMBER ONE on the women’s side is, currently, with a style characterized as “intuitive,” as “different,” is Caitlin Simmers. Here’s how I explain it. SHE’S FROM OCEANSIDE.
I was cruising through Walmart on Thursday, hoping they had some of the good bird food. Incapable, for the most part, of shopping on my own, I had Trish on the bluetooth. Capable of multi-tasking, she had coverage on the fire at the end of the Oceanside Pier live streaming on Facebook, some guy talking about the response, firefighters and fireboats going against the toxic smoke from the creosote-saturated pilings, while I’m trying to decide between the cheap or the super cheap throwaway razors.
TRISH and I have a long history, separate and together, of experiences on and around the structure. SO MANY that, though I started writing (in Microsoft Word) about them, I realized, many words in and still not up to the nineteen sixties, that I will have to spend some more time on the subject.
QUICKLY, the waves are challenging. They seem to be bigger and break harder than other spots. One must adapt. The two-plus years I spent working at Buddy’s Sign Service, First and Tremont, two blocks south and one block (plus railroad tracks) east allowed me to surf some frustrating, some truly memorable waves. I can easily remember dropping, backside, into overhead walls that stretched toward the pier. And… anyway… later on that. And go Caity!
SURF TRIP NEWS- Reggie Smart is back from Maui. Stephen R. Davis is headed back from San Francisco. Five surfers from the Port Townsend area are headed to Panama. HOPEFULLY I will have some photos and stories. EVERY SESSION IS, if you do it right, A STORY.
MEANWHILE, I’m busy on several fronts. Surfing is one of them. LATER. And, with all due respect, Later, SLATER.
I spent too much time trying to get the photo I took of Brian Nijo, second place winner in the 40-49 men’s division at the recent Cape Kiwanda Longboard Event, from my new phone to this site. Maybe I can figure it out and get it posted.
MEANWHILE, P.T. Librarian and world surfer Keith ran into the guy, who he only knows as “Z,” winner of the 50-59 men’s division, who Keith described as stoked that he won, AND Z had a story about crashing into his fin on a wipeout in a preliminary heat, pushing the fin through the board (with, of course, some damage to his leg), getting it (the board) patched up before the finals, and… winning. I have never, to my knowledge, run into Z, and I did ask Keith to take a photo next time he sees him, sending it to me. THEN, maybe, if it’s okay with Z, posting it here. Like, hopefully.
This is a poem I have been working on. It seems to fit the season. I do reserve, as always, the right to make changes.
OUT OF THE WIND
There’s something sublime, a soft summer breeze, But the chill gales of winter will bend you to your knees, Yes, you can resist, but you’ll never win, No matter how fierce, all storms have an end, But… I just want to get out of the wind, out of the wind, out of the wind.
While most colors fade, some colors still shine, Other colors just refuse to stay within the lines, Some colors will clash, while others will blend, Some colors take you to the clouds and back again, Still… I just want to get out of the wind… out of the wind, out of the wind.
Small change is dirty, big money’s all clean, I just need some dollars that are somewhere in between, If there’s none to save, need some cash to spend, If money’s your love, you need a new friend, And… I just want to get out of the wind… out of the wind, out of the wind.
All truth is still truth, all lies are still lies, Politicians laugh and hit you right between the eyes, The stories they spread, others will defend, The damage, they say, costs too much to mend, So… I just want to get out of the wind… out of the wind, out of the wind.
Looking for justice, it’s always on sale, You can’t change the system if you know you’re going to fail, The world isn’t fair, it never has been, The answer, my friend, is lost in the wind, Seems… I can’t seem to stay out of the wind, out of the wind, out of the wind.
Sailing for safe harbor, couldn’t outrun the squall, I’ve tried to live my life in Summer, but I’m heading for the Fall, If there’s no sanctuary, I’m happy to pretend, I’ve survived so many Winters, Winter’s coming back again,
Warm wind’s slowing, soft wind’s going, new wind’s growing, cold wind’s blowing, raining, snowing; I don’t know, I’m somewhere, hiding, somehow knowing, there’s no way to stay out of the wind, Out of the wind, out of the… wind.
The World Surfing League has advanced the image and the business of competitive surfing.
It has. This is true. Most of the rest of this piece is opinion. Mine. There are other opinions.
A couch surfer in Vermont or Ohio can now go to YouTube or go online and see professionally managed contests featuring wave riders from about ten years old to somewhere around 50 (even older than Kelly in some specialty events) going for the win, entertaining the audience with a succession of score-enhancing cranks and punts and cutbacks and floaters, throwing a creative claim when appropriate, always looking for an advantage over the competition.
On a recent Saturday, between sort of doing chores, taking a too brief nap, and writing until I forgot the original plot, I switched the big screen from restful music with soothing images and optimistic aphorisms, to Roku, then to YouTube. Whoa, there was a contest going on at Lower Trestles. Trestles! I loved the spot. This scene was way different than the way it was set up when I worked across the tracks and the freeway, and up the hill, in 1975.
While I, not fully aware of how lucky I was, was able to drive out as far as Uppers, the scene on that Saturday was of hundreds of big-tired bikes, sani-cans, judging structures. This was some sort of contest for kids, ages 10 (guessing- really young) to 16. Some of the competitors were there with parents (some well- known former competitors), some with coaches. They were in heats, going wave for wave with other kids. They all seemed to rip.
Contest rip. It is different from free surf ripping. Show. It is for entertainment. Going down the line on a perfect wave will get one three points. Throw in a couple of cutbacks, five. Big air into the rocks, excellent.
And there are the priority rules. They are somewhat similar to the classic lineup etiquette. The biggest difference is the absolute right to ‘sit on’ your competitor and/or to burn him or her if you have priority.
Priority.
Kelly, with priority, gets the double eagles from a 3rd degree-burned Joel Parkinson at pumping, dredging, draining, rip-torn Kirra. Totally legal.
What made me think about this is this: Unable to stay up late enough to watch more of the contest from Jeffrey’s Bay (I gave up after Italo was injured and spectators wouldn’t get up from sitting on the stairs to let him get helped up them- but Kanoa did get a buzzer-beater to win their heat), I got up early to see which one of my surfing heroes won the event. Fast-forwarding the post show, I saw replays of the interference call against Carissa Moore that gave Tatiana Weston-Webb an almost free pass into the finals. It just didn’t look right. It didn’t look fair.
Wait a minute. I suddenly flashed back to my second favorite scene from the docu-series “Make or Break.” My favorite scene was when Stefanie Gilmore was (I thought), goaded into saying, about winning, “Fuck them, I want it more.” The second favorite scene involved Tatiana and Sage Erikson in a contest in Mexico. An interference call had cost Sage the heat. Sage seemed to believe Tatiana had tricked her into going on a wave by claiming not to know which of them had priority. Then Tati dropped in. Sage wasn’t happy, and in stark contrast to the way the WSL portrays competitor interaction, all mutual respect and love, Sage called Tatiana out for the cutthroat move.
Tatiana looked… if she looked sorry, I didn’t see it. It was more of a “Fuck you, I wanted it more!” look.
Now, I should add that I am a huge Stephanie fan. I also should add that Trish is a Courtney Conlogue fan. Stephanie won the Mexico contest by surfing harder, making aggressive and high risk maneuvers with her classic smoothness. Sportsmanship (or sportspersonship) wise, after Steph beat Court in a heat at Jeffrey’s Bay, it was reassuring to see both of them in a warm-back-up hot tub. I am hoping both of their smiles were real.
I googled “Did Tatiana burn Carissa,” and got a story, with video, on Tatiana burning Moana Jones-Wong at Pipeline. Yes. The surfer Jamie O’Brian calls the undisputed “Queen of Pipeline,” a surfer who legitimately outsurfed every other woman competitor and beat Carissa Moore in the finals of the Billabong Pipeline contest, was locked into a tube and Tatiana dropped in on her, then straightened out.
Moana called Tatiana out on the beach. And on social media. A couple of points: Tatiana claimed she didn’t see Moana but didn’t drop in on male surfers; Tatiana had a coach or someone blocking for her in the lineup. Now, Tatiana said she was trying to earn a spot in the lineup, but Moana countered that, rather than “buying her way in” she had taken years to work her way from the shoulder to the peak, without dropping in on others. It is a matter of respect.
All this in a case against Tatiana is circumstantial, of course. But here’s more: Carissa has been surfing competitively since she was, guessing, ten years old. She knows the rules. It is difficult to believe she didn’t know who had priority. Tatiana waited until Carissa was fully committed on a dangerous and well-overhead wave before she dropped in, not on an angle, but straight down. There was no way Carissa could have avoided the interference. Tati made no real effort to complete the ride but fell in an overly dramatic way more reminiscent of the WWE than the WSL.
Did Tatiana Weston-Webb win the final heat fairly? As nearly as I can tell, she did. Is there a little tarnish on her trophy? Up for debate.
A last point: It seemed to me the commentators were risking injury in trying as hard as they could to not say there just might have been tactics at least underhanded if not all out dirty. Legal tactics.
Yes, the stakes are high. There is one more contest and few spots left in the Final Five. So much drama, so much hype. The waiting period for the one-day contest to decide this year’s top male and female surfers is September 8 through the 16th. Trestles.
Pump up the tires on your e-bike, check your Wi-fi connection. It might just be EPIC! It would be great if the winners win with pure surfing rather than tactics.
Again, I love that contests are so easily accessed, so expertly analyzed and brilliantly filmed. Live action. Replays. Members of the audience can pick our heroes AND our villains. We know something about the competitors, but we don’t really know them. Such drama!
Meanwhile, in the real world, priority disputes continue.
