JBay.

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steve shearer
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Re: JBay.

Post by steve shearer » Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:58 pm

that line.
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Davros
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Re: JBay.

Post by Davros » Tue Jul 22, 2014 2:38 pm

Currens first surf at Jbay in 1992,I think in one of Sonny Millers movies, is close to the best surfing filmed IMHO.

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Re: JBay.

Post by foamy » Tue Jul 22, 2014 2:58 pm

Tom Curren's famous first wave at JBay. Introduced by the sadly and recently deceased Sonny Miller.

http://youtu.be/oGDt18yECrY

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Re: JBay.

Post by rmb » Tue Jul 22, 2014 6:36 pm

I think you have that well covered Steve I think it is a fair stance, how has it effected your employment within the industry?

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Re: JBay.

Post by Davros » Tue Jul 22, 2014 6:37 pm

http://kurungabaa.net/2010/05/31/tom-cu ... y-in-1992/

Here it is with funky music and more manufactured footage, I hadnt seen that Sonny Miller footage, awesome catch Foamy

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steve shearer
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Re: JBay.

Post by steve shearer » Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:05 pm

I'm not employed in the industry. Never have been.

But there's always missionary position surf writing work available for people who can string together a thousand words coherently with a functioning premise. Actually you don't even need that.

Surf media is definitely not a meritocracy, with rare exceptions.
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Re: JBay.

Post by romak50 » Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:40 pm

steve shearer wrote:
Beerfan wrote:[quote="steve

Mate, if it wasn't for the ferocious, fearless reporting and investigating of a few journos Lance Armstrong would still be standing on the podium claiming Tour De Frances and saying he was clean.

You understand the role of journalists? They are supposed to go behind the public relations spin and corporate interests and report the truth, not be fcuking agents for disseminating corpo marketing BS.

The magazines are too beholden to the corporate advertisers, the journalists too close and
I didn't and have never said the surf media killed AI. Thats a ridiculous position to take.
But AI's death revealed systemic failure in the surf media to do anything like it's real job.
Has anything been learnt should be the question asked now.

.
Mate comparing lance to AI is pretty poor. Not even worth going into the differences.

Your take on a journalists role in the AI thing has nothing to do with AI's well being. It's about being the man on the spot and bringing the nasty corpos to account.
I am with you in that his sponsors etc had their own motives in protecting the truth but the idea that some high and mighty journo outing Andy would be the most noble thing to do for AI's well being is bullsheet

IMO you're confusing a journo keeping billabong to account to a journo having AI's best interests at heart. They are mutually exclusive sorry.

if you understand anything about addiction you would know this. It's about the addict comming to their own conclusion in their own terms what they need to do for recovery. Not being forcedto read a 5 page article in tracks from some investigative journo.

I guarantee if, at the time, a journo said to AI 'look we are gonna do a piece on how Bong have done you a disservice in helping your recovery' Andy would have run for the hills.

If you want to debate the merits of what the best course of action to take to assist the issues of an addict I'm happy to do so but your thoughts are incorrect. If your story is about holding bong to account that's a different story.

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Re: JBay.

Post by Nick Carroll » Tue Jul 22, 2014 8:04 pm

In their last heat together, AI kicked Kelly's arse with the same nasty vigour he frequently did.

You remember that shearer, you were there, Teahupo'o 2010.

Andy had a pretty short attention span, he won three world titles on the trot then sorta lost interest. He was sorta protean in a way, the spirit of full tilt surfing and born to be champion...for a while.

And for that while Kelly was less-than. It fcuken nearly killed him. Jesse Faen has told me how he was at the Chopes event in 2005, before he turned on that blinder comeback. He was a complete mess - fcuked. Crying, agonised by his inability to both win contests and make female relationships work at any level.

Then somehow he plucked that heat with Bruce out of the ether and out of his raw ability.

From there he was unstoppable. 20/20 in the final. World titles bang bang bang.

That was where he became superhuman in many eyes. That kind of energy, even he can't reproduce. He's not willing to go there again, to sacrifice everything for a shot at a world title. Why the fcuk would anyone expect him to. It's craziness.

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Re: JBay.

Post by Nick Carroll » Tue Jul 22, 2014 8:07 pm

Oh btw Capt Caveman, you may not be interested in that level of surfing, that's your deal. The world is full of kids and adults who are.

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Re: JBay.

Post by Davros » Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:35 pm

Nick, at their peak AI or Kelly?

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Re: JBay.

Post by Yuke Hunt » Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:15 am

Davros wrote:Nick, at their peak AI or Kelly?
His answer will be AI ... he's kind of explained it before ... and may well do again.
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steve shearer
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Re: JBay.

Post by steve shearer » Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:04 am

Nick Carroll wrote:In their last heat together, AI kicked Kelly's arse with the same nasty vigour he frequently did.

You remember that shearer, you were there, Teahupo'o 2010.
Yes, I saw it.

But wasn't that against both the run of play on the day- Kelly had just scored a ten doing one of those ridiculous super late drop, layback into the tube no hands things and had looked unstoppable-and the historical trend. The heat was slow, AI got the only good set that came through and then beat CJ in the Final. But he still looked insipid, not full throated in that protean way . I'd surfed with the night before in lovely little backlit waves.....he was so quiet, so gentle......I was quite shocked....he was calling people into waves. I saw not the eye of the tiger but the eye of the lamb. There was something so broken and yet so humble about him.
He dudded spectacularly in the next comps and from here I was hearing stories of drug binges in Portugal.

That heat with Kelly was really the dying flame of a great champion, one last little efflorescence before the final extinguishment. That win wasn't a new beginning as some people hoped but a last gasp. I'm glad I saw it.
I want Nightclub Dwight dead in his grave I want the nice-nice up in blazes

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Re: JBay.

Post by steve shearer » Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:09 am

romak50 wrote: Mate comparing lance to AI is pretty poor. Not even worth going into the differences.

Your take on a journalists role in the AI thing has nothing to do with AI's well being. It's about being the man on the spot and bringing the nasty corpos to account.
I am with you in that his sponsors etc had their own motives in protecting the truth but the idea that some high and mighty journo outing Andy would be the most noble thing to do for AI's well being is bullsheet
I didn't say it would have changed the trajectory of AI's addiction but keeping the whole thing veiled in secrecy for dubious motives certainly didn't either. If anything, that only helped him spiral down.

And bringing the thing out into the open would have changed that culture of secrecy, which is my main point. It might have helped others.
If that culture had changed well before AI's problems maybe he would have got help sooner >?

They are hypotheticals granted, but surely we are in a position now to discuss them.
I want Nightclub Dwight dead in his grave I want the nice-nice up in blazes

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Re: JBay.

Post by romak50 » Wed Jul 23, 2014 9:21 am

steve shearer wrote:
romak50 wrote: Mate comparing lance to AI is pretty poor. Not even worth going into the differences.

Your take on a journalists role in the AI thing has nothing to do with AI's well being. It's about being the man on the spot and bringing the nasty corpos to account.
I am with you in that his sponsors etc had their own motives in protecting the truth but the idea that some high and mighty journo outing Andy would be the most noble thing to do for AI's well being is bullsheet
I didn't say it would have changed the trajectory of AI's addiction but keeping the whole thing veiled in secrecy for dubious motives certainly didn't either. If anything, that only helped him spiral down.

And bringing the thing out into the open would have changed that culture of secrecy, which is my main point. It might have helped others.
If that culture had changed well before AI's problems maybe he would have got help sooner >?

They are hypotheticals granted, but surely we are in a position now to discuss them.

Yeah I agree with you in most of that. I agree that it was poorly reported and poorly handled by bong. Just not sure there was any role media could have played to help A1. And yes nows the time to discuss drugs in surfing and any lessons. But it ain't a simple discussion because a. It's been entrenched in surfing so long and b. Surfing doesn't have the resources to develop an effective programme like say the afl. There's so much more than saying 'let's test em and if positive ban em'

Hopefully with less involvement from the big 4 in the asp they can't dictate the direction for their own benefit like the could have any year up until now.

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Re: JBay.

Post by scot » Wed Jul 23, 2014 9:34 am

I agree with fongss ^.
Did the fact they threw Curren a 10 in the heat before for a similar wave influence them?
Wilko's wave was way better in my opinion and if they had use of the skis out there it might have been a different result.

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steve shearer
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Re: JBay.

Post by steve shearer » Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:31 pm

Don't know if anyone here is on a holier than thou soapbox......just asking for exactly the kind of conversation and thoughtful contributions that you and Romak have made.

Maybe Bong did do the right thing> hell they paid for him to go to rehab.

Two things: it came to light that AI did want to come clean about his problems in public. In fact he wanted to make some kind of statement via a documentary to try and help others. Why did this not happen?

Two: why did Bong and a compliant media push out a BS line that he had died from dengue fever when it was obvious that he had not? Why did they try so hard to cover up the truth after the tragic event?
I want Nightclub Dwight dead in his grave I want the nice-nice up in blazes

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Re: JBay.

Post by channels » Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:12 pm

I had wondered about AI, and TC to an extent after reading the book, how they managed the comedown during boat trips or remote locations when the gear was most likely not available. Unless of course I am completely clueless (which is highly likely)about how open or available it was.

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Re: JBay.

Post by Nick Carroll » Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:39 pm

well on the first, I can't be sure, but if you've had close experience of an addict and his/her behaviour you'll be familiar with their periods of remorse and desire to clean up, and how these are just part of the addictive cycle. They say things like "I wanna come clean" etc, but pretty soon they're right back in the thick of things. "Coming clean" in public, especially for a famous person, is fraught with peril, and nobody who professionally treats addiction would suggest someone come clean in such a manner until they'd well and truly got into recovery. I think the template is about three years clean - even then the chances of relapse are super high at such a time.

So if AI was telling someone he wanted to go public etc, that's one thing, but actually doing it, that is quite another.

On the second, look, for one thing, it was not at all obvious what'd happened, not at first. But I look back at that time and feel like it was a massive act of enabling. It's almost impossible to be around an addict for any period of time without becoming part of their horrible dance, and for many people in surfing - me included - that dance had become very familiar over the years. I can only imagine how long Andy's close friends, family and close contacts at Bong etc had waltzed around that room, alternately trying to help and trying to pretend it was gonna be OK. There'd have been some king hell enabling going on in that space, stuff I bet even today many of those closely involved would have trouble analysing and owning up to. That's not really for discussion here in my opinion, not without them present and up for it. But yeah, much of that media response was the response of people who were caught in the enabler's web, even if just at its very outer edge.

I know for me that sense of enabling only gave way to the more appropriate shame when I read the autopsy report. That document put everything into its hard context. Before that, everything was cloudy, after it everything felt clearer. It was a rock in the sand.

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