Just general surfing stuff

[crabmeat thompson]

is there a crowd there?

at some point someone in the wsl brains trust will catch on that people aren't interested in surfing unless:

• They surf, and it is a core part of their life where places like Jbay and Cloudbreak are appreciated. ie the mainstream are so dyslexic about what constitutes good surfing or a good wave and acknowledge the rarity of good, perfect conditions at these locations.

which leads me to what the mainstream can grapple with:

• The waves are big and death defying - tahiti and pipe.

[tootr]

True crabmeat.
Novelties wear off pretty quick. If they don’t make that pool 2’ bigger it’s a dead dodo.
I wanna watch surfing if it is;
A) on my bucket list, eg Jbay.
B) way beyond my pay grade, eg Chopes or jaws, pipe etc.

[The Mighty Sunbird]

Yeah I just had a look at the pool comp. the waves being exactly the same as yesterday led me to stop watching after 1 wave (kolohe didn’t make it). Part of the fun of a contest (and surfing) is wondering what the swell will be like each day

[The Mighty Sunbird]

Hey nick, what time are social d on?

[steve shearer]

these sudden unexplained breaks in the action where you just end up looking at a static shot of an empty water filled lake are tripping me the fcuk out.

[Yuke Hunt]

My visceral response to it, ie that I will never pay some cnut to make me a wave because it runs counter to everything I feel about surfing, hasn’t shifted even a tiny bit, nor has it really hardened, because that (pay per wave) is in no way being inflicted on me, and almost certainly never will.

I guess what I am saying is it’s a choice, I’m gonna be infinitely more affected by other stuff re surfing, the coming 10,000-home development along the Ingleside escarpment which will put around that many new surfers in the beaches around my home. That’s fcuken impact. Though maybe some of them will go to the pool that keeps not being built at Olympic Park I guess. So there’s that.

Its interesting. I remember having a conversation with Stuart Cadden, years ago ... in which we discussed just how cheap it was to be a surfer. The basic requirements were a surfboard, a leggie, some wax and a wetsuit for winter. You didn't have to pay green fee's or club membership to access the waves. It just wasn't necessary to constantly fork out coin in the pursuit of riding waves.

Surfing costs money, theres no doubts about that, just ask any traveling surfer. Don't do it, but if you got a calculator and divided the number of wave caught on an overseas trip, with the cost involved, you might be a bit shocked ... but thats false economy, isn t it ?

Why ?

Because you can't calculate the sensory experience of the journey into that equation.











By the way, its probably around $25 per wave ...

(based on 200 waves @ $5000)

[foamy]

Steve, are you finding Day 2 more or less entertaining than Day 1, or about the same?

[Skipper]

i've only seen what they showed on the news last night. the prom queen and the girl with the alliterative name.
hypnotising clip of them poised crouched, viscerating drip feed simulacrum, in the context of this new phenomena of the wsl, seemed very otherwordly.

there's something black mirroresque about it all.

[BA]

Yeah I just had a look at the pool comp. the waves being exactly the same as yesterday led me to stop watching after 1 wave (kolohe didn’t make it). Part of the fun of a contest (and surfing) is wondering what the swell will be like each day

Same.

I’m not ashamed to admit I watch the comps as I’ve got Foxtel. I generally enjoy them. But I just can’t watch this one. Maybe I’m not in the WSL’s target demographic anymore. I mean I’m just a surfer.

[foamy]

Pretty good statement of the problem with the wave pool event in The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/ ... SApp_Other

[BA]

The WSL, sponsors and the competitors (maybe under duress) seem to be the only ones giving it a positive spin.

[ajohnsen]

That argument: oh this doesn't affect me.....could be right on, or could be incredibly myopic.

Too early to tell.

You have to at least allow for the possibility of an armada of unintended consequences sailing in from the future.

But that vital fact: that Nick Carroll surf journalist is 100 miles from the ocean and can't surf, has to stand under the shade of the trees with the other plebs is actually the most interesting to me .....I'd love to hear Nick explore that.

And you got an article out of it.

[Beanpole]

hypnotising clip of them poised crouched, viscerating drip feed simulacrum, in the context of this new phenomena of the wsl, seemed very otherwordly.

there's something black mirroresque about it all.

[ajohnsen]

The wave pool is just a natural evolutionary step in surfing, if you accept that we are simply monkeys using a stick to get ants out of their nests.

It's kinda like 3D movies. There have been three or four iterations of it. Each time it fades away and, in doing so, proves its novelty. The last time, it was hailed as the future, yet it has all but faded again. Walter Murch wrote of it that this is (was) the first time in human history that our eyes are being asked to focus on two separate points simultaneously and that our brains have yet to develop the necessary CPU to do this comfortably. (I can't watch them; they leave me terribly sick.)

Like 3D technology, this is the first time in human history that we're being asked to watch a surf competition in manufactured waves. The technology and engineering are both impressive, but we are uncomfortable with the idea of humans controlling nature. But this isn't going to end in Hiroshima; it's largely harmless and time will determine its place in surfing culture.

Meantime, I'll continue to fight for time in the water in which I'll have to compete with hundreds of others doing the same, and we'll be at the mercy of the elements. Or I could just put up the trellis for my wife's climbing rose.

[Thud]

The darkest day in surfing.

The high point of surfing is man in lock step with nature. Waves are gifts from gods for humans to dance upon.

It's spitting in the face of the ancients who connected with the ocean all those years past.

Its destroying art.

It's like book burning

They are a ship of fools

I do think one thing, they oughta stop showing actual proper waves on the broadcast, because when they pop up you just get a shiver of recognition

It is the ultimate Westernisation of something that once had nothing to do with any Western ideas of anything, which is why many of us embraced it. Oh the irony! We wanted freedom and they’ve turned it into a pond with a metal machine attached.

But ya know, these people don’t have power over us in any way. I’m still able to be interested, maybe partly because I don’t feel bound to it, like nothing is owed and nothing paid. I’ll come home from here, a contest where I can’t surf at all because there is no surf, there are just a certain number of waves meted out to the pros and to whichever commentators can wangle their way into the three wave pre-heat pool “warmup”, and then I’ll go surfing again, however the fcuk I want, for free.

Fight the power

[steve shearer]

That argument: oh this doesn't affect me.....could be right on, or could be incredibly myopic.

Too early to tell.

You have to at least allow for the possibility of an armada of unintended consequences sailing in from the future.

But that vital fact: that Nick Carroll surf journalist is 100 miles from the ocean and can't surf, has to stand under the shade of the trees with the other plebs is actually the most interesting to me .....I'd love to hear Nick explore that.

And you got an article out of it.

Oh, it's gods gift to a surf writer like me.

I spent 20 years unpublishable while the gatekeepers like Carroll and Doherty preserved the status quo.

There's no shortage of things to say, and an opportunity to have a place to say it.

[ajohnsen]

@Steve - this might be of interest: https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journ ... ase-closed

[ajohnsen]

I expect to see you weave 'Brechtian trick' into your next piece.