Steve Shearer March 1, 2009

I missed the opening heats of the conny today. Well not missed them, I watched then on the Innernet, laid up on the couch with this bestial swine flu that I'm sure I caught off some Brazilian Ultimate Fighter who forgot to wash the blood off his shirt properly. All those germs....yuck. Fighting is so unclean. I tuned in to hear Lisa Anderson tell Pottz that the best advice she could give to the girls was to 'look excited'. The camera cut to Pottz, he was waving his hands around, gesticulating wildly, looking very excited. I got my notebook out for the day with a small, standard-issue, bic classic Fine pen - my back-up pen and very hard to find these days by the way. I actually bought a dozen of them and took a couple up to the conny today as as a sort of peace offering to Carroll, cause I know how, as an old school journo, he values a good pen. Alas, he decided to miss the day, so I takes the pen and makes a note to ask Dane Reynolds if he would 'look excited'. I'm really devastated I missed Tyler Wright and Steph Gilmore's heat, not just cause I'm now officially Tyler's number one fan, and think that womens surfing may turn out to be more entertaining than mens surfing, but because it was an unbelievably entertaining affair. Gosh, Steph and Tyler. Wave for wave. Steph so technically perfect and flowing and Tyler, after a nervous start just started laying on the power. In the midst of all this buoyant luxuriousness of female surfing I had a thought: "Andy Irons wouldn't make it out of this heat". That cruel realisation added extra piquancy to the spectacle, an extra voluptuousness of tragedy to what was pure entertainment. It's here I have to give Quik a bouquet for their web coverage (apart from heats on demand which is truly woeful and tragic). Peter Mel has so much understated gravitas in his delivery. He would have to be the least offensive American ever conceived, and is sort of soothing to watch. He was also responsible for unearthing two nuggets of comic gold during and immediately after the Gilmore/Wright clash. To wit: He conducted an interview with the enigmatic American guru of style Tom Curren, whose daughter Lee-ann was competing. Mel: "So Tom you're here to coach your daughter, what tips did you give her?" Curren: "Uh...no, she ah, um, has a coach". Mel: "Oh, OK what is your daughter's coaches name?" Curren: (long............pause) "um, I don't know his last name....his first name is Xavier. I only just met him" Oh, bottle that vintage! My wife yelled out "Is that guy on drugs or what?" Put Tommy in charge of the whole show. Second great moment of Mel comedy. Interviewing Steph Gilmore after the heat he referred to a conversation she had with Doug "Claw" Warbrick (Rip Curl founder) but instead of saying Doug Warbrick he said "so you had a conversation with Warbucks before the heat". Oh Pete, your killing me here. Daddy Warbucks, for those of antipodean heritage, was the wealthy industrialist from the cartoon Little Orphan Annie. The great free market advocator who always looked after little Orphan Annie whilst making a fortune of "ten trillion dollars". What a freudian slip for the ages: Daddy Warbucks looking after little Orphan Steph.... That exchange got me off the couch heading north, the messiah was coming again and no way was I missing that. The drive takes an hour, passed pleasantly listening to ABC radio. This goddamm Greek sovereign debt crisis has all the pointy headed Dutch speaking economists in a tailspin. Glenn Stevens, the reserve bank Governor, sounds so reassuring, he could join Peter Mel as a back-up commentator. What I'm worried about now is the collapse of the Basel 2 accord and the severe drag that massive budget deficits in Europe might have on consumer spending....maybe even the glorious adventure of Pro Surfing will collapse in Europe and the nation states of Europe will once more devolve into warring tribes, except this time they'll all be wearing Quiksilver. How cool would that be? We must be on our guard here friends. No room for complacency. God, last point: how annoying is this new blokey version of K.Rudd? It's all "frankly standards are slipping " and "the buck stops with me". One of the Hopgoods was in the water. Yeah it was Ceej. From on high I saw him snag a beautiful set wave and just go to town. His backhand surfing is technically perfect. Blake Ainsworth did only the second aerial in this comp. Ha! Hi-Fi surfing. Ceej killed him. His brother mauled Neco. Don't listen to any Internet BS; Damo Hopgood made Neco look so second rate out there it wasn't funny. His backhand surfing is also technically superior. Neco was doing spaz-snaps that looked Ultra-Brazilian in 1996. Jeremy Byles was beside me, sitting on the beach as calm and immovable as an Indian water buffalo. "Jed, did you surf against Neco?" "Nah, he joined the year after I left". A Brazilian man with a hooked nose runs up to get a photo with Neco. Him and Damo Hopgood are hugging and talking in each other's ears like two boxers who just punched portholes in each other. The hooked nose Brazzo said to his companion "hey man, dis guy is a fucken legend". The constant rain stopped and in eerily still conditions Dane Reynolds caught his first wave, went up to the lip and went for a huge fins free turn, bogging it halfway down. I groaned. I grabbed my notebook and went to write "Dane stiff and relentlessly frustrated" but instead I wrote "Dane on fire". That was a prophecy. No waves came for a long time. It was low tide and the sandbar, so perfect and ruler edged, so much bottom tension in every wave. The Dane caught a wave and surfed so very, very well. I was filming so I can't really comment but I can't wait to see all his waves. There were two French guys next to me on the Little Marley rocks, Dane surfed right towards us. It was so very, very amazing. We were all falling about hooting and hollering. Please don't think, anyone, that Dane was over-scored. He was not. The impact of his surfing is rosicrucian in it's perfection. I sacked up when he came in (light rain was beginning to fall) and barged into the media scrum. I will have my audience with the messiah thinks I. We are both composed of the same flesh and blood, but that is where the similarities end. Dane is exuberantly wealthy, talented and post-ironic. Despite my desire for knowledge, between us there is some granite stratum of spiritual fate, some pre-determined decision and answer to pre-determined selected questions. But be still my philosophic mind, the time has come and the messiah is in front. I have a blue shirt on with an Eastern Rosella on the right breast. Speak. Speak. But hang on, there is something else going on here. Beside me, a young man who I found out was Will from ASL (ah, with delight I noticed his video camera had stopped working.....rookie mistake), then behind me a STAB employee......the New Guard. Carroll was nowhere to be seen. This was it, the changing of the guard! I asked Dane, with his blog, art and other projects, how hard it was to take Professional Surfing Seriously? He said he didn't! Great news for modern man! But, even more delicious irony, after I stopped asking him questions a camera crew got him to film a 'spot' for the Trestles Comp. Over and Over. "Hi this is Dane Reynolds and you're here at the ASP contest Trestles." Five or six times. I looked at him and winked, hoping he wasn't thinking that I was thinking he was nothing more than a trained seal after all. And one more scoop before I sign off. Dane Reynolds has a red beard. Well, ginger anyway. True, the messiah is a ranga. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. PS: Jordy's wave was a ten. I saw the judging sheets.

Past articles by the Outsider:

Trials Day

Day One

Tsunami Tsunday