SUNDAY JOINT, 2-16-2025: LOST IN THE DESERT, FOUND IN THE SEA

Hey All,

Put together a list of every bad decision the WSL has ever made, flow that into the massive list of bad decisions made on behalf of surfing competition in general, flow that list into the cloud of every bad decision made throughout surf history, all the way back to randy Hawaiian royalty of yore doing the dirty after a surf and getting turned to stone—and at the very top of that assemblage of shame you will find this weekend's Abu Dhabi Pro. I was going to say we've disgraced ourselves, but that's not right. The disgrace here, judging not from my own take but from every Abu Dhabi Pro-related comments thread I've read this week, including on the WSL's own social media posts, is 100% on pro surfing. I did a Joint on this last October, and don't have much to add here today. I like to think that John John Florence's decision to sit out all or part of the 2025 CT has to do with Abu Dhabi being on the schedule. I wish more surfers had dropped out or at the very least publicly eye-rolled the event. I wish the remnants of surf media (and non-surf media too) had courage enough to do more than toe the WSL line—although you could argue that BeachGrit this past week has been so sharp, so funny, that it makes up for all the AI-sounding non-stories thus far filed on the Abu Dhabi Pro. Chas Smith especially:

There is something particularly depressing about sunrises in the United Arab Emirates. I have experienced a fair share and each is uniquely bleak. Maybe it's the way that desert particulates mingle with smoke and the labored breaths of Pakistani slaves. Maybe it's just knowing that the day to come will be filled with eyefuls of dainty men’s sandals on pedicured men’s feet. The one thing I am certain of, though, is today, that depression will feel a bit weightier and especially for those who invested in Kelly Slater’s dream.

The Surf Abu Dhabi Pro kicked off, yesterday. I tuned in for three or four waves and was bored straight into submission. I honestly could not believe how painful it was to watch, all moral, environmental, etc. issues aside. As a pure sporting spectacle, is tub surfing the worst on earth?

Anyway, this is my last futile kick on the Abu Dhabi topic. WSL apparently is not about to implode and open the door to a new, more surf-centric world tour leadership, like we heard again and again prior to the '24 Olympics. We're stuck.

No we're not. We have agency here—in theory. I always tell myself at times like this that I'm done watching. Then the surf turns on at this or that CT event and I'm walking around the neighborhood, head bent toward my vintage iPhone Mini, listening to Joe Turpel and waiting for scores to drop. J-Bay this year, maybe, or Teahupoo; I'll be back. Not today, though. Today I take solace in Gerry Lopez' sign-off at the end of his 1976 world tour report: "It could be anybody's guess as to who will be on top this winter. But then, are contests an indication of anything? Go surfing."

Let us turn to brighter things. And nothing could be brighter to an aging Yank with much to still learn about Aussie surf history than Tanya Binning, the Sydney-raised "It girl" of the beach and beyond. Binning's surfing pedigree is amazing. Her first board, in 1959, was custom-made by new boyfriend and 16-year-old surfie-on-the-rise Midget Farrelly. She was with Alby Falzon and the Morning of the Earth crew when they flew to Bali and happened upon Uluwatu. She was an original staffer at Tracks magazine. But Binning was best known to non-surfers as a perpetually smiling blond pin-up girl and model, beaming out from magazines and newspapers across Australia and the greater United Kingdom, and turning up here and there in small movie parts. In 1965's Funny Things Happen Down Under, Binning shared the screen with 17-year-old big-screen newcomer Olivia Newton-John (see below). Binning is alive and well in 2025, living in Queensland, and still getting in the ocean.

In 1969, the same year newspapers across America ran a short AP wire story reporting that university students in Ontario, Canada, had formed the "Tanya Binning Fan Club," Paramount released a 10-minute short titled Basic Brown Basic Blue, which was filmed, directed, and narrated by Homer Groening. Every TV animation fan over 50 knows that Homer Groening is the father of Simpsons' creator Matt Groening, and that Homer Simpson is based in part on the elder Groening. But I've watched Basic Brown Basic Blue twice (the surfing bits are all in the "blue" section, obviously) and there's not so much as a whiff of Homer Simpson coming off my screen. What you get here is more like Bruce Brown with big sideburns and a joint burning in the ashtray next to his bourbon and rocks. Two-thirds Endless Summer and one-third Strawberry Fields. It's a strange, fun little movie, and while I enjoyed every minute, I preferred the brown section over the blue. The part on swamp-buggy racing in Naples, Florida—nuts!

Thanks for reading and see you next week.

Matt

PS: I haven't watched The Simpsons for years. I don't know if the show is still being made, in fact. But an episode where Homer ends up poolside with the emirs in a dishdasha and red-and-white ghutra, drinking yogurt, bored senseless, watching the Ewing-Herdy-MacGillivray Qualifying Round heat—I'd cut away from live Teahupoo to watch that. 

PPS: Allow me to counterpoint my own gloomy take on Surf Culture '25, as described in the top half of this Joint, by saying my recently-mentioned gratitude practice extends without friction to this day and age. I am grateful every time Luke Cederman's bearded face and 100-proof-satire voice drops onto my feed. Cederman is surfing's comedic Homer and we are so fortunate to watch in near-real-time as he sails the wine-dark sea of surf humor. I am just as grateful for JP Currie's WCT reportage, which is so good, and I mean this without spin or irony, that it brings out in me a backwards kind of appreciation for the awfulness of events like the Abu Dhabi Pro, because Currie is at his best when the WCT is at its worst.

[Photo grid, clockwise from top left: Homer Simpson poolside; Tanya Binning surfing Fairy Bower in 1966; Binning around 1968; swamp-buggy racing from Homer Groening's Basic Brown Basic Blue; WSL Abu Dhabi Pro coffee mug; practice session just prior to the Abu Dhabi Pro. Aerial view of the Surf Abu Dhabi pool. Hawaii's Betty Sakura Johnson during a warm-up surf, photo by Max Physick. Abu Dhabi Pro Qualifying Round heat graphic. Tanya Binning on the cover of Australasian Post magazine in 1964. Binning surfing at age 16. Detail from 1964 newspaper ad for Sydney's Teen City club. Binning and Olivia Newton-John in 1965's "Funny Things Happen Down Under." Binning and soon-to-be-world-champ Phyllis O'Donell, in 1964. Luke Cederman, airborne.]