OK, kids. The Power Rankings live on - on Postsurf, for now. I’ll be putting up a handful a day over the course of the next week. Let’s start with the bottom dwellers.
Miky Picon
Bells Result: 33 Previous Result: 33 Rating: =39
Many cynics scoff that the ASP is poised on the brink of irrelevancy: a tour of tired monkeys that dance with less and less conviction despite the organ-grinding of their corporate sponsors. What has the tour come to? Where art though, AI? Why can’t we supply our best surfers with a potent cocktail of prescription and illegal drugs anymore? Well, cynics, suck on this: under the new format, surf fans were treated to 30 steamy minutes of hardcore Frenchmen on Frenchmen action in R1: Miky Picon vs. Tim Boal. At times, the voyeuristic lens of pro surfing zoomed in so close that it was hard to tell whose body was whose amongst all those lithe writhing limbs. Was that Miky Picon hitting it backside? Was that Tim Boal caressing the face of his rival; man against sea? Was that a bowling ball on an Al Merrick board, or were we treated to a glimpse of the Chupacabra’s dark frame? In the end it did not matter; for this was surfing through the eyes of Godard.
Nathaniel Curran
Bells Result: 33 Previous Result: 33 Rating: =39
With a family pedigree unrivaled on tour, you’d think that Nathaniel Curran would be doing better than he is. I mean, Surfline’s fact-checkers inform me Curran’s older brother Tim finished 6th in the world. His even older brother Tom Curran won three world titles. Brother Joe is a style master, cousin Lee Ann Curran is already winning WQS events… and family patriarch Pat Curran is on the shortlist for getting his face carved into surfing’s Mt. Rushmore. Does surfing talent run in that family or WHAT? But against Saffa blasta Davey Weare, Nathaniel only managed a 6.33 highwave with no second score to back that up. This is a troubling fall from grace for last year’s WQS champ. Particularly as he just squandered two opportunities in waves that suit him: right points. It’s not like things are going to get easier for Nate at Chopes.
Marlon Lipke
Bells Result: 33 Previous Result: 33 Rating: =39
I’ll be honest here: I don’t have anything really insightful to say about Marlon Lipke’s surfing. He’s an extremely solid talent who is stylish, tedious, and already adept at earning 33rds. Under the new format of terror, Lipke was given one shot at distinguishing himself against Dayyan Neve. He contributed a pair of threes and that was all. Should Lipke’s ASP bid not work out, he always has one final solution to fall back on: the surf camp he runs with his family in Portugal. Maybe it’s just me, but the little Larry David voice in my head gets uneasy when Germans want to round up all the beginners and put them in their surf camp. And yes, their website has instructions for kooks taking zee train to zee camp.
Aritz Aranburu
Bells Result: 33 Previous Result: 33 Rating: =39
As the 33rds pile up, I become ever more confident that Aranburu should be a verb, not just a name. What does it mean to get aranburued? Can you aranburu your bro? Is aranburuing a torture reserved for your worst enemies? Can you aranburu a girl on the third date? Does Chris Cote let muscular Aussies aranburu him after they consume a case of VBs together? Is it possible to aranburu someone so hard that they never walk again? Perhaps I should just ask Aritz – he might be able to clear this up for me. But I don’t want to bother the poor bloke. He already bears the burden of being the Spanish Kelly Slater while also being the Spanish Ricky Basnett. Aritz needed a 7.5 as time expired against Kieren Perrow. He got the wave but not the score: 7.23. It’s likely good style would have made up that .27.
Gabe Kling
Bells Result: 33 Previous Result: injury Rating: =39
Recent research conducted at PostSurf laboratories suggest that a marketable nickname can add nearly 5 years to the career of an otherwise boring pro surfer. For instance: who the fuck is Jason Collins? Did he play b-ball for Stanford? Is he on the Nets or the Timberwolves or something? Is he that smug bald prick from Genesis? Is he a surfer from Santa Cruz? Who knows. But Ratboy? Old, irrelevant, yet still somewhat famous. Gabe Kling’s nickname is Piggy. Somehow Piggy hasn’t gained much traction. Maybe Miss Piggy would stick? Porky Pig? Babe? Spider Pig? Gabe better find a nome de pig that sticks cause his injured ass ain’t gonna find success in the ASP anytime soon.
Luke Stedman
Bells Result: injury Previous Result: injury Rating: =39
There’s something vaguely Dickensian about Luke Stedman – perhaps if Charles Dickens were a Sydney metrosexual comfortable in the company of a young Oscar Wilde. Like Pip in Great Expectations, Steds has been raised to a class far above his talent grade. The question is, by whom? Pip believes his benefactor to be the fatally-nostalgic upper class Ms. Havisham, while in fact his guardian angel is the convict Magwitch. Correspondingly, Luke Stedman believes that good’ ole fashion Aussie hard-work and a “can-do” attitude have landed him in the Top 16. Really, in Luke’s case, Magwitch is God’s sense of irony, leaving Steds with broken toes and a 45th stamp of disapproval in the Power Rankings.
awesome. so glad you’re back. People might not get who Ms. Havisham is……but those of us who do are truly appreciative.
After the last thoroughly boring post/comments-more comments than post….maybe they should give some of these guys two towels and a bar of wax, tell them they’re going to surf sebastian inlet king of the peak….and then put them in front of a firing squad of cocks, making wax figurines out of them, and maybe bring in some new blood…simpson, gudangs, clay marzo, ry craike….should i go on???
Good to have Power Rankings back. Screw the dickweeds at Surfline.
I’m sorry; I can’t hear anything anyone else’s saying over the sound of Lewis Samuels’ awesomeness.
Bravo boss! Looking forward to the rest of your list. I need to take a few moments to digest the outermost rectal rim of the 44 best surfers on the planet based on your astute analysis.
Brb.
My words of encouragement to these gladiators in the pit of wave riding spectacle:
Miky Pikon: Dude, the next time your partner unleashes his load on your chin, just remember, you can use an ice-pick to dig that shit out.
Nathaniel Curren: Try as you may, your mustache does not conjure images of Sam Elliott. Instead, it conjures images of Econo-Vans with no windows and trench-coats hiding shrunken testicles. Young boys: you are warned!
Marlon “Nips” Lipke: Marlon; you had everything I wanted in a World Champion: scarecrow arms, knees permanently locked in the 90 degree position by a festering outbreak of circumcised Hasidic leeches on your thighs, and a blitzkrieg of off-the-lippers that would have made Flavio Padaratz soil his tampon. Alas, the judges felt otherwise.
Aritz Aranburu: You are better than this. Or, at least capable of something better… or, at least putting up a challenge. I mean, even the dude with the apple stuffed in his mouth in Pulp Fiction put up more of a struggle.
Gabe Kling: You know the moment; hours after hitting that three-grand jackpot at the slots, when you find yourself mopping up your own puddle of drool and martini spittle off the black-jack table at 4am, whilst down eight-grand in the bank? Yep.
Luke Stedman: What Lewis Samuels said.
Good on ‘ya mate.
Tom CURREN related to Nate CURRAN? really?
did you get those bad motherfucker pills again? Like it. Keep it up and fuck those who think surf writing is all about tantric fellatios to surf companies.
ps: if at least a quarter of surfcamps in the world were like the likpes one, we would have less poluited-minded line-ups. and i dont need larry david to tell me that.
nice.
you got mad graphic design skills!
keep up the good work!
Nat Curran is NOT brother of Tom and Joe CurrEN (with E !!)
Lewis,
Make a free surfer power ranking, I am dying to know if Rasta or Alex Knost (and the Japanese motors “Well I’m stuck on the 405….” [BANG]}) will be ranked 40th and who, after Dora, will be ranked 2nd.
Mr Samuels, I hope this was just a test. Pat, Tom and Joe, versus Tim and Nat. Like I said I hope this was just a test, cant really believe everything you read now can you, but good try anyway.
Ratboy….old, irrelevent, yet somewhat famous……Lewis, really, Ratboy is probably one of the biggest talents to ever shun doing the pro tour, before it became cool to do so. The cunt rips so hard and stylish that is beyond ridiculous. Is he really that old and irrelevent? I guess so since he now lives at Pleasure Point (originally from Westside) and only plays golf and fishes when there are no waves. Rat could probably spank the back half of the top 44 in his sleep, but he’s over it, cause the competitive surfing system is boring and it’s hard to leave a regular-foot utopia laden with good fishing and golf. Ya, old and irrelevent, somewhat famous…..and NOT GIVING A FUCK! You’re from the bay, so I’m sure we’ll see some controversial writing about that little town 1 1/2 hours south with all the good waves and crazy people.
The Power Rankings are back and better than ever! The added graphics are a nice bonus. Is that a wombat for Picon? Sick Lincoln Towncar. And thanks for making some use of my British Literature course.
LS, keep up the good work. So glad you are continuing the Power Rankings. It really is the only bit of surf writing worth reading these days. And I like the notion of giving it to us piecemeal. Something to look forward to day by day, and easier to digest than all 44 at once (that’s what she said).
Oh, and thanks for clearing that up Pedro. You’re right on top of things.
Sounds to me like EEEWWW! is probably Ratboy in disguise. Either that or he is someone that would desperately like to be Ratboy’s friend.
P.S. Hey EEEWWW. Do you work for the Santa Cruz Public Relation’s Department? Are you trying to attract even more people to your left wing utopia of asshole locals who smoke ice for breakfast? Would you be stoked if a car load of dudes from Tarzana paddled out to Stockton Avenue screaming ” bro this town is a frickin regular foot UTOPIA with great fishing and golf!” Seriously EEEWWW! it sounds like you lick more Santa Cruz sack than Surfline licks advertisers balls.
Isn’t Ratboy a little old to be called anythingBoy?
The Marlon Lipke jabs are so out of line. Funny? Yes! But so out of line. My word he’s from Germany, it’s the same old country but the people have changed . . .
Gabe Kling. . really not much to work with in the nickname dept beyond Klinger (Maxwell Q), Klingon, Kling-a-Ling and Gabe-o. Unfortunately Gabe-o is a homo-phone to Gay-Bo, which in Northern Florida I believe will get one’s ass kicked.
I think ratface could maybe spank the back 5 of the top 44 of the QS. dreamin’ buddy
Ratboy support? Retarded.
The alleged Curran/Curren error? Retarded.
Please go back to reading Surfline. Or, stick around, so those of us with functioning synapses can laugh.
Bells is a right, as is Winkipop. Obviously, this favors regular foots. (Same with the Quikpro.)
But what are we to do with the poor unfortunate goofy foots? Shall we mandate that each heat advances 0.5 goofy footers? Therefore making it that in at least every other heat, at least one goofy footer advances.
This is surfing’s Fairness Act. Since we can’t permanently attach vision obscuring goggles or weights and shackles to the regular footers a la Harrison Bergeron, this is our best option for leveling the playing field; for restoring balance to the winner’s podium.
This sounds fair, especially for the goofy footers who didn’t choose this contest venue at a right point break; they just have an unfair disadvantage because of the powers that be (the ASP founding fathers being overwhelmingly natural footed and discriminatory).
Si se puede! Lets put our support unequivocally behind the goofies!
Help support fairness in professional surfing. Get behind the disenfranchised and underprivileged World Tour goofy footers!
-Handicapper General
Power Rankings are soo Much better here than they were on Surfline. You should call it the REAL Power Rankings now. Dig the profile shots.
Go SAM.
Pretty distinguished bunch of guys here. I just finished watching Surfline’s “Three days with Nathaniel Curran” and it was indeed about as interesting as spending 72 straight hours with Nathaniel Curran. Watching his surfing gives the viewer the impression that the bottom and top halves of his body are separate entities that are only vaguely familiar with one another and have yet to synchronize their schedules.
It’s a bit inane to make nazi jokes about Marlon Lipke. That’s basically like making “big nose” jokes about jewish people — they are neither true nor funny. Hell, they aren’t even offensive, they are just overdone — especially when we could cracking jokes about the afrikaaners on tour, who (to paraphrase a better writer than myself) are generally accepted to be worst people in the world.
I’ve never seen Luke Stedman surf — but It’s funny because he seems to crop up all over the place in advertisements. I guess that’s why Mr. Samuels likes to make fun of him. Of course, Aritz isn’t even getting add space with his jank-ass style. I’m not sure how injury wild cards work, but would he have made it back onto the tour last year if he HADN’T gotten injured? If I were a pro surfer with his style, I would probably injure my back halfway through the season as well just to give myself a fighting chance of getting pittied back into the top 44.
Finally, I have absolutely no idea who Miky Picon and Gabe Kling are. Never seen them surf, never caught one of their heats, never seen them in a mag and never read about them anywhere. Truth be told, I think the ASP just found stock pictures of Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee and slipped them into the roster to see if anyone would notice. Mr. Samuels is of course in on the joke which, if you hadn’t guessed, it that every time you mention either Frodo or Sam, you have to accompany it with a slightly outlandish and apocryphal story. So, in the spirit of the joke: I see your Miky and GAbe stories and raise you these: Miky Picon was recently spotted Muy Thai kickboxing a Kangaroo in Easter Victoria while Samwise, I mean Gabe Kling was last seen in on the upper Gambia river looking for the fabled Bamakian tidal bore with a full crew of pygmie porters transporting his boards and sunscreen.
it continues to amaze me that people read Lewis’ stuff without any understanding of what he’s trying to do. Maybe they’re all German - it’s well known they don’t do sarcasm well. I wonder if Marlon laughs at any of this?
As for Ratboy, he’s up there with, well, I can’t think of anyone else who was once a decent pro but is no longer, at all, relevant other than in a very cartoonish representative of a world gone by.
Yawn. Your writing gets worse with each post. Although I am not sure you can really call this writing, it’s more like a bored teenagers notebook. You’ve beat the little man rant to a pulp, write something relevant or hang it up.
@Boring,
Then you should have no problem bipassing this website and sticking to mindfuckingplacentaldischarge.com
There’s really no need to fart in the vestibule on your way out.
Re: Currans vs. Currens
Need we explain every joke? Samuel prefaces the curran clan thing with “surfline fact checkers tell me”
Perhaps there is irony in this since surfline accused samuel of factual inaccuracies??? oR perhaps he somehow failed to notice that that they are NOT related? doubtful that that’s doubtfully the not-truth right
That Marlon Lipke shit was funny. Thats all I got.
Waves cleaning up - thats good shit too.
Ted, good comments except for the bit about big nose jokes and Jewish people. I’m Jewish and they are true and are funny.
Well, as you are far more qualified than me, I cede the point
Pedro…its a joke.
Chupacabra? Nome de pig? Sounds you’re writing it from Brazil, not from Bells.
Ted - I’m not aware there area any dutchmen on tour this year? For some reason I think Emslie, Davy and Jordy are all of the English Saffa variety.
good shit. the aranburu part was incredible.
stu - emslie is from EL which makes him a mandatory dutchman. Have we ever had a CT dutchman?
no wonder you got fired from surfline!! tom and joe vs timmy and nathaniel? put the crach pipe down.
put the crotch pipe down fawn, you skank
hugh, it’s the opposite isn’t it? EL is filled with Englishmen. Based on the dense look and impossible-to-understand speach, I’d assume Roydon is a dutchman..
Anyone else here aroused by Miss Piggy’s tit?
It appears I miss-spoke, sort of. I went ahead and looked up “Afrikaner” and found that, first of all, I spelled it wrong. However. The term is by no means limited to people of Dutch decent. At least according to the admittedly spotty source of Wikipedia. Instead, Afrikaner can refer to people living in South Africa who are of Frisian, German, French Huguenot, Flemish and or Walloon descent, to name just a few (we’ll leave out the gene pools that got mixed in later like Scottish, Norwegianan and Irish). Of course, none of this actually answers the question of whether or not any of the South Afrikans/kan’ts on the tour are actually Afrikaner. But it sounds like you know better than I do, so i’ll take your word for it.
Ted - go to SA and it won’t be a mystery any longer. There’s a clear distinction between dutchman and non. No impact on surfing ability, but you’re much more likely to get punched by a drunken dutchman for no good reason than you are a guy of English heritage. That said, the dutchy chicks are a much better time, even if not as attractive on the whole.
OUSTANDING!
I too cannot understand why Nathaniel and his mullet keep getting aramburu’d like a chupacabra despite his obvious family heritage.
What happened to Picon and Ritz? I swore they could surf a couple years back, not they seem to have anchors.
LOVIN IT, can’t wait for more
I wish I was as smart and worldly as Stu.
huh. So the English AREN’T drunk and violent and the Dutch ARE? My world has been turned upside down.
Furukawa-why does nome de pig make you think he’s in Brazil? Because it sounds foreign?
Marlon Lipke = German = Nazi. Brilliant.
Is that all ya got considering the free time you have and the educashun your parents wasted on you? Remember those undergraduate ‘creative writing’ classes you probably failed while doodling ‘Lewis loves Kelly’ on the back of your sperm-stained notebook while trying to figure out whether the hard-on that boys in wetsuits gave you meant that you were gay? Good times. But now you’re an unemployable surf-writing hack. Life is cruel. Seeing that you love referencing things most surfers can’t even pronounce (see ‘unemployable’, above), let me explain it in terms you might understand. Your career has gone all Godard, except you forgot to do the bit where you make a few decent films with some very sexy muses. You’re now reduced to the equivalent of making videos that no one will ever see or care about.
The fact that you’ve run out of steam is exemplified by the significantly mind-altered Blasphemy Rottmouth using the same tactic in his faux-articulate ramblings. Granted, Blasphemy Rottmouth is probably one of your personalities.
One a brighter note, you will, however, make a great high school English teacher. Young men are so nice. Ask Sarge.
Good day to you.
Fuck you fawn! Lewy quote me on the longest comment ever, i rule the comments here, I AM KING and i say you should massage my goat balls!
Peter Perfect,
Quit biting my coat tails. It’s an old argument with no comedic value. Your scathing review of Lewis merely proves his point… you can’t stay away.
You’re boring. Now go away.
My stalker hasn’t died yet… how unfortunate. Time to up the rat poison.
Indeed you do, Mark, indeed you do. I’ll try to keep things more simple for you going forward - perhaps just stick to stupid liberals, silly illegal mexicans and your fellow toothless ‘Bama friends.
Rat “boy” wishes he could get a 33rd on tour.
To quote Devo: “There’s something about the way you taste makes me wanna clear my throat.”
Re: Michael Godard - He is a commercial illustrator, and nothing more. The word for his crap is “kitsch”. He only has traction because contemporary culture has spent the past 20+ years chasing its tail in the black sinkhole called “postmodernism;” consequently, removing any sense of depth or quality.
Two hundred years ago, he would have trained as a portraitist and made good money. Photography destroyed that trade. From there, it was all downhill for “art,” which soon became the religion of secular society. Once the notions of “the sublime” and “wonder” as communicated through the art object were reified and commodified, there was no more point to even making the effort.
Hence, the duality of art today: on the one end there is the rise of “installations;” creating environments of understanding through the arrangement of concrete objects, and on the other hand the opposite: internet based actions of virtualised gestures for tactical action.
In other words: a failure.
People will want pretty pictures on the wall. Dickwads like MICHAEL Godard (good gawd - talk about a misappropriation of a name - I wouldn’t be surprised if Jean-Luc vomits or has explosive diarrhea every time he thinks of Michael) simply fill in the gap, and build “personal mythologies” in order to develop a delusional fan base around him.
Gotta go. I have to go shat uponst some student papers regarding, Adorno’s ‘Dialectics of Enlightenment,’ and then move some furniture around the house. Fuck. What a nasty weekend.
In lay-man’s terms:
Godard is terrible.
Godard wishes he was Nagel. He’s this century’s Michael Bedard.
Dear Blasphemy Rottmouth or Lewis or whoever,
If you thought I was boring you’d ignore my comment. Your scathing review of me merely proves my point…I have your number. But I won’t call. Your ego(s) are too fragile.
As far as your coat tails, as long as you’re not wearing anything else besides the coat and a pair of fishnet stockings, sipping a bastardization of a martini and carrying whip while singing show tunes, I shall not even cross the glass partition into your mindfuck existence.
Goat balls indeed.
@PeterPerfect,
Agreed. Word.
Just stop borrowing lines I’ve already used here. Keep dis OG and what not, or else…?
Dear Blasphemy Rottmouth,
It’s not ‘borrowing’ per se, it’s a homage to your humbling prose. A scholar like yourself, no matter how brain-frazzled by the dirty water mix in your martini, should recognize homage and would certainly have clinked glasses with intertextuality at some stage of your spotty education. Don’t make me go all Jürgen Habermas on your fishnetted butt, given that you’ve hijacked the comments thread already with prose most surfers couldn’t manage on a keyboard if typing infinitely. If it’s surfers versus monkey in a game of ‘infinite monkey theorem’, the spoils of victory would go to the monkey, if only because the surfer would eventually have managed to spill aged bong water over the keyboard.
You, sir, along with this so-called ‘Lewis’, drop names from your second-string university educations like Kekoa Bacalso drops wallet at Winkipop. What professional surfing needs is not critical thinking, nor stab writers laughingly trying to be the Hunter S Thompson of surfing ‘journalism’, what professional surfing needs right now is to simply go away. It’s burnt toast.
Dear PeterPerfect,
Wow! You just quoted Habermas! You must be a genious. And i’m just a sucker with no self esteem. See, i just quoted Dexter Holland. That’s how far i’ll push my game, bro. I totally agree with you Perfy. The thing is, there’s such a thing called etiquette, and etiquette in a comments boards, if there’s any, tells us that people shouldn’t write more than five lines of a text. And i just want to call everybody on this: Let’s ignore those prolix mother fuckers. They suck!
Wow, both of LS’ dual personalities doing battle……
Vague literary references aside, very entertaining and the result of some flight delay in Melbourne.
Schizophrenia for public consumption, party of one.
@Blasphemy Rottmouth 5:31am
You can go ahead and keep on posting with my name if you’d like. But, at some point, I hope you notice that your constant bobbing ‘ponst my limp noodle is quite tiresome. It’s really not that hard to come up with a name to distinguish yourself. Hell, I’d even let you use one of my past favorites: F. Murray Abrahambone. Or, how about Cherished Fisting Sling? Or Cheeto Flavored Colostrums?
@Peter Perfect
I think you’re lost. You missed an exit to the Yahoo chatrooms or something.
What is Yahoo? Are you American?
According to Mark, I’m un-American.
As far as Jason Collins and others mentioned in the power rankings it’s none of their business what we think of them.
Lewis, entertaining, yes. Does it mean anything, not really. Keep it up, its colorful.
I like Rat Boy’s surfing very much. He is one of the best in a town of has beens and bad attitudes. But, he would have never made the tour in a million years. If he cant win the Coldwater Classic then I don’t think he could win anywhere else. Airshow not included.
I gess you are from USA…I don’t think as a American citizen you shouldn’t talk so much about the fascist time of old Germany. You should just remember they were under a government and a machine that made them believe Hitler was right.And that is not much different from the machine that is making the world believe that a mussleim enemy has bombed twin towers while all the facts show that that was made by American government….. There are funny things to play about Germans …… Like their socks on their Birkenstocks, the way they dance or talk or dress or whatever you can see if you take atention on what germany is nowadays.I am not sure you are American but you sound like one of those USA citizens that think Portugal main city is Madrid….They are not famous for their cultural skills…..
Hey Lewis,
Did you watch last night your friend Aritz´s heat against Kelly?? I´m waiting to read your power ranking and see what you write about Aritz this time… May be that he was lucky…to beat Dane and Kelly???
It’s one thing to slag off all these guys on the tour but what about all the hot guys not on tour. There are guys down my local beach that deserve to be slagged off as much as anyone on tour!