Lifestyle
Huh? What surfers mean when they're carving and charging at the Olympics or at home
Some things are inevitable when surfing in Southern California: It can feel like an exclusive club, you may have to battle traffic to get to the good waves, and overhearing a very specific, and sometimes confusing, dialogue.
When you paddle out, it’s as though you’ve entered a new world with its own language that might sound like: “Did you see that kook? He snaked me on such a gnarly wave!”
No, this is not Gen Z-speak. No “rizz” is to be found, no cap, and while what surfers might say in the water to each other may be “sus,” you’re more likely to hear “gnarly” intertwined with “drop-in” or “barrel.”
Like every generation has its slang, so do surfers and, my, how it has evolved over the decades. Some surfer lingo — like stoked — has even seeped into Southern California non-surf-related parlance, but that depends on how close you are to the coast.
“Surfing does seem to have this other layer of words that are special to us,” said Matt Warshaw, author of the “Encyclopedia of Surfing” and “The History of Surfing.” “There’s also sort of a cadence to it. It’s also trying to decode what level of irony we are throwing out there.”
If you tuned into the Olympic surfing competition at Tahiti’s Teahupo’o, you may have noticed that the commentators are keenly aware of the subculture’s language eccentricities. They are graciously explaining surf maneuvers and terms to a global audience.
If you’re interested in joining the club or want to better navigate the lineup, knowing these words might mean the difference between a good surf experience and a bad one. In between waiting for waves, here are a few common surf terms we’ve overheard recently:
A-frame wave, n.
Used to describe a wave that breaks in the shape of an “A” and often referred to as a “peaky wave,” A-frames allow surfers to ride the breaking wave in both directions or split the peak. A-frame waves can occur almost anywhere, but more often than not they occur at sandy beaches during the right surf conditions.
Barrel, n. and v.
A barrel is used to describe a hollow, more powerful wave and the act of surfing inside the hollow section of a wave.
If you watched some of this year’s Olympic surfing competition at Tahiti’s Teahupo’o, you may have noticed the lip of the wave pitches and forms a hollowed-out curl. This is referred to as a barrel and is one of the most highly sought-after surfing experiences. When the right swell breaks over its very shallow reef, Teahupo’o is one of the most dangerous barrel rides in the world.
Charging, v. Often used to describe a surfer aggressively paddling for bigger waves and putting all their effort into catching those waves, charging can be used as a compliment from one surfer to another, like: “I saw you charging that big wave!”
Dropping in, v. Dropping in is often used to reference a surfer cutting off another who is already riding the wave. This action is referencing a surf etiquette violation and often leads to frustration.
Gnarly, adj. Originally from the word “gnarled” meaning rough or twisted, surfers adapted this word in the 1970s to describe a situation that can be seen as extreme such as riding an intimidating wave, said Warshaw.
“That’s one we didn’t make up, but we certainly adapted for our own use,” said Warshaw, recalling a 1972 Surfer Magazine photo caption of a “horrific looking wave” that first used the word. ”It’s a perfect way to describe … the kind of waves that we look at and ride. Apply that to any situation that is a little bit hairy,” he said.
Kook, n. Occasionally spelled “kuk,” this word is often used by surfers to describe a less experienced surfer. Arguably one of the most derogatory terms in the surf world, kook has origins in the Hawaiian word “kukae,” which means crap. The word describes a surfer who doesn’t understand surf etiquette or has a poor attitude.
“Sometimes I’ll say it if other people in the lineup have no idea what they’re doing … that’s how surfing is unfortunately,” said Joseph Barber, a recreational surfer from San Clemente. “[The waves are] a scarce resource, and when you add a lot of people who don’t know what they’re doing, it gets intense.”
Lineup, n. This refers to the area just beyond the breaking waves where surfers are waiting for waves. These spots can vary in size and, depending on the swell, are the official locations where people must paddle out to catch waves and wait their turn.
Pearling, v. When a surfer puts too much weight at the front of their board, the tip of the board will submerge in the water, often resulting in the surfer flailing or falling off their board. Akin to pearl diving, said Warshaw, the term is reminiscent of a person diving from a boat or pier.
Shaka, v. The hand gesture most closely associated with surf culture, shaka is formed by making a fist with the thumb and pinky fingers extended. Though the gesture is closely associated with Hawaiian surf culture in the 1970s, the Oxford English Dictionary says it potentially has Japanese roots.
“If a camera comes out, my hand almost automatically goes up into that [gesture], even though it looks sort of silly. It’s basically just a greeting,” said Warshaw. “The thing that used to go with shaka is ‘howzit.’ ”
Along with shaka, howzit is a Hawaiian slang term for “how’s it going.”
Stoked, n. Stoked means to feed a fire, and in surfer language, it is an expression of pure excitement and the satisfaction one may feel after catching a good wave or completing a difficult maneuver. According to the Encyclopedia of Surfing, surfers began using this expression in the 1950s and has been a common expression both in and out of the water ever since.
“When surfers are feeling excited to surf, they might say, ‘I’m so stoked,’ ‘I’m psyching’ or, my personal favorite, ‘I’m frothing,’ ” said Kevin Tran, a recreational surfer from San Clemente.
As you paddle out to the lineup, remember that surfing is more than just riding waves — it’s a community with its own subculture that can vary from locale to locale. Whether you’re frothing for the next set wave or just stoked to be part of the scene, understanding the language — and of course, surf etiquette — will help you navigate the surf with more confidence.
Taylor Tomlinson says her on stage presence isn’t a persona or a character: “It’s just the best version of me.”
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Comic Taylor Tomlinson was just 16 when she caught the stand-up bug. That’s when she started performing at open mics in church basements in Orange County, Calif., where she grew up.
“It’s not a cool story,” Tomlinson says. “But … church audiences are very supportive — as long as you don’t say anything dark, edgy or blue.”
Over the years, Tomlinson’s material has shifted, with topics ranging from the perils of dating on apps to finding out she has bipolar II disorder. Though she was initially unsure about talking about her own mental health on stage, she says it’s helped her connect with the audience.
“I got such amazing feedback from people who had been struggling with their mental health, … how it made them feel seen and less alone and made them feel better about their own journey,” Tomlinson says.
Tomlinson describes her on-stage presence as “the sharpest, quickest, wittiest, most confident version” of herself: “When I started doing stand-up in high school, it felt like more of a persona, … like the version of myself that I knew I could be and wanted to become, but wasn’t yet,” she says. “And I think over the years, who I am off stage and who I am on stage have come together where I do feel that I am the same person everywhere.”
Earlier in the year, Tomlinson became the youngest ever late-night host. Her CBS show, After Midnight, has been described as a game show that centers on internet culture. Tomlinson also has three stand-up specials on Netflix: Quarter-Life Crisis, Look at You and Have It All. She’ll soon be traveling the country with her Save Me tour.
Interview highlights
On losing her mother to cancer when she was a child and how that affected her path to comedy
I’m not saying that everybody in comedy or any creative person has to come from this dark place and the only way you’re funny is if you have a darkness about you. I don’t think that’s true. But for me, that changed who I was and who I was going to become. And it changed my sense of humor. And it made me try really hard to prove myself in a way that I don’t think I would have if she were still alive. Because after you lose a parent, you’re still trying to impress them, and you’re still trying to be somebody that they would have liked and respected and loved and been proud of. And you’re hoping other people who knew them tell you that. …
I do rely on other people’s accounts of her, because there’s only so much you remember when you lose somebody at 8 years old. … Like my aunt has said to me, “Oh, your expressions on stage will remind me of her.” … And that means so much to me. And growing up, I wanted to be a writer before I wanted to be a comedian. And they would say, “Your mom was such a great writer.” And there’s so many ways I’m not like her. Like she was an extrovert. She was very bubbly. She was very charismatic. She was gorgeous. … I don’t think I shine brightly as she does and I, in a weird way, feel like my becoming a comedian and a professionally creative person and a writer is like my way of honoring the potential that was wasted by the universe taking her.
On why she left the church after her mom died
I had been told if you believe and pray and stay faithful, God will answer your prayers. And we had so many people praying for [my mom] and she believed she was going to get better. And so to watch your mom die of cancer, even while everybody gathers around her and lays hands on her and supports her and prays for her and then for them to turn around and go, “Well, God did heal her. He just healed her in a different way. She’s healed in heaven.” And I was like, whoa, OK. Like, the rewrite on that is crazy. It made me question everything. And slowly over the next 10 years, I felt like I was struggling to stay in it the whole time I was growing up, and I just felt like I was a bad Christian because I didn’t, in my heart, agree with everything.
On being diagnosed with bipolar II disorder
I tried so many antidepressants and they weren’t working for me, and I was having terrible side effects. … It was certainly a years-long process trying to find what worked for me.
Then when I finally did find what worked for me, I sort of worked backwards from that and was like, oh, this makes sense. … I had so much shame around that diagnosis when I first got it, and I was embarrassed that I felt ashamed because I’ve never judge anybody else who had it. But when it’s you, it’s somehow different, which is why I started writing jokes about it.
On deciding to joke about having bipolar
I remember my therapist said to me, “Maybe we don’t talk about this on stage.” And I was like, “I’ve already done it.” … Once you write one joke and it hits and you really like the joke, you’re like, well, it’s got to go in the act. … But when I filmed [Have It All], I felt great about those jokes and then in the months waiting for it to come out, I started panicking and was like, Oh no, I can’t un-share any of this.
Over the years, I’ve gotten better about editing myself and deciding what is going to go in the act and what I’m just going to keep private. But it’s a lot of trial and error. … The guiding light for me has been even if something kills on stage, do I feel good telling it every night, or do I dread that bit coming up? I have done jokes about very personal things that I took out of the act because I was dreading getting to that part of the hour every night, and I was like, ooh, that’s probably a sign that I’m not ready to talk about this yet. … I also run jokes by family members and friends before I do them, because a joke is not worth destroying a relationship, in my opinion.
Heidi Saman and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
TMZ.com
Ryan Seacrest is living his best life … soaking up the good vibes with his “Wheel of Fortune” co-host Vanna White as they gear up for the new season!
We caught the duo rolling into ABC Studios in NYC … where Ryan declared he’s got zero jitters and is pumped for everyone to enjoy the classic CBS show they know and love.
For her part, Vanna raved about their on-screen chemistry … a huge relief considering she’d previously worried about clicking on-stage with Seacrest after so many years with Pat Sajak.
Ryan later explained to TMZ outside the iHeartRadio studios that Pat himself was fully on board with Seacrest taking his spot on the show — debunking reports he wasn’t the icon’s first choice.
TMZ.com
Ryan shrugged off the speculation, giving a nod to the legend’s unmatched brilliance on the show and making it clear they were on great terms, with Pat sending him a “good luck” text the day before.
Seacrest’s debut as host with Vanna hits the screen on Monday. Get ready to spin into a new season!
Late-summer heat waves are threatening Napa Valley’s famed cabernet grapes, which produce some of the United States’ most expensive wines. To survive in a hotter climate, winemakers are realizing they’ll need to adapt.
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Climate change is affecting our food, and our food is affecting the climate. NPR is dedicating a week to stories and conversations about the search for solutions.
In California’s Napa Valley, cabernet sauvignon is king.
The bold red wine has made the region world famous, with some bottles retailing at hundreds of dollars. But increasingly severe heat waves are taking a toll on the grape variety, especially in late summer during ripening. As temperatures keep rising, the wine industry is slowly confronting a future where Napa may not be the prime cabernet region it once was.
In the face of climate change, wineries around the world are innovating. New technology is being installed to keep the grapes cool during heat spells. A handful of wineries are going a step further. They’re experimenting with new grapes, ripping out high-value cabernet vines to plant varieties from hotter climates.
The goal is to find heat-tolerant grapes that blend well with cabernet, potentially making up for the flavors that cabernet could lack when temperatures get even hotter. While many bottles labeled cabernet are already blended with other grapes in small amounts, winemakers may need more flexibility in the future.
“We know we have to adapt,” says Avery Heelan, a winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Calistoga, Calif. “We can’t just pretend that it’s going to go away, because all we see is each year it’s getting more and more extreme.”
Still, blending with other grapes comes with risks. For a U.S. wine to be labeled cabernet, a bottle must contain 75% cabernet grapes or more. Any less, and it’s considered a red blend. Blends typically don’t command the same prices on store shelves as cabernet, especially since consumers are accustomed to picking U.S. wines by the name of the grape. Moving away from cabernet would be a major financial gamble for Napa’s multibillion-dollar wine industry.
“It is a big shift,” says Elisabeth Forrestel, an assistant professor of viticulture and enology at the University of California, Davis. “Without the market changing or demands changing, you can’t convince someone to grow something that doesn’t sell or doesn’t garner the same price.”
University of California, Davis research assistant Jacob Vito crushes cabernet sauvignon grapes from Napa Valley to analyze their chemical compounds. The lab is studying how heat is affecting the grapes.
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Charbono, anyone?
Some grapes growing at Larkmead Vineyards aren’t ones that many American wine drinkers would recognize. Long rows of vines are labeled: touriga nacional, aglianico, charbono and tempranillo.
“There’s not a huge market for a lot of these varieties,” says Heelan, walking among the vines on a hot summer afternoon. “We’re really choosing them not from popularity, but for their qualities.”
Established more than a century ago, the winery is known for its bottles of cabernet sauvignon. These lesser-known grapes were planted only a few years ago, part of a research vineyard that took the place of cabernet vines.
“Which most people would probably think is a little crazy, considering it’s 3 acres of perfect cabernet land,” Heelan says. “But certainly with the climate and how dramatically it’s changed over even the last 10 years, we really have to start adjusting.”
Winemaker Avery Heelan is growing several rare grape varieties at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley, in the hope that they’ll blend well with cabernet grapes as temperatures get hotter.
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The vineyard is already at the hotter northern end of Napa Valley, but the extreme heat in recent years has been a wake-up call. A late-summer heat wave in 2022 hit temperatures just under 120 degrees at the vineyard, she says.
“When it gets that hot, the vines, they’re done,” she says. “They’re going to go dormant, and when that happens, they’re not ripening anymore.”
In extreme heat, cabernet grapes can lose their rich color. They also dehydrate, wrinkling like raisins, which produces wines that are sweeter and more alcoholic. Heelan says the grapes that the vineyard is testing could provide an added boost of color or acidity to cabernet, helping balance out the wine when temperatures take their toll.
The experiment has its cost. In addition to the lost revenue from removing cabernet, grapevines take up to five years to produce their first crop, plus several more years for the wines to ferment. Heelan says only then will they start to see how the new grapes are performing. But the goal is to prepare the winery for the future, knowing that heat will likely get worse.
“Honestly, the more we experiment and learn about how to adapt, I think the wines are just getting better and better,” she says.
In hotter temperatures, cabernet grapes lose their rich red color and produce sweeter, more alcoholic wines.
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Where cabernet is king
Farther south, Shafer Vineyards sits in the heart of Stags Leap, a Napa wine region that’s known for high-end cabernets. Winemaker Elias Fernandez says the grapes benefit from a cool evening breeze that blows in from San Francisco Bay.
This summer, heat has already been a problem. July was the hottest July on record in California. Fernandez points to a grape cluster where small green grapes are nestled among larger purple ones.
“This is effects of the heat,” he says. “It’s not maturing, so this is where you lose some fruit.”
Winemaker Elias Fernandez is installing new technology at Shafer Vineyards in Napa Valley to combat heat waves.
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The damage isn’t too widespread this year, unlike in 2022. But with summers getting more intense, Fernandez says the winery is looking at technology to help the cabernet vines. They’re currently installing misters, which spray water into the air to cool the temperature.
“It’s a constant mist,” he says. “How many of you have been to a party where they have misters? Doesn’t that feel good? Well, that’s what the vines are feeling.”
Still, using extra water is a challenge in drought-prone California, he says. Plus, the water droplets can concentrate the light on the grapes and burn them, so misters must be run until the sun sets to keep the droplets from collecting. But Fernandez says he’s hoping the misting will keep the cabernet vines producing at the highest level.
“I think the first thing we’ll be doing is mitigation, hoping to keep it as the true varietal of Napa Valley,” he says. “That’s what we’re trying to do — is buy time and see what happens with this whole thing.”
For now, he’s not considering planting other grape varieties. With wines that are priced at $100 and up, cabernet is central to their business.
“For me, it’s hard to think that people are just going to throw cabernet out the door and plant something else,” he says. “I really do. It’s the king of the wines of the world.”
To keep producing high-quality cabernets, Napa Valley winemakers may need to blend them with other grapes to balance out the effects of heat. But wines labeled as blends, instead of cabernet, often sell at lower prices.
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Wine regions are shifting
Professor Elisabeth Forrestel is studying how Napa’s wine regions are shifting with climate change.
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Elisabeth Forrestel is one person trying to understand the big swings in the temperature. In her lab at UC Davis, her research team is smashing Napa Valley grapes inside plastic bags. They’ll be analyzed at the molecular level to see how they change during the summer.
Forrestel’s lab is gathering wine grapes from Napa Valley throughout the growing season, along with detailed temperature data, to see how the most crucial compounds for wine are affected by heat. Studies show the average temperature during the last 45 days of the growing season in Napa — when grapes ripen— has already warmed almost 3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1958 to 2016. But it’s the intense heat waves that do the most damage to molecules that produce a wine’s color and aroma.
“When you have these extreme heat events, you can have a lot of impact on the development of that flavor profile,” she says. “If it was just an average change, it would be a lot easier to manage.”
Forrestel is working on updating a central guide for winemaking, known as the Winkler Index. Developed in the 1940s, it shows the ideal locations to grow different varieties of wine grapes, based on how much heat they receive. Napa Valley was originally indexed for cabernet sauvignon, but this could shift as the climate gets hotter.
With cabernet being the world’s most widely grown wine grape, cabernet vines are resilient to different temperatures, Forrestel says. It’s a question of whether Napa winemakers may need new strategies to keep it producing at such a high-quality level. Since grapevines last 50 years or more, winemakers are faced with making planting decisions today that will need to withstand a hotter future.
“Some of the paradigms in what you would plant need to shift,” she says. “People need to have different approaches so there can be more resilience and you can have more options.”
UC Davis research associate Martina Galeano prepares grape samples. Wine grapes need heat for ripening, but too much heat can break down some of the crucial compounds for wine flavor and color.
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Would you pay the same for a blend?
Blending cabernet with other red grapes could be one strategy. But since U.S. regulations require any bottle labeled cabernet to contain 75% cabernet, at some point wineries may be looking at changing their labels to say “red blend.”
“We have a perception that a blend is not as high quality as getting that high-quality cabernet, and they’re not on the same price point, so it is a big shift,” Forrestel says.
The challenge is particular to U.S. winemakers, since many other countries label their wines by region, instead of grape. The famed red wines from Bordeaux in France are already a mix of six grapes, including cabernet, so winemakers have more flexibility. Winemakers there have also struggled with heat, so French authorities recently approved four more red-grape varieties for blending. Since the wines are labeled with Bordeaux, wine drinkers may not even notice the shift.
Wines in the U.S. are generally labeled by the grape variety, a system that was promoted when the domestic wine industry was growing in prominence decades ago. In an effort to compete with wines from Europe, some thought focusing on the grape variety would demystify wines for consumers and show the quality of American wines.
Now, that system may work against them. Cabernet sauvignon is the most popular red wine in the U.S., according to NielsenIQ. So Forrestel says consumers are also part of the solution by creating demand for wines that are better suited for a hotter climate.
“Be open,” she says. “Because I think it’s really easy to walk in and buy what you’re used to. And also, trust what you like and not what you’re told to like.”
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