International Surfing Day and NASCAR?

What kind of world do we live in? I mean really...just a few days shy of International Surfing Day: June 20, 2008, and we all find out that surfing has been pulled from the X-Games.

I have to say that even though last year's event down in Puerto wasn't overly stellar, and surfing really didn't translate very well into the extreme game format (too much time watching the coaches pretending to give advice from the beach), it was my chance to be one of those TV sports guys for a couple days. You know the types: "Quiet down! I'm watching the Game!" It might as well have been NASCAR. I was kicking Doritos crumbs all down my shirt and everything, but is that what we want surfing to become?

It made me a little uneasy thinking that surfing was becoming just another sport...becoming separated from the lifestyle and art that it has always been. Maybe I'm just bitter that there weren’t so many opportunities in surfing when I was just coming up. Either way, surfing should really be the type of activity that you have to experience, be part of, in the middle of. I think you get my drift. But with International Surfing Day creeping up, you guys and gals better start thinking about how you going to spend it. Or better yet...how you're NOT going to spend it. No TV? No work? No reading blogs (except this one of course)?

Let's be honest, International Surfing Day is no saint either what with the infinite corporate connections, but hey, it's an excuse to say, "The heck with it all. I'm going surfing." And Surfrider is supporting it, and there's nothing wrong with the folks at the Surfrider Foundation. They’ve done more for surfing than I could ever put on this screen.

On a totally random note, check out the scene that is developing over in Dubai. How insane is that? Anyone from Dubai want to let us know what it’s like being a Persian Gulf surfer?