Taming the people who make a business out of surf is impossible. Like a scene from a 60s Hollywood Surf-themed movie, the surfers acted like surfers: Tom Ruiz (brilliant speech giver), Bruce Beach, Shaddy, Carter, Johnny Gehris, Divel, Gomez, PAUL HARVEY, and even Richard Woolcott. Heck even the Surfside Sports guy was making comments on stage about how if the Monster Girls were hotter - they might be lucky enough to have him hit on them - or did he mean it the other way around? even Pat O got into the bread missile act.

Surfwise - the session after the first day had some pretty gnarly performances in some solid 4 foot dumping surf out front of the Crowne Plaza 1. Jesse Faen (barrel to fins out carve turn on a borrow egg), 2nd place Mark Price (again proving FSt technology does work better for some), Jeff Booth, Pat O'Connell, Bron Hussenstam, John Hunter, Paul Gomez!?, and Eric Crane. Standouts in other sessions: Tony Perez, Scott Desiderio, Jamie Stone, Charlie Anderson, Rob McCarty, Natalie Steele, Ryan Divel, Steve Ward and Snowy. and NO no-one saw Paul Harvey surf.

The speeches - hmmm... lotsa beeps and probably none of it will make the cut for Fuel.tv. To me it showed more than ever the spirit of surfing is alive and well, yet further away than ever from the mainstream. When the millionaire owners of the companies can't even put on a facade for the TV cameras and media, and instead chose to let loose - the message is that they really don't care - so the homogenized prepackaged surf thing from a Wall Street level ain't gonna happen until you get rid of the surfers. At that time it can be called the IMA. All the trouble makers represented the Changing of the Guard and pretty much knew each other - and through all the bread throwing, speech interrupting, friendly yet scathing insults, a lot of us had a great time and didn't realize people were pulling out their hair as Pat Parnell was realizing a Fuel episode might not happen. Pat - give us the footage - we have a bit of experience making something out of endless useless clips.

Lost's speech for "ad campaign of the year" basically said something about not agreeing with some of the other awards (actually it was one award not won - referring to the "Rocket", a general crowd fav and a surprising runner up to almost everyone) and mention of some substances some of the people who made the ads may have been on. Once again - not something Fuel TV was able to run.

Regarding the surfboard model of the year speech - it was amazing to hear the CI guys not mention Al Merrick even once. Slowly Bye Bye CI? Maybe change your strategy to CREATING good boards again instead of trying to put Lost out of business (and actual stated goal from them). They did however manage to slurp every retailer in attendance in their speech. Maybe a requirement of the surfboard voting would be to pre-qualify the voters by seeing if they surf or have tried the boards in question. Not that we need an award for our boards cuz the proof is in the worldwide demand, but you could hear a pindrop when CI was announced.

Other highlights: "Atwater" winning Breakthrough Brand of the Year. Scott deserves it, although Firewire and Skull Candy couldve won too. Not sure why establsihed companies like Sanuk and VZ are even considered Breakthrough brands... Milo on the retail panel said he chooses new brands by asking "who is behind the brand". Something to consider if you are a retailer. While the girl from LSpace nailed it on the women's swim thing. Bobby from Jack's lent a lot of insight (to MikeR at least. thanks) from the sidelines about coming from Brazil and starting on with Jack's in '72 and all the growing pains. Tony G - who hadn't been to cabo in a long time had a bad car wreck and is luckily alright. Thanks Skull Candy owner guy for handing out beers to everyone at Fortuna. On a serious note - one of the girls on stage almost lost an eye to a bread roll being thrown. Lastly I almost wished Lost hadn't won ad campaign of the year cuz Perez vowed to go up on stage and denounce any other winner.

Thanks to the SIMA crew for making it fun for everyone. Especially Sean who really has a tough job balancing the surfers and the suits.

So now you know the rest of the story...Good Day.