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The writing on (and off) the wall: Surf Coachella and catch a wave of environmental outrage

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Tom Hoffarth / FartherOffTheWall.com

If every desert had an ocean
Across the U.S.A.
Then everybody’d be surfin’
Like down La Quinta Way
You’d see the hippie-weed baggies
Hibachi hashish, too
A bushy blushy blonde pale ale
Surfin’ Coa-chell-a

If you’re planning out a route to a) keep the Colorado River flowing, b) the residents of Riverside County easy going, and c) divert the Hang Ten-induced traffic from Interstate 10 so it’s never slowing, help drown out an array of proposed surf resorts that are about to redefine how the world might view a Southern California endless summer.

A place already awash with about 150 days now of temps that exceed 100 degrees has something new to get a little hot under the collar-less shirt.

An artists rendition for DSRT / Surf near the Desert Willow golf courses.

Just look at what’s planned at the base of the Coral Mountain in Palm Desert – no, not another luxury golf course or minor-league ice hockey rink, but try 16 football fields of land filled with 22 million gallons of precious potable water — until it evaporates into the dry heat.

As John Oliver said on his “Last Week Tonight” show, the idea of four new surf parks in this region is “just monumentally stupid.”

And it’s stupendously stupid enough to work.

What better place to revive the 1960s lifestyle craze of beach blanket bingo than among the dust devils, scorpions and Indian casino slot machines. It’s all baked right into the idea that the Coachella Valley Surf Club can thrive with a mission to promote, educate and enjoy “all the surfing possibilities that wave pools bring to the inland.”

They’re behind a vision by 11-time world champion surfer Kelly Slater and his wave company to manipulate an otherwise unusable 400-acre swatch of land that hasn’t be compromised into a solar farm and giving guests access to the “largest, rideable open-barrel, human-made waves in the world.”

Roll out the barrels, stay for Octoberfest. As long as there is a pickle ball complex nearby.

At a time when celebrity residents of Benedict Canyon are pushing back on developers who want to build them a luxury hotel, and all sorts of homeowners/renters/squatters in Venice and Santa Monica gripe about more affordable shelters to address the current homeless, there’s gotta be a way for the Coachella Valley-ites to stop getting their NIMBY board shorts in a bunch and pool their creative resources.

Make this the ultimate retirement village for burnouts avoiding income taxes and all sorts of bikini waxes.

Continue reading “The writing on (and off) the wall: Surf Coachella and catch a wave of environmental outrage” →

The writing on (and off) the wall: Getting too judgy in the Ohtani-Judge discussion

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Tom Hoffarth / FartherOffTheWall.com

Come Judgement Day 2022, when the Baseball Writers Association of America voters attempt to separate the G.O.A.T.s from the unicorns, Aaron Judge will be the chosen one for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award.

New Yorkers won’t have it any other way.

Anaheimers know better.

Shohei Ohtani, who has somehow put together a more stunning resume than last year’s AL MVP season, appears to have set a bar far too high. Others are under duress trying to quantify what is normally thought of superior greatness when put up against unworldly achievement.

The social-media banter starts civil and devolves into something logic can’t always appropriate:

Ohtani is not only the game’s most valuable commodity, but also its most invisible. He is the greatest influencer as well as the sport’s most cost-effective player. A meager $5.5 million stipend from the Angels’ payroll — or what it costs for a 30-second Super Bowl TV ad — equates to what Justin Verlander ($28 million this year) and teammate Mike Trout ($37.2 million this year) are both doing right now.

How do you reward him, if not with cash, than with proper recognition?

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The writing on (and off) the wall: Just try to top Topgolf for self deprecation

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Tom Hoffarth / FartherOffTheWall.com

Shot a respectable 176 playing Pebble Beach Golf Links the other day.

Pounded down a couple of George Lopez brews, tipped the valet and got home in time to take a nap before the Chargers-Chiefs game.

Thanks, Topgolf.

If you’re driving toward, away from, or involved in a police pursuit near from LAX on Pacific Coast Highway, and this magnificent black-and-gray kingdom East of El Segundo’s landmark Chevron Oil Refinery catches your attention, perhaps you’ve reached your unintended destination. Proceed with caution.

One must be prepared there is a seduction into believing a) golf really isn’t all that challenging, demanding or demeaning, b) you’ve got time to prove that theory and c) your credit card limit can be extended in emergency circumstances.

Or, just leave your wallet in El Segundo and pursue another quest.

For the last 20-some years, Topgolf has become this bedazzled and beguiled business model on how to successfully spray tee shots to all corners yearning for legalized torture chambers under the ruse of an entertainment venue.

Sparked by its successes in Las Vegas, Austin, Scottsdale, Nashville and all the other up-and-coming 21st Century upwardly mobile resorts, Topgolf somehow seizes onto one of God’s historically problematic endeavors — as in, “G-D-it, I just lost another $5 Top Flight in that ditch” — and dupes all comers into considering this could be as recreational enjoyable as when their grandparents ran off on Saturday nights for their bowling leagues back in the ‘60s and came home smelling like a carton of Lucky Strikes.

There’s crying in golf. Tears, and fears. And no bumpers in the gutters. It spares no one.

Topgolf is stimulation through simulation. A grip-and-rip, multi-tiered launching pad that makes you forget it’s a multilevel marketing scheme.

It took until last April before getting this escape room pried opened in Southern California (after one was strategically planted first near the Ontario Airport). Airport-adjacent sites seem to be targeted now in Southern California where property can be easily transformed. It’ll only get worse if California passes sports betting legalization.

This one here in L.A. non-proper came after years of resistance from the local neighbors, led to believe this would attract the most undesirables elements. You know, the Bogey-Man Syndrome.

Now, look at the parking lot, on any day, any time. It looks like a new Carvana just set up shop.

For the uninitiated and somewhat inebriated, think of a typical mundane golf driving range now amped up with an assortment of bells, whistles and cart girls hustling over a range of food and beverage — and advice — that will push you down a path of ego punishment.

They provide the clubs, an arsenal of Callaway drivers, hybrids and wedges, all compliments of Topgolf’s new parent company. The have the balls, filled with electronic diodes, for you to whiff over, top, slice, hook and fade, by accident or on purpose. The fake grass and the rubber tees are standard. Now add in more flatscreens than the video section at Costco that tell (or mock) you, upon impact, just what your recorded as far as trajectory, speed, arch and landing spot. It’s as if you’re on a CBS telecast, the celeb partner of Phil Mickelson’s at the AT&T Pro-Am.

(Maybe a poor choice of PGA Tour pro to use here, since he’s taken his talents to that farcical Saudi league to pay down his latest gambling debt.)

So, yeah, that’s a faux Pebble Beach Course, all right. One of four in the simulator’s evil storage unit. You trust it is telling you the truth on where to aim and, when you’re a decent distance from the pin, how to chip toward the 57-yard target, make it in the middle part of the netting, and somehow accept responsibility for a triple-bogey. If at any point you use more than 10 swings, an alert pops up — you’ve exceeded your limit — so you’re stamped a certified loser and ushered ahead to the next hole. By the time you’ve taken the walk of shame to the Famous No. 18, the phony Pacific Ocean on the left and the phony sea lions barking at you is a welcome relief.

But wait, there’s more.

Continue reading “The writing on (and off) the wall: Just try to top Topgolf for self deprecation” →

Yesterday’s News: Avoiding ‘Ted Lasso’ doesn’t make you an a**so

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Tom Hoffarth / FartherOffTheWall.com

The Emmy Awards scoreboard from last Monday night shows that “Ted Lasso” kicked the crap out of the competition with a four-goal victory over at the big fancy theater in L.A. Live.

The Outstanding Comedy Series. The Outstanding Lead Actor and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Outstanding Comedy Director. The Hollywood Reporter reports it, and we honestly believe it to true.

You likely know this whole thing, an expanded NBC soccer promo somehow morphed into a script, goes on about an American college football coach who lands in England to coach up a bunch of real football players just to miff the owner’s ex-husband. Somehow, infectious optimism abounds. It’s the old goldfish-out-of-water plot, just across the pond.

Reviews of the show in quick-blurb form:

“Wickedly Funny” – New York Times.

“Laugh-Out Loud Funny” – Entertainment Weekly.

Funny thing: We still haven’t watched one bloody minute of it.

It’s been around now, what, 14 years? It could still be airing in extra time for all we know. Forgive us, but we’re still in a COVID fog since our 2020 vision went blurry.

We remember glossing over a series of L.A. Times stories about this from its esteemed soccer writer, why it happened, how it was a “tonic for our trying times,” and how it had lasso’d the football world to rally around it.

Not watching “Ted Lasso” — and to this point, any of its reported 22 episodes — doesn’t make us an a**so.

A friend with swell intentions — and a family member with a SAG-AFTRA card — slipped us one of those “For Your Consideration” screeners. Yes, we all have one of these pals with media contraband.

The other day, we went searching for the DVD out of curiosity and found it in the office desk-top organizer between a menu for Gus’s Fried Chicken and a Readers Digest renewal form. It was tempting to throw it into the old-time Blue Ray machine just to see if the thing still works.

Nope, didn’t happen.

Why this aversion to “Ted Lasso”? Without the aid of a Zoom therapy session, we tend to believe it has to do with:

= It airs on Apple TV+.

Sorry, that’s where it streams — a concept our 3-year-old grandson is still trying to figure out when he sprints to the bathroom after another gallon of apple-plus juice.

On our household spreadsheet, Apple TV+ is a net minus. In downsize mode, we’re not apt to add more apps and passwords and all other sorts of nonsense. We understand that our iPhone has an ApplePay thing to make charging everything extremely easy. It also tracks our every move and randomly adds fees to the monthly statement that have something to do with Apple.com Storage and stuff we can’t control.

Continue reading “Yesterday’s News: Avoiding ‘Ted Lasso’ doesn’t make you an a**so” →

The writing on (and off) the wall: Dr. Soon-Shiong and the DNR Angels? That’s rich

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Tom Hoffarth / FartherOffTheWall.com

Everyone and their destitute friends want to tell Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong how to spend his disposable income these days. It’s become an epidemic.

Soon enough, he’ll fritter it all away just as easily by himself.

The Los Angeles Business Journal just released its annual list of the 50 Wealthiest Angeleonos – you can read it online but you only get so many looks before you’re faced with trying to scale a paywall to keep away the illegal riffraff.

Spoiler alert: Soon-Shiong has retained his No. 1 prime-time top spot because of his deteriorating estimated his net worth of $19.1 billion.

When he was top L.A. dog in 2021, the Brentwood resident and LeBron James neighbor supposedly had $20.4 billion tucked away. Yet he is anything if not consistent – he’s lost six percent of his walking-around money in each of the last two years. Even more if you check other sources of repute.

And still, enough think he’s the person they want to buy the Angels.

There can’t be an Angeleno in his right Charles Schwab ledger who’d own up to wanting to own the Angels these days.

Soon-Shiong is in the health-care business. He knows a DNR situation when he sees one.

First, no one living in a 25-mile radius of Angels Stadium has even received their first COVID shot. That’s the definition of a dying fan base.

He also has to take into account that Shohei Ohtani, the most remarkable Major League Baseball player we will every witness in our lifetime, will be summonsed back to his home planet soon unless he is compensated according to what Babe Ruth and Cy Young would be paid, combined, in today’s economy. They’ve not created a super calculator with that many digits yet.

Soon-Shiong has to be running out of patience, patients and patents.

Continue reading “The writing on (and off) the wall: Dr. Soon-Shiong and the DNR Angels? That’s rich” →