The newest allegation against the Bay Boys is not ok. Screenshot: Reed Windle/Youtube
The Bay Boys have been the center of a real media shit storm for a few months now. I’ve never surfed there (this guy did, though!) but I figure if there are this many people coming out of the woodwork with the same complaints, there’s got to be at least an element of truth to some of them. And despite the fact that if the rumors are true, the Bay Boys are nothing more than old, cranky, spoiled rich guys with a serious case of small-dick syndrome, I can see both sides of the coin. But holy shit, the newest allegation against them is a doozy!
If you don’t know the story (which you probably do, unless you’ve been in the airless, soundless void of deep space for the last five years), here it is in a nutshell, from a previous post:
Bay Boys protect wave for years.
Bay Boys throw rocks and slash tires if you’re not a “local.”
Everyone gets mad at Bay Boys.
People go to police. Police are like, “yeah, those guys are dicks! Sorry!”
People are like, “what the fuck?”
Police shrug.
Bay Boys carry on throwing rocks.
Someone sues Bay Boys.
Everyone rejoices!
Undetermined outcome.
There. Now you’re all caught up. There have been a few other little nuggets from the rumor mill, including a couple of grown men waggling their gross old dicks in the direction of a female newcomer before pouring beer on her head. Actually. Someone said that actually happened! But on to the newest allegation. Here’s a hint: it’s super racist.
Back in 2014 there was a protest at Lunada Bay that fell on Martin Luther King Day. The protest had nothing to do with MLK; it was simply a protest about the rampant localism that had been ignored by officials for way too long. According to the LA Times, a Lunada Bay local who is allegedly part of the Bay Boys–and I’m not going to say his name, just in case this didn’t actually happen–wore “blackface and an Afro wig to the protest, telling organizer Chris Taloa, ‘You don’t pay enough taxes to be here.'”
Holy shit! If this allegation is true, this guy actually left his house in black face and an afro wig on Martin Luther King Day. The guy’s mother, of course, vehemently denied the whole thing to a reporter, while the guy himself wouldn’t talk to anyone. And get this: the mother’s proof that she knows it wasn’t her boy in blackface and an afro wig is that she SAW SOMEONE ELSE LEAVING THEIR HOUSE IN BLACK FACE AND AN AFRO WIG. On MLK Day. Fuck. Me.
But that’s not the end of it, either. One of the alleged Bay Boys, Peter McCollum–he’s the one that did the yelling when a television crew showed up to report on how much the Bay Boys yelled at people–told the Los Angeles Times that they’re only doing what they’re doing “so we can have driftwood on the beach rather than Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes. If this place was ever opened up, it would be packed with low riders, guys in VW bugs; the rocks would be marked with graffiti, and the beach wouldn’t be safe at night.” Now, I’m usually one to be pretty careful about assigning something as racist when it wasn’t meant to be, but if that statement doesn’t have some kind of racially-charged motive behind it, I’ll eat my own dirty underpants.
The new lawsuit against the Bay Boys/Palos Verdes was filed by the same people that filed the first one, Diana Reed and Cory Spencer. The attorneys in the case, Vic Otten and Kurt Franklin, told the Daily Breeze that “Palos Verdes Estates positioned itself to defend two lawsuits because it tried to get the first one dismissed.”
It also adds two more names to the list of Bay Boys, bringing the total up to ten. Whatever happens with this case, it’s pretty clear that it’s going to be the death of localism at Lunada Bay. What’s mind-blowing is that it went on for so long while the Bay Boys stooped to the lowest of lows. And while it’s all still “alleged”, like I said before, there’s only so many times someone can deny something before it becomes obvious to others that they’re bullshitting. But when you’re bullshitting about blackface… well, it’s time to take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror.
