Toonalook’s anti-wax cohort is calling on like-minded souls to take to the streets next Tuesday arvo to protest the dangers and ineffectiveness of waxxination, and shine a light on the shameful links between Wax and Big Petroleum.

In a manifesto nailed to Ding Alley’s bureau door, this movement, coming off a successful deck-grip-causes-autism campaign, have published a stirring call to arms that implores the good sheeple of Toonalook to open their eyes, not just to the truth, but to the all-caps, exclamation-marked TRUTH! … of the whole, rotten surfboard manufacturing game.

Following is an excerpt from the Anti-Wax manifesto. Out of consideration for the reader, Ding Alley has converted several dozen emphatic instances of ALL CAPS to a more genteel lower case:

Surfboards are bad and shapers are untrustworthy.

It’s an undisputable fact that all shapers are in the pockets of – and colluding with – Big Petroleum. Manufacturers are deliberately making petrochemical surfboards designed specifically to break – when it’s a fact the materials and technology have long existed to make organic, unbreakable surfboards. But where are the riches in that model? No, shapers are sharing the spoils with Big Petrol, creating a constant and totally unwarranted need and dependency on Big Petroleum products. There is no middle ground to examine here. What is the most fragile, brittle material known to man? Glass! What are surfboards encased in? Glass! Designed to shatter! How the hell do you explain that little doozy. You can’t.

But this is only the start.

When you view the surfboard world through this awakened prism of truth, when the scales fall away from your eyes, knowing in your heart of hearts what you know, everywhere you look, everything you see, only confirms the facts of the matter. 

Take Fins. They're completely unnecessary: you’ve seen Derek Hynd have a whale of a time at J-Bay on his finless creation – indisputable proof that fins are a scam – but worse still, their razor-sharp edges are clearly designed to slice flesh. 

Helloooo, paging Dr Big Medicine! 

And if further proof of this decades-old diabolical attack on the decent, common surfer is needed, consider the deliberate proliferation of fin set-ups over time, from one, to two, to three, and now to four. That’s right, multiply the fins, multiply the harm. Fin gashes are grotesque and entirely avoidable, but the media stays silent on this, and you really need to stop and ask why? What are the media hiding..?

Let’s not get started on the pointed noses of surfboards, shall we? The pointed nose of a surfboard bears more than a passing resemblance to a myriad of weaponry, from a dagger to a spear to a nuclear warhead. This similarity cannot be disputed by any rational mind. And to put this shame beyond doubt, riddle me this: surfers have died from accidents involving surfboards, and countless have been injured, so how then is it possible to deny that only the forces of silence and corruption keep every board shaper out of prison for conspiracy to murder. 

How can you fail to join these very obvious dots?

It gets worse. It goes all the way to the top. The big daddy, Numero Uno. Australia has the highest skin cancer rates in the world, yet every day, surfboard manufacturers encourage surfers to expose themselves to hours of radiation from the Sun, the evil yellow dwarf star with which shapers are clearly in cahoots. The sun that surveils our every daylit moment. Is it not sinister beyond comprehension that these folk have the means to strike such a deal with a gas-emitting monster 93 million miles away? 

Stop and consider the lengths that have been gone to here. The implications. The lies. 

Untangle this web further and what do you find – Big Medicine profiting from countless in-clinic procedures, needlessly excising mostly benign Basal Cell Carcinomas, suturing victims up with the very same thread used to make legrope strings, thus inflating the demand / price for raw materials! Hello Big Nylon! Hello soaring surfboard accessories prices!  

Legropes. Nooses in disguise. War Crimes. If you haven’t raised the alarm, are you not complicit?

I know, you’re having your mind blown here, but it’s simple, really. You just need to see and think about the world through the questioning prism of truth. The blessed internet has given us all a voice, and much like a baby activating its vocal chords in response to the world it perceives, nearby infants will surely join the chorus, in the cacophony of confirmation that keeps us in thrall to our glowing pocket-hypno-boxes. I laugh at the suggestion that such a device may in fact be driving a dagger through our traditional collective sanity. 

No, it’s the wax that’s the problem. 

Many say wax has been of great benefit to surfers over the years, which is simply not true! And I can easily expose this lie for what it is.

OK, so people ride skateboards all the time with categorically no need for wax. In inarguable ways, surfing and skating are parallel pursuits – so similar as to be indistinguishable. You’ve seen those clips of skateboarders riding in a tube created by some friends running alongside with a blue tarpaulin? That is surfing. With no wax. 

Ergo, wax is a hoax. Fact.

And I have evidence that Wax simply doesn’t work anyway. Just this morning, out at Toona Point, I saw, repeatedly, surfers falling off their waxed surfboards. What more proof do you need than this? For goodness’ sake, you see it – every, single, day –  with your own two eyes. I implore you to just open them!  

I can’t imagine more proof is required, but while I’ve got you: I did not see one surfer fall off an unwaxed surfboard. 

Does this not open your eyes to the Great Big Lie? 

If, by now, I haven’t convinced you by the sheer weight of evidence presented above, perhaps nothing will, but allow me to appeal to your intuition. 

Close your eyes (literally, as metaphorically they are already closed, friend) and picture the scenario. You are picking up a new surfboard. The shaper, who may be outwardly pleasant, but I assure you is not what he seems, hands you your murderous, petrochemical, designed-to-break surfboard. He may hand you some fins as well (while most likely fantasising about them severing your windpipe in a shorey double up – I defy you to prove to me that he isn’t). 

You exchange pleasantries and turn to leave when, with a well-rehearsed nonchalance, this nasty piece of work says, “Oh! Hang on. I almost forgot, here you go!” and reaches behind the counter and hands you a block of wax. 

Free? 

For no charge?  

Well that’s just a little bit suspicious, don’t you think?

Just ask yourself.

Why in God’s name would someone do that? What does he stand to gain? Eh??

I’ll wait.

//DING ALLEY