Kolohe Andino orders a pizza inside six-foot Teahupoo for a television spot advertising Visa Checkout, a PayPal-esque way of paying online. The advertisement is currently screening during the NFL (or watch it here).

Watch! Kolohe Andino and the Best TV Ad Ever!

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

Kolohe orders pizza inside six-foot Tahitian tube. For reals!

Three weeks ago, the writer Chas Smith reported on the making of a Visa commercial at Teahupoo and starring the Californian Kolohe Andino.

Chas wrote: “The television commercial really is top secret, though corporate veils cannot block an island’s rumour mill. They say that the woman in charge is mean, like Anna Wintour, and fires multiple people a day sending them home in shame. They say the giant, agitated crew of 70 eats so much that a food shortage lurks. They say that the commercial is for the Super Bowl. They say that its narrative arc includes Kolohe ordering a pizza on a cell phone while standing in a heaving tube.

“He zipped by me on a ski, while I was sitting in the channel, mouth agape. He did not stop to say hi but his eyes appeared very mischievous. I could almost feel him spending the thousands of dollars I owe Visa. His friends may call him “Corpo” but his name really means “li’l rascal” after all.”

And now, here it is.

The narrator, whose voice is a beautifully deep, perhaps even African-American baritone, patches us in: “Visa checkout is the easier way to pay online… But can Kolohe Andino really pay for pizza inside one of the heaviest waves in the world?”

Of course!

All the cynicism and capitalist envy in the world ain’t going to blunt the fact that this is as good and as audacious and as clever as anything manifested tween surf and mainstream.

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Ain't Nathan just the most adorable thing y'ever see (he's in the middle of the top photo and on the left in the bottom)? And he has an accent that is a beguiling mix of Bruce Irons and Jamie O'Brien. Those easy shrieks at the end of each satisfying sentence and the italicising of words are Bruce and the agreeable mmmhmmms and mmmmmm's that prefix most responses are ever-so reminiscent of Mr James O'Brien… | Photo: courtesy lil Ivan's IG

10 NOVELS YOU HAVE TO READ (WITH NATHAN FLORENCE)

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

Nathan Florence, the middle bro of the Florence cabal, is the best-read surfer west of Kelly Slater.

Today we explore the innermost workings of the middle brother of the Florence cabal, Nathan, the most interesting of the pack if you really wanna know. How many pro surfers can you think of who were gobbling novels when they were six and who’ll reference French author Guy Sajer’s seminal wartime novel The Forgotten Soldier?

1. THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE by CS Lewis

This was the first book I ever read and it’s what really turned me onto reading. Four kids in wartime Britain get sent to live in the countryside so the Stukas don’t get ’em in London. These kids explore the house and discover they can enter a magical world called Narnia through a wardrobe. The killing of Aslan sure gave me the yips. But, then, ah yes, the plot thickens…

2. THE TALISMAN by Stephen King

I’ve read it twice and its still one of my favourites. It’s about a 12-year-old kid who flips into another reality and goes on this crazy adventure so can save his ma who’s dying of cancer.

3. THE DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER SERIES by Stephen King

This is the most creative series of books I’ve ever read because every one of his other books has a little part of the other in it. It’s all about a gunslinger called Roland Deschain searching for “a man in black.” And, he’s a gunslinger, but it ain’t the Wild West but a kind of parallel universe.

4. THE EGYPTIAN by Mika Waltari

This was first published in Finnish and it was deciphered from from ancient scrolls. It’s the autobiography of a guy’s life in ancient Egypt. Eight hundred pages and ain’t a page where your eyes glaze over.

5. THE FORGOTTEN SOLDIER by Guy Sajer

Here’s a book, originally in French, about a German conscript soldier fighting the wild Russkis in World War II. Read about the unbelievable cold, the viciousness of the Russkis and the endless cycle of horrible violence. The best war book I’ve ever read.

6. A GAME OF THRONES series by George RR Martin

I’ve read all five of the first series and I like ’em because they keep you guessing the whole time and, always, somehow, they continue to baffle you. Man, it’s hard to explain this twisted, radical series.

7. THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE by Stephen Crane

This book set in the American Civil War is about something we can all relate to, or at least in surfing. It’s about overcoming your fear and pushing your own limits, although, yeah, surfing is a lot less dangerous then war and especially this particularly nasty one.

8. WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS by Wilson Rawls

I read this in, like, the sixth grade and was so hooked I couldn’t put it down for a week. Then, man, I ended up so depressed cause the dog, that beautiful ol coonhound, died in the end. Yikes! Sorry bout the plot spoiler!

9. EDUCATION OF A FELON. A MEMOIR. by Edward Bunker

This is by far the craziest non-fiction that I ever read. I think it’s why I liked it so much. It’s about a guy that had been in and out of prisons and institutions since he was 10, wound up in drug dealing, robbing banks etc. He’s, like, the toughest human ever.

10. ANYTHING by Charles Bukowski

I got psyched on all of Chuckie’s books because he would just write about all his chicks he was getting while being an alcoholic writer living in shitty little apartments.

Editor’s note: this story first appeared in Stab magazine and is further evidence of BeachGrit’s ability to repackage and rebrand. Like Vissla! Post-post modernism!

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Is that a knife in Chris' hand? Maybe he uses to punish interlopers, those bad people who make him "miserable with hate." | Photo: courtesy of Farm League

How to Bar Fight with Chris Malloy

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

Being a renaissance man ain't just about pick-ups and organic leaves. Sometimes y'gotta know how to swing a punch…

There are three brothers, as you might already know, in the Malloy house. Chris, Keith and Dan. Chris is the eldest, having just straddled the horse (warning: many masculine metaphors to follow) of middle age. Chris is a former pro surfer, a serious climber of mountains and makes fine documentaries and television commercials.

Let’s go deeper. He likes to chew tobacco (“It’s the dumbest habit in the world”), had a childhood fantasy to become a saddle bronc rider until he saw a guy get gored in the groin and then bleed out (so dead!), wants to make a film about the late Hawaiian big-wave surfer Todd Chesser (“But Hollywood always fucks up surfing even if surfers are involved. If I fucked up Todd’s story he’d come back from hell and haunt me for the rest of my life. He’d come back and piss on me while I slept”), is saddened by the ultra-crowding of surfing although he’s aware of the hypocrisy of complaining about crowds when your game is making surf films, once rolled a truck four times on the North Shore (“My back has never been the same since”) and together with his brothers spent an entire summer, as kids, camping on the beach in a teepee (“Dad or my mom would come by in the evenings when he got off from his construction job and bring us food and firewood”).

Have we established Chris’ woody credentials yet? Now let’s talk bar fights!

Wait, before bar fights, let’s talk hate!

Yeah, for sure, but it just takes so much goddamn energy to hate people that I just sort of tried to give it up. Dan got into a fight at the beach a few years back and right as he knocked the guy on his ass the guy’s mate came from behind and king hit Dan. The guy he knocked on the ground got back up and they double-teamed him pretty bad. For a week after that I was at that beach looking for those guys. I really wanted to kill them. I was miserable with hate that week. Then, one morning I woke up and just said, man, you gotta snap out of this! But, I wont lie, I hope those two stay on the meth and that they end up giving blowjobs to score their next fix.

In an interview, you once said, “We get wasted and we get in bar fights and we do stupid things.” Do you, or did you, really get into bar fights?

Yeah, we had fun in a scrap here and there. And, yeah, I remember that interview. The guy was trying to build us up to be something we weren’t. So I just told him that fact so that he’d shut up. Over the years, we had good manners on the road and while we lived in Hawaii. It just seemed silly to get stupid when you’re in these amazing places surfing good waves. But, yeah, at home, over the years, we won a few and we lost a few. It’s hard to grow up in a giant Irish family and not have that side to you. There’s a little gem of Danny boy on the internet. Look up “surf rage” on youtube.

What is the general provocation for a fight?

It’s always different and usually not worth it the next day.

Do you have tactics?

Our only tactic was to end up on top. It worked a few times.

Have you ever thought, hoo!, I’ve bitten off more than I can chew here?

Oh yeah. I was in a restaurant in Waikiki with this girl I really liked. A Canadian hockey team walked in and one of them just started feeling her up. Right there in front of me! I was out-numbered but it drove me crazy. I jumped on the guy and got him good, three or four times with a beer mug. The rest of the team beat the shit out of me. I woke up in a cop car. The next week I was in G-land and my ribs were so sore I could barely surf. Perfect Speedies and “m in the channel wincing. Another lesson learned.

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CANDID: MY 10 WORST WITH MASON HO!

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

BeachGrit's most favourite inhabitant of Sunset Beach (Wait! In third place after the Rothmans!)…

GIRLFRIEND: I’m not really into having girlfriends. I usually just try and ride ’em like waves, ride ’em as long as I can. But, I have hooked up with a few psycho girls. I used to be able to hook up with anything, make puppy eyes, whatever, I didn’t mind their attitude. I cruised with this one psychotic bitch and the next morning I woke up, seriously, and just left. I don’t know if I grew up or what, but that was that.

BREAKUP: All my ex-chicks have been so cool! I’m pretty smart. Hey, yeah, no worries, I just want to see you happy. Just let me pump when you cruise at my house. I don’t got no ex-girls that don’t let me bone.

PARTY: There’s this place called the Crazy Box in Town (Honolulu). It’s the sickest place. I don’t usually black out too often but every time I was going there, I’d black out, somehow. And, then I’d hear some horror story in the morning. Like, what the fuck! That’s not me, man! And that leads me into the worst…

HANGOVER: Hoo! I’ve had some bad ones there at Crazy Box. I wake up at my house, on the balcony with my dog, puking, and my Dad (Pipe Master Michael Ho) laughing and saying, “I told you! Don’t drink alcohol, it’s the worst!” I thought I was killing the night before and I wake up with my three-legged dog, Hurricane.

JOB: Me? A real job? Um. Um. I remember when I was a kid, when I was nine, I got a couple of 20-dollar bills for mowing lawns and I was so psyched to build it up I mowed every lawn up and down the North Shore. Nine years old, mowing lawns. I’ve never had a real job.

FRIEND: Fuck, I’ve had a couple of friends who’ve gone bad just from drugs. I’ve had a few friends and before I know it, whoa, he’s doing ice, he’s smoking bath salts, whatever. I just handle that shit. But, it’s a good reminder not to do dope and shit. I’ve never tried gnarly, gnarly drugs. If I told you all the drugs I didn’t do, you’d say, what the fuck? A lot of my heroes were on dope. There’s a few clean ones, Slater, my Dad. But, I like the fricken gnarly guys, too.

What I like to do is to act like I’m on it, walk the line right by it. Guys say, “Fuck, that’s so sick you’re on it! Here, try it!” And, I say, “I haven’t even tried this or this or this.” And, they say, “You’re almost straight edge.” And, I say, “I’m more fucked up than you in the head.” Ha!

CONTEST: Oh man, I’ve had too many of those! I’m the worst! But, I sure do love ’em! I want to make that WCT tour so fucken bad. I call that the Canvas Tour, the Art Tour, because once you’re on it you get to display everything. The other tour is such a grind! I don’t do these shore breaks! But, worst contest, right? I should say my most recent contest, probably. Virginia Beach, East Coast. I’d been going nuts training, me, my dad and Uncle Derek (1993 world champ Derek Ho). I thought I was Shane Beschen in the ’90s. I was confident, eating good, then, frick, when I go out, dead flat. I didn’t even get a chance to catch a wave.

WAVE: I caught a really bad wave at Log Cabins, worst wave ever. I pulled in, the wave bottomed out, I hit my head, it sounded like the air coming out of a tyre, and now I don’t surf Logs anymore. But, I’ll surf Rockpiles (the next wave along the North Shore strip) all day, any day.

FIGHT: I’ve had a few good ones! I’ve never really gotten too beaten up, though. I like to talk it out and do it nicely, like what just happened recently at Deserts (Desert Point, Lombok, Indonesia). I don’t want no problems after. I like to be respectful. I’ll say, “I’m sorry you’re pissed, and I respect you big time, but you look down to fight and I’m down to fight, so let’s go in, fight, then shake hands and have a beer afterwards.” That’s my theory. If you’re going to fight, respect ’em and they’ll respect you back and maybe not tag you so bad if they catch you good. If they call me a bitch, at least I tried. I’ll come in and… bang… dynamite! When I was a kid, an Aussie guy cracked me really good. We made friends ’cause I elbowed him in the face and he was all stoked. That was on the Gold Coast.

CRINGE: Some fucken drugs, to be honest. Some heroin or fricken Ice or something that screws you up. I’m scared of that shit, f’sure. And, razor sharp reef, not reefs in general ’cause I love reefs, but razor sharp reef. That shit makes me cringe. I’ll never snorkel at Pipe ’cause I’m too scared to see what’s underneath.

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SOCHI, RUSSIA - FEBRUARY 11: Iouri Podladtchikov of Switzerland competes in the Snowboard Men's Halfpipe Finals on day four of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park on February 11, 2014 in Sochi, Russia. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

the nine people who matter in surfing. Right now!

By Chas Smith

10 years ago

Tiago Pires ain't one of them...

Surfing is an ever changing tableau. Who matters today most likely didn’t matter yesterday and won’t matter tomorrow. Remember Joel Parkinson? Me either. But if the great modern feel-good philosophers have taught us anything it is that this minute right now is the only thing that matters. Or to quote Eckhart Tolle, “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.” Without further ado, here is who matters NOW:

Brodie Carr: The ASP is in massive trouble. Rumor has it that they are drying out of money and quickly. Big dreams of non-endemic sponsorship have run into the razorblades of surfing’s relatively small viewership. Aye-aye-aye! And when it goes into bankruptcy and is purchased, for five cents on the dollar, by a hedge fund who do you think they will turn to for day to day management? Brodie Carr. He is the only man, alive at this second, who can run that circus and he will ride in on a white Peugeot (he lives in France) to save the day. Terry Hardy will be so mad! And also so broke!

Dane Reynolds: Even five or six Coors Lights above fighting weight, Dane is still, and by far, the most mercurial surfer on the planet. He sees the wave differently. He tweaks his body differently. He rides his board differently. The kids want to surf like Dane. I want to watch Dane surf. Who knew that he would have such a long and fabulous run? I have no idea how he does it but there is no end in sight.

Bethany Hamilton: She has one arm. She is working on a film right now. You will never ever ever surf as good as her.

Joe G: Has quietly built a legacy making movies at Globe. They are each and every one beautiful but none more so than his latest, Strange Rumblings in Shangri-la. It is the first surf film, since Endless Summer, that is an actual film film. Like, it has story blended into hot action blended into gorgeous cinematography. He will go on to win Academy Awards and it will have started with a movie starring Dion Agius. Who would have ever guessed that? The Li’l Lion is a kingmaker!

Leonardo Fiorivanti: The Stallion shreds, charges, is Italian, speaks French and may well be surfing’s first global, Hollywood-level star. Sure, Kelly could have been what with all those good looks and Gisele Bundchens, but he chose to stay on tour, forever, and to get a bit weird with conspiracy theories. The fact that Leo is just now coming into his own is a happy day for our surf world. And a happy day for teenaged girls, around the world, fed up with Justin Beiber. He will turn the Beliebers into Fiora-fanatics and the sun will shine again on our bedraggled industry.

Gabby Medina: Your first Brazilian champ? He matters so much that he makes you get on Internet message boards and spew racist hate about a whole nation! If that ain’t power, I don’t know what is.

John John: Where Dane is mercurial, John John is consistently awesome. We all expect him to get very barreled, and he does. We all expect him to kick giant airs and he does. We expect his video parts to amaze, equally, with his competitive heats and they do. John John was worth waiting for and is he ever here!

Iouri Podlatchikov: The Olympic gold medal winning snowboarder from Russia/Switzerland does not surf but no one has ever looked better shredding and our world is buzzing. Take note. At the Olympics, the Swiss national team wore a very bland red and pukey brown ensemble. Iouri wore black on black on black, with a white Quiksilver logo, and smashed Shaun White’s face into the ice. If a man can look like that while competing in the most conservative sporting event on the planet why can’t surfers do it in the water?

You: Just kidding. Unless you are at the store, reading this on your phone while buying loads of surf t-shirts, boardshorts and flip-flops. Then you are giving Dane Reynolds a reason to paddle out in the morning. Bravo.

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Eat beach grit spam!