Ian Crane Great Lakes
It ain't Indo, but what is? Get it where you can… 

Ian Crane Surfs the Great Lakes!

San Clemente's Ian Crane tears to little pieces the mercury ridden water of the Great Lakes. With zing!

The Great Lakes are a series of interconnected freshwater lakes on the border of the US and Canada. Think Chicago (Lake Michigan), Toronto (Lake Ontario). Think Detroit. Think industrial. Think mercury in the water. Birth defects. Unhappy fish. It ain’t Indonesia.

But if the wind blows enough, waves will discharge themselves. And they’re interesting enough. Fresh water means less buoyancy but less drag. And no sharks!

Here we see San Clemente’s Ian Crane squeeze out a shuv-it in between laborious turns in the cold water and even a bonus sequence of a kook being bounced on some rocks.

 

…LOST ACROSS A LAKE from Lost Enterprises on Vimeo.


Anne Hathaway experiences the treacherous waters of the Pacific while vacationing in Hawaii! She survived!
Anne Hathaway experiences the treacherous waters of the Pacific while vacationing in Hawaii! She survived!

Ordinary Kooks and their Extraordinary Wipeouts 2

Leave your serious at home! This is strictly for laughs!

In the comments of last week’s installment of Ordinary Kooks and their Extraordinary Wipeouts,  I was lucky enough to be given a free psychiatric diagnosis by an online mental health expert.

“I know you’re trying to be funny and you may be a proud, skilled waterman,” the doctor wrote, “but the way you describe the joy, satisfaction and self validation that you get from watching ordinary men (and women) fear for their lives and become injured… it’s scary man. Your article wreaks [sic] of a true blue psychopath, waterman or not.”

While this is hardly the first time someone has expressed that sentiment in regards to my supposed lack of empathy I was, perhaps understandably, hesitant to accept the initial diagnosis. After all, it wasn’t long ago that I was nearly killed by a misdiagnosed skull infection, from which I took away the conviction that you should always seek a second opinion.

I’ve always been slightly concerned that setting foot in a shrink’s office will find me temporarily confined for a 72-hour observation and so I decided to seek out some top-notch testing online. Using the power of the internet would ensure I got a trustworthy diagnosis, as well as provide enough anonymity to quell my fear of straight jackets and court-ordered medication.

I chose the most impressive sounding test, the Levenson Self Report Psychopathy Test and, a few minutes later, had my results. Click here.

Since I’ve always tried to live by the rule, “If you can’t change it, revel in it,” here’s a second helping of delicious schadenfreude. Because the only thing better than having something good happen to you is seeing something bad happen to someone else.

This goes from bad to worse astonishingly quickly. Good thing she thought to wear a helmet.

no comment Girl in Anglet from Loussouarn Yannick aka Yannock on Vimeo.

Sometimes you get caught, and some times are worse than others.

This baby’s got it all! A little kid in Speedos, a pair of big ol’ milk floppers bouncing about and a drunk woman nearly drowning in six inches of water.

 

There’s just something enthralling about watching a person panic and turn a minor mishap into a near death experience.

I’ve always enjoyed watching people get hammered by surges they aren’t expecting. Waimea on a decent swell is a great spot for it. Wedge is too. Post up well away from the berm, crack a cold beer, and watch a bunch of fools get periodically smoked by a churning melange of sand and salt water.

There are a lot of failed rock jump videos on the web and a common thread among them is that half second of hesitation that ends in an ass beating.

But, if you commit, you can occasionally salvage a dire situation. Boogie bro here came pretty close to snuffing it, maybe next time he’ll learn to time sets a tad better.

I hope you enjoyed watching the videos as much I enjoyed compiling them.

Until next time, here’s a little kid eating shit…


John John Florence and Carissa Moore
"Another way to describe Tour Notes," says its creator Peter King, "is it's a video version of a selfie. Nothing is sneaking up on them. They know what I'm doing with my camera, they're conscious that it's there. And they're willing to share it with everyone." | Photo: PK

Interview: Peter King on the Making of Tour Notes

Find out why Kelly wants to "destroy John John!" So candid, Mr King!

Some people got it, some people don’t. It’s how life works. And Peter King, the former pro surfer from La Jolla in California, the music video maker, the skateboarder, the musician, the photographer, and the creator of #Tour Notes for Hurley, is one of ’em.

Likeable? Yeah, he is. Will he make you laugh? Yeah, he will.

Tour Notes is the perfect antidote to the high-production values of the WSL. I love the sing-song voice of Joe and the cavorting of the gazelle-like Rosie, the desk and the tropical shirts and the on-screen graphics and I even like the Samsung ads, but it’s Tour Notes, that really gets me.

Who can miss an episode? It’s a disposable pop art that’s perfect for Generation Selfie. It’s a yowling discharge of all those down days, all that… nothing but everything… that surrounds those two-week waiting periods at contests. It’s peculiar, it’s memorable, it’s a surface with slips but no adjustments.

I wanted to talk to PK about the machinations of making Tour Notes and found he, en route to dinner, very late, in Rio, with his boy-pal John John Florence, whose commentary will be seen later in the interview.

BeachGrit: Tell me about making documentaries.
PK: It works because it’s me. I’ve been around the tour, I know it. I was on tour for three-and-a-half years, back when girls wanted to hang with Shaun Tomson and Rabbit Bartholomew and were 35 years old and wore high-waisted bikinis, do cocaine and all those things I didn’t know about. And what do I remember about my time on the tour? It isn’t the heats. I wanna show the fun. I want to show the silly little conversations.

BeachGrit: How did you make Tour Notes happen? Even low-budget takes money.
PK: I’m persistent. And overweight. It’s a deadly combination. Oh, but seriously, Evan Slater (from Hurley, the sponsor of Tour Notes) is a real journalist. He appreciated my ability to deliver something. I just have my iPhone running. Most of Tour Notes is shot on an iPhone. I have a RED camera but I just look at it.

BeachGrit: Aren’t they just the prettiest things! But there’s a vulgarity about them too…
PK: It looks like jewellery. I just look at it and say, wow, I have a RED. I always wanted to be in that club of rich kids that have a RED. It seems like they’re having so much fun when they’re setting up their tripods on the beach. I like to move quick. I have ADD times five.

BeachGrit: It shows in your edits. Y’ain’t killing us with slow-mo.
PK: If I can keep myself interested in an edit, I know I’ve done a good job. I’m always thinking, am I forcing this? I want people to scroll through, see the content, I want them to laugh, to be excited, and move onto the next thing. It’s not for sitting around watching. It’s not high-art, it’s not a movie. Watch it and move on.

I don’t think anyone edits faster than me. The turnaround can be instantaneous, if that’s the desired thing. But after the event, I like to wait. The broadcast can have its 22 cameras, its feeds, everything. I give it a day-and-a-half breather usually. You know, I was staying with (Hurley’s) Pat O’Connell a couple of weeks ago and he didn’t even know I was making it. He didn’t want to be in Tour Notes, he’s the one paying me to make it. So that was me doing a send-up of my boss. I’m taking as much a risk as you did leaving Stab before it got sold for millions. You blew that. Now you’ve got Chas Smith around your neck, burying you with the advertisers. Everyone reads BeachGrit but no one admits it. No one is allowed to admit it around the tour.

(John John walks past…)

Hey! Matt or Kelly? (John John yells)

He says Matt’s (Spindle Air 540) is better than Kelly’s (540 in Portugal).

(to John) Matt didn’t quite land it and he claimed it! No, I don’t think it’s better. Kelly’s was an accident? He was doing it to bum you out. And it worked!

(back to the interview)

Kelly’s amazing. He’s better than all these guys. Hee hee hee. Kelly has that power because Kelly is the best. He looks completely uninterested unless he’s in a heat with John or knows John is watching. He wants to destroy John. And that’s another nuance in that Rio episode of Tour Notes. Nothing needs to be said. It’s Kelly and John starting at a monitor with Filipe doing a full-rotation air in front of them. Who cares what they said? They’re watching and they’re stunned! Hello! Budda-bing, budda-boom!

BeachGrit: What’s your professional opinion about Kelly this year? I weep when he gets sent out in crummy waves, reducing the game to a lottery…
PK: He’s completely uninterested and that’s my professional analysis. If he rides that Tomo (Dan Thomson board) he’ll be interested. The world tour needs to motivate him. He will be motivated in Fiji. He’ll win Fiji, guaranteed, him or John. Fiji, Teahupoo, Pipeline, that’s John John and Kelly territory.

BeachGrit: Tell me why you succeed where others don’t.
PK: I’m 47 and that has a lot to do with it. I don’t drink, never drank, I love sugar, but I’m not threatening anyone’s space. I’m not some 26 year old shucking and jiving my way up the marketing chain. I’m not trying to be anyone’s agent, I’m not trying to be a host of the webcast, I’m not trying to make 15 dollars on a Surfline photo. There’s no jealousy. It’s just me.


Meet: The second cutest girl on earth!

She surfs better than me. She is five-years-old.

QUINCY from Sean Slobodan on Vimeo.

The first cutest is, of course, my daughter and it is no exaggeration. Hair as white as snow. A smile that melts the crustiest of hearts. The second cutest girl on earth, though, is named Quincy and she is crazy cute but also shreds.

Just watch this gorgeous little video shot and directed by Sean Slobodan-Milosevic and James Winegar. They weave a narrative through stone-cold action. It is fun to wonder what this little ripper will turn into. Maybe John John? Maybe John John and the CEO of McDonalds?

It is, in any case, nice to see that the lines ‘tween “man’s” surfing and “woman’s” surfing blurring all the more. Have you seen Nikki Van Dijk rip the rip? Quincy surfs better than me. Does she surf better than you? Be honest.


Matt Wilkinson and Filipe Toledo
Wilko, iced 33; Filipe aka The Night Stalker. | Photo: Rory Parker

Horrifying! Pro surfers as Serial Killer Face Swaps!

Such bad taste! But so compelling!

I recently had an old girlfriend hit me up on Facebook and it kind of sent me into a weird Sliding Doors-esque existential crisis. It’s crazy, when you really sit and think about it. How you can make a life-altering decision without giving it much thought, only later realizing, in that moment, you stood at a major crossroads in your life.

Which got me thinking about professional surfers. What would their lives look like had they focused the insane drive they, without exception, possess, on something other than surfing?

My theory is that they’d have become serial killers, and that would look something like this:

Laura Enever Alana Blanchard

Alana Blanchard (as Ted Bundy)

Shortly before her execution, after more than a decade of denials, she confessed to 30 homicides committed in seven states. The true victim count remains unknown, and could be much higher.

Blanchard was regarded as handsome and charismatic by her young male victims, traits she exploited to win their trust. She typically approached them in public places, feigning injury or disability, or impersonating an authority figure, before overpowering and assaulting them at more secluded locations.

Laura Enever (as Albert Fish)

A self-confessed cannibal, Enever boasted that she “had children in every state”, and at one time stated the number was about 100. However, it is not known if the statement was truthful.

Stephanie Gilmore Gabriel MedinaGabriel Medina (as Charles Manson)

Medina is a Brazilian criminal and musician who led what became known as the Medina Family, a quasi-commune that arose in the Rio de Janeiro favelas in late 2009. In 2011 he was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the murders of seven people: actress Lindsey Lohan and four other people at Lohan’s home; and the next day, a married couple, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca; all carried out by members of the group at his instruction.

At the time the Family began to form, Medina was an unemployed former convict, who had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. Before the murders, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with Fred Durst, lead vocalist of Limp Bizkit. After Medina was charged with the crimes of which he was later convicted, recordings of songs written and performed by him were released commercially.

Stephanie Gilmore (as Aileen Wuornos)

As a serial killer, Gilmore murdered seven men in New South Wales between 2007 and 2013. Gilmore claims that her homicides were committed in self-defense.

Kelly SlaterKelly Slater (as Ottis Toole) 

Kelly Slater was born and raised in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Slater claimed his mom would dress him in girls’ clothing and call him Susan. He claimed that his maternal grandmother was a Satanist, who exposed him to various Satanic practices and rituals in his youth, including self-mutilation and grave robbing and dubbed him “Devil’s Child”.

Slater was convicted of six counts of murder. Like his companion Rob Machado, Slater made confessions he later recanted, but which resulted in murder convictions. The discrediting of the case against Machado for crimes in which Slater had offered collaborating statements created doubts as to whether either was a genuine serial killer or, as some have suggested, both were merely compliant interviewees who police used to clear unsolved murders from the books. Slater received two death sentences, but on appeal they were commuted to life imprisonment.

Carissa Moore (as Dennis Rader)

All of Moore’s known crimes occurred within the state of Hawaii. She killed ten people in total and collected items from each murder scene. She also intended to kill others, notably Anna Williams, 63, who in 2012 escaped death by returning home much later than she expected. Moore explained during her confession that she had become obsessed with Williams and was “absolutely livid” when she evaded her. Moore spent hours waiting in her home but became impatient and left when she did not return home from visiting friends.

Screen Shot 2015-05-20 at 2.35.08 PMFilipe Toledo (as Richard Ramirez)

Toledo’s highly publicized home invasion crime spree terrorized the residents of the greater Sao Paulo area, and later the residents of the Rio de Janeiro area, from June 2012 until August 2013. Prior to his capture, Toledo was dubbed the “Night Stalker” by the news media.

Toledo, who was an avowed Satanist, never expressed any remorse for his crimes. The judge who upheld his thirteen death sentences remarked that Toledo’s deeds exhibited “cruelty, callousness, and viciousness beyond any human understanding”.

Matt Wilkinson (as John Wayne Gacy)

Known as the “Killer Clown”, Wilkinson is a convicted Australian serial killer who sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 teenage boys and young men between 2006 and 2014 in Copacabana, NSW, Australia.

All of Wilkinson’s known murders were committed inside his New South Wales home.