There's plenty that makes me like Brother. The cuckolding, attempted or otherwise, of a chubby little TV hotshot with a mouth invented for devouring hot fudge sundaes, for example. Didn't you roar your approval when the pudgy Cinderella barked at Brother during a live-cross interview?

Why You Should Watch “Brother” The Movie

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

An interview with its co-creator, What Youth's Travis Ferré…

…well, yeah, I get it. Kolohe ain’t the hotter-than-everything Filipe Toledo. Yeah, I get he’s a child prodigy destined for great-ish things his entire life and so he isn’t an entirely sympathetic character in the surf culture narrative. An Instagram account that would seem ironic if it wasn’t, doesn’t help either.

But then there’s plenty that makes me like Brother. The cuckolding, attempted or otherwise, of a chubby little TV hotshot with a mouth invented for devouring hot fudge sundaes, for example. Didn’t you roar your approval when the pudgy Cinderella barked at Brother during a live-cross interview?

This June, Brother is going to be available as a free download on What Youth. Should you evaporate your bandwidth on the movie Kai Neville describes as a “short, fast ampy shred flick”?

Let’s ask Travis Ferré , the co-founder of What Youth, whose mid-surf conversations resulted in the collaboration tween his mag and the current world number 26…

BeachGrit: Can you describe the film to moviegoers?

Travis: It’s quite simple. Kolohe surfing with his friends, spliced together with some really good music, all over the world. It’s not a bio pic by any means. More of a snapshot of his year. But I’d say the unique thing is watching Kolohe surfing in long form, which is really impressive. There are some really wild banger clips, but it’s Kolohe’s style and form that shines to me.

BeachGrit: How long is this film, how many sections, and where was it filmed?

Travis: It’s about 25 minutes long, there are six full sections and a few other little interludes, and it was filmed in California, Europe, Western Australia, Hawaii and Indo. Pretty classic choices.

Kolohe Andino — …yeah, you heard plenty about Kolohe’s barrel-to-monster-oop from Portugal last year. See the film sequence in Brother the movie.

BeachGrit: What was the purpose of Brother?

Travis Kolohe has had a filmer (Noah Alani) traveling with him for most of his life, and he’s had a few projects not come to fruition, so we simplified the concept: Kolohe shredding with his friends. And we really wanted to make sure the friend aspect came across as he spends so much time surfing with them, but it rarely gets shown to the world. Kolohe wanted to put something out that was more impactful than a greatest hits web clip too, so we worked closely with him and I think he hit the nail on the head with what he was after.

BeachGrit: Where does it fit on the cultural ladder?

Travis: Well, it’s more of a snapshot than a profile film or anything, but I think in the grand scheme of things at the moment, with very little in between the mega blockbuster helicopter freak show films, and the over saturated web clip and the few instances to see Kolohe surf loose and full of smiles with his friends. This is what I’d say is the perfectly balanced film for the modern condition. And Kolohe’s surfing is really pleasing to the eye.

BeachGrit: How can we buy, see?

Travis: Brother will stream for 24 hours at What Youth on May 26th, and then it will be available on Red Bull TV on Demand May 27th for a week, and then June 2nd it will available for free download.

BeachGrit: What do you love about Brother?

Travis: Well, if we’re talking about the man, I love his hair. And if it’s the movie, I love that I can rematch it and rematch it. I haven’t rewatched a surf film more than this one since the old Taylor Steele vids.

Brother – Official Trailer from What Youth on Vimeo.

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Nick Woodman

I own GoPro. And Quiksilver.

By Chas Smith

10 years ago

You should probably get involved too if you like money and/or want more money.

Deciding to take my own advice, late Friday night, I bought GoPro. I cracked into my piggy bank, opened a Fidelity.com account, transferred money and then placed my order. 5 shares for $50.04 each. Fidelity.com warned me, with a red popup screen, that this was a bad idea. The markets were, of course, closed for the weekend and who knows what weirdness Nicholas “Nick” Woodman could get up to between Saturday and Sunday and who knows how his self-described “mad” behavior would crash the stock price.

But I am as bold as I am handsome and overrode my digital broker’s concern and placed it anyway. “What kind of investor should I be?” I wondered whilst sipping a Moscow Mule. “Should I be quiet and let my money do the talking or should I model myself off famed activist shareholder T. Boone Pickens and bark orders up the chain?”

By the time Monday’s opening bell clanged, I was decided. I would be like T. Boone Pickens and make very many demands. I know people who work at GoPro, you see, and some are as smart as they are beautiful but most are dull. They need me to guide them into a financially rich future. Especially since my position, three hours in to the trading day, is already down 5.57%.

The first order of business, then, Nick Woodman is to fire everyone who works out of your San Mateo office. I have never met anyone from the Bay Area who knew a damned thing about style and we are in the style biz. It’s how we are going to crush China. So that also means no more overly washed True Religion jeans for you either. Or way accessorized “action sports” kits.

Yes it’s time to buckle up and make some real money. By the time I’m done you will officially be able to change your business cards from “Mad Billionaire” to “Mad Millionaire.” The “Touched Trillionaire.” Alliteration has a ring.

P.S. I also own Quiksilver. 40 shares at $1.62 each. As is, for now, boys. The suit wetsuit is a work of art.

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…Julian Wilson is an extremely engaged consumer of cars. His ride here is as captivating as a teen girl with a naked navel between trousers belted very low and a t-shirt cut very short.

Why Surfers are Driving Audis

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

Can Julian Wilson, Mick Fanning, Taj Burrow and Josh Kerr really be wrong?

In the good old days, there were no Audis. Surfers drove ugly long-snouted station wagons and those fat maggots called Kombis. Every surf trip was a pain-in-the-ass that kinked the spine and drained the wallet in gas money.

That was back when the surfer was damned, persecuted, ostracised; when he was wild and deadly. When we were radicals and self-proclaimed wave-dancing outlaws, however fatuous.

Our fascination with being hard-core changed sometime in the nineties when the money spigot got turned on. Pro surfers became millionaires. Whomever happened to fall into the surf clothes game early drowned in his dividends.

The rest of us on the periphery soaked a little in it, too. Shapers made some cash if they were smart enough to market ’emselves. Even the toy-collecting graphic designers who enslaved ’emselves to brands were scooping up six-figures.

And so, naturally, our car of choice changed.

Who wants to be broken down on the side of the road or driving a car that sounds like it has asthma or swallowed by a cabin of grey plastics and cheap digital clocks pressed into the dash when we could be embraced by the finest in German engineering?

No, it ain’t Mercedes (median age of owners, 55) or BMWs, (a garish kind of teutonic Subaru).

Audi. Don’t the name just ring? Cars so graceful and beautiful they make our dreary lives seem richer. Luxury in simplicity.

Ask Julian Wilson, whom I see patrolling the streets of Bondi in a black A1 (with co-pilot Jimmy Lees) or Josh Kerr, rolling through Baja in a Q5, or even Mick Fanning, in his nut-brown A4.

Luke Stedman had a S-series wagon; Andy Irons drove a Q7, Bruce drives an A4. Taj Burrow’s three-litre A6 became legend among his pals as it was handed from one to another, a lifeboat to his carless friends.

The three-timer Mick Fanning and his Audi A4 Avant.

When Matt Biolos goes surfing at Lowers he doesn’t sling his Couch Potatoes and Rockets in a Dodge; he chooses a sleek black Audi A3 Sportback.

The Audi is an angel that stands in quiet piety among a crowd of grotesque bland.

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Pat: "Do you really like me Dane?" Dane: "I guess so." Pat: "Do you like me a whole lot?" Dane: "Look, don't get sloppy on me. I might just slug you one."

Surfing Erases All Guilt!

By Beau Andrews

10 years ago

And therefore, eventually, you turn into a selfish tool. Is true?

After upsetting a number of people with suggestions that they should forget the world and take a horribly selfish and nihilistic approach to things, I felt bad. Had I gone too far? What was I becoming? Where did the person who worked so passionately advocating a better understanding of the mentally ill and disabled go?

(Click here to read)

So much soul searching, and such an existential crisis.

I considered penance in the form of masochism and asceticism… my default settings for life.

I usually exercise far too much, starve myself and get around in ragged clothes. But it wasn’t feasible with my work responsibilities this week, or with having a girl who cares about my well-being.

Nor did it help that I got exceptionally good waves over the weekend in a place that’s never that exceptionally good. The memories of those sweet autumnal tubes soothed me to sleep. Whereas, if the surf had been shit, I would of spent the night locked in my head chastising myself over my insensitive jests.

Surfing seems to erase all guilt or mitigate the worst of it.

Now I’m not one for equating surfing with having mystical powers. That just seems kind of fraudulent. I kind of see the notion of communing with the sea/ocean as strange. In my experience of angry Western seas, the sea seemed anarchic, brutal and out to get you. This makes it an interesting game of cat and mouse. Perception, I guess.

If not quite as dark a view as above, I find the ocean is a giant jigsaw puzzle to solve and I like puzzles. Each wave becomes a game of what you can do and where. I get wrapped up in that game and I forget myself and everything else.

It becomes like that most terrible of clichés: a mild opiate.

And I guess like all good drugs, you eventually turn into a cunt. You start out dabbling, having a good time. You then start relying on it a little too much. You then need it to have a good time. You starting blowing off responsibilities to chase wind-blown slop. Then you get to a point where you just deliberately isolate yourself so that you can wallow in your habit. Unfortunately, for me, my father started me out young.

Hmmm… then again, maybe I’m just a selfish fuckwit; the result of being a firstborn.

But don’t worry BeachGrit readers, karma has caught up with me for my flippant remarks. I agreed to paint over graffiti this Sunday at a local park. Turns out a little gem of a right and left right I know of is set to fire that day… the agony, it burns my selfish soul!

Oh well, as the police here say… “safer communities together.”

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Mitch Coleborn tries to buy wax in Brazil

By Chas Smith

10 years ago

Wild hilarity ensues.

He began to push his cart slowly down the beach walk, calling again, “Surf wax!”

Mitch Coleborn, who was wandering up the beach in Rio de Janeiro with a fresh slicked decked surfboard, heard the cry and went up to the gargantuan vendor.

“Hey, stop. Gimme one of these, mate.”

He looked sternly at the young boy, brunette boy, who placed himself in the wagon’s path. His valve protested against the boy’s nipples, the surly face that seemed to hang from the long well-lubricated hair, the cigarette behind the ear, the aquamarine jacket, the delicate boots, the tight trousers that bulged offensively in the crotch in violation of all rules of theology and geometry.

“I am sorry,” the wax vendor snorted. “I have only a few bars left, and I must save them. Please get out of my way.”

“Save them? For who?”

“That is none of your business, you waif. Why aren’t you in school? Kindly stop molesting me. Anyway, I have no change.”

“I got a real,” the voluptuous Australian lips sneered.

“I cannot sell you wax, sir. Is that clear?”

“Whatsa matter with you, mate?”

“What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with you? Are you unnatural enough to want a bar of wax this early in the afternoon? My conscience will not let me sell you one. Just look at your loathsome complexion. You are a growing boy whose system needs to be surfeited with good books and the morning’s newspaper and whole wheat bread and spinach and such. I, for one, will not contribute to the debauchery of a minor.”

“Whadda you talking about? Sell me one of them bars of wax. I wanna surf. I ain’t been out yet.”

“No!” the wax vendor screamed so furiously that the passersby stared. “Now get away from me before I run over you with this cart.”

Mitch pulled open the lid of the compartment and said, “Hey, you got plenty of stuff in here. Gimme one.”

“Help!” the wax vendor screamed, suddenly remembering his boss’s warnings about robberies. “Someone is stealing my wax! Police!”

The wax vendor backed up the cart and rammed it into Mitch’s crotch.

“Ouch! Watch out there, you nut.”

“Help! Thief!”

“Shut up, for Christ’s sake,” Mitch said and slammed the door. “You oughta be locked up, you big fruit. You know that?”

“What?” the wax vendor screamed. “What impertinence was that?”

“You big crazy fruit,” Mitch snarled more loudly and slouched away, the taps of his heels scarping the sidewalk. “Who wants to touch anything your fruity hands touched?”

“How dare you scream obscenities at me. Someone grab that boy,” the wax vendor said wildly as Mitch disappeared into the crowds of pedestrians farther own the street. “Someone with some decency grab that juvenile delinquent. That filthy little minor. Where is his respect? That little guttersnipe must be lashed until he collapses!”

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Eat beach grit spam!