New: CNN unveils word to describe surfing

You won't believe your eyes!

Surf, glide, shred, rip, tear, pump, surf…there are many different verbs used to describe the physical act of riding a wave and I was under the impression that I knew them all.

Oh how I was wrong!

CNN, leader in global news, unveiled a word on their website today that I have never heard.

ANDREW COTTON: SURFING PLUMBER PIPES THE WORLD’S BIGGEST WAVES

Pipes.

He pipes them.

Let’s go piping.

Anyone up for a pipe?

We should pipe before the wind gets on it.

I am piped out.

The story is very nice and I am glad Andrew Cotton is being lauded for his pursuit. Nazare has become a favorite storyline of CNN and that is nice too. You can and should read here. You can and should watch Andrew Cotton below. Me? I’m gonna go get my pipe on.


#TourNotes: J-Bay Pre-Game

"My life was a mess. I cried every day," says Michel Bourez

I think of the filmmaker Peter King as a crossover act like, say, Kendrick Lamar or, in an earlier epoch, Nine Simone. But where Compton-born Lamar’s hood-jams strike a chord with white Lexus-driving fans in Hollywood (and Simone with the bourgeois of Paris) King’s tour clips hit…everyone. All surf fans.
How can you not?
From angry commentator-guy with a hard-on for Alana B pounding the keys in the online forums to the surf industry maven doing the dance at Agenda, we all get a little thrill when we see a new drop of #TourNotes.
This two-minute hit comes in the days preceding the J-Bay Open 2015, the event once owned by Billabong.
In King’s words, “Bourez is back, warmup sessions, cliffside high-stakes UNO and some free surf slicing…waiting for da big show to start!”
It’s better than that.
Brett Simpson describes J-Bay as “sharks, cactuses and… good waves.”
What does King like, love, adore about Jeffreys Bay? “I love it’s length! Who doesn’t? She goes forever. You can rip, smooth out, longboard…enjoy the fancy homes and vast African openness as you glide along. Surprising is that it’s still here… still looks like 1976. I keep expecting Shaun Tomson to pop out of the barrel.”
True enough!
The forecast is crummy, by the way. Watch Filipe shear off the small little runners at the end and tell me he ain’t gonna win.

Top 5 best wetsuits for surfing

New shit has come to light.

I went to AGENDA today, the massive action/extreme sport retail tradeshow, in Long Beach, California. The last action/extreme sport retail tradeshow I had been to was MAGIC in Las Vegas maybe ten years ago. It was the same, or that is what I thought as I was approaching. Same people, same fashion, same look, same feel. Nifty hair, tighter pants, canvas shoes, t-shirt, tattoo. Lame. And then I realized that I looked the same as everyone I had just mentally called “lame” (minus the canvas shoe and I’m wearing my denim less tight these days). And then I realized that I knew every single one of them. And then the rock that I had unleashed came whirling back around and hit me in the head.

Mahalo, you fucking surfers.
You goddamn nerds.
I’m just kidding.
We’re all part of the tribe.

And it is a great great tribe.

In any case, there were wetsuits at AGENDA (I assume) and then I saw this on the Internet under the heading “tech.” “Top 5 Best Wetsuits for Surfing.” I clicked because I was curious and then became very confused. (click here to be very confused)

I would say “Top 5 Best Wetsuits for Surfing” are:

1) A Japanese brand that you have never heard of.

2) A Japanese brand that you have never heard of.

3) Narval wetsuits.

4) A Japanese brand that you have never heard of.

5) Whatever is in your garage.

Now you will fit in with the tribe better. If you have tattoos. And two cuffs on your pant leg. And canvas shoes. And a t-shirt that says something but not too much. And facial hair. And nifty hair.


Video: Mick Fanning’s J-Bay Breakdown

Mick's spike goes straight to the vein… 

 

 

 

These lil GoPro clips where a pro surfer gives you a guided tour of a wave are a bit of a roulette wheel. Who knows what you’re going to get? Some are better than others, and this, of Mick Fanning, is unusually short.

But contained within it’s one minute is Mick on a wave that feels like one of those twisty carnival rides where you can’t tell whether you’re excited or ready to throw up. Even at the end, it feels like your head is still spinning.

What I get out of these POV waves is how compressed, how twisted the best pro’s turns are. The motherfuckers…slam… their turns.


Just in: Samsung’s New (Surf) Ad for Telephone!

Y'either going to love (and maybe weep!) or hurl… 

 

 

 

(A note from the editor: Ain’t it the damnedest thing, how a simple piece of cinema or whatever can make one vomit, the other weep with joy. This advertisement for Samsung telephones, for instance, made Rory Parker furious. “It’s a bunch of pandering garbage that everyone is just gobbling up.  I don’t get the appeal at all,” he told me. I soaked it up. I wasn’t entirely convinced by the voice-over, and when I read the transcript of the commercial without the vision I cringed, but the rest I loved. They totally get it. But, then, as someone who forever ponders the brevity of life, is convinced they have some kind of terminal disease waiting to germinate and who cried and cried and cried when I first saw Blue Crush on a plane, I ain’t the best person to ask. Whatevs, here’s Rory’s take.)

 

Isn’t it cool how we’re all, like, one brotherhood? Look, we’re wearing the same boardshorts. That’s sick, I got mine at my local shop on sale. They’re usually $90 a pair, but I get the hook-up ‘cuz they know me, 5% off everything in the shop.

Not boards though, but that’s just because they don’t sell ’em anymore.

Isn’t it cool how being a surfer means that we, like, totally get each other? It’s such a spiritual thing, sharing waves at my local beach break. If a dude forgets his wax I’ll totally let him use mine.

Did you hear about Bob? He’s making bank down in Nica. Rents out rooms at this place he leases, charges people a hundred bucks a night. Like, no overhead because local wages are so low. And, you know, you actually shouldn’t pay them more regardless of how much you’re taking in. It’d be bad for the local economy.

Have you seen that new ad Samsung paid some people to make?

So cool, it totally gets surfing.

“We are greater than I,” that’d be a sweet tattoo. The whole thing does a really sick job of encompassing what surfing is, and how much surfers really like each other.  One tribe, bro, only a surfer knows the feeling.  Life’s better in boardshorts.

I’m so stoked that a company finally gets us.

And, oh dude, the ending!

This full on spiritual paddle out thing, people splashing water and, like, totally shouting empty nonsense into the void. It really validates my self image. I can’t wait for what they come up with next.