And is trapped, fate unknown, thereby raising
profound question: whose domain is it?
Yesterday on idyllic Pawley Island, in beautifully
progressive South Carolina, a seven-foot alligator was
seen casually riding waves, frolicking in the water’s
balmy August warmth.
According to The Daily Mail, “Police officers who were
called to the scene followed the amateur four-legged surfer for two
hours as it unhurriedly made its way a mile up the shore.”
(Most likely) the gator took a few lefts on the inside sandbar,
favoring his left hand approach in the small, glassy peelers. Then
he took a look at a couple corners outside, made his way up the
coast slowly, patiently waiting for sets.
Basically, enjoying a Monday afternoon bodywomp!
And fuck if South Carolinians aren’t harsh on outsiders picking
off peaks! A pack of “professional gator trappers” (imagine! The
life!) eventually got close enough to lasso it and drag it from the
water. Like fucking coastal cowboys!
Now, alligators are for me perhaps the only animals scarier than
sharks. Being from Florida, I’ve witnessed attacks from both.
Sharks are quick, their attacks chaotic bursts from below. But
alligators are monsters. They are scrappier, uglier, and just as
fast on land as in the water. They can torque off an appendage with
one dramatic twist.
But part of me thinks, That poor reptilian man-eater! Literally
dragged from the water! The fucker commenced “about 20 Death
Rolls” before trappers got a good handle on him, taped his
trapped-door of a chomper shut, and dragged him away.
What do you think? Should the beast have been allowed to cruise
the coast, sliding summer shorepound as he made his way north?
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
“Screw you Robbie Maddison!” says
Slater
By Rory Parker
Actually no, he don't! Instead, twenty five years
of Slater… condensed!
The Kelly Kut, a “borrowed” footage edit of Mr Slater’s
decades-long run at the forefront of performance surfing is a trip
to watch if you were alive and cogent during the early years of his
reign.
It seems like Kelly’s been this grizzled old vet for ages. With
his peanut-brown dome and weathered good looks, he’s an elder
gladiator, older but no slower, more cunning, maybe slightly less
motivated.
But he was a young man once.
Not too long ago he was a Baywatch-starring ground
breaker who was plastered on my walls.
Watching the old footage, juxtaposed with the new, it’s striking
how little he’s improved over the years. His boards are different,
his style a little more perfect, but it’s unreal to ponder how far
ahead of the pack he was, and how long it took everyone to catch
up.
If anyone even has.
Some kids may come close in certain aspects. It’s hard to beat a
teenager’s air game, what with their bendy bones and hyper-flexible
ligaments.
But no one else is the total package, it’s doubtful anyone ever
will be.
This is a killer video, give it a watch. And soon.
‘Cuz there’s a whole lot of sampled content on there, I’ll be
surprised if it doesn’t get yanked from the web post-haste.
Even if Kelly is stoked on it and posted it to his instagram
page. What does he care? He don’t own the footage.
Excerpts Courtesy Of:
‘Flow – The True Story of a Surfing Revolution’
Director: Josh Landon
Koastal Media
‘Blue Horizon’
Director: Jack McCoy
A Coastrain Production
www.jackmccoy.com
‘Focus’
Director: Taylor Steele
Poor Specimen Productions
www.sippingjetstreams.com
‘Good Times’
Director: Taylor Steele
Poor Specimen Productions
www.sippingjetstreams.com
‘Cypher Vision’
Director: Jamie Tierney
Quiksilver Films
www.quiksilver.com
‘Kelly Slater: In Black and White’
Director: Richard R. Woolcott
A Pavillion Film
www.quiksilver.com
‘The September Sessions’
Director: Jack Johnson
Jack Johnson Films
www.jackjohnsonmusic.com
‘Letting Go’
Director: George Opadchy & Jamie Tierney
A Pavillion Film
‘The Dream Tour 2005’
Director: Matt Gye & Shagga
ASP International/Mutiny Media
‘Young Guns 3’
Director: George Opadchy & Jamie Tierney
A Pavillion Film
www.quiksilver.com
‘Campaign’
Director: Taylor Steele
Poor Specimen Productions
www.sippingjetstreams.com
‘Campaign II’
Director: Taylor Steele
Poor Specimen Productions
www.sippingjetstreams.com
‘Days Of Strange’
Director: Ivan Tanjung & Kai Neville
Poor Specimen Productions
www.sippingjetstreams.com
‘What’s Really Goin’ On’
Director: Jason Kenworthy Ryan Ray
Mike Reola
Lost Enterprises/Snapping Turtle Productions
‘Tiny Birds’
Yo La Tengo
Summer Sun
Sire Records
www.yolatengo.com
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Wow: South African takes over Venice!
By Chas Smith
Damien Fahrenfort used to be a pro surfer. Now he
is rich.
If you know anything about anything, you know
Venice, California is the world’s hottest locale. Who doesn’t want?
There is very delicious food (hello, Flake!), the sun shines
constantly and the people get more beautiful each and every day.
Some try to complain. “Oh…” they moan “…Venice is soooo
over…” while glaring from the corner of their eyes at people more
beautiful than they. Jealousy is ugly!
As you can guess, it is hard to establish in Venice, California
and that is why South Africa’s Damien Fahrenfort becoming a
commercial kingpin is beyond amazing. Over the weekend he opened
the magnificent store General Admission. They sell exactly what you
want, publish a journal, curate your lifestyle and all on Brooks
Ave which, if you know anything about anything, turns into Abbot
Kinney.
Damien Fahrenfort used to be a pro surfer. Now is he is a
financial heavyweight and it is definitely worth going to his store
because, also, the t-shirts and pants are spot exactly right. Shawn
Stussy, Danny Fuller, John Moore and Rick Ross went to the opening
party. You should go too, but not to the opening party. It’s over.
Also order here.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Revealed: Robbie Maddison’s Teahupoo
Moto!
By Derek Rielly
Did you wonder how a 100kg machine stayed afloat
long enough to conquer Teahupoo?
Yesterday morning, shortly after we posted
Robbie Maddison’s Teahupoo clip, I got a droll phone call from
the most practical man I know.
Miles Pitt builds movie sets for a living and is responsible for
a ton of similarly gimmicky surf shoots (flares on Bruce Irons and
Jordy Smith’s boards, laser lights in a wave pool). He also owns a
sunglass label that is stupidly successful (Rihanna and Lady GaGa wear ’em.)
Click here etc.
Anyway,
He said, “You know this is fake don’t you?”
I didn’t.
When he explained all the physics behind keeping a motorcycle
afloat, I felt quite dense that I hadn’t even questioned it. We
soon realised that the curtain was going to be lifted on this
elaborate prank at the world premiere, Wizard of Oz-like, that was
happening… now!
I immediately called Chas Smith who was at the premiere. Chas
spoke to his old friend Raimana Van Bastolaer, who was the Tahitian
fixer behind the shoot, inspected the motorcycle, and called
back.
“It’s real,” he said.
And so it was.
The bike is a KTM250 SX modified with skis that
have little fins at the bottom to act as rudders and a paddle
steamer-like back tyre. Maddison chose a two-stroke ’cause it was
less likely to freak out in the water as opposed to a
four-stroker.
The bike was first tested on an eight-mile ride in San Diego’s
Mission Bay. But San Deigo ain’t Tahiti and Mission Bay ain’t
Teahupoo.
At one point, Maddison hit a west bomb, one of those kinky
straight-into-the-barrel waves only the best surfers dare
challenge, and nearly died. Maddison told Rolling Stone,
“There I was on a motorcycle, with the worst thing that could
possibly happen… My friends and crew were completely rattled,
having thought that I had drowned in the wave. It’s the gnarliest
thing I have ever been through.”
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Laird Hamilton saves Girls creator Lena
Dunham
By Ashton Goggans
"Laird Hamilton is the King of Triton!" says Lena
Dunham
Over the weekend a bikini-clad Lena Dunham set out on a
three-mile (SUP) Tour, taking part in the “Paddle for
Pink” event in the Hamptons, benefitting the Breast Cancer Research
Foundation.
Lena Dunham is, of course, the 29-year-old creator of the HBO
series Girls, a spokeswoman for mid-to-late-twenties,
directionless, dissatisfied, nocturnally-loose, diurnally
guilt-laden women everywhere, and the author of the memoir Not
That Kind of Girl.
Have you read? It’s all in there.
Here’s an excerpt, detailing an episode between Lena, aged
seven, and her one-year-old sis.
Do we all have uteruses?” I asked my mother when I was
seven.
“Yes,” she told me. “We’re born with them, and with all our
eggs, but they start out very small. And they aren’t ready to make
babies until we’re older.” I look at my sister, now a slim, tough
one-year-old, and at her tiny belly. I imagined her eggs inside
her, like the sack of spider eggs in Charlotte’s Web, and her
uterus, the size of a thimble.
“Does her vagina look like mine?”
“I guess so,” my mother said. “Just smaller.”
One day, as I sat in our driveway in Long Island playing
with blocks and buckets, my curiosity got the best of me. Grace was
sitting up, babbling and smiling, and I leaned down between her
legs and carefully spread open her vagina. She didn’t resist and
when I saw what was inside I shrieked.
My mother came running. “Mama, Mama! Grace has something in
there!”
My mother didn’t bother asking why I had opened Grace’s
vagina. This was within the spectrum of things I did. She just got
on her knees and looked for herself. It quickly became apparent
that Grace had stuffed six or seven pebbles in there. My mother
removed them patiently while Grace cackled, thrilled that her prank
had been a success.
Anyway, out on her SUP, Lena apparently thought she wasn’t
going to make it.
We’re not sure if she meant she honestly thought she might not
make it, as in live, or if she just didn’t think she could get to
the finish line. Regardless, a bronzed, chiseled, savior would
appear in the distance!
“This is an image of Laird Hamilton coming to save me,” she
captioned a blurry Instagram shot. In it, Lena struggles. Laird,
just in the distance, approaches, looking the Hunter and Lena the
Hunted.
“He is literally King Triton and as I struggled to complete
BCRF’s Paddle for Pink…he appeared as if from the ocean’s depths
and guided me to the finish line…. I kept screaming ‘will I make
it?!’ like we were in a disaster movie. He said ‘yes, Lena, we
will.’ Ladies, there are still a few heroes we can count on…”