Gimme: Strider’s Malibu Beach Shack!

Your favourite commentator Strider Wasilewski in today’s New York Times… 

There are many reasons to fall in love with the WSL commentator Strider Wasilewski. Shall we list the ways?

His now famous attack dog tits, a surf career that included a sponsorship by Quiksilver and a place in the Pipe hierarchy , as well as his rise from the skate ghetto of Dogtown, and now, at the age of 42, a man with the elasticity and balance of an adolescent.

Is there more?

Yes!

As a 14-year-old surfing prodigy, Strider Wasilewski used to hunt the crowded Southern California coast for quiet surf spots. One of his favorites was Little Dume Beach, near Point Dume in Malibu, a crescent of sand half-hidden in a cove at the bottom of steep bluffs.

In today’s New York Times, Strider’s Point Dume house, nicknamed “the barn” is profiled in detail, including a photo gallery.

Let’s read.

“As a 14-year-old surfing prodigy, Strider Wasilewski used to hunt the crowded Southern California coast for quiet surf spots. One of his favorites was Little Dume Beach, near Point Dume in Malibu, a crescent of sand half-hidden in a cove at the bottom of steep bluffs.

‘It was an untouchable area,’ gated off and accessible only to local residents, Mr. Wasilewski said. But he heard about a family that kept their gate open. ‘They lived right by the trail,’ he said. ‘I used to run through their yard. They would yell at me.;

“Lily Harfouche, a real estate agent and occasional surfer who spent part of her childhood in Malibu, ran through the same yard with her teenage friends to get to the beach. ‘You go down there, and it’s you and a handful of people,’ Ms. Harfouche said. ‘It’s so incredibly beautiful.’

“These days, Mr. Wasilewski, 42, and Ms. Harfouche, 36, are married (they met at a reggae concert on the Santa Monica Pier) and live with their three young sons on Point Dume, in a simple open-plan house they call ‘the barn’. But it took the couple several years and several moves to arrive at their childhood stomping grounds and their pared-down life.”

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The main living space is basically one large white room with 18-foot ceilings and tall windows. “The room isn’t gigantic in terms of square footage,” Mr. Wasilewski said, “so the air and the whiteness gave it an endless feeling.”

How did he afford such a dazzling house?

“Their first place was farther down the coast in Venice, where years ago Mr. Wasilewski had bought two rundown bungalows on the same property. When he was off in Hawaii or elsewhere chasing big waves, Ms. Harfouche looked after the homes. The couple fixed them up and eventually sold them, discovering a shared interest in home renovation and real estate.

“They next moved to Malibu, where they repeated the buy-fix-sell process three more times. Mr. Wasilewski’s surfing buddies, many of them tradesmen, were drafted as the work crew. And Ms. Harfouche, who spent part of her childhood in small New York apartments (her parents were actors), began yearning for a big house.

“So with their profits, the couple bought a place on a one-acre lot on Point Dume, took it down to the studs and created a dream home on the hillside…”

Read the full story here! 


Mason Ho
Who's your favourite surfer? Yes! Mine too!

Mason: “Merry Xmas Motherfuckers!”

Who does a North Shore Christmas better than Mason Ho?

 

Mason Ho and the hell that is the area between Rockpiles and Log Cabins are a never ending source of joy. Toss a Santa hat in the mix and you’ve got a beautiful spice for your egg nog.

Here’s to wishing you all a dominant Chronica!

I’ve got a lot of cooking ahead of me today. Our Chronica feast is going to be especially lovely, the Safeway had a sale on lobster tails (only $5 each!), so I bought the lot.

People in line behind me were pretty bummed, which fits perfectly with the spirit of the holiday.


Dear Santa: Lemme be a cool guy!

The Inertia writers have one wish for Christmas. Help Santa! Or The Mad Hueys!

Christmas is just the dreamiest of times. The world covered in a blanket of fresh snow represents pure possibility! Anything can happen. The lion can lie down with the lamb. The stone cold surf journalistics can become super cool chillazzz.

How does this last one happen? Ask The Inertia staff writers ‘cuz Santa be busy!

First, apparently, use a word that the kids were using two years ago in the title. Like “ham.”

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Second, employ regional slang like “shoeys” ? because the kids know that you down with foreign culturez, girlfriend.

Third, write about Australia’s Mad Hueys lots. They hip, yeah? They drankin the beerz and they girlfrienz gettin the titties out!

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Fourth, be the home of thinking surfers!

And then dizzzzone my homies. Cool is as cool does. And now you cool as ice!


Josh Hollmer Cross wipeout
The surfer James Hollmer Cross presents as a quail blown apart by shotgun pellets at Pedra Branca, 26 clicks off the Tasmanian south coast. Vision of this wave was later used in a pivotal scene in the remake of Point Break. | Photo: Stu Gibson

Worst Wipeout Ever: “I Thought I Was Gone!”

Behind the scenes of Point Break’s pivotal wipeout sequence… 

Does the animal vitality of the new Point Break film excite you?

For one year, I’ve followed the travails of the remake, ever since the Australian Laurie Towner hit the Teahupoo reef, sprung his jaw in two and was saved by Laird Hamilton.

As BeachGrit reported back then, “Such an event doesn’t come without casualties, even with Laurie excepted. Poto’s ski sunk ’cause of a too-heavy camera attached to it and another ski was flipped and the 200-gee camera strapped onto the sled was drowned. There was even a fight! At least according to one photographer. ‘It’s been a hilarious couple of days with Hollywood trying to shut it off to the locals which failed miserably, Hawaiian water patrol flipping skis, a fight out the back amongst a couple of very well-known riders and basically all the superstar riders being dominated by a 16-year-old local Manoa Drollet’s little bro, Matahi.’

Anyway, the film’s pivotal wipeout scene, at the front half of the movie when Utah drops in on Bodhi, was filmed at Pedra Branca, the name of a lil island 26 clicks off Tasmania’s South East Cape. The surfer is James Hollmer Cross whose oxygen was restricted for longer than was comfortable, as he explains in the short below.

Pedro Branca, Portuguese for White Rock, is a helluva joint to go surfing. Heavier than Shipstern Bluff maybe you ask?

Don’t look at me. I dislike these kinda places on every level.

How about we ask the filmmaker Tim Bonython whose vision of Jame’s wipeout was sold to the filmmakers of Point Break?

“By a long shot,” says Bonython. “Thicker and more grunt. Raw! I showed it at my surf movie festival and as I was working on Point Break in Tahiti, the director asked me if I had any big-wave wipeouts, but not from Hawaii. They wanted it looking dark and scary, as it’s set in Europe not Tahiti.”

Do you like seeing a man dragged to a complete, utter, hopeless, bogged-down end? Watch!

Oh, and for Chas Smith’s review of the movie, read here…


Scrooge: Julian Wilson’s title stolen!

That damned shark. The swimming embodiment of bah humbug!

The end of the year is such a wonderful time for reflection and what a mountain of things we have to think back upon! Like Dane Reynolds leaving Quiksilver and starting a brand with Craig Anderson! Like Glenn Micro Hall and Gabs Medina’s mom maybe falling in love! Like ADS!

But a story undiscussed, except here, is the theft of Julian Wilson’s 2015 World Title by a toothy white in South Africa. No, not Mick Fanning but Mick’s friend the shark!

Let us examine once again. Julian had just started the year with a bang, falling just shy of Filipe Toledo at Snapper, the season opener. A shocker at Bells (who cares? It’s fat!) but roared into the quarters at Marg River and then a shocker in Rio (who cares? It’s Rio!) but then back into the final at Fiji and Jeffreys Bay. That first wave, a 6.67 was underscored. He was riding an incredible rhythm and Mick was surely backed into a wall. Or a great white’s mouth.

And like that the event was over with Mick and Julian receiving equal seconds and emotional scars.

But what if Julian had won the event? Not a big what if, mind you… he was sitting right there in first place and what sort of boost would that have been? He would have soared into Tahiti, I reckon, and then Trestles, France, Portugal, Pipeline. He would have been a runaway force that not even the League of Extraordinary Poo Men could have derailed.

Julian Wilson would have been 2015 world champ.

Oh that damned shark. That swimming embodiment of bah humbug.