costa rica catamaran
Death porn of a cat sinking in Costa Rica last year. Want to survive? Don't drink. Don't play the hero. Swim away.

Parker: How to Survive a Sinking Ship!

Get over the side, swim away. Don't play the hero.

I don’t drink booze on boats.

It’s a personal policy built around the ever present possibility that things could go tits up. I’m no sailor, and I can’t fully trust someone else with my safety at sea. Always a chance you’ll need to swim for miles, or tread water for hours. No problem while sober, a challenge with a belly full of black out punch.

It’s probably a stupid precaution, but I’ve gone over the plan with my wife, should we find ourselves on a sinking ship. Get over the side, swim away. Don’t play the hero.

Drowning landlubbers are terrifying. Fuckers’ll grab a hold and drag you down with them. Was once fairly certain we’d need to put it in play. Third World ferry crossing, we cheaped out and took the local boat. Overloaded with junk, packed full of people. So low in the water I was sure we were done. I wasn’t the only one. Real white knuckle trip.

It’s definitely cold-hearted. Find safety, let others fend for themselves.

Watch this death porn of a cat sinking in Costa Rica.

People panic. Most can barely swim. And I’ve delivered a few sternum punches to struggling idiots I’ve had to rescue from their own bad decisions. One on one I can handle. An entire pack of wild-eyed future drowning victims I cannot.

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David Carson
Don’t you just love a man who can swing his talent into the world, blow minds, and retreat into the perfect surf lifestyle?

Iconic surfer-artist’s Caribbean dream!

Does the graphic designer David Carson have the dreamiest setup on earth?

Do you remember, one year ago to the day, when the surfer David Carson was named 18th most influential designer in history?  It wasn’t just against other graphic designers either.

Carson left the architects Gaudi, Zaha Hadid and Arne Jacobson in his foamy wake and was only one rung below Charles and Ray Eames, whose chairs have become the most pirated in the world.

Anyway, Carson, he good, though he does tend to polarise. Do you remember when he designed 151 new logos for the WSL? At the time, he told me: “It has no soul. The logo just doesn’t represent the sport very well. It’s pedestrian, unoriginal, forgettable,  safe, gentrified and corporate. All things surfing is NOT, at least to me. The zillions of people worldwide, intrigued for decades, who might have felt surfing is unique, are now being shown, no, it’s not. The essence of surfing, the surfing experience, what people feel about it are all belied by this mindless little logo.”

He added,

“Do you see people clamouring for tee shirts with it? Stickering their cars, walls, friends, bikes or computers with it? …nooo. It has no particular intrigue nor design unique to surfing. Surfing’s been an integral part of my life for over 40 years, and it’s disappointing to see the lack of imagination, spark, inventiveness and cultural awareness. I would have liked to see a logo and branding truer to the sport, its history and future, as well as the unique individuals involved with it all.

“I think many others would love to have been excited about the new WSL logo, which is just the weak ASP logo with new letters. World Sleeping League. World Snoring League, World Sunning League, whatever. it’s just a huge missed opportunity to send a message about the sport globally. That it…is… unique and…does… have different ways of doing things other sports don’t.

“With the shark media-fest worldwide after Mick’s encounter, millions of people for the first time saw anything related to the WSL. Snd what did they see? A generic little round corporate logo.. similar to  countless other logos. ‘Oh thats surfing? I thought they were more, ah, different? Free-spirited? rebellious, or something.'”

Later, Carson would ask me to remove the story after a torrid response.

But it was so bold, so… true! History would be poorer for its evaporation!

Anyway, our pals at New York’s Dress Code just made this movie on David Carson, shot on location at his dreamy Caribbean hideaway. You can watch it here!

 

 

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Which is Surfer and which The Inertia?

Parker: Things I Would Love to Do!

Shoving people out of my way, throwing food at waiters, etc…

Every day is an exercise in self control. So many wants left unfulfilled. I wish I could just do whatever I desire all the time. I come close, but life’s a series of compromises. Even for me.

Maybe one day I’ll get lucky.

Get rich, do whatever the fuck I want all the time. In the meantime I can only dream. Write about my frustrations. Get a kick out of people reading them. Maybe relating?

Here’s a few things I refrain from doing only because I can’t get away with them.

Shove people out of my way: It’s a tourist thing, that bewildered ambling unaware of your surroundings. I’m sure I do it too whenever I’m in a new place.

Doesn’t make it any easier to bear when I’m trying to get my shopping done and a family of pasty Midwesterners is stopped dead in the center of the aisle staring at the bread rack like they’ve never a fucking bagel before.

It’d be tits if I could just barrel through them. Push ’em aside. Make way! Here comes Rory!

Or last night, at Safeway, the elderly couple arguing about prices. Yeah, shit’s expensive out here. Get over it. Get the fuck out of my way. The urge to ram ’em with my cart was near unbearable.

Honk my horn more often: Drivers rarely honk their horns in Hawaii, and almost never in anger. It just isn’t done. I like it, can’t stand the hellish cacophony whenever I’m forced to travel back to LA.

But lately, I’ve had an urge to lay on the thing whenever I’m stopped at a light or crosswalk and someone is walking in front of my car.

I used to do it all the time to the mobs of Japanese tourists who cross Kam Hwy like gaggles of halfwit geese. Wave ’em through, then lay on the horn and cackle madly when they’d jump. But Kauai is tiny, can’t pull that type of shit anymore. It’s super awkward when you run into the same hapless stranger you hassled earlier in the day for no reason at all.

Ban certain people from the beach: We’ve all got the right to play in the ocean. I won’t argue about that.

But some people…

Watched a Mormon family invade the lineup recently. How could I tell they were Mo-mos? Mom, Dad, plus seven kids. All blonde haired, straight white teeth, milky skin. Looked like they’d never touched an illicit substance in their lives. Real pack of degenerates.

Every one with a rental log, all rocking matching life vests. Wide open beach to play on, picked the one area full of swimmers and struggled a few feet out. Took turns barreling through the inside. Total carnage.

Amusing, for sure. But crazy dangerous. A pack of fools that demonstrated why so many damn visitors die out here.

Throw my meal at a waiterWe ate lunch at an overpriced restaurant in Kapa’a a few days ago. It’s a place my wife has been hassling me to visit for months. Cute décor, overly complicated menu. Her type of joint.

I ordered a $17 burger, expensive by even our ridiculous standards. She got the ono sandwich. Both were terrible. Overcooked, under seasoned. Wilted lettuce, their “artisanal buns” were the same ones I buy at Costco. The fries were good.

The waitress came to check on us. Asked, “How’s everything?”

I wanted nothing more than to heave my plate in her stupid face. Scream, “It’s fucking terrible,” and bounce without paying.

Instead I choked my meal down. Tipped poorly. Then complained the entire way home.

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Prince dies
I know a lot of people are going to say, “Prince sucks.” You're wrong. The man was brilliant. And even if you don't appreciate his music you should have some respect for the fact that he was a skinny five foot tall man in eyeliner and high heels who humped his way through every attractive woman in Hollywood throughout the eighties.

Just in: Non-Surf Icon Dies!

Five-foot man humps his way through Hollywood. What's not to love?

We’ve lost a good one today. Prince Rogers Nelson is dead at 57.

A musical genius, staunch defender of his own intellectual property rights, a semi-recluse who reportedly recorded obsessively without releasing anything. The world is a worse place now that he’s gone.

I know a lot of people are going to say, “Prince sucks.”

You’re wrong. The man was brilliant. And even if you don’t appreciate his music you should have some respect for the fact that he was a skinny five foot tall man in eyeliner and high heels who humped his way through every attractive woman in Hollywood throughout the eighties.

I’d love to link all his awesome music videos but either he or his management engaged in a scorched earth campaign prior to his death. Removed nearly every online instance of his unbelievable talent.

Not a problem for me, I downloaded his entire discography years ago. I’ll be spending the day with it playing in the background, mourning his passing into the void.

For those of you who haven’t yet done the same…

Here’s Kiss!

and Little Red Corvette.

…and the legendary Chappelle’s Show sketch. Which is also on Comedy Central’s website, but we’ve got a ton of readers outside the US and I’m sure it’s probably blocked in your region.

Finally, here’s an amazing story about Prince from Kevin Smith.

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Breaching great white
I'm really starting to warm to Great Whites, at least on my computer screen. They soar like jet planes?

Wow: Surfer Films Breaching White!

Huntington Beach now Great White capital of the world!

Do you remember last year when a Great White Dive Co showed us wonderful vision of sharks soaring like jet planes? Click here for that. 

Beautiful, mystical creatures etc.

Although I long for meaningful interaction with the mysterious, the prehistoric, I still kinda prefer ’em to stay in their part of the ocean (Cape Town, WA etc) and leave my part of the world alone.

This footage captured by Drew Palumbo at Sunset Beach, CA, around midday on Monday, confirms that the Huntington Beach area is also a significant Great White area, lifeguards reporting another White sighting just the day before.

Let’s examine Drew Palumbo’s account of the event.

“I was out surfing with my friend Ben Slaybeck. After taking some drone footage of him, I put my GoPro onto my 3-D printed mouth-mount and went out to catch some waves for myself. Shortly after, I paddled out toward a wave, pressed record, and caught a Great White shark breaching from about a 100ft away or so. This was in Sunset Beach CA, on April 18th around noon.”

Does this excite you as much as it does me?

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