Filipe Toledo
Let Filipe Toledo's best cuts from 2016 gently intoxicate…  | Photo: WSL/Cestari

Movie: Filipe’s suck and bite bruises!

The best of Filipe Toledo's Jack Russell-ish jams from 2016!

It’s pretty easy to forget, at least when the surf strikes four foot and beyond, that Filipe Toledo is our sepia Apollo. The sweet ferocity of his strikes, the torso whiplashing.

Kolohe Andino likens Filipe to cult leader-killer Charles Manson and says if you’re not “in love with Filipe’s full-rotations, you’re blind!”

Yeah, Filipe runs a little hot and cold, and coldest, mostly, if there’s a little venom in a reefBut he ain’t alone. Do you remember when the then reigning world champ Gabriel Medina had to be cajoled into surfing the Box during 2014’s Margaret River contest? 

But, three foot or thereabouts and is there anyone else who makes you feel so ready to surf with…vigour? 

Want to surf? Want a little inspiration?

Here’s a cut of Filipe’s best Jack Russell-ish jams from the year so far to get you in the mood.

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Watch the floater!
Watch the floater! | Photo: WSL/ Daniel Smorigo

Rio: “Surfing in human crap!”

A new report suggests Rio's ocean is an absolute cesspool. Fun for everyone but especially fun for the surfers who were just there!

First it was the shoddy plumbing/electrical wiring in the Olympic Village and now this! A new report just released by The New York Times, days ahead of the 2016 Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro, says everyone will be bathing, playing and celebrating in human feces. Let’s read!

Health experts have a word of advice for the Olympic marathon swimmers, sailors and windsurfers competing in Rio de Janeiro’s picture-postcard waters next month: Keep your mouth closed

Despite the government’s promises seven years ago to stem the waste that fouls Rio’s expansive Guanabara Bay and the city’s fabled ocean beaches, officials acknowledge that their efforts to treat raw sewage and scoop up household garbage have fallen far short.

In fact, environmentalists and scientists say Rio’s waters are much more contaminated than previously thought.

Recent tests by government and independent scientists revealed a veritable petri dish of pathogens in many of the city’s waters, from rotaviruses that can cause diarrhea and vomiting to drug-resistant “superbacteria” that can be fatal to people with weakened immune systems.

Researchers at the Federal University of Rio also found serious contamination at the upscale beaches of Ipanema and Leblon, where many of the half-million Olympic spectators are expected to frolic between sporting events.

“Foreign athletes will literally be swimming in human crap, and they risk getting sick from all those microorganisms,” said Dr. Daniel Becker, a local pediatrician who works in poor neighborhoods. “It’s sad but also worrisome.”

The best part? Surfing’s own World League just two-ish months ago had the top 40 out in the same water, splashing and celebrating John John’s victory with mouths wide open. Rotaviruses that cause diarrhea and vomiting pouring right in.

Why would WSL CEO Paul Speaker willingly expose his athletes to such unbelievable conditions? Unfettered greed? Necessity born of having no real sponsors? Bad instincts coupled with worse business acumen? A haircut borrowed from his hero Roger Goodell? A spirit borrowed from his other hero Donald J. Trump? An iron fist borrowed from his third favorite hero Angela Merkel? The belief that Kelly Slater makes way north of 20 million dollars each year and could easily fund a clinic that dedicates itself to healing sick surfers?

Why?

Or maybe just surfers are tough and don’t moan like little babies about teeny tiny superbacteria and so when they were told to go just went.

Yes, it has become sport to kick around the Jewel of the South Atlantic but enough already. Rio de Janeiro is an earthly paradise. A heaven that we are lucky to have.

Enough, I shout from the top of Sugarloaf!

Let the people with weak immune systems stay home! You too CEO Paul Speaker. You stay in Santa Monica where, if you did surf, would find the water not quite as bad but also not very good. You stay with all the Google nerds and Snapchat kooks and Venice adjacent Inertia goobs. You just stay in your knock-off Herman Miller Aeron chair, looking out the window and dreaming retard jock dreams.

Take me to Rio city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty!

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invisible surfboard

Wow: The Invisible Surfboard!

Come believe the unbelievable!

Do you remember the invisible board section from Spike Jonze’s 2003 skate film Yeah, Right? I so ain’t skate but this, jammed alongside the John Frusciante instrumental Murderers, sure did throw the sport up a dozen rungs.

(The Owen Wilson carpark cameo had me too.)

At the time, I figured, oowee, won’t be long before we get a surf version. And how right I was!

Thirteen years later, Foster Huntington presents… Floater, surfing’s take on invisible boards. It’s more compelling than you might think. Ryan Burch thrills like nothing else, wouldn’t you say?

Or am I easily impressed?

Watch the invisible board section in Yeah, Right here, for background…

Laugh a little at Owen Wright here.

And see how the invisible board thing applies to surf!

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globalhobo
For the low low cost of US$1989 (airfare and meals not included), you can fly to Bali and learn the ins and outs of travel blogging at the feet of literary luminaries such as Gemma Clarke, Nat Kassel, Shaun Fisher and Mimi LaMontagne! | Photo: Globalhobo

Opportunity: Pay to work in Bali!

An internship you need to see to believe!

Summer’s here, and I’m sad to say that Rory Parker’s Kauai Spare Room Learning Academy for Surfboard Writers remains on hiatus due to alleged Mann Act violations.

I find myself at loose ends.

As much as I love imparting wisdom to young souls using my own brand of especially hands-on didacticism my legal counsel has advised me to put things on hold as we deal with the aforementioned ongoing litigation.

“You can’t fuck your students, Rory.”

“Why not?  Sartre and de Beauvoir did.”

“And they both got in trouble for it. It’s not allowed. You’re in a position of power. They’re too easily influenced.”

“I don’t see how that’s my problem.”

“They’re pressing charges. That’s why it’s your problem.”

“But seventeen is legal in Hawaii.”

“It isn’t in their home state. You can’t fly kids to Hawaii and then fuck them.”

“Ah!  But I didn’t fly them out.  Their parents bought the tickets.”

“Yeah and their parents are pissed.  They thought they were sending their kids to Summer school, not some degenerate fuck house.”

“How dare you! There’s nothing degenerate about what I did to them!”

“Don’t play dumb, you’re in a lot of trouble. Seriously, get your shit together.”

But all hope is not yet lost! Global Hobo, a travel website aimed at millennials playing vagabond on mommy and daddy’s dime, is hosting a similar program. And they’re accepting applications!

For the low low cost of US$1989 (airfare and meals not included), you can fly to Bali and learn the ins and outs of travel blogging at the feet of literary luminaries such as Gemma Clarke, Nat Kassel, Shaun Fisher, and Mimi LaMontagne!

Twenty year olds critiquing my writing! Unfettered access to a series of easily manipulated ambulatory orifices! How could I pass up this amazing opportunity to pay someone to work for them?

Travel to the uber-hip Balinese province of Canggu with Global Hobo. Over the course of a month, a team of word-savvy hobos will be given intensive writing and blogging tutelage focused on travel as well as cross-cultural language training with a Balinese language school. In their free time, interns will be exploring every nook and cranny of southern Bali so they can put together a comprehensive online destination guide in teams. They’ll also be producing two pieces for Global Hobo, which will be heavily workshopped over the course of the program. (Emphasis theirs.)

Blogging tutelage!

Twenty year olds critiquing my writing! Unfettered access to a series of easily manipulated ambulatory orifices! How could I pass up this amazing opportunity to pay someone to work for them?

I ran the idea by my wife, she’s more than willing to bankroll my month long adventure in shouting down criticism and peer pressuring kids into experimental living. All that remains is to be accepted.

Send a winning cover letter, resume and writing sample to our editor Gemma at [email protected] proving why you are the hobo worthy of this incredible opportunity and outlining any skills you think may be relevant, such as photography, social media, the ability to use inDesign etc. Any boring emails will be thrown out the window. 

Here’s my application letter.

Dearest Gemma,

I recently came across your call for interns and would love nothing more than to pay for the privilege of contributing to your website.

I’m very well traveled, having sojourned (that’s a great word, right?) to locales such as Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Argentina, Chile, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, China, Thailand, and Cambodia. So many adventures, so many fond memories.

I once punched a beggar child in the head!  He was trying to lift my wallet and totally had it coming.

Glancing at your photos on social media I noticed many young, nubile, college students. But not a single thirty six year old married man. Which you desperately need. What I lack in taut skin and trim waistline I more than compensate for with wisdom earned through years of experience.

I’m well versed in many aspects of the vagabond trip. Including, but not limited to:

-Masturbating relatively quietly in a shared lodging scenario.

-Attaining palliative care for STI’s in third world destinations.

-Shouting at taxi drivers.

-Proper applications of violence.

-Over-use of present tense in pseudo-enlightened travel blogging.

-Proper procurement of illicit substances outside US borders.

-Making yourself understood using only gestures and volume.

I am currently clean shaven, but I am capable of growing a truly majestic beard. The following link depicts what that would look like.  

Click here!

Further examples of my digital prowess:

Click here! 

And here! 

Furthermore, you can find a writing sample at the following link.

Click here! 

Before we move forward, as I can only assume you’re already mentally preparing my acceptance letter, I have a few questions.

Can I receive a discount if I do not plan to attend the language classes? I prefer to communicate by shouting in accented English. 

Would it be possible to attain a look book prior to selecting my roommate? Both male and female, please.

What are your policies regarding public defecation?  

Your terms and conditions state that participants “must agree that Global Hobo may capture and use video recordings and photographs of them over the course of the internship and may use their name, image and written testimonial in all media, be it commercial, promotional or otherwise.”  Does this mean that clothing is mandatory? 

Do you require disclosure of an individual’s sex offender status?

I eagerly await your reply and look forward to joining your group of sexy children outside the reach of my country’s legal system.

Sincerely,

Rory Parker

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Hope for our fractured times!

The world is in a dark place...but don't worry! Hope and joy are just a click away!

Just kidding!

I have a migraine so this is what you get instead.

There are seven types of men. Only seven. And each man is one of these types or a mix of two of these types. Never three.

Type 1 (clown)

He wears baggy clown-like pants and a baggy t-shirt and a backward baseball cap. He drinks beer and after three gets extremely loud. He gets so loud that people move away from him, perceptibly. He wears a thick gold chain and he loves to watch mixed martial arts and his friends are all clowns too. He surfs during summer vacation and exchanges his thick gold chain for a shell necklace.

Type 2 (afraid)

He is timid and too thin or too fat. His voice is quiet and he doesn’t have an opinion on many things or he changes his opinion at the drop of a hat. He doesn’t drive a car because of potential car accidents. He doesn’t fly. He works at the local fussy coffee spot. He once had a girlfriend but that was twenty years ago when he was ten. He is allergic to gluten. He believes in global warming and the powerful stage presence of Ryan Gosling.

Type 3 (weird)

He loves horror movies. He listens to Henry Rollins spoken word albums on vinyl. He obsesses about linux and other internet technologies. He has a girlfriend who wears vinyl pants. He has a pet rat. His mother loved him too much and his father not enough. Early in life he believed his superior intellect would take him places in this life. When it only took him to a clerk job at a camera store it made him hate all those in positions of power. It also made him snide. He has never fought a man. He has slapped a woman.

Type 4 (jock)

He is a jock, handsome with good bone structure and muscles that will turn a bit doughy if he doesn’t stay on top of a severe workout regime. He surfs very jocky on his board. Like he expects hurricane-force gales to knock him over. Girls are drawn to his handsome and his muscles and his friendly personality. He laughs at sitcoms. He is the anchor of modern man.

Type 5 (ethnic)

He is from Africa, Asia, Sub-Asia, South America, Central America, Mexico, the Middle East. He likes some sort of string-based/horn-based music that makes no sense. He is just passing time and enjoying the little things like grilled meat.

Type 6 (asshole)

Does many things on purpose to push the buttons of those around him. He dresses like an asshole and talks like one too. If a beautiful girl sitting in his company tells him that he is rude he takes a drag of his cigarette and blows smoke in her face. He was not attractive as a child but became attractive later in life. He goes to bed each night feeling smug about himself.

Type 7 (self-hating handsome)

He was born handsome and grew handsome and is still handsome but he has no other skill. Nothing. He is a model or a waiter or personal assistant. He can’t do anything well but is handsome so hates himself because he knows he can’t do anything well. He was too handsome, as a young person, to be weird so he feels perpetually removed from humanity. He curses his fate and others look at him and wonder, “What the hell is he doing?” He wonders as well but comforts himself in the arms of beautiful women but then hates himself for doing so.

Common mixes. 

Successful artist (weird-asshole)

Construction worker (weird-ethnic)

Businessman (afraid-asshole)

Actor (self-hating handsome-asshole)

Clothing designer (afraid-asshole)

Cell phone salesman (weird-afraid)

Etc.

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