I was having a conversation yesterday with a wonderful friend and filmmaker, Tate MacDowell when he says:
What’s up with these whiny, hypocritical surf mags. Every time I pick one up I feel like isn’t even fun or they’re telling me not to do shit. Seriously, I just got the latest Stab, Surfing and Surfer and they were all bitching about Instagram and locations being blown out. Don’t they understand I’m trying to get my stoke on with this rag? It’s like picking up a porno and reading a bunch of articles about how STD’s are hurting the industry. Fuck off! I’m obviously not getting laid if I’m reading this!
And I think:
Wow totally.
Do you think surf media has gotten too grouchy? I think it has. But the opposite of grouchy is cheese-faced Inertia. What is the middle ground? Help me help you!
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The piece starts with a bunch of nerds holding up full color computer printouts. One of them is wearing a super lame little necklace. They take turns making statements. I don't know who any of them are. Possibly their presence it's supposed to lend weight to the following segment?
Can we start calling Mick's "attack" something else?
Can we start calling Mick’s “attack” something else? I’m sure it was scary as hell, rattled his cage good and hard. Shed some adrenaline dump tears post heat.
But he wasn’t attacked. He was bumped.
If you stepped out into the road without looking and a truck rolled by, missing by inches, you wouldn’t say you’ve been hit by a car. Because you’d look like a huge pussy. Life’s full of near misses, you’ve gotta sack up and move along.
Which is exactly what he did. Back in the water, back on with his life. He talks about it, sure. Probably the first question every lazy journalist asks.
If you stepped out into the road without looking and a truck rolled by, missing by inches, you wouldn’t say you’ve been hit by a car. Because you’d look like a huge pussy. Life’s full of near misses, you’ve gotta sack up and move along.
It’s gotta be weird, to work so hard at something your entire life then be catapulted to fame by a random encounter. If I were Mick I’d say, “Enough of the shark talk, ya’ cunts.” Or something similarly Australian.
At the same time, the real world doesn’t much about surfing. That bump came with killer exposure. That’s really what Mick’s job is, staying in the public eye. He does it well. One of the very best.
The piece starts with a bunch of nerds holding up full color computer printouts. One of them is wearing a super lame little necklace. They take turns making statements. I don’t know who any of them are. Possibly their presence it’s supposed to lend weight to the following segment?
It plays as though the bump were one of the most traumatic events in Fanning’s life. I don’t believe that. Mick’s made of sterner stuff. Shaken, but not stirred.
Losing two brothers is heavy. I’ve got two baby bros of my own. It’d be hard to lose them.
His mom’s a good presence. Delivers a very real line.
“I just could not believe that this was actually happening. I thought, ‘Oh my god, the universe can’t be this cruel.’ And, uh, I can’t lose another boy.”
Beyond that, there’s nothing new here. It’s justa glimpse of Fanning’s early life, his tribulations set to swelling music, overlayed with an insurance commercial voice over. Not a single glimpse of what makes him a human.
Wiped from the tour. Barely able to surf. But, now, a baby with pop star girlfriend!
What a wild old ride Owen Wright has been on this year. After what was officially mandated as a surf-related brain injury at Pipeline in December, Owen pulled out of the first six events of 2016.
One month later, it was reported,
“Serious concerns surround the health of 2015 surfing world title contender, Owen Wright. Fears that Wright is still having trouble speaking and even standing have spread throughout tight-lipped surfing community…revealed he was still struggling with amnesia just last week.”
In February, Owen looked fragile as hell as he embraced his sister Tyler after she won the gal’s event at Snapper.
And two weeks ago, the rest of Owen’s 2016 WSL season was officially wiped.
So, now, after everything, ain’t it something to hear that his pop star girlfriend Kita Alexander is laden with child.
“I’ve gone through some really challenging life experiences this year but the most amazingly beautiful thing has come out of it,” says Owen, alongside his pregnant girl (on his IG account @owright). “Enjoying every moment but the future couldn’t look any better.”
Ms Alexander, in case you didn’t know, is the chanteuse whose (hit) songs have the easy temper of a warm summer’s day.
She surfs too!
Watch her wonderful song My Own Way, here…
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Don't you love the… immediacy… of King's work? "I just have my iPhone running. Most of Tour Notes is shot on an iPhone. I have a RED camera but I just look at it." | Photo: Peter King
Follow Filipe Toledo's effortless win at the US Open!
I doubt I’m alone in suggesting that no other filmer has such a clear window into the pro game as La Jolla’s Peter King.
I’ve followed the former pro surfer-celebrity chanteuse’s career through its highs and its highs. As for TourNotes, which King makes for the surf clothing company Hurley, he says: “I was on tour for three-and-a-half years, back when girls wanted to hang with Shaun Tomson and Rabbit Bartholomew and were 35 years old and wore high-waisted bikinis, do cocaine and all those things I didn’t know about. And what do I remember about my time on the tour? It isn’t the heats. I wanna show the fun. I want to show the silly little conversations.”
In this episode, King follows Filipe Toledo, “throughout his obvious and effortless win. No one else would have been as fun to watch won, that’s for sure. Most of it was filmed from the Sao Paulo section of the bleachers. Only this group could make tiny Huntington seem more exciting that the Olympics…”
As for the Toledos and Filipe’s upcoming role as a daddy, “They are known as the SurfamilyToledo … so the more the merrier!”
Filipe, meanwhile, split California to Kandui resort in the Mentawais straight after his win. He’ll be there till Tahiti!
Kai Lenny, who is twenty three years old and lives on Maui, is an expert in the disciplines of surfing, windsurfing, SUP and kitesurfing. Yesterday Kai won the Molokai to Oahu paddle in a world record time. "The hardest thing I've ever done," says Kai. | Photo: Courtesy Kai Lenny
Maui hydrofoiler-surfer-kitesurfer-SUP stud wins world's most tedious race!
Doesn’t Kai Lenny make your mouth water! Yesterday, the surfer-hydrofoiler-kitesurfer-SUP from Maui won the stand-up div of the famous-infamous thirty-two mile Molokai-to-Oahu race in a world record time.
Lenny found his win with a record-time of 4:07:41, besting rival and three-time M2O champ Connor Baxter’s 2014 record by 27 seconds. The victory is “a dream come true” for Lenny, who spent the last four years hunting an M2O title with top-4 finishes each year, including a runner-up victory behind 2015 champ, Travis Grant, who finished second today. Connor Baxter rounded out the top-3 with a time of 4:16:19, after the leading trio broke away from a stacked pack of hungry elite racers, including in-form Aussies James “Jimmy” Casey, Toby Cracknell and Matt Nottage, who finished fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been that focused in a race before,” Lenny said at the finish. “This is by far the hardest event I’ve ever done.”
You know Lenny, of course. He’s precious!
Examine his hydrofoiling here.
A wipeout that “nearly cut him in half”.
And a catchy day-in-the-life piece with JOB.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
