Obvs, if you're pally with Shane Dorian, shots are gonna come up with a little more glow.

Promotion: Christmas Gift the camera that’s surf-movie ready straight out of the box!

GoPro's HERO 7 Black turns any hoodlum with four hundred bucks into a Kai Neville, Joe G, Blake K etc.

Two winters ago, we took to Mexico for a video instructional series with Filipe Toledo and Lakey Peterson.

To record the event, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of RED cameras and their myriad accessories were loaded into large bags and dragged all over Manzanillo and throughout the radiant state of Colima. 

And these cameras were wonderful etc, but when the footage was returned for editing, it struck me how we could’ve shot the entire thing on the GoPro’s and Karma drone the Hawaiian filmer/surfer Anthony Walsh had brought.

A stabilisation gadget called a gimbal, which Anthony had affixed to the little POV cameras, meant he could get dramatic panning shots without camera shake or the need to sit a man on a dolly and track and push him around. 

It was revolutionary, I thought, and I recorded hours of silky footage of the house’s dancing chihuahua, panning back and forth across the tiled floor and from hind leg to pointed snout. 

Two years is a long time in the tech world and GoPro, who’ve been wonderfully kind to us, incidentally, including co-sponsoring our upcoming Toledo feature Part 3, have squeezed that gimbal into the HERO7 Black. 

Except it ain’t a gimbal.

It’s electronic stabilisation so it doesn’t go to pieces in high-wind, high-shock scenarios. HyperSmooth is its very prosaic name. You got a jerky hand or you’re bouncing around in the truck en route somewhere exotic? The sorta footage that gives your pals seasickness? Watch those tremulous frames disappear on screen. 

Next thing: TimeWarp. Squeeze a long part of the trip, the drive, the hike in, whatever, into a compressed vid. 

Live streaming: Be the next Gravy, Rothman, O’Brien. Stick your head in front of the hole, make funnies, caress shorebreaks on your softie. Transmit straight to Facebook Live and see if you can hit WSL numbers.

And when you gotta do a couple of stills for the promo packaging, press SuperPhoto. HDR and so forth.

Four hundred bucks means it’s gonna go to someone you deeply care for or the pal who never quite cut it in the water and, therefore, must be relegated to filming work.

Or shoot yourself, edit out the dregs, and emerge a star.

Here’s the HERO7 Black at work in the hands of Anthony Walsh, primary water shooter, with POV, for the Toledo movie.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq25qrPnwyA/

And a little big-wave crash with Kai Lenny.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrA5_vHnLR2/

Examine, buy here. 

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From the no-surf-news Department: “I once illegally climbed Egypt’s most famous pyramid (and defiled it)!”

Honesty in the color of beige.

There has been a real dearth of surf news over the past few days for which I apologize. I’m sure things are happening, I’m sure interesting, robust, vital things but somehow they aren’t finding their way to me.

They will again, I have no doubt, but in the meantime here is a story from my past. My next book is about the Middle East so here…

I think my obsession with the Middle East begins here. I was hanging onto the side of The Great Pyramid of Giza, some 300 feet off the ground, and trying to track the police flashlights below, crisscrossing the desert, looking for the bastards who dared sneak in to the pyramid complex to climb the oldest and biggest 7th wonder of the ancient world.

Looking for us.

Sunrise was still a few hours off but Cairo’s skyglow, floating on the horizon, makes dawn appear perpetually imminent adding a layer of intensity. I figured it was way worse to get caught in the day rather than at night, for reasons I can’t recall, so was trying to hurry.

Or wait. I remember.

I used to work the campus safety dispatch night shift at my Christian university and remember how abjectly lazy I was. Like, students would call at 11:30 pm or 1:30 am or whatever and say they needed an escort from the art barn to their dorm or the café to their dorm and I would tell them the campus safety officers were busy because I couldn’t be bothered filling out the paperwork then I’d continue watching the bootlegged copy of Army of Darkness I’d put into the VCR that was supposed to be recording the administration building’s front entrance. People who are good at their jobs and try hard and shit work in the day. The night belongs to fuckers and fuck-ups.

I pulled a Cleopatra cigarette out of my pocket and lit it, trying to figure a way out of the mess. A flashlight slashed across the base of the pyramid zigzagging nowhere near me. Fuckers and fuck-ups but felt my best option was to begin singing Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl at the top of my lungs so I did.

“Uptown girl, she’s been living in an uptown world…”

The flashlights zigged closer but still nowhere near me and I began to descend, singing, smoking, while the police started shouting in Arabic.

“I bet she’s never had a backstreet guy, I bet her mama never told her why…”

The idea to climb had been hatched a mere four hours earlier. Joel, my classmate at University of Cairo’s Middle Eastern Studies Program, had come into my room and said, “We should climb Cheops tonight.” Ethan, my roommate, said, “Yes.” I said, “Obviously.” And two hours later we were in a classically busted Egyptian cab, floorboards mostly missing, gears stuffed with sawdust, swerving and honking toward Giza.

Cheops or Khufu or The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only one worth climbing and likely the only one you know. It is the pyramid with that weird cap on it. The one that looks like it has a snowy peak. The other two biggish pyramids in the complex belonged to Pharaohs Khafre and Menkaure and impressive but not nearly as impressive as Cheops.

It is one of those rare phenomena where reality is more fantastic than the imagined. Like, the sphinx sucks. It is a tiny little thing. Maybe as big as a Chevy Suburban. Maybe. All the photos I’d ever seen had it in front of the pyramids and shot low so I was convinced it was 200 some feet high but it is not. It is a GMC Yukon. Very disappointing and much smaller than dreamed. The passages inside the pyramids are also all super lame bummers. Cramped, hot, stinky and not romantic with no paintings or spooky lights etc., but the outside, the Great Pyramid’s external skin, beats dreams.

It is immense, almost 4000 years old and completely baffling. How did the Egyptians do it? How did they stack giant stones that high? How big are the stones? Was it Hebrew slaves? Aliens? One can lounge in the desert there and ponder how life felt in those ancient times and how this giant three dimensional triangle was constructed and all manner of small human thoughts and feel the weight of amazement. It is truly crushing.

And I could hear the police’s Arabic shouts below clearly. Shouting “u’af!” “Stop!” And I kept singing. “She’s been living in a white bread world…”

One of their flashlights grazed my foot and the shouting grews more urgent. “Why in the world are you singing?” Ethan said from somewhere above me.

“Because there’s no way we’re getting out of this. We may as well act as if we didn’t know it was wrong. Better to ask forgiveness instead of permission etc.”

We were all now bathed in flashlight, sweeping across our faces, our bodies, our legs and arms. The policemen had gathered at a particular section near the base and our guiding us there. No way out but there never was. I took one last drag of Cleopatra and snuffed her out then climbed toward where they all were. Putting a cigarette out on 4000 year old wonder of the ancient world would have been the worst thing I had done that night had I not pissed on it 30 minutes prior.

When we had arrived at the pyramid complex it was maybe 2:00 am. The cab had dropped us off nearby and we wandered past broken down homes and witches with coal smoked eyes before reaching a little desert perch where we could plan our ascent.

Joel came up with the best plan. “We should just start walking toward it and the first guard that catches us we bribe.” Ethan and I agreed so we started walking and, sure enough, were quickly snagged by a guard. We told him we were going to climb Cheops. He clucked his tongue while saying, “Mish mumkin. Mish mumkin.” Mish mumkin. Not possible. Absolutely not possible. Very not possible.

And so we asked, “Kam?” How much? He continued to cluck his tongue while saying mish mumkin while adding a slow head shake in for good measure. “La la la la la mamnua. Mish mumkin.”

No. Forbidden. Not possible. Very not possible.

We stood, expressionless, having spent the last few months playing this game with all manner of Egyptians from shop keepers to government officials to Arabic tutors. Nothing in Egypt is possible, initially. Everything is, in fact, not possible and other things are forbidden but then after enough tongue clucking and head shaking cracks magically appear. Maybe something is possible but… Oh to make it possible will require a mountain of money. A giant pyramid of money.

We negotiated for a few minutes down to $50 U.S. per person and then he stealthily guided us to one of Cheops’ corners, pointing the best way up while looking around to make sure that no other guards or policemen were around to cut into his bribe. He told us to go up very fast and come down very fast then darted into the night.

We started climbing. None of us had any idea beforehand as to how big the stones were going to be. Maybe they were ten or fifteen feet tall and we’d have to hoist each other up. Maybe they were smooth and we’d have to climb like real climbers with our fingertips and end up falling to inglorious deaths.

In real life, though, they were neither tall nor smooth but perfect for skill-less ascent. Mostly just below waist high and so there we went, up the corner, one exaggerated lunge at a time just like the Hebrew slaves. Or aliens.

It took a quick 20 minutes then there were on the top of the ancient world, looking at Cairo floating on the horizon. Feeling the unfathomable bow of history. Feeling indestructible like the great explorers before us. Like Capt. William Shakespear, not the playwright, who mapped the Nafud desert and was friends with the first King Saud or better yet T.E. Lawrence. Lawrence of Arabia. The greatest explorer/writer of all time.

Charlie of Arabia was, anyhow, on the roof of the world. I was Charlie back then because I wasn’t quite douchy enough to be a “Chas” though all the future hallmarks of a “Chas” were there. Permission worse than apology? Check. Billy Joel on instant recall? Check. Cigarettes? A whole pack of check. Pissing off the top of the greatest of the 7th wonders of the ancient world?

Shit.

But that’s what I did. Hate me for it because I hate myself for it too. I had sucked down a bottle of Baraka water during the cab ride, which coincidentally means “peace” and felt the pangs as we negotiated our bribe and felt them stronger as we climbed and then on top, after summiting, the pain became unbearable. Looking out and Cairo and thought, “I can’t hold it anymore plus I want to be here forever and if I spray a little DNA who could blame me?” I tried to shoot it out so far that none of it hit the pyramid but that was, of course, impossible. A horrible, hideous, unforgivable thought but also what would you do if you climbed to the top of the most famous pyramid of all and it was 3:00 am and… never mind. Unforgiveable.

I will say it was amazing but I can’t remember any spiritual hit. It felt like an accomplishment but… I don’t know. Not spiritual. So I stood and pissed and then we all starting making our way down into the crisscrossing flashlight beams of policemen who hadn’t been bribed.

“…And now she’s looking for a downtown man.”

The policemen grabbed us and pulled us off the side rougher than necessary and they had very stern faces. Very angry and stern shouting “Mamnua! Mamnua!” Forbidden forbidden. Flashlights were swinging around wildly as they gathered Joel, Ethan and me up trying to figure out what to do, jabbering so quickly in Arabic that I couldn’t make anything out.

It was eventually decided that we should be force marched to a small police shack over near a pit where a 4000 year-old boat had been pulled from the sand. The shack looked like it was a made from the bits and pieces that fell off during excavation which would not be surprising. Egyptians are industrious this way, loving to repurpose materials in new and exciting manners. The Great Pyramid used to be covered in highly polished limestone, for example, but diligent Egyptians chipped most of it away in order to build forts, mosques and corner stores that sell Cleopatra cigarettes which also taste repurposed, maybe from ancient papyruses.

The shack turned out to be a makeshift jail and we are all pushed though its mostly broken door and seated roughly on a wooden bench. The policemen stood over us clucking their tongues, shaking their heads and repeating mamnua.

Forbidden.

After a few moments of heavy shaming one of the policemen scooped Joel by his arm to take him outside. We all protested robustly, standing hunched so as not to hit our heads on the ancient ceiling, waving our arms around, shouting “mish mumkin.” Not possible to separate us. But of course, like everything in Egypt, it turns out to be possible with vague promises of “everything is going to be ok” from the policemen and also tea.

Joel was shuffled out the door, into the cool night. Ethan and I were served sweet, black Egyptian tea and treated to a little friendly conversation about the new movie Dump and Dumper that happened to be playing in theaters. Egyptians don’t use the sound “b” after voiced nasal bilabial stops so “b” becomes “p” and Dumb and Dumber becomes Dump and Dumper.

The policeman enjoyed Jim Carrey’s slapstick and also thought Lauren Holly was “helwa awi.” Very beautiful. I told him that Jim Carrey and Lauren Holly are married in real life and he sucked air through his teeth in a low whistle maybe imagining what a wonder that would be but probably also in his mind a totally achievable wonder. American film has taught Egyptian men that western women are sexually insatiable. They cannot get enough. All you have to do is be in the right place in the right time and voila. Easy.

“Ua’f! La! Wehesh awi!” We heared Joel’s very stern voice rise from outside, punctuating our little cinematic exploration. Stop. No. Very bad. And jerked to our feet to push through the door.

The policeman inside, Lauren Holly’s future beau, tried to stop us and the policeman posted by the door tried to stop us too but half-heartedly and we marched to where Joel was sitting against an ancient stone 50 yards from the shack with the policemen sitting next to him looking very guilty.

“He tried to get me to touch his penis…” Joel said before throwing another vicious wehesh awi toward his captor and pairing it with a very severe frown. Very bad. Now it was our turn to shame so we all start clucking our tongues as furiously as we could, shaking our heads, and saying no no no no. La la la la. Making sure to keep our brows furrowed and indignation high. The policemen all looked very guilty.

But how? How did he try to get Joel to touch his penis? I was very confused. Did he make his penis extra appealing? Like, arch his back and make it look irresistible or something? So I asked Joel, “How did he try?” Joel grabbed the policeman’s hand and pulled it toward his own penis in a helpful object lesson. The policeman continued to look very guilty while Joel stood up, dusted off his pants and we all started walking away bitterly. Our erstwhile captors muttered for us to stop but didn’t try to chase us, knowing that they had been bested in the shame game. Knowing they were not even going to get a bribe now but I suppose handjobs are a real “win some lose some” proposition. I can’t imagine a high success rate but maybe it’s one of those Lauren Holly things. A misunderstanding of facts presented on celluloid. That all American men are keen for a little quid pro quo.

When we were back in the desert I told Joel I was jealous. “Why did he pick you? Did he think you were the best looking of the group? Did he think you were the most adventurous?” He was still rattled but I didn’t care and continued. “You got to be T.E. Lawrence in his Syrian jail with those rapey Turks…”

“That story has been discredited…” Ethan cut in. “…I think they found some Lawrence journals where he said he made it all up. The Turks never raped him in Syria or anywhere for that matter. He was a masochist. Or a sadist. I can’t remember which is which.”

“Oh.” I say disappointed and started humming Billy Joel again.

Somewhere behind us we heard different policemen shouting again, with different voices, looking for their own bribes or sensual moments and saw their flashlights cutting the blackness in front of us. Slashing it like lightsabers.

Shit.

Another batch. We started running as fast as we could toward Giza, the crumbled neighborhood named after the pyramids, jumping over the small wall that separated the desert from Cairo and running across roofs until finally dropping through a hole into a sparsely furnished living area.

A witch sitting there with her coal black eyes acted nonplussed. There are so many witches out by the pyramids. Real life weird witches whose lives must be filled with such weird that three Americans dropping through a roof hole is nothing at which to blink. Nothing at which to even flinch. If I had to guess, I’d say the witches are attracted to pyramid energy but that seems very dumb and is likely more to do with all the people who live in the catacombs on a small hill just north of the pyramid site.

We apologized and left through her door. I told Ethan and Joel that I wanted to be a Middle Eastern writer like T.E. Lawrence while we were looking for a cab back to our dorm. I wanted to tell stories from this world of endless fun. They both nodded and said, “It sounds like a good idea.” But also add the caveat “It doesn’t seem like you’d do a very good job. Pissing on a 7th great wonder of the ancient world doesn’t play well with… seriously anyone.”

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John and View from a Blue Moon co-pilots.

Just in: An important announcement from your world champion John John Florence regarding the Pipeline Masters

"I still don't have full trust in my movements," says John. Who does?

“Hello fans,” wrote reigning world surfing champion John John Florence this morning, “Bear with me. Allow me to take just a tiny bit of your precious time.”

Mr Florence, who is twenty six years old and a four-time winner of the Volcom Pipe Pro but never a Pipeline Master despite first entering the event as a thirteen year old, wrote on Instagram.

I noticed this week that I still don’t have full trust in my movements, which has always been my test for returning to competition. The Pipe Masters is my favourite contest on tour so its a really difficult decision, but I am going to withdraw from the event. Wishing everyone luck out there!! It has been insane watching everyone send it during this last swell!!”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrBS1BEAyP5/

Does this make you a little sad?

Does it open the title race?

Can you detect a faint sewerish smell or some other gloomy self-conscious stench?

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Revealed: “The World Surf League is really, really protective of its intellectual property!”

Watch out!

There is not much surf news this morning, nothing that really compliments your morning coffee. The Vans World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach, North Shore, Oahu was called off yesterday because the waves became too big. I suppose that’s something and has the World Surf League lost its nerve? That is two events called off due to an abundance of size in under two weeks. Has the World Surf League lost its sense of grand adventure?

I’ll tell you one thing the World Surf League has not lost. Its sense of irony for it was revealed today that the League is “really, really protective of its intellectual property…” and let’s dig right in to this juicy little contradiction.

The quote comes from a new story about an incident that happened last year during the Jaws event. You certainly read it elsewhere then but, as a refresher…

An “unauthorized drone” was buzzing around the Jaws, maybe snagging some video etc. The League had its lifeguards try to throw swim fins at it before knocking it out of the sky with a proper helicopter. Doesn’t that seem a little on the dangerous side? Like, what if the the thing got stuck in the helicopter’s intake and made it crash at Jaws, taking out Albee Layer?

I would have made sure that #WhoAreYouBlowingInTheJudgesBooth trended all year long, in honor of.

But the helicopter didn’t crash, Albee didn’t die and the drone was sent to a watery grave. All fine and good but why the trouble? In a story on drone fan site PetaPixel the reasoning is explained.

According to a tipster that wrote in to PetaPixel, the WSL is really, really protective of their events and of the intellectual property that might be derived from them; hence, the strong arm approach to what the tipster says was a DJI Mavic drone that decided to drop in on the event.

Tipster Andrew Grose told the publication, “Like most sporting organizations the World Surf League (WSL) has been known to be quite protective in terms of its intellectual property rights…This is especially with regard to its copyright laws, making professional filming or photographing within contest areas almost impossible unless directly contracted by the WSL.”

Am I the only one that finds the World Surf League’s intellectual property hilarious?

Yeah?

Ok. I’ll be at the bar ordering another.

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Watch and Listen: A new hype track featuring an all-star surf cast sweeps Oahu’s North Shore!

"Pyzel surfboard the swell peakin' at noon!"

Music has been inextricably tied to upping the passions since the beginning of recorded time. The ancient Greeks marched into battle to the deafening beat of drums. The ancient Americans sent fife players out front of militiamen to both inspire and strike fear in British hearts. Napoleon had his favorite composer, Paisiello, write melodies and perform them during decisive campaigns and the modern basketball player will refuse to enter a gymnasium without noise-cancelling, full-ear headphones playing the very latest 6ix9ine track.

And so it only makes sense that Oahu’s North Shore, seven-miles awash in upped passions, has its own.

Kahleo’s There That Boy Go is a modern masterpiece featuring crackling, surf-inspired lyrics, an all-star North Shore cast (the Rothmans, a Florence, Billy Kemper etc.) and enough Pipeline to send shivers up this grown man’s spine.

A sample:

There that boy go, looking back I know there’s much to see.
Aloha vibes, aloha vibes is how I prefer to speak.
Hey haole boy, yeah haole boy, would you like to try some beef?
I just got my lei chilling out on the beach, tryin to eat.
There that boy go, Reef boardshorts, no shirt, no shoes.
There that boy go Pyzel surfboard the swell peaking at noon.

If this is not the best surf song on the planet you tell me which one is and then I will call you a fool.

And I only have one quick question. Is John John’s younger brother Ivan Florence the haole boy that possibly wants to try some beef?

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