Are you a fan of HBO’s Big Little Lies? Oh you should be. The star vehicle featuring Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Al Skarsgård, Michelob Gold Ultra’s Zöe Kravitz, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley etc. is a spicy, saucy show that is shot on location in and around California’s Monterey.
Season one featured violence, sex and murder. Season two might feature the same, though it is too early to tell. The cast has been augmented by the award-winning Meryl Streep and hot new actor Douglas Smith who plays an on-the-spectrum marine biologist.
I used to want to be a marine biologist, growing up, before everyone realized that I am stupid. Like, mentally stupid.
Anyhow, The Failing New York Times decided to feature Douglas Smith and decided it would be best to take him surfing at Rockaway. He claims to be a surfer, and I don’t doubt him, but rode a giant yellow foam board and had a “thick wetsuit” chosen for him by the owner of a surf school.
Also, from the article:
Mr. Smith stepped inside the shipping container and stripped down to his Banana Republic boxer briefs, before pulling on the borrowed wet suit. “I’m used to being naked under my wet suit, but I guess I’ll wear underwear,” he said.
Politely, dubiously, he accepted neoprene gloves and bootees (“You people and your cold-weather surfing,” he said), along with a bulky foam board that looked like a nine-foot ripe banana. Mr. Smith typically uses a short board. But the choppy waves slapping the Rockaways don’t favor short boards. “I’m very much a beginner when it comes to this environment,” he said.
Ok, so at second reading here it seems that Mr. Smith is very much a beginner in shit cold waves but if he is a ripper in quality warm-ish ones he should have declined doing the interview at the beach and suggested… I don’t know. Sleep No More. Have you done that? It’s fantastic.
But I digress. I don’t know why he didn’t strip naked but have you ever surfed in boxer shorts under wetsuit? How did it feel?
What is your “under wetsuit” secret?
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Happy Brazil people! | Photo: WSL
Open Thread: Comment Live, Oi Rio Pro Round of 32!
Big, fun messiness! Barton Lynch can't stifle his laughs!
I just woke up. Ugh. My eyes are still blurry etc. and I can’t see well but well enough to know that the Oi Rio Pro is back in the water in big fun messy conditions. Kanoa Igarashi just played to his base by asking Peter Mel if he could say something in Japanese then went on forever in Japanese.
Many “arigatos” etc.
The rest of the commentators made sure to say “Igarashi” with much Japanese inflection afterward.
Barton Lynch just laughed about trying to find scores on the “big lumpy” set waves.
Overlapping heats.
So far…
Filipe T. beat Adriano de S.
Kelly S. beat Seabass Z.
Kanoa I. beat Ricardo C.
Plus the elimination heats have wrapped. Jeremy Flores and Ace Buchan got tossed.
The other commentator, not Barton Lynch, just said that Owen Wright paddling back out after his head injury was the “greatest comeback in sport’s history.”
I missed the Slater heat. I can report after watching on heat analyser that as much as JJF was calm and composed Slater was in mood to lay down some electrifying boogie. He caught 11 waves, hustled and hassled, looked loose and jerky. Stole the heat on the buzzer with a fiver. WSL
Oi Rio Pro, Day one: “Kelly Slater beats Griffin and Conner in two-foot waves, looks loose and jerky!”
And title contenders John John Florence and Italo Ferreira waltz through seeding round heats…
Shameful admission for a surf writer but like you, like Kelly Slater, I’d paid scant attention to pro surfing in Brazil over the years. Watched John John take a cleaver to close-outs one year and that’s about it.
Something changed last year and Brazil became compelling. I think context and contrast.
Brazil sought to justify itself, looked, maybe for the first time…….relevant.
That was then. The context for this year is a red hot JJF coming off another event at Margarets where he cleaned the reef with his opponents and a Brazilian storm that can’t quite seem to keep pace with him.
Gabe’s Title defence is looking very Joel Parkinson 2013, not in the sense that Medina is closer to the end of his career than the beginning like Joel was, in the sense he came out of the blocks on the Gold Coast looking clearly like the best surfer on Tour but bad luck, close calls, emotional over-reactions are slowly dragging him off the pace.
Filipe was humiliated by a local wildcard. Medina was a day late and a dollar short at the Box. Only Italo looked the goods and John destroyed him, as my ten-year-old boyo would say.
Gabe’s Title defence is looking very Joel Parkinson 2013, not in the sense that Medina is closer to the end of his career than the beginning like Joel was, in the sense he came out of the blocks on the Gold Coast looking clearly like the best surfer on Tour but bad luck, close calls, emotional over-reactions are slowly dragging him off the pace.
Wobbly lefts were breaking adjacent to the rock outcrop at Itauna, one end of the bay at Saquarema. Fresh combinations were in the commentary booth. Pottz and Kaipo, pretty good. Brad Bricknell and Barton, also solid. Ronnie Blakey got the bye. Hard work day for them.
No matter how they spin it WSL can’t make the Seeding Round and the subsequent Elimination Round seem like anything more than a dull trials event for the main circus. It do drag on.
Search the heat analyser for an excellent score and you’ll search in vain. Let me save you picking the needle out of the haystack. Yago Dora was easily best guy out there today and bagged a nine, the sole excellent wave ridden today, for a punchy little left that he sliced and diced into little pieces.
Are judges going to restore the strict scale after dropping their bundle in Bali? There are good signs to hope so.
Ace Buchan expressed a dissenting opinion in a guest stint in the booth. He was very good btw.
“It’s no secret,” he said, “the surfers all think the scale is a bit low”. He found it “hard to digest” the world’s best surfers could barely post an excellent score in a full day of surfing. Judges wanted more from surfers, he was happy with that.
But when the format doesn’t require it, why would they?
A pair of fives was enough for most heats. Italo could make a claim to be under-scored after loose and inverted surfing. John John looked smooth, controlled, unhurried, calm, composed… take your pick of those adjectives. His surfing stood out for it’s lack of inter-turn hustle. One perfectly controlled rotation on his forehand, one or two lefts ridden at a steady pace with big turns. Putting Italo and John next to each other reinforced a common feature of their surfing: no roundhouse cutbacks. Not that the wiggy little beachbreaks needed it but have you noticed?
Kelly’s almost the last Mohican as far as the classic cutback goes.
I lost the feed on the WSL site, went along with a couple of thousand of my closest buddies to throw angry emojis on Facey to catch Slater’s heat. In between the action I was reading up on the disappearance of Malaysian airlines MH370. Sometime around one am it just dropped off the face of the earth.
Suddenly, the Facey feed dropped out, WSL feed gone. Spooky. What a way for Slater to go out: suddenly evaporated in broad daylight in front of thousands of fans at his favourite stop on Tour.
I missed the Slater heat. I can report after watching on heat analyser that as much as JJF was calm and composed Slater was in mood to lay down some electrifying boogie. He caught 11 waves, hustled and hassled, looked loose and jerky. Stole the heat on the buzzer with a fiver.
To answer the original question: How would Brazil shape up this year following on from Margaret River instead of Surf Ranch?
Don’t shoot the messenger but, how to be diplomatic, as dull as dishwater.
Oh yeah, Adriano came back and put Kolohe into the elimination Rd.
I missed the gals but assumed they got the best waves of the day, what a reversal of fortune!
Oi Rio Pro Women’s Seeding Round (Round 1) Results:
Heat 1: Caroline Marks (USA) 8.90 DEF. Macy Callaghan (AUS) 8.10, Nikki Van Dijk (AUS) 6.17
Heat 2: Carissa Moore (HAW) 15.50 DEF. Keely Andrew (AUS) 12.23, Johanne Defay (FRA) 10.20
Heat 3: Coco Ho (HAW) 11.60 DEF. Stephanie Gilmore (AUS) 10.00, Taina Hinckel (BRA) 8.63
Heat 4: Lakey Peterson (USA) 12.83 DEF. Paige Hareb (NZL) 8.87, Brisa Hennessy (CRI) 6.37
Heat 5: Silvana Lima (BRA) 13.20 DEF. Tatiana Weston-Webb (BRA) 13.10, Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) 9.93
Heat 6: Courtney Conlogue (USA) 14.77 DEF. Bronte Macaulay (AUS) 12.40, Malia Manuel (HAW) 10.00
Oi Rio Pro Women’s Elimination Round (Round 2) Matchups:
Heat 1: Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) vs. Nikki Van Dijk (AUS) vs. Taina Hinckel (BRA)
Heat 2: Malia Manuel (HAW) vs. Brisa Hennessy (CRI) vs. Johanne Defay (FRA)
Oi Rio Pro Men’s Seeding Round (Round 1) Results:
Heat 1: Kanoa Igarashi (JPN) 12.17 DEF. Jadson Andre (BRA) 10.60, Peterson Crisanto (BRA) 7.83
Heat 2: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 12.10 DEF. Soli Bailey (AUS) 8.40, Adrian Buchan (AUS) 6.93 | Heat 3: Yago Dora (BRA) 16.33 DEF. Adriano de Souza (BRA) 11.27, Kolohe Andino (USA) 11.16
Heat 4: Filipe Toledo (BRA) 13.97 DEF. Frederico Morais (PRT) 9.60, Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 9.30
Heat 5: Italo Ferreira (BRA) 12.17 DEF. Deivid Silva (BRA) 11.07, Mateus Herdy (BRA)
Heat 6: John John Florence (HAW) 13.67 DEF. Caio Ibelli (BRA) 10.53, Alex Ribeiro (BRA) 9.60
Heat 7: Willian Cardoso (BRA) 10.47 DEF. Ricardo Christie (NZL) 9.00, Jordy Smith (ZAF) 6.30
Heat 8: Julian Wilson (AUS) 12.67 DEF. Michael Rodrigues (BRA) 9.06, Ezekiel Lau (HAW) 6.00
Heat 9: Kelly Slater (USA) 10.87 DEF. Griffin Colapinto (USA) 10.80, Conner Coffin (USA) 9.93
Heat 10: Seth Moniz (HAW) 13.77 DEF. Owen Wright (AUS) 11.90, Jack Freestone (AUS) 7.43
Heat 11: Ryan Callinan (AUS) 13.17 DEF. Jesse Mendes (BRA) 11.53, Wade Carmichael (AUS) 9.74
Heat 12: Michel Bourez (FRA) 11.13 DEF. Joan Duru (FRA) 10.76, Jeremy Flores (FRA) 7.23
Oi Rio Pro Men’s Elimination Round (Round 2) Matchups:
Heat 1: Kolohe Andino (USA) vs. Sebastian Zietz (HAW) vs. Alex Ribeiro (BRA)
Heat 2: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Mateus Herdy (BRA)
Heat 3: Conner Coffin (USA) vs. Peterson Crisanto (BRA) vs. Ezekiel Lau (HAW)
Heat 4: Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs. Wade Carmichael (AUS) vs. Jack Freestone (AUS)
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Soz Bailey, backside pistol.
Open Thread: Comment Live, the Oi Rio Pro seeding round!
Barton Lynch calls the surf quality "A QS level event!"
What’s the seeding round? Do you know? I still don’t at all but no matter. Is it like a mini Founders Cup for the start of every contest? Like an extra bonus chance for Barton Lynch to make my heart soar? I don’t know but no matter. Beggars can’t be choosers etc. and it is on right now with Italo Ferreira chewing up the business and…
…oh I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. It is too early and my head is still in the sails.
And should dog owners who break the law be eaten alive by Great Whites?
Is it a male thing? Grown-men piloting remote-control helicopters with cameras?
I have a lovely memory of Bruce Irons, in the Canary Islands, spending hours manoeuvring his little bird around his hotel room from dawn until dawn with scarcely a breath drawn. Oo-ee-oo, that boy has a tremendous capacity for wakefulness.
A consequence of all the drones are the sightings of Great Whites and their “stalking” of surfers, swimmers and so on.
Last week, The Rogue Droner snatched footage of a juvenile Great White shark swimming near surfers at what used to be my favourite beachbreak on the entire east coast of Australia.
“Be aware, the surfers were attempted to be warned a number of times by swooping and hovering close to them and the shark before and during these shots,” writes The Rogue Droner on his YouTube page. “There was also someone on the beach waving at them to warn them. Thankfully all surfers and swimmers were safe.”
A few takeaways, as those institutionalised in offices like to say.
Everyone who surfs the joint knows Forster-Tuncurry is crawling with Great Whites. So, is it a surprise that a shark is swimming in the ocean?
Is swimming near the same as “stalking” which would mean, in that context, stealthily hunting its prey? Is this fish hunting? If it is hunting, why no eat?
Would the world end if a fisherman hooked this fish and dragged it ashore to the delight of children?
And, if you like that show, watch this short film from three days ago titled, White Shark Hunts Dog Owners.
“Dog owners break local council dog restrictions and they may pay for their mistakes,” writes The Rogue Droner.
